MTG Combo: Bojuka Bog + Crop Rotation

kengiczar on Kaladesh Spoiler Thread

7 years ago

Cards that get stuff out of the graveyard saying Target is just a habit and expectation at this point but not an iron clad rule:

Standard examples that defy this:
Grapple with the Past
Seasons Past
Corpse Churn

Also we have had plenty of cards and abilities that put +1/+1 counters on things without targeting them:
Savage Summoning
Dromoka's Gift
Cached Defenses
Scale Blessing

To get something out of the graveyard you can do any of these:
- Not target anything
- Target a player's graveyard
- Target a player
- Target the cards in the graveyard
- A combination of the middle 3

As a side note the best counter they could ever print would say "Exile a spell on the stack" because the opponent would have to respond before you've made it clear which spell you want to exile. Once they let you choose which one you wanted to exile it would be to late for them to respond. This is generally why cards do say "target". Being able to get something back for or without telling an opponent what you're getting back until the spell resolves is much stronger and really punishes cards like Surgical Extraction if they are drawn later in a game.

An extreme example of this would be playing against a deck in EDH that has two combos: Pestermite + Splinter Twin and Grim Monolith + Power Artifact . Imagine they have a Grim Monolith on board and 6 cards in hand with a Splinter Twin and Power Artifact in the graveyard. The odds are that they don't have the Pestermite but what if they did? In this case if they target one I can fire back with Surgical Extraction and stop them. If they don't have to target I either let the spell respond or blindly guess which half they have in hand and may just loose.

Of course I should really be playing Bojuka Bog + Crop Rotation but what can I say I haven't pulled a C-Rotation yet. XD

Anyways with all of this said I really think Grapple with the Past deserves serious consideration in any commander deck.