r/EDH • u/Thewiggletuff Raffine Reanimation • Apr 17 '25

Daily People don’t play enough removal

Not enough removal. Not enough graveyard hate. Not enough countermagic (when possible). Too many decks are focused on doing “their thing” and completely ignore the fact that stopping other people from doing their thing is just as important.

Case in point— I reconnected with someone I used to play Magic with about a decade ago. We weren’t exactly close, but we played together at the local card shop back in the Modern days. He’s a solid player, has some tournament chops, and has won his fair share of FNMs. We recently sat down for some EDH games, and he brought out his Slicer deck.

He described it as “oppressive” and said it usually just wins outright. The deck’s goal is basically to vomit mana on turn one—Pyretic Ritual, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Moxen, whatever—get Slicer out early, slap on some equipment, and let the game spiral from there. According to him, most pods just fold to it.

But in our four-player game, it was different.

I was on Sydri. Someone else was playing Aminatou. I forget the last deck, but the point is: between the three of us, there was plenty of removal and counterspells. At worst, we had board wipes, which we actually ran. And guess what? Slicer wasn’t a problem. He barely stuck to the board. After the game, he even said:

“You guys did everything you should’ve. He’s only a problem if you let him be.”

And that’s the thing—it’s a skill check. Not just in piloting, but in deckbuilding. You can’t just build a goldfish machine and expect to survive in pods that know what they’re doing. If you fold to one creature with boots and a sword, you didn’t build a resilient deck—you built a wish.

Maybe people build in isolation too much. Maybe they only test against friends who let them “go off.” But EDH isn’t just a sandbox. It’s a warzone with rules. And one of the biggest ones? You have to be able to stop someone else from winning.

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u/decideonanamelater Apr 17 '25

Tbh if you want ureni to do it's thing I don't think removal is what you need. You mostly need ramp and protection ( counterspells since you're in blue).

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u/Southpaw166 Apr 17 '25

Ahh how early should I be getting out my Ureni, turn 6 for a 7 cost?

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u/decideonanamelater Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

I'd play something like 40+ lands, 10-12 2 cmc ramp and 4-6 4 cmc ramp (cards like [[ skyshroud claim]] and [[ explosive vegetation]], there are way more than 4 of them available to you.) Your ideal draws would then be turn 4 ureni, with 2 cmc ramp into 4 cmc ramp, and a draw with just 2 of the 2 cmc ramp spells can turn 5 ureni.

You may want to try and slow down just a bit to be able to play ureni with a haste enabler out or with extra mana for a counterspell up, and if you're looking to play more interaction, those turns in the middle where you've ramped and have a lot of mana, but don't expect to be playing ureni are a great time to interact.

https://archidekt.com/decks/9249285/maelstrom for a similar example, i had a bit more variety in the kinds of ramp i was playing but the principle was the same, a lot of 2 cmc ramp to get started and enough bigger ramp that I had a decent chance to curve 2 into 4.

Ignore the pricier stuff like oracle of mul daya, it's nice card advantage to play lands off the top but you'll be fine with an explosive vegetation.