Pattern Recognition #376 - Board Wipes

Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

24 July 2025

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

And welcome back! No decks or videos this week, I've tapped myself out on those. So instead, it's back to discussing things in the game itself! And today's subject is something that has has something of a varied history across the game. That being the notion of the Boardwipe.

Now, for those of you that are new-ish to the game, allow me to discuss what they are in general before I start breaking them down by color. A Boardwipe is any spell or ability that destroys a given class of permanent, be it Land, Artifact, Enchantment or most commonly, Creatures. They are usually indiscriminate in their effects, though as I delve into the way colours work, you will see plenty of discrimination. Sometimes, they are called Sweepers though I don't. I just call them Wipes in the general. I'm old school like that.

Boardwipes tend to start at a Mana Value of for global, unrestricted effects. You can find them costing less - to MV if there is a conditional to their casting, or more often at higher mana values because they are a bit more effective than normal, or they have some condition to them that makes the floor a little too cheap to work.

This baseline mana value to Wipes is a driving factor in some games and formats. Commander and Modern each have paradigms and decks where you have to plan around a board wipe being dropped by your opponent - or YOU - on each turn from 4 on up. There has been a lot of discussion historically about threat assessment and whether it is worth it to commit to the battlefield when your opponent has the option to just blow it all away. If you've ever seen some of my videos where I'm chanting for my opponent to commit because I'm holding a Wipe, and they do? Well, they gambled and they lost.

Boardwipes have a place in all decks, though as you will see, some more than others. They act as a brake and a reset on the boardstate or parts there-of, and how you handle them when they come down can separate the prepared from the over-confident. Playing into and around them is a sill that can be rarely taught, but rather it must be learned from practice at dealing with the aftermath as well as setting it up yourself.

Basically, experience.

Now, there is a degree of discussion over what sort of balance there should be between Single Target Removal and Boardwipes, and in the end, my opinion is that you should always have more Wipes than Spot removal. Why? Protection, Ward, Hexproof and Shroud all work against single target removal, but not Wipes. So if you see this coming, prepare to Wipe, and be more prepared for the consequences.

Moving on, let's talk the colors and their Wipes. However, I will do so in reverse color order because it's actually more interesting that way.

Tranquility

Of the five colours (and Colourless), has the least in terms of Wipes. In fact, by itself, it can only really hit Artifacts and Enchantments with any sort of regularity. This is usually because is portrayed as the colour of raw nature, that things like Artifice and Enchantments aren't really natural, but unnatural augmentations to the Natural OrderGC of things. Stuff like Creatures and Lands are perfectly fine by them, so they avoid being harmed.

Mostly.

does have a particular sore spot when it comes to Flying Creatures, and they will, on occasion, take to blowing them all out of the sky. Whiptongue Hydra and Whirlwind both do the job, and clear the air so that all those pesky evasive creatures are gone and gone for good.

But there is one exception to even that I want to look at. Because this colour does have a singular proper example of a potential creature-based boardwipe, and that is Ezuri's Predation. This spell gives you a whole bunch of creatures that then ifght everything else out there. And 4/4's are pretty respectable in bulk. Even if they don't win all their fights, that's removing a lot of chaff and fluff from the board. Include Anthem effects, or even global Deathtouch like Bow of Nylea, then that becomes a very expensive, but very powerful boardwipe that leaves you in an advantageous position.

Until your opponent Wipes as well.

Brotherhood's End

would like you to know that it does two things really well. The first is to Destroy all Artifacts. And destroy them as fast and as often as possible. Shatterstorm, Hammer Mage, Structural Assault... you name it, it will probably destroy an artifact at some point in its long and storied career.

And yet, this colour is also the color of getting Artifacts out into play. It's the color of Daretti, Scrap Savant, and cards like that. You see, 's take on Artifacts is that they are not only great ot build, but equally great to tear down and build something new from the scraps. Renewal in its own way. Something that its nominal color allies in and approve of in their own way. Giving something up to get something back.

But seriously, if you are having trouble with Artifacts from your opponents, this is the color to deal with them.

Moving on, is also the color of MASSIVE DAMAGE. If there is a way to do absurd amounts of damage to everything in the game, this color has it. From Pyroclasm to Inferno to Blasphemous Act, this is now this color clears the board.

However, this type of Wipe is not without its positives and negatives. First is that these are all purely damaged based effects. Which means that any target with sufficient toughness will simply survive the blow out and stick around to do some more damage. On the flip side, this colour has the methods at hand to take that damage and make it something else. From Repercussions to Brash Taunter, it's an easy half-step to go from global damage to a proper kill.

Lastly, also dabbles in Mass Land Destruction. Yes, that's a thing. Yes, Commander players get real salty over it. They need to grow up. Because this colour will Boil, will wait for the Impending Disaster, will Obliterate all before it, and bring them to Ruination. Mass Land Destruction has a place in the game's ecosystem, but sadly far too many people don't like it when their precious mana bases get blown up and they have to start from scratch. Yet, until those cards are banned, they are an option on the table. If you do go for it, please remember cards like Dingus Egg to make it stick.

Final Act

gets into the Boardwipe game with gusto and excitement, that's for sure! They will blow up all sorts of Creatures in many different ways, from Bontu's Last Reckoning to Kindred Dominance to Mandate of Abbadon.

But there are two things that separate this color from everyone else. The first is that this is the only colour that will properly mass-remove Planeswalkers. Sure, other colours can remove them, but that's usually as part of hitting all Non-Lands or something like that. In Garruk's Wake is an example of this. But these were cards printed in an era when Walkers were far more common than they are now, and the option to simply blow them all out of the water was something people wanted. You know, just in case.

However, does creature-Wipes in an interesting manner. They won't just outright destroy things, but like , they will do toughness checks on all the creatures on the battlefield through -X/-X spells. These include The Meathook Massacre or Languish or Toxic Deluge. These sorts of effects may not be able to hit everything, but they can clear the chaff off the board much like can and does. And with some cards checking their power when they die, the reduction there can help out. Like me killing a Hearfire Hero with a Virtue of Persistence which also reduces their power to 0 or lower, meaning they deal no damage at all!

The other thing they do is force sacrifices. While Blasphemous Edict is a powerhouse in its own right, there are cards like Killing Wave, or Archfiend of Depravity to bypass pesky things like Protection, Indestructible and other things that prevent you from destroying your opponents stuff directly. Go for it! Hit them with it anyways when you cast Torment of Hailfire for 17!

Just don't expect to hit any other permanent type, ever.

Aetherize

doesn't do Boardwipes. At least, not in the traditional sense. They don't destroy things en-mass, except as breaks in the colour pie, so what this color likes to do is soft Wipes.

This is to say, it like to Boomerang as many things back to the opponent's hands en masse, and set them back not only in terms of time, but in hand size and resources. It doesn't matter how many cards you have in your hand if you can't cast them all, and flooding someone out like this means they can't rebuild to recover in time for your offensive.

For this colour though, creatures are the most common type of permanent removed, but after that, it will hit everything that isn't a land indiscriminately. Which is to say, an Overloaded Cyclonic RiftGC is still one of the most dangerous spells in the game. Especially as it doesn't send anything to the graveyard.

Wrath of God

Before they were called Sweepers, Wipes were known as Wraths because of the one true god-king of Board Wipes, the one against whom every successor is measured. The Wraths started here, with this colour, back in Alpha, and it is here they have stayed ever since. There is no permanent type they cannot touch, no defense can hold them back.

If wants your stuff gone, IT IS GONE. The only question is how much collateral will happen in the process. Armageddeon, Austere Command, Don't Move, Fall of the Thran, Mageta the Lion, Planar Cleansing, Shatter the Sky, to What Must be Done. Boardwipes are so closely tied with 's colour identity that they get multiple new ones (or functional reprints) every year.

It's a curious Balancing Act, but given that this is also the color of catching up and playing fair, in a way the predominance of Wipes in this color makes sense as they cut you back down to size and have more resources afterward because they haven't been rushing ahead. When your opponent is in this color, be prepared to say FarewellGC to everything you have built up.

Honestly, has so many options, it becomes a matter of taste as to what you want to add to your deck here.

Boardwipes, Sweepers, Wraths. They are more of an art than a science at this point. There is no one real winner in this type of card, no one piece that you can point to and say without a doubt is better than all others. There are many that have conditions and limits that you can play and plan around, making them better for yourself while harming the opponents disproportionately.

Plan for them. Include them. Run 17 in a Nemata, Primeval Warden deck because why not? Not I have ever done that....

Take your pick, and tell me in the comments below what you look for in a Wipe! C'mon, engagement drives engagement! Talk! Comment! I don't bite. That's a different subject entirely.

Thank you all for watching and reading, and I'll see you all next week!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!