Hello happy removal fans! I hope that your day is going mega well! Today I wanted to move on from my six-part series on the best pinpoint removal for Commander/Multiplayer available from White to last week's gold to mass removal. Every deck should have some emergency removal options for mass stuff in case it's needed to survive a lethal attack or combo. White has always been king of mass removal, ever since the first set's Wrath of God and Armageddon broke formats and causal in half. No, 'Geddon won't be in today's list, thank goodness, no worries.
#16. The Sweepers of High-Powered Stuff
Many decks run cheaper and lower powered stuff like Hate Bears, Aggro, Midrange and my own Bear Beats in real life here (https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/abesargent-08202018-real-life-commander-abzan-bear-beats) and two ones for you here in Delney (https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/abesargent-02272024-mono-White-bear-beats-with-delney) and Arabella (https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/abesargent-09242024-boros-bear-beats-with-arabella-in-commander). This three card trio above do great good! The one from the LOTR set above will destroy everything with a power of 3 or more and you'll get free Food for each of yours that survives. The older pre-modern one will destroy everything power of four, but my favorite is the aftermath four-cost to destroy all three-power stuff and then five mana once later to bring back all small stuff from your graveyard to the battlefield!!
#15. Sunfall
This five-cost sorcery is next! It'll exile all dorks in play, which is nice since that exiling means they cannot answer that with interaction likeHeroic Intervention since it exiles. There is no coming back from that exiling. Then you get an artifact token you can spend two mana for to make it equal to the number of dorks this answered.
Well, that's strong, sure, but I feel a few things better than this hit higher or I'd prefer. First, to get the biggest incubator token from this, you need to wait until the board is fuller and take more damage. Secondly, you are going to want to run your stuff to get a bigger token too, and all things are exiled, yours too, I'd actually prefer this in some ways with a destroy instead for your commitment and not hurting you as much. It would also be less of a feel bad too if someone lost their stuff they built around but weren't hurting you like that Windborn Muse to keep them alive while you needed to answer the Aggro deck with 5 dorks and a Consecrated Sphinx from another player and such.
#14. Fumigate
Another five-cost sorcery is next, this sweeps instead of exiles above both better and worse, but you'll gain a life for each one destroyed here instead of the Incubate token above. These benefits are pretty even, but overall I'd prefer this in lifegain or control brews and the above on in tokens. It's just reprinted in Standard for another five-year run in the sun.
#13. Ondu Inversion // Ondu Skyruins
This eight-cost modal spell land that ETBs tapped is next! It'll destroy all things that ain't lands. And you can just pull a Plains and it's cheap! Since you don't have to fight for a spot traditionally, you may argue that this shouldn't make my list since it's easy to add to your decks compared to the above and below stuff.
#12. Urza's Ruinous Blast
This can be both an amazing exiling removal spell since only nonland legendary stuff avoids it, or bad since your foes might have a ton of stuff like their Commander, planeswalkers and classics like The One Ring too that dodge it. But it also needs to have a legendary dork or 'walker too to be cast, which is rough too.
#11. Hour of Reckoning AND Organic Extinction
These two pricey sorcery speed removals are next with ways to drop them that only hit certain things you are building around to drop their price. The Hour costs seven, has convoke for tapping your stuff, but saves tokens which you can tap without losing them to this. The Extinction has a cost of 10, with improvise so your artifacts, not just dorks, can tap for this's reduction. Then artifact dorks are saved which you can build around too.
#10. Martial Coup AND White Sun's Twilight
This X-spell sorcery duo with two White to start is next! They will create dorks, the first 1/1 Soldiers and the latter 1/1 artifact Mites that cannot block with toxic 1. Then they'll destroy all other stuff if you spend at least 5 mana on that fun thang! Love this duo loads.
#9. Vanquish the Horde
This eight-drop will be reduced for one mana for each dork, to sweep them all, so the more you need it the cheaper it gets!
#8. Cleansing Nova
Roughly halfway in today's countdown is this mass removal one with two options to either destroy dorks on one hand or all artifacts and enchantments on the other!! I adore that sheer flexibility rather than the cheaper potential but just dork removing one above. Don't need your dorks swept? Like your Ghostly Prison and Propaganda taxes staying after mass removal? Just do what's needed!!
#7. Rout
This five-mana sorcery is next with the ability to destroy everything for one more mana than normal, but you can flash it out for two more mana instantly to clean up that board all up and down the block. Sometimes you need an instant speed answer to save you that's nicer than Cyclonic Rift, enter this which is totally worth it!
#6. Mass Calcify
This seven-mana sorcery regularly hits my sweeper slots in White. You know your Commander won't be hurt, and roughly 20% of stuff at a given table will survive but yours should be way better. This is worth it, you can mass sweep everything not in your color! The fewer your colors, the stronger this spell is!
#5. Winds of Abandon
I adore this underused two-cost sorcery for one target and then overload for six. Base? It's a Path. Strong card! Then later your six mana overload Paths all dorks you don't control so you can hit as much stuff as you need. Now sure, they'll get the ramping but exile removal is great and then they are less likely to care if you just gave them four or five lands and come after you hard! Love it much. Try it I think you will too!
#4. Wrath of God AND Day of Judgment
At four mana, the classic Wrath of God is the cheapest mass sweep spell that hits everything. And no regeneration too. Ditto Day of Judgment just made legal in Standard with its reprint in Foundations. Due to their cheap and iconic-ness they had to be here! They are studly, but there are three I like better! Since you have 40 life in Commander you have more time to grab better options that'll save your stuff, like Winds of Rath, so they are here at the four-spot overall.
#3. Final Showdown
This one mana instant has spree! It can destroy all dorks for six mana, and then add a mana to pull off abilities to sweep everything and then another mana to give your dork indestructible so it'll be left behind like, say, your Commander! Love it much you will too!
#2. Austere Command
Duh! This six-mana sweeper of two things has to be here. Right? Right! You can sweep up those artifacts, enchantments, cheap dorks or pricey dorks! Just insert your battlefield and personal losses and turn! I regularly use this to sweep the worst of the first two and the worst dorks for the situation that saves me as much as possible or my Commander too. Many will use this to sweep just nondorks since they have a strong table of creatures. Love it! What could be higher?
#1. Farewell & Akroma's Vengeance
It mass sweeps up to four things, dorks, graveyards, enchantment and artifacts. You choose! Because this exiles, not destroys, this cannot be traditionally answered or brought back. That's why it has to be here, but I typically prefer Austere Command with its destruction above instead and run it more in my brews.
For example, suppose you are playing against an Enchantment Brew with things like Wild Growth instead of Rampant Growth since it's an enchantment and Mesa Enchantress Mesa Enchantress to draw. Normally, if you are swept mass because someone else was running bad stuff to survive, that's a bad hit to them if they were destroyed. But they could, considerably, cast something like Replenish or other mass enchantment recursion to bring them all back, so it's less of a punch to the face...but Farewell? No one comes back, and it can feel rough to permanent based brew that aren't dominating the table or likely to win but get caught up in it, so run the Command or a shout out to something like Akroma's Vengeance or Planar Cleansing for this cost instead.
There we go! I hope that you enjoyed my first of the Sweeper articles section! What are your thoughts? What do you lean on to sweep and keep you in the game or leave your stuff alone? Wrath of God or Winds of Abandon? Vanquish the Horde or Austere Command?