More than 'Naturalize'

In the beginning, there was Tranquility, Alpha green's 'Wrath Of Enchantments.' Nowadays Naturalize is the de facto green artifact/enchantment removal. Cards like Finest Hour, Sanguine Bond, Behemoth Sledge, and even Oblivion Ring and Pithing Needle (not to mention the entire shard of Esper) make having an answer on your sideboard a necessity - if someone casts a Hive Mind, you know you're screwed if you can't take care of it. If you're a default-sort-of-person, you may want to opt for the afore-mentionede Naturalize: it's hard to beat artifact/enchantment destruction at instant speed for 1G. Or is it? If you're like me, you may find yourself drawn to the other, more exotic solutions that green has to offer for artifact/enchantment removal.

First off, let me get Qasali Pridemage out of the way - it's green/white, a fitting parentage for such a versitile creature, and deserves a mention despite being obviously not mono-green. At the very worst, it's a 1GW sorccery version of Naturalize, that triggers 'creature comes into play,' 'creature leaves play,' 'creature cards in graveyard,' 'wizards you control,' (et cetera) effects as you basically evoke it if you need an immediate use. If the worst case could turn the card into a star in a deck that's built to accommodate it, you know you're dealing with something special. Best case is fairly inspiring: a gold Grizzly Bears (excuse me, Runeclaw Bear) with Exalted. He can sit on the sidelines and play cheerleader as beefier fare (Rhox War Monk, for instance) make solo excursions into enemy territory, and he can chump-block, then off himself to erase a key component of your opponent's combo. All this for a low, low cost of GW. These are almost a guarenteed include in decks that can support them, sideboarded if nothing else. I've been denied victory plenty of times facing this feline wizard and his Bant comrades in Drewskig's "Little Creature, Big Swing" deck. Sidenote - Elvish Hexhunter is a much weaker little version card, though in an elf tribal deck, facing an opponent who relies heavily on enchantments, it certainly has a place.

The Pridemage brings up a key concept - cards that are creatures with another spell stacked on top of them. I covered this concept in my last article - Farhaven Elf is a 1/1 green elf druid that comes with a Rampant Growth. That's two effects for the price of two - and yet you've only used one card to get both, which puts you ahead of the game in many situations.

Continuing in this vein, let's take a look at Wickerbough Elder: at the very least, it's a 3/3 for 3G treefolk shaman, tribes which Lorwyn/Shadowmoor cards tend to pay attention to. That -1/-1 counter will keep it from persisting if you're using Cauldron cards (Cauldron of Souls or Cauldron Haze) - but on the flipside, adding persist will ensure that it can 'recharge' itself should you need more artifact/enchantment removal: remove the counter, blow up an artifact, kill the treefolk and let it persist, remove the counter, blow up an enchantment, rinse, repeat. That's a bit of an edge-case, admittedly, but it's an attractive one, no? Even without persist, if you've got a target for its ability, you're getting a 4/4 treefolk for 2G and a slightly weaker Naturalize for 1G - I'd say that's a fair price. Piping it in is on obvious way to sidestep the need to cast the creature as at sorcery speed before following up with the naturalizing fast-effect, and the treefolk's discount card Bosk Banneret makes it into an absolute bargain in treefolk decks. While it isn't close to an automatic include, there are a few cases where the Elder ends up being worth more than the sum of its parts.

Filigree Fracture and Gleeful Sabotage are two slightly narrower variations of Naturalize that have the potential for a solid advantage in some situations. Filigree Fracture is an obvious anti-Esper spell - blow up a Sphinx at instant speed for 2G, draw a card. This works on about 70 different cards in the current Standard environment, including the apropos target of Filigree Angel. Strictly speaking, against a non-Esper deck, the Fracture is never going to be better than Naturalize, but if you know your opponent is playing with Master Transmuter or even Bitterblossom, it's going to be your friend. Gleeful Sabotage can help you if you're playing tokens versus artifacts - tap a couple of members of your wolf pack to wipe your opponent's blockers, tap a couple of extra elves to get rid of your opponent's two Dire Undercurrents, you get the picture. ~~Even if you're not playing with a deck that will let you conspire this card to a rediculous extent, even a single conspire will make it worthwhile, and a second will be a solid advantage.~~ Even something as simple as blowing up a couple of Borderposts might be enough to kick your opponent back to praying for another land. Just keep in mind that in return for its reuseability, Gleeful Sabotage is relegated to sorcery speed, so you can't ambush a weenie wielding a Gorgon Flail.

Meet the weird new Tranquility - Fracturing Gust (honorable mention goes to Spring Cleaning.) It's obviously a major edge-case card, and works out to be quite an Esper-hoser, of course - sort of the white/green yin to Scourglass' yang, you know? I feel like Fracturing Gust + Thopter Foundry has some sort of extremely tricky potential - I'll let you all ponder that.

So, to sum up, Naturalize remains the obvious go-to solution for green artifact/enchantment removal - but there's definitely a case to be made for making room in your sideboard for a few more focused cards, should the opportunity to take advantage of their strengths present itself.

(Thanks to Engineer_of_Eos for pointing out that Conspire is a one-time thing!)

yeaGO says... #1

Damn good article. We gotta get these on the front page. Sorry about that man! Happening soon, promise.

July 29, 2009 10:58 p.m.

stygian says... #2

i definitely think krosan grip, the most popular artifact/enchantment removal in legacy should have been here.

August 4, 2009 12:19 a.m.

Engineer_of_Eos says... #3

This is a fine summation of the green (esque) artifact and enchanment hate in the current Standard environment. The default is, generally Naturalize, as you said, and Qasali Pridemage is the preferred card if your deck can reliably cast it. After all, Naturalize on an exalted stick is better than plain ol' Naturalize, right?

As you said, though, there are other cards to keep in mind. Of the ones you listed, I have a nagging question about Gleeful Sabotage . Can you Conspire multiple times? I was under the impression that one could only Conspire a spell once, because the Copy isn't being "cast," it's being copied. Thus you cannot activate the Conspire abiility on the Copy, using it to create more copies. Can anyone clear this up for me, please?

As for Filigree Fracture ... that card fascinates me. One would have to do a lot of thinking, but it might be beneficial toplay it over Naturalize. It costs one more mana, but it has the ability to cantrip. Which artifacts and enchantments are seeing play currently? Certainly Bitterblossom is, which Filigree Fracture likes. But Honor of the Pure ? Not so much. In any event, I suppose that Naturalize is cheaper and safer, so it sees more play.

Anyway, nice article, and I hope to see more like it!

PS - I still want more, haha. Always more! I'm a voracious reader of articles. Nice job with the examples, though. I really liked how you placed each card in its optimal deck. Nicely done.

August 5, 2009 9:38 p.m.

mattlohkamp says... #4

Oh wow - you're right, conspire is totally a one-time-thing. You're copying it, not casting it.