As a largely multiplayer format of Magic: The Gathering, players often have to deal with more problems than they would in a one-on-one game. This means that for these larger-scale problems, larger-scale answers are in order. Board wipes have long been a staple of the Commander format, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a well-tuned Commander deck that doesn't include at least one

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Whether you want to open your way to win, or just keep an opponent at risk of running away with the game at bay, board wipes are some of the most essential cards you can run in a deck. Here are the best board wipes for Commander in MTG.

Updated March 6, 2023 by Joe Parlock: As more and more cards are introduced to the Commander format, more board wipes for any occasion are needed. Sometimes they're a way of closing the game, while other times they're just a way to hose those annoying tokens your opponents keep making. Either way, there are tons of board wipes that are perfect for Commander.

20 Time Wipe

Time Wipe MTG Card

Five mana for a board wipe isn't too shabby, even if it does require two colours of mana to pull it off. Azorius (white/blue) has plenty of other wipes available to it, but Time Wipe is special thanks to how it can protect a creature by bouncing it back to your hand.

Maybe you want to avoid having to pay the command tax on your commander, or you have something that has an enters-the-battlefield effect you want to trigger again. Regardless, being able to spare one thing from the wipe that follows makes Time Wipe a little better than usual.

19 Ruinous Ultimatum

Ruinous Ultimatum MTG Card

Often the difference between a board wipe and a good board wipe is whether or not it's one-sided. Sacrificing the entire board to keep an opponent from winning can sometimes be a bit of a killjoy, especially if it stretches the game out unnecessarily. Cards like Ruinous Ultimatum, though, are easy game-enders.

Destroying every nonland permanent your opponents control set you up to win that turn, provided you have a big enough board state. Unfortunately, Ruinous Ultimatum is also wildly expensive, costing two red, three white, and two black. This'll only work in a few decks, but when it does, it'll be utterly ruinous.

18 Crux Of Fate

Crux of Fate MTG Card

Possibly the most niche entry on this list, Crux of Fate presents two options: destroy all Dragons or destroy all non-Dragons.

As long as there are no dragons in play, Crux of Fate can serve as a very standard board wipe. However, within a Dragon deck, Crux of Fate can serve as one of the most effective board wipes in the game. Few other board wipes are capable of as much one-sided destruction as Crux of Fate, making it an auto-include in any Dragon decks that have black within their color identity.

17 Evacuation

Evacuation MTG Card

Evacuation is easily one of the strongest board wipes that blue has access to. Though it returns all creatures to their owner's hands, rather than destroying them like many other wipes, Evacuation has the important distinction of being an instant. This means that, unlike most other board wipes, you can play Evacuation whenever it's the most convenient for you.

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Evacuation has the flexibility of being castable when an opponent declares attacks heading your way, or even just during an opponent's end step to ensure that you'll be the first to recover from the board wipe.

16 Supreme Verdict

Image of the Supreme Verdict card in Magic: The Gathering, with art Sam Burley

One of the worst feelings a Commander player can experience is having a very important spell countered at a pivotal moment. Supreme Verdict is a board wipe that, no matter how much blue mana and counterspells may appear to be in your way, will always resolve.

A standard board wipe containing a "cannot be countered" clause, Supreme Verdict is many a white/blue player's old reliable when it comes to board wipes.

15 Culling Ritual

Culling Ritual MTG Card

Culling Ritual won't get rid of the biggest, most game-threatening pieces, as it can only destroy permanents with mana value two or less. However, it can easily take out not just mana rocks like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, but all those tokens your opponents are making (which have a mana value of zero).

Black and green are the home of the graveyard decks, so maybe putting a load of cheap permanents into your graveyard is exactly what you want. Even better, for each one you destroy, you'll get either black or green mana to build up your board state even further.

14 Hour Of Reckoning

Hour of Reckoning MTG Card

Hour of Reckoning is almost the inverse of Culling Ritual. While Culling Ritual is great for clearing the board of tokens, Hour of Reckoning works better if you yourself have tokens you want sparing.

Tokens can be used to reduce the cost thanks to the spell's convoke keyword, meaning if you're going wide it can be played for as little as three white mana. This may only benefit specific decks, but even without tokens, it'll be a good way to clear the battlefield.

13 Austere Command

Austere Command MTG Card

Similarly to Crux of Fate, Austere Command is a flexible board wipe that presents you with options. Rather than destroying all creatures in play, Austere Command allows you to be selective in your destruction. You are given the option to destroy all artifacts, enchantments, or creatures above or below a mana value of four.

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This allows you to board wipe according to your current problems. Want to clear out your opponent's huge threats, as well as all of their artifacts, while keeping your army of tokens intact? Austere Command may be the board wipe you're looking for.

12 By Invitation Only

By Invitation Only MTG Card

Innistrad: Crimson Vow's By Invitation Only is a white board wipe for five mana that offers a significant degree of flexibility, forcing the whole table to sacrifice up to 13 creatures each. Due to controlling how many creatures this spell destroys, you can use it in a variety of ways to make sure it hinders your opponents more than yourself.

Additionally, due to the fact that this spell causes creatures to be sacrificed, it gets around indestructible creatures with ease, as they're not technically destroyed.

11 Toxic Deluge

Image of the X card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Yeong-Hao Han

Toxic Deluge is a board wipe that asks for something in return for its services. At only three mana, Toxic Deluge is one of the cheapest board wipes in the entire game – provided you pay enough life. For each life you pay in addition to paying the cost, each creature gets -X/-X.

This makes the card extremely versatile, as you can opt to spend very little amounts of life to deal with smaller problems like tokens, or you can spend much more like to deal with the entire board. It's also another great way of dealing with indestructible creatures, as one of the few ways of getting rid of them is to weaken them down to below zero toughness through an effect like this.

A common plan is to pay an amount of life just under the toughness of your largest creature in order to keep it around after the Deluge.

10 Hallowed Burial

Hallowed Burial MTG Card

Hallowed Burial's effect is not complicated; it merely puts every creature at the bottom of their owner's libraries. Few decks are capable of retrieving cards quickly from the bottom of the graveyard, making Hollowed Burial one of the strongest options when looking for long term means of dealing with your problems. Hallowed Burial is also a surefire way of removing a creature that possesses both hexproof and indestructible.

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However, keep in mind that this isn't a way to 'tuck' your opponent's commanders at the bottom of their decks. If a commander is removed from the battlefield, its owner can decide to put it back into the command zone instead, ready to be recast at the next available opportunity.

9 Merciless Eviction

Merciless Eviction MTG Card

While other board wipes on this list present varying degrees of flexibility, few are as versatile as Merciless Eviction. Merciless Eviction lets you choose artifact, enchantment, creature, or planeswalker, and removes them from the board.

However, while most board wipes result in its victims landing in either the graveyard or their owner's hands, Merciless Eviction puts these cards into exile instead. This puts it even higher than Hallowed Burial for long-term answers. Once a card is hit by Merciless Eviction, unless it was a commander, you won't need to worry about it again for the rest of the game.

8 Blasphemous Act

Image of the Blasphemous Act card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Daarken

One of the most powerful qualities a card can possess is the ability to reduce or cheat its own mana cost. Though its full converted mana cost is technically nine, you'd be hard-pressed to find a board wipe that costs less to cast than Blasphemous Act. Dealing thirteen damage to each creature, Blasphemous Act costs one less mana to cast for each creature on the battlefield.

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Due to the multiplayer nature of Commander, this means that you'll regularly be able to cast Blasphemous Act for a single red mana. Though Blasphemous Act does not destroy creatures outright, thirteen damage will usually be enough to deal with most of your creature-based problems – bar the indestructible ones.

7 Wrath Of God And Damnation

Wrath of God and Damnation MTG Card

As functionally the exact same cards in different colours, it felt wrong to let Wrath of God and Damnation take up two slots on this list for identical reasons. Very straightforward and to the point, these cards serve as the measuring stick of what makes a good board wipe.

Each of these cards are conservatively costed, each possessing a converted mana cost of four, while containing the ability to destroy all creatures and preventing them from being regenerated. They're simple effects, but they get the job done just as well now as they did back when they were first printed.

6 Damn

Damn MTG Card

While Damnation and Wrath of God are the archetypal board wipes, Damn is effectively combines the two into a much more flexible spell. For two black mana, this card can destroy any single target creature, preventing it from being regenerated.

However, due to having an overload cost of two generic and two white, you can quickly turn it from a black removal spell into a Wrath of God. Having the choice between removing just one piece, or cleaning the entire board, makes Damn a superior version of the two cards it's inspired by.

5 Kindred Dominance

Kindred Dominance MTG Card

While Kindred Dominance totes a steep mana cost of seven mana, this black board wipe is a stellar example of a great one-sided board wipe.

Upon being cast, Kindred Dominance lets you choose a creature type. Then, each creature that isn't the chosen type is destroyed. This makes it a great choice for any creature type-focused decks that use black, as it can set your opponents back several turns while keeping your own board state intact.

4 Farewell

Farewell MTG Card

Farewell is very nearly a strictly better Merciless Eviction. It costs the same, but only requires white mana, and it can even exile your opponent's graveyards to completely shut down that pesky graveyard reanimator player.

It's an incredibly flexible card, letting you pick which permanents are causing you the most problems and entirely removing them from the game. However, Merciless Eviction still has the ability to remove planeswalkers – something that won't be a frequent problem in Commander, but you'll be very glad to have it when it's needed.

3 The Meathook Massacre

The Meathook Massacre MTG Card

Versatile and powerful, The Meathook Massacre is a legendary enchantment that doubles as a board wipe, even providing value after creatures have been cleared away. For two black mana and X, upon entering the battlefield, this enchantment causes every creature to get -X/-X until the end of turn – pay enough, and you'll even be able to remove indestructible creatures with ease.

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While this can selectively deal with creatures of varying sizes based on the board state, this enchantment also has plenty of death triggers to give you further value. If a creature you control dies, your opponents lose one life. If a creature they control dies, you gain one instead. This means that, in addition to clearing a board, this card can create massive life leads and can potentially even help close out games.

2 Vandalblast

Vandalblast MTG Card

While board wipes are synonymous with cards that clear away creatures, some board wipes focus on the removal of other types of cards. As Commander is a format rife with powerful artifacts and efficient mana rocks to help decks accelerate, artifact removal can be quite handy.

A one mana-red sorcery, Vandablast only normally destroys one artifact. However, for five mana, you can overload it to destroy every artifact you don't control instead, making it an excellent one-sided effect.

1 Cyclonic Rift

Image of the Cyclonic Rift card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Chris Rahn

If you've ever been on the receiving end of a Cyclonic Rift, you were likely aware of why it's the top of this list.

An absolute powerhouse, Cyclonic Rift does it all. As an instant, Cyclonic Rift can be cast at any point in the game, and it's a one-sided wipe that can easily set you up to win that turn. Compared to other one-sided wipes like Crux of Fate, Cylonic Rift also doesn't need you to jump through further hopps to benefit – as long as you're playing a blue deck, the good ol' Cyc Rift will sort you out.

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