Magic The Gathering: What Is Exploit?

Kill your own creatures for profit with one of Magic the Gathering’s most brutal mechanics.

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In Magic the Gathering’s plane of Innistrad, zombies may be terrifying, mindless flesh-eaters, but some have figured out how to put them to work. They’ve been used as quick and easy armies to fight off an influx of demons, they’ve been used n the wargames of two siblings with very different approaches to the undead, and they’re even being used as servers at the vampire Olivia Voldaren’s big wedding.

Zombies are easy to make, easy to manipulate, and very disposable when a better opportunity comes along, and this is represented in an older mechanic returning to Innistrad: Crimson Vow – Exploit. Here is everything you need to know about Exploit.

What Is Exploit?

First seen back in Dragons of Tarkir, Exploit is a triggered ability that happens when a creature with it enters the battlefield. Rather than do inherently doing anything of its own, Exploit simply poses the question of if you’d like to sacrifice another creature.

While it isn’t compulsory, sacrificing a creature (“Exploiting” it) will give you lots of benefits for the original, Exploit creature. For example, when Mindleech Ghoul exploits, it forces each opponent to exile a card from their hand, while Silumgar Avenger gets haste until the end of the turn.

There are a few quirks of the ability. Most importantly, Exploit simply asks you to sacrifice a creature, not another creature, which means you could sacrifice the Exploit creature to itself. Though it will be dead, any of its abilities that could still apply – such as Silumgar Butcher giving a target creature -3/-3 until the end of the turn. Most of the time this won’t be too useful to do, but it is an option.

Exploit isn’t a repeatable effect. It only triggers when the Exploit creature enters the battlefield, and you can only sacrifice one creature to have the effect go off one time.

How To Use Exploit

Exploit works best when you have lots of disposable creatures to sacrifice. Tokens work excellently for this (particularly the Decayed zombies from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, who would be sacrificed anyway), but also any creatures you’re happy to see die or can get back I not play somehow.

It’s good to see Exploit not just as the effect, but also as a way to sacrifice a creature. There are lots of cards that like it when one of your creatures dies, such as The Meathook Massacre, and using Exploit is a good way to get those death triggers and also have the Exploit benefit as a bonus.

While Exploit only triggers when the creature enters the battlefield, if you have ways to infinite recur or blink the creature, it could be incredibly useful. For example, setting up any exploit creature with a Solemnity and a Luminous Broodmoth allows you to pull off an infinite Exploit combo that could be devastating to the opponent.

What Colour Is Exploit?

Between being the Silumgar mechanic in Tarkir, and the Zombie mechanic in Innistrad, Exploit is only available in the Dimir colours blue and black. No other colours get it or even mention it.

As of Innistrad: Crimson Vow, 21 cards have Exploit. Eight are blue and 12 are black. The last one, Crimson Vow’s Skull Skaab, is notable as the first-ever multicolour Exploit card, being both blue and black.

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