Hello happy Commander players specifically and multiplayer players generally! I've got your Top Ten Black Mass Sweepers for you all! This is a sequel to last week's Top Ten White Sweepers here. I didn't do Blue since it's not really good at mass sweeping, with it's mass bounce not removal. This list is not for Cyclonic Rift or Aetherize but things of a mass removal nature. Black debuted with Pestilence and got mass sweeper in Legends called Hellfire three sets later. Then we need some mass removal sweepers to save us from imminent death! These are the emergency dinghy into which we flee when we hit that ship sinking threat. Now we've got tons more, ready?
Honorable Mention
Life's Finale
This six-mana mass sweeper of critters kicks off our list! On resolution, you can also Buried Alive your foe. Typically, this isn't great in Commander/multiplayer since we use our graveyards as second hand. It's a may effect though. You can use this to make friends, use recursion yourself on their stuff like Reanimate and then also if you have a Bojuka Bog effect in your hand to exile their best three things. Three good times to use it, and, again, you don't have to at all.
Overwhelming Forces
This Portal Black rare is next! It's been changed from "Destroy all your opponent's creatures" to target opponent, so it's back here. You'll destroy them, not yours great!! Then you'll draw a card for each one that bit it, love that much too! I just wished they hadn't dropped that all things to one player since this thing costs eight mana, and it's not that powerful for all foes at that mana. You might disagree sure, but this is still fine in multiplayer since a foe bites it and you can refill that hand.
Their Name is Death AND Extinguish All Hope
Check out this six-mana sweeper set in Black! The triple Black one sweeps everything that ain't an artifact dork, easy to build around for your stuff!!! The easier to cast double-Black will destroy all nonenchantments, easy to toss it in those decks and build around it too. Love this pair in their stuff all up and down the block. Love them when you sweep most opposing stuff but not yours, you will too.
Tegwyll's Scouring
You'll sweep all dorks, and then make three 1/1 Black Faerie Rogues when it resolves with flying. Then you can cast this at flash instant speed with tapping three dorks and since it'll replace them, that's great! Unlike last week's Rout, no extra mana to flash it, but unlike that you'll need untapped dorks to cast it with flash instead. I prefer the reliability of Rout. But this is Black and makes three critters post death!
Necromantic Selection
When this resolves, you'll destroy all dorks, then Zombify one to the battlefield under your control! Now this spell is a one-of getting exiled after resolution. But? It's worth it for two abilities for one card and then you can Zombify from any dead dork, like your foes too. Grab that Consecrated Sphinx you just killed!
Deadly Tempest
You can destroy all critters on resolution and then each player (you too) loses life equal to their killed dork count. Player kill in addition to dork kill! Note that if they survived with something like indestructible off a Heroic Intervention, no life loss, only if they died here, so you can play around it and keep your team and life total intact!
Blood on the Snow
This six-drop Snow sorcery is the last one before the Top Ten proper and you either sweep creatures or planeswalkers your choice! Then you can return one from your graveyard this turn equal or less than the snow mana spend to cast this. Unlike Necromantic Selection, this doesn't have to be destroyed and you can grab a planeswalker too. But also, unlike that this has to be yours and cheap. Love this, and the higher cost works since you can return a bigger run of stuff.
#10. Blood Money
This seven-costed sorcery will destroy all dorks, and if they were a nontoken? Make a tapped Treasure token for...each one? Sure, they are tapped but that's a lot of mana you are storing for a future game winning turn, right? Right!
#9. Decree of Pain
This eight-cost spell is next! On resolution they are all dying, no regeneration. Yaya! Then you'll draw a card for each one destroyed, massively great here. Even tokens!! You can also cycle this for five mana as an Infest. Play it, run it, love it!!!!!!!!(!!!)
#8. Black Sun's Zenith AND Bane of the Living
Our first X-spells! The sorcery has double-Black and then will reduce all sizes by -X/-X and then you'll shuffle it back so you can draw it again! The morph dork has a 4/3 body with X and then double Black to flip it up too. Then you can flip it up and then sweep.
Note a few things here about this duo. First, they get around indestructible, great! But you don't get the bad feelings of mass exiling. Also, you can Reanimate theirs and reuse your stuff too. Also, you can spend mana to keep your high toughness stuff but sweep what you need!
#7. Kindred Dominance AND Crux of Fate
This kindred duo is next! The seven-cost sorcery will destroy everything that's not of the creature type you choose. Love that in kindred decks, and the five mana one is even better in the most common kindred type in Commander and multiplayer - Dragons! You can destroy everything else for five mana. You can also destroy all of them for five mana too.
#6. In Garruk's Wake AND Plague Wind
The first of the two nine-costs will destroy all dorks and planeswalkers you don't control. Love it much. Then the one it was inspired by from its Core Set debut is the best of the nine casually beloved mana Winds from the Prophecy set that also destroys all of the ones you control and then they cannot regenerate either. Nice sweeping duo!
#5. The Meathook Massacre with a Shout Out to Mutilate
The Massacre will give each dork -X/-X and then it's got a great death trigger for your stuff at your foes each losing a life and their death trigger for you to gain it. Love it much you probably will too! Also, a shout out to Mutilate a cheap four mana sweeper of stuff with your Swamp counter, and since many decks are running Urborg to make them all Swamps for Cabal Coffers, just insert this and turn.
#4. Living Death
This five-cost sorcery is my highest charting mass removal spell that adds something to its effect; from here on out it's just three straight sweepers.
Living Death is my favorite sweeper-plus since you will exile all in play stuff and then put it in your graveyard, so it's sort of like all of the benefits of a -X/-X and then also all of the graveyard stuff come back too. By planning around it, you can win with it in a few turns or go from losing to winning, unlike most sweepers that take you from losing to medium states. It's also just one more mana than your traditional sweeper so you aren't waiting that long to get it up and running.
#3. Damnation
Ever since Wrath of God was color shifted to Black in Planar Chaos this spell defined the best Black mass removal as a cheap four mana mass removal of everything! Two spells since are better, but this is awesomely doing it!
#2. Final Act
For your six mana investment you can sweep any number of things! Two commonly played things - critters and planeswalkers, and then battles and make everyone else lose their counters, and then exile graveyards this time too, like Farewell in White. That's the only exiling though. Note that you might not want your opponents to lose counters if one has poison, and you might want to pull off yours, so that's a rough restriction.
It should be everyone to my mind. Then the destroying battles feels pretty weak since they are rarely played and very few of them in print. So, this is really about the first two, since Black's targeted removal only hits them and enchantments would be too great for that cost. That's why I rate Farewell and Austere Command better than this. But...what could be better than his six-cost mass sweeper of many things?
#1. Toxic Deluge
This Modern-legal one! Since it costs just three mana you can cast it pretty much any time and then sweep. Second, spending life to sweep the board is great in Commander with its 40-life start and then since you only have one in your deck it's not something you'll draw again with that lower life making it harder to play. Then since stuff is -X/-Xed like previous things, this will get around indestructible. Also, like those you can sculpt the board as you need to keep you stuff alive. The only issue is that you pay that life when cast rather than resolved, so if it's countered? Bad hit!
There we go! Remember mass sweepers keep you in the game! Run them. These are my favorites in Black but what are yours? Let me know!