Why are creatures and removal spells the most popular cards in Limited? Because they have an immediate impact on the game. A good creature will make it into your deck 95% of the time, and a good removal spell will pretty much automatically make the cut. But what about the other spells? When should you play these second-tier cards? Let’s have a look to the most common types…
Card-Drawing Spells
The two main things that matter the most in a game of Magic are tempo and card advantage. However, card draw spells don’t automatically make the cut. Indeed, they give you extra cards, but they take the tempo out of your hands for a turn or more (e.g. Scepter of Insight).
Let’s take a simple example. You are playing Bant and this is your opening hand:
Plains, Forest, Island, Knight of the Skyward Eye, Aven Squire, Sigil Blessing, Courier’s Capsule.
You won’t play your Capsule in the first three turns because you want to play your guys, and on turn 4 either you will have drawn a guy, or you’d probably rather play any other spell instead of the Capsule… it’s slowing you down here.
In a control deck, though, you often leave the tempo to your opponent as you are supposed to react to his plays. As your cards are supposed to be individually stronger than those in an average deck, your deck’s quality should be able to compensate for that little loss of time. However, you don’t want to play too many cards that don’t do anything besides drawing more cards (e.g. Inspiration, Catalogue), as you often need cards that do something immediately.
Cards such as these could make you lose too much time. Shards of Alara block is an exception, as the most commonly played card draw spells – Courier’s Capsule and Kiss of the Amesha – are excellent. The first one is most commonly played in a deck that usually won’t play a spell on turn 2 anyway (five-color control), or in a deck that values artifacts in the graveyard (Esper with Sanctum Gargoyle, or even Windbrisk Mage). Playing the gold spell shouldn’t be a pain either, as the seven points of life gain should compensate easily for the loss of tempo it actually creates.
Fixers
You want two things from fixers: acceleration and stability of your manabase. Usually, these cards cost two (Rampant Growth, Fertile Ground) or three (Obelisks) mana. Therefore, the more four-plus mana spells you are running, the better they are. If a turn 2 Rampant Growth helps you play a four-mana 3/3 on turn 3 and a five-mana 4/4 on turn 4, while your opponent can only play smaller guys in the meantime, it gives you a huge advantage in tempo.
Also, these cards are a lot better if they can stabilize your mana. Shards of Alara’s Obelisks, for instance, are great for this. When a random Rampant Growth effect will only give you one color (and only if you have a Green mana available already), and a Mirrodin’s Talisman gives you two, the Obelisk can probably provide you with all the mana you need to play any spell in your deck. However, they don’t accelerate the mana much in the sweet spots of the early game, and they cost three, with is a much bigger problem. Indeed, when you play any Talisman/Signet/Fertile Ground or two-mana fixer, you can consider cutting lands. For three of them, you can usually cut two lands. If you do the same with Obelisks, Overgrowth, or any three-mana accelerator, however, you won’t be able to do the same thing. Indeed, if you play something like three Obelisks and sixteen lands, you may end up being unable to play your artifact because you won’t draw a third land. For this reason, you can only cut a maximum of one land for two or more Obelisks, and you will have to run 17. One last thing I don’t like much about them: Rampant Growth removes one land from your deck, and Mind Stone can be recycled, but Obelisks just increase the number of cards that only produce mana. Would you really play 19 lands in a Grixis deck?
In most decks, these cards aren’t great, but if you have a very high curve and/or play lots of colors, you should pick some of them.
Creature Pump Spells
A pump spell can be seen as a Green piece of removal that can make for two-for-one trades in some cases (such as a profitable double block). It can even act as a finisher. Sadly, it also happens to be a source of card disadvantage. Do you really want to attack in your opponent’s 3/3 with a 2/2 when he has Red and Black mana untapped? You might be the one being trapped here, and even if you attack and he doesn’t block, he now knows about your trick and will play around it. So when should you run creature pump spells?
You can play it if it’s in your main color. Otherwise, it could sit in your hand and do nothing, which isn’t a privilege you want to grant to a card that doesn’t necessarily do something good when you draw the mana to play it (as opposed to removal spells and bombs). Also, the less removal spells you have, the better the pump spells get, as you need to compensate for the lack of ways to kill creatures in your deck by finding another way to kill them, or simply by finishing your opponent before he can play his most annoying dudes.
And eventually, you really want pump spells when you are playing a very aggressive deck. Indeed, if you are faster than him, your opponent will be forced to block, even if he figured you have something, to try and slow you down.
Auras
An enchant: creature is often something that looks really cool, but it is also very often unplayable. When you play a “+/+ type” aura on a creature of yours, for instance, you do obtain a strong strike force, but your opponent has a few turns to find a removal spell and destroy you. Even a simple bounce card makes you lose a lot of tempo. As a result, you sometimes have a very good creature, but more often you end up with a wasted turn and a less dramatic one-for-two.
Have you ever played or faced Lighting Talons, for instance? If the card stays on the board, your guy is unstoppable. But if the opponent has, well, anything, you almost lose the game.
However, enchant: creatures (and I am not talking about the Pacifism effects of course, as they are true removal spells) can be good sometimes. If the bonus they give your creature is enough to make you think it could take the game on its own (Mythic Proportions), and/or if they make your guy big enough to resist most removal spells and give him a great bonus (Zephyr’s Embrace, Armadillo Cloak), you must absolutely play them.
A card like Elder Mastery, for instance, should belong to that last category, but it is still nearly unplayable, because it could only fit Grixis and five-color control, the two archetypes playing the fewest creatures in the format.
One last thing to keep in mind: Auras are good sideboard cards. If your opponent is White/Green, or if you haven’t seen a single removal spell in the first game, feel free to board in a card such as Lightning Talons.
Finishers
These cards only aim at one thing: dealing your opponent the finishing blow. There are different kinds of finishers: the blast (Lava Axe), the all-in type (Devouring Greed), and the cards that keep your opponent’s creatures from blocking (Ensnare, Falter).
They are cards that won’t do a thing 90% of the time, but they will directly lead to victory for the 10 last percent. So when are you willing to play a spell that will mostly be a dead card?
The main condition for playing these spells is that you must ensure your deck is able to win when you draw them. In some control decks, five points of damage won’t make any difference. Most of the time, when you can deal 20 damage to your opponent, you could just as well have dealt him 25 or 30. Therefore, Lava Axe will be the worst possible spell for you to have in hand at nearly any time. Ensnare was a fantastic card in Masques Block Limited because it was the slowest format ever, and you could often see ten or more creatures on the board. In this case, both the format and the archetype made it great.
If you play aggro and you’re confident that you can put any opponent on less than ten life, you should definitely play one or two of them. You can also choose to board one in for the slowest matchups.
Countermagic
Counterspells seem pretty good. In theory, they are able to deal with absolutely any card, but in the real world, they are far from being that good. Most counters cost 3 or 4 mana. Do you really want to pass on one of you key turns when you don’t even know if your opponent has a spell better than the creature you could have cast, or even if he does actually have a spell? And what if he plays a land and passes? Are you going to pass as well, not even knowing if he will play this bigger spell you’re expecting him to play on the following turn? Another problem is that a counter is often pretty visible. Trust me, if you pass on turn 2 with UUW untapped, your opponent has good chance to play around Cancel.
Therefore, usually, it is recommended either to have flash guys in your deck (which is not easy in Alara, I know), or to play normally and only keep the mana to counter once you have played enough spells to establish a good situation on the board. Unfortunately, if you wait for turn 6 or 7 to start keeping mana for your counter, you once again have no guarantee you will be able to catch something good. Therefore, I recommend you to run counters in situations: in the sideboard when you play aggro, if you identified the major threats and you know your opponent can’t play them in the first five turns, or if you play control with a strong Blue base. Once again, if you wish to play a card that doesn’t have an immediate impact on the game, you must at least be able to cast it anytime you want when you draw it. Also, in a control deck, counters are less visible because there are more reasons why you would keep mana untapped, as your hand could have no creature, more expensive spells, instant speed removal, mass removal etc.
Discard Spells
Spells that can make your opponent discard are usually pretty bad. Either they are cheap but take only one card with restrictions (Duress, Ostracize), or they can take several cards but they are either too expensive for what they do (Spitting Headache). Basically, you can consider playing a multiple discards spell if it is at least three-for-one (Voices from the Void), or if it goes two-for-one while costing three or four mana and giving you a good bonus (Blightning, Fill with Fright, Bog Down). In general, you don’t play more than one (or at maximum two) discard spells, as you’re not even sure you’ll have the right mana to be able to play them when you wish.
You don’t necessarily have to play these cards main deck, as they are better in the sideboard when you know exactly what to expect from your opponent. You will want Ostracize versus a Shivan Dragon deck, and Duress for Phyrexian Processor. As for Mind Rot effects, they are very useful against all the high curved decks.
In summary, there are a plethora of interesting spells available to a Limited Magic fan. However, most of them have severe drawbacks. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play them, of course; just that you would be aware of the costs they incur, and plan your strategies accordingly.
Until next week!