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JJ Stors Which one is better, Repulse or Recoil? It is likely that your answers to this question are as varied as who your favorite Beatle was. Or since most of you barely know what I mean when I say “Mop Top”, I’ll change that to favorite X-Man? Mine is Wolverine, with Colossus coming in at a close second. I always thought that Colossus would be a great character to add into the second movie and that big dude from Gladiator would be the perfect actor to play him. Has the right accent, though it isn’t that annoying. Oh… back to the article. Anyway, the point is that this is a question that I have been asking to many players over many months. I figured that it was high time that this debate finally came out of the closet. First off, this whole article of course takes the stance that both spells could fit into the deck that you would be playing. It’s pretty obvious that if you are playing mono-Blue (are there any mono-Blue decks right now?), then the choice is no longer valid. But since there are numerous BU viable decks, lets look at each spell…
So let me set up a little comparison spreadsheet for us to better examine the differences.
So, if you look at the breakdown, in many ways these two spells stack up evenly. Lets look at the differences… Cost. Recoil, as I beat to death up above, has two specific mana in its cost. This means that at times you may not be able to cast the spell due to not having the black mana available. Or at the very least you may take a point of damage due to using an Underground River to get the required Black. Is the one point of damage or the less than likely possibility of not being able to cast the spell because you don’t have Black mana available a definitive reason to play Repulse over Recoil? Not yet but lets keep looking. Target. Now here is the place where Recoil shines in comparison. Its ability to target a permanent in lieu of just a creature means that you can use Recoil to get around otherwise devastating spells like Worship, COPs or even lands. There has been many a time when my opponent had tapped out, with the exception of two Islands. I have that Infiltrator just itching to get in the game, but since my opponent is playing a Control deck, I can’t afford to cast the Infiltrator with my opponent likely having a hand full of Counters. What to do, what to do? Well, I just Recoil an Island at the end of their turn and low and behold my Infiltrator gets the love I need. And here’s the big one… Card Economy. This is a term that gets thrown around like Drew Bledsoe football cards at the Superball. Of course the cards got thrown in the trash, but that’s what you get when the lowest paid player in the league can come into the game after you took a digger and ended up winning the whole damn thing. Poor Drewie!!! Oh, sorry, got sidetracked for a sec. Back to Card Economy!!! This term is the precept behind many a pro-level players strategy. It essentially states that if you have more cards than your opponent then you will likely win. Fair enough. Now both of these cards play into card economy. The problem here is that under normal circumstances both cards provide the same amount of card economy. In both cases you come out with one more card than your opponent. There are some significant differences here that should be examined… Who chooses the card? Well, with Recoil the Opponent usually gets to choose the card. I say usually because there are times when the Opponent’s hand is null and void, thus effectively making Recoil a Vindicate. With Repulse no one chooses because you get to just draw the card from the top of your library, but at the very least it got you past that top card. This is actually a very important point that I’ll delve into a bit later. Lets look at some of the other instances where the card economy from Recoil and Repulse can be of an issue… You are playing against The Elephant Man, and you notice that he strains his misshapen head and taps 3 mana and brings an Elephant token into play from his supply of WOTC Rewards Program tokens. After enviously spying his foil Wasteland, you then cast Recoil at the end of his turn on that Elephant token. What happens? Well the token essentially just got killed and your opponent has to discard a card from his hand. In this instance, which with the current state of the meta-game isn’t that unlikely, you gained equal card economy by using one card to get rid of one token, which was created with one spell. Actually since the Elephant was created with a spell that can be recast from the graveyard you still end up losing card economy up to this point. In other words Call of the Wild is a two for one. You used one spell to remove ½ of the Call of the Wild, meaning that even though the creature is gone, the spell is still in the graveyard waiting to be cast again. But, since the Recoil causes your opponent to discard a card in the end of all of this you come out +1.5 cards (0.5 from the Call of the Wild and 1.0 from the discard). If this was Repulse instead, then once again your one spell effectively destroys the creature, though the spell can still be cast from the graveyard. You then get to draw a card. You come out with +1.5 cards. You know, I think this was the first time I realized both spells equal the same amount of card economy no matter what. That being the case, it all comes down to the following… What is the purpose of your deck? If you are playing Psycatog, then the purpose of your deck is to get cards into your graveyard or to have cards to discard to Mr. Tog, making him one big, phat dude. In other words, Repulse is better. If you are playing a deck that wins due to threshold then once again you need to get cards into your graveyard thus gaining Threshold that much faster. You need cards to do that… Repulse is better. Looking at some of the more popular decks that can utilize these spells some interesting trends are seen… Psycatog for example plays with both spells. Normally this deck will have 3 Repulses and 2 Recoils. In other words the Repulse is overall better for this deck because it plays directly into the cards equal big ass creature concept, yet it still needs a way to deal with non-creature threats and Recoil is that way. In fact without Recoil, Psycatog would be highly vulnerable to spells like Worship and COP: Blue/Black. UB Orb Draw, a deck that won the 2001 Magic Invitational, doesn’t play either of these spells main. Yet the sideboard has Repulses. Why not Recoils? With Familiars, Zombies and Infiltrators this deck would not have a problem with the Black mana. Well, what threat could cause this deck problems? Opposition should be able to handle everything with the possible exception of an Opponent’s Opposition, COP: Blue or too many creatures. I guess this deck goes with the understanding that the Repulses are only needed against creature rush decks, and in that match-up Repulse would indeed be the better option. UB Upheaval, played by David Humpherys at the 2002 San Diego Masters. This deck, like Psycatog, plays both Repulse and Recoil, but once again it plays a decreased amount of Recoils in comparison. Specifically 1 Recoil and 4 Repulses. It is important to note that this deck plays Upheavals, which can effectively deal with the threats that Repulse could not deal with. Finkula, which was played by Jon Finkel at the 2001 Magic Invitational, played Recoils (4 of them) with not a Repulse to be had. This deck had Vindicates to deal with those non-creature threats that Repulse could not handle, yet it still played with Recoils. Normally I would think that the creator went with the wrong spell but this is Jon Finkel, a person I would never have the audacity to question. So why not Repulse? Hey, I just realized I questioned him, oh well. So, after going through all of this I come up with bupkiss ( -5 sp). At this point I still don’t know which is the better choice. That was until Torment came along. The new Mechanic of Madness, which isn’t making an impact yet (since the cards are not legal yet) but likely will be seen, plays into this debate. Recoil plays right into Madness, Repulse does not. Does that answer my question? Has the dilemma been solved? I honestly don’t know. Actually I find myself even more confused than before. Oh well, the world may never know. A one, a two… crunch, three… three. (Obscure tootsie roll commercial reference). Likely you need to be old, like Rizzo, to get it. JJ Stors No portion of this web site may be used in any way without expressed written consent. All rights reserved. Magic the Gathering and it's respective properties are copyright Wizards of the Coast. Privacy Policy |
   
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