20 best board wipes in Magic: The Gathering

17

Ezuri’s Predation

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Green is notoriously light on traditional mass creature destruction, making Ezuri’s Predation an incredibly unique and valuable asset for the color. As an unconventional board wipe, the eight-mana sorcery spawns a 3/3 Phyrexian Beast token for every creature your opponents control, which immediately fight those enemy creatures. It functions as a massive, brutal board wipe against swarms of smaller utility creatures and tokens while leaving behind an enormous army of surviving beasts on your side of the field.

While green often relies on cards like Bane of Progress for artifacts or The Great Aurora for total resets, Ezuri’s Predation stands alone as the color’s premier creature sweeper, turning an opponent’s overwhelming numbers into the very engine of their defeat.

16

Nevinyrral’s Disk

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As Magic‘s original colorless emergency button, Nevinyrral’s Disk (an homage to author Larry Niven, spelled backward) has been clearing problematic boards since Alpha. Since it costs just four generic mana, any deck regardless of color identity can run it to destroy all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments simultaneously. Hitting the battlefield tapped gives opponents a full turn to prepare or respond, creating a tense psychological dynamic where players might hesitate to commit more threats to an already creature-filled board. However, it can be made even more devastating with cards like Unwinding Clock and Clock of Omens for swifter removal. Despite being telegraphed, its ability to sit on the field as an open threat and activate on demand still makes it an enduring classic.

15

Armageddon

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Where most sweepers tend to focus on creatures or artifacts, Armageddon is slightly more evil. For four mana, the white sorcery destroys all lands on the battlefield, effectively erasing the fundamental resources of the game. While mass land destruction is heavily stigmatized in casual Commander pods (sorry guys), it is a ruthlessly effective win condition in competitive settings when used to lock in an already superior board state. Players frequently break parity by pairing it with commanders that manipulate lands from the graveyard or generate alternative resources, such as Thalia and The Gitrog Monster. Due to its fearsome reputation and sheer power, functionally identical variants like Ravages of War command equally high demand, offering redundancy for players dedicated to completely choking out their opponents’ mana bases.

14

Merciless Eviction

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Absolute exile is the highest form of removal in Magic, and Merciless Eviction brings Orzhov’s signature ruthless efficiency to the battlefield. The six-mana sorcery forces you to select a single card type — artifacts, creatures, enchantments, or planeswalkers — and exiles every instance of it on the board. Much like with Farewell, Eviction’s permanent exile ensures that indestructible threats, death triggers, and graveyard reanimation targets are completely neutralized. While it lacks the same multi-modal selection, its ability to cleanly erase an opponent’s entire enchantment engine or artifact suite makes it a reliable cornerstone for multi-color control decks.

13

Living Death

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Equal parts mass removal and lethal game-ender, Living Death is a board wipe and win condition rolled into one chaotic spell. A staple dating all the way back to Tempest, the five-mana sorcery forces every player to sacrifice their entire board and swap it with the creatures currently sitting in their graveyard. While technically symmetrical, a deck built around Living Death turns this effect heavily asymmetrical. By filling your graveyard with massive threats and entering-the-battlefield triggers using self-mill or discard effects, casting Living Death clears all enemy threats while instantly resurrecting a game-winning army for yourself.

12

Earthquake

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Scaling brilliantly from the early game all the way to the final turns, Earthquake is a foundational red sweeper that has been terrorizing ground-based strategies since Alpha. By paying an adaptable X cost alongside a single red mana, it deals X damage to every creature without flying and directly to every player. The dual utility makes it uniquely dangerous. It can be cast for two or three mana to clear out early mana dorks and aggressive tokens in the early game, or heavily fueled in the late game to serve as a massive, game-ending burn spell. Since it misses flyers, decks heavily invested in dragons or angels, like Kaalia of the Vast or The Ur-Dragon, can confidently cast it to incinerate the ground beneath them while leaving their own airborne armada unscathed.

11

Austere Command

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Few board wipes offer the tactical flexibility of Austere Command. Ever since its debut in Lorwyn, it has been legendary for its modular control, allowing players to pick two distinct options out of four to tailor the devastation directly to their board state, similar to Farewell. You have the option to wipe all small creatures and enchantments while preserving your own high-cost bombs, or clear away big threats and artifacts while leaving your token army intact. This level of adaptability makes Austere Command a staple in casual and competitive Commander decks alike, as it rarely sits dead in hand and consistently finds a creative angle to favor its caster over the rest of the table.