It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written anything, but now that final exams, moving, and medical scares are behind me it’s time to get back to business. Here on GatheringMagic, I’ve mostly stuck to constructing Commander decks and sharing them, but a few weeks out of the writing rush has given me time to reevaluate that stance, so today, I’m going to mix things up. Not to worry; next week, I’ll have another off-the-wall deck for you.

So, what are we talking about today? An oft-overlooked part of the haymaker-heavy Commander format: removal.

Terror by Ron Spencer

Before I move any further, let me clarify what I’m talking about. Some people use the term removal to mean just Dark Banishing, Lightning Bolt, and Pacifism. My definition’s a bit broader. Any card that you put in your deck to stop an opponent’s threat is removal. Naturalize? Removal. Counterspell? Removal. Mind Control? Removal. The same goes for Aethertow, Pithing Needle, and Meishin, the Mind Cage.

Now conventional wisdom says that you should just be running a bunch of Austere Commands; after all, with multiple opponents, there’s no way you can Murder each and every creature. While the argument is valid, the conclusion is not: You don’t have to kill every threat. Your opponents are also one another’s opponents, and that means two things.

1. There are more people at the table holding removal for whatever threats you face.
2. And those threats may not even be aimed your way.

So, you don’t always need to be responsible for taking threats off the table, but that doesn’t invalidate the sweeper argument in and of itself. Let’s take this a step further: If your opponents have threats that aren’t honed in on you, they’re hurting your other opponents. In other words, it’s almost as good as having those threats for yourself! So, given that you can ensure you’re not the juiciest target, you actually want to keep your opponents’ haymakers alive. And it gets better: Playing a bunch of point removal means opponents are less likely to come after you. With a deck full of sweepers, you’re bound to kill a given player’s creature whether or not it threatens you, but when you bring copies of Rend Flesh to the table, people will learn that attacking you is the best way to get their creatures killed.

Death Rattle by Vance Kovacs

Now, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t run sweepers; after all, you’ll end up looking pretty silly holding Swords to Plowshares against a Storm Herd. What I mean to show by the above arguments is that each type of removal available to you has unique strengths and weaknesses. Sweepers are great on the card-conservation front, and they deal with practically every threat, but they usually don’t allow you to progress your own board, and almost all of them are sorcery-speed.

Instant Connection

That last point is the kicker. The ability to be cast at instant speed is among the most desirable qualities your removal spells can have in Commander. In duels, instant-speed removal has two major advantages: It can occasionally hit a juicier target by waiting half a turn, and it’s harder for your opponent to adapt to. The same statements hold true in Commander, but they affect more opponents. Usually, your opponents won’t play precombat creatures, so waiting for a bigger threat entails taking some damage, but in a game where Eliza takes her turn after you but before Joe, you are able to see if Eliza plays anything scarier than Joe’s creature before casting a Terminate on it.

Better yet, take the aforementioned situation where your opponent’s creature isn’t even attacking you. Now you don’t want to remove it, but people aren’t completely predictable. Sure, it looks like Sean should attack Anne with his Dragon Tyrant, but can you really afford to risk that thing coming your way? With an instant-speed removal spell, you don’t need to! Just wait and see if you are attacked before deciding whether to pick off the creature. Even if you can’t leave it on board, you might be able to let it hit someone else before Dispatching it.

Hit // Run by Darrell Riche

According to Plan

So, you generally want a wide array of removal options when it comes to dealing with problematic permanents, but that’s not what your deck is about! Given that Commander’s slow, you may be inclined to run Annihilate over Doom Blade, but doing so will delay you from executing your game plan. It can be good running cheap answers such as Nature's Claim and Path to Exile that will let you cast your important spells while still protecting yourself, but there is another option that will still allow you to stay on plan.

Play removal that adheres to a theme. Are you running a token deck? Try Artifact Mutation or Martial Coup. Trying to fill opponents’ graveyards for Geth, Lord of the Vault? Grisly Spectacle and Life's Finale will serve you better than Go for the Throat and Damnation. Is your deck full of changelings? Tuktuk Scrapper and Reaper King are going to outperform Shattering Spree and Vindicate.

Tribal Flames by Tony Szczudlo

And there are more benefits than just raw power. On-theme removal can often help you be proactive when you need to do something besides stave off threats, thus making it more likely that you’ll hit a critical mass of synergistic spells to do something awesome. On top of that, they make the games more fun. The four-hundred-and-twenty-third Swords to Plowshares becomes predictable, but playing themed removal ensures that you’ll bring new cards and interactions to the table with every deck.

Balancing Act

Now comes the hard part of the column. I’ve spent the last few sections extolling the virtues of various removal options, but now I have to tell you that you can’t run most of them. Why? Because casual Commander is its most fun when it’s most interactive, and that only comes about within a narrow band of removal density. Play too few answers, and you’ll die feeling that there was no way to fight back. Play too many, and your opponents feel that they never are able to do anything. But with just the right number, everyone has meaningful choices about what does or doesn’t deserve their removal. You’re looking for the power to answer threats, not the certainty that they can’t touch you.

Balance by Rob Castellon’s Tattoo Kev Walker

So, what’s the magic number? Unfortunately, I can’t just tell you. It depends on the number of threats each of our opponents plays, the amount of card-draw in your deck, the amount of card-draw in their decks, the number of sweepers at the table, how long people hold their sweepers before playing them, and . . . a lot of other things.

So, I don’t have a number, and I don’t have an equation. I can tell you from my own experience that fifteen should be a reasonable starting place, but your own experience is probably a better barometer. Think back to how your deck has played out in the past. How often did you feel helpless against a threat? When was the last time you felt unable to keep a threat around in your playgroup? Ask the other players how much removal is in the decks they were playing. Iterate. You never need to arrive at a perfect number, but the closer you come, the more often games will play out the way you want them to.

The Chopping Block

That’s all I have for you today, but before you go, I’d like to know what you thought about today’s column. So until next week, make sure your opponents’ creatures are pushing up the daisies.

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