Hello internet, my name is Blue, and today I want to discuss some more basic EDH deck building tips. I realized it’s been a super long time since I did a Commander 101 article so I thought I’d go over something that every deck needs, but something that a lot of players skip out on, whether it’s by accident or otherwise. Today I’m going over basic interaction, spot removal to board wipes to counterspells. I’ll be breaking this up into two sections and talking about individual cards in those sections. So let’s get started with the two different kinds of interaction; conditional and non-conditional.

Conditional

When speaking about interaction, there are two key differences that we need to understand before we can go in-depth about everything, and that’s conditional vs non-conditional. What do I mean by conditional interaction? It’s quite simple; I mean interaction spells that have a limited number of targets. A few good examples of conditional interaction include Smelt, Essence Scatter, and Back to Nature. Due to their limited nature, I don’t normally advocate for playing conditional interaction if possible, but there are some key exceptions for each of the three types of interaction I mentioned earlier. Let’s go over those here.

Removal

First, let’s go over spot removal. Targetted spot removal is probably the type of interaction you’ll be running most often because it’s the most basic form of interaction in Magic. You don’t always need a board wipe to deal with something and counters are useless once it already resolves, so a simple Swords to Plowshares can take care of most creature targets you’ll need to deal with. However, you’re not always in white, and if you’re good at Commander, you’re almost never in white, so we need to look at options in other colors. Blue surprisingly has some very powerful options at one, two, and three mana with cards like Pongify, Reality Shift, and Imprisoned in the Moon. Black has some great options as well with cards like Fatal Push,  Doom Blade, and Hero’s Downfall. Red and green don’t have much in terms of creature removal, but what they lack in creature answers, they make up for in super-efficient noncreature answers. Red has some of the best artifact hate in all of Magic, with narrow, efficient options like Smelt to more flexible options like Abrade. In addition, there’s some sweeper-based artifact hate that can also be targetted hate in a pinch, like Vandelblast and Shattering Spree. Green feels very similar with its artifact and enchantment hate with cards like Wilt, Krosan Grip, and the very powerful Force of Vigor. We’ve covered a lot and that’s not even considering multi-color options available like Abrupt Decay. Bedevil, Destructive Revelry, and Despark, just to name a few.

Now a warning about conditional removal; there will be times that they don’t do anything. Sometimes your Eliminate won’t have a target because EDH is known for big-mana spells. There will be other times that Devout Decree is stranded in your hand because nobody is playing black or red. When you choose to put a conditional removal spell in your deck, please bear in mind that you’re giving up some major consistency points for efficiency points. These problems don’t come up as much in the other sections of interaction I’ll go over, but it can and will happen with spot removal. I personally don’t advocate for playing conditional removal unless it meets one of two criteria points.

1. You’re playing a color that doesn’t have many options like blue or black
2. You have ways to use the cards even when they don’t have targets, like Wilt or Esper Charm

Counter Magic

We talked a lot about spot removal, but these next two parts will be much quicker and much easier. The first is countermagic. When I talk about counters, I’m referring to cards like Counterspell that remove a spell from the stack as it’s being cast. There’s a handful of counters in other colors like red, but they mostly exist in blue, and that’s why this discussion point will be so quick, since we only have one major color to go over. Remember when I said under removal I don’t normally advocate for playing conditional removal? That’s because they’ll sometimes be dead. Counters are different however as you can almost always guarantee a target. Almost every player in commander will have some number of noncreature spells, so Negate goes way up in value, and even Essence Scatter is guaranteed at least one target because everyone has a commander. Yes, planeswalker commanders exist but there’s only 11 in existence at the time of this article, so the chances all three of your opponent’s have a planeswalker commander and have 0 creatures in their 99 is pretty low. That doesn’t mean I recommend counters that only have a single target like Ceremonious Rejection or Envelop because they are incredibly narrow, but cards like Negate or Swan Song that hit most everything relevant are fair game.

Board Wipes/Sweepers

This one will easily be the shortest discussion and that’s because every deck wants some number of board wipes, and every color has at least one conditional sweeper, whether it be for creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or anything else. White has access to things like Wrath of God, black has Damnation, red has Blasphemous Act, and blue has Evacuation. Green has a few, but none of them hit creatures. Instead, green gets some that hit artifacts and enchantments like Bane of Progress. That’s again not counting multi-color options like Supreme Verdict, Kaya’s Wrath, and Fracturing Gust. There’s a lot of sweeper options in every color, so I’d highly recommend at least two in every deck, even aggro decks as a safety net to reset the board if you fall behind.

Non-Conditional

Non-conditional interaction is much easier to talk about because, well, you’re not restricted on what you can target with it. We’ll again start with removal, then head to countermagic, then finally board wipes, and each one will get shorter as we talk about it so let’s get into it.

Removal

Non-conditional spot removal spells are spells that I highly suggest go in every single deck you build, even if it’s just one. White, green, and red all have at least one and there are several multi-color and colorless options available if you need more. There’s normally no excuse for your white deck to not run Generous Gift or your deck to not run Assassin’s Trophy. There are a few exceptions, like Nikya of the Old Ways may not want Beast Within, Song of the Dryads, or Chaos Warp, but for the most part, these cards should be played whenever possible because they allow you to cleanly answer cards you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Other options include Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Mythos of Nethroi, Spine of Ish Sah, and all the Oblivion Ring affects available in white.

Counter Magic

Counters feel just the same as removal. You have access to so many good non-conditional counters in blue that most of the time, it’s incorrect to play even the most basic options like Counterspell. On bigger budgets, you get access to more powerful options like Cryptic Command, Mana Drain, and Force of Will, but even on a smaller budget, you still have a lot to work with, such as Disallow, Dismiss, and Arcane Denial. There are even creature-based counters that can slot into decks that care about creatures like Frilled Mystic or Mystic Snake. I will say non-conditional counters aren’t as important as non-conditional removal since you can only play them with blue and sometimes you don’t want to take up that slot, but they are really important in control decks or metas that are oversaturated with instant and sorcery threats that can’t be dealt with easily outside of counters.

Board Wipes/Sweepers

Finally, let’s discuss non-conditional sweepers. There aren’t many that actually exist in Magic and even fewer that exist outside of white, but I’d recommend at least one in every deck if you can swing it. In white, there are several options, but the best by far is probably Hour of Revelation. When hard-cast, it costs , but with the discount, it only costs a measly . Three mana to destroy the board of everything except lands is a pretty good rate in my opinion. Blue has the next best option in all of Commander with the ever-famous Cyclonic Rift to bounce all of your opponent’s nonland permanents. This can be used to set up for a lethal attack or put your opponent’s so far behind that you’ll be miles ahead by the time they can rebuild. Rift is one of the best cards in all of Casual EDH when utilized properly. My last example is All is Dust. While it doesn’t touch colorless cards like lands and mana rocks, it can be a huge swing for color combos like Gruul that don’t have access to a true non-conditional wrath. Yes, I know it’s somewhat conditional not hitting colorless permenants, but it does qualify under the “most” catagory when looking at non-conditional interaction.

Summary

To put a neat little bow on things since I touched up on a lot and didn’t really breathe much:

Non-conditional interaction is your best friend if you have access to it…

But sometimes you don’t and you need to settle…

And even at its worst, you should always play something.

Wrap-Up

I know this was a little different from my normal articles but I’ve noticed a lot of people skimping on interaction lately so I wanted to go over it and help everyone understand why it’s necessary. Do you have any questions for me? Maybe a card I missed or overlooked? Let me know in the comments or tell me on Twitter @TheRealBlueMTG. While you’re there, don’t forget to follow the website @MTGOracle and our sponsor @Mana_Traders! That’s all from me for today. This is Blue, signing out!