How do you adapt to a removal heavy meta?

[Ertai Planeswalker]

My meta runs a lot of interaction, mostly instant speed as well. I don't always want to play staple.dec but I kind of feel lately that every deck I build whose theme is not very deep* just can't compete because there's always someone with some answer to a play that will allow you to pull ahead a bit. I understand I need to pay more attention to my own removal but sometimes I feel like anything that is remotely threatening but doesn't have hexproof and/or indestructible is just not worth the mana. So how do you adapt your deckbuilding to a meta like this?

* With deep I mean a theme that has so many different cards available that it does not really matter which specific cards you have each game, most of it has synergy with most of it. A good example would be +1/+1 counters or enchantress decks

[Mookie]

My old meta was pretty hazardous for creatures - there was usually a board wipe every 1-2 turn cycles, and lots of spot removal for important permanents and combo pieces. Some strategies / deckbuilding techniques I used:

• Use value-generating creatures, so you don't care as much if they die
• Run stickier creatures, so they're harder to kill (or generate value when they do die)
• Run protection spells - countermagic is great, as are Teferi's Protection and Heroic Intervention
• Run recursion - Regrowth, Animate Dead, Archaeomancer... lots of options here
• Run fewer high-profile cards - if your cards aren't worth killing, they'll stick around for longer
• Run fewer targets - if you don't have any creatures (or very few), your opponents' creature removal will be less valuable
• Run more cards your opponents don't have removal for - if your meta is light on artifact / enchantment removal, you can often exhaust it with a heavy artifact/enchantress strategy.
• Hold cards in hand until they're necessary - don't overextend into board wipes. If you can combo out entirely from hand, that tends to be difficult for opponents to disrupt.

It's also okay to realize that your specific meta may be more / less favorable towards a certain strategy, and adapt accordingly. Recently, I noticed that my meta was running a lot more grave hate than I was used to, so I pulled back on the amount of recursion I'm running, and added more spot removal for Rest in Peace effects.

[pokken]

I have been enjoying varina as a reaction to lots of removal. Mass reanimating stuff is quite good against removal. Open the vaults and scrap mastery and replenish effects can do well in those themes.

Playing pressure cards like Serra ascendant and grave titan that just spiral out of control without answers can be good too. No need to overcommit if your entire game plan can be done with just rampaging baloths.

[Sinis]

My meta runs a lot of interaction, mostly instant speed as well. ... So how do you adapt your deckbuilding to a meta like this?

Let me tell you my experience with this; I'm the guy who tends to run the most interaction at a table. I'm also the guy who tends to play stuff that ducks around control-heavy play.

1. Value creatures. Sphinx of Uthuun will get you stuff, even if they spend removal on it. Also, dire threats. Sepulchral Primordial and Diluvian Primordial make so much value that someone's Hero's Downfall isn't going to solve it on its own. The aim here is that if your opponents play 1-for-1 removal, that your 1 is better than their 1.

2. Lots of card draw. Like, lots of it. There are people on this forum who will vociferously disagree with me, but I believe holding a lot of options in a Reliquary Tower is one of the ways you can beat the grind against your opponents. If you have more cards than your opponent, they will run out of answers before you run out of threats.

3. Recursion that loops. Did you Living Death? It's better if you can pick up your Living Death with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed or Eternal Witness. That way, you can Living Death from the next wipe. And the wipe after that. Memorial to Folly + Ramunap Excavator, or Buried Ruin + Crucible of Worlds. Have an engine that essentially nullifies their removal over time.

4. Aggressively costed and/or indestructible generals. If you're general is 2-3 mana or indestructible, you'll be able to leverage it more than they're able to remove it. If you're playing something like Ephara, God of the Polis, or Karametra, God of Harvests you'll always have more card advantage than other players, and most cannot easily shut it down.

5. Sac outlets. Don't let someone's exile removal get you down. It's easy to play a High Market to dodge people's exile stuff. Bonus points if you can sacrifice multiple creatures (Viscera Seer, for example) in the face of something like Merciless Eviction.

6. Lightning Greaves is your friend. Make them spend the removal up front. If they do, they spent it. If they don't, they can't retroactively do it when you attack them.

7. Powerful answers of your own. Exile their stuff. If you're in blue, counter their draw or their big value propositions. Try to spend your removal/answers as efficiently as possible.

[Jemolk]

Well, other people have offered their strategies for it -- here's mine. Perhaps the most effective way to dodge removal in my experience is to try to always be at most the second-biggest threat at the table. Yes, you can punish removal used on your stuff, but you know what's even better? If your opponents use their removal on your other opponents' stuff. Make yourself an unappealing target to randomly bludgeon, and beyond that, hold up interaction yourself. If you build up a reputation as not winning out of nowhere, that would be best, because then other people are less likely to be constantly looking in your direction. If your wins generally take a while, then everyone who's concerned about stopping someone from winning will focus on the more immediate threat -- even if they know full well that long-term, you're the larger threat. If you watch Commander Clash from the MTGGoldfish crew, think something like how Richard wins most of the games he does. Basically, favor inevitability over speed, maintain a low profile for most of the game, and let the rest of the table do a lot of your work for you.

[Crazy Monkey]

I think that the methods used to keep a board state in heavy removal games really depend on what you're trying to do and how your opponents prefer to disrupt/remove threats. In terms of card selection, needing to play around Cyclonic Rift every 1-2 turns is very different than playing around a repeatable Solitude 1+ times every turn cycle. This can clearly depend on the makeup of the metagame and which specific decks are being played.

In all cases minimizing the "surface area" is one efficient method to do this. This basically means putting the minimum needed cards into play, for the minimum needed time. This avoids losing too much in a board wipe, and if you can reduce the number of turns needed, or change the timing of when you cast those cards then you can avoid the most possible non-instant speed interaction. In my mind, there are two types of exposure to removal: type and timing.

Reducing the effectiveness of removal by building around a type is a metagame-level thought process. If your aggro or voltron deck is often encountering Toxic Deluge and Wrath of God, then see what creature-based effects you can shift into non-creatures. If your metagame does not run as much enchantment removal as artifact removal, examine what versions of your effects can shift permanent types. This is the most often focus of discussions that want to reduce their surface area.

You can also reduce the effectiveness of removal against you by also narrowing the timing window for it to occur. One method to achieve this may be flash enablers such as Winding Canyons, Shimmer Myr or Vedalken Orrery (although the last of these is, itself, susceptible to this disruption) depending on your deck construction. Another method is to make more use of cards quickly; by increasing the frequency that you can use those resources. This may be haste, doublestrike and/or extra combats for aggressive decks, untapping effects for activated abilities, Oath of Teferi for planeswalkers and so on. The most severe form of this is a storm or combo win, which takes all of the needed actions to win in the minimum amount of time; however, the same mentality can be true for other strategies.

The next point, which was mentioned above, is to commit the least necessary resources to execute your strategy. This is basically just "not extending into board wipes", but it is similar to the concept of reducing the available time to interact. Keeping a key card in your hand makes it less visible as a threat and more protected from most interaction. This further extends your cards longevity, especially if removal is spent on other cards/people.

Finally, committing cards to proactively or reactive board protection.

Overall, my metagame has trended more towards proactive decks with moderate amounts of removal, so these experiences are a bit out of date.

[3drinks]

Switch to a stax game plan with self recursive creatures. A humble reassembling skelie with a SoFaF will get the job done despite not being flashy........

[ISBPathfinder]

You can also shift to something that has an ETB focus to the commander entering or even something that you want to die in the command zone. A good example of this might be something like Gonti, Lord of Luxury. I built him once on the back of a lot of recursion and just looping the commander.

[PrimevalCommander]

Great advise give so far. Reanimation and heavy draw are two of my most effective methods to combating removal heavy metas. Drawing more threats than they can answer can help quite a bit, as well as making each individual card less threatening until you have multiple cards. This makes spot removal weaker, but mass removal somewhat more effective. This is where the protection spells pick up to keep your engines running.

Graveyard based decks seem to be the most reslilient as a rule to heavy interaction because the graveyard is always a growing resource of value over time.

[3drinks]

Great advise give so far. Reanimation and heavy draw are two of my most effective methods to combating removal heavy metas. Drawing more threats than they can answer can help quite a bit, as well as making each individual card less threatening until you have multiple cards. This makes spot removal weaker, but mass removal somewhat more effective. This is where the protection spells pick up to keep your engines running.

Graveyard based decks seem to be the most reslilient as a rule to heavy interaction because the graveyard is always a growing resource of value over time.

Kaalia, Zenith Seeker has entered the chat. "there always another threat" being her motto.

[RowanKeltizar]

Having piloted a deck with a lot of interaction... spot removal, wipes, and counterspells, the best advice I can give you is more card draw. Specifically more card advantage in whatever form that takes for the strategy you are implementing. But that goes hand in hand with mana-resource. The more mana you can generate and the more cards you have access to, the more resiliant you will be to removal and interaction from your opponents.

Case in point, my friend has a Karametra, God of Harvests deck that shrugs off removal and interaction like it's nothing. I can All Is Dust and Time Spiral and he'll have a full field again a few turns later, and it's because the deck just has so many ways to gain card advantage and the mana to cast that advantage. It's unbelieveable for a green and white deck but he pulls it off.

[materpillar]

Well, other people have offered their strategies for it -- here's mine. Perhaps the most effective way to dodge removal in my experience is to try to always be at most the second-biggest threat at the table. Yes, you can punish removal used on your stuff, but you know what's even better? If your opponents use their removal on your other opponents' stuff. Make yourself an unappealing target to randomly bludgeon, and beyond that, hold up interaction yourself. If you build up a reputation as not winning out of nowhere, that would be best, because then other people are less likely to be constantly looking in your direction. If your wins generally take a while, then everyone who's concerned about stopping someone from winning will focus on the more immediate threat -- even if they know full well that long-term, you're the larger threat. If you watch Commander Clash from the MTGGoldfish crew, think something like how Richard wins most of the games he does. Basically, favor inevitability over speed, maintain a low profile for most of the game, and let the rest of the table do a lot of your work for you.

This is far and away my preferred method. Always have a strong enough position people don't want to bother you but not strong enough to waste removal on. That way people give you virtual card advantage by killing the stuff you want dead for you. Better for more battlecruiser metas though. The closer to cEDH the less relevant this is because boardstates go from 0 to everyone is dead fast enough that inevitably isn't nearly as relevant.

[pokken]

Having piloted a deck with a lot of interaction... spot removal, wipes, and counterspells, the best advice I can give you is more card draw

I don't want to be overly contrary here, but in my experience drawing cards is not complete answer to spot removal and countermagic, and comes up short against sweepers a lot too. You can only cast so many things, so unless you're also ramping significantly, overwhelming card draw can just wind up with you getting tempo'd out -- especially if they choose to interact with your card draw engines.

Drawing cards can definitely help, but playing more efficient cards and improving your play patterns will probably help more. Removal is much worse against cheap and resilient army-in-a-can cards like Scute Swarm than it is against powerhouse bombs like Sheoldred, Whispering One.

The #1 thing I see people lose to is their own greed - they put another thing on the board and make it correct to sweep. Passing the turn tapped out with a dominant board state is just so common.

So yes, draw cards, but I'd take a long look at play patterns before rebuilding decks.

[BaronCappuccino]

Politics is likely the key. A good Commander player excels at convincing opponents to act against their best interests. An old friend of mine was practically Purple Man at the EDH table. It's very hard to beat.

[Crazy Monkey]

I agree that, in my experience, changing how I played cards and politics was the largest impact when the meta is full of targeted removal. Pointing out tutors representing unknown threats, sharing hidden information, and discussing threats with as much honesty as possible but framing myself as a lower threat is the play pattern that I use. In an established meta game, this can work well but honesty is needed. It will backfire if you consistently overreduce your threat rating. We had a player end up constantly over-asssessed as the threat because he underbid his threat to the table.

Once you've done that, adding cards to protect yourself and dedicating deck space to this can be done. This may draw+ redundancy, proactive protection, or reactive protection. These may be necessary based on the deck used in the meta, but card slots are precious and table talk/ strategy doesn't take deck space. Protection cards are more often when the deck requires a heavy board presence to execute the plan, or if it's often the archenemy.

All that said, I like to play greedy and get tripped up for not doing these play patterns more often that I'd like to admit. I am also a notoriously bad at lying in my meta.

[NZB2323]

In a game of commander, I think card draw can be the greatest answer to spot removal. As long as you are filling your hand with threats it's okay if some of your threats get removed.

These cards answer spot removal:

• Mother of Runes
• Giver of Runes
• Selfless Spirit
• Flawless Maneuver
• Deflecting Swat
• Fierce Guardianship
• Force of Will
• Counterspell
• Negate
• Veil of Summer
• Heroic Intervention
• Golgari Charm
• Boros Charm

These commanders do well against spot removal: Yarok, the Desecrated, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Edgar Markov, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Animar, Soul of Elements, Narset, Enlightened Master, and Ravos, Soultender.

Sigarda, Animar, and Narset can be tough to target with spot removal. Yarok you're fine with someone killing a creature after you get 2 ETB triggers off of it. Edgar creates so many Vampires, you don't care if 1 dies. If you have to recast Sidisi from the command zone you get her ETB trigger that turn, and if someone kills a zombie you can find a way to get it back from your graveyard. Ravos can get creatures back from your GY.

[RowanKeltizar]

I don't want to be overly contrary here, but in my experience drawing cards is not complete answer to spot removal and countermagic, and comes up short against sweepers a lot too. You can only cast so many things, so unless you're also ramping significantly, overwhelming card draw can just wind up with you getting tempo'd out -- especially if they choose to interact with your card draw engines.

Drawing cards can definitely help, but playing more efficient cards and improving your play patterns will probably help more. Removal is much worse against cheap and resilient army-in-a-can cards like Scute Swarm than it is against powerhouse bombs like Sheoldred, Whispering One.

The #1 thing I see people lose to is their own greed - they put another thing on the board and make it correct to sweep. Passing the turn tapped out with a dominant board state is just so common.

So yes, draw cards, but I'd take a long look at play patterns before rebuilding decks.

Yeah I don't disagree with any of this, I may have oversimplified what I was trying to say. I think a pragmatic and holistic approach that is appropriate for your meta makes the most sense. Simply saying "card draw" is the answer isn't correct.

To my mind, "card advantage" is an umbrella term that includes things like recursion, draw, and card efficiency. These are deckbuilding items.

But ultimately yes, play patterns, politics, and strategy are just as important. "Not being the threat" is a delicate art that be can be one of the most difficult things to learn about playing edh. Overextending can certainly be a problem as well.

There is a lot of great advice here from everyone.

[3drinks]

These commanders do well against spot removal: Yarok, the Desecrated, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Edgar Markov, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Animar, Soul of Elements, Narset, Enlightened Master, and Ravos, Soultender.

People need to stop sleeping on Kaalia, Zenith Seeker because as touched on, this is literally the role she excels in.

[RowanKeltizar]

People need to stop sleeping on Kaalia, Zenith Seeker because as touched on, this is literally the role she excels in.

Yeah, i generally agree. She's isn't archenemy on turn 1, however my own list does trend toward mid-range aggro which can be fairly threatening in later turns. So yeah, I can alleviate eary hate (like I would get with Kaalia of the Vast) but she doesn't save me from the hate later on that arises just from my deck doing it's aggro thing.

Kaalia is a good example of the kind of commander that is a low profile enabler, rather than something high profile like Gishath, Sun's Avatar who says "answer me naaooww!!". This kind of commander never really justifies removal but they support what your deck is doing by offering incremental but inexorable value. I think that is a smart way to go. Low profile but high value over time.

Besides Karametra, God of Harvests whome I already mentioned, other random examples of this kind of commander:

Emry, Lurker of the Loch
Toshiro Umezawa
Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant
Toski, Bearer of Secrets
Jori En, Ruin Diver
Old Rutstein

I definitely trend toward high profile commanders however, so it also depends on what your playstyle is. I tend to use my commander as a finisher.

You can also run a commander with built in evasion or indestructibility, or alternatively a commander that actually wants to die, i.e. Elenda, the Dusk Rose.

Another option is to run a commander that people actually want to stay on the field like Selvala, Explorer Returned (until you get Umbral Mantle that is lol).

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Reading through it it all makes sense, though I fear that card draw is my biggest issue. I've been giving it more attention lately, but I still find it very difficult. Because ideally you draw cards because you do things you want to do anyway. It's why i stopped playing stuff like Tidings or Stroke of Genius a while ago because taking a turn off costs too much tempo.

There's also the issue of space: 10 ramp 10 card draw 10 removal/interaction 40 lands means only 30 cards left including your commander. How do you make sure not every deck is 70% the same? My meta is too efficient to play subpar removal because it's on theme, paying 1 or 2 extra for a theme rider is not going to work.

In short: i'm probably lacking the feeling or insight how to balance all these factors out. But thanks for any input, every insight is valuable.

[3drinks]

I think your issue is the 10/10/10 effect. Those are command zone numbers, and they're too generic and oriented around sounding nice because of their even nature. They are most certainly too broad and made up solely to catch the eyes of those watching the stream.

[RowanKeltizar]

In short: i'm probably lacking the feeling or insight how to balance all these factors out. But thanks for any input, every insight is valuable.

Why don't you post your decklist in the decklist section to get more specific recommendations?

[NZB2323]

These commanders do well against spot removal: Yarok, the Desecrated, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Edgar Markov, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Animar, Soul of Elements, Narset, Enlightened Master, and Ravos, Soultender.

People need to stop sleeping on Kaalia, Zenith Seeker because as touched on, this is literally the role she excels in.

Yes, every commander with a ETB ability is great against spot removal, which is part of the reason why Golos, Tireless Pilgrim got banned. I just didn't name every commander with an ETB ability, but Kaalia, Zenith Seeker, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths, Bladewing the Risen, Carth the Lion, Demonlord Belzenlok, Dragonlord Atarka, Dragonlord Silumgar, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, General Tazri, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Gyruda, Doom of Depths, Harald, King of Skemfar, Jirina Kudro, Kardur, Doomscourge, Kogla, the Titan Ape, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, Lena, Selfless Champion, Massacre Girl, Munda, Ambush Leader, Muxus, Goblin Grandee, Naru Meha, Master Wizard, Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, Niv-Mizzet Reborn, Omnath, Locus of the Roil, Prime Speaker Zegana, Ruxa, Patient Professor, Sharuum the Hegemon, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Siona, Captain of the Pyleas, Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep, The Mimeoplasm, Tiamat, Tishana, Voice of Thunder, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor, Verdeloth the Ancient, ect.

Cards like these is why Darksteel Mutation is one of the best "removal" spells in EDH.

[NZB2323]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Reading through it it all makes sense, though I fear that card draw is my biggest issue. I've been giving it more attention lately, but I still find it very difficult. Because ideally you draw cards because you do things you want to do anyway. It's why i stopped playing stuff like Tidings or Stroke of Genius a while ago because taking a turn off costs too much tempo.

There's also the issue of space: 10 ramp 10 card draw 10 removal/interaction 40 lands means only 30 cards left including your commander. How do you make sure not every deck is 70% the same? My meta is too efficient to play subpar removal because it's on theme, paying 1 or 2 extra for a theme rider is not going to work.

In short: i'm probably lacking the feeling or insight how to balance all these factors out. But thanks for any input, every insight is valuable.

A bunch of my decks are different. Edric, Spymaster of Trest doesn't need any more card draw. The only card draw spells I play with him are Elvish Visionary, Explore, and Coiling Oracle. Removal spells can be found on creatures like Caustic Caterpillar.

My cleric tribal deck has enough card draw with Tymna the Weaver/Ravos, Soultender, but it has cleric draw and removal with Dawnbringer Cleric, Leonin Relic-Warder, Banisher Priest, Fiend Hunter, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and Twilight Prophet, but it also runs staples like Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Smothering Tithe, Path to Exile, and Swords to Plowshares. Mother of Runes and
Giver of Runes can protect my commanders.

My Sarulf, Realm Eater deck plays way more than 10 removal spells. It's like 50% removal spells, with lots of cards that protect him like Golgari Charm, Avoid Fate, Professor's Warning, Oblivion's Hunger, and it runs Ancient Animus as a removal spell that I don't run in any of my other decks.

Edgar Markov doesn't run any ramp because I want to be playing 1 drop vampires, the removal is Goblin Bombardment, Captivating Vampire, Voldaren Ambusher, and the card draw is cards like Necropotence and Dusk Legion Zealot. The deck doesn't play any cards to protect Edgar because most games I don't cast him.

Ghen, Arcanum Weaver runs removal such as Darksteel Mutation, Journey to Nowhere, Grasp of Fate, Elspeth Conquers Death, The Eldest Reborn, Doomwake Giant, and Thoughtrender Lamia can make sure my opponents don't have a ton of removal in their hands. Ghen plays cards like Angelic Renewal and Kaya's Ghostform to protect him.

Kaalia of the Vast angel tribal plays removal on cards like Angel of Despair and Angel of Serenity, not to mention board wipes with Avacyn, Angel of Hope, who protects Kaalia, along with Righteous War, Swiftfoot Boots, and Lightning Greaves.

Niv-Mizzet, Parun is mainly card draw, ramp, and removal(or counterspells).

I mean, both Niv-Mizzet and Edric run counterspells, and both Kaalia of the Vast and Tymna the Weaver/Ravos, Soultender run Flawless Maneuver, Deadly Rollick, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Despark, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Talisman of Hierarchy, Orzhov Signet, Austere Command, and Cleansing Nova, but I feel like none of my decks are 70% the same.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

In short: i'm probably lacking the feeling or insight how to balance all these factors out. But thanks for any input, every insight is valuable.

Why don't you post your decklist in the decklist section to get more specific recommendations?

I'll start doing that. Life is kind if busy at the moment so I don't know how quickly I will get to that but when I post them I'll drop a link.