7/25/2019 Removal Innins

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hadows Over Innistrad has a ton of cool themes and archetypes available in it: Five different tribes, Investigate, Madness, Delirium, Mill, and multiple combinations within those archetypes. However, Shadows Over Innistrad Limited is stillLimited, which means for all of the fancy bells and whistles, it cant avoid the one constant across all Limited formats: removal is the key to winning. It doesntmatter how nice your curve is if your opponent has all of the answers. It doesntmatter how crazy your synergy deck is if your opponent kills your engine pieces.To understand a Limited format, the first step is to understand the removal.

In my mind, there are about five different levels of Limited removal. Each one corresponds to how highly I pick the cards in Limited, and how much the cards influence my decision to play their color (or colors) in Limited. Here are the fivetiersI use:

Tier 0 The best removal spells available. Usually reserved for board wipes and cheap, unconditional removal. See: Planar Outburst, Heros Downfall. Tier 1 Solid removal spells. Either expensive and unconditional or close-tounconditional. Commons in this category are judged against most Rares for first-pickability. See: Oblivion Strike. Tier 2 Fine removal spells. Usually good to have one, may avoid a second. Expensive removal. See: Stonefury, Flatten. Tier 3 Fairly poor removal spells that should generally avoid being played.Very conditional or too expensive. See: Seering Light. Sideboard Hyper-conditional removal spells that only hit a subset of creatur

es. See: Plummet.

Of course, each category is flexible, and is relative to the rest of the removalspells in the format. Sometimes Flatten is fantastic, but if, say, Heros Downfall is available in the same format, Flatten is going to be in a lower tier. Shadows Over Innistrad is loaded with removal spells, so lets dive into what spells Ibelieve fit in each category.