[discussion] Board Wipes

[Mookie]

Broad discussion topic: how common are board wipes in your games, and how many board wipes do people run in their decks?

For context, something I've noticed is that board wipes feel rare in my current meta. It feels like games have at most one or two board wipes (usually cast by me), which means creature-based strategies have a tendency to snowball out of control. On the flip side, the meta I was in a while ago felt significantly more hostile to creatures, with board wipes potentially coming every other turn. I'm not sure if that is a sign of my current meta being more casual / more creature-focused than my previous meta... or if the format itself has shifted to be less board-wipe focused over time.

As a side note, I'll say that it feels like control-based strategies have become more difficult over time as the quality of both threats and protection have risen (plus there are more creatures with indestructible / ward / etc.). I recently had a game where I tapped out to cast a board wipe and my two opponents responded with Teferi's Protection and Clever Concealment, which was... pretty bad. Do people have thoughts re: how to build a successful control deck in Commander these days?

[aliciaofthevast]

I think, you just have to read the board. Cards like Unbreakable Formation or Your Temple Is Under Attack are fairly telegraphed and quite small in number. If you anticipate one, just don't wipe, do something else to maybe bait them into committing more to go over you? Then come back when they don't have the mana up. Obviously Flawless Maneuver is a pretty hard card to play around though, however you can at least punish these reactive spells by playing more efficient wipes such as Vanquish the Horde or Blasphemous Act to at least get mana economy off of the reaction (your 1-2 spent beats their 3 mv response).

Or change up your wipe suite. It's cool that you have that Heroic Intervention, but here's a Languish or Hallowed Burial.

If it's the latter spells, sometimes when they have it, they just have it. Clever concealment at least forces them to have four untapped bodies if they want the freecast. The problem with mass phase out spells is that you can only interact with it by Counterspell. Well, that or force them to spend that spell on their own turn or else lose their board. There's not a lot of options for this, but Rout and Fated Retribution are pretty okay at it.

I hope this helps you!

[Avz]

A control deck that is closest to the traditional 60 card archetype has been, and still is, one of the most difficult styles to build and play in edh. Your post alluded to one of the biggest challenges that control faces in edh; the lack of a consistent, well-defined meta. In tournament formats, control decks are tailor built to handle the decks they know they will be playing against, down to deck lists being tweaked for specific tournaments. I think the world of edh is too large a place to put much emphasis on large scale shifts in the format. If you're looking to play control, you MUST consider the meta you're playing in.

Of course, the argument for stax being the best way to play control in edh will always be made, but personally, I find this to be a cheap answer that doesn't actually provide the desired play pattern of a traditional control deck. My meta sounds pretty similar to your current one. One or two wipes a game, on rare occasion more. I have found the best way to play control is by establishing a small but robust card advantage engine that can dissuade small early and midgame attacks from coming your way, backed up with a few spot removal pieces for anything more dangerous. In my meta, people will be building up big board states and eventually start swinging for more significant amounts or even lethal. Because of the specific way that my group works, which is typically the aggression is targeted towards the biggest perceived threat instead of the weakest, if you maintain a smallish boardstate, and don't tutor or draw excessive amounts of cards, the first big swings will not likely be at you. Once a player or two is taken out, this is when you go true control, start boardwiping with counterspell backup, start drawing as many cards as you can, and putting out your game-winning threats. However, this of course does not work if your meta likes to take out the weakest link first, and you'd have to adjust your plan. 60 card control decks do not typically counter and 1-for-1 every single card the opponent plays. They answer the actual threats that the opponent presents, then once the opponents resources have been depleted they establish their own threat.

One last note, edh is hard to play well. Playing control in edh is especially hard, and there are few true analogies to what is required to be successful in a last-man-standing, free-for-all game, which has large amounts of both hidden information and randomness. I will leave you with my attempt at a control deck via Isperia the Inscrutable which attempts to solve these previously mentioned problems of hidden information with some peek effects and the randomness with a tutor engine in the command zone. It's worth noting that the deck lacks the best type of finisher that a control deck would desire, a compact combo. This was an intentional concession to the desires of myself and my playgroup. https://archidekt.com/decks/802070/insc ... spirations

Hope this helps.

[NZB2323]

I think it varies pod to pod. One guy at my LGS is running Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir with Knight Exemplar, Unbreakable Formation, Akroma's Will, Flawless Maneuver and a bunch of board wipes. And even if his board isn't indestructible he can get knights back from his GY with his commander. It's kind of similar to my cleric tribal deck that runs Selfless Spirit, Flawless Maneuver, and a bunch of board wipes. I'm even okay with my field not being indestructible if I have Arena Rector, Academy Rector, Rotlung Reanimator, and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim in play, and I can get creatures back with Ravos, Soultender.

My Morophon, the Boundless deck plays Blasphemous Act, Éowyn, Shieldmaiden plays Cyclonic Rift, Legolas, Counter of Kills plays Cyclonic Rift, Raise the Palisade, and Ezuri's Predation, but Edric, Spymaster of Trest doesn't run any. I never ran any in Edgar Markov either or Winota, Joiner of Forces.

Then there are specific to the type of deck board wipes. Doomwake Giant in Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, Noxious Ghoul in Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Urza's Ruinous Blast in Captain Sisay, Archfiend of Ifnir in Neheb, the Worthy.

But I guess I run fewer board wipes than I used to. I had a Sarulf, Realm Eater deck where he is a walking board wipe and a Kaalia of the Vast deck that had Avacyn, Angel of Hope as a secret commander and all the board wipes but I noticed people didn't like playing against those so I stopped playing them. I also had a Nymris, Oona's Trickster control deck that only ran Cyclonic Rift as a board wipe but 25% of the deck was counterspells and 25% of the deck was spot removal. My Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck ran Evacuation, Cyclonic Rift, and Blasphemous Act.

The issue with playing control is that one player will target you for playing a board wipe or a counterspell or for fear you will lock them out of the game, and it takes a while to have a finishing threat, or if you do they'll look to eliminate you because of the threat. Part of my strategy in EDH is to play unique decks that people enjoy playing against that are low threat, but still have interactions and ways to close the game out: Cleric tribal, Chicago Bulls Tribal, Edric only commons in the 99, and if people are playing infinite combos I can pull out my Kavu combo deck.

[Mookie]

If you anticipate one, just don't wipe, do something else to maybe bait them into committing more to go over you?

This is theoretically reasonable, but I don't think it's actually actionable - if your opponent is threatening lethal, waiting a turn to cast a board wipe isn't really a feasible option (and they're unlikely to tap out next turn anyway if they do have an answer). Simultaneously, if you are behind in the early / midgame, that's often because you've missed a land drop, which makes it extremely unlikely that you'll be able to cast the multiple spells necessary to force your board wipe through.

you can at least punish these reactive spells by playing more efficient wipes such as Vanquish the Horde or Blasphemous Act

I'll agree with this, although there aren't that many super-efficient board wipes available. I do think I'll pick up a few copies of The Battle of Bywater though. I like the idea of running more instant-speed board wipes, but they tend to be rather expensive to cast (which, again, is rough if you're behind due to missing a land drop). Evacuation and Engulf the Shore are relatively cheap, at least.

My meta sounds pretty similar to your current one. One or two wipes a game, on rare occasion more. I have found the best way to play control is by establishing a small but robust card advantage engine that can dissuade small early and midgame attacks from coming your way, backed up with a few spot removal pieces for anything more dangerous.

Yeah, I think this may be the way to go. Instead of making it so that your opponents can't attack you, focus on making it so that they don't want to. I think the threats / value engines available these days are just too strong to actually run your opponents out of cards, which means traditional control strategies aren't really viable.

The issue with playing control is that one player will target you for playing a board wipe or a counterspell or for fear you will lock them out of the game, and it takes a while to have a finishing threat, or if you do they'll look to eliminate you because of the threat.

Ha, this is definitely my experience. If any of my opponents are playing creature-based strategies (read: all of them), they'll focus on me because I'm known to run board wipes. Which leads to a vicious cycle of me adding more board wipes to my decks so my opponents don't have creatures to attack me with.

[NZB2323]

If you anticipate one, just don't wipe, do something else to maybe bait them into committing more to go over you?

This is theoretically reasonable, but I don't think it's actually actionable - if your opponent is threatening lethal, waiting a turn to cast a board wipe isn't really a feasible option (and they're unlikely to tap out next turn anyway if they do have an answer). Simultaneously, if you are behind in the early / midgame, that's often because you've missed a land drop, which makes it extremely unlikely that you'll be able to cast the multiple spells necessary to force your board wipe through.

you can at least punish these reactive spells by playing more efficient wipes such as Vanquish the Horde or Blasphemous Act

I'll agree with this, although there aren't that many super-efficient board wipes available. I do think I'll pick up a few copies of The Battle of Bywater though. I like the idea of running more instant-speed board wipes, but they tend to be rather expensive to cast (which, again, is rough if you're behind due to missing a land drop). Evacuation and Engulf the Shore are relatively cheap, at least.

My meta sounds pretty similar to your current one. One or two wipes a game, on rare occasion more. I have found the best way to play control is by establishing a small but robust card advantage engine that can dissuade small early and midgame attacks from coming your way, backed up with a few spot removal pieces for anything more dangerous.

Yeah, I think this may be the way to go. Instead of making it so that your opponents can't attack you, focus on making it so that they don't want to. I think the threats / value engines available these days are just too strong to actually run your opponents out of cards, which means traditional control strategies aren't really viable.

The issue with playing control is that one player will target you for playing a board wipe or a counterspell or for fear you will lock them out of the game, and it takes a while to have a finishing threat, or if you do they'll look to eliminate you because of the threat.

Ha, this is definitely my experience. If any of my opponents are playing creature-based strategies (read: all of them), they'll focus on me because I'm known to run board wipes. Which leads to a vicious cycle of me adding more board wipes to my decks so my opponents don't have creatures to attack me with.

You could go the opposite route and play a group hug deck with Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis with Insurrection as your win-con.

[yeti1069]

I generally try to run 3+ board wipes, or semi-wipes (Make An Example, for example) in every deck. Some are up to 5.

In my old meta back in Brooklyn, we'd often see a board wipe every other turn. In the group I played with on Zoom during the first year of the pandemic it wasn't uncommon to see 1-2 board wipes per turn cycle.

Now, at the LGS I've been going to in CT, it's often 0-2 per game.

The first meta is why I scrapped my Edgar Markov deck: I could drop 2 opponents regularly, but the deck couldn't recover enough from that many wipes to go the distance ever. 3-player game: ~75% win rate. 4&player game: 0% win rate.

[pokken]

It is basically to the point now where you almost need to have countermagic to back up a board wipe in my experience, because someone will have some kinda trick and you'll wind up kingmaking. You have to play them very, very judiciously. I've been cutting back on them more and more and running more targeted removal and winconditions.

The other approach I've seen people taking is leaning hard into the creature machine gun strategy of setting up engines that spam kill creatures. I see a *lot* of Basilisk Collar %$#%$#% these days.

It's really an interesting dynamic, but it's frustrating to me that things seem to be drifting in CEDH directions (Stax locks or countermagic or combos as the answer to creature heavy strategies). But i do like that you can use go-tall strategies or protect the queen strategies to engage with this. Like most things I guess it'll be an ebb and flow.

All I can say is, I am really, really glad no one went ahead with cutting life totals to 30. WOTC basically has done that with how much they've been speeding up commanders and endgame cards. You can crank out just so damn much power now. Might wind up needing to jack the life total up to 50 at some point at this rate

[Mookie]

It's really an interesting dynamic, but it's frustrating to me that things seem to be drifting in CEDH directions (Stax locks or countermagic or combos as the answer to creature heavy strategies). But i do like that you can use go-tall strategies or protect the queen strategies to engage with this. Like most things I guess it'll be an ebb and flow.

Interestingly, I don't think this is unique to EDH - if you look at the metagames for Modern or Legacy, they also have almost no viable control decks... and the ones that are viable are playing stuff like Omnath, Locus of Creation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to just kill their opponent. I was watching an EDHREC podcast recently where they called out that many of the most-played threats in the format are from the last few years, but all of the most widely-played removal spells are from a decade ago, if not longer (Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Beast Within, etc). We do get new strong board wipes / control tools occasionally (Vanquish the Horde, Farewell, Culling Ritual), but I feel like there is a bias towards printing threats over answers.

...I understand the bias towards proactive strategies from a design perspective (since they tend to have more interesting gameplay), but I have concerns about them in the context of multiplayer. Multiplayer games generally need catch-up mechanics so players that fall behind can get back in the game, and in EDH, the simplest way to do so is with a board wipe. If there isn't any way to catch up, then the format feels extremely punishing to any misplays or tempo problems, and rewards just trying to snowball an advantage as fast as possible, which I don't think is a particularly healthy direction. I suppose multiplayer politics always exist as a way to balance things, but I don't think that alone is sufficient. Hmmm... I suppose this is just another symptom of the format speeding up.

[yeti1069]

It's really an interesting dynamic, but it's frustrating to me that things seem to be drifting in CEDH directions (Stax locks or countermagic or combos as the answer to creature heavy strategies). But i do like that you can use go-tall strategies or protect the queen strategies to engage with this. Like most things I guess it'll be an ebb and flow.

Interestingly, I don't think this is unique to EDH - if you look at the metagames for Modern or Legacy, they also have almost no viable control decks... and the ones that are viable are playing stuff like Omnath, Locus of Creation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to just kill their opponent. I was watching an EDHREC podcast recently where they called out that many of the most-played threats in the format are from the last few years, but all of the most widely-played removal spells are from a decade ago, if not longer (Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Beast Within, etc). We do get new strong board wipes / control tools occasionally (Vanquish the Horde, Farewell, Culling Ritual), but I feel like there is a bias towards printing threats over answers.

...I understand the bias towards proactive strategies from a design perspective (since they tend to have more interesting gameplay), but I have concerns about them in the context of multiplayer. Multiplayer games generally need catch-up mechanics so players that fall behind can get back in the game, and in EDH, the simplest way to do so is with a board wipe. If there isn't any way to catch up, then the format feels extremely punishing to any misplays or tempo problems, and rewards just trying to snowball an advantage as fast as possible, which I don't think is a particularly healthy direction. I suppose multiplayer politics always exist as a way to balance things, but I don't think that alone is sufficient. Hmmm... I suppose this is just another symptom of the format speeding up.

As an extension to this, there was an EDHREC article a while back that showed that something like 80-90% of the most played creatures were printed in the last 5 years, while 70-80% of the most played noncreatures were printed over 10 years ago.

WotC has been focused on improving creatures, because they feel (not incorrectly) that the most interesting/engaging facet of Magic is combat; critters get more robust and efficient, while noncreature strategies receive less expansive design, and answers are a little less efficient or broad.

[NZB2323]

It's really an interesting dynamic, but it's frustrating to me that things seem to be drifting in CEDH directions (Stax locks or countermagic or combos as the answer to creature heavy strategies). But i do like that you can use go-tall strategies or protect the queen strategies to engage with this. Like most things I guess it'll be an ebb and flow.

Interestingly, I don't think this is unique to EDH - if you look at the metagames for Modern or Legacy, they also have almost no viable control decks... and the ones that are viable are playing stuff like Omnath, Locus of Creation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to just kill their opponent. I was watching an EDHREC podcast recently where they called out that many of the most-played threats in the format are from the last few years, but all of the most widely-played removal spells are from a decade ago, if not longer (Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Beast Within, etc). We do get new strong board wipes / control tools occasionally (Vanquish the Horde, Farewell, Culling Ritual), but I feel like there is a bias towards printing threats over answers.

...I understand the bias towards proactive strategies from a design perspective (since they tend to have more interesting gameplay), but I have concerns about them in the context of multiplayer. Multiplayer games generally need catch-up mechanics so players that fall behind can get back in the game, and in EDH, the simplest way to do so is with a board wipe. If there isn't any way to catch up, then the format feels extremely punishing to any misplays or tempo problems, and rewards just trying to snowball an advantage as fast as possible, which I don't think is a particularly healthy direction. I suppose multiplayer politics always exist as a way to balance things, but I don't think that alone is sufficient. Hmmm... I suppose this is just another symptom of the format speeding up.

I think we've gotten nice answers in EDH recently also though:

• Dress down
• Assassin's trophy
• Despark
• Baleful Mastery
• Return to nature
• Boseiju, who endures
• Eiganjo, seat of the empire
• Force of negation
• Force of despair
• Force of vigor
• Clever concealment
• Veil of Summer
• Drannith Magistrate
• Deadly rollick
• Flawless maneuver
• Deflecting Swat
• Fierce guardianship
• Obscuring haze
• Teferi's protection
• Yawgmoth, thran physician
• Winds of abandon
• Lion Sash
• The eldest reborn
• Collector ouphe
• Opposition agent
• Smuggler's share

And there are control commanders we've gotten like Sarulf, Realm Eater, Nymris, Oona's Trickster, and Dihada, Binder of Wills but the issue is people don't like playing against them so you become the archenemy. I kind of stopped playing all my control decks for that reason, except Legolas, Counter of Kills, but it's more of a voltron deck.

[PrimevalCommander]

We see probably 2-3 wipes per game on average. One from me and one or two from other players. And I think that is a good ratio for where my meta is right now. More than 3 becomes tedious to do anything creature related. Less than 2 make allows creature decks to run rampant and spell based decks struggle. Occasionally my deck and an opponent will draw more wraths than average and the creature deck gets shut down, but not every time. More controlling decks will run more wipes, and the aggro decks must adjust to compensate for that.

I have been putting the wipe protection cards in any deck that leans hard into creature synergies and having a big board. I agree that wipes are becoming less effective with all the mass phasing and mass indestructible spells at 3 or less mana. But this just means more expensive wipes like Farewell and Hallowed Burial have additional utility. When playing a creature deck, having your field wiped clean feels bad, so protecting it is just an obvious choice. As protection becomes better and more plentiful, we need to look at other ways to slow them down.

My new favorite method to tempo the table is to keep small creatures down without completely killing everything. This creates a new dymanic where chump blocking is more difficult so the go-tall guys have more targets to attack besides me. If I only have 2 utility dorks like Archmage Emeritus, and the token deck has 8 token blockers, who gets attacked by Sun Titan? Now if I play Delayed Blast Fireball in response to declare attackers, maybe I get attacked, maybe I don't. But I also slow down token boy's plans and don't loose to potential overrun next turn. This doesn't answer the Big&Tall decks, but I will always have one panic button to press for those occasions.

• mini-wipes: Mizzium Mortars, Languish, Ezuri's Predation. I like 4 damage as a base-line for cleaning up the board while still allowing the game to progress, but Massacre Wurm has been a favorite since it got printed.
• More Pillowfort stuff, Crawlspace just to push random attacks elsewhere. Don't rely on them too much, but you can definitely leverage these.
• Mass Bounce has been almost as effective as destroy since bouncing a whole field of stuff means most players discard half of it to hand size on their next turn.

My RUG tempo deck is playing a sprinkling of each of the above 3 options with some hard wipes as well. This gives me a flexible interaction package that has been way more effective than I every expected it to be.

[RxPhantom]

Last week, I was having the old pre-game discussion and this guy says he's running, I kid you not, "board wipe tribal." I spoke up and said he could play it, but he'd probably become archenemy in short order. He did. And we murderized him real good.

[yeti1069]

Last week, I was having the old pre-game discussion and this guy says he's running, I kid you not, "board wipe tribal." I spoke up and said he could play it, but he'd probably become archenemy in short order. He did. And we murderized him real good.

I've played against numerous board wipe tribal decks. Not that fun, especially those that start hitting lands, too.

[pokken]

My new favorite method to tempo the table is to keep small creatures down without completely killing everything.

I've tried a lot of variants on this and a lot of the approaches are fun. Synergistic and/or one sided wipes only is my go to these days for creature based decks; in Varina, Lich Queen, a Winds of Abandon on a clogged board is usually GGs, same with Breena, the Demagogue and Feather, the Redeemed. Living Death puts in a ton of work.

Delayed Blast Fireball as you called out is frigging amazing. gotten so much use out of that deck in Slicer, Hired Muscle // Slicer, High-Speed Antagonist for popping chump blockers.

I've been enjoying playing Reins of Power effects occasionally to bust board stalls too. Mob Rule, Insurrection, etc. There's a new "goad-esque" one I can't remember the name of that's only 5 mana too that's pretty good (gain all of one player's dudes, can't attack them with them).

And of course Selfless Squire / Inkshield have been fun options.

I try everything I can these days to not need as many true wipes. Even been playing Decree of Pain again since it doubles as a win condition (I've drawn 20+ off zombie tokens in Thrasios) - while doubling as an instant speed kill da little stuff.

[yeti1069]

I've really been liking Make an Example in several decks. There have been very few occasions where this hasn't been able to get rid of everything I needed gone.

Tragic Arrogance has been great in a couple of decks where I have singular permanents I want to survive board wipes, like Sefris of the Hidden Ways.

I'd had some doubts about leaning on Volcanic Torrent as a primary board wipe in Prosper, Tome-Bound, but it has only failed to kill everything once, and that includes multiple games where I needed to kill something with 10+ toughness!

I've been trying to use specialized board wipes more and more, with cards like By Invitation Only in decks that go very wide; Celestial Judgment and Damning Verdict in a +1/+1 counters deck; Organic Extinction and Austere Command in Osgir, the Reconstructor; Crippling Fear and Kindred Dominance in Captain N'ghathrod.

I keep trying to find a place for Farewell, but it's hard to accept the exile of all my stuff those times when I'd need to pick modes that really hurt me. I've considered it for Osgir, since I run 0 enchantments, and can often sacrifice artifact creatures to protect them from the exile creatures mode, but in those times when someone else has a bunch of artifacts that need to be removed, I don't really want to be exiling my own--I'd rather destroy them.

[pokken]

I keep trying to find a place for Farewell, but it's hard to accept the exile of all my stuff those times when I'd need to pick modes that really hurt me. I've considered it for Osgir, since I run 0 enchantments, and can often sacrifice artifact creatures to protect them from the exile creatures mode, but in those times when someone else has a bunch of artifacts that need to be removed, I don't really want to be exiling my own--I'd rather destroy them.

I run Farewell in two decks right now;
1) Ephara, God of the Polis - where I can just leave enchantments and often be super ahead. if I keep Sacred Mesa and Ephara, God of the Polis, not a lot of enchantments people are running can out pace that.

2) Breena, the Demagogue - where I go tall, with usually just Breena and 1-2 other creatures and very few support artifacts/enchantments. I can just recast Breena for 5 and be in a good place, with permanent answers for all people's busted stuff and graveyards. Just leaving Creatures is often fine too.

So far it has been unequivocally like, 4-5x as good as I thought it would be. It's good enough I am thinking about adding it to Varina, Lich Queen and Feather, the Redeemed where sac outlets and mass slow blinks can defend my stuff.

Why has it been so good? There are a *lot* of times where just, blasting all artifacts and graveyards wins the game. in Breena I often just do artifacts/enchantments/graveyards. in Ephara, I'll do artifacts+graveyards sometimes, or if someone kills Ephara I'll do everything and get a hard reset.

I would absolutely try it in Osgir. The play pattern of sac all your stuff, then Open the Vaults or whatever should be great - you can just selectively not hit graveyards in that deck.

[PrimevalCommander]

Delayed Blast Fireball as you called out is frigging amazing. gotten so much use out of that deck in Slicer, Hired Muscle // Slicer, High-Speed Antagonist for popping chump blockers.

I try everything I can these days to not need as many true wipes. Even been playing Decree of Pain again since it doubles as a win condition (I've drawn 20+ off zombie tokens in Thrasios) - while doubling as an instant speed kill da little stuff.

I'm glad others have noticed this as well. I need to do some deck overhauls and pull out the full wipes and slot in another mini-wipe or two to further test the theory. I'm thinking stuff like Retribution of the Meek and The Battle of Bywater, but generally I have gotten a lot of mileage out of wiping smaller creatures instead of larger ones. Austere Command does pick large creatures 90% of the time though. Something to think on.

Winds of Abandon looks good. Need to get one of those to test. I wonder how good it is when you are behind, as I have not seen it played so I don't have a good handle on it's floor.

Starstorm can be a good scaleable wipe that can slow the pace of the game without killing your larger things with some instant speed flexibility. Only problem is when it needs to kill everything, sometimes it can't. I picked up one of these for Kalamax, the Stormsire and should probably give it a go since it scales 2x as fast with Kalamax in play. Even just killing everything smaller than Kalamax allows me to keep the pressure on and cripple the token decks.

[pokken]

Winds of Abandon looks good. Need to get one of those to test. I wonder how good it is when you are behind, as I have not seen it played so I don't have a good handle on it's floor.

Winds is just *ok* when you're behind but it can be really bad. I've had games here and there where it really hurt me, but definitely the exception. These days boards don't seem to get quite as big, and usually the decks you are that worried about are short of basics (3c-4c decks). All in all I have been playing it mostly in decks where I don't have to play it defensively that often.

[yeti1069]

Delayed Blast Fireball has been...a BLAST in Prosper.

Winds of Abandon looks good. Need to get one of those to test. I wonder how good it is when you are behind, as I have not seen it played so I don't have a good handle on it's floor.

Winds is just *ok* when you're behind but it can be really bad. I've had games here and there where it really hurt me, but definitely the exception. These days boards don't seem to get quite as big, and usually the decks you are that worried about are short of basics (3c-4c decks). All in all I have been playing it mostly in decks where I don't have to play it defensively that often.

Winds I've cut from most decks that I'd had it in. Too many games where it backfired significantly, even when being used offensively.

[PrimevalCommander]

I respect Farewell for being an extremely flexible and backbreaking boardwipe, however I just don't feel the pull to play it in my decks. I have one in mono-white since it can single-handedly take out all the artifact decks in my meta. But generally I don't like exiling any of my stuff since almost every one of my decks has a significant amount of graveyard manipulation, so exiling any of my stuff hurts. I still like Austere Command a bit more even it has less raw power, it just has what I need in a wipe and can be better tailored to not hamper my field better than Farewell. My best bud thinks Farewell is now the most powerful boardwipe in white, which may be true, but I am just not as enthralled with it as he is. Plus there are soooo many niche-synergistic wipes in white these days I think one copy is enough.

My baseline number of boardwipes per deck is 2-3 for hard resets. My graveyard control deck plays 5 (plus Living Death) and mono green aggro plays Ezuri's Predation as the only board control. 2-3 isn't very much in a 100 card deck, but any more than that, with other players playing some themselves, and we just get bogged down too much. We used to play 4-5 per deck, and aggro decks functioned like defacto combo decks, building mana until they could pop off with a huge explosive turn and kill the table in one go. Otherwise if you had to wait a turn cycle to swing with your army, you can be certain it wouldn't be there on your next untap.

Even knowing I am likely to see at least 1 board wipe per game, it doesn't stop me from over-committing to the board frequently. It can feel like the only way to get ahead and progress the game sometimes. Still stings to get your carefully crafted creature engines wiped clean with a single card. Which is why I am opening up multiple slots for board protection in decks where I know I will need significant investment into the boardstate. Cause = Effect.

I do think Teferi's Protection is too effective for the mana cost. Every other version of board protection plays so much more fair than this card. Either your creatures get indestructible and are weak to bounce and exile, or your creatures phase out and you are weak to alpha strikes. But Tef Prot solves both problems for a low MV. White's answer to Cyclonic Rift I guess. I am much higher on Akroma's Will as my favorite white combat trick, protection, overrun, combo meal. That card never disappoints, and typically kills at least 1 player on cast.

[PrimevalCommander]

I played 10 games this past weekend. Mostly 3 player, but several 4 player pods. Average game saw 2 wipes. One or two games with 3 wipes, typically by the same player with a loop on Massacre Girl or False Prophet. Only maybe 2 games with zero board wipes, and they were 3 player games and went pretty fast. You can almost guarantee to get wiped at least one time in a game when myself and my friend and brother from out of town are in the pod. With the local dudes, wipes are less common, but so is interaction in general. But they really like combo.

Of relevant note, we saw the following wipes that would invalidate any protection other than phasing. Making my hype on stuff like Flawless Maneuver a bit lessened knowing it would not have saved my board very often even if I had it in hand. Several other destruction wipes of various types, but these above were anti-indestructible, so worth mentioning by name.

2x Farewell , cast by me once in two different games with the same mono-white deck.
2x False Prophet, twice in one game by me, Karador, Ghost Chieftain
2x Massacre Girl, twice in one game by opponent followed by a Decree of Pain for the 3rd wipe in 3 turns that game. Ouch
1x Winds of Abandon used aggressively to alpha strike the table.

My brother has plans to beef up his anti-wipe tech in all his decks because of the above experiences on Saturday.
His next purchase will be 1x Flawless Maneuver, 1x Clever Concealment, 2x Heroic Intervention, and 1x Guardian of Faith.

One game I was sitting on a good board (30 power) with mana up for BOTH Guardian of Faith and Grand Crescendo, just trying to bait out a board wipe. Unfortunately no one had one and before I could put down the control deck I got Kokusho, the Evening Star + Flayer of the Hatebound for exact direct burn and no amount of indestructible could save me. Where were you Teferi's Protection???

[Moxnix]

On mtgo the meta swapped from more to less board whipe spells since I played last. The power creep is real in the deck I just made orcishbowmasters was one of the best wipe spells since I used wheels. My control deck runs cyclonic rift damnation toxic deluge supreme verdict farewell and damn. I think if you want to play control with how good all the creatures have got you want multiple wrath's and countermagic to defend them from enemy counters and tricks. I see maybe 1 wipe a game on mtgo now but the average game length is 6-8 now not 8-12 so I think it's not as much less than it seems the format is just faster at least online. The only games that go long are when I do play my esper control deck in fact they take longer than even my noob casual decks at "casual power level 4 tables" as even those someone goes off now turn 9-10. If I play control part of what I like is it does make the games go longer. To weigh in on farewell it's always over performed the fact it hoses GY too is amazing when I'm playing control the gy is key in long grindy games nuking it shuts the door on all those resources.