1001 Ways to Die: A Treatise on Removal

It's late and I'm bored, so I'm going to write something of a deckbuilding tidbit.

Generally people will decide what is the "best" removal and run a set or two of said cards to cover themselves. As Magic aggressively evolves and changes with each set, though, there is by now a vast multitude of threats to consider. Certainly, you can't answer all of them, but it's wise to be prepared for as wide a range as possible. I'll break removal into (broad, non-exhaustive) categories to give you an idea. Remember that this is all off the top of my head. No, I won't do any research for you animals.
1. Destroy ("Spot Removal")
The simplest and most straightforward. "Destroy target creature."

• Destruction has the advantage of being able to take down any creature, no matter how large. Last Gasp is a reasonable two-mana way to wipe out most things in your path, until that surly 5/5 comes along. The biggest creature in the world will die to a simple Murder... assuming abilities don't come into play.
• Creature destruction exists mostly in black, and older pieces of black removal only work on nonblack targets. Some of them - like Terror - are delightfully flavourful while still being strong cards. Others - like Dead Ringers - are neither.
• A card that says "destroy" is the most likely to have crossover with other permanent types: Putrefy can also hit artifacts while Mortify can nail Enchantments; Vindicate can nuke any sort of permanent. You're not going to be removing that pesky Asceticism by giving it -4/-4, though. This helps provide versatility when it's not necessarily a creature you need to get rid of.
• Destruction generally has to target. Creatures with hexproof or shroud are safe from even the strongest targeted destruction. Mass destruction exists and is the most reliable way to empty the board, though, even of untargetable troublemakers. Remember that creatures with Protection can still be killed by non-targeted destruction.
• Indestructibility exists. Kamigawa ensured it wasn't a block-specific ability, and more and more of these invulnerable jerks keep popping up. An indestructible creature is safe from any destroy effects.
• Regeneration is a smaller and less powerful form if indestructibility, but still one to watch out for. A creature that can regenerate can be just as hard to remove if your opponent can leave mana open. Note that many of the better removal effects don't allow for regeneration, making it less of a concern if you're careful with your choices. This effect is called "burying" (i.e. "bury target creature") on older cards. Burying gets around regeneration, but it still doesn't affect indestructible critters.

2. Toughness Reducers (-X/-X)
A fairly straightforward form, this is the opposite of the more prevalent +X/+X effects. Can also take the form of -0/-X, +X/-X, or -X/-0, though that last one isn't likely to end any lives.

• Limited by size. Dismember can remove basically anything... until that jerk with six toughness shows up. Particularly huge creatures are pretty much safe, though you can combine a toughness reducer with damage (most likely combat damage) to hit larger numbers. Since this effect generally takes the form of -X/-X, it usually lowers power, too, meaning you can make a big creature able to be killed by one of your mid-sized creatures without having to trade.
• When a creature's toughness reaches zero, it is put in the graveyard as a state-based action. It wasn't destroyed, it just fell over dead. This means you can easily get around indestructibility and regeneration this way.
• Except for the precious few cards that shrink all creatures, the most common -X/-X effects are targeted, meaning shroud and hexproof can still be a hassle.
• -1/-1 counters, an offshoot of toughness reducers, are basically a -X/-X that stays around permanently. Think of them as the opposite of +1/+1 counters. I say to think of them that way because that's literally what they are. The counters stick around, making a creature permanently weaker if it isn't outright killed, and can be proliferated to add up. However, the counters will fall off if the creature leaves play, naturally.

3. Sacrifice ("Edicts")
Generally you can sacrifice your own cards as a cost for another effect. Sacrificing creatures to draw cards or make another creature bigger, for instance. With 'edicts,' though... you can force your opponent sacrifice a creature simply for the sake of getting rid of one of his or her creatures.

• Size doesn't matter. A 20/20 is just as worthy a sacrifice as a 0/1.
• Sacrificing does not target creatures! Asides from the occasional oddball, the effects will generally target the player - "target player sacrifices a creature." This is an easy way to get around hexproof or shroud.
• Sacrificing isn't destruction. If it was, cards with sacrifices as a cost would get a whole lot weirder. This means indestructibility, protection and regeneration are no defense.
• Since it targets the creature's controller, you'll almost never get to pick which creature dies. This is the main weakness of sacrifice effects. If your opponent has a 9/9 with shroud and three 1/1 insect tokens, an edict will simply see him with one less insect and a dead opponent. Sacrifice effects should be used when your opponent can make no "good" choice - most likely because he has only one creature, or possibly several creatures of roughly the same value. The best way to engineer these situations are by combining sacrifice effects with spot removal to remove creatures you can target, leaving the ones you can't target to get sacrificed.

4. Removal ("Exile")
More-or-less the strongest form of removal, removing a creature from the game is exactly what it sounds like: Marcie, get out of here. YOU'RE DEAD! You don't exist any more.

• Since it seems to typically represent extraplanar seclusion or other such scenarios rather than death per se, exiling bypasses the graveyard completely. This not only means no regeneration or indestructibility, but said creature can't even be reanimated or brought back by some means later.
• Barring some overpowered exceptions, exiling is powerful enough that it typically warrants a higher cost than other forms of removal - you can expect to pay four mana or more for most garden-variety exile effects.
• With extremely few exceptions, removing a creature from the game will be targeted. A God or Darksteel Colossus can be sent to work on the farm, but a Bogle cannot. Lazy git.
• Since non-targeted removal can get around virtually every creature defense besides leaving play in response, mass removal is pricey. It's six mana to remove all creatures from the game.
• Lately, a lot of removal effects are attached to permanents - usually enchantments, but sometimes creatures or artifacts, as well. They remove a creature when they show up and bring it back when they leave. This means your opponent can get their creature back if they're packing some removal of their own, which can be risky if you want to guarantee the creature doesn't come back.

5. Direct Damage ("Burn")
Something of a poor man's removal, burn is run more because you're playing Red, so what else do you have to work with. Direct damage has perhaps the most limitations, but strengths in other areas.

• Combat damage without the combat, burn is limited by its target's toughness. Dealing damage to a big creature can be ineffective, though like toughness reducers, you can combine instant-speed burn with combat to bring down higher toughnesses. In particular, the presence of First Strike in Red can let you take out a big creature without losing your own guy.
• Indestructibility and regeneration are safe against direct damage, though some cards, like Incinerate, specifically get around regeneration.
• Since it's less powerful, direct damage is usually slightly cheaper than -X/-X effects.
• Nearly all direct damage can be pointed at a player as well as a creature. This gives it versatility that basically no other removal has - that is, something to do with it when there are no creatures.
• Direct damage is the cheapest and most likely to take mass form. The cheapest way in the game to kill all creatures is four mana, not counting Breaking Point. Pyroclasm is two mana for two damage to everything, which can often be enough to wipe the board. Plus, you can easily combine it with high-toughness guys to make the effect more one-sided.
• Even if the source doesn't target, protection is always effective against damage. A creature with protection from White will still die to a non-targeted Wrath of God, but protection from Red will stop even the biggest Comet Storm.

6. Enchanting ("Pacifism")
Local enchantments can have all sorts of effects, either helpful or harmful. This may come as a shock for some, but the idea is to put the helpful ones on your own creatures and the harmful ones on those of your opponent. There are enchantments that can reduce a creature's power or toughness, stop it from attacking, blocking, using its abilities, untapping, or even several of the above. Hence, a creature prevented from doing what it wants to do is as good as dead.

• The creature didn't actually leave play. This can be good in some cases (Wurmcoil Engine) and bad in others (Goblin Chieftain.)
• Being a permanent, auras can be undone. Arresting a dragon is just as good as killing it, but your opponent is only a Disenchant away from taking another swing at your life total.
• Since you aren't killing the creature, indestructibility or regeneration shouldn't matter.
• Shroud and hexproof are effective against being enchanted... usually. You can be sneaky about it, though. When you play an aura from your hand, you need to pick a target. If an aura is simply "put into play," though... it needs to be enchanting something, so as long as there is a legal target, it will attach to that without having targeted it. This means Zur can fetch a Prison Term and dump it on your opponent's Kalonian Behemoth, just as easily as he can give himself a Daybreak Coronet when he already has Diplomatic Immunity. Likewise, Enchantment Alteration targets the enchantment, not either of the permanents it is/was attached to, meaning you can use it to get around untargetabiliy.
• Even considering the above point, protection is still completely effective against being enchanted. You can get around the protected creature from not being able to be targeted by X, but the fact it can't be enchanted by X on top of that means the aura will fall right off.

7. Tucking
The darling of sadistic EDH players everywhere, "tucking" is the act of putting a creature in its owner's library - not on the top, which is going to be a temporary measure, but either on the bottom or shuffled in.

• No death = no regeneration or indestructibility. Plus, no unwanted "If X dies" triggers.
• Everyone's using the graveyard nowadays. Most decks have a couple ways to bring back or reanimate stuff, whereas for others, the graveyard is just a second hand. Rare indeed is the deck that can just tutor for whatever it wants, though. Putting a creature on the bottom of its owner's library can be more permanent than killing it - this one can vary on what cards you're facing, though.
• If a creature is shuffled into its owner's library, there is a freak chance they'll draw it in another turn or two. While it is reliable and viable, you are taking some element of chance with the shuffle.
• Generally will target, meaning fear the shroud and hexproof, but there are a couple of board-wide versions.
• In EDH, a commander can go safely to the command zone if it's sent to the graveyard (or even removed from the game!) for any old reason. Being stuffed in the library, though? Looks like your opponent picked Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film as his commander.

8. Bounce
Purely a temporary measure, and favoured by Blue, which shouldn't be allowed to kill creatures (only in theory.) Bounce is returning a permanent (for our purposes, a creature) to its owner's hand.

• If you need a creature out of play, this will do it without killing it, meaning no regeneration or indestructibility, obviously.
• There is a decent amount of mass bounce, but the cheap targeted ones will be thwarted by shroud, hexproof and protection, as usual.
• Since it isn't a permanent measure, bounce is generally inexpensive. All sorts of one-mana variants exist. Getting multiple targets, or handy additional effects, can be had for about the same cost of most garden-variety removal spells.
• While your opponent will be able to just re-play the creature again, that is costing him or her resources. Plus, some creatures come with very nasty additional costs. Bouncing a Lord of Tresserhorn or Eater of Days is probably going to be just as good as outright killing it.
• Since they can't leave play without vanishing, bounce is 100% effective against tokens of all sorts!
• Instant-speed bounce can be used on your own creatures to save them from combat or from your opponent's removal, so long as you don't mind replaying them. Still, with the recent push for comes-into-play abilities, you can take advantage of that fact.
• Once a creature's back in your opponent's hand, you can either make him discard it before he re-plays it, or counter it when he tries to. Indestructibility doesn't mean squat if you aren't actually in play.

9. Fightan Gaems
Green's cute attempt at removal, since Wizards decided the reparations for Alpha still haven't been paid. A "fight" is making two creatures deal damage equal to their power to each other. This actually hearkens back to The Dark's Tracker, though it didn't get keyworded until recently.

• Dirt cheap. It's one mana to make two creatures fight, and two mana to do it at instant speed. That's about the extent of things. The repeatable form of it comes on a one-drop. It's six (or four) mana if you control neither of the creatures fighting.
• You need a creature in play, which can be hard, especially if your opponent has carefully read this article. Secondly, the creature needs to be larger than the thing you want to kill - at least as big for it to work at all, but hopefully large enough that it isn't a trade, since you'll be 2-for-1ing yourself.
• It does target, so hexproof, shroud and protection stop you there.
• It is based on damage, so indestructibility, regeneration and protection stop it, too.
• Based on what creature you're using to fight, you can score some synergy. Any creature with Deathtouch going into a fight is going to leave a corpse, and all sorts of "Whenever this creature deals damage..." guys can make good champions on retainer. Ulvenwald Tracker and Predator Ooze make for a pretty vicious prize fighter/manager setup.

As you can see, it can be wise to know what the different kinds of removal are and aren't capable of, as well as the best ways to abuse them. Since they have different strengths, though, this is why you should vary your removal. A black deck might do well by running a set of Go for the Throat and Hero's Downfall, both being strong and worthwhile cards. However, a single Dungrove Elder or a single White Knight can ruin your day pretty quickly. Picking a good variety of removal lets you cover your bases and hopefully do the most important thing in Magic: not let the other guy play the game.