Card/Deck Removal Spells that Do Other Things

James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
This has been talked about a bit, and I might be forgetting a thread about this. But let's get a list of removal spells that have other modes. I drafted three times the other night with this guy, and it felt like my cube had too much removal. So I'd like to cut down on all the terrors and keep a less oppressive level of removal spells, while making a lot of them also be the cards used to deal with enchantments and artifacts. If I get this right I'll solve the Disenchant problem too.
Here's what I'm running:
Oblivion Ring
Faith's Fetters
Capsize
Cryptic Command
Riftwing Cloudskate
Venser, Shaper Savant
Beast Within
Dreadbore
Selesnya Charm
Putrefy
Mortify
Angel of Despair
Necrotic Sliver
Vraska the Unseen
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker does that even count anymore?

There's also 187's and burn that goes to the face as well.
Cards that I would run but have not yet bothered proxying obtained:
Vindicate
Maelstrom Pulse

There's Abrupt Decay too, which I have, but I cluttered black-green with a bunch of aggressive zombies recently and cut it for space. I might rethink that, I'm trying to rethink my black section at the moment.

Someone mentioned Crushing Vines recently, but not with any enthusiasm. There's also combat tricks like Blood Lust which hit hard but can also just help kill creatures.

Any thoughts?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
<--- Crushing Vines guy.

I'm also struggling with this problem, though I'm trying disenchants that do things rather than flexible removal.
I'd posit that bounce isn't really removal. My problem is that so many of these are multicolored :(
I cut beast within back in the day for giving the opponent too much, so nobody wanted to cast it.

This is my problem: We have 2 white cards (One of which is both a 4 drop and hoses aggro, something too many cubes have too much of) a green card, and a million multicolored cards.

One thing I've seen from the disenchant perspective is Shatterbeaters like Viridian Shaman, Torch Fiend, and Kami of Ancient Law (of which there are three separate creatures now. Funny that :p), who have all preformed admirably.

I've turned to making my own cards, but I'll be the first to say I probably haven't looked hard enough.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Looking at my own list, these are some cards I run that deal with creatures but do other things as well. Most of them don't hit enchantments or artifacts, and some of these are only temporary solutions, but they're still versatile.

Confiscate
Frost Titan
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Garruk Relentless
Ajani Vengeant
Azorius Charm
Huntmaster of the Fells
Olivia Voldaren
Engineered Explosives
Karn Liberated

To actually deal with pesky artifacts and such, I have a burning hatred of narrow point removal like Disenchant and Nature's Claim, but I've found that warm bodies who snack on these things to be more palatable. It's mostly centered in green, with Acidic Slime leading the pack, followed closely by Viridian Shaman, Wickerbough Elder, and Indrik Stomphowler, with a special cameo from Woodfall Primus. White gets a sole Kor Sanctifiers, and red gets the usual assortment of riff raff.

A brief aside: James, I noticed that your cube is pretty artifact-light as it stands already, with only 30 in roughly ~430 cards. And of that list, only Coalition Relic stands out as "kill on sight" to me. So maybe you don't actually need to go overboard with the artifact removal. I know that once I got rid of all my swords, I found myself maindecking the likes of Manic Vandal a lot less.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Vedalken Shackels, Mimic Vat and Crystal Shard are in there, and these often need answers quite quickly. When I had the swords in the cube, picking up artifact removal was good because you had to kill something like that pretty much every match, but now it's a lot rarer. Anyway, that's another issue. Not a big one.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
so for UTILITY i do like the shard charms (both sets), but with 3c cards being a tough sell in my cube i have trouble imagining many other cubes where even guild charms go highly. some of them are great inclusions, though, if your mana can support them -- modal cards are almost by definition tough to play correctly. my solution is to include every (reasonable) card that can kill a creature and something else:

maelstrom pulse
abrupt decay
beast within
dreadbore
hero's downfall
mortify
putrefy
pernicious deed
vindicate
engineered explosives
ratchet bomb

i'm sure there's others that this search didn't turn up, like temporal spring or oblivion ring.

i also like QPM and Wickerbough. one of the great disappointments of theros (which i've otherwise enjoyed very much) was the failure to print a card that at least approximated these duders in power level + enchantment/artifact-ganking utility. after those dudes (unless i'm forgetting something comparable), what's the next best utility dude for that effect? duergar hedge-mage? tin street hooligan? viridian zealot? it's not ronom unicorn -- i can tell you that much because that card is in the modo cube.

i also like not putting too many enchantments or artifacts in my cube, they're intrinsically card types that are tough to interact with and as such have a higher potential to be game-ruining bullshit. who wants to play against recurring nightmare or no mercy or land tax when there could be a skill-testing game of mtg going on?

---

as for value removal, it's much easier to find cards like this. bit blast. electrolyze. prophetic bolt. seize the soul. ulvenwald tracker. even sweepers can count. i have not seen a cube that has been lacking in these effects (except by deliberate choice, and that too is very rare.)

one small category where you might not be running enough is 'nekrataal' effects. bone shredder and shriekmaw are my favorites, but let's not also forget stuff like Fiend Hunter and leonin relic-warder if you wanna go deep. the grandaddy of all nekrataals in power level, though, is the glorious Murderous Redcap and I will not accept any opinions to the contrary
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
The other night when we drafted I opened up with a fast start in this one game. I had some excellent hand in my excellent RW deck. Thanks to the miracle of filterlands my opponent played turn three Fiend Hunter, turn 4 Murderous Redcap and there was just no way I could beat him. Redcap is sweet.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Dividing damage is pretty neat.
I'm quite partial to flash creatures.
I'll think more about this.

My initial reaction might be that cutting terrors is often foolish when white and red's removal is already doing so much more than black's. Maybe make black's ability to kill things more relevant. Make everyone suffer.

I'm really into cards with alternative modes, but removal is a hard sell for that, they keep premium removal on a short leash vs standards and you often require premium removal to give you an environment where the threats that have risen to the top of the heap aren't unreasonable. Have you considered more cards that give you more control over what is in your hand or what you draw?
 
DavFlamerock

DavFlamerock

I think the trick here is to attach them to creatures whenever possible. I'm currently running War Priest of Thune in my 2-person cube... are the sac-bears that much better than him? At first I was all into CIP effects, but maybe you're right about being better as a bear/demystify rather than a bear+demystify.
 
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