Five damage will kill the majority of creatures in the format, and three mana is easily affordable even for Aggro decks
Owner's Pokmon have not really been a part of the game since the early 2000s, and even back then many were exclusively sold in Japan
This 7-shuffle rule is a combination of a number of different misconceptions and misunderstandings: People cite this paper as the source, but that paper actually says that 8.55 shuffles (so 9 in practice, since you cant do half a shuffle) are required, not 7
It seems like most Magic sets have new options in both of these categories, so its important to make sure that were prepared for the worst
Exterminatus is pricey, but totally worth the cost for breaking up those sorts of setups where literally nothing else works
Likely its major duty in those decks will be removing small blockers, utility creature and mana dork control, but the ceiling can be fairly high