Leyline of Sanctity

[card]Privileged Position[/card] is one of the all-time EDH greats. Not only does it protect your creatures, it also keeps your artifacts, enchantments, and even lands safe. But the one thing it doesn’t keep safe (aside from itself) is you. This may not seem particularly relevant to someone conditioned to judging everything in terms of board position, but its a little-appreciated fact that many of the most devastating spells in the game target players.  [card]Cruel Ultimatum[/card], [card]Identity Crisis[/card], [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card], [card]Yosei, the Morning Star[/card], any number of burn spells, and that’s just what sprung immediately to mind.  Sure, it’s not going to help you a whole lot against a beatdown deck, but one card isn’t much of a price to pay for immunity from the most card-rippingly frustrating spells in the game.  Even if you don’t run one, keep one around in your sideboard, just in case.  When you need it, you’ll be glad you did.

Sudden Spoiling

The ultimate answer to hubris. Nothing wrecks a Spike’s day like watching their unstoppable horde of creatures reduced to a hopelessly weak horde of 0/2s…mid-combat. With split second.

I’ve been on the receiving end of this card far more than I’d like, and each time it has never been anything but a complete blowout. I swung in, confident of Uril’s untouchableness or Ulamog’s invincibility, only to have my army reduced to mewling kittens faster than the blink of an eye.

The card also lends itself well to conspiring with other players to take whoever’s on top down a couple notches.  [card]Sudden Spoiling[/card] plus removal to get around shroud and invincibility, [card]Sudden Spoiling[/card] plus [card]Master Warcraft[/card] to completely annihilate your opponent’s army…the possibilities are endless.

Just be mindful of +1/+1 counters, enchantments, and equipment.  A 0/2 enchanted with Eldrazi Conscription is still a 8/10 trampling, annihilating beastie.

Viashino Heretic

Its hard to get much more unassuming than this little 1/3. Often it’ll come out early, and then sit around a turn or two. Then it blows up an artifact. And then another. And another. Next thing you know it’s standing on top of a mountain of scrap metal staring out at a field of very pissed off, artifact-less opponents.  The damage it can do on top of all that is just gravy.

The thing is, most opponents will be very reluctant to “waste” a removal spell on this little guy – a 1/3 just isn’t very threatening compared to a format full of game-breaking beasties.  So most of the time their artifacts will either sit in their hands, unused, or come down anyway only to get quickly sniped away.  Now that’s value.

And hey, if it does get killed, that’s one less removal spell your fatties will have to worry about, amirite?

Dismantling Blow

“You got your draw spell into my artifact destruction!”

“No, you got your artifact destruction into my draw spell”

Either way, this is the kind of spell that can make everyone happy.  Usually, targeted removal is useful but unimpressive in EDH.  While it takes care of a threat, it also puts you down a card to the rest of the board.  Targeted removal that doesn’t just replace itself, but draws you another card on top of that, well…that’s pretty dang good.

Six mana can seem a little steep, but by the time people are dropping game-ending artifacts and enchantments you should have the mana to throw at it.  And if you ever are in a pinch, just cast it without paying the kicker – it’s still a perfectly decent answer then, if a tad bit overpriced.

War’s Toll

While it’s ability to cause mana burn has long since been removed from the game, this enchantment can still drive blue mages into paroxysms of rage.  Aggro players will probably just shrug, swing in with their army and tap out, but anyone trying to play a semblance of control is going to have a very hard time doing anything remotely sneaky.  Pair with a [card]Seedborn Muse[/card] for even more hilariousness.