Eliminate the Competition MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityRare
TypeSorcery

Key Takeaways

  1. Maximizes card advantage by turning expendable creatures into resources to disrupt opponent’s field.
  2. Enhances token generation decks, transforming minor tokens into significant tactical gains.
  3. Demands careful timing due to its sorcery speed, rewarding players for strategic gameplay.

Text of card

As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice X creatures. Destroy X target creatures.

Open hostilities are strictly forbidden at the Inventors' Fair, but "accidents" still happen.


Card Pros

When it comes to controlling the battlefield and maintaining upper-hand in your matches, Eliminate the Competition can be a powerful card to include in your deck. Its strengths lie squarely within a few, but impactful areas.

Card Advantage: This spell offers a tactical twist on card advantage. By sacrificing creatures you no longer need, you turn them into a resource to remove multiple threats. While it’s not direct card draw, manipulating the battlefield effectively can leave you with more useful assets and your opponent with fewer.

Resource Acceleration: Resource acceleration doesn’t come from the card itself but from its synergy with token generation. If your deck excels at producing a wealth of creature tokens, you can convert those minor assets into major advantages, clearing the way for your more valuable creatures to attack unimpeded.

Instant Speed: As a sorcery, Eliminate the Competition ensures that you strategically wipe out your opponent’s key creatures right before your turn, setting you up for a fully open swing. The immediate impact this can have right before you untap can completely shift the momentum in your favor. Unlike instant-speed removals, planning the right moment for this sorcery requires and rewards careful game reading and timing.

Integrating Eliminate the Competition into your strategy can decisively dismantle your opponent’s board, giving you the control to tip the scales toward victory.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: When deploying Eliminate the Competition, you must siphon off cards from your hand which may put you at a disadvantage, diminishing your strategic options especially when your hand is already running low on cards.

Specific Mana Cost: The card’s specific mana demands may hinder its playability across a range of decks. Its casting cost requires both general and black mana, therefore restricting its integration to decks that can reliably generate the necessary mana types.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a cost that’s on the upper end of the spectrum, it commands a significant portion of your mana resources. This cost calls into question its efficiency, especially when pitted against other cards that could offer similar board control or removal effects for less mana, allowing you more flexibility to execute additional plays within your turn.


Reasons to Include Eliminate the Competition in Your Collection

Versatility: Eliminate the Competition can easily slide into myriad deck archetypes that rely on creature control. Its ability to scale with the number of creatures you sacrifice makes it a flexible tool for managing the battlefield.

Combo Potential: This card works exceptionally well in strategies revolving around token generation. Sacrificing excess tokens to clear opponents’ threats can shift the game in your favor, simultaneously enabling synergies with death triggers.

Meta-Relevance: Given that creature-heavy decks frequently dominate the meta, having a reliable way to clear multiple creatures at once gives this card a significant edge. It’s especially potent in matches where establishing board dominance is essential to victory.


How to beat

Eliminate the Competition presents a unique challenge on the battlefield – offering players a mechanism to clear multiple creatures all at once. This effectiveness hinges on the sacrifice of your creatures to determine the number of opponent’s creatures you can destroy. The key to overcoming this card lies in maintaining creature control and making smart plays around potential sacrifice strategies.

Agile deck builders often turn to instants like Unsummon or Swift Response to disrupt the setup of Eliminate the Competition. By either returning creatures to the hand or dealing with attackers preemptively, they can mitigate the impact of a mass removal. Additionally, creature-less control decks, or ones relying heavily on enchantments and planeswalkers, naturally skirt around the card’s intention, leaving it with a minimal target range.

Ultimately, countering the ‘Eliminate’ strategy requires foresight and an understanding of sacrifice triggers. When building your deck or adjusting in-game tactics, consider how essential it is to protect your key creatures or to limit fodder for your opponent’s sacrificial demands. Assessing the dynamic and threats on the board at each turn will help ensure Eliminate the Competition doesn’t dictate the pace of the match.


Cards like Eliminate the Competition

The card Eliminate the Competition holds a unique place in Magic: The Gathering’s range of creature removal spells. Standing out in its field, it bears some comparison with other notorious removal spells like Diabolic Edict, which also forces a player to sacrifice a creature. However, Eliminate the Competition ups the ante by allowing the sacrifice of multiple creatures to remove an equal number of creatures the opponent controls.

Collateral Damage is another card that has a sacrifice element to it, although it deals direct damage rather than forcing a sacrifice. Whereas Eliminate the Competition requires a significant mana investment and more setup with creatures to sacrifice, it can potentially change the landscape of the gameboard more dramatically.

A more precise counterpart may be Innocent Blood, which affects all players and sets a level field, but it doesn’t offer the targeted removal control that Eliminate the Competition provides. This particular aspect of selective removal gives players the edge to take out key threats on the opponent’s side whereas Innocent Blood can also backfire if you hold the creature advantage.

In essence, Eliminate the Competition can be a game-changer when timed correctly, offering a strategic advantage in creature-heavy decks that other removal spells can’t always match in MTG.

Diabolic Edict - MTG Card versions
Collateral Damage - MTG Card versions
Innocent Blood - MTG Card versions
Diabolic Edict - Tempest (TMP)
Collateral Damage - Fate Reforged (FRF)
Innocent Blood - Odyssey (ODY)

Cards similar to Eliminate the Competition by color, type and mana cost

Reign of Terror - MTG Card versions
Soul Shred - MTG Card versions
Living Death - MTG Card versions
Beacon of Unrest - MTG Card versions
Final Punishment - MTG Card versions
Soul Feast - MTG Card versions
Sever Soul - MTG Card versions
Patriarch's Bidding - MTG Card versions
Aether Snap - MTG Card versions
Dance of Shadows - MTG Card versions
Brainspoil - MTG Card versions
Head Games - MTG Card versions
Promise of Power - MTG Card versions
Rise from the Grave - MTG Card versions
Incremental Blight - MTG Card versions
Dakmor Plague - MTG Card versions
Spread the Sickness - MTG Card versions
Monomania - MTG Card versions
Diabolic Revelation - MTG Card versions
Crux of Fate - MTG Card versions
Reign of Terror - Mirage (MIR)
Soul Shred - Portal (POR)
Living Death - The List (PLST)
Beacon of Unrest - Warhammer 40,000 Commander (40K)
Final Punishment - Scourge (SCG)
Soul Feast - Ninth Edition (9ED)
Sever Soul - Hachette UK (PHUK)
Patriarch's Bidding - Modern Horizons 2 Promos (PMH2)
Aether Snap - Commander 2014 (C14)
Dance of Shadows - Champions of Kamigawa (CHK)
Brainspoil - Ravnica: City of Guilds (RAV)
Head Games - Tenth Edition (10E)
Promise of Power - Commander 2014 (C14)
Rise from the Grave - Zendikar Rising Commander (ZNC)
Incremental Blight - Archenemy (ARC)
Dakmor Plague - Masters Edition IV (ME4)
Spread the Sickness - Mirrodin Besieged (MBS)
Monomania - Magic 2012 (M12)
Diabolic Revelation - Magic 2013 (M13)
Crux of Fate - Commander 2017 (C17)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Eliminate the Competition MTG card by a specific set like Kaladesh Promos and Kaladesh, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Eliminate the Competition and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Eliminate the Competition Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2016-09-30 and 2016-09-30. Illustrated by Joseph Meehan.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12016-09-30Kaladesh PromosPKLD 78s2015normalblackJoseph Meehan
22016-09-30KaladeshKLD 782015normalblackJoseph Meehan

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Eliminate the Competition has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PioneerLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Eliminate the Competition card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2016-09-20 If you somehow cast Eliminate the Competition without paying its mana cost, you'll still choose a value for X and sacrifice X creatures.
2016-09-20 Once you announce that you're casting Eliminate the Competition, players can't try to remove creatures you'd like to sacrifice.

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