Hello and happiest of days to each of you! I hope that this day and article finds you as well as possible! Today, I wanted to give you my thoughts on Sweepers in Multiplayer in the modern game and some suggestions on when and what to use. I grew up playing casual multiplayer formats like Five Color the Format where today you need 300 cards and 25 per color. People adored White for its diverse slate of answers and sweepers in a multiplayer context. Black had the goods too. We emphasized those colors too, over red and such.

I adore a sweeper in a multiplayer game because it's always card advantage. Not draw, mind you, but just an advantage. Imagine a four-player game where you have in your hand Wrath of God. You have out two dorks, one foe has just one - an Esper Sentinel, another is in a token brew with five and then the last player has two too. When you cast Wrath, you are spending one card and losing two more for 8 dorks. 3:8 - not bad math for you, right? And the more people you play against or the more things your sweeper can pick off, like Planar Cleansing the better that math becomes.

Also, every deck wants sweepers, even ones heavy with permanents, because your foes will be doing stuff. It'll keep you alive. I also typically don't like mass exiling sweepers like Farewell I'd rather run Austere Command or sacrifice stuff, with some exceptions. Ditto Cyclonic Rift which is a bad feel.

Let's look at some of the best sweepers in today's metagame, and then some you might have forgotten about!

Sweep and Keep

Let's start with sweepers that are great at keeping your stuff in the game by only taking out a subset of stuff you can build around. The first are power based sweepers you can just run in aggro or Hate Bears. The three-cost sorcery takes out all stuff with a power of 4 or more and then the next one can destroy them with a power of three and then leave you behind a Food for each one of yours that survived. Another great example here is Elspeth, Sun's Champion.

This section is next hitting all opposing stuff and not yours. In Garruk's Wake will only destroy your opponent's stuff, the creatures and planeswalkers. Then swing and win. Then the two-cost sorcery in White Winds of Abandon can overload of six can Path to Exile all opposing dorks! Now that does Exile, but they get a land per exiled thang so it's a bit nicer. And at six mana and not tons of stuff either. Mizzium Mortars would also work here or Earthquake in a brew with flyers and Ruinous Ultimatum.

Good Ultimate Answers

Now let's turn to good mass removal stuff that get around mass protection like Heroic Intervention. The four-cost Black sorcery will hit each thing for a minus -1/-1 to kill them for each Swamp you control - and that's brilliant with Urborg. Then the three-cost sorcery will pay any amount of life for the same ability! You can sculpt it to save some of your stuff too.

Now let's turn to a five-cost pair that forces everyone to sacrifice the goods! Living Death will swap all in play stuff with all graveyard stuff so if you set it up, you can win and get to a great place with triggers like Mulldrifter. Then Blasphemous Edict will force each player to sac 13 dorks each, and then it can be just one if enough dorks are out. Love it!

Multiplayer Classic

Now let's turn to classic multiplayer sweepers, one old school and one sometimes forgotten. Rout costs five for a Wrath of God variant, but can be flashed for another two mana. That flashing means you are protected from an Alpha Strike, Craterhoof Behemoth or Insurrection outta nowhere, it earns it's keep. Then the modern classic Red one shoots each dork for 13 and then is reduced in cost by each dork on the battlefield - minimum one.

Two six-cost White sweepers that can take out a few things are next! Austere Command takes out two - either all enchantments, artifacts, or cheaper or bigger costed dorks. Then Akroma's Vengeance with cycling three can take down three types in artifacts, enchantments and critters - but no choice here.

This three-drop Golgari enchantment is so good that it made "The Rock" into an actual proper brew. You can spend X and then sweep that amount of costs or fewer. That's everything with a cost save lands and planeswalkers. Once you've dropped it, people are often not swinging your way either.

Damage-Based Stuff

Now let's turn to X Burn-based removal like Magmaquake. The instant speed cycler above for three is first. You can shoot everything but not players. That's just nasty at instant speed. Then the sorcery X will shoot all dorks and players that don't have horsemanship - pretty much them all too. Then you can use that to kill players too with low life.

And now let's turn to two Rakdos four-drop enchantments with an activated ability to ping each player and dork each mana spent: Pestilence and Pyrohemia. Then in our EOT if none are there, you sac this. First you can get around that sac with just dropping a dork after clearing the board out. Secondly, this era was dominant with protection for Black dorks like White Knight and the pump Knights, so you often saw the Pestilence with White and then Circle of Protection: Black to shut down damage to you. That was a rough combo to crack for creature brews. Today you can just insert indestructible stuff instead. Love this pair much, do not sleep on them.

The Mass-Card Draw Duo

Now let's turn to this great sorcery speed pricier but with the ability to draw for each thang destroyed. The second-best Decree after Justice is this card drawing eight-cost Black machine. You can destroy them all! You'll easily refill your hand. Or you can cycle for five for an Infest. Then the Sultai colored eight-cost will also destroy enchantments as well as dorks, and then again draw them all!

Great Synergy

Next up after things that have great synergies the more foes you are running up against. There are a few mass removal spells in White that destroy all dorks that are tapped so you can swing and punish those that came your way or other waves too, that attacked you or others. Sunblast Angel has that on a flying 4/5 body, so drop and swing and kill everything tapped. Then the Azorius four-cost sweeper Supreme Verdict cannot countered, so there's no traditional answer to someone about to lose their stuff!

When they are Colorless

Another great time to toss in sweepers are into any brew that needs it no matter the color is with things like the above two artifacts or All is Dust. The classic four-drop above ETBs tapped, taps with one to destroy all of three types in rocks, dorks and enchantments. Note it doesn't sac, so if it's countered it sticks around or you can give it indestructible. This made Blue Control work in the early days too. Then the three-drop can be tapped with four to toss a counter onto something to save it and the with five to sac and destroy everything that's not a land or with a counter. Also, one good thing about the Disk is that sure, everyone has as a turn to respond, but once it's untapped? No one is swinging or targeting your stuff. Because of how cheap that one mana is, you can easily be the first to drop

When they are for your Brew

There are also a number of sweepers that don't sweep what you are built around. For example, one will only sweep non-token stuff in case you are there. The problem tough with that is that you often might save things your foe might have to which is fine. One of the first if those was the five-cost White one above that only sweeps what isn't enchanted, so it is it'll stick. Love that in Voltron or Aura brews, and it's nice as a way to even the odds given the innate card disadvantage Auras are. One of my favorites though is the seven-cost White one that only destroys non-White stuff. Obviously, that wants to be in a smaller White deck, but sweeping around 80% of creatures at the table is great when few of yours are biting it.

There we go! I hope that you enjoyed my look at Sweepers with enhanced value in multiplayer in addition to the goods with Wrath and such. Do you tend to run sweepers too like me? Let me know!