The game of Magic: The Gathering is centered around five colors (white, blue, black, red, and green), each with unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, red – the color of passion, freedom, emotion, and BURNING EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND – is very good at destroying artifacts and throwing fireballs in people’s faces but none too good at dealing with enchantments. Or is it? Welcome to the series of articles I’m calling “Things that colors do, but are bad at.” (It’s the first thing that came to mind.)
Enchantments in Magic are the effects of spells that last over time. Green, the color of nature, and white, the color of law, are excellent at dealing with the unnatural and immaterial but red? It’s too focused on what it can see. Staff of Casty Things and Doll of Unusual Talkativeness are more up its alley. Fire, hammers, rockslides, lightning, axes, those are its tools of destruction. Guys in long robes chanting strings of babble take too long to deal with…whatever. Just smash it! Unfortunately, fires and rockslides have no effect whatsoever on an ethereal shield or an angel’s blessing. The guy it’s on, sure; lightning takes anyone down if applied enough times. But the blessing itself? Good luck.
Mechanically, red has one – yes, one – card that directly deals with enchantments: Enchanter’s Bane. Sure, Aura Barbs punishes players for playing enchantments and other cards shift them around, but removing them? Wild Swing and Haphazard Bombardment specifically say “nonenchantment.” Enchanter’s Bane doesn’t even destroy; it punishes players until they let it go. That’s about as good as it gets, except…
Impulsiveness is a mainstay of red’s identity. That impulsiveness is displayed in one of red’s best removal spells: Chaos Warp. It hits anything, but… Shuffle and shuffle and shuffle we go, what you get, nobody knows! It’s universal removal with a chance to hit something worse. The only other options are Whims of the Fates, Capricious Efreet, and Tyrant of Discord, but they could hardly be called removal. Playing blindfolded darts is not how you get that one THING off the battlefield.
So how does red rate in terms of its enchantment removal? Overall: 1/10. Chaos Warp: 8/10. Enchanter’s Bane: 5/10. Nowhere near white or green’s abilities, but again each color is unique in what it does. I wouldn’t rely too heavily on two cards but instead would try to win the game as fast as possible so my opponent doesn’t get to capitalize on their enchantments too much. If red is good at one thing, it’s ending games quickly.
Thank you much for reading, everyone. Have a good whatever!
