To respond to the opening post, I feel as though the number of cards that a player can afford to dedicate towards spot removal or other kinds of inexpensive reactive cards depend on how reliably that player can achieve card advantage and mana through other cards. I'm beginning to value cards in Commander much higher than I used to that are capable of earning massive amounts of card advantage independently. Cards like Recurring Insight, while having always been an obviously powerful card, are powerful from a deckbuilding perspective because they afford their caster deck slots which can be dedicated towards inexpensive cards in place of running more cards that draw into other cards at a lower quantity.
Recurring Insight is an underrated card - it costs the same amount as Consecrated Sphinx, and is frequently more reliable as a draw 10+.
You're right that spot removal is best when you're using the rest of your mana efficiently, but that doesn't have to be ramp/draw. It can be equally powerful in proactive decks when paired with threats.
"Spot removal is bad in Commander, just play sweepers."
This is an oft-repeated bit of strategic advice, and one I've always disagreed with. Spot removal is a powerful tool for proactive and reactive decks alike.
Now, when I say "spot removal," I basically mean cheap instants that kill a single creature. I'm not talking about flexible sorceries like Vindicate or expensive blowouts like Spinal Embrace. I'm talking about cards like Doom Blade, Swords to Plowshares, and Pongify.
Here are the three main reasons spot removal is powerful:
1) It Allows Opponents to Attack Eachother
Commander is a format about big threats. Giant dragons, voltron generals, and other large beasties abound. At some point, you're going to have to kill these guys if you don't want to get beat down.
But a lot of the time, these creatures will end up attacking someone else first. If you pack your deck full of wraths, you'll miss out on a lot of damage from opponents attacking eachother. Cheap instants give you the freedom to wait and see where those heavy hitters go.
Play nothing but sweepers, and you will often find yourself trying to deal 120 points of damage all buy yourself.
I think the widespread misconception that spot removal is bad is a big part of why these cards are such an issue. All of them die to Doom Blade with no benefit and a loss in mana, which leads into our final point...
3) Tempo is Actually a Big Deal
Tempo is frequently undervalued in Commander. The conventional wisdom is that mana and card advantage are far more important. What people fail to understand is the relationship between these things.
Tempo in Commander is essentially the dynamic between pressure and resource development. The more pressure you're under, the less mana and cards you can spend on gaining resources. If I'm attacking you with Phyrexian Crusader or Rafiq of the Many, it's pretty risky to tap out for Explosive Vegetation and Damnation can take up your whole turn.
Cheap spot removal lets you answer threats while developing your own board. I've often heard, "The problem with spot removal is that you're still down a card to the other two people at the table." But by playing Swords to Plowshares instead of Hallowed Burial, I can spend that extra mana on a Concentrate or Cultivate.
Practical Takeaways
Given all that, how much spot removal should you run? Which cards are good?
I use similar starting numbers for spot removal, sweepers, and counterspells: 8+ if they're core to the deck's strategy, 5 on average, minimum 2 for emergencies even if they don't fit my gameplan.
My priorities when selecting spot removal are the following:
1) Reliability - If I'm going to spend a slot on removal, I want it to work. "Attacking creature" and "nonblack creature" are both scary restrictions that I avoid if possible. Lightning Bolt and Dismember are both efficient, but they aren't always big enough to kill the things I want to kill.
2) Cost - The cheaper the better. One mana is great, two is good, three or more starts to lose the advantages of spot removal.
3) Drawbacks - How much does it hurt you to give them an extra land with Path to Exile? Pongify and Beast Within may be perfect for a deck full of flyers but terrible in Edric, Spymaster of Trest.
4) Upsides - Can the card do something other than kill creatures? Does it exile the target? These are meaningful, but not as important as the other qualities.
Some examples: Swords to Plowshares - The gold standard for removal in Commander. Cheap, hits anything, exiles the target, drawback is usually minor. Path to Exile is similar but has a much bigger drawback. Doom Blade - Not good enough. Two mana is good, but lots of creatures are black in this gold-loving format. Go for the Throat - Unlike Doom Blade, this generally kills the things you need to kill. It's a good baseline - a card I'm happy to run or cut depending on the specific needs and themes of the deck. Snuff Out - As prices go, "free" is the best. So good that it's often worth the "nonblack" clause. Pongify/Rapid Hybridization - Cheap removal in a color that's supposed to be bad at it. I'm happy to run these in most decks without Black or White, although some decks fear the drawback more than others. Mortify/Putrefy/Hero's Downfall/Various Charms - These trade off some efficiency for flexibility. It's fine to run a few of these, but you generally want more cheap cards than flexible cards, especially if your deck has other ways to deal with noncreatures.
I think part of the issue was that the original statement was meant to be more of a transparent "here's what we were thinking" rather than laying out specific arguments for the change. It's a high-level summary that got picked apart for a lot of line-by-line refutations.
I've got a question to all the people complaining about the green Primordial: does everyone in your meta just buy all the singles they need as and when they need them? I only ask because all this 'oh auto include, it'll be in all the decks!!' stuff is alien to me, as most of my playgroup can't afford singles except as the odd purchase, and for the most part we make do with what we have in our collections.
I think most EDH players are invested enough in Magic (literally and figuratively) that they buy or trade for widely available cards that are five buck or less.
There are some people who build completely out of their collections and others who will put down $500 without hesitation, but I think most people fall somewhere in the, "$3 is an easy purchase, $10 is maybe if it's really important, $50 is not happening" range.
I'd be fine with it - I've also seen people play Nephilim as generals without objection.
Just make sure to confirm the general damage issue in advance - I'd happily let damage from the animated land count, but that's not how the rules work at default.
Alright, I've recorded all the data up to this point. It'll take me some time to get 1600+ decks added to the list.
If you haven't posted yet, don't worry! I'll add anything that goes up in the next three days.
Meanwhile, can anyone recommend any easy way to set up a table I can data mine? In a perfect world, I'd just have a row with each general, the number of decks, and boolean tags for each color. Then I could easily ask things like "How many mono-red decks? How many two-color decks?"
If there's a decent (free) way to do this, some simple programming should be much easier than doing it all by hand.
EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out myself. I am a spreadsheeting genius!
I'd say you should be able to cool down a Ghave deck to reasonable levels just by cutting anything that turns tokens into mana - Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Earthcraft, Gaea's Cradle...
Recurring Insight is an underrated card - it costs the same amount as Consecrated Sphinx, and is frequently more reliable as a draw 10+.
You're right that spot removal is best when you're using the rest of your mana efficiently, but that doesn't have to be ramp/draw. It can be equally powerful in proactive decks when paired with threats.
This is an oft-repeated bit of strategic advice, and one I've always disagreed with. Spot removal is a powerful tool for proactive and reactive decks alike.
Now, when I say "spot removal," I basically mean cheap instants that kill a single creature. I'm not talking about flexible sorceries like Vindicate or expensive blowouts like Spinal Embrace. I'm talking about cards like Doom Blade, Swords to Plowshares, and Pongify.
Here are the three main reasons spot removal is powerful:
1) It Allows Opponents to Attack Eachother
Commander is a format about big threats. Giant dragons, voltron generals, and other large beasties abound. At some point, you're going to have to kill these guys if you don't want to get beat down.
But a lot of the time, these creatures will end up attacking someone else first. If you pack your deck full of wraths, you'll miss out on a lot of damage from opponents attacking eachother. Cheap instants give you the freedom to wait and see where those heavy hitters go.
Play nothing but sweepers, and you will often find yourself trying to deal 120 points of damage all buy yourself.
2) Some Threats Need to Die NOW
Creatures like Consecrated Sphinx, Seedborn Muse, and Deadeye Navigator can generate insurmountable advantages if not killed immediately.
I think the widespread misconception that spot removal is bad is a big part of why these cards are such an issue. All of them die to Doom Blade with no benefit and a loss in mana, which leads into our final point...
3) Tempo is Actually a Big Deal
Tempo is frequently undervalued in Commander. The conventional wisdom is that mana and card advantage are far more important. What people fail to understand is the relationship between these things.
Tempo in Commander is essentially the dynamic between pressure and resource development. The more pressure you're under, the less mana and cards you can spend on gaining resources. If I'm attacking you with Phyrexian Crusader or Rafiq of the Many, it's pretty risky to tap out for Explosive Vegetation and Damnation can take up your whole turn.
Cheap spot removal lets you answer threats while developing your own board. I've often heard, "The problem with spot removal is that you're still down a card to the other two people at the table." But by playing Swords to Plowshares instead of Hallowed Burial, I can spend that extra mana on a Concentrate or Cultivate.
Practical Takeaways
Given all that, how much spot removal should you run? Which cards are good?
I use similar starting numbers for spot removal, sweepers, and counterspells: 8+ if they're core to the deck's strategy, 5 on average, minimum 2 for emergencies even if they don't fit my gameplan.
My priorities when selecting spot removal are the following:
1) Reliability - If I'm going to spend a slot on removal, I want it to work. "Attacking creature" and "nonblack creature" are both scary restrictions that I avoid if possible. Lightning Bolt and Dismember are both efficient, but they aren't always big enough to kill the things I want to kill.
2) Cost - The cheaper the better. One mana is great, two is good, three or more starts to lose the advantages of spot removal.
3) Drawbacks - How much does it hurt you to give them an extra land with Path to Exile? Pongify and Beast Within may be perfect for a deck full of flyers but terrible in Edric, Spymaster of Trest.
4) Upsides - Can the card do something other than kill creatures? Does it exile the target? These are meaningful, but not as important as the other qualities.
Some examples:
Swords to Plowshares - The gold standard for removal in Commander. Cheap, hits anything, exiles the target, drawback is usually minor. Path to Exile is similar but has a much bigger drawback.
Doom Blade - Not good enough. Two mana is good, but lots of creatures are black in this gold-loving format.
Go for the Throat - Unlike Doom Blade, this generally kills the things you need to kill. It's a good baseline - a card I'm happy to run or cut depending on the specific needs and themes of the deck.
Snuff Out - As prices go, "free" is the best. So good that it's often worth the "nonblack" clause.
Pongify/Rapid Hybridization - Cheap removal in a color that's supposed to be bad at it. I'm happy to run these in most decks without Black or White, although some decks fear the drawback more than others.
Mortify/Putrefy/Hero's Downfall/Various Charms - These trade off some efficiency for flexibility. It's fine to run a few of these, but you generally want more cheap cards than flexible cards, especially if your deck has other ways to deal with noncreatures.
(Also posted to MTGCommander.net forums)
It makes me absurdly happy to reveal Crib Swap to Wanderwine Hub or Ancient Ampitheater. I love losing because I can't target Baneslayer Angel[/CARD], or winning because it can't be countered by Faerie Trickery.
You tap out for Explosive Vegetation? Take 10 damage/7 general damage/5 infect. You feel like tapping out for Sylvan Primordial next turn?
My bad on the late post. Not the RC's fault, just the new guy screwing up
I think most EDH players are invested enough in Magic (literally and figuratively) that they buy or trade for widely available cards that are five buck or less.
There are some people who build completely out of their collections and others who will put down $500 without hesitation, but I think most people fall somewhere in the, "$3 is an easy purchase, $10 is maybe if it's really important, $50 is not happening" range.
Just make sure to confirm the general damage issue in advance - I'd happily let damage from the animated land count, but that's not how the rules work at default.
Greenseeker, Llanowar Mentor, Stampede Driver, Cho-Arrim Alchemist, Trickster Mage.
Other discard outlets!
Tireless Tribe, Putrid Imp, Hapless Researcher
If you haven't posted yet, don't worry! I'll add anything that goes up in the next three days.
Meanwhile, can anyone recommend any easy way to set up a table I can data mine? In a perfect world, I'd just have a row with each general, the number of decks, and boolean tags for each color. Then I could easily ask things like "How many mono-red decks? How many two-color decks?"
If there's a decent (free) way to do this, some simple programming should be much easier than doing it all by hand.
EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out myself. I am a spreadsheeting genius!