20+ MTG Red Enchantment Removal Spells – The Complete Guide

The bane of any mono red MTG player’s existence is hands down, red enchantment removal spells. Red, and black as well, are so bad at removing enchantments, it isn’t even funny. Red’s strengths excel in other areas whereas enchantment removal is one of its biggest weaknesses.

In order to succeed with red enchantment removal, you must get creative. While it is no doubt extremely difficult to remove enchantments in red, it is not impossible. You will need to lean into red’s strengths and use those strengths to deal with the opponent’s enchantments. This complete guide will go in depth on how you can concur your Red Enchantment Removal woes with ease!

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Do I Really Need Enchantment Removal?

Let me start off by making this short and sweet: yes, yes you do. Out of all the permanent types, excluding lands, I think enchantments are often overlooked and tend to not be worried about. To me, that is crazy to think about. There are some super scary enchantments that if left untouched, will let opponents run away with games.

God forbid if you’re playing against a Stax deck running enchantments like Propaganda, Aura of Silence, Blind Obedience, etc. Or you encounter an Enchantress deck where every single nonland permanent in their deck is an enchantment. No matter what color/s your deck is, you should always be prepared for dealing with dangerous enchantments. Aside from maybe black, red is the color that struggles most with enchantment removal.

Red Enchantment Removal

While red enchantment removal is a bit tricky, it isn’t impossible. To remove enchantments in red, you must think outside of the box, so to speak. You will be hard-pressed to find a no-downside, straight up destroy effect for enchantments in red. In order to run an effective red enchantment removal suite, you will need to lean into red’s strengths such as artifact removal, chaos effects and intercepting other player’s spells.

Destroying Enchantments

If you’re playing with a mono red deck, you are not going to be able to straight up remove an opponent’s enchantment. At least not without any downsides. I hate to say it, but such is life, that is not part of the plan for red enchantment removal. You can, however, jump through a few hoops to make your red enchantment removal wishes come true. One of the most famous ways of doing this is running a copy of Liquimetal Torque and Liquimetal Coating.

These cards will turn any enchantment into an artifact, in addition to its other types until the end of turn. The only difference between these two cards is that Liquimetal Torque can tap for mana but cannot target lands whereas Liquimetal Coating can target any permanent, including lands but cannot tap for mana.

The combo works by tapping either of the Liquimetal cards to turn the pesky enchantment (or nearly any other permanent) into an artifact until end of turn. Then you can just destroy that artifact with any of the plethora of red artifact removal spells. The best part is, some of these spells can be cast at instant speed, rather than sorcery speed! There are tons of cheap and effective artifact removal spells in red’s arsenal such as:

• Shattering Spree
  • Pay 1 red any amount of times and destroy that many target artifacts
• Embereth Shieldbreaker
  • Its Adventure, Battle Display lets you destroy target artifact
• Abrade
  • Destroy target artifact, or deal 3 damage to target creature
• You Find Some Prisoners
  • Choose one:
    • Destroy target artifact
    • Exile 3 cards from target opponent’s library and chose 1 that you can play until the end of your next turn
• Shredded Sails
  • Cycling 2
  • Choose one:
    • Destroy target artifact
    • Deal 4 damage to target creature with flying
• By Force
  • Pay 1 red and X additional to remove X artifacts
• Raze the Effigy
  • Choose one:
    • Destroy target artifact
    • Target attacking creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn
• Smash to Dust
  • Choose one:
    • Destroy target artifact
    • Destroy target creature with defender
    • Deal 1 damage to each creature you opponents control
• Shenanigans
  • Destroy target artifact
  • Dredge 1
• Vandalblast
  • Destroy target artifact you don’t control
  • Or pay its overload cost and destroy each artifact you don’t control

There are so many red artifact removal spells. These are probably the most popular, but if you want to run more, they are readily available in droves. Using red artifact removal spells as red enchantment removal spells is one of my favorite things to do!

Enchanter’s Bane

One thing to be aware of though, if Enchanter’s Bane is the only enchantment on the battlefield, it will target itself forcing you to sac it or take damage. But it is only 2 damage, so it may be worth keeping it around for a bit.

Chaotic Red Enchantment Removal

What is one of the things red is known for? Chaos! So why not let chaos reign? While this is the riskiest of the red enchantment removal bunch, it can be the most fun due to the random nature of it all. Red has pretty good access to chaotic effects such as exiling/destroying/shuffling a permanent and then revealing cards from a library. These cards will allow you to remove a permanent off the battlefield with the downside being that the opponent will get to reveal cards from the top of their library and most times, get to put a permanent on the battlefield.

There are also the ‘Wands,’ that while having to rely on your opponents’ decks, can get you spells to deal with enchantments or other permanents as well. A white and/or green player would be the ideal choice to use you wand’s ability on if you are aiming to get rid of an enchantment.

On a side note, you may notice that a couple of these chaotic red enchantment removal spells are from Commander Legends 2: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. This is such an underrated set in my opinion. While all the negative backlash was warranted, the set is still great and pretty powerful.

• Chaos Warp
  • Target permanent (land included) is shuffled into owner’s library
  • The owner reveals the top card of their library and if it is a permanent, they get to put it on the battlefield
• Wild Magic Surge
  • Destroy target permanent (land included)
  • Its controller reveals cards from the top of their library until they reveal a card that shares a type with the destroyed permanent and puts it on the battlefield
• Chaotic Transformation
  • Similar to Wild Magic Surge, but this exiles and instead targets an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, a Planeswalker and/or a land (yes all 5 at once if you want) and then reveals cards from the top of their library until they reveal a card that shares a type with it and places it on the battlefield
• Chaos Wand
  • Pay 4 generic and tap it: target player reveals cards from the top of their library until the reveal an instant or sorcery card
  • you may cast that card without paying its mana cost
• Wand of Wonder
  • This is like a better version of Chaos Wand in that each opponent reveals cards, not a single target opponent. You roll a D20, and depending on the outcome, you can cast 1, 2 or 3 of the exiled instants and/or sorceries revealed this way

Countering, Copying and Redirecting

Aside from the Liquimetal combo mentioned above, this is probably one of your best bets to execute a solid red enchantment removal plan. Utilizing another one of red’s strengths is the ability to copy and redirect spells. While absolutely not a strength, red does have a few counterspells available as well, though, there will be some drawbacks. Copying and redirecting spells, on the other hand, will be easy to run in red.

Redirect Spells

With redirection spells, you will want to wait until one of your opponents tries to destroy an enchantment and rip one of these off to intercept that spell so you can then target and destroy the enchantment you want.

• Deflecting Swat
  • Chose new targets for target spell or ability
• Ricochet Trap
  • Change the target of target spell with a single target
• Bolt Bend
  • Change the target of target spell or ability with a single target
• Wyll’s Reversal
  • Very similar to Bolt Bend except there is a possibility that you may get to copy the spell in addition to changing the original spell’s target if your D20 roll is high enough
• Chef’s Kiss
  • Gain control of target spell that targets only a single permanent or play and copy it
  • Randomly select new targets for the original and the copy
  • The new targets cannot be you or permanents you control
• Wild Ricochet
  • Wild Ricochet is a fun one because it is both a redirect spell and a copy spell, similar to Chef’s Kiss
  • Although, this one has no randomness to it, you get to just pick the new and copied instant or sorcery targets, straight up

Copy Spells

Similar to redirection spells, you will want to cast these when an opponent tries to destroy an enchantment. Unlike the redirection spells, the original will still happen, but you will be able to copy it and chose a new target for the copy, thus getting rid of the enchantment causing you problems.

• Reverberate
  • Copy target instant or sorcery spell and you get to choose new targets for the copy
• Reiterate
  • Copy target instant or sorcery spell and you get to choose new targets for the copy
  • It also has Buyback of 3 generic
• Fork
  • Copy target instant or sorcery spell and you get to choose new targets for the copy
  • The copy is a red spell
• Fury Storm
  • Copy target instant or sorcery spell and you get to choose new targets for the copy
  • You also get to copy this spell for each time your commander has been cast from the command zone
• Dualcaster Mage
  • A flash creature that when it enters the battlefield, you may copy target instant or sorcery spell and choose new targets for the copy

Counterspells

Counterspells in red are not efficient and will come with some drawbacks. Tibalt’s Trickery, for example, arguably may be better used on your own spell rather than an opponent’s spell so you can potentially hit a monstrous creature or powerful instant/sorcery. But at the end of the day, it is slim pickings for red enchantment removal, so we will take all that we can get!

• Mages’ Contest
  • You and target spell’s controller bid on life
  • If you win, you lose life equal to your winning high bid and counter that spell
  • If you lose the bidding war, the targeted spell’s controller loses life equal to their winning high bid, but the spell does not get countered
• Tibalt’s Trickery
  • Counter target spell
  • Randomly choose 1, 2 or 3, the spell’s controller mills that many cards
  • Then the spell’s controller exiles cards from the top of their library until the exile a nonland card with a different name than the target spell’s name
  • They can cast that spell without paying its mana cost
• Planar Chaos
  • An enchantment that says you must flip a coin at the beginning of your upkeep
  • If you lose the coin flip, you must sacrifice Planar Chaos
  • Whenever a player casts a spell, that player flips a coin. If they lose the flip, the spell gets countered

Bonus Red Enchantment Removal: Blue Hate

If you’ve had a chance to take a look at The Best Enchantment Removal Spells in Blue, you’ll notice a list just like this for a red enchantment removal bonus round too. There are a few spells that both red and blue have access to that messes with the opposite color. In the case of Blue Elemental Blast, Hydroblast and Flash Flood, red has an exact counterpart. They are literally the same cards with the exception of ‘blue’ or ‘red’ being inserted.

• Red Elemental Blast
  • Destroys a blue permanent or counters a blue spell, the same as Pyroblast
• Pyroblast
  • Destroys a blue permanent or counters a blue spell, the same as Red Element Blast
• Active Volcano
  • Destroys a blue permanent or returns an Island to chosen player’s hand
• Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
  • She has 3 abilities and one of them is to pay 1 Red, tap her, discard a card and then you are able to destroy target blue permanent

Final Thoughts

If you found the information in this article helpful and are considering purchasing some cards to bolster your red enchantment removal strategies, please consider using the links provided throughout. It tells TCGplayer you found this information helpful, and this site receives a tiny commission to pay the bills and all of that. Not to mention, it won’t cost you anything extra!

With that being said, red is right up there as one of the hardest colors to play with when it comes to dealing with enchantments. It will take a little bit of creative thinking to accomplish red enchantment removal. One of the main purposes of this guide is meant to get you to think outside the norm and give you alternative solutions for handling enchantments in red.

For instance, any mono red deck I play, I will at minimum always include Liquimetal Coating and Liquimetal Torque along with a handful of red artifact removal spells in addition to some redirection spells. These are not only your best chances to destroy enchantments, but also nearly any other troublesome permanents as well. That is the best recipe for red enchantment removal in my opinion.

I hope these lists have helped you with your deck building and enchantment issues. Let me know what red enchantment removal spells you have the most success with and are running in your decks. If I have missed any key red enchantment removal spells, let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading, and happy enchantment hunting!

The Enchanter’s Bane artwork was done by Steve Prescott from Commander 2018.