[Discussion!] How do you know when you've gone "too far" with effect redundancy in deck building?

[3drinks]

Gone are the days where we scoured decades old sets for that ninth piece of creature removal or vague piece of clutch graveyard hate that barely two-and-a-half men people even knew existed. You know the days, when Rend Flesh was considered a "premiere" removal spell because "who tf plays spirits". Nowadays the game has evolved, cards have evolved, and WotC has been real good about giving more modern "functional reprints" of cards with such effects. These days, it's real easy to go down the rabbit hole of "well I'm playing these disenchants, so I guess I'll play the new one too" and before long you end up playing fourteen functional copies of that one effect. Meanwhile, the game expands outwardly, and more and more of various permanent types need answering. This is especially true in commander where most people look to you to solve the threat because you're the only one playing removal for some god Bolas forsaken reason.

So how do you know how many of such an effect is necessary, and where do you draw the line? What does the [effect] have to do for you in order to still be playable in your own eyes? Do you dig down the rabbit hole for the "perfect answer" or just grab one because it's "good enough" or "cute"?

[Sinis]

I tend to want to have 10 of an effect. 10 spot removal cards, 10 card draw cards, 10 ramp cards (but only 3-4 board wipes at this point). At some point you have to kill your darlings, and the Rend Fleshs of the world just don't make the cut. My criteria is (usually) to play the best versions of those effects, where 'best' is some confluence of how effective they are vs. cost. As more cards are printed, I sub out cards that are 'worse' in some sense. Despark over Utter End is a perfect example; Despark generally hits the things I want to hit, it exiles, and it costs 2 mana while Utter End costs a bit too much for (mostly) the same effect.

There are an increasing number of cards that are 'good but not good enough' for my decks, because they seem useful/strong in a vacuum, only for there to be 10 cards ahead of it in lineup of inclusion.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I've inched towards higher proportions of removal over time. I rarely have to dig deep to find a 15th quality removal spell though.

[pokken]

Man I am playing less and less removal these days, it's so boring to have every game be a game of musical chairs but the last person to sit is the one who doesn't get their crap removed and sticks a threat.

I try to find removal effects that also advance my gameplan; things like Maze of Ith in Breena, the Demagogue superfriends, where keeping other people's stuff on the board is an advantage for me (since people having stuff to attack with is good for me).

I'm also running fewer and fewer sweepers, usually only a handful of wipes and I try to err on the side of ones that will double as winconditions like Winds of Abandon Cyclonic Rift and Ruinous Ultimatum.


In Ephara, my most played and probably most hard-going deck, this is my interaction suite:

• cyclonic rift
• swords to plowshares
• unexpectedly absent
• fierce guardianship
• mana drain
• forbid
• force of will
• muddle the mixture
• gilded drake
• brazen borrower
• skyclave apparition
• spell queller
• glen elendra archmage
• selfless squire
• venser, shaper savant
• solitude
• agent of treachery

And sweepers

• hour of revelation
• supreme verdict
• winds of abandon

As you can see probably half my suite synergizes directly with Ephara (cards like Spell Queller and Venser, Shaper Savant), and there's not a lot of random goodstuff removal. No Generous Gift or Path to Exile.

I always try my best to run things that synergize strongly with my commander or my gameplan for 'staple' effects like ramp/card draw, and rarely play things like Rhystic Study that are just generically good, and rarely go deeper on spot removal spells than 3-4 deep unless there's a synergistic reason for it.

---

Philosophically speaking I think the pendulum has swung way too hard toward running 20+ nonsynergistic cards in your deck as "autoincludes" like signets, ramp spells, goodstuff draw and tutor effects, etc.

That stuff is just boring. Every deck turns into the same thing real fast. The template approach to deckbuilding is one of the worst aspects of modern EDH to me.

[BaronCappuccino]

I'm currently messing with Malcolm and Ramirez as mono u pirate partners, where the goal is to play a hell of a lot of answers while using the two treasure a turn to play giant sea creatures. I run 24 instant speed answers and 6 sorcery, in addition to about 24 or so answers stapled to my sea creatures. I absolutely love redundancy. My deck is all answers.

[XccentriX]

I've been keeping the "play to win vs play not to lose" mentality at the forefront while deck building. If I'm catching myself adding more redundant interactions and answers, likely I am playing a "not to lose" game and may be hurting my win-con consistency.

I've been toying a bit with a hypergeometric calculator to get some stats on redundant effects. If I am seeking to have an answer in hand by turn 3, but rather not have multiple copies if possible, then 8 is my sweet spot according to the math. Things get more complex when I have something like Esper Charm and Muddle the Mixture that offers some variety at the cost of conditional removal.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think that when I make a new deck its sort of a crapshoot based on what my objectives for the deck are as far as consistency. I take a guess based on how I want the deck to function and I plan to adjust based on how things feel after a number of games. I tend to be testing a lot of concepts in consistency in the first handful of games I play so I am not too worried about being spot on in the first few games. I try not to have a general number to the number count for most effects generally speaking because I like to be a little more reactive to the gameplan of the commander / deck concept than to assume I always want X draw or spot removal.

[Cyberium]

There's a reason why counterspells are so loved, they both act as preemptive "removal" and can protect your stuff. I try to use no more than 5~7 or at least make sure most of them do more than just countering stuff. Under the same reasoning, I also uses a lot of charms (like Rakdos Charm/Sultai Charm) so I can have multiple functions on one card.

All together, about 10~15 cards that can serve as counters/removal, with bulk of them doing something extra. I'm not a fan of using 10+ counterspells unless I play mono-blue.

[3drinks]

Maybe that's been my problem. There's so many quality removals I feel dumb if I don't play all of them. And most of them is bolt, plow, reb, pyro, def swat, devour in shadow (the new one is a strict upgrade now), and then I toss in 3-5 sweepers, a dense tutour suite and raw natural CA, and before I know it...I've got like seven slots left for creatures 🙄.

[Sanity_Eclipse]

I think that when I make a new deck its sort of a crapshoot based on what my objectives for the deck are as far as consistency. I take a guess based on how I want the deck to function and I plan to adjust based on how things feel after a number of games. I tend to be testing a lot of concepts in consistency in the first handful of games I play so I am not too worried about being spot on in the first few games. I try not to have a general number to the number count for most effects generally speaking because I like to be a little more reactive to the gameplan of the commander / deck concept than to assume I always want X draw or spot removal.

This I think/feel is where I lean.

A couple/few cards like Beast Within creep in but I try to build decks so they're somewhat different, with somewhat different answers and approaches to things, etc etc. Super mana light deck? 1 or 2 mana answers and effects and such. Etc etc.

[DirkGently]

I'm always refining the structure of the deck as I work on it.

Usually I start off with some idea of what I want the deck to do, and then I start leafing through cards. Sometimes new functions stick out to me that I hadn't initially considered. Once I've got all the cards for consideration, I sort them into piles by function.

After that is when the relevant bit happens for this discussion. Once I have a better idea of what functions I want, and how strong the cards available for those functions are, I can start to narrow things down. I have a few different strategies I employ, but I think one of the better ones is to make an outline of my deck based on how many cards I want in each function slot. For example, a Phelddagrif prototype might look something like:

1 Commander
20 targeted removal
10 sweepers
15 counterspells
9 value/other
45 land

And then I filter each pile down to that number.

But usually it's a bit messier than that - I get the piles each down to a reasonable number, but then maybe I see that the weakest card in one pile is a lot worse than the weakest cards in other piles. This might push me to revise my outline, and add a few slots to the meatier categories while removing from the anemic ones. I also decide which specific synergies matter and which aren't worth it, and refocus accordingly.

Now, as far as actually refining the decklist (something I do much more rarely than build new ones, as might be guessed from my list of decks...) I think the refining process is similar to the creation process, just iterated. Both playing the deck more, and having time to revisit and ruminate on it, give me more insight on which functions need more focus and which can be diminished. As far as hitting the right number, here are a few questions you can ask to help refine it:

-How many of this effect do I want to draw in an average game?
For an average meta, I'd say you can multiply that number by about 5 to get the number of copies to run, as a general baseline.

-How important is it that I draw at least one copy of this effect?
-How useful are additional copies of this effect?
If extra copies don't reduce significantly in utility, I'm more likely to run a lot of copies. Conversely, if they aren't useful but the first copy is crucial, I'm more likely to play the best options plus a tutor suite.

-How many tutors do I have that can find this effect when needed in a timely manner?
Especially if the function isn't tempo-crucial, I'm a lot more likely to rely on a tutor suite so that my % chance to have at least one copy is very high, while my % chance to draw too many is kept low. Great example here would be sac outlets, discard outlets, etc where additional copies serve no purpose except redundancy.

-When is having this effect important?
This can go a few different ways. Interaction, for example, you need suddenly, when your opponent is about to do something dangerous, so you probably won't have time to tutor for it - hence you need to focus on the raw % of your deck and not the tutor + raw %. It's also relevant to consider which turn you want the effect on. Some effects you really want in your starting hand, like 2-drop ramp. Some effects might be crucial, but not until turn 6, like a board wipe. Keep that in mind when thinking about how many cards you'll see, and how much mana you'll have available to tutor etc.

-How many cards do I expect to see by the turn when I want to have this effect?
This is a bit of a multiplier to consider with the rest of the questions. If your deck is capable of drawing a ton of cards, you can lower the numbers a bit, but it might also make tutors weaker since they're poor tempo plays.

[toctheyounger]

I've felt recently that as important as removal is its less necessary in spades than it has been historically. A lot of the games I play end up being a race to the finish line, so it's less important to have a No for every situation than it is to have efficient removal that doesn't slow you down while still providing sufficient answer. But hey thats power creep, and, at least partially, a rule 0 thing. It means your threat assessment has to be on point and you're really looking for a point at which you can pull the rug out from under someone and take the lead....Jesus, I'm describing Wacky Races here.

As it is it does vary deck to deck. I have a few that can withstand abd thrive in wipe heavy environments so ill go in more on those decks, others need a lighter touch. I'm personally mostly to sit around half a dozen answers of any kind as an average number, including targeted answers abd wipes. That might go up or down depending on what I'm trying to do but that seems a good place to start.

As with any deck though you look for synergy and a lot of these might exist in an answer form and tick other boxes too so it.might be more like 7.5 answers than 6 or what have you.

TL;DR - it depends.

[Treamayne]

I, too, base my removal/sweeper selection on the deck concept/general/strategy. I also tend to prefer flexibility over cost, and theme over function. For example, one of my "ManLands" decks, Estrid, runs things like Planar Collapse, Planar Outburst, and Winds of Rath for sweepers, and things like Broken Bond, Pir's Whim, Wellspring, Infiltrator's Magemark and Blaze of Glory as spot answers.

Basically, when I am reviewing the maybe pile, my thought process goes like this:
- What am I missing?
- Is there an on-theme option available? (like Broken Bond for enchantment/artifact removal above)
- Is there a flexible option available? (Like Infil Magmark for near-unblockable attacks on Planeswalkers)
- Is there a niche/underused option available?
- If I made it this far, I may settle for the "common option" ... or just leave the "hole"

[Mookie]

I usually decide on the breakdown of my decks through testing and iteration - play a few games, see how things feel, and tune as appropriate. For tuning, I usually think in terms of three different deck attributes: ramp/mana, card advantage, and action. When tuning decks, I try to identify which resource I find myself most constrained on and add more of it, cutting cards from the other two categories.

• If I find myself flooding out and not having enough stuff to spend my mana on, I'll cut ramp to add more card draw or more action.
• If I have more cards than I can actually play, I'll cut card draw for more ramp and cheaper proactive plays.
• If I'm unable to close out a game or my opponents play more threats than I can deal with, I cut card draw and ramp to add more (pro/re)active cards.

...I don't think I'd ever just decide on an arbitrary number for how much of an effect I want - lots of cards can fill multiple slots, and things get even more complicated when you add in tutors and recursion as extra copies.

Speaking to the original context of adding new redundant copies of an effect to a deck, I don't think I've ever had that problem - if a new sweet removal spell is printed, my default strategy to find space for it is by cutting whichever is my least favorite removal spell already in the deck. Similar story for card draw and other slot types.

[PrimevalCommander]

I let the deck tell me what it needs. My Karador deck was playing 6-8 instant/sorcery targeted spot removal and 6+ creatures that were spot removal as well. Worked amazing in a battle cruiser meta, but as the game sped up I was stuck with all this removal and no real relevant threats worth targeting and couldn't develop my own board. Ended up slashing removal pieces for ramp, draw, and engine pieces and have been MUCH better off. I'm still packing about 9-10 pieces of spot removal between creatures and non-creatures, but down from 15+ really helped smooth my early game.

Same with other decks. If my hand goes empty too often, I cram in more draw. If I'm sitting with my Krosan Grip and Return to Nature in hand with no good targets for several games, then one comes out. If I know I'm a bit light on removal, 5 or less, and I keep getting blown out by single commanders, or single value pieces, then I'll up that number. If the commander draws cards I can be much less worried about card advantage and just focus on triggering the commander draw effect. If the commander doesn't draw cards I have to dedicate quite a few (6-10) slots dedicated to getting cards so I can keep casting.

Once you get a feel for how the deck plays, and you consciously take note of how your game is progressing over multiple runs, any glaring holes in your plan should reveal themselves. My Kalamax, the Stormsire deck was formerly Riku of Two Reflections and I simply swapped commanders and added a few other instants. It was painfully obvious that it wasn't going to really flow doing that so I had to gut much of the Riku deck, which was 90% foil , and start building to the new commander's strengths. After about a dozen games and contant flow of cards in and out, the deck is starting to function the way I envisioned. It is still a work in progress for sure, but I'm much happier with the deck once it started showing what it really wanted

[XccentriX]

When playtesting a deck, testing redundancy cards, what's the magic turn number? Creature on the board, answer in hand, by turn 3? Legit threat by turn 5?

If my deck is running slow, I'm guessing a few more sweepers would help the tempo. Usually I'm running artifacts, so spot removal on artifact-hate-permanents is +5.

[3drinks]

"You don't have to play them all". That applies to everything, every card category, every utilization axis, every facet of deck building, basically. "It's okay to not play everything". I'm just gonna keep saying that until I hammer it in.

[PrimevalCommander]

"You don't have to play them all". That applies to everything, every card category, every utilization axis, every facet of deck building, basically. "It's okay to not play everything". I'm just gonna keep saying that until I hammer it in.

I need to tell myself this when power creep happens and my pet cards look like crap and I cant fit in both.

[toctheyounger]

"You don't have to play them all". That applies to everything, every card category, every utilization axis, every facet of deck building, basically. "It's okay to not play everything". I'm just gonna keep saying that until I hammer it in.

To my mind, your deck should tell you when the balance isn't right.

Do you have counter magic rotting in your hand while your opponents won't commit to a board state? You went too far.

Do you have removal rotting in your hand with nothing to use it on? You went too far.

Do you have win cons rotting in your hand while you have the same or a similar effect in play already? You went too far.

Obviously, grain of salt here; there's no accounting for the randomness of a shuffle in a 100 card singleton format, but nonetheless, these are the sort of trends I look out for over the course of a few games.

[XccentriX]

Statistically, 30 entrees (games) are required for a test run to have enough attempts to be considered viable. But as a human, I have maybe 3 "feel-bad" games before I feel the urge to tweek the deck.

[Jemolk]

For me, what's required for an effect is for it to be either on-flavor or absolutely required for the deck to work and not off-flavor. The former is preferred, while the latter is merely tolerated, and I still try to get it as close to on-flavor as possible. For example, in my Nicol Bolas deck, I run Hour of Glory as one of my spot removal spells and Patient Rebuilding as one of my sources of card draw. Other draw spells include Kefnet the Mindful, Eternal of Harsh Truths, and Deep Analysis|Eternal Masters. To be used as a win con, though, he needs haste and some form of protection, so I run Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, justified by the fact that his planeswalker form wears some bits of armor, including leg armor (greaves), plus some on his hind feet (semi-justifying the boots).

Meanwhile, Bird Tribal runs Wing Shards, Vengeful Dreams (because Major Teroh flavor text), Lieutenant Kirtar, and Kirtar's Desire as spot removal, and Kirtar's Wrath as one of its sweepers (because Kirtar). Hard to get on-flavor artifact and enchantment removal for birds, though, so I just went for Abolish|Prophecy and Dismantling Blow|Invasion as my initial pieces of choice, since they're from sets related to some of the legendary birds and don't ever in any way contradict the flavor of the deck.

I find this to be way more interesting and fun than just jamming staples, and it pushes me to dig through old, weird cards to find on-flavor options more often than not, often capturing once again the fun of finding hilariously odd, obscure cards in random boxes of bulk that do exactly what you need and want.

[Signe]

Honestly a lot of games. That's it, that's how I know, I play a bunch of games and as I start to notice redundancy in my draws, I weed out things that are either too specific, too slow, or not helping me. I don't have any kind of universal "sweet spot" because every effect is different. Having a lot of direct damage, a lot of removal ,and a lot of counterspells are all very different kinds of surplus, and in the case of removal even that has sub-categories that need tending. I really do think it just comes down to playing games and knowing your group.