It's a good list. I half-expected to see Oblation, which has won me games in the past. It works best if the opponent is punished for drawing, of course.
Not on the list, but one of my favorites is Befoul. Pretty versatile as it can target both land and non-black creatures which also can't be regenerated if hit by Befoul. The 7ed version of the card has a gorgeous printing as well with magnificent artwork. The foil version of the card looks fantastic (black borders instead of the regular 7ed white).
I really like putting Status/Statue in my Grismold deck since he gets so big, people will block enough to not die and giving deathtouch to get the rest of the damage through sounds fantastic. Statue is just gravy, thank you!
I play Cratermaker in Winota, and he does exactly three things: Attacks, kills Containment Priest, and kills Grafdigger’s Cage. Considering one is the point of the deck, and two are the single most devastating cards against it, he’s a must-run.
I'm with you on the Sorcery speed removal. Sometimes you want to cast while they are tapped out. Even that new Emrakul has protection from instants. There's corner cases but, yes, I agree I've seen Instant speed removal cast on their own turns far too often to toss out all Sorcery speed removal from the arguement. I also LOVE Winds of Abandon!
I mean for the most part if your casting an instant at sorcery speed your just making a bad play unless they go right after you and you don't want them to untap their mana.
i personally prefer Baleful Mastery to Epic Downfall. It cost 1B just like Epic Downfall if you pay the alternate cost. Letting another opponent draw a card isnt really a big drawback and can even earn you some political points since you are free to choose any opponent to draw that card. Baleful Mastery is also my secret tech to beat Thoracle. Let them resolve Consultation/Pact while Thoracle trigger is on the stack so they have an empty library. Before Thoracle trigger resolves, cast Baleful Mastery targeting Thoracle and forcing that same opponent to draw a card from their empty library.
I really like the option for politics and kinda learned to embrace the chaos that sometimes you give an opponent a dangerous card. I should get this card!
Another fun thing about Cannibalize and Oust is they're cheap ways to target stuff. They could be really good in a deck that specifically cares about targeting things with a spell or ability like Horobi, Death's Wail or any list that includes Will Breaker like effects.
If I could hazard an educated guess at the reason why I see people casting instant-speed removal on their turns, I believe it happens when someone knows they're casting something definitely worthy of being removed with a Krosan Grip, and they're waiting for other players to be tapped out before they play the card. Contingencies being able to be accessed at instant speed are definitely a considerable comfort, and I feel like there's a high possibility lots of people are going for the noticeable comfort first. I like recursion and abusing ETB's, so I would use creatures like Rambunctious Mutt and Acidic Slime, and find a way to re-play them, like with Conjurer's Closet and Teleportation Circle.
Im not saying demo is wrong by any means, but literally every time iv been in a pod and someone casts settle the wreckage or winds of abandon, whoever cast it loses. The only exceptions iv seen to that is if theres only one problem creature getting removed. Its kinda like tempt with discovery to me. The only time i accept is if i know i can get a strip mine and just waste their spell and their best land.
I LOVE Unexpectedly Absent. Such a goofy thing to do, that you can kill a commander with it, for X = 0, and make them decide if they want to put the Commander on the top and risk getting milled, or in the Command Zone and up the casting cost. Good Stuff
they wouldn't get to choose to send it back to command zone if it's milled to graveyard? do they just have that choice only when the commander leaves the battlefield and not any time it hits graveyard??
@@Fausto_4841 They do have the option 'any time the Commander changes zones', so milling it would be a chance to put it back in the command zone. But, if you make them shuffle while the commander is IN the deck, it's not changing zones
I love Winds of Abandon- it has a slot in pretty much every deck I run that plays into white. For as notorious as Cyclonic Rift is in the format, players really seem to sleep on Winds of Abandon. Then again, people hit the snooze button on Ornithopter of Paradise....they went bonkers over Arcane Signet when it first came out and it's still a 2 dollar card despite heavy reprinting, Birds of Paradise is a $15 card that can only play in green- Ornithopter of Paradise? Snooze Button. Just goes to show that magic players can be very fickle when speculating on cards, lol.
edit: my comment contains some wrong things settle the wreckage can be amazing with kykar, amass a bunch of tokens, attack, settle, sacrifice your tokens for mana, fetch your lands, profit. (wrong) you might be able to settle after damage while your tokens are still considered to he attacking but I'm not sure, but that would be an epic exploit
Wait, I don't think you can sac them and fetch lands. Because you'd have to sac them before Settle resolves and then they wouldn't get exiled anymore, therefore you'd get less lands
EDH Deckbuilding does mention after damage is assigned. But I'm not sure how he considers that to be possible there isn't a natural interaction moment between damage assigned and second main phase and in the second main phase there's no attacking creatures anymore. So there may be a way to exploit it. But the way it was explained in the video doesn't seem to, unless I'm missing something. Ofcourse if there is a trigger occuring due to damage being assigned that's an interaction moment there, but you don't always have a trigger.
@@alleycatlordoflunes9689 ok so i think i am partly correct. you cannot double dip with sacrifice because you sac with settle on the stack, then when settle resolves it checks how many attacking creatures you have. my bad. that said, there is definitely a point during the combat step when you can interact after combat damage was dealt. so you should be able to attack, deal damage, then settle your own creatures. please correct me if im wrong though. but this is also how ninjutsu works so im pretty sure im right on the second half.
@@enersha Nope, ninjutsu works after blockers have been assigned in the declare blockers phase, before the combat step resolves. That's why cards that ninjitsu into combat effects like apon dealing damage do X still do X
I think that Epic Downfall is the victim of several things that make it a pretty bad card. I do not see this being played in any multicolor deck, as every color added to black will give you excellent options that do more. That being said, monoblack has quite a removal suite to begin with, and the fact that this has a certain set of constraints makes it vastly inferior. To begin with, I would rather have any of the myriad 2-drop instants that destroy over this, as spot removal at instant speed is more important . If the sorcery speed doesn’t matter, and even if you have higher cmc, I’d take removal stapled to a creature, such as something along the lines of Ravenous Chupacabra or even Duplicant, as those are easily recurred and/or cheated out, and have a much less narrow effect in addition to playing nicely with the other pieces in the deck. The 3CMC and above constraint is worse than you think, has quite a few kill-on-sight creatures fall in that range, most of which are hatebears that cripple a lot of black decks: Dramnith, Grand Abolisher, Thalia, Ethersworn, Containment Priest, Scooze, Collector Ouphe, etc. In the current state of the format, spot removal needs to have a certain blend of utility, efficiency, and versatility; epic downfall falls short in having enough of the above to see real usage.
Winds of Abandon is insanely bad. You're not ramping one person by a bunch of lands, but potentially 3+. You're giving WAAAAAY too much resources to your opponents. Sure, you keep your creatures, but ramp is absolutely king in EDH. It would be totally different if you're playing a 1v1 match where those resources won't matter as much, but as soon as you're talking multiplayer this card just dies. Oh...and let's not forget all the other boards wipes that are either cheaper, same mana but more efficient, or don't come with such huge drawbacks. The ONLY decks this would be good in are aggro decks using it on the turn that they can kill every one else.
Hai First of all, I love your content please do not treat this as kind of attack. 1. Removals do not win games. They just make you not lose them. The best way to deal with Vorinclex is to have your own in game before your opponent does. Imagine how horrible and unplayable format would have been if everyone was playing mono removal tribals. 2. Please note, that casting a removal on commander is very very very bad. Imagine countering/destroying your opponent's commander 3 times in a row. Yeah, he's probably not playing it again anytime soon, but at that point you have nothing left, while he still has cards in his hand. Not to mention now commanders usually have some kind of etb/cast trigger value, so yeah, you're even further behind. 3. If we do like Winds of Abandon for being versatile, why Damn did not get a point for that? On the same point - you can not ever try to compare these two cards - their usefulness is completely based on playgroup. You do not want to ever even consider taking Winds if your meta is completely based on combos and mana dorks, and you do not take Damn if you play in slower, more voltrony environment. 4. Settle the Wreckage is not a removal. It's a fog. 5. Epic Downfall will never be good in commander. 2 mana, sorcery speed for conditional exile. If you play in slow meta, you can have better effect for 3 mana, if in faster meta, you do not have targets/so much mana left open. 6. Great choice for #4 and #1 though.
on Settle the Wreckage - last I checked most fog cards don't remove any card off the battlefield, Settle does. Also, due to the nature of the combat phase - Settle can indeed, as mentioned in the video, be played after combat damage has been dealt - in which case it no longer acts like a "fog".
@@light-chemistry Okay Explain what and why is wrong. The goal of my post was not to start a discussion. You guys have not even tried to defend any point, just told me I'm wrong without explaining why. Well guess what. These cards aren't played even though everything I said is "phenomenally wrong". LOL
@@LouisKing995 If you are a kind of guy who plays commander to see other people not playing commander... why do you even play commander? If everyone in your group plays bs toxic general then maybe you are in wrong group? Or maybe you try to tell yourself your meta is casual while in fact every other player is competitive af?
@@MatthewCJoy I agree with Andrew, that much removal really helps you police the board when needed and disrupt what matters most for your opponents. I'd drop to 10 if I ran repeatable tutors, but I have a lot of disdain for tutors in EDH.
@@poofypeanut0221 Ok and? Is it hurting your feelings that my play group runs threats that no one answers? Kinda sad cause all I want to do is answer the threats that no one else in my play group does so someone just doesnt steam roll. It's my play style to do this so my game plan works and guess what I dont even run blue in any of my decks its funny as shit.
@@MatthewCJoy Thx you, my group plays threats constantly but most dont run alot of removal. And its not fun just for 1 card to just stop everyone else having a chance
I run a decent amount of removal in my decks but try not to use them if I really don't have to. my opponents creatures can be my friends when they just go to the right direction. I do police snowbally things fast if my own board state would be completely overwhelmed. If one person is the threat but not strong enough to take everyone else out I'd rather rally everyone else to temporarily archenemy them. I end up having the removal against a game ending combination very often like this.
I thought I was the only one who actually used Settle the Wreckage to ramp. It's absurd value on a Ranar deck and can do lots of work if you run Bident of Thassa to force creatures into attacking. Great video! I'll surely try to tinker a bit better on my removals with this video.
I like that he highlights the power of putting opponent's cards on top of the deck (or a couple cards down). Combine with mill (or top-of-deck exile effects).
All my white decks have “Settle the wreckage “, I’ve faced too mana Kiki jiki combos and cradlehoof stompy. I also seem to be the ony one using Cyclonic rift and Aetherize in all my blue decks for the same reasons.
When you mentioned Status/Statue as a "relatively recent" card, I was like "I know right, people forget how fast these sets are coming out this thing is almost brand new." And then I looked it up and Guilds of Ravnica came out in 2018. Almost 4 years ago. It was actually I, who forgets how fast time flies lmao
@@edhdeckbuilding the number of sets 4 years before Guilds starting in 2014 is 14. From guilds of ravnica to the end of this year, counting the upcoming Innistrad releases, there will be 19 I think. I knew it felt like more product but this just confirms it. Adding 5 sets for every 4 year internal doesn't sound too pleasing to me. And by the way WOTC is trending towards prioritizing new rather than longevity in their product, this rate might become exponential rather than steady, which is a scary thought
Oust looks pretty solid. With a Leyline of Anticipation you might even want to use it defensively. I'm putting together a Yennett Sphinx deck right now and this is definitely going in.
Status/Statue is a fantastic card in Ramos. Can be used as a 1 mana card to give him two +1/+1 counters and help get to his 5 counter threshold more easily (also at instant speed for activating on others' turns). Then having it also perform as very flexible removal, albeit slightly expensive, is just brilliant! Also, Oust is so good. Putting things onto people's libraries also effectively steals a draw from them, which can be pretty huge.
15:08 Oust is especially good against mana dorks. It’s like Plow Under but for creatures. Yes, I realize the numerous differences between the two, but it causes a similar effect: the opponent draws cards that aren’t useful.
The reason you don't see those ramp removal spells is because he who has the mana has the best chances of winning. Can't cast spells without mana. That is the reason you dont see them played.
Winds of Abandon is best compared to Cyclonic Rift. It's basically a white Cyclonic, and for that, it goes in anything that Cyclonic can't but wants to. I remember when the hype for Oust was really high, that it was going to boost and replace Path to Exile, how control was going to be the absolute king of Standard, and me and my friend answered in unison "Oust is a sorcery." The attitude immediately changed. Unexpectedly Absent is better than I thought, but if you're holding on to an emergency measure, the cheaper it is, the better. Intervention Pact is better in protecting yourself, especially if it means your opponent overextends themselves because you're tapped out. I've always thought it was underrated.
Condemn, Hallowed Burial, Spin into myth, Hinder, and anything that puts stuff firmly at the bottom of the library always makes me happy in any colour combo featuring blue and white. Mill won't win you against every opponent, obviously, but following up with a Tunnel Vision out of the blue always feels nice when it hammers one poor sod. Hell even self milling while something like Syr Konrad is on the field can be brutally game changing if you have enough creatures left in your deck.
Goblin Cratermaker is so nasty. People never really read it fully, and they forget at least one of the modes all the time. (And an Edit for Status//Statue) you can Status other players creatures and cause a huge blowout to get a problematic creature off the board. It’s a similar feel I have for Berserk-ing or Tainted Strike-ing an opponent’s creatures to kill someone out of nowhere.
Cannibalise is absurd in my xantcha deck. Unexpectedly absent is criminally underplayed. I have it in every white deck. Even just 2 mana temporary answer a spell and deny a card draw is better than most removal spells
I personally don't like playing wings of abandon or even path to exile because of the land my opponent gets, I usually prefer to run other removal pieces even if they are slightly more expensive like generous gift For Exile I usually stick just to swords, but it seems really good if you are in mono white and need more options
I think Condemn is underrated for white Voltron style commanders. Low cost for instant removal of an attacking creature and since you're trying to get in that commander damage the life gained doesn't matter all that much unless your opponent's deck is specifically using life as a resource
oh i got the fix for winds of abandoning and its so simple its aven mindcensor they get barely any lands because of this trick or even more evil wtih opposition agent you get the lands instead of them. and Epic downfall i definitely agree that card is criminally underrated i but bad news however is that your timing was terrible because Baleful Mastery is the exact same thing but better if your willing to let any opponent draw a card you can do it for the exact same cost for any cmc creature at instant speed and for a bonus it can do a planeswalker instead if you want
lot of my go to cards on this list. except for cannibalize which I opened in a pack long ago (and a few of the newer ones) I've found and bought a lot of these as singles while scouring the internet for interesting cards set by set.
you put something on top of their library in response to the tutor. then it gets shuffled in and they don't get it back. doesn't hurt the tutoring at all though.
Winds of abandon plus opposition agent. Exile creatures. Steal lands. Realize what wraith you have brought upon yourself. Resign yourself to your fate. Laugh maniacally.
Run Afoul imo is a great removal spell against any opponent with a flying voltron commander or if it happens to gain flying with an artifact or enchantment. Gets pass hexproof and indestructible.
My favorite underrated removal card is Bane of the Living. Turns out, it is not always Willbender, and -X/-X circumvents a lot of things. I have even had a situation where it was beneficial to morph it in response to a Split Second spell, something most all forms of removal cannot do. Other forms of underrated (at least among my locals) removal I find super useful are Evacuate, Massacre Worm, and Ixidron.
It the issues of people trying to make even commander a competitive format by looking at every set release and seeing what is the most efficient cards out there. I'm glad for videos like this because it can really show that commander can be an affordable/fun format that is open to both underrated and cost effective cards(as in money) but still very viable in play. I mean a lot of finding out the hidden gems out there.
Another cool list. I think some of them aren't used as much, because Sorceries are a bit slow in multiplayer, and not being able to react is a downside. Some cool options though.
I have Unexpectedly Absent in a couple of my decks and it is such a power play. I have used it in response to winning effects like Kiki Jiki and Thassa's Oracle. It is very sad for your opponent when they go to win the game and instead are turned off for a turn or two or three allowing the other players to find an answer to stop them the next time they try to go off. All the while setting up your win when you know they will have that counter/interaction war so you can capitalize from it afterwards.
Damn is really only great in cedh where boardwipes are less relevant and single target removal is more important. Which is also where winds sees more discussion in cedh boards for the same reasons.
