The biggest issue I see with spot removal are the players who draw it and then look around for a target for it. Honestly, you don't even need a terribly high amount of draw, because you shouldn't be trying to 1for1 everything your opponent does with spot removal. Sweepers will take care of most large sets of issues.
The spot removal is there for those things that the sweepers can't get, or can't get in time. The Prophets of Kruphix. The game ending combo. The insane advantage engine that's about to go online. That aura shards that will destroy your board if left unchecked.
There are so many good removal options in every color, it's difficult and painful to see decks not running them.
Quote from Glix »
I have mentioned this several times, but I want to be absolutely clear: Spot removal is horrible in EDH. Swords to Plowshares is bad. Path to Exile is twice as bad. Vindicate is horrible. So is Hero's Reunion, for largely the same reasons. Spot removal does not maintain parity, it loses you ground. It is intrinsic card disadvantage and tempo disadvantage.
This has been brought up, and I horrifically disagree with it; that statement makes several incorrect assumptions:
First off, it assumes that you are answering everything. If you spot remove something, and someone spot removes something else, then everyone is at parity.
Secondly, it assumes that being off parity with each opponent is necessarily evil. The other opponents who are now 'one card up' on you aren't just your opponents though, they are everyone elses' opponent as well. That one card parity may need to be used against someone not you. Specifically, someone who may be more threatening because they have that one card up.
Thirdly, it assumes that card disadvantage is immediately bad. Losing the game is bad. Usually, card disadvantage leads to losing a game, however, there are situations where you need to react to a thing happening. At that point, you need that cheaper, faster answer. In the end, losing the game is bad, so if you have a card that prevents that, that card is not bad.
If you follow the advice in that quote, you are setting yourself up to be in situations where you are unable to answer a threat at a critical time, and end up losing far more card advantage. An example: A player casts Aura Shards and then Prophet of Kruphix. If you don't Krosan Grip or Mortify that shards/prophet immediately, the amount of board presence/cards you will lose by your next turn may be significantly higher than your one card 'parity' against two other opponents.
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I will go so far as to give a reason why spot removal is better than sweepers, and that is selection.
If Player B goes out of hand with a scary board state, and I use a sweeper, I have now also killed Player C's stuff. Typically people will say that this is good, as I have now eliminated more stuff for my 1 card, I have gained advantage.
But the truth may be far different: if Player C is either unable, or unwilling to attack me, or thinks that someone else is more of a threat to them, destroying their field is a disadvantage to me. I have removed objects that are helping me in one of my objectives.
Similarly, while Player B was generally scary, if I can wait to see which direction he goes, I gain advantage. If he comes my way, I remove with a Wing Shards, if he doesn't, not only do I gain in that he is aiding my objective, but I also gain in that card that I didn't have to spend, and I gain in the card that I force my other opponents' to spend in order to deal with it.
Spot removal works well in the kind of EDH games I play, but I suspect Glix has a point when you get into cutthroat-competitive territory.
The opposite. Not only is his position horribly wrong in all but the most casual beatdown-oriented metas, it grows progressively worse the more competitive you get. If you are playing at a Tier 1 level, you absolutely need cheap, Instant answers to Arcum Dagsson, Zur the Enchanter, Hermit Druid, etc. In such an environment, I might even remove sweeper effects entirely.
The opposite. Not only is his position horribly wrong in all but the most casual beatdown-oriented metas, it grows progressively worse the more competitive you get. If you are playing at a Tier 1 level, you absolutely need cheap, Instant answers to Arcum Dagsson, Zur the Enchanter, Hermit Druid, etc. In such an environment, I might even remove sweeper effects entirely.
When a game is over before the fifth turn, Wrath of God just won't cut it.
I have mentioned this several times, but I want to be absolutely clear: Spot removal is horrible in EDH. Swords to Plowshares is bad. Path to Exile is twice as bad. Vindicate is horrible. So is Hero's Reunion, for largely the same reasons. Spot removal does not maintain parity, it loses you ground. It is intrinsic card disadvantage and tempo disadvantage.
This seems like an overly simplistic take on things. If someone spends several turns ramping, tutoring, etc. to get a hasty Blightsteel Colossus out, and all I have to do is spend 1 mana and 1 card on to Swords to Plowshares something that would otherwise be coming at my face and ending the game for me, it seems well worth it. I'm also perfectly happy to spend 3 mana and 1 card to Vindicate someone's Gaea's Cradle that's otherwise going to put them at functionally infinite mana next turn. And so forth and so on...
Amen. It's kind of like saying Force of Will is a bad card in Legacy. Spot removal isn't about card advantage, it's about answering threats.
I think that this thread actually does an excellent job defending why countermagic is so powerful in Commander and Magic in general. If the most important facet of spot removal is that it is instant and can reactively answer a problematic card before things turn sour, countermagic shares this with spot removal. In many cases, countermagic is actually one of the few solutions to answering other powerful sorceries, instants, and permanents with enter the battlefield abilities, as the damage these types of cards can create is often instantaneous and cannot be undone by spot removal.
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I think that this thread actually does an excellent job defending why countermagic is so powerful in Commander and Magic in general. If the most important facet of spot removal is that it is instant and can reactively answer a problematic card before things turn sour, countermagic shares this with spot removal. In many cases, countermagic is actually one of the few solutions to answering other powerful sorceries, instants, and permanents with enter the battlefield abilities, as the damage these types of cards can create is often instantaneous and cannot be undone by spot removal.
Counter magic is no different than spot removal in that it trades one-for-one, yet most players would not argue about it being included in decks. Many EDH players play cards such as Krosan Grip, Naturalize, Disenchant, etc., in their decks to answer problematic artifacts and enchantments, yet these are all one-for-one answers and most players would not argue about their inclusion in decks. So to say spot removal shouldnt be run in an EDH deck is completely illogical based on this one-for-one premise. ALL forms of removal can be relevant in EDH. It is a matter of finding the proper balance for your particular deck and your meta.
Spot removal works well in the kind of EDH games I play, but I suspect Glix has a point when you get into cutthroat-competitive territory.
The opposite. Not only is his position horribly wrong in all but the most casual beatdown-oriented metas, it grows progressively worse the more competitive you get. If you are playing at a Tier 1 level, you absolutely need cheap, Instant answers to Arcum Dagsson, Zur the Enchanter, Hermit Druid, etc. In such an environment, I might even remove sweeper effects entirely.
So to say spot removal shouldnt be run in an EDH deck is completely illogical based on this one-for-one premise. ALL forms of removal can be relevant in EDH. It is a matter of finding the proper balance for your particular deck and your meta.
I believe you may have misunderstood me. I was not arguing that spot removal shouldn't be played in Commander. I was arguing that, in many cases, countermagic functions similarly in nature to spot removal.
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In EDH, cards you remove with spot removal very frequently represent more than one card anyway. Swordsing a Consecrated Sphinx now instead of wrathing when your turn comes around isn't a one-for-one. It's a lots-for-one, and while it'd be better if someone else paid the 'for one', someone has to do it. I play in a only moderately competitive meta, but if you can't interact at instant speed for less than seven mana, you're usually going to have issues. (An exception might be is if your deck is otherwise sufficiently controlling that people can't ever cast must-answer threats to begin with, but that's not a realistic option for a lot of decks.)
It's a very important lesson, when transitioning to multiplayer formats, that spot removal is much worse in those formats and you're going to be in a lot of trouble if you try to play a deck that looks like a classic duel control deck in multiplayer. "A bunch of cards like terror, a bunch of cards like counterspell, some draw spells, and a few win conditions" is a much worse deck in a format with more than two players. That's something that gets drilled into people moving into multiplayer formats, because it's not totally obvious. (At least, it wasn't totally obvious to me; it's probably not something I would have thought about until I got a bunch of games under my belt.) At the same time, it's easy to go too overboard with abstract theory analyses of whether a card is good, and ignore pragmatics. Are there enough scenarios where I'm better off after playing Swords to Plowshares than I was before it that Swords to Plowshares is a good card? Absolutely. You don't win the game by heroically maintaining card advantage in some limited sense of the term while someone combos out with Deadeye Navigator across the table.
The following things can all be true at the same time (and are all true):
- Spot removal is relatively worse in multiplayer formats, especially ones like EDH where card advantage dominates tempo to a greater degree than normal. (Mostly because of the extra life.)
- A deck that tries to one-for-one everything like a control deck you'd play in constructed is relatively much worse in multiplayer.
- It's good to look for answers that fill some of the roles that spot removal does but that aren't card disadvantage.
- Spot removal - especially at instant speed - is very important in many typical EDH metagames for dealing with things that will allow their controller to accrue tremendous advantage if they're not dealt with.
So to say spot removal shouldnt be run in an EDH deck is completely illogical based on this one-for-one premise. ALL forms of removal can be relevant in EDH. It is a matter of finding the proper balance for your particular deck and your meta.
I believe you may have misunderstood me. I was not arguing that spot removal shouldn't be played in Commander. I was arguing that, in many cases, countermagic functions similarly in nature to spot removal.
No, I understood. I used your excellent point about counter magic to help disprove the statement in the OP that one should run sweepers instead of spot removal based on this notion of always needing an X-for-one trade to maintain card advantage or "parity." I know you are not advocating not using spot removal. Like other people have posted, spot removal has its place in EDH, but relying on it entirely will be your downfall. I think people might have thought I was arguing for always needing spot removal in their decks. This is not the case. Some decks dont need it and/or dont want it. Just like sweepers. What I am against is giving the advice of running sweepers INSTEAD of spot removal. Telling people who are new to the game or format this horrible piece of advice is such a disservice to them. It only takes 30 seconds to explain why both should be run.
@Incanur: Well, the Omniscience deck is hardcore combo, so no he probably wouldnt want spot removal if the goal is to win by turn 4. And that Derevi deck looks to be such a fine tuned prison lockdown deck that he doesnt need to run spot removal because his opponents get so bored watching him play solitaire Magic that they just scoop.
IT is pretty obvious to me a mixture of both in any multiplayer deck of course ratios depend on your group but even having a few pieces in each deck at the table will kill threats at the table fairly consistantly.
I agree with what people have been saying: Too many sweepers just slows down the game. When I still new to edh, my second edh deck was Wrexial and I had every sweeper I could fit in at the time. I realized that a very sweeper heavy deck won't work when someone had Woodfall Primus and Oran-Rief, the VAstwood. Wrathing would only result in me losing a land or something. I later realized that many people also have a lot of graveyard recursion or at least some, making wraths less effective. Now even my more wrathy decks don't have many wraths. Another thing is if you keep blowing everything up, you'll become a target pretty fast.
The spot removal is there for those things that the sweepers can't get, or can't get in time. The Prophets of Kruphix. The game ending combo. The insane advantage engine that's about to go online. That aura shards that will destroy your board if left unchecked.
There are so many good removal options in every color, it's difficult and painful to see decks not running them.
This has been brought up, and I horrifically disagree with it; that statement makes several incorrect assumptions:
First off, it assumes that you are answering everything. If you spot remove something, and someone spot removes something else, then everyone is at parity.
Secondly, it assumes that being off parity with each opponent is necessarily evil. The other opponents who are now 'one card up' on you aren't just your opponents though, they are everyone elses' opponent as well. That one card parity may need to be used against someone not you. Specifically, someone who may be more threatening because they have that one card up.
Thirdly, it assumes that card disadvantage is immediately bad. Losing the game is bad. Usually, card disadvantage leads to losing a game, however, there are situations where you need to react to a thing happening. At that point, you need that cheaper, faster answer. In the end, losing the game is bad, so if you have a card that prevents that, that card is not bad.
If you follow the advice in that quote, you are setting yourself up to be in situations where you are unable to answer a threat at a critical time, and end up losing far more card advantage. An example: A player casts Aura Shards and then Prophet of Kruphix. If you don't Krosan Grip or Mortify that shards/prophet immediately, the amount of board presence/cards you will lose by your next turn may be significantly higher than your one card 'parity' against two other opponents.
===
I will go so far as to give a reason why spot removal is better than sweepers, and that is selection.
If Player B goes out of hand with a scary board state, and I use a sweeper, I have now also killed Player C's stuff. Typically people will say that this is good, as I have now eliminated more stuff for my 1 card, I have gained advantage.
But the truth may be far different: if Player C is either unable, or unwilling to attack me, or thinks that someone else is more of a threat to them, destroying their field is a disadvantage to me. I have removed objects that are helping me in one of my objectives.
Similarly, while Player B was generally scary, if I can wait to see which direction he goes, I gain advantage. If he comes my way, I remove with a Wing Shards, if he doesn't, not only do I gain in that he is aiding my objective, but I also gain in that card that I didn't have to spend, and I gain in the card that I force my other opponents' to spend in order to deal with it.
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The opposite. Not only is his position horribly wrong in all but the most casual beatdown-oriented metas, it grows progressively worse the more competitive you get. If you are playing at a Tier 1 level, you absolutely need cheap, Instant answers to Arcum Dagsson, Zur the Enchanter, Hermit Druid, etc. In such an environment, I might even remove sweeper effects entirely.
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Counter magic is no different than spot removal in that it trades one-for-one, yet most players would not argue about it being included in decks. Many EDH players play cards such as Krosan Grip, Naturalize, Disenchant, etc., in their decks to answer problematic artifacts and enchantments, yet these are all one-for-one answers and most players would not argue about their inclusion in decks. So to say spot removal shouldnt be run in an EDH deck is completely illogical based on this one-for-one premise. ALL forms of removal can be relevant in EDH. It is a matter of finding the proper balance for your particular deck and your meta.
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Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
Glix doesn't suggest sweepers like Wrath of God, at least not in many decks. See his Derevi deck, for example. Is that deck bad because it lacks Swords to Plowshares? Would StP make it better? Same questions for Glix's Five Color Omniscience deck.
I believe you may have misunderstood me. I was not arguing that spot removal shouldn't be played in Commander. I was arguing that, in many cases, countermagic functions similarly in nature to spot removal.
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Never look to fire off that Swords to Plowshares immediately. Save it for something that absolutely, positively must die.
Ideally you want to draw 1 or 2 flexible one-for-ones per game. Counterspell, Utter End, or (in some metas) Abrupt Decay are all examples.
It's a very important lesson, when transitioning to multiplayer formats, that spot removal is much worse in those formats and you're going to be in a lot of trouble if you try to play a deck that looks like a classic duel control deck in multiplayer. "A bunch of cards like terror, a bunch of cards like counterspell, some draw spells, and a few win conditions" is a much worse deck in a format with more than two players. That's something that gets drilled into people moving into multiplayer formats, because it's not totally obvious. (At least, it wasn't totally obvious to me; it's probably not something I would have thought about until I got a bunch of games under my belt.) At the same time, it's easy to go too overboard with abstract theory analyses of whether a card is good, and ignore pragmatics. Are there enough scenarios where I'm better off after playing Swords to Plowshares than I was before it that Swords to Plowshares is a good card? Absolutely. You don't win the game by heroically maintaining card advantage in some limited sense of the term while someone combos out with Deadeye Navigator across the table.
The following things can all be true at the same time (and are all true):
- Spot removal is relatively worse in multiplayer formats, especially ones like EDH where card advantage dominates tempo to a greater degree than normal. (Mostly because of the extra life.)
- A deck that tries to one-for-one everything like a control deck you'd play in constructed is relatively much worse in multiplayer.
- It's good to look for answers that fill some of the roles that spot removal does but that aren't card disadvantage.
- Spot removal - especially at instant speed - is very important in many typical EDH metagames for dealing with things that will allow their controller to accrue tremendous advantage if they're not dealt with.
No, I understood. I used your excellent point about counter magic to help disprove the statement in the OP that one should run sweepers instead of spot removal based on this notion of always needing an X-for-one trade to maintain card advantage or "parity." I know you are not advocating not using spot removal. Like other people have posted, spot removal has its place in EDH, but relying on it entirely will be your downfall. I think people might have thought I was arguing for always needing spot removal in their decks. This is not the case. Some decks dont need it and/or dont want it. Just like sweepers. What I am against is giving the advice of running sweepers INSTEAD of spot removal. Telling people who are new to the game or format this horrible piece of advice is such a disservice to them. It only takes 30 seconds to explain why both should be run.
@Incanur: Well, the Omniscience deck is hardcore combo, so no he probably wouldnt want spot removal if the goal is to win by turn 4. And that Derevi deck looks to be such a fine tuned prison lockdown deck that he doesnt need to run spot removal because his opponents get so bored watching him play solitaire Magic that they just scoop.
The Mimeoplasm || Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
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