How can I get rid of indestructible creatures with a Red and White deck?

Question

I am creating a Red-White commander deck using Gisela as my commander. I noticed that my deck is incredibly weak against a deck with any sort of indestructible creature. I know of the board sweeper Terminus, but I was wondering if red/white has any other tricks up its sleeve to get rid of tricky creatures. I'm looking for both sweepers and target-specific cards.

Answer 1

There are a variety of general answers for indestructible permanents:

1. Exile effects, which are your real bread-and-butter for all kinds of removal.
2. Toughness-reducing effects against creatures.
3. Sacrifice effects.
4. "Tuck" (move to library) effects.
5. Bouncing permanents (temporary).
6. Stealing permanents: the indestructible thing isn't a problem if you control it, right?
7. Ability- and action- restricting cards like Pithing Needle and Pacifism, if all you're worried about is disabling a card rather than removing it from the battlefield.

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White is probably the strongest color for dealing with indestructible permanents after they've resolved. Some of your options are:

• Oblivion Ring and similar enchantments provide single-shot answers to any non-land permanent. Note, in particular, Grasp of Fate as the multiplayer-oriented variant.
• Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are low-cost instant answers for creatures.
• Return to Dust for is a nice two-for-one against artifacts and enchantments.
• Final Judgement, Descend Upon the Sinful, and False Prophet are an exile-based sweeper.
• Hallowed Burial and Terminus are "tuck"-based sweepers.
• Condemn can "tuck" a troublesome creature, although only when it's attacking.
• Pacifism effects may be good enough if you're just trying to get rid of a blocker or prevent a card from using its activated abilities; Faith's Fetters and Prison Term are probably the best choice there.
• Angel of the Dire Hour can wipe out a wave of indestructible attackers.
• Elesh Norn will clear out a lot of weenies even if they're indestructible.
• Evangelize and a lot mana: steal all their stuff.
• Gideon, Champion of Justice will exile everything else on the battlefield.
• Oblation "tucks" any nonland permanent at the cost of giving your opponent more cards.

In red:

• Chaos Warp can "tuck" anything.
• Into the Core can answer indestructible artifacts like Darksteel Forge.
• Apocalypse and Decree of Annihilation are exile-based sweepers.
• Warp World and similar cards will remove the offending permanents, at the cost of giving your opponent new toys to replace them.
• Insurrection will let you take all of an opponent's creatures for a turn — usually that's enough to finish off a player or feed them all to a sacrifice outlet like Ashnod's Altar so you don't have to give them back.

Colorless cards worth noting:

• Duplicant is a popular card for exiling creatures.
• Brittle Effigy, Amulet of Unmaking, and Helvault provide targeted exile effects, though not very cost-effectively compared to what you can get in white.
• Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon can easily exile multiple troublesome permanents.
• All Is Dust is a sacrifice-based sweeper.

Answer 2

Apocalypse , Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Crib Swap, Parallax Wave, Archon of Justice, Witch Hunter, Evangelize, Helm of Possession, Preacher, Tariff, Warp World, ...

The most effective answer is to learn to use the Gatherers Advanced Search to search for keywords in the rules sacrifice, exile, gain control, then exclude cards that are not red, white, or colorless*. You will get some false positives, but it is a start.

Like so: Color=NOT(B|U|G) AND Text=Exile+Target+Creature

Like so: Color=NOT(B|U|G) AND Text=Sacrifices+Target+Creature

Like so: Color=NOT(B|U|G) AND Text="Gain Control of Target Creature"

Answer 3

Although toughness reduction is not particularly white or red (which does gets +/- effects, though), you could look at creatures with Wither or Infect. In control-stealing, red has many temporary stealing spells and effects with stuff like Act of Treason, Blind with Anger, Grab the Reins, Mark of Mutiny, Threaten, Tibalt, Traitorous Blood, Zealous Conscripts... White has the non-time limited Preacher, though.

Answer 4

The answers here were all correct at the time, but there have been new cards printed that I believe are worth adding. Three newer cards specifically remove the ability indestructible, they are:

• Burn from Within
• Hour of Devastation
• Bonds of Mortality

The first two are playable in your Boros deck, the third being green is not, but all three specifically remove indestructible.