How much removal do you play in your deck? (EDH)

[Aetherium Slinky]

EDH: The stats question about tuning one's deck through stats got me thinking about removal: how much do you play removal and how do you justify your number? Does the number depend on your deck and what kind of things affect the number?

I asked the same question from Reddit and immediately I started getting answers like "five" or "sometimes none at all". Their justification was "it's boring". I think that's way too few and I'd actually argue the correct number is closer to 15. "Why?" you might ask. Because I want to know that I have access to two pieces of removal. That - 15 removal spells - gives me an 82% of drawing one and 46% chance of drawing two pieces of removal during the first three turns (10 cards drawn). For me that's good enough considering I have card draw in my deck and the chance increases to 77% to draw two pieces by turn 10 (i.e. hand + ten cards).

[Morganator 2.0]

Do you know what my favorite thing about Deckstats is? The stats.

In the past I've given the guideline of 3-5 forms of targeted creature removal, 3-5 forms of targeted artifact removal, and the 2 or 3 boardwipes. When possible, your artifact removal should also hit enchantments. Cards like Abrade also count as both creature and artifact removal.

Let's look at my numbers and see how good I am at following my rules. A commander with (c) next to it denotes one that was made for competitive play. Numbers in brackets show how much of that removal is mass removal (example: Captain Sisay had 3 forms of creature removal, one of which was mass removal). I should also note that I only included cards that have removal as their primary function. While Bow of Nylea and Karn's Temporal Sundering can remove things, that's not why they're in the deck.

	Creature  |	Artifact  |	Both
Atla Palani, Nest Tender (c)	5	4	1
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer	1	2	3
Captain Sisay (c)	3 (1)	6	1
Edric, Spymaster of Trest (c)	2	3	2 (1)
Krenko, Mob Boss (c)	8 (2)	3	3
Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis	4 (2)	2	5 (3)
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy	1	2	6
Narset, Enlightened Master (c)	4 (2)	1	5
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed (c)	2 (1)	3	2
The Scarab God	11 (2)	0	4
Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire	2	3	2
Average	3.91	2.63	3.09

My decks tend to be close to the suggestions I give. 7 forms of creature removal, with about 5-6 forms of artifact removal.

[CleanBelwas]

Do you know what my favourite thing about deckstats is? It's when Morganator starts a post asking if we know what their favourite thing about deckstats is.

Spoiler alert: it's the stats.

Never change Morganator, you glorious statistician you (I don't mean that sarcastically, it genuinely makes me chuckle every time).

In terms of removal, your numbers all seem spot on for decks that are looking to be more towards the optimised, competitive end of the spectrum.

Of course, not everyone builds a deck with that end goal in mind, so numbers can vary greatly. Ultimately it will always depend on what your deck wants to do.

Morganators numbers seem like a pretty sweet place to start for someone looking to build a decent deck.

But every so often some idiot tries to build a deck with just birds and ends up running exactly wing shards.

Spoiler alert 2: I'm the aforementioned idiot. Also, wing shards is legitimately sweet even without the cool owl.

Then my Yahenni deck that wants to kill all the things all the time runs upwards of 25. And only one can get rid of artifacts or enchantments. Such is the joy of mono black.

But yeah, I think it really comes down to the each deck specifically. 15ish split across creature and "other", slightly favouring creature is a good starting point for a deck that wants to be good at disrupting opponents. But any number is fine if that's what you want.

[WizardSpartan]

I think it takes a lot of playtesting to determine the "best" amount for you. If you really want a baseline, I'm going to go with 5 creature and 5 artifact/enchantment, but that changes with counterspells, boardwipes, tutors, etc. Ex: https://deckstats.net/decks/120669/1357840-tippity-tappity/en
This is my oldest deck and has undergone a lot of testing. Right now, it has 5 artifact/enchantment removal, 5 creature removal, 1 boardwipe, 5-7 counterspells (depending on what you consider a counterspell), and several tutors that can find removal. In addition, it has a lot of card draw to dig for even more. If you are playing decks in colors with a lot of good removal, then play a lot. Mono color decks, though, may not even have 5 of each in their colors. How many you run also depends on your playgroup and the type of deck you are running. My merfolk deck is a slow-burning engine deck that wins late game, so I need a decent amount of draw, counters, and removal to get to the late game. Aggro/combo decks don't need as much because they are looking to win before their opponents hit their threats. The level of competition of your playgroup may change those guidelines. Always make sure to fit in removal that fits with ur deck style, also. It makes it that much more fun to ruin your opponents plans.

TL;DR:
It depends on
1. How/when you plan to win.
2. How/when your opponents plan to win.
3. What options you have for removal in your colors.

[Xaarvaxus]

I'll have to put myself into the 'it depends' camp.  I have some decks that run minimal removal, targeted or otherwise, but are geared more towards player removal like my crappy Xenagos deck or others like Zurgo that runs 8 boardwipes and 8-10 other pieces of targeted removal [mix of creature, artifact/enchantment and flex/catch-alls like Anguished Unmaking that can hit anything].  The less competitive I view the deck as being, the less removal tends to go in to make room for jank that is more fun than efficient/effective.

[WWolfe]

My decks usually have 8-10 overall and the type of removal varies depending on the meta I intend to play the deck in. My Grand Arbiter IV deck has a lot of board wipes while my Karador deck features mostly enchantment and artifact removal. My Sidisi deck features only two artifact/enchantment removal (the bane of the deck in both metas I play in) while it focuses mainly on player removal.

[Schau]

I usually run 10 removal spells and a couple of board wipes for when a removal spell isn't enough to save me.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I usually try to include two kinds of removal: ones that help my strategy and ones that cover my weaknesses.

Example 1:
Merieke Ri Berit struggles with two things: noncreature permanents and lots of creatures. Thus I carry board wipes (especially ones that leave a single creature so that I can steal it - Ex. Tragic Arrogance), enchantment & artifact removal and counterspells to both combat things I don't want hitting the table and to protect my combos. Totals: 6 board wipes, 6 artifact & enchantment capable removal, 4 counterspells, a handful of disabling stuff like Imprisoned in the Moon and Swords to Plowshares for a grand total of 17+4 pieces of removal and protective counters.

Example 2:
Rosheen the Meanderer struggles with similar things but it approaches the problem differently: 6 pieces of artifact removal, a couple of fight effects and 5 spells that deal just enough damage to kill small creatures but they leave my big creatures alive. Not a lot of spot removal for creatures because the deck doesn't really care that much about creatures coming my way.

I think my games have improved both in win rate and quality ever since I started including lots of removal. Granted, a lot of it is expensive so it's not the most efficient but then again EDH is supposed to be a slower format so I'm not too worried about it.

[robort]

I try to run 8-12 removal spells. Doesn't always work that way but that is my starting goal. I hate being that 1 person who says "Who is going to do something about that" while pointing at someone else's board. I shouldn't expect another opponent to deal with a problematic situation just because I didn't put any removal in my deck or put minimal removal in my deck.