10 Different Ways to Punish that Sol Ring Start

In any given game of Commander, at least one player will have the fabled Sol Ring start, and be off and away to the races while everyone else is still saddling up. Wondering how to offer some counterplay with cards that are still good in your deck? Kristen has some picks to settle the score with. 

Sol Ring starts can be pretty egregious, especially if they set up cards like Smothering Tithe (something I’ve written about in an analysis on that very card). While things often balance out in a lot of games – with ire drawn toward that player, removal pointed at them, and the person who pops off second going on to take the win – there are plenty of games where the snowball just keeps rolling.

NAVIGATING “FAST” MANA

If you find that games are a little too swingy in your local meta, there are two main options. The first is to talk to your playgroup, get them all to run some more removal, be more honest about the velocity of their deck, and even try house banning some cards that have outstayed their welcome.

The second is to embrace the variance Sol Ring gives and build your deck in such a way that you don’t need your own to pop off, and add cards that punish people who keep greedy hands. Because that’s what they deserve.

TEN WAYS TO PUNISH A SOL RING START

The following tools can be used to snipe other mana positive rocks or fast engine pieces too, but we’re assembled here today on the quest to Mt. Doom. 

CAST INTO THE FIRE

The first entry on the list is, rather amusingly for me and my love of all things pun and analogy, Cast into the Fire. Cast into the Fire is actually super sweet when you unpack its use cases. Obviously, the headline here is that it exiles target artifacts. It gets rid of a Sol Ring, but it also permanently hits a combo piece or value piece, like an Altar, out of the game, permanently. 

The damage mode can also be very useful early game, sniping out the Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Soul Warden or Ocelot Pride that can have a huge impact on the game when left alone.

It also scales with the game when your Commander is Torbran or runs other damage amplifier effects, and in a deck like Judith, Carnage Connoisseur? It straight up annihilates two creatures when given Deathtouch. 

PEST CONTROL

Pest Control is a great meta call. If your meta runs a lot of fast mana, or you play cEDH, this thing can sweep away a lot of early game set-up pieces, and if unnecessary, can be cycled away for a card.

It’s also solid in metas where there are a lot of creature tokens, as it can sweep away most common tokens with ease. 

LAVINIA, AZORIUS RENEGADE

Lavinia is an oft-forgotten option when it comes to slowing people’s roll, which I would say owes largely to the fact she’s an Azorius card, one of the less popular color pairs in Commander. Slapping her into your Azorious, Jeskai, Esper or Bant deck can be pretty good though, especially if snowball starts are a thing in your meta. She limits people overspending with Sol Ring and treasures, and also nerfs big stupid stuff like Etali, Primal Storm and Etali, Primal Conqueror. 

DISMANTLING WAVE

Can’t decide what to destroy? Want a value for money choice that disrupts all opponents while leaving you clean? Want it to benefit from cost reduction on Pearl Medallion? Well, consider Dismantling Wave. For just three mana, it can sweep away the early game plays from multiple decks, which is a great way to buy some time if your deck skews slower.        

If you do draw it later in the game, there are probably still some juicy targets to snip for three mana, and there’s the alternate mode of cycling it, too. Remember this can be done at instant speed.                   

CORROSION

Okay, so hear me out on this one. If you’re in a meta with a lot of Treasure generation, a lot of artifact decks, or a lot of Food and Clue decks? Corrosion is actually super sweet. It’s telegraphed, sure, but if nothing else, it’ll have people scrambling to spend their resources before everything goes away. Oftentimes those kinds of decks want to bank resources for a bigger turn, but Corrosion puts a spanner in their plans. 

It’s especially good in decks like Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, who can bring it back at Instant speed; or decks that can flicker cards like Sun Titan and such.

FALL OF THE FIRST CIVILIZATION

Okay so Corrosion was a little niche, but how’s about we go for something all players behind at the table can get behind.

Fall of the First Civilization describes exactly that: the fall of the people who go off first. Drop this on turn two or three and have the player you think needs a hand draw some cards with you. Then, exile the Sol Ring or value engine piece that’s gonna be a problem. Finally, reset the board down to fewer permanents. 

It’s a great card for making people stop and smell the roses.

MANGLEHORN

Manglehorn is so great right now. When it enters, it can rip apart whatever the problem artifact is. It stays around, though, and forces artifacts from then on to come in tapped. Making artifacts enter tapped is great in the artifact-token epoch we find ourselves in, and against more new artifact focused builds that want at least some of their artifact lands to enter untapped.

Beast typing is also pretty relevant.

BROKEN BOND

If you’re in green, you might prefer ramping to playing a 2/2, and if that’s the case, then start running Broken Bond. This card does require you to be running a decent amount of lands (I’d say at least 38, with plenty of card draw), but if you are, it’s an excellent way to ramp while keeping another player in check. 

If your deck already is built around Exploration and Burgeoning, this is a no-brainer addition. 

CULLING RITUAL

And now we get to some slightly more-played ground. Culling Ritual is a fantastic board wipe for gutting the board of low-cost mana rocks, dorks, engine pieces and static effects. Played on curve, you’re easily getting back what you put into this, and perhaps even more. It scales with the game, generally speaking, and with mana curves trending lower these days, it feels better than ever.

BROTHERHOOD’S END

I really rate an Anger of the Gods effect these days, so much so I’ve been playing and enjoying Deafening Clarion more than ever. The best one around at the moment, however, really is Brotherhood’s End. It can clean up all of the nonsense people vomit out of their hands, paving the way for you to settle snugly into that tempo vacuum while opponents scramble to rebuild.

END STEP

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to deal with early game nonsense in a mana efficient and ultimately tempo-gaining way. While effects like Vandalblast and Austere Command are excellent, you can benefit from taking some of these cheaper options to augment your removal suite, because sometimes you gotta kneecap a bitch.