RNA viruses generate huge populations that allow rapid evolution within a host. They are excellent models with which to study evolution in real-time. They can be easily mastered and manipulated through reverse genetics. They are so simple that nearly all of their functions are characterized. In this presentation I will cover the work my lab has done over the last 30 years using evolution as the target, turning the tables on these master evolvers and exploiting their weak points to create new antiviral approaches. I will use examples from my group on how vaccines can be made to resist backmutation or to become more sensitive to mutagenic treatments, how a virus' future can be altered to trap it in evolutionary dead ends, how parasitic genomes can be created that poison the virus population from within, or how some of these replication byproducts can be used to render vectors such as mosquitoes from transmitting human viruses.