Low dimensional topologists are very interested in “exotic behavior”, that is, the difference between the smooth and the merely continuous. One would expect that detecting such subtle differences would require complicated analysis. In this talk I will describe joint work with Qiuyu Ren in which we show that exotica can be detected with a purely combinatorial theory (Khovanov homology and skein lasagna modules). No prior experience with exotica or Khovanov homology will be assumed.