Removal and Restrictions: An Analysis

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
Curse of Swine is also mono blue unconditional removal for 3 or less, when targeted at only one creature. It's a sorcery that leaves behind a 2/2, but it also exiles and if you have more Mana you can turn more stuff into pigs.

Usually, it's blue and white being in my deck that mean I dont have to look much at conditional removal. White gets you path, swords, and gift, while blue gets you rapid hybrid, pongify, curse of swine, and reality shift, plus counterspells and Rift. Both being in the deck means I'm set for removal, even when the third color is black. Black is actually rather limited when it comes to unconditional options because I'd much, much rather not pay 4 plus for removal without significant benefit. Price of Fame gets a pass because surveil 2 is relevant and it's only 2 Mana when aimed at a commander, companion, or other legend.
I thought about including Curse of Swine and ultimately didn't because 3 CMC AND sorcery speed is a pretty heavy drawback; for that reason I also didn't include Never // Return, Oblivion Ring and its ilk, Song of the Dryads/Imprisoned in the Moon, or Council's Judgment (many of those are also enchantments and vulnerable to answers themselves but meh). That isn't to say it isn't an excellent removal spell - for sure it is, and the flexibility of being able to hit 3 or 4 or 5 creatures late-game means I should probably run it more. But to me, 3 CMC starts to cramp my style especially also at Sorcery speed.

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

FoxOfWar wrote:
3 years ago

Pretty good writeup, an interesting read to at least make me think about going through my decks and actually taking a stare at the amount and quality of removal I am running. I try to be sensible and/or on theme with my removal choices.

However...

I do admittedly have one bias though. The original art of Terror is creepy awesomeness, and I will play it even as I know it's less than optimal.
I've always liked the 10th edition art myself.

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
onering wrote:
3 years ago
Curse of Swine is also mono blue unconditional removal for 3 or less, when targeted at only one creature. It's a sorcery that leaves behind a 2/2, but it also exiles and if you have more Mana you can turn more stuff into pigs.

Usually, it's blue and white being in my deck that mean I dont have to look much at conditional removal. White gets you path, swords, and gift, while blue gets you rapid hybrid, pongify, curse of swine, and reality shift, plus counterspells and Rift. Both being in the deck means I'm set for removal, even when the third color is black. Black is actually rather limited when it comes to unconditional options because I'd much, much rather not pay 4 plus for removal without significant benefit. Price of Fame gets a pass because surveil 2 is relevant and it's only 2 Mana when aimed at a commander, companion, or other legend.
I thought about including Curse of Swine and ultimately didn't because 3 CMC AND sorcery speed is a pretty heavy drawback; for that reason I also didn't include Never // Return, Oblivion Ring and its ilk, Song of the Dryads/Imprisoned in the Moon, or Council's Judgment (many of those are also enchantments and vulnerable to answers themselves but meh). That isn't to say it isn't an excellent removal spell - for sure it is, and the flexibility of being able to hit 3 or 4 or 5 creatures late-game means I should probably run it more. But to me, 3 CMC starts to cramp my style especially also at Sorcery speed.

Sorcery speed is a huge drawback for sure, but the upside on the card is just so good it makes up for it. Exile is huge as it hits gods, Ulamog, and gy strategies, and the scalability puts it over the top. As a card that exiles a single creature at sorcery speed and leaves behind a 2/2 for 1UU, it's reasonable but wouldn't often make the cut. The scalability though, even just hitting 2 dudes for 2UU, is great, and is enough for it to often make the cut for me, which means there are going to be times when firing it for X=1 is going to happen from time to time, and while that's not good enough on its own to make the cut it's typically good enough in the moment. There's a strange disconnect between what can be considered good when building a deck and what can be considered good when playing, with the latter usually being far more forgiving. It's what drives modal cards being playable despite their modes never having a chance on their own. When building, you have to judge a card based on what it can be over a range of scenarios, so it either needs to be great in one application or good in multiple to be good, while when playing the card just needs to be good in the application at hand to feel good playing it. 1UU exile at sorcery speed is always good when playing it, but it's the flexibility that makes curse of swine justifiable when building the deck. Similarly, Beast Within is a great card, but what it actually does in the moment is merely good. It's a 3 Mana instant speed removal with downside. What makes it great is having several uses in which it is good, and thus it is greater than the sum of it's parts (the parts being if we examined each type that it kills individually, which is functionally what happens when it's actually used, as it only ever just destroys a creature, or just destroys an artifact, or just destroys a land, and with the exception of creature, because it's green, none of those modes would be worth it on their own).

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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
Berserk is probably the most debatable, but then again I didn't list Soul Snare or Condemn for the same reasoning.
Number of creatures in the 50 relevant creature list capable of attacking: 50
Number of creatures in the 50 relevant creature list I actually expect to consistently attack: 25 (and that's somewhat optimistic)

In practice, this is hard to estimate - something like Aurelia the Warleader is going to be attacking pretty much every turn, but a card like Seedborn Muse will rarely attack... but might if someone has no blockers. On the other hand, for Zacama, Primal Calamity, the damage may have already been dealt before its controller even gets to the attack step. My general heuristic is that only interacting during combat is roughly equivalent to (or possibly a bit worse than) sorcery-speed removal.

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Post by KMA_Again » 3 years ago

FoxOfWar wrote:
3 years ago
Pretty good writeup, an interesting read to at least make me think about going through my decks and actually taking a stare at the amount and quality of removal I am running. I try to be sensible and/or on theme with my removal choices.

However...

I do admittedly have one bias though. The original art of Terror is creepy awesomeness, and I will play it even as I know it's less than optimal.
That creepy art also comes in full art.

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