MTG Salvation

Discussion on Pit Trap in the evaluate everything got me thinking about colorless removal. It will usually be worse than the colored stuff, but is it worth including some so that all decks have access to removal?

I've excluded stuff that needs a colour, like Executioner's Capsule. Or narrow removal like Gremlin Mine. I've included a couple of things that can act like removal, like Maze of Ith, but haven't included temporary removal like Tumble Magnet. Some of the 'maybes' are probably tending more towards bad.


Playable

• Shrine of Burning Rage
  
• Desert
  
• Maze of Ith
  
• Serrated Arrows
  
• Mortarpod
  
• Dismember

Maybe

• Aeolipile
  
• Triangle of War
  
• Pit Trap
  
• Moonglove Extract
  
• Unstable Obelisk
  
• Goblin Boom Keg
  
• Goblin Cannon
  
• Skull Catapult
  
• Icy Manipulator
  
• Mouth of Ronom
  
• Ice Floe
  
• Leonin Blade Trap
  
• Contagion Clasp
  
• Gut Shot

Bad

• Flamecast Wheel
  
• Magma Mine
  
• Vial of Dragonfire
  
• Meteorite
  
• Puppet Strings
  
• Trip Noose
  
• Blazing Torch
  
• Bullwhip
  
• Marrow Shards
  
• Corrosive Gale
  
• Fodder Cannon
  
• Scour From Existence
  
• Titan's Presence

Anything there you would include in your cube, or draft if you saw it in a cube? Anything else missing from the list?

Our selection of removal is quite good in each color, so I can't see myself ever wanting to include colorless removal. Perhaps in a blue or green deck, but those decks are usually complimented by removal in a different color.

Granted, for the strangest reason I do like Aeolipile. If it was printed at uncommon I may have considered playing it.

EDIT: Moonglove Extract is the closest thing I'd play. It's fringe for me.

I second Serrated Arrows, I think it's the best colorless removal we have. Also, Blazing Torch exists...

Icy Manipulator is still working very, very well for me.

Skull Catapult seems kinda interesting for a card I forgot existed -- repeatable 2 damage is pretty strong in a lot of situations. Spendy compared to Goblin Bombardment, but perhaps still worth considering.

It might be classified as unplayable but at one point I ran Bullwhip and in theory, it has a nice best case scenario. There is also Leonin Bladetrap which is on and off my list repeatedly. Mass removal is just so rare in colourless.

Among colorless removal options, I run the aforementioned Shrine of Burning Rage, Maze of Ith, Icy Manipulator, Mouth of Ronom, and Serrated Arrows. Also run the not yet mentioned Contagion Clasp, Mortarpod and Dismember.

I like both Clasp and Mortarpod because they're relatively cheap colorless options that can have an immediate board impact as well as long-game upside. Also, Contagion Clasp plus Serrated Arrows is build your own Contagion Engine.
Mouth of Ronom is very good for me as well. It's difficult for me to imagine many 2 color decks that would not want to run it. Heck, I've even run it as a 19th land under a spell slot in 4c Blue control decks.

EDIT: Also a few more Phyrexian mana options like Marrow Shards,Gut Shot, and Corrosive Gale, all of which look unplayable.

Do people playing with Mouth of Ronom (or Stalking Yeti) actually have Snow lands in the basic box? It would really annoy me to have to explain that "1*" mana is the same as "2", and I also don't want to spend 100+ bucks getting the actual Snow lands.

Also, I had Contagion Clasp in one of the early versions of my cube and it was sooooooooooo baaaaaaaddddddddd. Six-mana Dead Weight most of the time.

Quote from _i0 »

Do people playing with Mouth of Ronom (or Stalking Yeti) actually have Snow lands in the basic box? It would really annoy me to have to explain that "1*" mana is the same as "2", and I also don't want to spend 100+ bucks getting the actual Snow lands.

I do actually have snow lands that I acquired way back when I started my cube around early 2009. Due to that, I got mine at a decent rate. If they are going to retrofit all old lands to produce <> instead of 1, I guess you can just say that * equals 1.

Looks like I missed a few, I've added them to the list. I didn't initially include the equipment removal as they are a bit more limited in scope compared to more traditional 'removal', but I've added them now.

Quote from _i0 »

Icy Manipulator is still working very, very well for me.

Skull Catapult seems kinda interesting for a card I forgot existed -- repeatable 2 damage is pretty strong in a lot of situations. Spendy compared to Goblin Bombardment, but perhaps still worth considering.

From memory I threw this into my cube when I first cobbled it together. It probably didn't last long on the basis that my list was quickly updated, but is probably fine in the right deck. Might depend on the speed of your cube.

I'll add Fodder Cannon to the list. I think 'bad' is the correct section, despite how much I want to like it. If you can throw away tokens or cheap stuff to take out your opponents midrange stuff that sounds good... but 8 mana and the investment of 2 cards to remove your first creature is a big ask.

I don't think desert is in the playable category. It requires too specific a circumstance to have a noticeable effect on the game. Either X/1 attackers, which exist but aren't terribly common outside of white tokens (in which case you're still only killing a fraction of a card after it hits you) or turning like a 2/2 blocking a 3/3 into a trade for 1 mana.

I still think that the replacement level cubable card is much higher in impact above all of these colorless cards except dismember and serrated arrows and maze of ith. I think mortarpod is playable, but I wouldn't play with it if I was just a joe schmo deck that had no removal: I'd need a way to make it better or a matchup problem. Shrine of burning rage I haven't played outside of a deck with red in it in over a year.

I am also on the "contagion clasp is molasses" train.

I think Desert is not in the same league as Dismember or Maze of Ith, but it's better than some that are in the "maybe" category.

Can you Desert away an X/1 renown creature with its trigger on the stack?

I'd assume so.


desert tapped ability
renown trigger
x/1 deals damage


resolves top down.

Actually, looks like you can't. Damage triggers happen during the combat damage step, and resolve before players go to End Combat step which is the only time to use Desert.

(Tangent over)

I'm not sure how anyone can think Desert isn't good. Look at your cards and see how many x/1's you have (hint: more than enough for desert to be good).
I don't play it, but that's certainly not because I think it's bad.

I've considered Desert in the past but not added it as I assume I won't like what it does for my environment. It looks like it will undermine aggro a little too much for my liking, not just taking out the x/1's, but also letting other stuff trade up with little effort required.

They're probably too expensive for most cubes, but Scour From Existence and Unstable Obelisk at least deserve a mention.

I had Unstable Obelisk in the maybe section, which is probably optimistic but at least it has another mode. I've added Scour From Existence, and also Titan's Presence, but threw them in the bad list.

You know, I'm going to order 2 unstable obelisk for my side project cube. Ramp could use another rock and I could use more bad removal.

Quote from bacchus2 »

I had Unstable Obelisk in the maybe section, which is probably optimistic but at least it has another mode. I've added Scour From Existence, and also Titan's Presence, but threw them in the bad list.

Whoops, sorry I missed that. "Bad" for Scour seems pretty fair. It barely sees play in BFZ limited. If green ramp decks don't want Desert Twister, then no one probably wants Scour.

It's easily in the Bad pile, but Granite Shard exists.