Tips on Effectively Using Mass Removal in Multiplayer

Introduction
I've received some suggestions and PMs over the past few weeks to talk about the role of mass removal in multiplayer games. What kinds to use, what decks to field it in, when to play it, the correct quantity to field and various other information of that nature. While I can only speak for myself and my personal experiences I hope that I'll be able to shed some light on the subject nonetheless.

Why Field It
Simply put mass removal is the ultimate form of checks and balances. It keeps everyone playing a fair game of Magic in which they can't just blindly run out their spells right off the bat and reasonably expect to get there. Anyone too fast out of the gates is often at a significant risk of losing outright which is a great way to keep aggressive decks out of the format (more or less). It forces people to build their lists with turns 8 through 10 in the back of their minds and so things like card advantage and haymakers that can come over-the-top become important considerations for each player to make. Moreover, mass removal prevents the game from ever becoming overly stalemated. If everyone just runs out a creature ever turn it doesn't take very long for attacking to become virtually impossible outside of evasive threats. This leads to prolonged and uninteractive games which are won and lost on the backs of a few fliers or something equally trivial. Frequent board wipes keep the game moving in the sense that players who draw action can keep playing threats and pressuring others with them whereas people who fail to do so will inevitably fall behind and lose. I know that it may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that mass removal helps to hasten games but try to remember that it's way easier to swing a 5/5 at someone with nothing than it is to attack an 8/8 and a 5/5 into someone with 7 creatures on the table (regardless of their size). In addition, mass removal keeps synergy decks in check and ensures that they're not free to durdle around and nut-draw the table every game. Simply put you will rarely-if-ever have the most powerful gameplan nor the most powerful board state at all times and so having access to cards that bring everyone back to the stone-age is usually a solid contingency plan. Moreover, mass removal virtually cannot be a bad draw in a multiplayer setting. While this is more of a subjective and/or anecdotal defense I'd struggle to believe that you could sit down at an average multiplayer game in which you wouldn't stack a Wrath of God on the top of your deck a huge % of the time. It's incredibly difficult to ever feel in complete control or even comfortable with the board state. Mass removal is a fantastic way to alleviate those concerns because it's much easier to feel safe when no one has anything going on. Even though a clean slate won't inherently favor you over anyone else it will usually make you "feel better" about the game and having a positive mental outlook is an invaluable asset regardless of the task that you're performing.

What Kinds To Use
Mass removal, to me, can be broken down into 3 categories. The first category is what I like to call "Wraths" which are basically just Wrath of Gods. That is to say 4-5 mana cards that destroy all creatures (more or less). I personally believe that Wraths are the overall strongest cards to field in a multiplayer setting and that you'll want to run them in largest quantities relative to the other 2 categories. The reason for this is because they A) answer every creature and B) do it for a relatively low sum of mana. They're cheap and powerful cards that will allow you to stabilize the board early on to ensure that you can play a real game of Magic in which you can cast all of your spells and make strong decisions. The best examples of Wraths are things like Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Hallowed Burial, Rout, Damnation, Mutilate, Chain Reaction, Blasphemous Act, Evacuation and Supreme Verdict. I'm going to skip the middling level of mass removal for now and skip right to the third variety which I like to call "board wipes." These are basically cards that handle everything. Think Planar Cleansing. While they tend to range from 6-8 mana which is noticeably more expensive than Wraths they obviously have the added benefit of handling troublesome non-creature permanents as well. These, to me, are the second most important variety of mass removal spells to field in a multiplayer setting. While you usually can't afford to run many of them the small number that you will field are typically invaluable assets in my experience. Sometimes you'll reach the late-game and realize that other players have a significantly stronger gameplan that you do which could otherwise leave you drawing dead. Whereas Wraths ensure that you can consistently reach the lategame board wipes ensure that you're never drawing completely dead once you get there. Some of the best board wipes include things like Planar Cleansing, Akroma's Vengeance, Cyclonic Rift, Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral's Disk and All is Dust. The final variety of mass removal is simply utility sweepers. These fall somewhere in between the other categories and serve niche roles. Good examples would be cards such as Barter in Blood, Fracturing Gust, Hex, Merciless Eviction and Austere Command. They tend to cost 5-7 mana which means that they're inefficient if you're simply looking to wipe creatures off of the board but they attempt to make up for that in other ways. There's no right or wrong time to play them nor cast them and they typically don't fill a specific role in your lists. They tend to be value singletons that can randomly "get" people who weren't expecting to see that type of effect.

No Love for Utility?
I don't see the value in running utility sweepers in large numbers. Let's use Merciless Eviction for example. The vast majority of the time (80%+ in my experience) you are probably just using it as a 6 mana Wrath spell. Why pay 6 mana for an effect that you can get for 4? If you don't think that the extra mana will never come back to bite you then you are sorely mistaken. Hitting 6 lands is significantly harder than hitting 4 after all. You don't run 6 for 6 every game and when you need a Wrath now you need a Wrath NOW. This is why I strongly advocate playing Wraths in large quantities instead. They do the same job for less. Still, hey, what about that 20% of the time where you need to remove X enchantment or artifact? Well guess what, you're probably always going to want (or even need) an out to X except each opponent is going to have an X, Y and/or Z and they're also going to have a throng of scary creatures to boot. Why are you playing Austere Command when what you actually want is Planar Cleansing or Oblivion Stone? I mean really, how frequently do players not have incredibly powerful "everythings" in play? Basically I just don't see the point in having options when what you usually need is something that provides you with an answer to everything. Again, I can get behind adding some spicy singletons into any list but I just personally don't think that utility sweepers serve much of a purpose in constructed multiplayer decks. The cross between an overpriced Wrath and a bad board wipe just doesn't cut it in my books.

When to Field it in Creature-Based Decks
Alright so now we know the 3 basics types of mass removal and what purpose they serve in your decks. That doesn't exactly help you understand when to jam it in them though. Mass removal is realistically always going to be relevant in multiplayer games and so you typically don't need an actual reason/excuse to field it. You can basically just blindly slam it into any deck and you'll rarely regret it. Still there are some decks that should be weary of fielding it in general. The problem that most people have is that the vast majority of their decks are creatures-based and so they never know if fielding mass removal is a good idea. Since I can't possibly cover every archetype I can only leave you with a couple rules of thumb. In general synergy decks don't want to field mass removal whereas good-stuffs decks do. Since most creature-based decks fall into one of those categories this guideline should serve you relatively well. Synergy decks are basically critical-mass decks that rely on the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. If your deck has a bunch of marginal creatures who work well in unison with one another then you probably don't want to Wrath the field very often. A good example of a synergy deck would be a typical Elf list. While each individual Elf is relatively weak it's their amalgamated strength that allows the tribe to shine. Another example of a synergy deck would be a Black devotion deck that curves out into Gray Merchant of Asphodel. It's the critical-mass of Black symbols that allows the deck to demolish its opposition and so Wraths aren't ideal in those types of brews. Good-stuff decks are rather self explanatory and typically want to field some amount of mass removal. They're decks filled with cards that have plenty of standalone value but which don't necessarily build off-of one another. Every creature in the deck is designed to work on its own and should have value at many stages of the game. This includes 1 and 2 drops which may end up being cards such as Figure of Destiny and Scavenging Ooze. You're not building up to some critical-mass; your cards are just very good at all times regardless of your current board state. These decks, in general, want mass removal. Now, you might be asking yourself "why?" Why would a deck filled with good cards want to nuke them all away? Wouldn't it hurt the good creatures more than the bad creatures? No! Synergy decks are scary because once they get going they can really get going. A few elves on turns 1-3 might not seem significant but for all you know they could suddenly become 20/20 monstrosities via Mirror Entity and you might just find yourself dead on turn 5. Wheeeee! Even though synergy decks feature cards that lack standalone strength they make up for it by curving out with unbeatable sequences of plays. Your generically powerful spells are good but they usually can't compete with synergy decks that are left to their own devices. Think about it like this. A nut Elf draw will beat your 4/4s for 3 and 5/5s for 4 by eventually ramping out a Craterhoof Behemoth or making all of their guys huge with Joraga Warcaller. However if you Wrath every 3-4 turns then your big dudes will crush their piddly 1/1 mana dorks and such. As such you want to field mass removal in good-stuffs decks but you typically want to avoid fielding it in synergy decks.

When to Field it in Control Decks
Always. It's literally that simple. Spot removal is horrendously inefficient in a multiplayer setting because you'll never be able to compete with the sheer threat density of many opponents if you're trying to go 1-for-1. If you still want to play a small number (4ish) of spot removal spells, that's fine, just don't make it your primary source of interaction with the other players. While you may be able to sit back with untapped mana in very casual metas and emerge unscathed it literally shouldn't ever happen once your competition reaches a certain skill threshold. It's completely and utterly nonsensical to let a Control player sit back and make land drops unmolested if your deck wins by turning creatures sideways after all. You'll need to routinely clear the board as a result and so you'll want to jam a lot of mass removal in your Control shells.

How Much to Play
Alright so now we've gone over the basic varieties of mass removal and which decks should be looking to play them. Now we can start touching on quantity. There's no exact science here or anything but I'll do my best to cover what I believe to be the basics. My personal mass removal ratios tend to hover around 4:2:1 with respect to Wraths, board wipes and utility sweepers. That is to say that on average I play roughly 4 Wraths 2 board wipes and 1 utility sweeper when I'm playing a good-stuffs or Control deck and I tend to keep those rough rations in check. If I cut back then I'll move to 2 Wraths and 1 board wipe or something similar. If I move up a notch I'll jump straight to 8 Wraths, 3ish board wipes and maybe 1-2 utility effects. Here's my reasoning. When you're playing a good-stuffs/Control deck the easiest way to lose games is to aggro decks and God draws from synergy decks. What this means is that you'll want to Wrath early and often. To meet the "early" requirement you'll need a large quantity of cheap mass removal which basically means Wraths should always be your go-tos. It's rather pointless to jam a bunch of 6+ mana mass removal into your lists prior to fielding a critical mass of those because odds are you'll be dead before they ever come into effect. Now, in order to meet the "often" requirement you basically have to play a relatively large quantity of them in your lists. When paired with some solid card draw you should almost always rip them at an acceptable clip. The reason to field a small number (2 or so) of board wipes is so that you're never actually drawing dead to anything. Simply put people will frequently have stronger gameplans than you and you'll need something more powerful than a Wrath to overcome it usually. Even though it often means losing a whack of stuff yourself it's better than outright losing the game. Still, these cards have little-if-any value early on nor when you're in a stable position which basically makes them useless for a huge % of the game. You typically cannot afford to load up on them for that reason alone. Utility sweepers I run in very small numbers (0-1) because they just plain don't serve much of a role in my opinion. You can't slam them on turn 4 to stabilize and you can't fire them off on turn 10 to reset the board. I'm not saying that Austere Command won't perform miracles at times but what I am saying is that, in general, having either Day of Judgment on turn 4 or Planar Cleansing on turn 9 instead will provide you with superior control over the game during the periods in which the spells are relevant. You may still elect to run 1 in the hopes of randomly filling a niche role but that's about as far as I'd go with it.

When to Cast it
The trickiest part about fielding Wraths is probably knowing when to play them. This is especially true if you're a newer player who doesn't have much experience wielding them. The effect is blatantly powerful, that much is clear, but how are you supposed to maximize their value? You're not. I'm going to teach you all a lesson that took me many many, many, many, many years of playing Control decks to learn myself. Removal is your deck to be played. I'm not even going to qualify it as "mass removal" because this lesson applies equally to spot removal. The most common mistake that amateur players make when wielding mass removal is that they often convince themselves that if they just sit on it then they'll get a ton of extra value out of it down the road. They blindly overlook the fact that their deck is drawing to ~7 more every turn and focus on getting that blowout Wrath that wins the game outright. While this works at very low levels on play it's the Achilles heel that will lead to your downfall if you're playing against seasoned Magicians. Strong players will not over-extend into Wraths by ceasing to commit threats once they feel secure with their current board state. Moreover, strong players will usually pressure ones who are trying to under-commit resources in order to bolster their lategame strength. If you start passing turns with a weak board state (you're obviously not going to commit threats if you plan to Wrath in the near future) what will usually happen is that you'll get pressured by people with stronger ones who will probably take that opportunity to resolve something other than a body or to simply pass the turn. They're in a winning position at that point after all which means that the onus isn't on them to act. They can simply sit back and wait for the people in weaker positions to make a move first. They'll lose if they don't. Since it doesn't make sense to pursue a losing line your best bet is basically just to Wrath the moment that you start to feel uncomfortable with your current board state. It doesn't make much sense to slam threats if you have Wraths in hand but I mean sitting around doing nothing shouldn't work either. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't make a bit of magic happen. More often than not you'll find yourself in a relatively stable board state when you rip a Wrath. What this means is that you'll frequently have a 1 turn window before you'll need to play it. You can use this opportunity to resolve a draw spell or even just pass the turn and I would strongly advocate avoiding any unnecessary attacks before doing so. Let everyone take their turn and when it comes back around to you should basically always Wrath almost regardless of what everyone else did. Smart players will pick up on cues and stop committing threats once other players start to do so as well and so people who stopped playing threats probably won't start up again until someone else takes the first step. This often happens once everyone has 2-3 threats (or so) on the table because attacking with ground-pounders become almost impossible at that stage of the game. If you pick up an extra card or two from people who are overzealous, good on you. If not, hey, you didn't lose out on much.

Wrathing When You're Ahead
... is obviously bad. If you're way ahead on board then you should clearly sandbag your Wraths for a rainy day. I'm not telling you to blindly Wrath regardless of the board state. If you're in a position in which you can apply pressure and pressure isn't being applied on you then it would be foolish to do anything really. The onus would be on others to take action first after all. What I will say is that you'll virtually never be ahead in a midway competitive multiplayer match especially if you're playing around Wraths yourself. You'll know that you're in a strong position if you're making strides to actively win the game without the receiving reciprocation from the afflicted parties. The second that the board stalemates or that you start to get pressured, hey, it's about time to consider wiping the board because you're suddenly not as ahead as you realistically need to be in order to justify not playing your spells.

Common Fallacies
The first fallacy that I'd like to stomp out of your heads is the idea that your deck only has a single mass removal spell or that you can't start casting them until you draw additional copies. People tend to tunnel hard on the cards (not) in their hands and ignore the fact that their decks are usually chock full of live draws at all times. You will typically rip more as the game progresses and so you shouldn't feel the need to sandbag the ones that you do collect until you reach a critical mass of them. Play your spells and keep the game going at a slow pace. An easy way to die is to randomly get Sleeped or something and get hit for a million. By clearing the field often you'll have more opportunities to draw more cards which increases the likelihood of ripping more mass removal. Moving on I'd like to address the idea that mass removal is bad because it hurts you. Newsflash: your deck probably isn't as powerful as you think that it is. It's pretty ridiculous to assume that you'll always have a strong board position regardless of your draws and the draws of your opponents. Even though casting a Planar Cleansing will nuke your important permanents you're doing it because you wouldn't have beaten that Lurking Predators anyways. Given the choice of keeping a Sword of Light and Shadow and losing the game or stabilizing, hey, they choice is clear. Yes it sucks to hurt yourself but your decks play cards in multiples for a reason. You're not just drawing dead because you lost some stuff so bite the bullet and the make the play that will keep you in the game.

Is it Really That Easy?
I think that it is and here's why. Magic is a very skill intensive game that rewards strong decision making and mechanical ability. The best way to consistently win games (be they multiplayer or not) is to create gamestates where you can leverage your skill over players who are weaker and/or less knowledgeable than you are. That is, you typically want the game to consist of many small decisions that add up over time rather than having the game be decided by small numbers of incredibly significant plays. When you Wrath early and often you're essentially keeping the game at a relatively tame state. Of all the things that could be going on "nothing" is a fantastic way to ensure that you'll have plenty of time to lean on your skill and experience to see it through to the end. The less that people have going on the less that can go horribly wrong for you after all. Prolonging the game helps to ensure that you'll find opportunities to outplay and/or outwit your opposition which should benefit you insofar as you're a solid player. Moreover, it somewhat ensures that when something does go wrong (and it will) that it won't be nearly as catastrophic as it could have otherwise been. This, again, tends to favor the stronger players at the table. To put a bit of a personal touch on the subject I can tell you anecdotally that I always regret the games where I greedily withheld my removal blindly hoping that my opponents would make poor decisions. I have extensive memories of getting unbelievably punished for my "crimes" and this is why I play my removal fast and hard nowadays. What it boils down to is that you'll virtually never regret Wrathing the board and taking things back to square one but you'll kick yourself every time that you get punished for playing greedy. You're playing 4 or more Wraths in your deck for a reason and so there's no need to rack up a ton of dumb losses that you could have absolutely prevented. It will always be the best draw in your deck so you may as well let it do its job rather than trying to get fancy. The "do nothing" plan just doesn't work past a certain point.

Conclusion
I hope that this has helped to shed some light on the subject of mass removal. While it exists in many forms that you should run in different quantities at the end of the day it exists to be the best draw in your deck at all times. Insofar as you field reasonable quantities of it you shouldn't ever feel bad about firing it off fast and furiously. Long games favor strong players with solid decks who can make good strategic decisions after all. By learning from the critical mistakes that others have made about mass removal I hope that we can all learn to play it more effectively moving forward.
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