MTG Salvation

Have these three, looking to cut one.

Which is the worst most of the time?

Card tags, for those that need them: Oblation vs Beast Within vs Song of the Dryads

I'm going to say Oblation is my least preferred of the three. And basically I realized that because it was the only one I looked up to remind myself what it does.

In summary,

Oblation

The Good:
+ Instant
+ Shuffles permanent into library
+ can draw 2 cards in a pinch or in response to removal.

The Bad:
- Allows your opponent to draw 2 cards.
- Can't bust up utility lands.

Beast Within:

The Good:
+ Instant
+ Can bust up utility lands.

The Bad:
- Gives your opponent a 3/3 (not really threatening, but is a chump blocker potentially.)
- Can't deal with indestructible permanents.

Song of the Dryads:

The Good:
+ Can bust up utility lands
+ Can deal with Indestructible permanents.

The Bad:
- Sorcery Speed
- Gives your opponent more mana

Depends on the deck. What commander are you running?

I run Oblation in 3 decks and I don't run either of the other two. I personally would get rid of Song of the Dryads. Beast Within is unconditional removal with a minimal downside and Oblation can get you cards if you want to shuffle in something you own or deals with a huge threat of an opponent's at Instant timing. A note about Oblation is that if you target something you own but an opponent stole from you, not only do you get it back into your deck, but you also get to draw 2 cards, not them.

The biggest/only reason to run song of the dryads is the ability to semi-permanently deal with enemy commanders. If you're trying to play a deck that's likely to get screwed over by the right choice of commander, then it may be worth it. Otherwise imo the other two are superior for being instant-speed. But personally I'd want to run all 3 by default.

Beast Within is the best of the three, no real question about that. Of the other two, it comes down to whether sorcery speed or giving your opponents cards is a worse drawback. Personally, I find that if something needs answering, it needs answering at instant speed, so I'd be inclined to drop Song of the Dryads - but then I do play in a meta where combo is seen often enough to be important to consider when deckbuilding.

Not mentioned:

Oblation can deal with indestructible threats, where Beast Within cannot.

Song of the Dryads is like Oblivion Ring and other cards which are not a permanent solution to the threat and can be removed... which means the threat comes back.

Yes, but one thing that sets Song of Dryads (and its white distant cousin, Darksteel Mutation) apart from more traditional O-ring effects is that these two lock the enemy commander down on the field. With an O-ring or similar effect your opponent can just send their commander back to the command zone.

Quote from DirkGently »

The biggest/only reason to run song of the dryads is the ability to semi-permanently deal with enemy commanders. If you're trying to play a deck that's likely to get screwed over by the right choice of commander, then it may be worth it. Otherwise imo the other two are superior for being instant-speed. But personally I'd want to run all 3 by default.

It can be used to deal with any creature with hexproof or shroud with an assist from Sun Titan, but most of the time that threat is in a Voltron deck. It's useful for a few other things, but as it is neither an instant nor has flash, it won't stop a properly set up one-turn combo, which is a major consideration when it comes to removal.

I'd say Beast Within and Song of the Dryads are better because allowing an opponent to draw two seems worse than ramping one more and making a 3/3. Just to make sure though, you are already using Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares because they are obviously better than these options.

The major reason I use Chaos Warp is because Red has trouble dealing some permanent types. White doesn't have that problem. White can basically deal with anything. So giving your opponents two cards seems unnecessary. Especially when those cards could be worse than what you dealt with.

On the other hand Beast Withins downside is pretty nominal. Its also flexible, it can make you a dude when you need it. Not to mention it can hot creatures without a need for a board state which is a weakness for green.

Song of the Dryad is similar. It can deal with many of the probelms green can't deal with, a single mana probably won't be a big deal, and best of all it doesnt put the card in the yard.

Tl;dr: Cut Oblation.

...those only hit critters.

I picked the instants as tops. Too bad they ruined the tuck rule...

Quote from Gutterstorm »

The major reason I use Chaos Warp is because Red has trouble dealing some permanent types. White doesn't have that problem. White can basically deal with anything. So giving your opponents two cards seems unnecessary. Especially when those cards could be worse than what you dealt with.

On the other hand Beast Withins downside is pretty nominal. Its also flexible, it can make you a dude when you need it. Not to mention it can hot creatures without a need for a board state which is a weakness for green.

Song of the Dryad is similar. It can deal with many of the probelms green can't deal with, a single mana probably won't be a big deal, and best of all it doesnt put the card in the yard.

Tl;dr: Cut Oblation.

If you're already in white, green's lack of answers is irrelevant. Assuming you're looking at both for the same deck, you should evaluate them on their own merits and ignore the color.

In a 1v1 game, giving 2 cards is definitely the biggest downside, but in multiplayer the ability to choose priority targets trumps everything else. The longer you can wait before you're forced to act, the more resources you can conserve by letting other people deal with them first.

You guys are giving me compelling reasons to cut both, maybe I should?

I don't utilise Oblation or Song of the dryads (or Imprisoned in the moon) in any decks but use Beast Within pretty much anywhere it fits.

If i had to choose it would depend on other functions of your deck - id use Oblation if i was using Sunforger but song of the dryads in an enchantment matters build.

Oblation used to be great, when you could shuffle someone's troublesome commander into their library.

Now that tuck is gone, Oblation has become a much worse removal spell (similarly, Hinder and Spell Crumple became much worse counterspells). Chaos Warp remains useful because red and red/black has a lot of trouble dealing with enchantments.

Song of the Dryads may only be temporary, but it can lock down a commander until they get enchantment removal (and if they're in red and/or black...). And, of course, both Song and Beast Within can hit any permanent.

If you're playing mono-white, one simply has to run Oblation.

Agreed with Beast Within the least feel-bad removal of the three. Song of the Dryads is just very bad IMO. There's way too many bounce and enchantment removal for it to be reliable.

It's at best a good Cube card, or much better in 1v1. If you happen to play more 1v1s, then perhaps it's a decent option.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

The poll seems to indicate that Oblation is worse, but the posts give good reasons to cut Song of the Dryads.

Net result...I'm cutting both!

If anyone is curious about the end result of the Arahbo deck, they can check it out here

Late response, but my experience with Song of the Dryads is that it is really powerful.

I'm honestly surprised at the 'betrayal' on Song of the Dryads myself. I get that it's sorcery speed, and yes, blinking/bouncing it makes it nothing; but the 'giving of one extra mana' usually doesn't have an impact on the game, and as was stated, it locks down a troublesome commander. Further, it makes the commander a LAND(something that's a little more difficult to interact with), instead of a creature, which gets interacted with all the time.

We try to do and advise people to prepare for things, but my experience has been that people STILL rarely have answers available for enchantments on their own things, moreso when the target gets morphed into something else.

Quote from Maximum_Intelligence »

You guys are giving me compelling reasons to cut both, maybe I should?

Absolutely not. The two big mistakes I see new players making all the time are "not enough mana" and "not enough removal".

If your meta is combo-heavy, Oblation is better. if your meta isn't, Song of the Dryads is better. Beast Within is supreme.

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

Quote from Maximum_Intelligence »

You guys are giving me compelling reasons to cut both, maybe I should?

Absolutely not. The two big mistakes I see new players making all the time are "not enough mana" and "not enough removal".

If your meta is combo-heavy, Oblation is better. if your meta isn't, Song of the Dryads is better. Beast Within is supreme.

I tend to have the opposite problem.

I tend to pack much more removal than I probably need. I could see putting one back in at some point, I just wanted to have a feel for what the community thought, as I see the 3 cards as pretty close together.

Currently my deck has for removal: Swords to Plowshares, Path to exile, Beast within, Aura Shards, Qasali Slingers, Stalking Leonin, Qasali Pridemage, Ulvenwald Tracker, Krosan Vorine, Austere Command, Tragic Arrogance and to a lesser extent Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of fire and Ice and Nacatl War-Pride. Which either seem more efficient or has multiple purposes.

It looks like if I want to shoe one more in at some point, then Song of the Dryads will come in. However, as many have argued, Sorcery speed and being able to naturalize it is a bit of an issue.