One of the dead horses we  kick around on this website is that of removal in casual MTG play.  The reason for this is simple, nobody wants to lose to a second turn bitter blossom because they don’ have a naturalize, pyroclasm, or infest handy.  Same goes with a monster creature.  Say your opponent uses devoted druid to get out a turn three deus of calamity and is attacking you for 6 damage each turn.  All the while your land total is shrinking with no end in sight.  Basically its never fun to lose because of one card.

screwing Johnnys since 1992

Wizards of the Coast knows this.  They’ve been producing clever ways to rid yourself of pests since 1992.  The tricky thing is finding which ones to use and using them properly.   Lets look at some of the best ways to incorporate removal into your decks.  You may be surprised to learn what some of the colors bring to the table.

First up, creature removal.  The most common and necessary.  That is likely why you can find solid creature removal with every color.  Black and White dominate this field, but Blue and Red have options, and Green has a few too.  The best thing when looking for creature removal is cost.  Cheaper the better, with any color.  If your opponent just spent 8 mana on a scaled wurm, spending only two for a terror gives you all that much more advantage.  Some cheap removal cards for every color include: condemn, last gasp, pongify, spitting earth, and lignify.   (In fact green has been gifted with quite a few lately.) If you’re facing token decks try leyline of singularity and throw a mammoth wrench in their works.

Next we need to deal with artifacts and enchantments, and unless you plan on using one of the worst cards ever, we’ll be counting black out of this group.  Blue has universal permission spells so take advantage of that.  If you miss your chance there is always the option to bounce an expensive enchantment before it does any harm.  No color destroys artifacts with Red’s zest, but the color can’t deal with enchantments.  Thus if you really want to be serious, you better splash some white and green.  If only to use naturalize/disenchant.  A word of caution, you may face decks without a single artifact/enchantment spell.  So be sure to limit your removal cards here just in case.

a must if you're using white

Finally, to keep the contemporary kids happy lets get rid of some Planeswalkers.  Not an easy task, but a possible one.  It would be pretty sweet to blow your enemies away with a well-timed violent ultimatum, however a good bounce spell can do the trick for a measly two mana.  And there’s a reason WotC included oblivion ring in both Lorwyn and Alara sets.    For a more permanent solution you may want to go with engineered explosives, oblation, or culling scales.

Now that you have a good idea what removal spells are possible its time to make your deck.  Unless you have a removal theme going you won’t want more than eight to ten removal cards.  Any more than that and you may be sitting with two extra crib swaps in your hand at teh end of a game.  When deciding what colors to play you should consider how each deals with threats.  Mixing two or three with opposite strengths will result in a more dynamic deck.  Lastly when using these cards make sure they are being used wisely.  Timely removal is the key to any strategy and threat recognition is key to timely removal.  Write that down.

The biggest naysayers of spot removal claim that too many of these cards end up as useless filler in your hand.  Is that true?  Most tournament winning decks use removal sparingly.  So there is some evidence to back that theory.  That is fine in a two-out-of-three environment that allows you to add removal from a sideboard.  Not so much when you sit down for a pick-up game with a buddy.  Trust me, you’ll be glad you did when you’re days of losing to one permanent are behind you.

Update:  Hours after posting this article, MTG.com released the latest conflux card:  Path to Exile along with this article.  Its not for me to say whom is reading whom’s mind but needless to say – we are on the same wavelength.

4 Comments so far:

We all know the feeling.  You draw the first few cards of your opening hand – no land.  You take a deep breath and figure ” if these cards are all non-land, what are the chances the next three cards are also non-land?”  But alas, the mana gods are not smiling on you this day.  You are now stuck with seven non-land cards and are forced to redraw just six cards with no guarantee you will not have to take yet another mulligan.

When you take a mulligan your opponent effectively gets to play this card as many times as necessary.

Drawing one or more less cards that your opponent can be absolutely devastating in both casual and tournament play.   It ruins the game for both players and is often completely unnecessary.  This “flaw” in the game can never be completely remedied, but it could be slightly relieved by a simple rule change.  How about:  Allow players to take a one free mulligan if they draw 7 non-land or all land cards.  If they somehow draw 7 non-land cards again, then they’d have to draw 6.  At that point they probably are playing with less than 20 land cards and deserve to get mana screwed once in a while.  Simple, fair and good for everyone!

“But Reinhart, if we did this people would only put 15 land cards in their deck!”  No, they wouldn’t.   The chances of them getting to 4 or 5 mana would be way too sketchy, even after getting that guaranteed land card in hand.   Secondly, the recent trend of players cramming  24-28 land into their decks just to avoid this happening to them is just plain silly.

No one likes to get mana screwed/flooded and the game isn’t fun against someone who is getting mana screwed/flooded.  If players were essentially guaranteed at least 1 land in their opening hand, both casual magic games as well as tournament play would be more fun and less dependent on avoiding bad luck.  It would also allow players to possibly take out one of those 28 lands they’re stuffing in there to try to avoid the 7-of-a-kind catastrophe.  It would also make the later game (turn 5+) more fun because players aren’t continuing to draw land cards every other draw.

Magic is a wonderful card game.  The entire land system works out most of the time.  But far too often it can be inherently not fun.  Drawing a land card on turn 9 when all you needed was a spell is not fun. Drawing 7 land cards in your opening hand because (ironically) you were forced to construct a 50% mana deck to try and avoid getting mana screwed is not fun. Frankly I cannot see a downside to letting players take a mulligan when they’ve obviously been stuck with a case of bad luck on the opening draw.

Reinhart after drawing 7 non-land cards.

Granted, there is an art form to choosing the land cards in any deck.  Other games have taken “land choice” out of their philosophy and I think that takes something special away from the art of deck construction.  In Magic, you need to strike the right balance of “enough” and “not so many that you’re drawing lands at inopportune times.”  There are some great land-get cards, land-cycling cards and creatures that can be tapped for mana that can be used to try and offset the tremendous amount of luck that is associated with getting your mana together.  I do not suggest that we scrap the entire system, quite the contrary, I respect the “challenge” that it is to get out the right mana in the right quantities.  This is a major part of MTG.  I only suggest that we give people a break on their opening hand before any spells have been played, before any skill could possibly be implemented.

My local group of casual players has taken it upon themselves to use a house rule allowing players to take free mulliguns in the event of having only 1, 7 or zero land cards in their opening hands.  Particularly in multiplayer games,  I not only find it more sporting to duel a wizard without major mana issues but I find it to be infinitely more fun.

3 Comments so far: