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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!


Image from Wizards.com

Exotic Orchard
Conflux

Reviewed February 11, 2009

Constructed: 2.50
Casual: 2.80
Limited: 2.00

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

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Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Exotic Orchard

Fellwar Stone as a land? Bizarro-Reflecting Pool? Uh, okay? Granted, it could produce any color of land, but you don't know which colors when you choose to put it in your deck! This thing thrives in an environment of 5-color, which we're in now, but if you're not 5-color, there's too much risk that this won't tap for a color you need when you need it. And if you play it in your 5-color deck and get matched up with a monocolor deck, well, you kinda got screwed. In today's environment, there's just better lands available.

Constructed- 2
Casual- 2,5
Limited- 1.5

Aethereal

Wednesday - Exotic Orchard

The land version of Fellwar Stone. Fellwar Stone has never been a bad card, but there has usually been better stuff available (most recently the Ravnica block Signets). Like its older brother, Exotic Orchard is not bad, there's just better choices available in the form of Reflecting Pool and Vivid lands. This might see more play when those cycle out, but for now, I wouldn't expect it.

In limited, same. You don't have much control over what color(s) it can produce.

Constructed - 2
Casual - 2.5
Limited - 2

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Exotic Orchard

Fellwar Stone was always one of my favorite cards. I still play with it occasionally in random casual decks. Exotic Orchard is an interesting twist on the concept. On the one hand, your opponent will almost always have lands, and in the modern Standard many of those lands will be able to produce any color. On the other hand, that means you can play your own Vivid lands, which will produce a similar effect more reliably. Still, it doesn't cost you spell space like Fellwar Stone does, and it is capable of color-fixing under at least some circumstances, which cannot be dismissed.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2/5
Miguel

Wednesday 2-11-09

 

Exotic Orchard

 

Constructed: This is a great card. Turn your opponents Vivid lands into your own. This can really help or hurt mana fixing for most decks. But for Standard most players play at least 2 colors, except Red maybe. We will see how much play this card will get.

 

Casual: Great for multi-player games, you will always have the mana you will need. But most players around my parts stay with good old basic lands.

 

Limited: It can be a really great card or just another generic land. Shards and Conlfux is one limited format that picking up mana fixing is top priority. If your are going 3 or more colors than this will be a top pick. But I will still get a good removal or creature spell if there was one.

 

Overall a great land card for this set.

 

Constructed: 3

Casual: 4

Limited: 3

 

Later

Miguel


DeQuan
Watson

* Game Store Owner
Wednesday - Exotic Orchard

This land isn't quite a Reflecting Pool, but it's still nice. It will ALWAYS produce mana (except the first trn, when you play first) unlike Reflecting Pool. The downside though, is that you are at the mercy of your opponent to give you the colors you need/want.

Oddly, this land is almost better when you can predict the metagame a bit. It's going to be great in an environment with lots of five color decks. It can also be good when you are playing 1-2 colors shared among the most popular deck in your area.

Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 2
Limited: 1.5

Ricky
Riles
Exotic Orchard

This card could be real big or make no impact at all. It's just one of those cards.

At first glance I love the card. I really do. I run 5 Color Control as my maindeck right now in type-2, so this is going to help me in many ways. Since I run five colors, anything they have is going to help me. So that's great, right?

Well, maybe.

On the other hand, you'd only run this card in a deck that plays several colors, possibly all five colors. When you run five colors, what you look for in a mana-base is consistency. The key to running a five color deck is a consistent mana base. If you struggle just to get the needed mana to play your cards you'll never win consistently with the deck.

This card is anything but consistent.

It's matchup dependent. Sometimes it'll give you exactly the mana you want, other times you'll be disappointed. For instance, I run 5 Color Control; however, I don't run many black cards. In fact, I run so few black cards that I don't have any dedicated black-mana-producing lands. I just run Vivid lands and Reflecting Pool to get what I want.

But what if I get Exotic Orchard heavy draws and my opponent is playing mono-B? Or even BG, BR. These aren't the primary colors in my deck. This would cause the Orchards to only tap for mana that I don't really want. Of course, this is just an example.

With so many other great lands in standard right now, is it worth the trouble?

Maybe. It all depends.

That's the difference I've noticed between M:TG and Yu-Gi-Oh! When I reviewed cards for Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh! Site years ago, the reviews were simple. If a card was good, it was good. If it was bad, bad. Because there were so few decks that were viable in competitive play, the card choices were easy.

Not so much in M:TG. This card can be good in some places and bad in others.

I like it, though.

Constructed: 3/5
Sealed: 2/5
 

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