ORI: Observations on removal

Some observations about the removal in Magic Origins:

• Every color has access to some form of mass removal, even green (Joraga Invocation and The Great Aurora). The main ones to avoid overextending into are Tragic Arrogance, Chandra’s Ignition (does damage equal to the power of a creature you control), Languish (4 toughness), Eyeblight Massacre (2 toughness), and Chandra’s Fury (1 toughness), and you also need to be careful about overattacking into a Hixus Prison Warden if your opponent has WW2 available. Eyeblight Massacre, Hixus Prison Warden, and Archangel of Tithes are the only ones that aren’t symmetric or mostly symmetric. While most of the mass removal is rare or mythic, Chandra’s Fury is a common, and Eyeblight Massacre and Joraga Invocation are uncommons.
• The only non-mass removal spell that affects multiple creatures is Kytheon’s Irregulars, which can tap multiple creatures.
• Other than Sentinel of the Eternal Watch (uncommon), Kytheon’s Irregulars (rare), and Molten Vortex (rare), the reusable removal in the format requires you to jump through some hoops:
  • Grasp of the Hieromancer, Mage-Ring Responder (rare), and Gideon, Battle-Forged (mythic) require a specific creature to attack.
  • Akroan Jailer and Mage-Ring Responder (rare) require a significant amount of mana to reuse their abilities.
  • Disciple of the Ring (mythic) requires exiling 1 instant/sorcery in your graveyard per use.
  • Blightcaster (uncommon) requires you to play enchantments.
  • Ghirapur AEther Grid (uncommon) and Pia and Kiran Nalaar (rare) require you to have artifacts in play (although Pia and Kiran Nalaar bring 2 of their own).
  • Blazing Hellhound (uncommon) requires you to sacrifice creatures.
• Observations about the removal available in each color:
  • All colors have access to Throwing Knife and Meteorite at uncommon, both of which deal 2 points of damage. There’s also Mage-Ring Responder at rare, and Alchemist’s Vial at common can prevent a creature from attacking or blocking for a turn.
  • White has a good permanent creature removal suite, with Celestial Flare and Supression Bond at common, and Swift Reckoning at uncommon. Among the temporary removal, the commons are unimpressive, and include an aura that’s unplayable in most decks, an expensive tapper, and Heavy Infantry, which you rarely want multiples of. However, Sentinel of the Eternal Watch (uncommon), Kytheon’s Irregulars (rare), and Archangel of Tithes (mythic) are bombs.
  • Blue has a varied removal suite. There’s the usual bounce (Disperse, Separatist Voidmage at uncommon, and Harbinger of the Tides and Displacement Wave at rare), Anchor to the AEther (uncommon) for repulse, Disciple of the Ring (mythic) for tapping, Send to Sleep for freeze, Claustrophobia for permanently tapping a creature, Willbreaker (rare) for stealing creatures, and Turn to Frog (uncommon) for turning a creature into a 1/1 temporarily.
  • At common and uncommon, black has to spend 3 mana to kill X/1’s (Eyeblight Assassin), 4 mana to kill X/2’s (Weight of the Underworld at common, and Eyeblight Massacre and Blightcaster at uncommon), and 5 mana to kill larger creatures (Unholy Hunger at common, and Cruel Revival at uncommon). At rare, black has 4-mana spells that kill X/4’s (Languish and Demonic Pact). Black also has a few other assorted removal spells: Reave Soul, Fleshbag Marauder (uncommon), and Gilt-Leaf Winnower (rare). Other than Reave Soul, black usually has to spend 5 mana to kill even an X/3.
  • Red can kill 1-3 toughness creatures at common, has Fiery Conclusion (5 dmg) and Ravaging Blaze (X dmg) at uncommon, and has Exquisite Firecraft (4 dmg) and Chandra’s Ignition (your creature deals P dmg to all others) at rare. While red doesn’t have many ways to kill creatures with a toughness of 4 or more (Fiery Conclusion requires sacrificing a creature, Ravaging Blaze requires 6 mana, and the other options are rares), it can use falter effects (Seismic Elemental at uncommon), borrow effects (Act of Treason at common, and Enthralling Victor at uncommon), and Ravaging Blaze as finishers once its creatures are outclassed.
  • Green has a fight spell and a flyer removal spell at common, as it often does. It also has Joraga Invocation at uncommon, which I played once and had mixed results with, possibly because I had only 13 creatures in that deck. It’s great on a stalled board, but doesn’t let you win out of nowhere like Overrun can, even though it costs 1 more mana. I think it’s still playable in G/W reknown or B/G Elves since those decks tend to play a lot of small creatures that can get outclassed as the game goes on.
• There are a number of discard spells that force you to discard multiple cards, which is worth keeping in mind when deciding how to play your hand out. Black has Nightsnare (1-2 cards) at common, Tormented Thoughts (# cards equal to the power of a sacrificed creature) at uncommon, and Demonic Pact (2 cards) at rare.

ORI: List of removal

This is a list of all the removal in Magic Origins, divided into permanent creature removal, temporary creature removal (such as bounce, tap, and falter effects), non-creature removal, and off-battlefield removal (hand, stack, and graveyard). The column labeled T (to the right of the permanent creature removal column) indicates how tough a creature the removal can handle; if there is no number in that column, the removal is independent of the creature’s toughness (it is a destroy effect unless specified otherwise). Conditional removal is indicated after the card name.

Italics indicates that one or more permanents have to remain in play for the effect to continue. Bold indicates a reusable or ongoing effect. Yellow highlight indicates that multiple targets are affected. Red highlight indicates mass removal that you may be able to avoid overextending into. Within each color/rarity, cards are ordered by how tough a creature they can kill, then by converted mana cost.

Unlike the list of tricks, this list does not try to provide an abbreviated description of the effect, but just references how it affect creatures. Here’s how to interpret those effects:

• Abbreviations used: A (artifact), attkr (attacker), blkr (blocker), borrow (untap & gain control until end of turn; the permanent gains haste), bounce (return to owner’s hand), bury (destroy & it cannot be regenerated), C (creature), CMC (converted mana cost), counter when used as a verb (counter a spell), dmg (damage), draw X (draw X cards), E (enchantment), ETB (enters the battlefield), flicker (exile, then return to the battlefield), flyer (creature with flying), freeze X (tap X and it doesn’t untap next turn), gain X (gain X life), GY (graveyard), I (instant), L (land), loot X (draw X cards, then discard X cards), lose X (lose X life), mill N (put N cards from a library into a graveyard), opp (opponent), opp’s X (X controlled by opponent), P (player or power, depending on context), prot (protection), PW (planeswalker), raise (return card from your graveyard to your hand), reanimate (return card from the graveyard to the battlefield), redirect X dmg from A to B (next X dmg that would be dealt to A is dealt to B instead), regen (regenerate), S (sorcery), sac (sacrifice), T (toughness), your X (X you control).
• Effects (+X/+Y, -X/-Y, hexproof, first strike, prot from a color, etc.) last until end of turn unless specified otherwise.
• Effects only target creatures unless otherwise specified, e.g., X dmg without any qualifiers means that the effect does X damage to any creature. If the effect also targets players, that won’t be mentioned here.
• Descriptions sometimes mention other spells to avoid lengthy descriptions.