The 36 Best Removal and Kill Spells in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 26, 2024

Vindicate (Modern Horizons II) | Illustration by Livia Prima

Interaction is an essential part of any Magic deck. It doesn’t matter how well you play your own game; you also have to deal with your opponent’s cards to be successful. One of the most popular ways to interact with your opponent’s cards is through removal or kill spells that take your opponent’s most powerful threats off the board.

The best removal spells are the ones that can hit more types of permanents and keep them off the field by destroying or exiling them. Of course, what color you’re playing will affect the quality of removal you have access to thanks to the existence of Magic’s color pie.

That said, all colors have their own special form of removal that they’re best at. There are also a few cards that openly break the color pie, so you’ll occasionally be able to find a great removal spell in an unexpected color.

Let’s take a look at the best removal spells from each color and decide what you should be using in your decks. Ready? Time to get started!

What Is Removal in MTG?

Bitter Triumph | Illustration by Donato Giancola

In Magic: The Gathering, “removal” refers to cards that can remove an opposing permanent (a land, creature, enchantment, artifact, planeswalker, or battle) from the battlefield.

To narrow things down a bit, we'll focus this ranking on spells that permanently remove a single, specific threat – what's usually called “spot removal.”

To be clear, Magic offers a ton of different ways of getting rid of a nuisance (like wiping the board clean, bouncing, stunning, or mind-controlling); those other effects can also be very efficient, but to narrow things down this article will deal with effects that destroy or exile a single target.

We'll further narrow today's ranking by focusing on removal for nonland permanents – land destruction effects are very much removal, but it's specific enough to deserve its own ranking.

It's impossible to make a fair comparison across formats. We'll look above all at Commander (since it's the most played format on tabletop MTG) and Standard (given it's the most popular format in MTG Arena), although of course removal spells that are multi-format staples and show up in Modern, Pioneer, or Legacy will get a nudge.

Last but not least, there's always some degree of personal preference; I tend to lean towards instants, but sorceries like Vindicate, Ravenform or Dreadbore could probably have made the cut.

Honorable Mention: Bouncing

Bounce spells are effects like Unsummon that return the target permanent to its owner’s hand. They do remove it from the board, but only temporarily; some of the most powerful cards in Magic are bounce spells, but for this ranking we'll focus on permanently removing threats.

Honorable Mention: Board Wipes

Good board wipes are excellent removal spells, and are ideal for handling threats with hexproof or shroud (targeted removal, on the other hand, is useless in those cases). But they tend to wipe out everything, your own creatures included – spot removal allows us to handle our foe's threats while keeping ours alive. Still, if a board wipe is what you need, do check our rankings for:

• Best White Board Wipes
• Best Black Board Wipes
• Best Blue Board Wipes
• Best Red Board Wipes
• Best Green Board Wipes

Honorable Mention: Gaining Control of Permanents

Mind Control effects are a brutal form of card advantage, but like bouncing and board wipes, mind control effects deserve their own ranking.

#36. Generous Gift

Arguably the cutest removal spell in all of Magic (I mean, just look at that elephant!), Generous Gift handles any type of permanent but for quite a bit of mana and literally gifting a 3/3 creature to our foes.

Although white has much better options, Generous Gift is solid (and cute!) enough to be very popular in Commander and Pauper.

#35. Krosan Grip

Split second is a rarely-seen mechanic and the reason Krosan Grip is in this list: This green instant will resolve, resulting in the first of many cases of “Death by Green” that enchantments or artifacts will suffer in this ranking.

#34. Aura Shards

Aura Shards isn't technically removal by itself, but now all your creatures kill enchantments or artifacts when they ETB.

It's unplayable in 60-card formats, but EDH tables love this Selesnya enchantment.

#33. Bonecrusher Giant

Spending to deal two direct damage is an awful rate, but Bonecrusher Giant highlights one way in which a Magic card can be great: flexibility. This red adventure can remove a small threat, or burn your foe directly, and then it gets to be a fairly well-costed red creature.

#32. Putrefy & Mortify

If Bonecrusher Giant shines by being a Jack-of-all-Trades,  Putrefy and Mortify are what you expect from specialists: Get the exact job done, done well, and with no drawbacks – no cute 3/3 elephants to worry about here.

They are very popular in casual EDH builds, although their mana cost is a tad high to see competitive play.

#31. Bitter Triumph

I have a hunch Bitter Triumph may deserve a higher spot in today's ranking: As a relatively new card from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, this black instant is still making its way into decklists and formats. It's already made a ton of waves in Pioneer and Modern, and I suspect it'll be widely adopted in Commander.

#30. Anguished Unmaking

Destroying a threat is good, but exiling a target is better: Those pesky death triggers won't trigger (because exiling ain't dying!), and most decks have no way to profit from exiled cards (unlike cards in the graveyard, which some decks are thrilled to have).

And Anguished Unmaking has lots of targets: Any permanent that's not a land is fair game for this Orzhov instant.

#29. Loran of the Third Path

Loran of the Third Path is both one of the best artifact killers and one of the best enchantment removal options. This white creature basically does the same as long-time EDH staple Reclamation Sage, but with vigilance and with a card-draw activated ability on top to make it a true powerhouse.

#28. Cut Down

Cut Down doesn't see too much play in Commander – the four-player format sure loves big creatures that this black removal just can't touch – but it's a staple in Standard, where it can efficiently answer early threats and even some linchpins like Raffine, Scheming Seer. It's also a frequent addition to Vintage and Legacy sideboards, depending on the meta.

#27. Unholy Heat

Unholy Heat is an interesting case: As long as you can fulfill its delirium clause, this red instant deals so much direct damage that it's basically unconditional removal – something that red doesn't usually have access to, and which makes Unholy Heat a bit of a color pie break.

WotC seems totally okay with this pie-breaker though, and reprinted it as part of the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander precons.

#26. Darksteel Mutation

Technically speaking, Darksteel Mutation isn't removal: The enchanted creature is still right there on the battlefield.

But this white enchantment‘s effect is devastating: As its flavor text says, it turns the mightiest into “infinitely powerless”.

Pacifism effects (MTG lingo for “auras that don't allow the enchanted creature to attack or block“) are fairly common in Limited formats but not too useful in Constructed since they often allow the enchanted creature to use its activated, triggered, or static abilities.

Darksteel Mutation is an exception to this rule since it “blanks” the creature, and it's one of the few ways to render a commander useless: Since the creature is still on the field, an enchanted commander won't go back to the command zone.

#25. Beast Within

With the same effect as Generous Gift (although beasts are less cute than elephants), Beast Within is arguably the best creature removal in green – which should tell you something about how (not that) good green removal is!

As with the white version, getting rid of anything allows this green instant to make the cut in cEDH decks, but costing and gifting our foes a 3/3 makes it unplayable in 60-card main decks.

#24. Bedevil

Bedevil is among the best Rakdos cards. As with many other 3-mana instants, it's fairly cheap and hits several types of permanents; the fact that it kills the best planeswalkers can be quite relevant depending on the format.

#23. Go for the Throat & Infernal Grasp

These two black instants are an interesting case of how small differences can matter a little or a lot, depending on the format.

Go for the Throat and Infernal Grasp are both instants that cost the same and have the same outcome – the difference being that Go for the Throat can't target artifact creatures, and you lose 2 life from Infernal Grasp .

This difference is small in Commander (where both are equally popular) but pretty big in Standard, where Go for the Throat is a staple while Infernal Grasp is sideboard material at best.

#22. Reality Shift

Blue, like green, doesn't have too many options when it comes to spot removal against creatures, but it does have a few. Reality Shift resembles Beast Within a bit (we're giving our foe a 2/2 creature), but it can sometimes be better: If the manifested topdeck happens to be a crucial noncreature spell, our opponent won't be able to flip it.

#21. Abrade

A multi-format staple, Abrade is another example of red's flexibility: Neither of its two modes is worth by itself, but when a single spell lets you choose among them you get one of the best red cards in the game.

#20. Pongify + Rapid Hybridization

Pongify and Generous Gift are blue's version of Generous Gift and Beast Within: Destroying something and gifting a 3/3 to your opponent. Blue's versions are restricted to just creatures (whereas white and green can hit any permanent) but the difference in mana cost is huge.

As far as spot removal for creatures goes, this is the best removal that blue has to offer.

#19. Nature's Claim

Oh, look – another case of “Death By Green” for artifacts and enchantments!

Nature's Claim is very efficient – instant speed, just 1 mana – yet green can still do much better in this department, as we'll see in a bit.

#18. Vandalblast

What if you have a pesky artifact problem but green's not your thing, and you're more of the Mountain type?

Enter Vandalblast and, yes, we left board wipes out of this list but that's Vandalblast‘s brutal beauty: This red sorcery can be a one-sided artifact sweeper late in the game, or an extremely efficient artifact sniper early on.

#17. Void Rend

Void Rend is very popular with Esper commanders and 4-5 color decks, sees competitive play in Duel Commander, and depending on the meta it can also shine in Standard. Hitting anything that's not a land at instant speed and being a spell that can't be countered (which includes bypassing ward) makes Void Rend both flexible and reliable.

#16. Force of Vigor

So, what can be better than Nature's Claim?

Something that kills twice the artifacts or enchantments, costing 0 mana if you need it to, and giving your foe nothing in return!

Force of Vigor is what's called a “pitch spell” in Magic slang: a spell you can pay for by exiling or discarding another card from your hand.

Most lands, and in particular basic lands, are colorless cards, even if they have a green color identity; you can't pitch a Forest, or a shock land like Temple Garden to pay for Force of Vigor.

Force of Vigor shows up in top-tier Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage sideboards, and is a staple of competitive Vintage and cEDH decks.

Yet it's still not the best artifact/enchantment assassin in the game!

#15. Damn

With through-the-roof pun potential, this black sorcery is like Wrath of God and Damnation had a baby that grew up to be one of the best Orzhov cards in MTG.

Same thing as with Vandalblast: We did leave board wipes out of this list, but the beauty of these overload spells is their phenomenal flexibility. Their sweeper mode is excellent, of course, but they also serve as efficient spot removal.

#14. Abrupt Decay

Up until now, we've seen several 3-mana instants that hit a lot of targets. Abrupt Decay has a lot less targets in a vacuum – you can only kill 3-drops or cheaper – but costing 1 less mana makes a huge difference in practice.

Abrupt Decay is, simply put, Putrefy but much, much better, and one of the best Golgari cards overall. It can't kill the big threats, but it efficiently handles nearly all types of early threats.

#13. Leyline Binding

Among all cards in this ranking, this enchantment is the least likely to show up in an EDH deck, be it casual or competitive, but Leyline Binding is a maindeck mainstay in Modern, Pioneer, Explorer and Standard.

It's also one excellent example of an O-Ring: the wide assortment of (usually white) enchantments similar to Oblivion Ring from Lorwyn, that exile a target upon entering the battlefield and return the exiled permanent to the field if removed.

O-rings in Magic are legion, and they're often one of the most common types of removal in both paper and Arena Limited environments. They tend to struggle in other formats due to their sorcery-speed nature (Leyline Binding has flash, thus overcoming this problem), and being of course weak against enchantment destruction.

And speaking of enchantment killers…

#12. Feed the Swarm

Feed the Swarm demonstrates the evolution of black's share of the color pie. For the longest time, black had difficulty dealing with enchantments, but there's been a deliberate push to expand black's removal to destroy artifacts, at least in a way that's still below white and green in terms of effectiveness.

Green chews enchantments for breakfast; Golgari can do the same; but mono-black tends to struggle against that type of permanent. Feed the Swarm cleanly fixes that while also doing the other thing black excels at: destroying creatures.

#11. Terminate

A bit like what happens with Abrupt Decay and Putrefy, Terminate being 1 mana cheaper than Bedevil makes Terminate much better Rakdos removal, even though Bedevil can hit more targets.

Less sure is more when it comes to mana costs!

#10. Prismatic Ending

If Commander decks don't care much about Leyline Binding, they haven't even heard about Prismatic Ending… but in 60-cards formats that can play it, and Modern above all (where Swords to Plowshares isn't legal), you could argue that this white sorcery is so good it actually killed Path to Exile. Or, at the very least, stole its place as the most efficient removal in white.

#9. Solitude

Solitude is a beast. Well, more like an elemental incarnation, if we're being precise, but a beast in Modern and Duel Commander. It's comparable to Leyline Binding, another flash permanent that exiles a target, but Solitude provides three huge benefits.

First, it's a white creature with lifelink, which makes for an excellent blocker.

More importantly, the exiled creature is gone for good: Unlike O-Ring effects like Leyline Binding, removing Solitude won't bring the exiled creature back.

And, best of all: it's a 0-mana “instant” if you need to, thanks to evoke!

#8. Fatal Push

When Fatal Push showed up in Aether Revolt it didn't quite break the color pie (destroying enemy creatures is one of black's areas of expertise), but the number of targets it removed for just 1 mana was previously unheard of.

And fulfilling its revolt clause is trivial: Any of your stuff leaving the battlefield for any reason will suffice, from sacrificing a Treasure or fetch land to bouncing one of your other lands with a bounce land, for example.

Commander players, being the big creature lovers that they are, aren't overly fond of this black instant, but Fatal Push turned 60-card formats upside down and is still a staple from Pioneer to Vintage.

#7. Chaos Warp

In all honesty, Chaos Warp should be a bit lower in this list if we look only at cold, hard efficiency – but Magic is a game, after all (even if we forget about that fact sometimes!), and Chaos Warp can be hilarious.

And it is efficient, mind you! Not enough to make the cut in 60-card formats, but this red instant is massively popular in casual Commander and sees plenty of cEDH play.

#6. Boseiju, Who Endures

If you knock at the door of the Green Assassins' Guild and ask them for help with your artifact or enchantment “problem,” you could hire Force of Vigor.

But if you insist on talking with the head honcho, have the right connections, and happen to be able to pay north of 30 bucks (talk ain't cheap with these guys!), then they'll invite you to their inner gardens, serve you tangy green tea, and give you a chance to convince Boseiju, Who Endures to work for you.

It's worth the talk, and the price tag.

The best channel land from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Boseiju will take care of your artifact or enchantment “problem.” Swift, elegant, and nearly impossible to counterspell, since it's not cast. And to sweeten the deal it'll take care of any land “problem” you may have, too.

Boss Boseiju is the best of the best in this business.

If you play green, play it.

#5. Lightning Bolt

The burn player in me is screaming that not putting Lightning Bolt at #1 is heresy but, well, the times, cards, and formats (and life totals!), they are a-changin'.

This is easily one of the most iconic spells in all of Magic, it's still one of the best red cards, it provides a great damage-to-mana ratio, hits everything that can be damaged – players included – and sees lots of play from Vintage to cEDH.

#4. Assassin's Trophy

Abrupt Decay outperforms Putrefy by being cheaper; Assassin's Trophy is even better by way of costing the same but targeting everything, which makes it a multi-format all-star and the very best removal with Golgari colors.

Giving your foe a basic land is indeed a downside, but a fair price for getting rid of almost any threat.

#3. Path to Exile

Assassin's Trophy can target anything… but there are things that just won't die: indestructible permanents, for example.

Enter Path to Exile, which is a very literal description of what this white instant does. Although it only targets creatures, costing just makes it a whole lot better than any 2-mana option even when it gifts your foe a basic land.

#2. Deadly Rollick

Then again, paying 0 mana and giving your foe nothing (other than the jagged fragments of their crushed dreams) is a whole lot better!

Deadly Rollick is of course unplayable if you don't have a black-leaning commander – but it's a must-have cEDH staple if you do.

#1. Swords to Plowshares

And here it is: The best spot removal ever printed in MTG, Swords to Plowshares. One of the most sadistic, too: It makes sure your foe is healthy enough to see what happens to their beloved creature. White removal can be like that, sometimes.

This is the absolute pinnacle of creature removal and has never been surpassed since Alpha: No pesky death triggers or reanimate effects, bypasses indestructible, and costs just 1 mana. Don't leave your Plains without it!

Best Removal Payoffs

Although removal itself is usually a good enough payoff for these spells, you can increase their value with cards like Blood Artist that also deal damage to your opponents when you remove their creatures.

One of the best payoffs for removal spells is Gisa, Glorious Resurrector, which can then give you control over the creature you destroyed. They can also pair well with your removal spells if you have spells like Reanimate.

How Much Removal Should a Deck Have in MTG?

As a broad rule of thumb, somewhere around 8-10 spot removal spells is a reasonable amount to play in your Commander deck.

It depends a ton on your commander's color identity and your deck's gameplan, though. As we've seen, black and white have plenty of options to remove any type of permanent, If you're leaning strongly into blue and enemy creatures are giving you a headache, you may be better served with either temporary removal (bouncing) or doing what blue does best: Use counterspells to handle cards before they become threats.

How Do You Deal With Constant Removal?

Having all your creatures killed the second they set foot on the battlefield kinda sucks, let's just be clear about that.

Some decks (aggro above all) don't have much choice but to weather the storm and soldier onwards: If they run out of answers you win, if you run out of gas you lose.

Another way is to line up your threats so that they dodge some of your foe's removal. If you know your foe's deck is running Fatal Push, Cut Down, and Go for the Throat, then only Fatal Push is useful against your Roaming Throne. If you first play a 3/3 creature, your foe may be tempted to use Fatal Push on it (costs less than Go for the Throat), and will have no answer for Roaming Throne.

Another way is to change tactics (and decks). For example, removal-heavy decks tend to have a headache against decks that don't care too much for the battlefield (like control decks), or decks that are happy to fill their graveyard (like reanimator decks), or decks that can sacrifice creatures when their enemies point removal at them (like aristocrat Commander decks).

Wrap Up

Prismatic Ending | Illustration by John Stanko

Any Magic deck you build can benefit from having some amount of removal in it. It’s very important to be able to interact with your opponent’s big threats. Getting them off the board quickly with a single instant or sorcery can ensure they don’t get too much value out of them.

Removal can also help you catch back up if your opponent has a much more developed board state than you. Overall, removal is going to be a part of any Magic game, so it’s important you have an idea of what some of the better options are.

What’s your favorite removal spell? Do you prioritize colors that have good removal? Let me know in the comments below or on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one!