Ranking Removal Spells in EDH | EDHRECast 305

[Music] hello and welcome to the EDH rcast where we're all about commander data and dad jokes I'm Joey Schultz and I'm joined by my fantastic co-hosts up first he can't wait to fall in to fall out it's Matt Morgan I feel like lately I'm kind of numb to science puns they just don't land for me anymore but when it comes to math puns I'm even number oh man I you know what I was an English major so all of this is lost on me I don't I'm well I'm just glad that this math is adding up for you and the the jokes check out oh no I I hope you and Dana aren't too divided on how I'm presenting these jokes to you listeners if you can see my face right now I'm staring daggers all right up next he bought a 100 copies of the card over encumbered so that he could be over encumbered by over encumbered it's Dana roach I was reading a book earlier about like theoretical science fiction Concepts and I got to the chapter on anti-gravity and I couldn't put it down it was F down yeah yeah I that one that one I knew Matt could get me but Dana I've got your number all right am I math joking correctly Matt no you I I I didn't think I could count on you and you proved me right so okay we're just going to move on Matt at the risk of dad jokes what is our topic for this week's episode well this week we are going to take a fora into pinpoint removal that targeted removal spells and I mean everybody loves a tier list everybody loves it when we rate cards and so we're going to do that this time with removal spells yeah indeed this is there's a lot of these to get to so we're going to find find some favorites and some not so favorites uh but real quick we got some shout outs to do before we get into it up first we got to thank Chase AKA manicures for their terrific work on the post-production of the show thank you so much much Mana curves you're a great part of the team and we are also now proud members of Team ultimate guard so if you got to play some games with us at magicon Chicago you get to see some amazing Katana sleeves and these nice boulder deck boxes their product is excellent you should check it out and that's all we're using when we show up at Advance now and if you would like to support the show there are so many ways to do that there's free ways to do that like subscribing on YouTube liking these videos subscribing your local podcast apps it is an easy way to support us and we appreciate all of that as well or if you're so inclined you can go to patreon.com rcast where there's lots of ways just to get yourself a little benefit back and you know exchange for supporting us on patreon so patreon.com rcast where there's all sorts of levels including the weekly Patron shout out that we do every single week which this week we're going to give over to David kland and I me kland like King Kong the the the bad movies hopefully well David we know you're better than those terrible King Kong movies so thank you for the support just yeah you're supporter you're patron of ours which means you're better than all the King Kong movies combined there there's like straight up like kogla the the ape uh the the amazing kogla card is a a strong thing that you're invoking here but Koga didn't have a land where King Kong had an ey land my Lord uh I've lost the threat of this one yet again Matt you continue to elude me as ever but yeah thank you so much David it's terrific to that y'all support means the total world so thank you so much and uh now we are going to get into our topic here talking about like where would we rank some of these different uh pinpoint removal spells and Matt you said that uh that's an important thing for us to linger on we're talking about pinpoint removal spells these are spells that do have to be able to be targeted we're also like talking about cards that can definitely get creatures especially not just something that can only get artifacts and enchantments and to also kind of limit things here we're also not going to be talking about anything that is itself a creature and we're also not counting like counter spells as uh pinpoint removal spells here either so that's kind of a lot of stuff but I think it's important for us to kind of narrow down the focus of what it is that we're actually talking about and with that I don't know where should we get started do you think I I think the best place to get started will probably be the really obvious and easy things uh although we often will be like hey we're just going to talk about this stuff briefly then move on we never talk about anything briefly um but but in theory we will talk about I would say path to Exile on SS of PA Shar to start with here yeah um and for me when I'm evaluating cards like this for a deck I I care about how efficient they are I care about how much utility they offer and I care about how much consistency they offer and the thing with path and swords is they they're about as good as you can expect on all three of those fronts um you know they Exile so they get on indestructible that makes it difficult for people to recur them um one Mana a piece is really easy to get to and and there's not really any caveats on when you can use them um and on top of that you can occasionally use them to help yourself I've used path before as a ramp effect I've used s supp plow shares to save myself um by gaining life when I would have lost somehow to lethal damage to like a shiner's ignition or something so like they do all of the things and if I was running any deck running white both of those are going in it kind of just regardless of the situation I mean there's there's a lot of spells if it's unconditional cheap and efficient removal to me at least that it's really hard to say it's not s tier just because yeah yeah yeah it's unconditional yeah absolutely and I think we're kind of lingering in the one Mana section here and I'd also kind of personally put pongify and Rapid hybridization as s tier as well the one mana ability to pick off a creature the three three that it leaves behind I I don't care are these things technically as good as a random path I doesn't matter and do people want to debate if swords of plars is better than path or path is better than swords doesn't matter I'm playing both and if I'm playing blue I'm playing pongify and Rapid hybrization that qualifies as a big S tier for me so yeah all of those big way to start off with those one Mana efficiencies yeah well and let's get away from one Mana CU I mean those four spells I think all of us would give s tier 2 but there's some free spells that they do have Mana cost but there's a few spells that we I know all three of us are pretty divided on so first one right off the bat it's free spell is um snuff out what do you guys think about snuff out because I I'm not super high on it any more Commander I'm not either to be honest um yeah I mean you know for life is pretty negligible in Commander um if you're playing it if you you're controlling a swamp so like you have that option almost every single time um but non-black creature um yeah it it is IR relevant enough times that I find it frustrating and there are enough things that I don't find frustrating to make me not want to run it that that's kind of it when it comes to removal is that like how many creature removal spells are you actually playing in your deck probably not like 14 of them so like at a certain point when it comes to like if I label something as C tier that's almost functionally the same as an F tier kind of because I'm I'm probably not playing either of them but C can be very situational so there are still times where I like some of these uh stuff out I think all of our rankings kind of average out to being like C tier um but Matt as long as you're talking about some free removal how do you feel about like Solitude which is that one that you can evoke or or deadly Relic which of skin Exile a thing and you can play it for free if you have your commander in play uh those ones I think you're a little higher on so so deadly Ric I actually like a whole lot I think just being able to play something for free I mean we've seen the power of fierce guardianship a free counter spell or any of that whole cycle of spells really I really like dead deadly rolic having your commander in play it's it's kind of the Crux of the format almost yeah I think you put it at a I've kind of got it at B because there are some commanders where keeping them in play is a little bit harder of an ask so this isn't like the auto include everyone says it is but at the the same time I mean yeah I like deadly raw like especially if I'm playing like a background deck where one of my commanders is an enchantment that's pretty darn cool to just like all right play for free kind of anytime yeah it's definitely not an S tier for me I would probably call it an A but the reason it's not an S tier for me is because there's enough situations where like I I look up my deck I'm like oh I I can't count on my commander being in play enough to have this in my deck and I don't want to spend four mana on it yeah now there's definitely situations where like oh my commander is very cheap it's not scary enough that folks are going to be using it it's a perfect include in those decks but it does it's not consistently that card you know it's not one of those S Shar thing I look at it and I'm like I'm going to put it in every deck so this is probably an A and I'm and I'm not even sure I buy that in the decks where I like it it's amazing but that's not every deck well and Joey to answer your question about Solitude first you said we weren't going to talk about creatures and and Solitude actually contrary to popular belief is a creature I know nobody's ever actually cast it as a creature or had on the for long but it is pretty much a removal spell I don't love Solitude very much I know it is a free removal spell but also it basically says Target creature you are targeting has Ward discard a card and that's a pretty discouraging ability like we talk about how powerful Ward is and discarding a card I don't love it and so since you have to discard a card in order to get kind of a swords to plow shares type of effect from Solitude I think you're setting yourself back too far for Solitude to really be powerful modern Legacy absolutely it it it's a clutch card there but for Commander I don't think it holds up yeah that's so funny you're right cuz like in my head I'm just like oh it's just a free spell I don't think of it as but like it is it is a creature so like yeah it shouldn't be in this list to begin with all right we we'll move away from that but I like the discussion on other stuff like the like the deadly Relic isn't that funny how sometimes cards just occupy a certain spot in your brain and you forget what they actually are anyway um there are other like other cards especially the one Mana spot like you know defile tragic arrogance that I think could be interesting to discuss here too but we already know they're so situational that if you like them you like them um and I think we probably want to talk about more of those the angle that you brought up Dana of like the consistency and the ubiquity of some of these things so I think we'll actually move now to some two Mana stuff because there's going to be probably some more juicy discussion here um starting off with a couple of different white spells that can all get rid of stuff that your opponents control but usually gives them a certain type of reward back uh for example the new get lost can destroy a creature or enchantment or a planes Walker I believe but it giv gives the control of that person uh of that card that you got rid of two map tokens or there's Angelic Ascension which can Exile a creature but it gives them a four4 flying angel uh fateful absence unexpectedly absent there are a couple of these things that have like a situational relationship with getting rid of your opponent's stuff they're about to Mana is where are we falling so I I I think context really matters in terms of whether or not a lot of these cards are any good the the reality is every white targeted removal spell is is at best the third best option yeah because swords and path exist yeah whereas if you know Angelic Ascension was a green spell just you know that doesn't make any sense making an angel but like if it was that's a way better card given the competition as opposed to having it in white so that's one of the things you have to think about in terms of like where you're going to rank these you are looking at whether you're going to run these in the third pinpoint removal spot for white versus a lot of the other colors and that tends to make it something that you're looking at based on what your deck is going to do it's like okay in this particular deck this one spell makes sense as my third white pinpoint removal spell in this other deck this one makes sense so I think this is where you get to a lot of different flex and it becomes very challenging to to to rate these I think particularly in the color white yeah like oh you're playing artifacts dispatch we know you're going to play it it's it's very that Vibe but like they're so situational so yeah I feel that yeah I I like get lost of all the rare removal spells that we've gotten in standard sets the past for for a while it seems like I like get lost the most because it's one of the few that isn't either Angelic Ascension giving your opponents a 44 body that's huge that is a significant blocker attacker anything like that fateful absence you're basically letting your opponent draw a card I don't love that either and so same so get lost to me is probably of these that we've mentioned is probably the only eight tier in in my mind because two map tokens you have to pay a mana and then you get to explore which that's not a huge upside it's not bad but also that pales in comparison to the other spells and what you end up giving your opponents in return yeah I I think there's a potential that get lost could end up feeling like faithful absence because you might let your opponent draw a land but if you are just like allowing them to pay a Mana to put a plus one counter on something but potentially like yeah I'm kind of wavering with that one I'm willing to try it out and I like the the flexibility that it offers because it doesn't just creature it could also get an enchantment for instance and that is important to me too um but in general Dana I'm totally with you a lot of these do feel like well we already know what the top dogs are in this color so you really have to convince me with a lot of these well to to move away from White you have reality shift in blue one in a blue to Exile Target creature and you manifest the top card of their library now we've already talked about rapid hybridization and ponify and how like the two slots in in blue were kind of already taken up um just like it was with with white however in white there's like 15 other viable options for that three slot that's not the case in blue there's kind of just reality shift um at least Intel cyber conversion came out recently but like it was pretty much you run those to and then you also probably run reality shift it it Exiles which is a pretty big upside you can use that manifest ability to mess up somebody's top deck tutor there there's a lot of utility hidden in that and there's not a lot of competition like I I love reality shift I would call it an A and it's bordering on S for me again because of context because there's like nothing else really in blue competing with it well and I really like cyber conversion it's getting it it's a way to get rid of something but it's just turning it face down that is so impactful I think that's probably one of the more overlooked removal spells lately just because it's not getting it into a different Zone where it can be recurred or anything like that it's turn it face down and it just loses all the abilities there's a lot of value there for only two Mana at instant speed you can interrupt combos there there's a lot of flexibility here I like it a lot um I think I probably like it just as much as reality shift and reality shift has kind of been a staple for a long time yeah I'm I'm with you I think it's just one grade below like if I have reality shift at a then this one is going to be a b uh for a sep conversion I'm I'm kind of with you unfortunately I don't feel the same way about resculpt uh which is the blue kind of the blue Angelic Ascension like Exile an artifact or creature in its controller gets a 44 it isn't a flying 44 so like I'm still willing to run this one sometimes but it's more like of a c tier kind of willingness as opposed to like a like Ang Angelic Ascension I'm just like this is D if not F tier kind of willingness um but yeah cyber conversion of reality shift definitely take the cake so resculpt has kind of been left by the wayside for me yeah res sculpts really matters like what colors your deck is the the ability to hit an artifact is you know not that big of a deal maybe if you are playing in aorus colors where white can have a bunch of ways to De with artifacts if you are playing in a Dem deck I think resculpt becomes way more powerful because there's not other options to deal with artifacts so like that utility is very very powerful there um so this is this is and I think we're going to be basically saying this from here on out a lot of the things that matter are what the colors of your deck is and what the other color or other colors in the deck are able to handle and in the case of res sculpt that's what matters if I if I'm playing um deir this is a very valued card to me if I'm not then something else is gonna probably do the job better well let's get into a color we haven't talked about yet which is weird because we're talking about removal we haven't talked about red yet so what do you guys think about wild magic surge cuz that one I feel like a lot of people were kind of hopeful for it it's a two Mana it's red red for an instant destroy Target permanent opponent controls its controller reveals cards from the top of their Library until they reveal a permanent card that shares a card type with that permanent they put that one on the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of library in a random order so kind of chaos Warp is but it destroys the Target first yeah I I wish it was chaos warp is but it's a lot more polymorph is unfortunately the reason this is important for Red is because it can indeed hit enchantments which is hard for red to do the issue is that they're going to get another one so like it is actually kind of safer if you are hitting a big creature because then you might be giving them you know just a manad dor for instance but like I've seen people use this on like a marari wake and then it turned into another like six- Mana enchantment that was still making the person like well I feel like my position has been a lateral movement rather than a setback and so for it to cost you a card wild magic surge I also was one of those folks where I was just like yeah I've got high hopes for this it hasn't really panned out in my opinion I've kind of got it down as like a d tier I I just don't really touch it I I wouldn't call this card a skill test I I think I would call it a self-control test um you know to to use SS of postur for an example there's not a lot of downside to like wildly pulling the trigger gun of ss of shares on a creature that maybe isn't that big of a threat yes you've wasted this removal spell but like okay who cares you've removed a thing if you pull the trigger with a wild magic surge on a thing that isn't absolutely threatening the situation in the game then you risk putting something much more backbreaking into play yeah so I I I think I mean I I don't love cards that are that variable um I think there are probably again some color combinations where you have so few options this is much more attractive but I don't love the variance or the ability to absolutely get burned by it yeah I I think that's a very good way to put it is this card is a a skill check or a a self-control check because yeah so many times I've been in games where ahaha Bolt the bird I'm going to waste a removal spell on a manad dor where people like people do that in Commander all the time I don't know why kill the payoffs don't kill the setups and so people will do that but then all of a sudden like yeah they're they're suddenly left without removal for the big scary creatures that they have to get rid of like oh I I wasted a removal or an exile spell on something that didn't matter and now they have an avocent in play well poop well Matt I know that you moved straight to Red because that's one of your favorite colors but I think we got to talk about some two Mana black spells because it's one of my favorite colors um there there's a whole SWAT that these I think go over the throat is probably one of the most famous which can kill a a non-artifact creature which is certainly better than the typical Doom blade can't kill you know it has to hit a non-black creature um and so like that one's famous but nowadays we've also got stuff like infernal grasp kill any creature you lose to life or bitter Triumph a personal new favorite of mine you can kill the creature and you have to either pay through life or you can discard a card um to pay for that one and then of course there's feed the Swarm which probably exists in almost a separate tier to that one because feed the Swarm is one of the few black cards that can Target an enchantment as well sorcery speed on that one it's kind of its own great I'm like yeah B tier I love that if I'm playing Black I probably need the ability to get rid of enchantments but that's kind of a different conversation than the other three where do y'all fall with those other three instant uh black creature removals I mean feed the swarmm I think kind of has to stay just because like you said it's one of the very few black ways to get rid of enchantments and so you kind of need that around just because of flexibility and again like Dana mentioned if you're playing uh an orz off deck for example Black and White cards in there you have access to artifact and enchantment removal so you don't really need it as much exactly go for the throat I don't remember last time I put it in there just because there are so many powerful artifact creatures these days that you you need need ways to get rid of that so I want as few limitations on my removal as possible at least when it comes to uh yeah I'm trying to kill these things uh oh I have a go for the throat and there's a warm coil engine that's going to kill me yeah I I I'm I keep trying to to contextualize all this stuff Black's removal is is interesting because it doesn't have the blue or or white problem where there's a couple of really obviously cards that are so much better than everything else that you would probably run in every decade able to run them yeah that isn't where black is there's no like one or two standouts like well obviously I'm putting this in my black deck yeah um there's a lot more flexibility here and I think that's more interesting don't get me wrong I'm not going to like Advocate that we remove Sile shares from the game or anything but it does make making choices in white less interesting and that is one of the things I like about this discussion in terms of black it's almost entirely you making a decision based on what best fits your play style in your your deck and your meta yeah yeah for sure um I actually misspoke earlier as well it turns out that GOI road is showing up in 120,000 decks but infernal grasp has super cedo day it's showing up in 152,000 decks so uh good for you infernal grasp and in general I do kind of prefer that but the new bitter Triumph is actually kind of like making its way up the ranks for me because that option to discard a card is the kind of thing that Black's like all right sweet I tossed an eight drop away and now I can animate dead um or if I need to I'll pay three life and that three life versus the two life of infernal grasp that doesn't feel like a huge make or break to me um I've been really enjoying both of those but Matt 100% with you the lack of restriction is a big deal and and I think another important facet about Black's removal too kind of getting to your point Dana is that a lot of Black's best removal is on creatures that it will like whip in and out of the graveyard a whole lot like the Chupacabras and like play crafter kind of effects too and there are a lot of like Black Death triggers that reward you based off of those we're not talking about creatures in this episode but that is another thing that sort of complicates black removal in that regard as well so for me black removal is a mix of these instant speed kind of things that matter a lot but also what are the creatures that are doing a whole lot of the damages too um that you are Reviving out of the graveyard over and over so that that's sort of an important thing that tampers down how ubiquitous a lot of these can be well so I think the best way for me to describe Black's removal in Commander is that it's it's Applebees basically it's never great but it's it's pretty consistent it's always going to be 5 or 10% apart from the last time you saw it uh infernal grasp isn't really that much different from go for the throat which isn't that much different from Heroes down fall or whatever else you want to talk about like they're all pretty much the same and interchangeable at really any given level oh man heroes downfall remember that one remember when that used to be a staple you guys it's it's always it's always a six it's never a seven but it's also never a five it's always a six always the brides made that card I I think my favorite of these black and R spells is one that we didn't mention is also technically not in the two Mana slot that's baleful Mastery um three in a black but you can pay one in a black rather than the Spells Mana cost and if you do an opponent draws a card um it it's an exile effect it hits creatures and planes Walker so you have some some utility there and yes it doesn't feel good to give a person a a card but like there's been so many situations when I've given this card to the person that I'm just going to kill next turn or the person that's so far behind that like them drawing a card is largely irrelevant that card gift that you're giving doesn't really matter that often and even when it does it's a two Mana exile creature or Plaines Walker affect at instant speed I I it it's my probably favorite of all of these and I would personally put it at as as a a tier it's it's my number one black targeted removal smell all right interesting my my my a tier is the bitter Triumph and the rest fall around like uh B tier but that that's interesting to to hear the the Exile I see why you'd be very sash of that I like killing things that I can then revive from an opponent's graveyard later though sure yeah and again I think that's very deck contextually based too because yeah I I look at Bitter Tri and I think well this is dumb I have to discard card I don't want to do this uh so it just it's all about how again you build your decks what's alongside of it what's the strategy it sounds like a cop out but it really is contextual because again Joey thinks this card is an a I'm like C at best but I think that's good like think that's why I think of all of these black is in the most interesting place in terms of of pinpoint removal because there's so many choices to make based on like how you personally feel about cards and what your deck is like that kind of thing well and Matt you talked about situational stuff and kind of nothing's more situational than like the color identity of some of the cards so like you know assassin's trophy you can only play in a gari deck terminate despark Vanishing verse dread bore a lot of two Mana things that can destroy creatures some of them are at sorcery speed some of them have different restrictions like despark can only get something that has a high Mana cost um I mean the a lot of these I feel great about like I assass trophy boom I love me some golgari um some of them are exciting some of them not so great but like yeah if you're talking about situational stuff then multicolor two Mana spells there's a whole bunch of them that have a bunch of different restrictions I think of the bunch you mentioned the the the one that I I would rate an S tier is assassins Trophy and the reason I feel that way is because if I'm playing golgari or have access to gulgar even I'm running assassin's Trophy and I don't think that's true of the rest of these not that they're not good but like I I look at terminate or I look at despark and like okay what you know what else can these decks hit what other things do I have what are my biggest concerns I don't ask those questions with Assassin's trophy oh I'm I have access to green and black I'm playing it yeah Dan I I totally get that it it I like the cards that are no no fluff no hassle whatever just quick and efficient so I don't mind terminate I know it's kind of been outclassed by a lot of things that have been going on lately I highly value despark actually the fact you can hit any permanent that has a Mana value of four or greater and it's an exile effect yeah I in my tables at least I think that very rarely doesn't hit things that are impactful um some yeah if if you're playing at the cedh tables maybe the targets are a little more limited so I totally get why the higher power level you go maybe dpar gets valued less but at the the tables that I'm playing that you know midlevel kind of maybe on the lower side of these point in times despark is great I think it's going to hit pretty much any Target you really need to at the tables that playing at interesting I I think black white removal in particular has a much bigger Spotlight than any other color combination absolutely yeah uh if not that then maybe esper because it also has like the other one Mana blue spells that you can use but like black and white are so good at removal and there are a lot of very versatile like three Mana things in these colors too that can do a whole lot of stuff that like black white removal spells tend to fall a little bit lower to me because I feel like that is such a crowded field yeah and then some of the others that operate at sorcery speed like dreadbore I'm just like I don't want sorcery speed removal these days I just really don't like it's going to have to do a lot of extra stuff for me to play something sorcery speed nowadays Joe if you want to talk about how far the mighty have fallen dreadbore is that card like we can joke about Hero's downfall used how it used to be such a powerful card and now it's getting printed uncommon but dreadbore has fallen even further I think it it's the card that you like write your Master's thesis around when your subject is the evolution of EDH the last decade or something like you that's a perfect example of a card that Once Upon a Time was very highly if you were playing ratos I it's two Mana I can hit creatures or Plaines Walkers fantastic even though it's sorcery speed and today I I'm not even considering it for a rose deck I it you got you got to be digging pretty deep I I would say it's probably C tier still I know you both aren't as high but it's it's C tier and it's kind of slipping but I I just I don't remember the last time I put it in a deck anymore right and and that's just it again it kind of comes to like I I put it a d tier but like what's the difference between DTI and CTI and F tier for me like if it isn't S A or B like it's a tough cell to put it because you don't have like 14 slots to devote in your deck to just pinpoint removal spells especially because you need other stuff like wths and things that are versatile and yada so yeah this is really interesting Matt you also mentioned a card earlier that kind of got me wanting to talk about some of those removal effects that pin things to the field but I think we're going to have to table that for now because we've got something else we got to do first and that's challenging the stats it is about that time it is about that time yeah there's a lot of other interesting removal spells to get to but there's also a lot of interesting data on EDH Rec that we don't always agree with so we'd love to challenge those stats right after a quick break all right well I'll kick us off this week so I actually have the listener submitted challenge this week so Eric caner sent us an email which you all can do at edhrecast gmail.com and had a really good nonbo for a new card that I mean it's making waves in competitive formats but for Commander this certain combo doesn't really work the way people I'm sure think it does so Eric said in their email I'd like to challenge us stats on NIV Mizit Guild packed which is the new five color NIV Miz that we've gotten in murders at carlav Manor where nive Mizit the ability that we're keying in on here is whenever NIV Mizit Guild packs deals combat damage to a player it deals X damage to any Target Target player draws X cards and you gain X life or X is the number of different color pairs among permanence you control that are exactly two colors so there's a really important line at the end of that ability where it says that are exactly two colors so Eric's email then goes on to say according to EDH Rec 20% of the NIV decks currently are running lay line of the guild packed despite the name Synergy line is anti- synergy with nive mic Guild packed whose combat damage trigger cares about different color combinations among pairs of permits you control that are exactly two colors lay line makes all of your non-land permanence all colors which means none of your permits will be eligible to be counted for NIV Miz's damage trigger this is a great great catch I know that lay line of the guild pack people are very excited to play this cuz it's a powerful card uh it's a lay line that means you can have it on the battlefield if it's in your opening hand each non-land perment you control is all colors and then lands you control are every basic land type in addition to their other types so it fixes your Mana right off the bat but it absolutely is an anti- Synergy card with niv's ability because instead of your two color creatures being two colors they're now five colors and they don't count this is an absolutely powerful powerful card that just doesn't line up the Synergy isn't there it's one of those non BOS and we love it when our listeners send in these nonbo challenges stats so first off Eric thank you for the email and also second thank you for this awesome challenge is a great catch and just make sure folks if you're doing this take lay line out of those decks really love that that's terrific thank you Eric uh I'll move on to my challenge now and y'all we got to talk about Voya jaws of the conclave um Foya jaw of the conclave is a ridiculous card um this is the new Nia 55 wolf with vigilance trample and Ward 3 uh whenever it attacks you put X plus1 counters on each creature you control where X is the number of elves you control and you draw a card for each wolf you control so since Boya is a wolf itself is going to draw you at least one extra card a turn while it's on the field and it turns all of your elves into permanent like Anthem effects this card is ridiculous and wizard has this really nasty habit of seeing a commander that has a lot of abilities that draw a lot of attention and deciding to give it a ward ability Wizards I'm begging you please stop um but for the purposes of talking about how to make this deck a little bit better if you are playing Voya 41% of Voya decks right now are playing cultivate and I know it sounds weird to say that cultivate is overplayed in just about any deck but cultivate is not really necessary in elf decks and Voya decks are so full of so many elf Mador it's ridiculous priest of Titania Elvish Arch Druid incubation Druid every one drop elf that's ever been created marwin there are so many other elves producing so much Mana for you already and those elves wear counters that Voya is pumping up your entire team with that those are the ramp effects that you'll want to prioritize instead of cultivate if cultivate was really important you'd think that Kodama reach would have a similar level of popularity but it doesn't because you don't need three Mana ramp effects in this deck you want the elves because the elves are going to hit your opponents like a bus so yeah I'm going to call that one overplayed here if you're playing Voya there's a whole lot of elves that can wear your counters a lot better and they'll give you probably even more Mana so that's my challenge Dana how about you wrap us up uh my challenge this week here is for wand of the world Soul um tuna white it's an artifact at etbs tapped but you can tap up for a white mana and it has a tap ability the next spell you cast this turn has convoke um if you go through a list of the top commanders that are running W of the world soul and it's in about 10,000 decks right now they are almost exclusively commanders that make tokens and that makes sense you're you're making bodies and you have a bunch of them because your commander produces tokens when it does a thing so you have them available to tap to to cast a spell where it's overlooked though I think is commanders that give your stuff vigilance um heliad original heliad um Tory devant Fury Rider there's multiple commanders where your stuff is not going to tap when it attacks and for whatever reason people seem to be overlooking W of the world soul in those decks and just con voke cards in general I think for whatever reason people get hung up a little bit on convoke being a mechanic that is really only something you use in a token deck and I think people need to remember that if you are playing in some kind of a deck where vigilance is a thing that your creatures frequently have convoke is just as good there so one of the world Soul or convoke in general just if you are playing some kind of a deck where there's a lot of vigilance going around that's a really strong card as is anything with convoke interesting stuff yeah yeah that's really wise all right guys let's move back into our main topic here talking about some pinpoint removal that can hit some creature stuff uh before we moved into challenge Matt you had earlier mentioned cyber conversion which is a thing that can flip a creature face down which kind of gets it stuck on the field and the instant speed nature of that was why we wanted to talk about it in that earlier section but there are a lot of other cards that kind of fit a similar type of Bill that also pin creatures to the battlefield quote unquote famously stuff like dark steel mutation there are couple of those folks Dana I know you're famous for playing a couple of them so like sort of as a category where do we fall with some of those different types of cards do you think I mean I love this category of cards I I've been playing Dark steel mutation since I first got into the format I'm still playing it it's one of my favorite cards it really depends though so one card that I've I soured on this card super hard I was very excited for it Swift reconfiguration I thought was going to be a I thought that was going to be an absolute Powerhouse absolutely has let me down it is D tier it's a one- turn fog most of the time I don't love it but otherwise this category is absolutely great they're all like B usually yeah yeah Swiffer configuration is the one that turns the thing into a vehicle so like it loses it creature status and that means it's stuck on the field but the ability is still there and that's often the most important thing so I almost think this is better as a protection piece but in terms of removal like yeah it's garbage as removal but it's actually good to protect your own stuff if you need it to stick around and survive a board wipe and that's kind of funny uh but I'm with you yeah the other stuff is a lot more interesting like you said this stuff is really weird like I am a big fan of these spells um but in low power games it doesn't feel good casting something at sorcery speed and they're almost all sorcery speed you know dark C mutation lignify Kendra's transformation song on the dryads um imprison and the moon are probably the most frequently used of of this collection of cards um you're casting them all only when you can cast a sorcery and if you're playing in relatively a low power environment do you really need to like remove a commander for a long period of time like probably not and if you're playing at a super high power level well then you probably can't afford to have your removal be at sorcery speed but I think there's this mid tier where I actually tend to play at where you see really strong commanders but like you can also maybe afford to run a few sorcery speed removal spells and I love these and in particular I love being able to remove some commanders that like you need to remove for long periods of time I can't let you play Voya like right like an rag the Quake mole the the the new legendary mole God from M at Markov Manor I can't let you play that if like if you have that employ an attack one time you're going to win the game so I I'm going to hit it with dark mutation and not feel bad about it at all well and even more important I think so there's kind of subcategories in this so you have cards like dark seal mutation like oet that they're either getting rid of the the creature or just getting off the battlefield completely but then stuff like kenrith's transformation I'm going to put those a tier below just because it the creature you can block with it you can chump Block it's going to die you're going to reset it it's going to put it back in the command Zone to get recast or whatever so witness protection lignify K transformation those are a little bit below the rest of these categories but song of the dads and imprison the moon are absolutely for me a tier because it's so much harder to interact and kill lands yeah especially it's I just I love those cards anything that takes away the abilities of the creature is vital and so having it linger around so they can't change zones and recast it I love this category but song of the ddes and imprison the moon are probably two of my favorites yeah I think I recall the last time that you put an in prison in the moon on it was my Martin Strom gold and I was just like oh my game is over like but it was also just like yeah you probably shouldn't allow me to do Martin stromal things that's totally fair the the only caveat that I kind of have on on impr prison in the Moon is that blue has so many other really fantastic instant speed stuff that imprison in the Moon is sometimes a tougher cell and song of the dryads being able to just nuke a creature is very important for Green's capabilities that is a little bit rarer for green to like remove that creature from its presence as a creature at all um and that's important but in general Matt yeah cosign on basically everything else you just said um especially the fact that you said oet um which Dana I noticed that you weren't mentioning it yet because you would have said AB no I see I I agree with you Joey that blue has a lot of good pinpoint removal that we we've already gushed about I think there is a lot of value in being able to tag a commander with impr prison in the moon because if you just destroy it they can recast the commander or if they you destroy anything and goes to the graveyard you can reanimate it locking it down longterm there's a lot of value in that so that's why I still like imprison the moon a little bit more than you both do CU I I think there's a ton of value in not letting them recur creature and and as a a quick thing a thing that I'm and we're not actually going to talk about bounce spells in this episode but like I'm almost kind of like deviating with Tempo a little bit and considering playing more of those like echoing truth style spells to see how powerful bounce can actually be in those moments um so the instant speed things versus the locking down things that's a a Tempo relationship that I'm still playing around with and it's interesting to see that we're on slightly different sides of that but they are fun to continue to explore for sure yeah absolutely well what what do you say we move on to three Mana then so we we've talked a lot about cheaper efficient spells now we're kind of getting into a crowded field here at three Mana where kind of like Mana Rock there's a lot of good spells with upside where do we start I think chaos warp is a good one to start with cuz it's kind of a singular card particularly in red there's not really anything else that just solves any problem yeah and Chaos warp solves any problem and I I've seen you know people online like oh you know you're going to give them something really big well okay why are you casting on something that isn't like Game ending then yeah yeah don't don't make bad decisions with chaos warp and you can't it's not going to hurt you and and and if someone's swinging a BL steel Colossus at you and you CH warp it do you care what gets flipped off the top there's nothing worse than losing there's nothing someone's going to reveal that's worse than losing the game you know so as long as you're like using the removal when it matters who cares what it flips off the top the the fact that it also gets around indestructibility like yeah this is a if not s tier for me just because of Red's restrictions like this is an important staple of the format for dang good reason this such a popular card and it's really easy to blank the like the downside of it is really very frequently winds up not being a downside yeah but then you always have you always have that one time where you flip over the card that you just got rid of it doesn't matter you have to start over that there's always everybody has that one chaos warp story and and I agree with both of you it's it's probably the most valuable red card across all decks in the format just because it does things that not really not any other red card can do yeah absolutely like it it's showing up in a third of red Decks that are able to play it's the third of all red decks it is the second most popular red card in the entire format like this thing's a staple for an absolute reason um and I kind of feel similarly about KP as I do about Beast Within um just because again green having the ability to affect creatures it was not supposed to this card is a color break and a half and that one showing up in 42% of decks are eligible to play it destroy any permanent give its controller a 33 Beast I I feel like to me the most interesting discussion he starts to approach here when we talk like we all know Beast Within is good if you're playing Green you're playing Beast Within we know that but an interesting discussion starts to happen when we compare Beast Within to generous gift which is the White Version and to me generous gift is not nearly as good as Beast Within because of the stuff that white can already do and I'm kind of curious where where yall fall in that but like I feel a very specific way about Beast Within that I don't about generous gift so I I would argue that yes Beast Within is probably the the the Green version of chaos warp it's a card that it's doing things that the the color just doesn't get to do most of the time generous gift I I don't think that all the power is lost on generous gift because we've already talked about all the hyper efficient ways that white deals with creatures with swords of plow shares and everything but the fact that generous gift and stroke of midnight I'm I'm going to lump together here they're so flexible in their targets is where they're really you know letting you shine you have that flexibility and I think there's a ton of value there now Jenner gift a little bit more flexible than stroke of midnight but still I I think that the at least and we've talked about this before to me the size of the creature you're giving them does make a decent bit of difference it does but I I I will note this there was a a couple years ago a a very skilled Pro Player made a comment in an article about Beast Within and Commander and how it's perhaps overplayed because of the three three um and I will kind of Def that that person got dragged a little bit for that comment and and I will defend them by saying this is someone coming from an environment where people are good at Magic and like and I'm I'm joking say that but like if you're playing in a real if you're playing in a competitive format and someone Beast with ends your thing you're going to put a token in play and like it's going to be there whereas I guarantee every one of us have gotten something hit with the Beast Within and just because the game's going quickly you've grabbed a six-sided Dice and put it down with like the three Pips up and then forgotten what it was for four turns wow like that's happened and that's not something that's going to happen if you're playing Modern or whatever so the reality is the creature that you give people with some of these effects in Commander because you're just goofing around and there's four players and there's a lot going on it's way less impactful than it is elsewhere in part because folks just forget it's there sometimes wow I mean if if you're using an infinite token I guess you're not going to forget quite as easily there we go that solves the problem everyone using infinite tokens yeah so Props to infinite tokens for just helping everybody remember what those dice mean but I I do agree that blockers in general are a little overrated when it comes to translating from Modern Legacy all that yeah point being on all these cards they're all great because they're solving so many different questions that you have about any given game and I would say the the same thing I talked about like assassin's trophy when I'm building a new deck and I fire up architect and start putting my my my entries in for it if I'm playing Green I'm probably throwing Beast Within that list if I'm playing red I'm throwing in chaos warp if I'm playing white generous gift at the very least are in my first draft and they are probably surviving all the way through so so Dana when you brew up your decks on archade do you just have like your removal packages ready to go and it's just all of these cards we've talked about for the most part I just know off the top of my head and throw them in there and you know we talked about just on last week's show about like cards that don't have homes and like trying to find ways to make decks more interesting by running cards that you know maybe don't see play elsewhere I like to do that but I don't think anyone's ever been like wow that removal spell you ran that I never heard of was really cool that's not something for the most part that like anybody gives you respect for running something weird and obscure for so like I I usually don't worry about it there I'm just running the things that best fit my deck and those cards I just mentioned all kind of fit that criteria okay so I I know that we've just heed a bunch of Praise on generous but like I I'm I'm gonna say I prefer stroke of mindnight and I think generous gift is making its way out of my decks a lot more these wow so so Joey I remember when we first talked about this you said I don't know generous gift being able to hit lands is too important that was not me that was stroke of M was not me that okay that was Dana yeah I I remember you two were still high on generous gift and I said I actually think stroke of midnight the one one versus 33 isn't irrelevant I I guess for me truly what it's kind of come down to is that like I can't remember the last time that I used a generous a generous gift on a land anyway is like kind of so like so if I'm not using it on lands and I've already got like ghost quarters and stuff in my Decks that will help out with any of those problem lands and I've got so many other cards that white is already using that like my bother giving something that is slightly slightly bigger um so so yeah it just it's fine but like three Mana in removal is actually starting to be a bit of a tall order yeah like we also got to shout out exis the imperfect here which Exiles a non-land and gives them an incubate token with counters equal to the Mana value of whatever you got rid of I was high on this one initially but I've gotten kind of dis enamored by it like even though the opponent has to pay Mana to flip that token onto the creature side if I hit something important with this three Mana spell then that creature that gets left over is actually meaningfully powerful like it carries equipment well uh I've even played against Decks that take advantage of the fact that it's an artifact token or that take advantage of all the counters that it's wearing plus the two white Pips on this one make it like a slightly harder Splash so even though that one Exiles I still end up ultimately airing on the side of gift and stroke and I ultimately fall just slightly more towards stroke because I usually end up using these types of cards not on lands I've got other stuff for that uh but I end up using these types of cards on big creatures big artifacts big enchantments and and in those moments I find myself more pleased when the setback feels more pronounced I guess I mean that that is an important point I think it's also kind of power level dependent is how much targeted land removal do you need are you just playing like a ghost quarter in a in a wasteland and something like that and calling it good or do you feel like you need the generous gift and and I know Dana you really value being able to blow up lands most of the time in games I'm playing very rarely is there ever a land that like okay we have to blow that up I think in in most of the games that I've played at local game shop stuff like that this just not all that common so I just yeah maybe just our experiences again and our play groups are kind of defining our opinions on generous gift versus stroke at midnight yeah I I think very much so this is this one very much comes down to like personal preference and for me I I I'm not you don't get to play with Nick those yeah you play with Kabal coffers I don't think so but like for some folks it's not that big of a deal and I if it isn't I I understand the logic behind like the 3 three versus the one one for you if you either don't don't see those or aren't that worried about them and what they do yeah I get it there's also and this is like a later section we'll get too but there are certain other types of removal spells coming out in this color that can hit something per opponent rather than just one thing and that's also in this uh type of Mana slot is a thing that I'm starting to pay a lot more attention to as well so that's why these particular slots get pretty awkward um as an example of that for instance grasp of Fate that's a really famous sort of Oblivion Ring style effect that can temporarily shut something down from an opponent's side and if they can kill the enchantment and that stuff can come back um like grasp of Fate though it can hit one thing per opponent and I'm starting to value cards like that a bit more lately I don't value regular Oblivion Ring I think that one's garbage compared to grasa fate like that's F tier in terms of like compared to what grasa fate can do because it can hit everybody and it gives you that option um but anyway I've been talking about that for a while where do y all fall on thing like grasp of Fate that can hit everybody I I will say I've come around in grasp of Fate I didn't like it at first but I think that was me misplaying it um because I when it first came out I'm like oh this is really good value I can hit three targets for you know the three Mana that's excellent and I put it in multiple decks and what I was doing was playing it in like hitting three threats and what wound up happening was that meant there were three players that felt incentivized to remove it so it just didn't stick around and keep threats gone and so I quit using it but I that was a mistake on my part I think the way that you use grasp of Fate is to hit a problem and then just hit a couple pieces that the other players can't rationalize removing it to get back so you take out like someone's you know Talisman or something like that that you're like oh it's gone but no one's going to Bow remove to get back their Talisman especially when it frees up that other person's Archangel Avison or something um so so I like this more than I once did because I just was playing it poorly at first yeah I Dana I'm very glad that you had that experience because that's kind of what directed me to I've always loved grass Buffet yes you can hit three high value targets but then you have three people trying to get rid of it whereas even just like the person who might have counter spells let them also protect that because okay we've united we we agree that the grasp of Fate being on the battlefield is solving more problems than it being gone and letting that person have whatever is monstrous going to kill us all next turn that is absolutely a bunch of play that graspa fate brings to the game that I love it I love it so much and it's just a good card I I think like Joey said anything hits something for each opponent high value for me a tier for graspa fate it's great but I I do agree most of the Oblivion Ring effects stuff like that deer a majority of the time there's a couple others I consider now and then but I for the most part I I don't I don't like them in a similar vein council's judgment is a voting card so same cost two and two two white and a colorless and you vote um and the permanent that has the the permanent you don't control with the most votes are tied for the most votes gets exiled um it's almost always going to hit the biggest problem in play often times you can deal with two problems sometimes you can deal with three problems it just depends on you know how what the board state looks like I I think I like this card more than its value maybe you know like I I I think sure there are things that are better that I could run in the decks where I run it but I I think it's a fun and interesting card so this is one where I don't always go with a peak optimization because it just always makes for a good time when I cast it I so fully like I I I my initial instincts when we put this down I had like some initial like instinctual grades that I put down I was just like oh CTR and this or whatever grasp of fate and council's judgment are both things that I'm just like no I need to reevaluate and especially council's judgment which like this actually technically kind of goes against our rules because we said we were like it has to be able to Target a creature the thing about Council judgment is it doesn't it doesn't actually Target it it's true so it can get through stuff like X proof or Ward so like I am actually kind of personally wondering how much I modify the removal that I'm using these days to try and get around to the fact that Wizards keeps slapping Ward 2 and Ward 3 on just about every creature that they think is powerful and needs to be defended from removal so like stuff like these are moving upward and upward in my estimation if my instinct was a c I think I actually need to move these into a B for for example um because like having that that reapo of like how we engage with removal seems pretty important in a world war wizard is playing around so fast and loose with the types of defense that commanders have yeah I mean council's judgment always has been a fun card it's kind of slipped a little bit just because again sorcery speed three Mana there's a lot it's it's a very slow card and you need kind of you need options around there yeah otherwise it's always going to be just a three Mana hit one thing so but it does I I agree Dana it does bring a lot of fun things to the social aspect of games and it it's fun to watch this just kind of create some chaos it it's also a card that gets better if you actually take a little bit of time to explain what's going to happen um because most people don't see it and they it's kind of difficult to like math out what's going to happen ahead of time particularly if they if they've never had it come into play before whereas if you take a second and say hey Council judgment and I'm picking this and then if you just pass the vote then who knows what will happen but if you point out if you pick this and this person is going to pick this and if you just take like 20 seconds to like lay out what might occur it becomes much much better people tend to then go along with it as long as you're not being ridiculous whereas if you just like throw it to the wind who knows what might happen it's really interesting to see how many of the like interesting three Mana cards occupy the spot in white and I know that there are going to be like you know there's also the hero's downfall and the murders out there in other colors but like right they they sto being real interesting real real fast and there are a whole bunch of them that we're probably not going to get to and I think it's actually probably more interesting for us to discuss some of the stuff that moves into multicolor CU that's where we get a lot of other things that are I don't know kind kind of Ju like there are some cards that have really fallen from Grace as well y'all were talking about how dread boo did it I think vindicate is one of the bigger masters of like oh how the mighty have fallen because that card used to be like the card you played in black white yeah and then anguish on making kind of came and just totally supplanted that Throne V vindicate and dreadbore are hanging around at the old folks home right now like really pumped that it's meatloaf night tonight wow that's and that's it that that's where they're at for the most part see I I don't hate vindicate anymore like it's still it's so such a flexible card there's no downside there's no losing life there's no giving your opponents anything I I don't hate vindicate but you are right that anguish done making is just it it's so efficient it's hitting so many different things uh and in at instant speed which is a huge value so I still think that it's like a and b for me like anguish making still is a a level card vindicate is B just because it is sorcery speed but you still have all the flexibility there oh wow I i' put vindicate down to D I I can't remember the last time I've ever played it yeah I I don't play it anymore and honestly I I think the final nail in that coffin was stroke of midnight sure sure um I'm just not going to run it when I have access to that that's not going to it's going to always work it's going to be at instant speed sure it's and then there's too many effects to run so again it's one of those situations I don't think vindicates a bad card necessarily I don't disagree with anything Matt said about how effective it is it's just not good enough to make the cut when there's so much competition and I feel a little bit differently about vindicate than I do about like melstrom pulse like melstrom pulse is also a sorcery speed removal but like if you use it on a token it destroys everything that shares the name so you can actually wipe out tokens with that and I've got respect for the detention sphere effect for some pretty similar reasons on that too but like in general like sorcery speed is such a tough sell for me nowadays and even then I'm like oh I have respect for MST pulse but I don't play it um but it's like a grade higher but truly what does that mean in the grand scheme of things yeah the the the hitting multiple things with with mous from pulse and detention spere to a degree to is relevant I think in a meta context when I first started playing Commander I played against the same like three or four people every week and one of those people just played token decks so mstr pulse was a really valuable card to me because it dealt with this one player's token swarm every single time um so in that context you know some of these things we talked about how depending on what you're doing some cards are better than others like in that environment it was an amazing card um whereas like I think there's many situations where you're like oh and this one unique meta Oblivion Ring is really good or something whereas some of them I think it's worth noting that malstrom pulse if you're playing in a certain environment might still be a star defense detention sphere in a certain environment might might still be really really good yeah I still really like being able to take out whole armies mom PSE detention sphere I I like them both um I I mean I would even argue that pricious de kind of Falls in this category too where like granted I know that kind of gets into board wipe territory there but there's still a lot of use for these and if you need those in your deck I don't think anybody's ever going to side eye you for playing a lot of these cards here yeah and and that's actually also I'm never going to side ey is very much my Mantra when it comes to like the mortifies and the purifies of the world yeah um because they're budget friendly like so I've got them like kind of C tier I don't play them because I do have access to stuff like anguish done making that I do think are superior um just that flexibility is really important but like they're they're what 12 cents so like yeah go off absolutely play them if you want to um but in terms of upgrading I think they fall out pretty quick but they're a really nice easy way to make sure that your deck is going to do what a deck needs to do so I've got respect for them even if I upgrade out of them yeah I and but to me that's kind of what CTI really is is the cards that they they're cheap they're going to get the job done but they're also yes there are better options but also C tier I'm never going to look at you like oh my gosh why are you playing council's judgment because it absolutely does get the job done or dread barar I see why you would play it it's just again you can do better I'd decid IA dread barar yeah yeah I think that's a nice a nice metric and there are a lot of other even more ridiculously like multicolored spells like I don't know if we go into three color you've got void Ren which can get around Ward because it can't be countered and that's very nice I respect I respect that but also like if you're an esper you already know it's just like oh okay cool like you can only play this in certain types of decks um the last kind of interesting one here I think is probably bevil which is the rapose one which has a really specific pip requirement which is why I don't really care for it but I wonder how you guys feel I mean it's really hard to cast yeah and that's where it loses me a little bit I also like I have played bevil and it never really seemed to come up a whole lot and maybe it's because my my play groups typically don't play a ton of Plaines Walker so it's just kind of lost there but right but devil just kind of seems I me I to me it's a same as mortify and purify it's a multicolored removal spell that has some a little extra flexibility but it's never like great either yeah I I I think the the little bit of extra utility you get on it over say a terminate or something isn't probably worth the the the three Mana cost or the the the PIP requirement on it as well right um it's it's a it's a it just quite it just misses just a little bit in in a couple different ways it's the hero's downfall of Rose removal spell yeah right yeah yeah yeah truly and that Pap requirment is just like it's hecking tough okay there are also though a lot of other spells that deviate even higher in the Mana cost that I think are important for us to get to before the show ends so Matt do you want to move us into some stuff that costs like four mana and above cuz that's a whole big discussion of whether it's worth it to play stuff that costs a lot of Mana to get a creature um because four man is wrath territory you know so like how do we feel about that as we move into higher cost removal spells I mean so I'll start off with one that I will defend till I mean not quite my dying day but I'll defend uh pretty adamantly is aerion's thirst so that's a four Mana four Mana removal spell and I know we talked a lot about black at the two and three Mana value but four or is where you kind of get a lot of fun it's kind of like the five Mana wrath territory where you can get some modular wraths that sometimes are you know one-sided or something like that there's just a lot of play with these and so Assyrian thirst is four Mana Exile Target creature so you have the Exile right there but also you put X plus1 plus1 counters on a commander creature you control where X is the power of the creature exiled this way if you have a deck that likes your commander to be big asterian thirst is wild it's so stinking good and yes for Mana you have to have your commander out there you could be playing deadly rolic there's there's a lot of argument for what you want do you want hyper efficiency or do you want the upside there and I love the upside here yeah I I feel like once you get into the four Mana removal territory I think almost all of the ones I would run are s super situational like an asterion thirst from like oh I'm I'm playing in Black I'm you know it's a Voltron deck based around plus one counters it's a no prer you know like the but outside of that really narrow window I'm probably not playing play it it makes skull Brier good yeah so like these tend to be the cards that are super focused and it becomes really difficult to give them a a solid rating here because the decks where they're amazing they feel super good and they're fun and they're interesting right and everywhere else they're just not playable almost yeah mortality spear you play it in a black green life gain deck and that you don't it's very very much that feeling um I'm kind of curious how you guys feel about price of Fame though that that one that one I've got a a love ha relationship with it's a four Mana spell but it costs two Mana if you are targeting a legendary creature with it it destroys the creature and you surveil too um I can say I don't play it but I like it it's kind of like Commander only removal but I don't know have have yall actually experimented with this one I mean with how powerful Commander creatures have gotten lately I understand why you're running it I also I wouldn't be super excited for it yeah I mean like again I I want my removal to be as open-ended as possible I want it I want to maximize the flexibility and bail and baleful Mastery price of Fame stuff like that it doesn't really do that so I I lose a little bit on price of Fame just because paying four Mana for um a kill spell is that's a lot yeah like it is it only two Mana to hit a legendary creature sure or I could just run any of the number of two Mana remove creature spells in black and have it always work yeah and the surveil 2 doesn't feel like it offsets that to me no no that that's where it gets yeah yeah no I'm with you and that's what how I feel about certain things like uh death Sprout binding the old gods I guess I have a lot of affinity for golgari sorry about it um but like yeah four Mana to kill just a creature starts I'm just like well I could have played a board wipe like a board wipes are four Mana um and so like it just feels harder and harder and especially because of you know how much W there is now they're going to be six Mana to actually play some of these it gets really hard to justify playing a whole bunch of them nowadays and I've kind of felt that way about utter end for a while which is is the the orz of one that can Exile anything but it's four mana and I yeah I just don't like it cuz I just I four Mana so much depend see I would I would 1,00% rather play utter end and get all that flexibility and know that no matter what I'm always going to pay for Mana versus a price of Fame where I'm hoping to to pay two Mana then I'm mad about paying four Mana the expectations are so different there but also hagra muling is just always it's four Mana nobody the hagra muling or it the ability of this spell cost one less to cast if an opponent controls no basic lands the only person that's going to ever affect is Dana everybody else plays basic right this hagra muling will always be for Mana oh man and that's so hagra muling is so interesting because that's the one that could be a land on the on the backside it's a tapped land it's better it's more valuable to you as a land I'm telling you right now but it's tapped and the tempo hit on this on both of those that's that's how bad the front side is Joey my word yeah I I've also like oh H I feel like I could oh is there and every time it's not yeah and I play a lot of Bounce lands and even then I'm still like I there I I can I know I can do better like I I can find other other lands that will offer me I think more utility than this option would I know a lot of people are really high on playing as many of the mdfc lands that could be spells on the on the front half I know a lot of people really enjoy them but this one has Matt I'm fully with you I I don't like playing this one yeah those those people just didn't learn their lesson so don't don't play hagra muling it's just I that's like the first like hard f for me that we've talked about just really don't play hagra muling oh yeah oh yeah oh wow okay interesting like I I see I can see Corner cases for a majority of the other cards that we've talked about like death Sprout stuff like that I I can see the rationality there so like it's a d tier card for me but hagra muling is just the worst version of any these cards we've talked about and it's so limited you only get to destroy a creature there's no Exile there's no flexibility get out of here with hagra mauling I I'm not going to give it get an F but I'm not going to run it yeah yeah exactly I i' I've been eyeing building a new ion deck and I'm just like oo a four Mana thing I could collect evidence for but like even then I'm just like do I just need to land I can fetch so now one I probably will run is Terra Sunder um yeah it's it's one in green Exile Target artifact or enchantment and if you kick it for one in a black um Exile Target nonland permanent um and I think the reason I'm really cool with teras thunder despite you know being a four man removal spell is an exile for one in a green on an artifact or enchantment is a pretty solid rate of return that I would consider if that's all the card did I I I'm a big fan of Exile it solves a lot of problems it you know deals with indestructible and makes it difficult to recur things that is almost playable just there alone let alone the fact that I can turn it into a an utter end you know is deal with any problem for four so I am a fan of terce Thunder for sure yeah I I like teras thunder a whole lot just for all the reason reasons you said Dana it's it's super super flexible you're always going to have something to hit with it no matter when you draw it well and to compare to Hager mauling like because heer mong's is kind of a modular card you have to choose between it being a land or removal spell and I found what you want from a modular card is you want either one of the two effects to be so good that you don't care about the other one or you want them both to be equally valuable otherwise you're overpaying for an effect that you're never going to use in teras falls under the category of I'm perfectly fine with paying both of those costs yeah yeah absolutely yeah it it doesn't feel like you're missing out on yeah that's a really great way to phrase it where whereas heger Mong you kind of feel bad about paying both of them yeah you kind of feel bad about the removal and you kind of feel bad about the land coming into play Taft uh where are you guys at with some of those multi-targeted things in multicolor like wi Grace's judgment decimate I mean I know where I fall I I don't like when Grace is Judgment even though I really thought that I would five Mana so much even if it gets one thing per per player um but decimate I feel like I'm always happy when I see it decimate yeah they're they're going to hit a lot of different targets which is nice when Grace's judgment also it fell short of expectations I think a lot of folks were very hopeful on it uh I still really like curtains call I think that's still a card that I I wish I could find room for more because it really does granted the undaunted is kind of the hard part about it yeah usually it's going to be three Mana sometimes it's going to be four but it does hit any two creatures I I I do appreciate curtain's call it's one of those that is like kind of tough to find a slot four I'm totally with you Matt especially because I mentioned earlier with black decks I like to have creatures that are doing a lot of the work because I can sacrifice those and that will have extra benefits that Ripple out through the rest of the deck but man curtain skull is just highkey a favorite removal spell even despite that yeah so when I can justify playing it I really love to these are so tricky um you know I don't think any of them are bad and I've currently have wi Grace's judgment in a deck um and it's fine and I never really feel bad about seeing it but I also never feel like this is really really good in this deck either despite the fact that it hits multiple things you know I've ran deathmate before and kind of had the same feeling like when I cast it h that was really effective but it never feels like super clutch necessarily either sure um because of the Mana value so these are just really tough I I I think they're they're the kind of cards that I often times put in a deck and then when I start cutting down to try to get that architect list down to 100 these are the ones that wind up like I'm I'm looking at when Grace's judgment I'm looking at Assassin's Trophy and terand and I'm like well when gra the judgment's gonna of the three is going so I pull that out and like yeah it just never quite seems to make it compared to the things around it Dana is it you who plays lethal scheme the four man of black instant with convoke and each convoked creature connives I have never done that no I've never cast it okay well then never mind we don't have to talk about it I guess we don't love it uh so I'm like o this looks like it could be useful in a token deck but like I I don't think so an interesting part about removal for me is like I want my removal to be useful even when I'm far behind yes a lot of removal spells especially at this Mana slot kind of like pivot themselves or or position themselves into a point where like these are good to press an advantage and I do like removal spells that like can press an advantage but also ones that can like get me out of a really tough scrape and and so that's kind of how I feel about overwhelming remorse actually which I thought I was going to love it's a f Mana removal spell Exiles a creature but it's cheaper to cast if you have a lot of stuff in your graveyard and I'm just like yeah no people people are too wise and also like I I usually get all the stuff out of my graveyard anyway so like that one I was so disappointed with how ineffectual it ended up being um and it just like kind of has to do with is a removal good when you're already doing well versus does it help you get out of a bad scrap um and that's just kind of a lesson to learn I think about these high Mana cost removal spells yep I I agree yeah there there's potential there but I don't know I I feel like we've also mentioned so many cards that we're we're kind of scraping at this point the the there's one last one I'll say that has it's very very new it just came out in the murders at carof Commander stuff um and that's unexplained absence which kind of going back to like the discussion about jennif skon stuff unexplained to absence is kind of I think I might be pivoting more towards this one lately uh which is the four Mana white incense for each player Exile up to one target onl permanent they control for each permanent to Exile this way its controller cloaks the top card of the library so they get a Face Down 2 two kind of a reality shift for each person and like the fact that this can hit any type of permanent I want to start paying a lot more attention to this one four Mana to hit four you can even get your own thing if you need an emergency blocker like this one is really catching my attention in terms of recent developments and yeah I got to keep my eye on it I I see why I see why it's appealing but also you're you're giving them something can be turned face up it has Ward which kind of I I'm not I'm not super not targeting a Face Down 2 two anytime soon with a remove but but you're giving them a face down suspected thing and that's where I'm I'm just kind of like I don't know about that it's it's kind of like declaration in stone like there's there's potential there but I'm I'm not super excited for it I I could see myself liking this card I could see myself not liking it but I think it's so there's so many things going on and so many variables that I'm I I I have a tough time evaluating it yet um until I see it in play multiple times so I I'm I'm withholding my judgment on it because I I it's there's just so many like Divergent different like trees it's a Multiverse of a card and I I I can't in my head visualize how it's going to work I have to see them play well Dana by the time this episode comes out we'll have just spent a lovely time in Chicago playing Magic against each other and I've got this in a couple decks so hopefully I'll get to uh make an impression with it when we play um and hopefully it's a good impression I plan on whooping your butt with all of my awesome removal spells um do do we have any final thoughts uh when it comes to removal or or any of these things that we have ranked like are there any final Impressions that you kind of want to leave with do you think I think that there's a lot of removal out there there's some you should be playing and some like hagra mauling that you should not be playing so customize away is this going to be your new bully pull pit of of just like oh Matt was anti- turrid you thought he was anti- turrid no hagra mauling is really the no cuz tur goes in the command Zone this is more like my monologue tax of of removal spells yeah yeah that's that's fair I think the last impression I'd like to leave is just like with more Ward coming out there I am starting to consider how much I'm going to modify removal uh that that I play like will I play more stuff we didn't talk about like stuff that Forces high like big creature sacrifices like soul shatters but those are other things that like oh those can get around ward two um Ward T not Ward the number two um and like those are kind of things that like as ward has becom more popular as these types of defensive legendary creatures are becoming more popular I'm considering how I'll change my my stuff up and so Dana maybe I'll be copying you and playing more council's judgment as well those are things that I'm paying attention to when it comes to removal and I think we do need to reevaluate and rank it more critically more often to figure out how to navigate a changing Commander meta game yeah I I I think that's a really good way to look at it um I I think just be flexible when you're evaluating these cards like number don't dismiss a card because it sees a lot of play um you know everyone plays for of Po oh yeah because it's a ridiculously good card um on the other hand like once you get down past those first couple spells you know don't give in too much to what everyone says is good too like evaluate what's going to work best for you and don't be afraid to run that Ian thirst if your deck really is going to take advantage of the things it does yeah yeah really really well done all right guys that's been a whole lot and listeners we'd love to hear how you rank some of these removal spells what are your favorites that we didn't even get to mention in this episode but we got to call this episode to a close so if a listeners want to get in touch with us where is it that they can find us on the onlines Matt so you can find me online pretty much any social media platform at Maus 55 that's M us 55 and don't forget we are proud to have been part of Team ultimate guard now they make the best deck accessories out there best sleeves best deck boxes so make sure you pick some of those up as well and Dana how about you you can find me online at Dana roach I'm writing articles for edre and commanders Herold and you can find all of us together at patreon.com edcast and I'm Joey Schultz you can find me at Joseph Multz online most likely being a fool on Instagram and if you want you can contact us at edhrecast online or edhrecast gmail.com if you'd like to send us an email maybe a challenge the stats our thanks go out once again to chase for their fantastic work in the post-production of the show you can find them online at manac curves and listeners will be back at you next week with more data and insights but until then remember Ed wreck your deck before you wreck your [Music] deck

Channel: EDHRECast

Views: 40,146

Keywords: magic the gathering, commander, edh, edhrec, mtg

Id: FkmrgNRF0cQ

Length: 74min 47sec (4487 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024