Howdy, folks, and welcome to HowWL! Any good limited deck is supported by a number of pillars I call the 3Bs: Bombs, Breaks, and Bodies. Today I want to delve into the middle one, how to deal with your opponent’s problem cards. We’re going to talk about all sorts of removal, from damage to dulling, from bouncing to blocking. Come join along and lets dig deep into what makes breaking so good!

We’re going to focus on two major game states today and how removal plays into those: Defensive, where your opponent has board control and you’re trying to stave him/her off; and Offensive, when you have the advantage and are trying to apply pressure. In a defensive posture, you are typically looking to dismantle your opponent’s ability to attack you, and will be attempting to directly destroy their forwards or create a threatening barrier they cannot punch through. In an offensive stance you typically are trying to make sure your opponent cannot stop your attacks, finding ways to eliminate blockers on the cheap just long enough to win. Let’s look at each form of removal and see how they assist those goals.

Break

Certainly the simplest to math out. You pay X to remove a Forward that cost Y so you know right off whether it was a good deal or not. Rarely will you have to worry about the target coming back. Most effects that outright break a forward are designed to be equivalent value to what they’re stopping, so it can be difficult to come ahead on resources, especially on Forwards which already leveraged some value with an ETF effect or the like.

Bounce

Effects like Leviathan which return a Forward to the opponent’s hand are almost always CP negative. Let’s say I use Opus 1 Leviathan to bounce a 4cp forward. On the surface it seems good, right? My investment of five CP (the three I paid and two more from not being able to discard Levi to pay for something else) traded with your six cp investment. However, I have put 2cp back into your hand! I’ve spent 5, but you only spent 4! Bounce is often the most difficult to convert into value, as you need to hit something that costs 2 more than what you paid. However, it does remove the Forward from the board, eliminating it as a blocker and clearing any pesky abilities it may have, if only for a short time. Sometimes all you need is a little time.

Power Reduction/Boost

One of the easiest ways to trade up CP. Altering power lets you use your own Forward to break a Forward larger than it could have handled on its own. Using this to trade two Forwards can be necessary, however if your Forward survives then you’re only trading the cost of the effect with their Forward. Often requires more set-up than hard Break removal, but pays you back for the extra effort.