MTG Salvation

FTV Destruction:

From the beginning of magic, there have been some very powerful cards. From Black Lotus to Siege Rhino, there have been threats needing an answer. Luckily, answers exist. They are called removal.

To this day, various removal cards see play from the kitchen table to the Pro Tour. We have picked out a selection of 15 to highlight all the removal that magic has to offer, and show a brief summary of magic history. Enjoy!



Beast Within (Duel Decks Art)
Green removal spells usually are an oxymoron, but this gem from New Phyrexia is an exception. It allows you blow up any permanent -- yes even lands, for the price of your opponent having a 3/3 Beast token. Considering the versatility of this card, that's a small price to pay.

Crosis's Charm (Commander 2014 Art)
A little known but wonderful card from Planeshift, two out of three of this card's modes allow you to blow something up. Your opponent has a troublesome creature? How about a troublesome artifact? This can solve both, while also allowing you to bounce a permanent that doesn't fall under one of those catagories.

Dreadbore (New Art)
The most recent card in this set, Dreadbore represents Rakdos perfectly and their desire to blow stuff up. With Dreadbore, you can hit planeswalkers, in addition to the usual creatures.

Fissure (New Art)
On the other side of the spectrum, we have one of the oldest cards in this set, hailing originally from The Dark. It still holds up though, especially in grindier formats like EDH. And now your EDH deck can contain a copy of this card in the new border and foil for the first time, complete with new art!

Harmonic Sliver (Time Spiral Art)
Creatures typically aren't known for also doubling as removal, but that's what this Time Spiral beast does. Not only is it good on its own, it extends the effect to all Slivers you control. So if you're piloting a Slivers deck, this card will be the perfect finishing touch!

Lightning Bolt (New Art)
Ah, Lightning Bolt. It's hard to think of card more iconic and game-defining then this one. It may not look like much, but the versatility is hard to beat, taking out creatures as well as taking players on step closer to being taken out themselves. Does the fact that it doesn't necessarily affect permanents, along with the fact that it deals damage, as opposed to destroying or exiling, disqualify it from being on this list? You could say so but you can't not include a card this iconic in a set about what the Bot does best -- causing destruction. The Bolt is back one more time, complete with shiny new art.

Path to Exile (Conflux Art)
When someone mentions good removal, what is the first card that pops into your head? For most modern players, that card is Path to Exile, a truly format defining card, and with good reason. At the price of accelerating your opponent's mana by a turn, which may not even matter sometimes, you get to get rid of a creature they control for the low, low cost of 1 mana. The exiling also ensures that unless your opponent plays one of a few cards, that card you Path to Exiled is never, ever coming back.

Polymorph (Mirage Art)
Just like green removal, blue removal is somewhat of a rarity. However not only does Polymorph fill that hole, you can use it on your own creatures and play the lottery with your deck. Can you hit the Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in your deck, or will you just hit another Birds of Paradise? Certain decks may be able to manipulate that factor, making this potentially more powerful to use on yourself then your opponents. Either way, removal is known for being annoying, but this is a spell that will put a smile on everyone's face.

Shattering Spree (New Art)
Affinity got you down? Then I got the card for you! One mana to destroy an artifact is already good value, but being able to replicate that for only one mana and destroy one more artifact is insane. This is an answer card for the ages.

Sinkhole (Judge Promo Art)
Wizards didn't use to know the power of land destruction. That's why card like this were made, essentially setting your opponent back a turn for only two mana. Wizards has strayed away from this type of card for a while, but it's back in foil and the new frame.

Smother (Worldwake Art)
It may not look like a whole lot at first, but this Worldwake removal spell targets more relevant creatures then one would think. In addition, it's a Tiny Leaders staple, where is basically reads "Destroy any creature." You will be smothered in joy after casting this and gaining the upper hand in your game.

Soul Snare (Commander Art)
One of the best multiplayer cards on this list, in a format like EDH this will put a stop to opponents attacking you, unless they want their attacking creature exiled. It also works quite well in 1v1 formats as well, as it's exiling removal that costs only 2 mana total.

Terror (New Art)
What is the default black removal spell in standard? Right now, the answer would probably be Hero's Downfall, maybe Bile Blight, depending on your deck. However for the longest time, this was the answer. Many have forgotten of this card, but the amount of the tournament play this saw back in the day was way higher then most of the other cards on this list. Now you can replay this classic card again, brimming with new art.

Vindicate (New Art)
Some have called this the best removal spell ever printed, and it's hard to disagree. Hits every single permanent for only three mana, with no drawback at all. The list of things that Vindicate destroys is far longer then the list of things it doesn't, making it great for a set all about that.

Wasteland (New Art)
It may be Strip Mine's worse younger brother, but the lesser power of it is what kept it off many banned lists, unlike Strip Mine. Wasteland sees heavy play in virtually every format it's legal in, like Legacy, EDH, and Vintage, with good reason -- it's essentially free removal. Now it gets a major facelift, with new art, and being in foil for the first time, as well as the new frame. It's an update to reflect the fact that it's still a very current card, almost 20 years after it was first made.

Just sayin, threads like this are why people say MTGS is full of whiners. This contributes nothing, besides making people feel bad and diminishing the fun.

Wouldn't it be funny if we got Enemy fetches in this?!

Also to those who say we don't have any good Orzhov commanders -- Teysa, Orzhov Scion says hi. (The combos!)

I just honestly think the whole "ban 8th and 9th" is super absurd. It's clear you guys can't see how bad it would be for the format, so let's just put it this way. Can you imagine all the people that cried after the Cruise/Dig/Pod ban? Multiply that by 20 and you got what would happen if they removed 8th and 9th. Honestly I feel like modern would probably die off, just like extended.

Shadowmoor was considered one of the most under opened modern magic sets off all time. So naturally, cards from it end up being quite expensive, like Smash to Smithereens. For the longest time it was quietly $5, making it the second most expensive modern legal common.
Then modern masters happened. That dropped it to a dollar.
Then magic orgins happened. It's worthless now.

I don't need why I felt the need to bring this up except for the fact that it's damn amusing. If only the same would happen to Serum Visions...

Quote from SuperHans99 »

What about Shardless Agent? To me it seems more fair than BBE and Sultai is probably the worst type of BGx and could use a buff.

It would mean Ancestoral Visions could never be unbanned...

If snap gets banned, then dig, cruise, visions, and jtms should come off. Maybe preordian too.

Uhh...you could play Abzan Liege? You could play Collected Combo? You could play Goyf-less zoo? (there's are some versions that dont run Goyf.) You could play bogles. You could even play Mono Green Stompy if you wanted to err on the aggro side of things. There are plenty of options, atm Goyf really only sees play in 4 decks (junk, jund, zoo, tarmotwin) out of the 20 or 30 viable modern decks.

Whats wrong with burn?

As we have the full cycle of shadowmoor/eventide filters, i dont think they would see much play. I use these in edh whenever i can, and the fact that they cant create any combination of their colors can be very awkward. They can make great budget options, but not much more than that

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I had forgotten about that article on the lowering of Standard's power level. Now I'm angry all over again.

I want an uncomon Heritage Druid

Uuuugggggghhhh the rare shift is real

From Community Super League at https://www.twitch.tv/magic Too bad it's a rare.

Quote from DementedKirby »

, Invoke Prejudice

I'm pretty sure WotC wants to pretend that card doesn't exist.

I feel bad for SCG in the whole thing, since it's not their fault. Though it seems that them not streaming the thing might have been a blessing in disguise as several hours of waiting for broken software wouldn't have gone over well on Twitch. CFB stream isn't too bad though, which I'm happy about. Hope they stream more events and clean up some of the rough edges. I love SCG coverage but burn through it so fast I need more stuff to play in the background while working.

Quote from Sirius_B »

And yet everytime they have a chance to give red something new and exicting, like Snapcaster Mage, they give it to blue because they overlap as the spells colors and blue is R&D's favorite.

They gave Snappy to blue because Tiago requested it be blue. Had he not requested that, as was his right as the Invitational winner, it would've been red. I get the frustration, but that's on a Pro Player, not on WotC.