Alright, let’s talk about getting rid of stuff in green for Magic. It’s something I banged my head against for a while when I really got into building green decks.
See, green’s great at making mana, playing huge creatures, trampling over stuff. But when your opponent drops that one critical artifact, that annoying enchantment, or just a creature that stops your whole plan? Man, green felt kinda helpless sometimes. My early decks just folded to specific threats.
Finding the Basics
First thing I found was artifact and enchantment removal. That was easy enough. You got your `Naturalize` effects, things like `Nature’s Claim` or `Reclamation Sage`. These are solid, staples even. You run ’em, they do their job against non-creature things. No problem there. I started throwing those into my decks pretty quick.
The Creature Problem
But creatures… creatures were the real headache. I started with fight spells. You know the ones, `Prey Upon`, `Rabid Bite` where your creature deals damage to theirs. Seemed logical. Green has big creatures, right? Use that strength!
- First issue: You need a creature on board. Sometimes you don’t have one, or the one you have is too small.
- Second issue: Your creature has to survive the fight! If they have a removal spell in response, you lose your creature and the spell does nothing. Ouch.
- Third issue: Sometimes fighting just isn’t enough. They have indestructible, or maybe just higher toughness.
So, fight spells were okay sometimes, but super unreliable. I needed something better.
Exploring Green’s Weird Removal
Then I started digging into what green actually does. It doesn’t just destroy things outright very often. It finds… creative solutions.
I found cards like `Lignify` and `Song of the Dryads`. These don’t destroy, they transform. Turning your opponent’s biggest threat into a useless 0/4 treefolk or a basic land? That felt powerful, and very green. It gets around indestructible too, which is a huge bonus. Suddenly, those scary commanders or big beaters just became scenery.
There’s also stuff that deals damage based on power, but without the risk of your creature dying in a fight. Think `Ram Through`. If you have a trampler, you can hit a small creature and still punch damage through to the opponent. Felt way better than a straight-up fight spell most times.
And then there’s the kind of ‘fight’ where only your creature deals damage, like bite spells (`Rabid Bite` again, but more advanced versions). These are safer for your own creatures.
The Universal Answer (with a catch)
Eventually, I landed on what many consider green’s best, if slightly awkward, catch-all: `Beast Within`. This card hit me like a ton of bricks. Destroy any permanent? Land, creature, planeswalker, whatever? Wow. That’s flexibility green usually doesn’t get.
The downside? They get a 3/3 beast token. And yeah, sometimes that token comes back to bite you. I’ve definitely lost games where that 3/3 beast chipped away at me or blocked something important. But honestly, being able to answer anything on the spot is often worth the price. It plugged a massive hole in my green decks.
My Approach Now
So, after all that trial and error, here’s what I learned and how I build now:
- Artifact/Enchantment Hate: Always pack some. `Nature’s Claim`, `Reclamation Sage`, `Force of Vigor` if you can. Basic stuff.
- Creature Answers: Don’t rely solely on basic fight spells. Look for bite spells, look for things that give your creature indestructible before the fight, or use transformation effects like `Song of the Dryads` or `Kenrith’s Transformation`.
- Flexibility: `Beast Within` is almost always in my green decks now. That catch-all ability is just too good to pass up, even with the token drawback.
- Board Wipes (Sort of): Green doesn’t really do board wipes in the traditional sense, but sometimes you can find effects that force fights across the board or deal damage based on creature power, like `Setessan Tactics` overloaded, which can sometimes clear smaller creatures if you have big ones.
Green removal isn’t straightforward like black or white. You don’t just point and click “destroy”. You gotta use your board state, transform threats, or sometimes accept a small downside like giving your opponent a beast token. It took me a while to get used to it, but once you understand the green philosophy of removal, you can definitely make it work. It’s just… different.
