The 39 Best Flying Hate Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 26, 2025

Aerial Volley | Illustration by Lake Hurwitz

Magic: The Gathering is undoubtedly a game where combat takes center stage, and players must focus on their strategies to secure victory. Some players rely on building large armies, others on making their creatures hit harder, and some prefer to bypass blockers entirely with evasive creatures that have powerful keyword abilities like flying.

If you're one of those players who can’t stand facing off against the latter, or you're simply looking for the best cards to punish opponents who rely on those evasive tactics, you're in the right place.

Today, I’ll show you some of the best “flying hate” cards in MTG. And spoiler alert: There's more than one way to deal with those pesky evasive threats.

What Is Flying Hate in MTG?

Sandwurm Convergence | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

In MTG, flying hate refers to any card or effect that’s good at dealing with creatures that have flying.  Since flying creatures can be tough to block, flying hate gives you ways to shut them down or directly target them.

For this list, I’ll go over cards that not only destroy flying creatures, but also those that can punish your opponents for using them. The majority of these effects are green cards, which is also the color associated with the reach ability.

I’ll also exclude digital-only cards from MTG Arena like You Line Up the Shot, which lets you conjure a Plummet into your hand, acting as a dedicated hate card against fliers.

#39. Bower Passage

For just 2 mana, Bower Passage prevents your opponent's flying creatures from blocking yours. While it may be situational, this green enchantment‘s an option for aggressive decks that need to punch through aerial defenses.

#38. Spidersilk Armor

While Spidersilk Armor doesn't directly hate on flying creatures by removing them, it grants your creatures the ability to block fliers while also giving a toughness boost. This may not seem like it'd see tons of play, but historically, it's been a solid choice for green Pauper decks, especially when faeries became dominant.

#37. Sandwurm Convergence

Unlike other cards that destroy or deal with flying creatures directly, Sandwurm Convergence prevents them from attacking you or your planeswalkers. Additionally, it creates a 5/5 token at the beginning of each of your end steps, which is ideal for token strategies while hating on your opponent's fliers.

#36. Gruul Charm

For only 2 mana, you have a versatile charm that hates on flying and non-flying creatures alike. Either it kills the fliers by dealing 3 damage to each one, or it just makes ground creatures unable to block.

While this is mostly a sideboard card since its other mode is very niche and rare to use, it’s very effective against decks that have the nasty tendency of flooding the board with small flying creature tokens.

#35. Choose Your Weapon

Speaking of sideboard cards, this green instant is one you could happily maindeck, as not only can it kill a lot of flying creatures on your opponent's side of the field by dealing 5 damage to them, but it can also catch your opponent off guard by doubling the power and toughness of one of your creatures.

#34. Sarkhan’s Resolve

While 2 mana for Giant Growth is mostly unplayable, we can consider Sarkhan's Resolve as a Plummet with a combat trick tacked onto it.

#33. Branching Bolt

I like Branching Bolt a lot because for 3 mana you get to potentially kill two creatures, but for our purposes, just dealing 3 damage to the flying one is okay.

#32. Earthbind

Despite the “questionable” art, Earthbind can serve as a cheap way to deal with a small creature for 1 mana or just to have it lose flying for as long as it's attached to it.

#31. Deadshot Minotaur

While Deadshot Minotaur was most commonly seen in Modern for its contribution to Living End back in the day, the fact is that its enter the battlefield ability is fairly solid at killing small creatures with flying. At worst, you get to cycle it for a card.

#30. Wing Puncture

For 1 mana at instant speed, this bite spell is a very cheap and solid option to kill your winged enemies. Wing Puncture is mostly outclassed by more versatile green removal spells like Hard-Hitting Question and Horrific Assault, but being an instant gives it a small edge.

#29. Leaf Arrow

If you were looking for a green Lightning Bolt against fliers, Leaf Arrow is a solid option to consider.

#28. Slingbow Trap

At best, Slingbow Trap is a solid 1-mana card to destroy an opposing attacking flying creature, and while it's not the best, it's an option to keep in mind.

#27. Blizzard

Although it may be hard to cast and maintain Blizzard in play, the benefit from keeping this cumulative upkeep card around is fairly straightforward, especially if you combo with cards like Gigadrowse to tap your opponent's fliers and prevent them from untapping ever again.

#26. Raking Canopy

Raking Canopy doesn’t prevent flying creatures from attacking you or take away their flying abilities. But it serves as a Moat of sorts for fliers, and only the largest flying beasts will dare to attack you. In practice, the card is too narrow to see Constructed play barring the printing of a weird Commander card that directly profits from this effect.

#25. Energy Storm

Like Blizzard, Energy Storm is one of those hate cards your opponents wouldn’t be thrilled to play against. While the cumulative upkeep may be a bit harder to pay, there are some cards like Solemnity that can help to keep the counter count to zero. That said, not only will you be able to prevent damage from instant or sorceries, but flying creatures also won't be able to untap, making it a very hard card to play against for some decks.

#24. Canopy Claws

Sometimes, you have a big creature that’s stronger than the rest but simply can’t jump high enough to reach a flying threat that may be chipping away your life total. Canopy Claws is the perfect card to make the balance tilt in your favor as you’ll slam that pesky bird to the ground to be eaten by yours.

#23. Storm Front

If you can’t kill a creature, you can at least keep it tapped with Storm Front. This can be used to generate political advantage in multiplayer games, as you can make non-aggression agreements not to tap a flying threat for as long as it doesn’t attack you.

#22. Howling Gale

For 4 mana, you get to deal 2 damage to each flying creature and each player. Of course, the added value of Howling Gale comes down when you face small 1/1 tokens, so you can get the value from this card twice.

#21. Sunset Strikemaster

Sunset Strikemaster serves double duty: you can ramp in the early game or sacrifice it in the late game to take down a big flier. Six damage takes down most dragons, demons, or angels.

#20. Daybreak Ranger

Back in the day, Daybreak Ranger was a very good creature in Birthing Pod decks popularized by Brian Kibler before he retired to playing Hearthstone. While its main appeal for the list may be its tap ability to deal 2 damage to flying creatures, what makes it a solid threat is its transformed side that lets it battle another creature regardless of whether it has flying, all for just 1 mana.

#19. Scourge of Kher Ridges

Scourge of Kher Ridges is one of those cards that hates every other creature, but not equally. What’s funny to me is that for 6 mana you can deal 6 damage to each other creature with flying, but you also have the ability to spend the same amount of mana to kill the ones that don’t.

#18. Windstorm

Similar to Earthquake in the sense that you can spend X mana to deal X damage to each creature, but in Windstorm’s case, it's only against flying ones and you miss out on dealing the extra damage to players.

#17. Scout the City

Scout the City keeps a light flying hate card in your main deck if you can profit from the self-mill ability. The main mode is already something you can run in a mill/value/graveyard deck anyway.

#16. Firespout

Before Anger of the Gods was released, Firespout was the main way we had to deal 3 damage to all creatures. The upside of Firespout is that you can choose to only spend green mana on it and just deal damage to creatures that fly rather than to the whole board.

#15. Sunscape Battlemage

Like other Battlemages from the Planeshift cycle, Sunscape Battlemage comes with a couple of kicker abilities that can be added to its casting cost, with the green one being the one we want. For only 2 extra mana, you get to destroy a flying creature and put a body onto field.

#14. Smog Elemental

Smog Elemental is the perfect sideboard card against a deck that focuses on creating 1/1 flying tokens as its static ability shrinks them as soon as they hit the battlefield.

#13. Kraul Harpooner

I never understood the appeal of this undergrowth card, but it's surprisingly good and popular as far as sideboard options go. I guess it shines against mono-blue spirits in formats like Pioneer, and once in a blue moon will kill an opposing Birds of Paradise. The part that I don’t like is that it fights the other creature, rather than just dealing damage based on its power.

It compensates for that by having reach, meaning it can kill a creature and trade with another for just 2 mana, which is a big deal most of the time. Or sometimes, you get to trade up with a big 5/5 flying dragon.

#12. Arachnogenesis

Arachnogenesis doesn’t exactly hate on flying creatures, but the 1/2 reach spider tokens it creates certainly do. On the surface this card is a Fog variant, allowing you to block each creature attacking you with a different token. If you’re being attacked by pesky, small fliers, it’s an entirely different matter. Just 3 mana and Arachnogenesis, and well, they’re doomed.

#11. Windreader Sphinx

Windreader Sphinx is an interesting “hate card” against flying creatures. Each time a creature with flying attacks, you draw a card, regardless of who controls it. This can be beneficial if all your creatures fly, but it's also helpful if opponents attack each other, letting you profit from the action.

#10. Nylea's Intervention

The flexibility on cards like Nylea's Intervention is key to whether they’re good. This card in particular is great for green decks as they often want to ramp ahead of schedule, and some Gx combinations like Golgari have historically struggled with handling fliers. As such, it becomes a good card for decks to have main deck while never being 100% dead thanks to the land-searching mode.

#9. Silklash Spider

When it comes to dealing tons of damage to flying creatures, spiders are usually the ones that excel at doing the job. Silklash Spider lets you choose how much mana you want to spend, and you can activate its ability as many times as you wish at instant speed (mana dependent) to make it a permanent threat that needs an answer.

#8. Thundermaw Hellkite

Imagine a metagame where Lingering Souls was a dominant card. Now imagine this card against that many 1/1 flying spirit tokens.

Thundermaw Hellkite is a powerhouse that can win games on its own. While it may not outright kill opposing creatures, it deals damage to smaller ones and taps the rest, ensuring your team can attack without opposition. I remember playing it in Standard to great success, so it holds a special place in my heart.

#7. Hurricane

Hurricane is arguably the most iconic anti-flying card in Magic, printed in Alpha and reprinted in nearly a dozen sets. This green sorcery‘s ability to deal damage to fliers and players makes it a classic hate card. Squall Line adds another to the mana cost, but gives you a redundant copy in Commander.

#6. Pick Your Poison

Pick Your Poison does a lot for just 1 mana, especially in multiplayer where mana rocks are common. It can also deal with flying creatures and troublesome enchantments, even those with hexproof or shroud, making it a versatile removal spell.

#5. Jagged-Scar Archers

Some elven archers are known for their prowess in killing flying creatures, and Jagged-Scar Archers is the perfect addition to any elvish typal deck, as you get to deal damage just by simply tapping the card.

#4. Archetype of Imagination

I like Archetype of Imagination because it's a hate card against and an enabler for flying creatures. This blue enchantment creature not only removes flying from your opponents' creatures, but it also gives flying to your own, making them almost unblockable in most common scenarios unless you’re caught off guard by a creature with reach.

#3. Cloudthresher

Cloudthresher makes for an excellent hate card against flying creatures, most notably faeries back in Lorwyn. It has not only an effect that deals damage to them, but also flash, so it can kill a small flock and surprisingly eat the biggest threat your opponent may have. Also, if you’re just short on mana and time, you can also choose to play it for its evoke cost and save yourself in a pinch.

#2. Tornado Elemental

Tornado Elemental has a simple but effective way to kill flying creatures as most of them can't survive 6 damage. Also, it has “super-trample“, letting you assign this creature’s damage as though it weren’t blocked.

#1. Whiptongue Hydra

For only 6 mana, Whiptongue Hydra can become a one-sided board wipe as it destroys flying creatures with its enter the battlefield trigger. Not only that, but this green creature also grows based on the number of creatures that were destroyed this way. Of course, it also has reach to hate other flying creatures that may come later during the game.

Best Flying Hate Payoffs

Any way you can give flying to your creatures is a way to combat opposing fliers. Cards like Eldrazi Monument or Akroma's Memorial are perfect examples of cards that let your creatures soar the skies.

On the other hand, cards like Silhana Ledgewalker benefit from your opponents not having flying creatures as they can bypass any that doesn't have this ability. The Ledgewalker is particularly very hard to remove since it has hexproof, which fits perfectly with Voltron strategies.

Last but not least, it is worth mentioning that the best payoff for flying hate is cards that reward you when dealing combat damage to your opponents – by getting rid of flying blockers, you can have yours get the value, and as such, cards like Bident of Thassa or Reconnaissance Mission are must-haves.

Flying hate also plays well with ways to give your opponent's creatures flying. Zephyr Charge isn't the strongest card in the world, but combine it with a few Plummet effects to upgrade your situational removal into Doom Blades.

Wrap Up

Leaf Arrow | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

There are undoubtedly many ways to deal with fliers. Most of the time, just straight killing them is enough, but there are some peculiar scenarios when you can't kill the creature and it's probably best to keep them bound to the earth to prevent them from posing a major threat.

What do you think? Was there any major card I missed while gathering data for this list? Let us know in the comments.

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As always, take care, and see you next time!