Hoser

See also: Answer.

A hoser can be something that destroys, prohibits, or prevents something specific. “Color hosers” are cards that punish players for playing a particular color. For example, the card Red Elemental Blast would be considered a "blue hoser", answering any blue card. On the other hand, the card Root Cage would be considered a "mercenary hoser", successfully dealing with mercenary creatures. Some such cards are "deck hosers", which serve to answer a specific match up or strategy that is expected to be prevalent in the metagame. Good examples of this are Trickbind or Stifle (against Storm combo) and Leyline Of The Void against Dredge. Hosers are often cheap; many of them cost 2 mana or less.

Hosers are best put in a sideboard to allow a deck to better deal with certain situations that the main deck is weak against. They exist on a sliding scale of power and versatility. The most powerful hosers such as Leyline of the Void which can almost guarantee winning a game are only that powerful against one deck or even one critical card but are near useless in a different matchup. Less powerful hosers such as Grafdigger's Cage can be brought in against a wider variety of decks but do not dominate the game to the same degree.

Enemy-colored hosing

The most enduring form of hosing is of color hosing, most often defined by enemy color relationships on the color pie. Originally, color hosers were enchantments that were often crippling to any deck playing that color, which tilted hosers against Red to be the most damaging: Green and White had anti-enchantment effects, while Green's hosers against Blue and Black were often severely underpowered due to hosing at an ineffectual angle. Additionally, they attacked land types and spell colors, creating lockout scenarios. Protection was also a quick option to fill out certain cycles.

As design evolved, it became clearer that this form of hosing is often unfun, and color hosing began to lean towards efficient one-for-one removal effects rather than sweeping persistent effects. It also limited them to five a set (each color mentions their two enemies) rather than ten across the color wheel (each color gets one for each of their enemies). Some hosers nowadays offer reasonable utility against normal targets with a bonus against the enemy color.

Related color effects are ones that target their own color. On rare occasion, a color will target an allied color, which is usually a sign of a deliberate skewing of the color pie (i.e. Torment).

Some examples:

• Gloom: Black enchantment that taxes White spells and enchantment abilities
• Roots of Life: Green enchantment that gains life against Islands or Swamps
• Submerge: Blue instant that costs no mana against an opponent controlling a Forest
• Flashfreeze: Blue instant that counters a red or green spell
• Whack: Black sorcery with a cost reduction against white creatures
• Burning Hands: Red instant that deals increased damage against Green creatures

Expansion hosing

Very old sets - those in the first ten expansions - had singular cards that would destroy all cards from a set printing, a quality that made for an unusual Oracle wording as reprints began populating other sets. Potentially, they were a way for a newer player to catch up against a player who had more new cards than them. These were abandoned as the expansions became full sets; players could and would start with only cards from the newer sets, rather than the sets being supplements for those who started with Alpha.

• Apocalypse Chime hosed cards from Homelands. It was the last "expansion hosing" card to be printed.
• City in a Bottle hosed cards from Arabian Nights.
• Golgothian Sylex hosed cards from Antiquities.

In the MagicCon Unknown Event test cards:

• Crux of Mirrodin hosed cards from either Mirrodin, Darksteel, Fifth Dawn, and Scars of Mirrodin or from Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, and Phyrexia: All Will Be One depending on the player's choice.