Honestly, it’s very easy and meme-like to simply say “just run more removal”, and simply leave it at that. However, you don’t. Instead, you actively explain why it’s important to “run more removal” and even explain your own methodology as to how it might be done. While 16-20 removal pieces may be a tad excessive, this is a valuable video resource that should be shared with more players in the community. It’s got me rethinking how to build and rebuild my decks. Heck, it might even get me some of my own wins in commander in the long run. Thank you for making this video. Absolute legend.
I usually run between 13-16 removals, board wipes included, it feels like it's on a sweet spot for me so I have interaction in My hand pretty consistently but I'm not obvwrflooded with it
16 is doable if you run MDFCs like Hagra Mauling (and the other black one), the 2x fighting green MDFCs, the white creature that destroys ench/artif, and Sink into Stupor. That's a good way to amp your removal count while not taking too many synergy slots. They are not optimal, but you can increase interaction this way.
@@alexanderficken9354 that’s a pipe dream with some decks/achetypes, but cool when you can do it. In my case, I just play a lot of white for other reasons, but the efficient removal is a big bonus IMO. Edit: I find draw engines are easier to build with synergy in a deck, which is a primary part of my deck building.
believe me, it is extremely annoying when you are the primary (often times the only one) control player at the table and people ALWAYS look at you when someone puts a huge threat on the stack... I always tell my group, please run more removal. There are so many games where not a single wipe gets cast nor a single artifact/enchantment removal. I mean wtf...
Maybe a controversial opinion, but in most decks, limiting interaction to 12-14 pieces while running more card draw is almost always better than pumping that interaction number up and up
While true, I think he mentioned that if your colors or budget don’t lend themselves well to just adding more card draw, then upping the number of removal spells is an option.
Your numbers here look like what I often shoot for. Keeping pace up with draw means I have answers in many other forms, I LOVE fog, and I love saving myself (and others) from what otherwise would have been a “let’s all scoop now” scenario.
If you are looking for consistent magic play constructed - commander was invented to celebrate the variance, that's why it's a 99 card singleton deck with 4 players - as the format was designed that no 2 board states should ever be the same
In all fairness, having a consistent deck, which means it is very probable to be able to do its "thing" every game, does not mean consistency in terms of constructed. In constructed, you run the same cards four times and it always boils down to the same end goal. In commander, consistency means diversifying. You actually have to look for useful cards that give you the same or a similar effect, think about how important the "thing" you're trying to pull off is, and then adjust your deck accordingly. And it also means having an answer to the problems on the table as well as being able to bounce back from setbacks. That's harder in commander than it is in constructed. I played enough janky commander decks to know that this is not the way to go if your pod evolves and expects you to evolve with it (or, you know, you wanna win a game for a change)
Commander has evolved so much since it was first created. We aren’t limited to the Elder Dragons as commanders anymore and we certainly aren’t forced to play with less consistency purely for the “spirit of the game”. There are so many different ways to play commander now days and playing with consistency is one of them.
My tables always find my decks to be a problem. The secret... Ramp and Card Draw. Load up on both, and you can always be a threat, no matter the strategy.
@@mutsuhanma7807 Draw hate is so good. Mass Land Destruction is only good if you can capitalize on it. If you're just restarting the game, then people will feel the salt 🧂
I really like your mindset on adding more interactions. I started playing recently, and for my friend group, running a bit more removal and interaction makes the game instantly more interesting for me. I was always focused on how to play my own deck without considering that I was losing a lot because I couldn’t respond to my friends. Your Otharri deck helped me a lot to learn the game btw.
As a new player usually my decks need a better mana base and more card draw. Whatever your gameplan is, to be able to cast those spells you need to draw them and have the mana for it.
Manabases are the least important but most impactful upgrade you can do just be prepared to pay alot of money. In terms of general upgrades, removal and card draw are key and can be done on a budget nicely.
I think "interaction" and "removal" being used interchangeably is what has people balking at the 16-20 number. Removal is a kind of interaction. Counterspells, protection effects like Surge of Salvation or Selfless Spirit, hand attack, and even redirection effects are all interaction. The long and short of it is acknowledging that you're playing against humans who want to do stuff to your game plan and have their own plans as well, and you might want to deal with those facts. If I'm a creature combo deck, something like Rhythm of the Wild is interaction because it blanks countermagic against my guys. If that creature combo deck has trouble against overrun effects, a Spore Frog can help blank combat steps and buy me time. If I need my guys on board to stay on board a Selfless Spirit can blank a lot of board wipes. If a particular stax piece, like a Torpor Orb or a Collector Ouphe, would fold me in half then an Abrade solves that problem. If I think a specific combo deck might be a turn faster than me, then a timely casting of An Offer You Can't Refuse can potentially give me the time to go over top of them. 16-20 pieces of specific problem solvers for your deck sounds way more doable than 16-20 Swords to Plowshares and its lookalikes.
My most interactive deck has 22 cards dedicated to protecting the gameplan. This is through 9 spot removals, 3 asymmetric board wipes, 5 counterspells, and 5 mass board protection spells. Once my board is in a state that I can play one of my finishers like Akroma's Will I need to survive 3-5 players turns before my next turn where they are all really really wanting to remove/wipe my board. A hand full of interaction is the only way to make it to that finisher consistently.
I completely agree with the overall assessment. In a solitaire race, the best deck wins. In an interaction-heavy pod, frontrunners can be brought in-line with the other players by trading resources. You remove an opponent's key engine or win-con, for the cost of just 0-2 mana and a card that would otherwise, on the margin (if that removal spell was the 'next best' proactive include instead), likely be a mid card in your strategy? Sign me up. I think that 20 pieces of removal might be a BIT excessive in most casual decks, because a casual deck's "win package" tends to not be very compact. Instead, it relies on critical mass of synergy snowballing instead of the most raw efficient cards possible. Too much removal might lead to stalling out, though it's a delicate balancing act. You want as much removal as possible, while still reliably getting over the finish line through a few roadblocks. I usually think 12-14 ways to interact at instant speed is where I'm mostly at in a casual deck. In high power/cedh I'm often closer to the 20 mark since I only need a card or two to present a win there. Another thing, removing opponent's engines is often very worthwhile and in those cases you generally want to fire the removal ASAP. So while you do often want to wait as long as possible to remove a proactive threat, a card advantage engine that is letting the opponent go +4 on cards every turn should likely be killed immediately, don't let that snowball ever get rolling in the first place.
One of my favorite unique removal combos is ghyrson starn, grafted exoskeleton, and tectonica hazard/end festivities. It can push towards a poison counter win as well as killing all 3 toughness creatures even if they are indestructible. Then you can always cast the other sorcery to kill 6 toughness while also adding more poison counters. Just the best of both worlds into an eventual grapeshot for the win xD
Here’s the problem isn’t just “run more removal” or “look at your deck”. The problem is actually an inherent problem with commander itself. Commander is a 4v4 format. You CANNOT 1 for 1 your removal unless you NEED to. And the problem is that thanks to the power creep in the game, every card is now a kill-on-sight threat. Every card your opponents play draws them 10 cards and ramps them a ton. Not to mention only white has the best answers to on board cards and blue to ones on the stack. So your options are extremely limited outside of those colors in my opinion. This is why arcane denial is better theoretically than plain old counter spell. It’s why board wipes are better than spot removal. Etc. Not to mention most “pub stompers” are just going to play faster than you. So now they’re throwing down threat after threat incredibly fast while you just barely put down your third land and cast a Generous Gift putting yourself further behind when you could’ve been developing your board turn 3. At some point they just built their deck to have a critical mass of faster mana sources and more efficient spells and more explosive spells. Then there’s the factor of budget. A Rhystic study that’s $40 is going to be more effective at drawing cards than a Fact or Fiction for $1. If you’re limited by budget, things just are often going to be of lower quality outside of synergies. But synergies take time and higher power decks will leave lower power decks in the dust because they don’t use synergies and instead play tons of “good stuff”. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to win against them or not possible to out advantage those decks but it does take a lot more effort in both deck building and playing the game. I think Deck Driver and other content creators always miss this point whenever they say “run more removal”.
And just for me personally, whenever I hear “just of run more removal” it feels like the person telling me that is saying “just don’t let your opponent play/use any of their cards” which always irks me.
@@jessewallace3805 Yep. In some cases, when someone is pubstomping, the other 3 players need to focus on them and take them out of the game unless they stopped their deck enough. I know Commander is a "for fun" format (except cEDH), but people don't have fun if they loose every single time to the same person/deck. I agree with OP in the sense that 1 for 1 removal/interaction in Commander is bad unless you are stopping someone from winning the game on the spot or killing a super powerful engine. That's why I prefer recursive cards or Commanders, like Meren, Sidar Jabari, etc... Things that bring back other things to cause trouble. If I hit a creature with a Chupacabra, and then I sac it to bring it back at the end of turn, I'll be fine doing a two for one, even if I hit two different players. But when you need to use that Assassin's Trophy in something and they recover easily, you feel bad.
My best decks don’t run anywhere near 20 pieces and unintentionally I am the pumbstomper stopping my enemies from winning and then out valuing them 😂 My most interactive İzzet deck (Eris) runs 13 interaction spells and it can consistently cast 4-8 every game. Why? Card draw and card selection. If you are going to add 16-20 removal spells to your decks it will simply cease to work. If you do not play a draw/value engine in your command zone you need one on the board EVERY GAME before turn 5. Then you can play less (6-10) removal spells and still see them. Also people play way too little cantrips. Blue is obvious with ponder preordain etc. , but I made a Zask deck recently and cards like cache grab, malevolent rumble and winding way are insanely good. Cantrips allow you to play less lands, less removal and more synergy pieces and still be able to get all you need every game. For reference - power level of my pods starts at mothman precon and ends at Hogaak Gaias Cradle insanity with everything in between. Please don’t dillute your deck with 20 removal spells.
How many cantrips would you recommend running? I recently built a Bria, riptide rogue deck with around 20 cantrips and it's been kind of flopping. Any advice?
@ enough so that you can consistently hit your draw/value engines in the early turns. Try goldfishing your deck - moxfield has a good playtest feature. During the goldfish asses if you can set up an engine that will make you see more cards in the first 4-5 turns consistently - aim for 7/8 games out of 10 . Of course you also want to ramp if able and hold up some kind of interaction if able on turn 4-6. Generally 2-6 high quality cantrips should do the trick. The more cantrips you run the less lands you can play and the slower your deck becomes - cantrips rise your consistency, but spending mana on them makes your decks slower. Play only high quality cantrips - ponder, preordain, malevolent rumble, impulse, faithless looting (not a cantrips per se, still insanely good if you have discard synergy). Cantrips only smooth out your deck, if you don’t have good synergies/engines/ramp to draw into, your deck will fumble anyway.
@@InfinityBarn that's when playtesting and the overall strategy of your deck come into play. For example you could run cantrip elves in elfball-decks or opt in an spellslinger-deck. The amount depends on your deck, card selection and overall strategy. Opt is weaker in creature-bases decks, while the cantrip-elf is not the best choice in your spellbased deck. I typically run around 10-15 sources of card draw including recursion, cantrips, burst draw and draw engines if my commander is not a draw engine.
@@enfe8858 I ended up swapping out a bunch of cantrips for some combat based draw sources. When I was play testing I found that I'd be running out of cards since none of my cantrips made me go up in cards. A lot of the sources proc bria's unlockable ability so they also replace themselves at a minimum
High synergistic ramp that goes well with your deck. Your hand is nice but have access to your graveyard and being able to playing from the top of your library is great. The more answers you can get to is really helpful.
16 removal spells is insane. 10-12 pieces of interaction is fine. And you should 100% have some amount of card draw no matter what you play. Preferrably engines, like Guardian Project.
My suggestion is to find spells that fit your decks theme that also fill another role. For example, kogla is big creature that also removes creatures and artifacts and enchantments. Works really well in a big creatures deck. Or in an aristocrats deck, running cards that sacrifice a creature to draw cards and make a treasure does 3 things for you. But most importantly, look for ways to draw cards. You dont need to make 20% of your deck removal if you can draw enough to increase your odds. Look for cards that draw you lots of cards and work well with your deck. In a big creatures deck? rishkars expertise, spellslinger? Frantic search. Go wide deck? Toski, etc.
Hey @Deck Driver MTG. I have just stumbled upon your videos, loving them so far. Great job, man. If I may ask. Do you perhaps give some deck tips if we pass you the list? I'm building a mono-black one and would like someone experienced to take a look and advice on it. Let me know. Thanks
The last third is a very important thing when considering removal: You can use it for politics! Yes, maybe you add an "Path to Exile", but thats only for creatures and maybe most often you wont need it in your hand... but hey! Another player might struggle with a specific creature, so you could use diplomacy to do stuff like "Ok, I'll remove their Thalia, but you will attack him. I paved your ways for that"
I just finished a new deck last night built almost entirely around removal. The commander just happens to give me stuff when I remove creatures. Hopefully, I will see this weekend if I have any friends after continuously removing their stuff. Fully expect to at least play the bad guy as I create an army of rats.
I swear games with a turn 3 oppresion in commander with like 2 additional Dimir decks on the table were the most fun i had in recent times. As the game ran you just seen threats get removed very quickly or in some kind of convoluted plot and it forced everyone to just try that much harder to progress the game.
16 to 20 is ridiculous. I tried this to stop a pubstomper in my pod but you run out of space to actually play a proactive game. I'd have times where I'd draw 4 pieces in a row and just sit there and pass
yeah, i play a deck that is 50 lands + ramp, 36 removal and boardwipes, and the rest are a few draw spells and combo pieces... that kind of build only works for combos you can stall the game for...
I can't keep track anymore of the times I've won against greedy Yuriko decks by playing cards like banishing light or imprison in the moon. Majority of players are so greedy they forget to put enchantment removal in the deck....
A good way to keep removal fun in your deck is to try and use themed removal. I have an Arabella deck, and in it, most of my creature removal involves only effecting creatures with power higher/lower than X. Is it perfect for every situation? No, sometimes you'll get swarmed by Krenko and his boys, and you'll really struggle to find one of your lower power boardwipes. It does keep your deck flavorful, and it does handle most situations most of the time. If you're playing casually, most of the time is plenty good enough, imo.
Card draw and tutors are what makes decks consistent. Removal is just a waste of time in most cases. Run less removal and know what to actually remove to allow you to win.
For me consistency is controlled more by your mana curve and hitting your lands drops each turn. To many spells/permanents of the wrong MV for your deck and not enough resources to use them is why I see so many decks struggle and why some people can only cast 1 spell a turn thus wondering why they had no impact on the game That being said removal is a key area players should definitely focus on. 16 pieces might be abit high unless your playing control....
Hello, I have a question for your related to this topic and your Otharri list: You emphasize the importance of removal and specifically enchantment/artefact removal in Otharri. However you don't seem to include Witch Enchanter or similar in many decks, often limited to ~2 MDF lands. Have you tried and decided to remove them from your lists? What is your general stance on the bolt-MDF-lands? Thank you in advance!
This is definitely a thing that people need to do but with my playgroup and card shop when I played frequently I won SIGNIFICANTLY more than other players even when we swapped to each others decks with more or less removal and winning MORE when I wasnt using my own deck. People should not only run more answers but learn what ACTUALLY needs to be answered and when. So many people answer shit they dont need to answer with their precious few counters or removal letting someone else win right after because they wanted something gone that wasnt anywhere near a threat yet or because it was mildly annoying.
If I have to run 20 removal, 15 card draw and 35 lands to be able to stop getting pub stomped... what's the point in even playing at all? Is there even a deck left to actual play if I'm trying to have some sort of theme, or synergy while still having some ramp and I have to squeeze all that in to 30 cards total? ( because we just spend 70 cards, on removal, draw and lands... )
The issue with interaction, that a lot of new players face, is...A bit odd. They have all this cool-ass cards. Your atraxa, sheo or other big stuff and they want to play it. They add ramp, some cool stuff and throw in a bit of removal. This, leads to an issue where they KNOW they need that 15-20 removal but they have NO idea what to slot out of their deck. New players need to be taught to tighten the focus on their desk, rather than think of adding 15-20 removal. We need to teach them that. Instead of 20 big creatures, run like 6 or 7, but they will cause slaughter! Then use the now free slots on removal. Every new player will have too much of ''something'' in their new deck. Its also a video topic you should make, players running too much of something or being too narrow focused on a particular idea.
The issue I have is when I play commanders that lack card advantage in the command zone and I have another theme, I struggle to always have cards of my theme, card advantage, removal, and most importantly enough lands/ramp in my hands. Maybe my card advantage engines are bad or maybe I’m committing too many cards to my theme. I always force myself to run 15 removal spells, and sometimes I run more if the deck is smooth enough.
Something I would caution against is putting too much removal though. I've found myself, less so, playing my deck as intended, than I am playing fun police and controlling the board.
16-20 cards is insane that + lands + ramp would leave my decks with at most 30-35 cards for the game plan, and you need to add draw and protection as well... not enough, already a pain in the ass to fit the gameplan in 50 cards Edit: Also, the video title is misleading. More removal doesnt make your deck consistent. Redundancy does. Removal makes it reactive which is diffefent.
Would you ever be up to looking over people's deck lists and helping improve ....I'm only asking because my deck feels good I just wanted to push it a little further
I don't think commander is a place for consistent decks and i think a big percent of the player base agree if we look at the number of played tutors in commander.
If it’s at every power level it’s a skill issue in deck building I’m sorry and the testament of running more removal drawing hate and salt is so true😂 it seems like every other game at my lgs someone is telling me to fuck myself because I countered or took control of their wincon
I feel like yourself and a lot of other popular edh creators miss the point on this. Commander is a 4 person game. What if youre the only one running adequate removal in your pod? Then it always falls on thst player to remove the big scary things. Its very hard to convince 3 other people to change their decks fundamentally , when in reality people just want to do proactive things and watch their deck pop off. I agree eith a lot of points that adding removal is generally a good thing. But i think its a lot deeper when you consider 3 other people in the game that may or may not want to do the same thing
In the video, I explain that you should be very greedy with your removal because you can't count of the 3 other players to run the right amount of removal. Wait until the last second or wait until they target you to use your removal. I agree that we can't change others deck building, but you'll never regret having more removal for yourself!
I agree for the most part but let's say you're the only one in your regular group that cares about this level of optimization, how do you deal with the inevitable focus that you'll receive cause of the "feels bad" reactionary kind of player? Threat assessment isn't always the best in commander (and to be fair it's p hard with how complicated board states get) and there's just no way to have an answer for all three players. The wishy washy nature of commander being "casual" and cards just becoming exceedingly better and commander focus creates a meta that people pretend isn't there and it's just not fun as it used to be. I mean hell I'm sure it's cause I'm just bad, politics are my weak point, but I do think commander is too flawed to be the mainstay of Magic. I know that's a little bit of a tangent but this deckbuilding tip, although correct to me, doesn't necessarily help when big channels promote the adage that counters are unfun and you should LET people "do their thing." You'll just get hated out for trying to play well. TLDR; the real solution is convince your playgroup to play Cube or Canlander, I promise it'll be the best decision you guys could make in Magic, and you get way more games in.
sorry but running 18 removals is gonna gimp your deck. You actualy need to do what your supposed to, and you took up a third of your deck with cards to prevent others. With that much, youll draw into alot of dead hands with nothing but removal. Whats your plan at that point? pick up, or hope you dont get merced before you can draw anything you need.
The content of what you are saying is great but I have noticed over the last few videos that your scripting style leads to you repeating yourself for a few words here and there. Maybe doing smaller reads and stitching them into a video would help if you consistently stumble on words when reading aloud. Love the content otherwise though
Hey! Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely be on the lookout more for that. I have been noticing the same things as well, I saw another RUclipsr writes his scripts sentence by sentence instead of paragraphs. Might try that out, thank you!
You and everyone with this opinion are thinking way too much, removal doesnt maje your deck more consistant, every deck no matter the strategy is limited by card draw, no matter what, you said it in the control area but, all of my decks have 5 removal pieces, and 2 board wipes, all my decks are super consistent and im never lacking removal. I just add more card draw or velocity.
Got invited to my first game of commander. Told it was “fun and casual”. Went out my way to try to make a 6/10. Got crushed with demonic consultation +thassa’s Oracle What’s the solution for that?
Rule 0. Make sure everyone knows what kind of game they are looking for. Demonic Consultation and Thoracle is strictly cEDH (highest power competitive). Commander is a ton of fun when the decks are on the same playing field. Getting everyone on the same page is a bit of trial and error though
@ I agree. It’s just that rule 0 doesn’t work when you get lied to lol. I’m mainly just venting. But now every deck I will ever run is going to have Geir reach sanitarium and mikokoro
@@jessewallace3805 1. It’s not a noob tactic. It’s literally THE most used cEDH wincon. 2. That’s a lot of blue only cards. 3. I already put answers any deck can use above you in the comments.
16-20 removal is really high. I run 2-3 board wipes, and 3-4 targeted removal in all my decks, which is usually more than enough. My decks always load up on card draw, so I typically draw into answers as the game progresses.
In terms of the gameplay spectrum, "running more removal" is on the opposide side of "having fun". I refuse to participate in a competetive arms race. Denying people doing what is fun to them is antithetical to what I look for in a commander game. Not to mention how it can draw out the length of a game to be unbearale. Imagine 4 players having 3 removals and 1 value card each in their hand. The game is grindy and never ends. You lost me there my friend. I don't want to be the best. I want to enjoy a good time with my friends.
5:35 The other day I was playing historic on arena and realized that I was playing against a guy who had over 100 cards in his deck and it was full of apparently nothing but removal and sweep, and his win condition was to simply make me quit or wait until I decked out because I had fewer cards. It was absolutely miserable.
Honestly, it’s very easy and meme-like to simply say “just run more removal”, and simply leave it at that. However, you don’t. Instead, you actively explain why it’s important to “run more removal” and even explain your own methodology as to how it might be done. While 16-20 removal pieces may be a tad excessive, this is a valuable video resource that should be shared with more players in the community. It’s got me rethinking how to build and rebuild my decks. Heck, it might even get me some of my own wins in commander in the long run. Thank you for making this video. Absolute legend.
I like to build removal engines or have synergistic removal that I get advantage with in other ways.
I usually run between 13-16 removals, board wipes included, it feels like it's on a sweet spot for me so I have interaction in My hand pretty consistently but I'm not obvwrflooded with it
16 is doable if you run MDFCs like Hagra Mauling (and the other black one), the 2x fighting green MDFCs, the white creature that destroys ench/artif, and Sink into Stupor. That's a good way to amp your removal count while not taking too many synergy slots. They are not optimal, but you can increase interaction this way.
@@alexanderficken9354 that’s a pipe dream with some decks/achetypes, but cool when you can do it. In my case, I just play a lot of white for other reasons, but the efficient removal is a big bonus IMO.
Edit: I find draw engines are easier to build with synergy in a deck, which is a primary part of my deck building.
believe me, it is extremely annoying when you are the primary (often times the only one) control player at the table and people ALWAYS look at you when someone puts a huge threat on the stack... I always tell my group, please run more removal. There are so many games where not a single wipe gets cast nor a single artifact/enchantment removal. I mean wtf...
Maybe a controversial opinion, but in most decks, limiting interaction to 12-14 pieces while running more card draw is almost always better than pumping that interaction number up and up
While true, I think he mentioned that if your colors or budget don’t lend themselves well to just adding more card draw, then upping the number of removal spells is an option.
Your numbers here look like what I often shoot for. Keeping pace up with draw means I have answers in many other forms, I LOVE fog, and I love saving myself (and others) from what otherwise would have been a “let’s all scoop now” scenario.
If you are looking for consistent magic play constructed - commander was invented to celebrate the variance, that's why it's a 99 card singleton deck with 4 players - as the format was designed that no 2 board states should ever be the same
In all fairness, having a consistent deck, which means it is very probable to be able to do its "thing" every game, does not mean consistency in terms of constructed. In constructed, you run the same cards four times and it always boils down to the same end goal. In commander, consistency means diversifying. You actually have to look for useful cards that give you the same or a similar effect, think about how important the "thing" you're trying to pull off is, and then adjust your deck accordingly. And it also means having an answer to the problems on the table as well as being able to bounce back from setbacks. That's harder in commander than it is in constructed. I played enough janky commander decks to know that this is not the way to go if your pod evolves and expects you to evolve with it (or, you know, you wanna win a game for a change)
Commander has evolved so much since it was first created. We aren’t limited to the Elder Dragons as commanders anymore and we certainly aren’t forced to play with less consistency purely for the “spirit of the game”. There are so many different ways to play commander now days and playing with consistency is one of them.
My tables always find my decks to be a problem.
The secret... Ramp and Card Draw.
Load up on both, and you can always be a threat, no matter the strategy.
“The secret” 😂
Just tell them go make better decks to contend with, too easy.
@@jessewallace3805commander players get really butt hurt when you tell them to git gud
yep, i run draw punishment and land destruction/mass artifact removal
@@mutsuhanma7807 Draw hate is so good.
Mass Land Destruction is only good if you can capitalize on it.
If you're just restarting the game, then people will feel the salt 🧂
We need you on the trinket mage podcast 🙏🏾
I really like your mindset on adding more interactions. I started playing recently, and for my friend group, running a bit more removal and interaction makes the game instantly more interesting for me. I was always focused on how to play my own deck without considering that I was losing a lot because I couldn’t respond to my friends.
Your Otharri deck helped me a lot to learn the game btw.
As a new player usually my decks need a better mana base and more card draw. Whatever your gameplan is, to be able to cast those spells you need to draw them and have the mana for it.
Manabases are the least important but most impactful upgrade you can do just be prepared to pay alot of money. In terms of general upgrades, removal and card draw are key and can be done on a budget nicely.
I think "interaction" and "removal" being used interchangeably is what has people balking at the 16-20 number.
Removal is a kind of interaction. Counterspells, protection effects like Surge of Salvation or Selfless Spirit, hand attack, and even redirection effects are all interaction.
The long and short of it is acknowledging that you're playing against humans who want to do stuff to your game plan and have their own plans as well, and you might want to deal with those facts.
If I'm a creature combo deck, something like Rhythm of the Wild is interaction because it blanks countermagic against my guys. If that creature combo deck has trouble against overrun effects, a Spore Frog can help blank combat steps and buy me time. If I need my guys on board to stay on board a Selfless Spirit can blank a lot of board wipes. If a particular stax piece, like a Torpor Orb or a Collector Ouphe, would fold me in half then an Abrade solves that problem. If I think a specific combo deck might be a turn faster than me, then a timely casting of An Offer You Can't Refuse can potentially give me the time to go over top of them.
16-20 pieces of specific problem solvers for your deck sounds way more doable than 16-20 Swords to Plowshares and its lookalikes.
My most interactive deck has 22 cards dedicated to protecting the gameplan. This is through 9 spot removals, 3 asymmetric board wipes, 5 counterspells, and 5 mass board protection spells. Once my board is in a state that I can play one of my finishers like Akroma's Will I need to survive 3-5 players turns before my next turn where they are all really really wanting to remove/wipe my board. A hand full of interaction is the only way to make it to that finisher consistently.
I completely agree with the overall assessment. In a solitaire race, the best deck wins. In an interaction-heavy pod, frontrunners can be brought in-line with the other players by trading resources. You remove an opponent's key engine or win-con, for the cost of just 0-2 mana and a card that would otherwise, on the margin (if that removal spell was the 'next best' proactive include instead), likely be a mid card in your strategy? Sign me up.
I think that 20 pieces of removal might be a BIT excessive in most casual decks, because a casual deck's "win package" tends to not be very compact. Instead, it relies on critical mass of synergy snowballing instead of the most raw efficient cards possible. Too much removal might lead to stalling out, though it's a delicate balancing act. You want as much removal as possible, while still reliably getting over the finish line through a few roadblocks. I usually think 12-14 ways to interact at instant speed is where I'm mostly at in a casual deck. In high power/cedh I'm often closer to the 20 mark since I only need a card or two to present a win there.
Another thing, removing opponent's engines is often very worthwhile and in those cases you generally want to fire the removal ASAP. So while you do often want to wait as long as possible to remove a proactive threat, a card advantage engine that is letting the opponent go +4 on cards every turn should likely be killed immediately, don't let that snowball ever get rolling in the first place.
I think, 16-20 is like, overdoing it 😅. Should be 8-10 at least, depend your decks or commander.
Your channel is goated my man, you are the man, you are HIM
Your advices are top notch
One of my favorite unique removal combos is ghyrson starn, grafted exoskeleton, and tectonica hazard/end festivities. It can push towards a poison counter win as well as killing all 3 toughness creatures even if they are indestructible. Then you can always cast the other sorcery to kill 6 toughness while also adding more poison counters. Just the best of both worlds into an eventual grapeshot for the win xD
Here’s the problem isn’t just “run more removal” or “look at your deck”. The problem is actually an inherent problem with commander itself. Commander is a 4v4 format. You CANNOT 1 for 1 your removal unless you NEED to. And the problem is that thanks to the power creep in the game, every card is now a kill-on-sight threat. Every card your opponents play draws them 10 cards and ramps them a ton. Not to mention only white has the best answers to on board cards and blue to ones on the stack. So your options are extremely limited outside of those colors in my opinion. This is why arcane denial is better theoretically than plain old counter spell. It’s why board wipes are better than spot removal. Etc. Not to mention most “pub stompers” are just going to play faster than you. So now they’re throwing down threat after threat incredibly fast while you just barely put down your third land and cast a Generous Gift putting yourself further behind when you could’ve been developing your board turn 3. At some point they just built their deck to have a critical mass of faster mana sources and more efficient spells and more explosive spells. Then there’s the factor of budget. A Rhystic study that’s $40 is going to be more effective at drawing cards than a Fact or Fiction for $1. If you’re limited by budget, things just are often going to be of lower quality outside of synergies. But synergies take time and higher power decks will leave lower power decks in the dust because they don’t use synergies and instead play tons of “good stuff”. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to win against them or not possible to out advantage those decks but it does take a lot more effort in both deck building and playing the game. I think Deck Driver and other content creators always miss this point whenever they say “run more removal”.
And just for me personally, whenever I hear
“just of run more removal” it feels like the person telling me that is saying “just don’t let your opponent play/use any of their cards” which always irks me.
1V3*
@@jessewallace3805 Yep. In some cases, when someone is pubstomping, the other 3 players need to focus on them and take them out of the game unless they stopped their deck enough. I know Commander is a "for fun" format (except cEDH), but people don't have fun if they loose every single time to the same person/deck.
I agree with OP in the sense that 1 for 1 removal/interaction in Commander is bad unless you are stopping someone from winning the game on the spot or killing a super powerful engine. That's why I prefer recursive cards or Commanders, like Meren, Sidar Jabari, etc... Things that bring back other things to cause trouble. If I hit a creature with a Chupacabra, and then I sac it to bring it back at the end of turn, I'll be fine doing a two for one, even if I hit two different players. But when you need to use that Assassin's Trophy in something and they recover easily, you feel bad.
My best decks don’t run anywhere near 20 pieces and unintentionally I am the pumbstomper stopping my enemies from winning and then out valuing them 😂 My most interactive İzzet deck (Eris) runs 13 interaction spells and it can consistently cast 4-8 every game. Why? Card draw and card selection. If you are going to add 16-20 removal spells to your decks it will simply cease to work. If you do not play a draw/value engine in your command zone you need one on the board EVERY GAME before turn 5. Then you can play less (6-10) removal spells and still see them. Also people play way too little cantrips. Blue is obvious with ponder preordain etc. , but I made a Zask deck recently and cards like cache grab, malevolent rumble and winding way are insanely good. Cantrips allow you to play less lands, less removal and more synergy pieces and still be able to get all you need every game. For reference - power level of my pods starts at mothman precon and ends at Hogaak Gaias Cradle insanity with everything in between. Please don’t dillute your deck with 20 removal spells.
How many cantrips would you recommend running? I recently built a Bria, riptide rogue deck with around 20 cantrips and it's been kind of flopping. Any advice?
@ enough so that you can consistently hit your draw/value engines in the early turns. Try goldfishing your deck - moxfield has a good playtest feature. During the goldfish asses if you can set up an engine that will make you see more cards in the first 4-5 turns consistently - aim for 7/8 games out of 10 . Of course you also want to ramp if able and hold up some kind of interaction if able on turn 4-6. Generally 2-6 high quality cantrips should do the trick. The more cantrips you run the less lands you can play and the slower your deck becomes - cantrips rise your consistency, but spending mana on them makes your decks slower. Play only high quality cantrips - ponder, preordain, malevolent rumble, impulse, faithless looting (not a cantrips per se, still insanely good if you have discard synergy). Cantrips only smooth out your deck, if you don’t have good synergies/engines/ramp to draw into, your deck will fumble anyway.
@@InfinityBarn that's when playtesting and the overall strategy of your deck come into play. For example you could run cantrip elves in elfball-decks or opt in an spellslinger-deck. The amount depends on your deck, card selection and overall strategy. Opt is weaker in creature-bases decks, while the cantrip-elf is not the best choice in your spellbased deck.
I typically run around 10-15 sources of card draw including recursion, cantrips, burst draw and draw engines if my commander is not a draw engine.
@@enfe8858 I ended up swapping out a bunch of cantrips for some combat based draw sources. When I was play testing I found that I'd be running out of cards since none of my cantrips made me go up in cards. A lot of the sources proc bria's unlockable ability so they also replace themselves at a minimum
High synergistic ramp that goes well with your deck. Your hand is nice but have access to your graveyard and being able to playing from the top of your library is great. The more answers you can get to is really helpful.
16 removal spells is insane. 10-12 pieces of interaction is fine. And you should 100% have some amount of card draw no matter what you play. Preferrably engines, like Guardian Project.
My suggestion is to find spells that fit your decks theme that also fill another role. For example, kogla is big creature that also removes creatures and artifacts and enchantments. Works really well in a big creatures deck. Or in an aristocrats deck, running cards that sacrifice a creature to draw cards and make a treasure does 3 things for you. But most importantly, look for ways to draw cards. You dont need to make 20% of your deck removal if you can draw enough to increase your odds. Look for cards that draw you lots of cards and work well with your deck. In a big creatures deck? rishkars expertise, spellslinger? Frantic search. Go wide deck? Toski, etc.
Hey @Deck Driver MTG. I have just stumbled upon your videos, loving them so far. Great job, man.
If I may ask. Do you perhaps give some deck tips if we pass you the list? I'm building a mono-black one and would like someone experienced to take a look and advice on it. Let me know. Thanks
Be careful man, it happens quite a few times in your videos that you edit your audio with retakes or segments but you miss cut them. 🙂
2:50 "You just need to git gud"
The last third is a very important thing when considering removal: You can use it for politics!
Yes, maybe you add an "Path to Exile", but thats only for creatures and maybe most often you wont need it in your hand... but hey! Another player might struggle with a specific creature, so you could use diplomacy to do stuff like "Ok, I'll remove their Thalia, but you will attack him. I paved your ways for that"
I just finished a new deck last night built almost entirely around removal. The commander just happens to give me stuff when I remove creatures. Hopefully, I will see this weekend if I have any friends after continuously removing their stuff.
Fully expect to at least play the bad guy as I create an army of rats.
I swear games with a turn 3 oppresion in commander with like 2 additional Dimir decks on the table were the most fun i had in recent times. As the game ran you just seen threats get removed very quickly or in some kind of convoluted plot and it forced everyone to just try that much harder to progress the game.
My most consistent deck is my Azorius blink control deck. The absurd amount of interaction and protection means i usually end up doing my thing 😁.
16 to 20 is ridiculous. I tried this to stop a pubstomper in my pod but you run out of space to actually play a proactive game. I'd have times where I'd draw 4 pieces in a row and just sit there and pass
yeah, i play a deck that is 50 lands + ramp, 36 removal and boardwipes, and the rest are a few draw spells and combo pieces... that kind of build only works for combos you can stall the game for...
I can't keep track anymore of the times I've won against greedy Yuriko decks by playing cards like banishing light or imprison in the moon. Majority of players are so greedy they forget to put enchantment removal in the deck....
A good way to keep removal fun in your deck is to try and use themed removal. I have an Arabella deck, and in it, most of my creature removal involves only effecting creatures with power higher/lower than X. Is it perfect for every situation? No, sometimes you'll get swarmed by Krenko and his boys, and you'll really struggle to find one of your lower power boardwipes. It does keep your deck flavorful, and it does handle most situations most of the time. If you're playing casually, most of the time is plenty good enough, imo.
As a Gruul Player, my solution to removal is to just slam more threats. You'll run out of removal eventually, but I won't run out of threats.
Card draw and tutors are what makes decks consistent. Removal is just a waste of time in most cases. Run less removal and know what to actually remove to allow you to win.
I agree most of the time, but if you take this advice to like a battlecruiser goon sesh you will be the subject of player removal
For me consistency is controlled more by your mana curve and hitting your lands drops each turn.
To many spells/permanents of the wrong MV for your deck and not enough resources to use them is why I see so many decks struggle and why some people can only cast 1 spell a turn thus wondering why they had no impact on the game
That being said removal is a key area players should definitely focus on. 16 pieces might be abit high unless your playing control....
great content.
Hello,
I have a question for your related to this topic and your Otharri list:
You emphasize the importance of removal and specifically enchantment/artefact removal in Otharri.
However you don't seem to include Witch Enchanter or similar in many decks, often limited to ~2 MDF lands.
Have you tried and decided to remove them from your lists? What is your general stance on the bolt-MDF-lands?
Thank you in advance!
This is definitely a thing that people need to do but with my playgroup and card shop when I played frequently I won SIGNIFICANTLY more than other players even when we swapped to each others decks with more or less removal and winning MORE when I wasnt using my own deck. People should not only run more answers but learn what ACTUALLY needs to be answered and when. So many people answer shit they dont need to answer with their precious few counters or removal letting someone else win right after because they wanted something gone that wasnt anywhere near a threat yet or because it was mildly annoying.
If I have to run 20 removal, 15 card draw and 35 lands to be able to stop getting pub stomped... what's the point in even playing at all?
Is there even a deck left to actual play if I'm trying to have some sort of theme, or synergy while still having some ramp and I have to squeeze all that in to 30 cards total? ( because we just spend 70 cards, on removal, draw and lands... )
The issue with interaction, that a lot of new players face, is...A bit odd.
They have all this cool-ass cards. Your atraxa, sheo or other big stuff and they want to play it. They add ramp, some cool stuff and throw in a bit of removal.
This, leads to an issue where they KNOW they need that 15-20 removal but they have NO idea what to slot out of their deck. New players need to be taught to tighten the focus on their desk, rather than think of adding 15-20 removal. We need to teach them that.
Instead of 20 big creatures, run like 6 or 7, but they will cause slaughter! Then use the now free slots on removal.
Every new player will have too much of ''something'' in their new deck.
Its also a video topic you should make, players running too much of something or being too narrow focused on a particular idea.
The issue I have is when I play commanders that lack card advantage in the command zone and I have another theme, I struggle to always have cards of my theme, card advantage, removal, and most importantly enough lands/ramp in my hands.
Maybe my card advantage engines are bad or maybe I’m committing too many cards to my theme. I always force myself to run 15 removal spells, and sometimes I run more if the deck is smooth enough.
Solution to counter spells? Run mono green Eldrazi. Then counter spells don’t hinder you, hooray!
Something I would caution against is putting too much removal though. I've found myself, less so, playing my deck as intended, than I am playing fun police and controlling the board.
16-20 cards is insane
that + lands + ramp would leave my decks with at most 30-35 cards for the game plan, and you need to add draw and protection as well... not enough, already a pain in the ass to fit the gameplan in 50 cards
Edit: Also, the video title is misleading. More removal doesnt make your deck consistent. Redundancy does. Removal makes it reactive which is diffefent.
I run child of alara as a commander and i run 16 pieces of removal 😅
Would you ever be up to looking over people's deck lists and helping improve ....I'm only asking because my deck feels good I just wanted to push it a little further
ALSO love your videos they have been helping me a lot
Thanks that makes sense 👍🏽
Yes removal, the best removal? Player removal
EDH these days is packed full of decks that exclusively run win-more cards or "must-kill" cards.
I don't think commander is a place for consistent decks and i think a big percent of the player base agree if we look at the number of played tutors in commander.
Can you try to make a flubs the fool deck??
If it’s at every power level it’s a skill issue in deck building I’m sorry and the testament of running more removal drawing hate and salt is so true😂 it seems like every other game at my lgs someone is telling me to fuck myself because I countered or took control of their wincon
Tell them to adapt or to do the same they told you. I've lost all patience with whining players.
Sir, 16-20 is like forcing someone to go fucking vegan
I feel like yourself and a lot of other popular edh creators miss the point on this. Commander is a 4 person game. What if youre the only one running adequate removal in your pod? Then it always falls on thst player to remove the big scary things. Its very hard to convince 3 other people to change their decks fundamentally , when in reality people just want to do proactive things and watch their deck pop off. I agree eith a lot of points that adding removal is generally a good thing. But i think its a lot deeper when you consider 3 other people in the game that may or may not want to do the same thing
In the video, I explain that you should be very greedy with your removal because you can't count of the 3 other players to run the right amount of removal. Wait until the last second or wait until they target you to use your removal. I agree that we can't change others deck building, but you'll never regret having more removal for yourself!
Say it with me y'all... Run. More. Removal. lmao 🤣
I agree for the most part but let's say you're the only one in your regular group that cares about this level of optimization, how do you deal with the inevitable focus that you'll receive cause of the "feels bad" reactionary kind of player? Threat assessment isn't always the best in commander (and to be fair it's p hard with how complicated board states get) and there's just no way to have an answer for all three players. The wishy washy nature of commander being "casual" and cards just becoming exceedingly better and commander focus creates a meta that people pretend isn't there and it's just not fun as it used to be. I mean hell I'm sure it's cause I'm just bad, politics are my weak point, but I do think commander is too flawed to be the mainstay of Magic. I know that's a little bit of a tangent but this deckbuilding tip, although correct to me, doesn't necessarily help when big channels promote the adage that counters are unfun and you should LET people "do their thing." You'll just get hated out for trying to play well.
TLDR; the real solution is convince your playgroup to play Cube or Canlander, I promise it'll be the best decision you guys could make in Magic, and you get way more games in.
noone wants to play cube unless they have fucking 5 hours for a game. Do you know why this format even exists? (commander)
i thought singleton should make it less consistent.
sorry but running 18 removals is gonna gimp your deck. You actualy need to do what your supposed to, and you took up a third of your deck with cards to prevent others. With that much, youll draw into alot of dead hands with nothing but removal. Whats your plan at that point? pick up, or hope you dont get merced before you can draw anything you need.
shuffle badly...thats how you get consistency
The content of what you are saying is great but I have noticed over the last few videos that your scripting style leads to you repeating yourself for a few words here and there. Maybe doing smaller reads and stitching them into a video would help if you consistently stumble on words when reading aloud. Love the content otherwise though
7:40 ish is what i am talking about if you need a stamp
Hey! Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely be on the lookout more for that. I have been noticing the same things as well, I saw another RUclipsr writes his scripts sentence by sentence instead of paragraphs. Might try that out, thank you!
removal propaganda! Run more protection! go fast and then keep going faster
You and everyone with this opinion are thinking way too much, removal doesnt maje your deck more consistant, every deck no matter the strategy is limited by card draw, no matter what, you said it in the control area but, all of my decks have 5 removal pieces, and 2 board wipes, all my decks are super consistent and im never lacking removal. I just add more card draw or velocity.
Got invited to my first game of commander. Told it was “fun and casual”. Went out my way to try to make a 6/10.
Got crushed with demonic consultation +thassa’s Oracle
What’s the solution for that?
60 conterspell, makes his live miserable if he plays this deck again
Rule 0.
Make sure everyone knows what kind of game they are looking for.
Demonic Consultation and Thoracle is strictly cEDH (highest power competitive).
Commander is a ton of fun when the decks are on the same playing field.
Getting everyone on the same page is a bit of trial and error though
@ I agree. It’s just that rule 0 doesn’t work when you get lied to lol. I’m mainly just venting. But now every deck I will ever run is going to have Geir reach sanitarium and mikokoro
Trickbind, angels song, stifle effects, counters, hand destruction.
Thassa combo is noob tastic.
@@jessewallace3805 1. It’s not a noob tactic. It’s literally THE most used cEDH wincon. 2. That’s a lot of blue only cards. 3. I already put answers any deck can use above you in the comments.
ignore this advice, build better decks
This is such contradictory advice, so everyone else will run synergy decks and I will play a removal/counter deck. This is such terrible advice.
16-20 removal is really high.
I run 2-3 board wipes, and 3-4 targeted removal in all my decks, which is usually more than enough.
My decks always load up on card draw, so I typically draw into answers as the game progresses.
Do you have a discord server? been loving the vids
In terms of the gameplay spectrum, "running more removal" is on the opposide side of "having fun". I refuse to participate in a competetive arms race. Denying people doing what is fun to them is antithetical to what I look for in a commander game. Not to mention how it can draw out the length of a game to be unbearale. Imagine 4 players having 3 removals and 1 value card each in their hand. The game is grindy and never ends.
You lost me there my friend. I don't want to be the best. I want to enjoy a good time with my friends.
First
5:35 The other day I was playing historic on arena and realized that I was playing against a guy who had over 100 cards in his deck and it was full of apparently nothing but removal and sweep, and his win condition was to simply make me quit or wait until I decked out because I had fewer cards. It was absolutely miserable.