The Best Black Board Wipes In MTG

Sometimes while playing Magic: The Gathering, you might find yourself in a bit of a pickle. Your opponent could be running aggro and have you outranked in terms of creatures, or in the late game they might just have too many strong ones out there. That’s where a board wipe comes into play: when you need a reset, nothing does it better than a board wipe.

Black cards are notorious for making you pay additional costs, such as discarding cards, sacrificing creatures, or paying life to get big effects out of them. Board wipes that feature that color tend to be no different but are often well worth paying.

Updated on October 27, 2024 by Ryan Hay: There are plenty of fantastic board wipes in Magic: The Gathering, keeping creatures off the board so you can keep going through your combo or save yourself from certain doom in a game. This time around we added Blood on the Snow to ensure you have at least one creature left in play, In Garruk’s Wake to devastate the board completely, and One Ring to Rule Them All, a Saga enchantment that clears the board while dealing damage. If you find yourself needing to deal with an aggro-heavy meta, you’ll want to snag these cards.

13

Plague Wind

More Than Just A Breeze

Plague Wind is an older card, printed all the way back in the Prophecy set. The shining feature of this card is that it is asymmetrical, as it will only affect your opponent and leave you with a huge advantage. While it is a strong card, Plague Wind does hold some significant downsides.

Most notable is the mana cost. This is a mana-heavy card, coming in at seven generic and two black. Since it most certainly will set you up for a win, the cost can be worth it. However, running this card in your deck leaves you with the possibility of drawing it early on and having a dead card in your hand until you can muster up the mana needed.

12

Extinction

Leave Nothing Behind

Yet another old card that dates all the way back to Tempest, Extinction is a great board wipe card to run if you know you are going up against a kindred deck. For instance, if your opponent is playing an Elf Kindred deck, you simply choose Elf as the creature to target with Extinction and watch as all your opponent’s creatures of that type are destroyed.

However, if your opponent is running an array of creatures that don’t share a type, Extinction might function as a simple removal spell. In the right circumstances, this card can decimate your opponent’s game, and on the other hand, it could simply be a nuisance.

11

One Ring To Rule Them All

One Ring To Bind Them

Enchantments generally aren’t what you think of when someone says they’re running mass removal, but One Ring To Rule Them All is a solid choice. When it starts off, this Saga has you nominate a Ring-bearer among your creatures, and then all players mill cards equal to your Ring-bearer’s power.

A Ring-bearer is a designation that a creature gains after you’re tempted by the Ring, which is tied to The Ring emblem.

The second chapter is when the board wipe comes in, destroying all nonlegendary creatures in play. Since picking a creature as a Ring-bearer makes it legendary, you should carefully consider which you choose to be your Ring-bearer. The final chapter of One Ring to Rule Them All forces each opponent to lose life equal to the number of creatures in their graveyard, which can be pretty darn good if you’ve milled them enough.

10

Kindred Dominance

One Type Left Standing

On the opposite side of the spectrum from Extinction, Kindred Dominance lets you choose a creature type to keep, and then destroy all the rest.

This is a great card to run if you are playing a kindred deck, as you can choose your creature type and remove all the rest. It isn’t handicapped by your opponent playing different creatures like Extinction is. It does cost more to play, though, sitting at five generic and two black mana.

Of course, the only time this card may not be of use is if your opponent is playing the same creatures you are, but you can simply name any creature type not on the board, and it will function as a standard board wipe instead. You’ll lose your own creatures, but sometimes that’s worth the breathing room a wipe can give.

9

Necromantic Selection

A Black Board Wipe

Necromantic Selection is a board wipe you wouldn’t see in any color identity other than black. Functioning like a typical board wipe, it destroys all creatures on the battlefield. Functioning atypically to a board wipe, however, after all creatures are destroyed, you select one creature from any graveyard and put it onto the battlefield under your control.

This is a great way to keep one of your strongest creatures on the board against your opponent or an even better way to steal one of theirs.

8

In Garruk’s Wake

He’s Very, Very Mad

Board wipes are generally sweeping spells that remove everything from play: your stuff and your opponents. In Garruk’s Wake does this a little differently by destroying all creatures and planeswalkers that belong to your opponents, leaving your stuff alone. It’s generally fairly rare for a spell to mass remove Planeswalkers, so In Garruk’s Wake is a powerful spell to slot into your Commander deck.

The downside is that this card costs a total of nine mana to cast. While exceptionally expensive, there are quite a few ways in black to generate tons of mana very easily, making it not too difficult to cast later in a game.

7

Mutilate

The More Swamps, The Better

Mutilate is another board wipe that doesn’t just destroy creatures but gives them -X/-X counters. Again, a great way to get around creatures that may be sporting indestructible. Costing two generic and two black, the minimum this card is likely going to give is -4/-4 in a mono-black deck.

Since the effect of this card is dependent on how many swamps you control, it functions best when featured in a mono-black deck. For those that want to include it in multicolored decks, run it alongside a card like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, to see it play at full strength. The only downside is that, since it is dependent on lowering the toughness, it might not be able to take down some very big creatures your opponent might control.

6

Overwhelming Forces

Many Versus None

The best board wipe cards are the ones that are going to leave you with an advantage, and Overwhelming Forces does just that. Not only will it keep all of your creatures in play, it’s going to allow you to draw a card for each creature a target opponent controls that is destroyed as a result of this spell. Pair it with cards like Reliquary Tower or Spellbook so you can keep all those cards you draw, as you’ll most likely go over the seven count.

Overwhelming Forces was originally only available in Portal Three Kingdoms, a notoriously difficult-to-find set in many countries, which contributes to cards from the set being very expensive.

However, be careful, as Overwhelming Forces can be tricky in certain circumstances. For instance, if your opponent is bursting at the seams with token creatures, you might mill yourself out by drawing an equal amount of cards. As the card doesn’t say “you may,” you must draw cards equal to the creatures destroyed.

5

Life’s Finale

That’s The End

The real value of Life’s Finale doesn’t even come from its board-wiping ability, but from what you do afterward. After the board has been wiped clean, you search your opponent’s library, choose up to three creature cards, and put them into their graveyard. This could hamper your opponent’s ability to cast strong combos and remove some of their most useful creatures from the mix.

Combo this card with spells that allow you to steal creatures from your opponent’s graveyard for max value. Gruesome Encore and Ashen Powder are great places to start, but the options are endless.

4

Decree Of Pain

I Do Declare

Decree of Pain plays much like Overwhelming Forces in that you draw a card for each creature destroyed by it. However, Decree of Pain targets the whole board and not a single opponent, making the card-drawing aspect much stronger and much riskier. It also adds in the insurance of not allowing creatures to be regenerated, unlike Overwhelming Forces.

Additionally, the card comes with a cycling cost of three generic and two black mana. When cycled, this will give all creatures -2/-2 until the end of the turn, which is a great way to get rid of mana dorks or fodder your opponent might have at a cheaper cost. It also lets you get an effectively dead card out of your hand if you draw it too early.

3

Blood On The Snow

Snow Mana At Its Best

One of the better board wipes to join the ranks in recent years, Blood on the Snow lets you choose before blowing up all creatures in play or all planeswalkers in play, whichever one is causing you the most problems at the time.

If you dedicate snow mana to Blood on the Snow, you can return a creature with a mana cost of X or less, with X being the amount of snow mana you spent on casting this spell, back to the battlefield. This ensures that you’ll always have a creature in play, even after you cleared the board of all your opponent’s stuff.

2

Toxic Deluge

Destroy Anything And Everything

The mana cost may be low compared to most board wipe cards, but the cost on your life total is where Toxic Deluge takes its toll. The more life you are willing to part with, the more damage the card is going to do. This is a card that is much more viable in a format like Commander thanks to the higher starting life total of 40 as opposed to the standard of 20.

However, the strongest aspect of Toxic Deluge is that it gives creatures -X/-X, which means it’s a great way to get around destroying those pesky creatures with indestructible.

1

Damnation

No God Here

There may not be a more iconic board wipe in all Magic than Damnation. Costing two generic and two black mana, this card destroys all creatures and doesn’t allow them to be regenerated.

That’s it. It’s simple and the best black board wipe you can run. Only four total mana to wipe the board clean with protection against regeneration is just too good to pass on when looking for a card like this.

While it may not be as flashy as other black board wipe cards, it does the job needed to be done, and for cheap. Anyone who is running black in their deck and looking to include a board wipe should look no further than Damnation.