Explosive Revelation MTG Card


Combines card draw with potential high damage, creating dual advantages in a single move. Flexible casting at instant speed offers strategic reactive play opportunities. Revealing cards until a nonland card is hit can expose a deck’s strategy or deplete resources.
Explosive Revelation - Rise of the Eldrazi
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityUncommon
TypeSorcery
Released2010-04-23
Set symbol
Set nameRise of the Eldrazi
Set codeROE
Number143
Frame2003
LayoutNormal
BorderBlack
Illustred byJustin Sweet

Text of card

Choose target creature or player. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card. Explosive Revelation deals damage equal to that card's converted mana cost to that creature or player. Put the nonland card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.


Cards like Explosive Revelation

Explosive Revelation is a unique spell in the landscape of Magic: The Gathering that bears similarities with other cards yet carries its distinct mechanics. Comparable to Flames of the Raze-Boar, both cards deal damage based on certain conditions. Nevertheless, Explosive Revelation allows you to reveal cards from the top of your deck until you hit a nonland card and deal damage equal to that card’s converted mana cost, providing unpredictability and the potential for massive damage.

Another analogous card is Erratic Explosion, which operates on a similar principle of dealing damage equivalent to the converted mana cost of the top deck card. However, Erratic Explosion is cheaper to cast but lacks the aspect of digging through the deck, making Explosive Revelation potentially more impactful in reaching high-cost cards. Additionally, we have Spinerock Knoll, a land with a conditional ability to cast a costly spell for free, which indirectly ties into the idea of leveraging high mana cost cards for effect.

When piecing together the various facets of these cards, what sets Explosive Revelation apart is its capacity to sculpt game-ending turns, harnessing the element of surprise and the high-stakes gamble on your deck’s composition—a thrilling option for players looking to add an explosive edge to their MTG strategies.

Flames of the Raze-Boar - MTG Card versions
Erratic Explosion - MTG Card versions
Spinerock Knoll - MTG Card versions
Flames of the Raze-Boar - MTG Card versions
Erratic Explosion - MTG Card versions
Spinerock Knoll - MTG Card versions

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Explosive Revelation shines by potentially drawing you into a strong card while simultaneously dealing damage. This dual benefit helps you maintain momentum by both affecting your opponent’s life total and refreshing your hand with new options.

Resource Acceleration: The unique feature of Explosive Revelation is that it can often lead to a high-cost card reveal. This in effect can provide a significant amount of damage to a target and inadvertently accelerate your game plan by putting your opponent within range of follow-up attacks or spells much sooner.

Instant Speed: The instant nature of Explosive Revelation gives the strategic advantage of flexibility. You can deploy it reactively, adjusting to the board state or in response to an opponent’s action. This utilization at the end of an opponent’s turn can amplify pressure, setting you up for a strong following turn.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Explosive Revelation requires you to reveal cards from the top of your deck until you hit a nonland card, which could inadvertently deplete valuable resources from your library or expose your strategy to opponents.

Specific Mana Cost: This card demands a strict combination of specific mana types to be cast, primarily red, which pigeonholes it into red-based or multicolor decks only.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost that requires five mana, including three that must be red, Explosive Revelation is less accessible early in the game. This can be especially cumbersome in fast-paced matches where lower-cost spells could provide more immediate utility or pressure on opponents.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Explosive Revelation offers a unique blend of direct damage and card advantage that can be a game-changer in a variety of red-focused decks. Its ability to scale with the game’s progression makes it adaptable and a threatening addition to your arsenal.

Combo Potential: This card holds immense potential to combo with library manipulation tactics or spells that care about non-combat damage, transforming it into a strategic element capable of swinging the momentum of a match in your favor.

Meta-Relevance: Considering the ever-changing dynamics of the MTG metagame, Explosive Revelation can serve as a powerful tool in dealing with creature-heavy boards, providing both deck thinning and opponent life total pressure—a dual threat that can be significant against an array of popular builds.


How to beat

Confronting Explosive Revelation in your MTG games requires strategic forethought. The card holds potential for considerable damage, with its power reliant on revealing a card with a high mana cost from the top of your library. To mitigate the risk it poses, controlling the deck’s pace is essential. Efficient use of counter-spells like Negate or Dovin’s Veto can thwart this spell before its impact is felt.

Alternatively, disrupting your opponent’s library directly through cards like Thoughtseize allows you to remove key components that could lead to a detrimental explosive reveal. Furthermore, maintaining a lower life total keeps you out of the range of a single devastating hit – strategies such as aggressive creature play or reducing your own life for benefits can unexpectedly turn Explosive Revelation’s potential into a liability for your opponent.

Ultimately, understanding the mechanics behind Explosive Revelation and preemptively managing your tactics can disarm this powerful spell, keeping you safe from its destructive capacity and guiding you towards victory.


Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Explosive Revelation MTG card by a specific set like Rise of the Eldrazi, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Explosive Revelation and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Explosive Revelation has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Explosive Revelation card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date Text
2010-06-15 If all the cards in your library are land cards, you’ll reveal all of them, then arrange them in your library in whatever order you like. No damage is dealt.
2010-06-15 If the targeted permanent or player is an illegal target by the time Explosive Revelation resolves, the spell doesn’t resolve. You won’t reveal any cards from your library.
2010-06-15 Once you start revealing cards from your library, it’s too late for players to respond. If you target a creature, for example, its controller can’t wait to see how much damage will be dealt to it before casting a damage prevention spell, activating a regeneration ability, sacrificing it for some benefit, or anything else. Any such actions must be done before Explosive Revelation starts to resolve.