I have a Queen Marchesa control deck and I was looking through it, and it got me wondering: just how much removal is too much removal? What's considered an efficient number of removal cards?
I play twenty two removal effects of various types in Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
It is barely enough, though it is a control build.
Seven is the minimum I would consider acceptable for any deck though. Note that I am talking about removal broadly speaking; this is usually a mix of targeted, with a few sweeper effects mixed in.
It really depends on the deck. If you can support removal with a lot of draw, then sky is the limit. My Dralnu, Lich Lord deck plays 15 and 13 counters. So with all the recurring, it has some serious control.
It's very dependent on the deck, but overall, I'd say the limit comes when you've got so much removal or other ways of interfering with your opponents (counters, discard etc.) that it impedes you actually advancing your own objectives.
You want to keep the Monarchy in order to draw cards yes? If so then you want a good removal suite. Now none of the numbers above break down the removal from mass removal to spot removal, probably because it is so meta dependent. But here is what I would do.
Spot removal (instant/sorcery) 6-10 depending on how controlish you want to be. 10 seems high to me for instants and sorceries. I would probably stay around 6-8.
Mass removal 4-5. Big meta call, as I hear some groups hardly use mass removal. But I always like to have minimum 4 options in my decks. Reanimator decks can use more without issues.
Creatures with removal ETB, in your colors, probably at least 5-6 more. Can trade sorcery removal for creatures which block.
My phelddagrif and Toshiro deck are both essentially nothing but removal/counter(I'd consider counter another form of removal) with a few other cards thrown in. And that's just instant/sorcery removal, not etbs.
Bottom line: run as many as you want. Targeted removal is very useful and flexible, but it also carries with it card disadvantage (unless it's a wipe or something) so you have to use it judiciously.
It really depends on the deck. At lowest I think I have a few decks that run 5 or less, but their proactive decks looking to win the game as soon as possible. You still need ways to interact, but you need less if you're game-plan has you winning the game on turn 4-5.
For your needs, I'd play as many as I could get my grubby hands on along with taxing and disruption cards to make sure you're not falling behind when you're 1 for 1-ing opponents.
There is a bit of a difference between my deks in removal number and composition. The more reactive the deck, the more removal is needed as the plan is to respond to opponents moves.
Most of the removal here is artifact and enchantment focused. In mono Green you don't get too many other options. Beast Within is a must for versatility and instant speed. Two general sweepers in the Oblivion Stone and the Disk, in case it all turns to custard.
Funny enough, I'm cutting below 7 removal spells in most of my EDH decks. Why? Because you're all running 15
With three other players running an average of 10-15 removal spells, I rarely find myself wishing I had some in hand. Everything that needs to die almost dies immediately. Whether I'm the one to kill it or not doesn't seem to matter.
There is a bit of a difference between my deks in removal number and composition. The more reactive the deck, the more removal is needed as the plan is to respond to opponents moves.
Most of the removal here is artifact and enchantment focused. In mono Green you don't get too many other options. Beast Within is a must for versatility and instant speed. Two general sweepers in the Oblivion Stone and the Disk, in case it all turns to custard.
Azusa is playing to the board, attacking, and runs 20 creatures.
Arbiter is trying to combo out and runs 0 creatures other than the commander.
Weak sauce! Removal is for players who don't know how to make decks that synergies. PM me and I'll help you learn how to play real man magic My gift to you.
It depends a lot on your expected metagame and the type of deck you're playing. There isn't really a bare minimum that applies to every deck.
Also, what qualifies as "removal" can be very fluid. Does Umezawa's Jitte count? Sword of Fire and Ice? Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite? Depending on the narrowness of the cards, or how often the "removal" mode is chosen on modal cards, something may or may not count depending on whatever number you want to come up with at a given moment.
I would count counterspells as "removal," although they do not remove things, per se - it's semantics. Removal, interaction, answers, all different words for basically the same concept.
Personally, I run much less removal than I'm seeing from a lot of people on here, although I tend to play very proactive combo decks.
1-for-1 spells are bad in multiplayer. In a four player game, if player A removes player B's creature, then the players C and D benefit. And in ETB: The Gathering, player B has probably already gained some benefit from it as well. If you are trying to play a traditional control deck that answers everything, you really never can with 1-for-1 spells. If you try to mitigate the downside of spot removal by playing spot removal that does more (something like Annihilate), you end up playing overcosted bad cards, because Magic doesn't print cheap removal with upside.
That said, spot removal is necessary to stop a lot of the broken things that happen in an average game of Commander. I'll play Swords and Path in pretty much every white deck regardless of gameplan because someday someone will reanimate Jin-Gitaxias or T&N out Mike and Trike and you just have to have an answer that you can pretty much always play. As long as I see Sol Ring you won't catch me playing Green without Nature's Claim. Some things are simply essential, but I would never overload my deck with them because as far as spot removal goes there are some options that stand far above the rest. I will never play a Doom Blade variant in Commander again, because, IMO, spot removal needs to be better than that.
When it comes to removal on bodies, such as Duplicant, those are on the same level as Annihilate in my book to be honest, although they have the very significant benefit of being easier to abuse. They are not able to serve what is the primary purpose of spot removal in my opinion, which is preventing the opponent from winning the game outright with reanimation or a combo or what have you. There are still situations where I'll play removal creatures, though. Yisan, for example, likes to be able to tutor for answers, and being able to put the creatures into play at instant speed means I can interact with players trying to win during their own turns. There's plenty of ways to abuse creatures in the format so I wouldn't fault anyone for making these ETB effects a staple of their removal suite if they have ways to go nuts with them.
Mass removal is hit or miss for me. I tend to play it mostly if I can break the symmetry. I would play Wrath of God in a White deck that aims to go long and plays few creatures. I do not play it in a deck like Brago, even though that deck has very few creatures, it at least always wants to have its Commander in play. Not preparing for the worst situation may seem narrow-minded, but so far I find that if I'm in a situation where I would have to cast Wrath of God, I have probably already lost the game. It may save me from losing immediately, but it does very little to help me win.
When it comes to types of cards that I put in my decks, they tend to fall into one of three categories:
1. Cards that promote the success of my gameplan
2. Cards that prevent other players from interfering with my gameplan
3. Cards that I play when my gameplan does not succeed
and I feel that using enough of the second gives me much less need for the third. Many times, yes, I will be in a losing situation, but on the flipside, cards that mostly benefit me when I am losing can cause me to lose more often if they are drawn in games where my gameplan is being executed well.
Again, though, this is largely due to the kind of decks that I play. There are decks for which mass removal (delaying the game generally) is part of their gameplan, so it fits for them.
As far as just numbers go, though, I would much rather play the one or two best board clears in whatever colors I'm playing, and then play a lot of tutors and recursion spells that are more generally useful than play the 1-8 strongest board clears. I have a Glissa, the Traitor deck that plays out like more traditional control, but I probably play only three board clears in it, Toxic Deluge, Oblivion Stone, and Black Sun's Zenith (that being a very distant third, but it's part of a transmute package, so sue me). Whereas one deck might cast six board clears in a game, I will cast Oblivion Stone six times in a game. The result is very similar, but I can't say that I put twenty pieces of removal in my deck.
Sorry for the wall of text, but obviously this topic is very interesting. I think balancing the correct amount of pro-active and re-active cards in your deck relative to your gameplan is essential to making a strong Commander deck. One of the reasons that Stax is such a strong archetype is that its "answers" are very pro-active, preventing opponents from executing their gameplan in the first place.
To prove that I could, I once built a deck of 36 lands, 12 mana rocks, 51 counters or removal spells, and tried to win with only the Commander as a win-con (Vela the Night-Clad).
The deck was rarely successful unless something went really wrong with my opponent.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Weak sauce! Removal is for players who don't know how to make decks that synergies. PM me and I'll help you learn how to play real man magic My gift to you.
Removal is the purest of synergies since it synergizes with the opponents' decks, a fusion between your own efforts and theirs.
Counterspell is the purest of the purest synergies since it synergizes with any spell they could play.
As for the number of removals i always try to find the best balance between game plan and necessary disruption. I prefer sitting on the pro-active side of the table so removals have to be as few as possible while as many as needed.
Some decks just scream for removals, e.g. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (jund control) and Gonti, Lord of Luxury (reanimation durdle) while others don't. Rule of thumb, the more aggro a deck is the less removal i play to constantly hit synergy pieces instead of them.
When it comes to types of cards that I put in my decks, they tend to fall into one of three categories:
1. Cards that promote the success of my gameplan
2. Cards that prevent other players from interfering with my gameplan
3. Cards that I play when my gameplan does not succeed
I run 10 removal spells in each of my decks at a minimum:
5 Generic Removal (Destroy, Exile, etc etc.)
1 Creature-specific Removal (Extra, in addition to above)
1 Artifact/Enchantment-specific Removal (For cost efficiency, e.g. Return to Dust)
1 Anti-indestructible Removal (Exile or -1/-1 Counters)
1 Hexproof Removal (Usually a Wrath effect)
1 Mass Removal (Usually a creature-specific Wrath effect)
More is good, but I'd consider 20 to be the maximum. Above 20, you're just playing a removal deck, which is fine if that's what the deck is themed to do. I had an Augustin IV deck that had 30+ removal (including counters), but that was the whole point of the deck. Was boring, and hated in my meta, so I don't play a super heavy removal deck at the moment.
What I'm saying is don't over-stuff a deck with removal at the expense of its theme, but maintain enough removal to deal with threats.
Yeah you've got about a hundred factors to consider. Your deck, your playstyle, your meta, your level of competitiveness, whether you'll be playing primarily 1v1 or full table games - it's a bit of a silly question to ask and expect a number for, but as far as a discussion?
I have +/-10 pieces per deck but the range is pretty insane. In my meta I do play fairly consistently against a decent player who *doesn't* run removal so I have a fair amount of experience with the have/have-not play. It's super strange - he's crazy proud of not having any removal whatsoever, makes a show of trading off Go For The Throats and Path to Exiles on the cheap because he's "too good for wasting space on removal" and his "decks are too tight to run stuff like that". Obviously he gets eaten alive, but he just blames the screw or the flood or says he didn't fire.
Most spot removal is card disadvantage to be sure. But there is something to be said for the mana advantage it can yield as well. Having even a Beast Within (not even Path to Exile) can open up the turn for you to make a big play. As someone goes for a big 7-9 mana turn with a creature combo or alpha strike, your removal spell prevented their big play for much less mana than they spent, hopefully leaving them more vulnerable for your next turn plans. Also disrupting a 2 card creature combo can almost be seen as a 2 for 1 since their leftover creature may not be near as useful afterwards.
Yes there are more players at the table, but I don't play in competitive groups, so it is not all that hard to guess who is holding removal and who isn't. I have similar experience as VaultTechy where spot removal may not be optimal, it is necessary to some extent. Your deck needs to be prepared for the disadvantage of removal by playing some draw spells as well. Then you can further your board and still have the resources to stay alive long enough to win.
Also I am moving more toward instants for removal to punish the players who like to rely on others for their removal needs. Instant speed answers can keep you safe while the others get hammered by Ulamogs and other big nasties. Also sorcery speed is not so good against combo. I still play creature based removal, but now most of my others are instant speed.
I try to run some removal, but often only realize it as an afterthought when playing a new deck.
After realizing a chunk of my decks' had completely ignored that part when deckbuilding, I started 'the Removal Project' - try and add four-five pieces of removal/answers/counters/targeted discard/wraths etc. to each deck, unless the deck already has a healthy amount of stuff(also for fun, so that I don't repeat an answer piece between the 34 decks). Mostly to balance things out; I have a couple of decks that have zero answers at all, and decks that are nearly flooding with the stuff, almost to the detriment of the gameplan. I still prefer a deck that needs to be answered instead of the deck that has the answers, but as said several times in this thread, there are always things that just have to be answered.
I also end up going slightly-higher-costed removal that is able to answer more situations, as our meta is fairly drawn-out and battlecruiser-ish.
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It is barely enough, though it is a control build.
Seven is the minimum I would consider acceptable for any deck though. Note that I am talking about removal broadly speaking; this is usually a mix of targeted, with a few sweeper effects mixed in.
A Dying Wish
To Rise Again
Chainer, Dementia Master
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
Yeah I don't know if this is a troll or what but I run about 15 removal in my Olivia Voldaren deck
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
Spot removal (instant/sorcery) 6-10 depending on how controlish you want to be. 10 seems high to me for instants and sorceries. I would probably stay around 6-8.
Mass removal 4-5. Big meta call, as I hear some groups hardly use mass removal. But I always like to have minimum 4 options in my decks. Reanimator decks can use more without issues.
Creatures with removal ETB, in your colors, probably at least 5-6 more. Can trade sorcery removal for creatures which block.
If you add your instants, sorceries, and creatures that can act as removal, your total may be somewhere around 15-20 (ballpark)
My phelddagrif and Toshiro deck are both essentially nothing but removal/counter(I'd consider counter another form of removal) with a few other cards thrown in. And that's just instant/sorcery removal, not etbs.
Bottom line: run as many as you want. Targeted removal is very useful and flexible, but it also carries with it card disadvantage (unless it's a wipe or something) so you have to use it judiciously.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
It really just depends.
UAzami, Locus of All KnowledgeU
BMarrow-Gnawer, Crime Lord of ComboB
WBRTariel, Hellraiser StaxWBR
Annul is really good in EDH
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
For your needs, I'd play as many as I could get my grubby hands on along with taxing and disruption cards to make sure you're not falling behind when you're 1 for 1-ing opponents.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Ok lets see. In Azusa, Lost but Seeking, a very proactive deck I have
Most of the removal here is artifact and enchantment focused. In mono Green you don't get too many other options. Beast Within is a must for versatility and instant speed. Two general sweepers in the Oblivion Stone and the Disk, in case it all turns to custard.
Then at the other end to the proactive spectrum is Grand Arbiter Augusitn IV.
Ive got
Bounce
Counterspell
Creature spot removal
Artifact and enchantment
Sweepers
Azusa is playing to the board, attacking, and runs 20 creatures.
Arbiter is trying to combo out and runs 0 creatures other than the commander.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
With three other players running an average of 10-15 removal spells, I rarely find myself wishing I had some in hand. Everything that needs to die almost dies immediately. Whether I'm the one to kill it or not doesn't seem to matter.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Also, what qualifies as "removal" can be very fluid. Does Umezawa's Jitte count? Sword of Fire and Ice? Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite? Depending on the narrowness of the cards, or how often the "removal" mode is chosen on modal cards, something may or may not count depending on whatever number you want to come up with at a given moment.
I would count counterspells as "removal," although they do not remove things, per se - it's semantics. Removal, interaction, answers, all different words for basically the same concept.
Personally, I run much less removal than I'm seeing from a lot of people on here, although I tend to play very proactive combo decks.
1-for-1 spells are bad in multiplayer. In a four player game, if player A removes player B's creature, then the players C and D benefit. And in ETB: The Gathering, player B has probably already gained some benefit from it as well. If you are trying to play a traditional control deck that answers everything, you really never can with 1-for-1 spells. If you try to mitigate the downside of spot removal by playing spot removal that does more (something like Annihilate), you end up playing overcosted bad cards, because Magic doesn't print cheap removal with upside.
That said, spot removal is necessary to stop a lot of the broken things that happen in an average game of Commander. I'll play Swords and Path in pretty much every white deck regardless of gameplan because someday someone will reanimate Jin-Gitaxias or T&N out Mike and Trike and you just have to have an answer that you can pretty much always play. As long as I see Sol Ring you won't catch me playing Green without Nature's Claim. Some things are simply essential, but I would never overload my deck with them because as far as spot removal goes there are some options that stand far above the rest. I will never play a Doom Blade variant in Commander again, because, IMO, spot removal needs to be better than that.
When it comes to removal on bodies, such as Duplicant, those are on the same level as Annihilate in my book to be honest, although they have the very significant benefit of being easier to abuse. They are not able to serve what is the primary purpose of spot removal in my opinion, which is preventing the opponent from winning the game outright with reanimation or a combo or what have you. There are still situations where I'll play removal creatures, though. Yisan, for example, likes to be able to tutor for answers, and being able to put the creatures into play at instant speed means I can interact with players trying to win during their own turns. There's plenty of ways to abuse creatures in the format so I wouldn't fault anyone for making these ETB effects a staple of their removal suite if they have ways to go nuts with them.
Mass removal is hit or miss for me. I tend to play it mostly if I can break the symmetry. I would play Wrath of God in a White deck that aims to go long and plays few creatures. I do not play it in a deck like Brago, even though that deck has very few creatures, it at least always wants to have its Commander in play. Not preparing for the worst situation may seem narrow-minded, but so far I find that if I'm in a situation where I would have to cast Wrath of God, I have probably already lost the game. It may save me from losing immediately, but it does very little to help me win.
When it comes to types of cards that I put in my decks, they tend to fall into one of three categories:
1. Cards that promote the success of my gameplan
2. Cards that prevent other players from interfering with my gameplan
3. Cards that I play when my gameplan does not succeed
and I feel that using enough of the second gives me much less need for the third. Many times, yes, I will be in a losing situation, but on the flipside, cards that mostly benefit me when I am losing can cause me to lose more often if they are drawn in games where my gameplan is being executed well.
Again, though, this is largely due to the kind of decks that I play. There are decks for which mass removal (delaying the game generally) is part of their gameplan, so it fits for them.
As far as just numbers go, though, I would much rather play the one or two best board clears in whatever colors I'm playing, and then play a lot of tutors and recursion spells that are more generally useful than play the 1-8 strongest board clears. I have a Glissa, the Traitor deck that plays out like more traditional control, but I probably play only three board clears in it, Toxic Deluge, Oblivion Stone, and Black Sun's Zenith (that being a very distant third, but it's part of a transmute package, so sue me). Whereas one deck might cast six board clears in a game, I will cast Oblivion Stone six times in a game. The result is very similar, but I can't say that I put twenty pieces of removal in my deck.
Sorry for the wall of text, but obviously this topic is very interesting. I think balancing the correct amount of pro-active and re-active cards in your deck relative to your gameplan is essential to making a strong Commander deck. One of the reasons that Stax is such a strong archetype is that its "answers" are very pro-active, preventing opponents from executing their gameplan in the first place.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
The deck was rarely successful unless something went really wrong with my opponent.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I think most of my decks have fewer inaction spells than that, though it varies.
Removal is the purest of synergies since it synergizes with the opponents' decks, a fusion between your own efforts and theirs.
Counterspell is the purest of the purest synergies since it synergizes with any spell they could play.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Some decks just scream for removals, e.g. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (jund control) and Gonti, Lord of Luxury (reanimation durdle) while others don't. Rule of thumb, the more aggro a deck is the less removal i play to constantly hit synergy pieces instead of them. Basically this.
In addition to what has been said i prefer my removal to be flexible or at instant speed, if possible both. Some of my pet cards:
Ravenous Trap, Unravel the Æther/Deglamer (because Gods, Recursion, D-Forge, ...), Bojuka Bog, Beast Within, Hero's Downfall, Krosan Grip, Putrefy, , Rakdos Charm, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Curse of the Swine, Aftershock, Song of the Dryads, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Reality Shift, Strip Mine, Sudden Death, Ghost Quarter, Structural Distortion, ...
5 Generic Removal (Destroy, Exile, etc etc.)
1 Creature-specific Removal (Extra, in addition to above)
1 Artifact/Enchantment-specific Removal (For cost efficiency, e.g. Return to Dust)
1 Anti-indestructible Removal (Exile or -1/-1 Counters)
1 Hexproof Removal (Usually a Wrath effect)
1 Mass Removal (Usually a creature-specific Wrath effect)
More is good, but I'd consider 20 to be the maximum. Above 20, you're just playing a removal deck, which is fine if that's what the deck is themed to do. I had an Augustin IV deck that had 30+ removal (including counters), but that was the whole point of the deck. Was boring, and hated in my meta, so I don't play a super heavy removal deck at the moment.
What I'm saying is don't over-stuff a deck with removal at the expense of its theme, but maintain enough removal to deal with threats.
I have +/-10 pieces per deck but the range is pretty insane. In my meta I do play fairly consistently against a decent player who *doesn't* run removal so I have a fair amount of experience with the have/have-not play. It's super strange - he's crazy proud of not having any removal whatsoever, makes a show of trading off Go For The Throats and Path to Exiles on the cheap because he's "too good for wasting space on removal" and his "decks are too tight to run stuff like that". Obviously he gets eaten alive, but he just blames the screw or the flood or says he didn't fire.
Yes there are more players at the table, but I don't play in competitive groups, so it is not all that hard to guess who is holding removal and who isn't. I have similar experience as VaultTechy where spot removal may not be optimal, it is necessary to some extent. Your deck needs to be prepared for the disadvantage of removal by playing some draw spells as well. Then you can further your board and still have the resources to stay alive long enough to win.
Also I am moving more toward instants for removal to punish the players who like to rely on others for their removal needs. Instant speed answers can keep you safe while the others get hammered by Ulamogs and other big nasties. Also sorcery speed is not so good against combo. I still play creature based removal, but now most of my others are instant speed.
After realizing a chunk of my decks' had completely ignored that part when deckbuilding, I started 'the Removal Project' - try and add four-five pieces of removal/answers/counters/targeted discard/wraths etc. to each deck, unless the deck already has a healthy amount of stuff(also for fun, so that I don't repeat an answer piece between the 34 decks). Mostly to balance things out; I have a couple of decks that have zero answers at all, and decks that are nearly flooding with the stuff, almost to the detriment of the gameplan. I still prefer a deck that needs to be answered instead of the deck that has the answers, but as said several times in this thread, there are always things that just have to be answered.
I also end up going slightly-higher-costed removal that is able to answer more situations, as our meta is fairly drawn-out and battlecruiser-ish.