Unstable Glyphbridge | Art by Bastien Grivet

Wrath Responsibly

Hello and welcome back to Preview Review, the series that cuts through the hype to find the cards you might have missed! This time, we’re going topical and we’re going to be talking about board wipes.

You might have noticed that these days, your single target removal just doesn’t cut it. Modern commanders are, more often than not, coming with protection built in. Commanders like Felix Five-Boots and Voja, Jaws of the Conclave will make your Swords to Plowshares cost three or even four. Do you know what else costs four? Wrath of God. Join me as I journey through some of our recent offerings from Wizards, to see whether mass removal mayhem is what it takes to compete in current commander.

No Witnesses

Wrath of God might be one of the most classic cards in Magic: The Gathering, a four-mana value spell that destroys all creatures, both laid the foundation and set expectations for what we should expect from a board wipe. Fast forward thirty years to Murders at Karlov Manor and we have No Witnesses, another card that costs four mana and destroys all creatures. So how does it stack up?

Well, thirty years hasn’t changed the fact that a four-mana value spell never feels that bad to cast when you’re clearing the board. You can cast it on curve as a tempo play, or you can cast it in the late game.

The worst thing about casting a board wipe is that as the player who cast it, you’re the last person who gets to rebuild their board state. It’s worth keeping in mind then, that a four mana board wipe cast after turn four is going to leave you with a little bit of mana left over. Use this leftover mana to start the rebuilding process, and while you won’t have a full board out of nowhere, you’ll be sure to make the most of your mana even if you’ve taken a turn off to wipe the board.

No Witnesses fulfils the criteria in terms of mana cost but it comes with a slight downside: 'Each player who controls the most creatures investigates. Then destroy all creatures.’ This means that the player, or players if for whatever reason there’s a tie for who controls the most creatures, will have the opportunity to draw a card later down the line from their clue token.

Now, I think this card is perfectly playable. Allowing your opponent to draw a card later isn’t always what you want to be doing but being able to destabilise a player in a winning position is worth a card or two. If you consider that the player who controls the most creatures is either threatening to win or a token player whose board may not be made by just one more card. It’s not all bad either, your opponent will have to spend their mana to crack that clue and they’re not guaranteed to get what they want from the top of their library. Regardless of what they’ve drawn, taxing your opponent for two mana feels great… Isn't it Smothering Tithe?

Deadly Cover-Up

Now we’ve looked at our most recent Wrath of God, let’s look at our most recent Damnation.

Deadly Cover-Upcomes in at mana value of five, one generic mana more to cast than Damnation. It’s about forty times cheaper than Damnation, which is one thing but let’s see what this card brings to the table.

If we’re able to collect evidence 6 we’re also able to exile a card from an opponent’s graveyard. It’s no shock that there are a myriad of decks that utilise the graveyard. We have reanimator decks, we have aristocrats decks, and we have cards with Flashback and Escape! There are a plethora of threats that can come back from the graveyard in one way or another, and the question is. How many times have you played a game of Commander, wiped the board and one player was able to recover much faster than the other players due to having recursive threats.

Deadly Cover-Up might seem like a card you wouldn’t rush to play in EDH, after all searching your opponent’s graveyard, hand and library with cards that share names isn’t something we’re going to be able to do. That doesn’t mean it’s worth overlooking though.

The ceiling of this card is being able to wipe the board and exile something for good. Are the conditions a little narrow? Sure, but remember the floor of this card is a five mana board reset and when Voja is going to charge you five mana for the privilege of casting an Infernal Grasp then it’s worth really considering what our mana can do for us.

Terror Tide

What was lost in the Lost Caverns of Ixalan? Well, aside from the dinosaurs, demons, vampires and pirates there was also another four mana value board wipe. Let’s check out Terror Tide and see if we want to run it in our decks.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, four mana board wipes are ideal for clearing the board and beginning the rebuilding process in one turn. Now, our closest comparable card here is Languish which gives each creature -4/-4 until the end of the turn. Languish is a great card, and you’ll be surprised what that card can hit in modern commander. More and more utility creatures are found at the lower mana values as the format becomes more streamlined and efficient, so cards like Languish and Terror Tide are certainly worth running. Where Terror Tide can shine a little more however is in self-mill decks, and also in lands decks like Lord Windgrace. Fetch lands will creep up that Fathomless descent count like no other, and Golgari Commanders like Meren of Clan Nel Toth might see this card overperform.

Unstable Glyphbridge

Now we come to a new personal favourite of mine, I adore any board wipe that allows you to choose what it is your opponent gets to keep. This card comes down and leaves you all with a creature but itself can flip into a flying 5/3 Golem which can prevent you from being attacked in future turns. This card can really perform in decks that care about low toughness creatures like Frodo and Sam, or is a choice board wipe to utilise in superfriends decks like Commodore Guff who can get the most out of both sides of the card.

You might remember from my previous articles, that I adore cards that allow you to sink mana into them and Sandswirl Wanderglyph is a really nice payoff if you ever find yourself with lands in hand and five mana going spare. Its stax effect is light enough to go unnoticed by your opponents. Usually you’ll find players getting mad at mana taxing abilities like Sphere of Safety and Ghostly Prison whereas Sandswirl Wanderglyph simply protects you so long as your opponent hasn’t cast a spell in their turn. This effect is so hard to get around too; if your opponent decides to forego casting a spell in their main phase and move to attack you, they’ll forfeit the chance to cast spells for the remainder of their turn! Not only that, but Sandswirl Wanderglyph is a Flying 5/3! It’s a beater, it can contribute meaningful evasive combat damage.

As commander players, we often agonise about which cards to include in our decks but Unstable Glyphbridge offers you a lot of card for the mana. Remember you’ll need another artifact on the battlefield or in the graveyard to make the very most of this card but with all the treasures, clues, foods, blood, maps and whatever else Wizards have printed by the time this article goes live then I’d reckon you’ve got that covered.

Reset, Forget

So that’s our selective look at some of the more playable board wipes from recent sets that you might have missed! What do you think? I think that the need for board wipes is only on the up as commanders become all the more resilient to single-target removal. Undo your opponent's doomsday engine and remember, sometimes it’s better to take a turn-off to clear the board than it is to over-commit to your value engine and lose the game.

Even if you do lose your creatures, why not follow this article up with my reanimation article and make sure you can rebuild faster than your opponents ever could? For now, though, I’d love to hear from you, what board wipes are you running? How do you feel about Ward in commander? Let us know in the comments below. As per usual I’ve been Joshua also known as Princeofbieltan on the internet and you can find me here and here. Where you can ALWAYS find me, however, is casting a board wipe when the situation arises. Be sure to wrath responsibly, and I’ll see you in the next article.

Read more:

Top 10 Most Played Commander Cards From OTJ

From the Brim to the Trim - Auras And Absolute Awe

Joshua Clough

Joshua is a Medical Researcher from the UK. He's played Magic since Dragons of Tarkir and loves all things Commander, the more colours the better! When not playing Commander, he can be found insisting Jund is still a viable deck in Modern and painting tiny plastic miniatures on Twitter @PrinceofBielTan