The first thing I would like to look at is the removal spells of the format. With the shift from set to set, so does the power level of certain styles of removal spells. While cheap interaction, (e.g. Fiery Impulse<\/a>, Reave Soul<\/a>) are great in fast formats, such as Origins or Zendikar, big removal spells (e.g. Grip of Desolation<\/a>) are much more useful when you actually have time to cast them. The value of the classic green \u201cfight\u201d card can vary widely from the best green common (Savage Punch<\/a>) to basically unplayable (Unnatural Aggression<\/a>). So it\u2019s important to see how each of the removal spells will line up against their potential targets. Here, I loosely define \u201cremoval\u201d as anything that has the ability to remove a creature or stop it from doing something a normal creature would like to do (e.g. tapped down or \u201cPacifism<\/a>\u201d effects). Let\u2019s start by looking at what the new removal spells in the format are. Since this is a first pass of this limited format, I will start by just looking at the common and uncommons.<\/p>\n One quick thing to note here is that I lumped the Double-Faced Cards (DFC\u2019s) in with their respective rarities. For those paying attention, you\u2019ll notice those are only uncommons. There are, in fact, only 4 common DFC\u2019s in the set and they are all red and green werewolves with no other abilities (Convicted Killer<\/a>, Gatstaf Asronists<\/a>, Hinterland Logger<\/a>, and Solitary Hunter<\/a>). Meanwhile, there are 11 different uncommon DFC\u2019s that come in every color and artifacts. WOTC has said there will be a common or uncommon DFC in every pack (in place of a common) and a 1\/8 chance of there being a Rare\/Mythic in a pack. Since we don\u2019t know the exact distribution of how often we\u2019ll see a common vs an uncommon in the pack, all we can say for now is prepare to see a decent amount of those 4 commons. With that tangent over, let\u2019s look at the removal!<\/p>\n White: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Blue: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Black: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Red: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Green: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Artifacts: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Gold: Uncommon:<\/u><\/p>\n Now, this is a quite a bit to look at once, so I find it useful to sort these into different groups of what they do. I will use the following categories for discussion: Unconditional removal, P\/T-Dependent Removal, Conditional Removal, Counters, and Sideboard. As I am already making this list, I will also include non-removal cards that could still function as removal, such as Sideboard Cards, Combat Tricks, and Tempo cards. I also try to make a quick note on why the card is in the given category and, if it is a combat trick, how it could commonly be used as removal.<\/p>\n Unconditional Removal:<\/strong><\/p>\n Gone are the days of OGW\u2019s Isolation Zone<\/a> and Oblivion Strike<\/a>. All of the unconditional removal either require you to 2-for-1 yourself or require a decent amount of set up (equipment requirement or Delirium). It should also be noted that only one of these is common (Angelic Purge<\/a>) and two of them are DFC\u2019s<\/p>\n P\/T-dependent removal: To help study these removal spells, it is necessary to see how they line up with the P\/T of the creatures in the set. This can be seen in Fig 1 below, which shows the number of cards at common or uncommon at a given Power and Toughness. To account for how often you will see a given uncommon card, the uncommons are weighted 30% within the totals. For the DFC\u2019s, we only consider the unflipped side, for now.<\/p>\n Fig 1 – Weighted Total of Common & Uncommon Creature Power and Toughness<\/p><\/div>\n Looking at Figure 1, we can see the power peaks around 2 and has fairly close the same shape for commons and uncommons. For the toughness, the commons have roughly the same number between 1, 2, and 3. For uncommons, 1 is the most common toughness. The total curve\u2019s peak is fairly standard for modern draft sets, which one can see in Ars Arcanum in detail.<\/p>\n Fig 2 – Weighted Total of Common & Uncommon Creature Power and Toughness, including DFC’s<\/p><\/div>\n One curious thing about this is the excessive amount of 4-5 toughness creatures, relative to number of 4-5 power creatures. One could guess that this is made up by the fact that a number of the DFC transform into larger creatures. If we plot the P\/T distributions of the flipped side of the cards, such as in Fig 2, we can see that there is a fair number of 4 Power and Toughness in both the common and uncommon slot. But, there the 5 disparity still exists.<\/p>\n So, let\u2019s get down to business, let\u2019s sort the P\/T-dependent removal by their conditions and see what these curves can tell us. More specifically, what percent of creatures can be hit by these removal spells:<\/p>\n Power: 4 or above: (~15% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n Toughness<\/u><\/strong>: 2 or below: (~51% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n 3 or below: (~77% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n 4 or below: (~87% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n 5 or below: (~96% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n So, as expected, we can see here that Puncturing Light<\/a> has plenty of good targets, while Humble the Brute<\/a> has a lot less targets that it would have had in OGW. What is perhaps surprising is the small 1-damage and -1\/-1 spells can kill\u00a0a good quarter of the creatures in the set, many of which are the potentially more powerful uncommons. Furthermore, there are a large number of 1\/1 token makers in white, increasing these spell’s strength from\u00a0the sideboard. Similarly, half of the creatures of the format are killable by Dead Weight<\/a> and Explosive Apparatus<\/a>. That said, one could argue that you\u2019d rather your removal be able to take care of the 50% of creatures that you can\u2019t easily kill in combat. Based on the distribution of 5-toughness creatures vs 5-power creatures, I think that cards like Lightning Axe<\/a> and Reduce to Ashes<\/a> may have increased value in this set, while Throttle<\/a>\u2019s value could be down.<\/p>\n Conditional\/Limited Removal: This category is a little less straightforward to analyze, given the broad range of card abilities. That said, there are, what appear to be, quite solid common removal spells in white (Puncturing Light<\/a>), blue (Sleep Paralysis<\/a>), black (Murderous Compulsion<\/a>), and green (Rabid Bite<\/a>). The rest of the good removal is up at uncommon and many cost 4+. For red, unsurprisingly, much of its common removal it is P\/T based. As discussed above, the fight-based removal spells may struggle with the 5-toughness creatures, given the lack of 5-power creatures. As a friendly reminder, Gatstaf Arsonists<\/a> and Solitary Hunter<\/a> are your common-level green creatures with flipped power >= 5, as well as Kessig Dire Swine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Counter:<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Bound-by-Moonsilver-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Bound-by-Moonsilver-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
\n<\/strong>Common:
\n<\/u><\/p>\n\n
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![\"Sleep-Paralysis-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Sleep-Paralysis-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
\n<\/strong>Common<\/u>:<\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/strong>Common:<\/u><\/p>\n\n
![\"Dead-Weight-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Dead-Weight-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
<\/li>\n\n
\n<\/strong>Common:<\/u><\/p>\n\n
![\"Dissension-in-the-Ranks-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Dissension-in-the-Ranks-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
<\/li>\n\n
\n<\/strong>Common:<\/u><\/p>\n\n
\n![\"Rabid-Bite-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Rabid-Bite-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
<\/li>\n\n
\n<\/strong>Common:<\/u><\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/strong>Common:<\/u><\/p>\n\n
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![\"Fiery-Temper-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Fiery-Temper-190x265.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
![\"p_t_fig1\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/p_t_fig1.png\")
![\"p_t_dfc_fig2\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/p_t_dfc_fig2.png\")
\n<\/u><\/strong>3 or below: (~85% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n\n
![\"Humble-The-Brute-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Humble-The-Brute-190x265.jpg\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n1 or below: (~25% of creatures)<\/u><\/p>\n\n
\n
![\"Lightning-Axe-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Lightning-Axe-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
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![\"Murderous-Compulsion-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265\"](\"http:\/\/theendgamesblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Murderous-Compulsion-Shadows-over-Innistrad-Spoiler-190x265.png\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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