The 66 Best Black Board Wipes in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 27, 2026

Toxic Deluge | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

One of the fundamentals of Magic is deckbuilding. It has to be one of the most fun parts of the game, but removal effects are essential to keep in mind as a part of this process. Your opponents try to kill you with their permanents, and you need to have a way to answer them.

Some prefer addressing the issue one by one, and others like to do it in one swing. This is why today I’m going over the best board wipes in black.

Want to know which ones are the most popular? Let's find out!

What Are Black Board Wipes in MTG?

Damnation | Illustration by Seb McKinnon

Black board wipes are spells that are usually instants or sorceries that clear the board of creatures and other permanents. Black has multiple ways to do this, and while the most popular effects are “destroy” based, some others deal damage or just give -X/-X to all creatures.

Honorable Mentions: Nausea and -1/-1 Effects

In formats like Pauper, taking out 1-toughness creatures can act like a normal board wipe. Black has many ways to do this, so there's likely a way you can make it one-sided in your favor.

#66. Last Laugh

Last Laugh is a weird board wipe. It requires some sort of sacrifice outlet to trigger it properly, and you always want to have a creature stay alive. I mention sacrifice outlets so you can manipulate how much damage you deal per turn with this.

#65. Zombie Apocalypse

Zombie Apocalypse isn’t the most effective board wipe, but it synergizes perfectly in zombie decks. Destroying all humans is also lovely, though tough luck to Gisa and Geralf.

#64. Dakmor Plague + Famine

I imagine that dealing 3 damage to each creature was a big deal back in the day. Nowadays it seems a bit expensive for 5 mana, but Dakmor Plague and Famine are still solid options that are worth mentioning.

#63. Sickening Dreams

This weird card can potentially go well in some madness-themed decks. I say “some” because Sickening Dreams isn’t necessarily good if you aim to cast your creatures with it since they resolve first. I can see some good interactions happening if you pair it with the likes of Fiery Temper.

#62. Hythonia the Cruel

Fourteen mana is a lot to commit to for a board wipe, but Hythonia the Cruel is an excellent consideration if you plan to spread this cost over multiple turns.

#61. Phyrexian Scriptures

Phyrexian Scriptures is an okay board wipe because your opponents will see it coming and can find ways to deal with it. It's still unique in killing non-artifact creatures and can work in artifact creature decks.

#60. Force of Despair

Force of Despair is a card that you’ll only be able to get the most of during your opponent's turns because it’s not likely that creatures enter on their side of the battlefield during your turns.

#59. Do or Die

Do or Die may not be the best board wipe ever created, but it's still okay at 2 mana. Unfortunately, this never hits their most important creature.

#58. Dread Cacodemon

Board wipes in the form of permanents are hard to find, but Dread Cacodemon is one of them. The only downside I see with this is that it's hard to cast and you can't cheat it onto the battlefield with a reanimation spell.

#57. Reiver Demon

Reiver Demon is another board wipe with legs. Like Dread Cacodemon, its ability only happens if you cast it from your hand.

#56. Extinction

Extinction is like Endemic Plague but better because you don't have to sacrifice any creatures to destroy the creature type you want.

#55. Hellfire

If you’re looking for one-sided board wipes while running a mono-black deck, Hellfire is an excellent card. But you’ll need to watch out if the number of creatures destroyed is greater than your life total.

#54. Bane of the Living

Bane of the Living is a bit expensive to pull off but you can surprise players by unexpectedly morphing a Bane of the Living as a combat trick, or when the situation needs it.

#53. Kindred Dominance

Kindred Dominance is the counterpart of Extinction. It destroys all creatures that aren’t of a chosen type, which makes it perfect for typal decks.

#52. Necromantic Selection

If clearing the board of creatures wasn’t enough, Necromantic Selection also lets you choose a creature that died to it to return to your side of the battlefield. Notably, this can snag commanders that died before they have a chance to go to the command zone.

#51. Dregs of Sorrow

You’ll need to invest a lot of mana to get the most out of Dregs of Sorrow, but destroying up to 10 creatures and drawing the same number of cards is the dream.

#50. Overwhelming Forces

The only downside to Overwhelming Forces is its casting cost because this has gotta be one of the best wrath effects ever printed otherwise.

#49. Deadly Tempest

Deadly Tempest punishes any player that wanted to go over the top by creating an excessive number of creatures. If you build your deck with almost no creatures to assume the control role, this is the card you’re looking for.

#48. Consume the Meek

Instant-speed board wipes are hard to find, and that's exactly what Consume the Meek is. It may limit the number of things you can kill with it but is still a fine choice to stabilize and make a solid comeback.

#47. Crux of Fate

If you’re looking for a one-sided board wipe for your dragon deck, look no further. Crux of Fate fills that role. Just remember to choose the right mode if you’re playing on MTGA or MTGO.

#46. Season of the Witch

I like Season of the Witch as a pseudo-board wipe for creatures that didn't engage in combat this turn but could’ve. It forces attacks and is perfect for control decks.

#45. Engineered Plague

Engineered Plague was one of the preferred sideboard cards against elf decks in Legacy for a while.

#44. Plague Engineer

Plague Engineer was played in the sideboard of Eternal Magic formats as an answer against goblins, elves, humans, or typal decks in general that rely a lot on 1/1 and 2/1’s. It’s also a creature with deathtouch that can wipe the board, live, and trade later.

#43. Yahenni's Expertise

The best-case scenario for Yahenni's Expertise is to clear the board and put a creature in play right after for just 4 mana.

#42. Infest (and similar cards)

Multiple effects give creatures -2/-2 for 3 mana. Infest was one of the first that started it all and was followed by many others with the same mana cost that are minimally better because they added a little extra value.

#41. Cloudkill

What I like about Cloudkill is that it almost guarantees killing everything on the board. It may not kill an Eldrazi, but sometimes the -X/-X effect is better than destroying against creatures with indestructible.

#40. Evincar's Justice

Evincar's Justice is like two Dry Spells in one, except you can cast it multiple times during the same game, even the same turn.

#39. Crypt Rats

 Crypt Rats is a Pauper staple as one of the few board wipes in the format. The good part about this card is that if you give it lifelink and there are multiple creatures in play you gain life equal to the damage dealt to each creature.

#38. Pestilence

This is the Crypt Rats enchantment that won’t die after you use it. Pestilence still sees play in formats like Pauper that don’t have many wraths at their disposal as a pseudo-finisher, especially with cards that have high toughness. Some commanders, like Maha, Its Feathers Night or Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin benefit directly from the repeated ping effect.

#37. Ritual of Soot

Ritual of Soot is a much weaker Consume the Meek in some ways because you can’t use it at instant speed. But it's cheaper, which matters a lot for sweepers.

#36. Game Over

Game Over is an interesting board wipe that really puts the end in sight. It can save you if you're the one low on life, and destroy any hope for others if you're way ahead with other permanents.

#35. Extinguish All Hope

Extinguish All Hope is a card I like in Enchantress decks or decks with a high density of enchantment creatures.

#34. Decree of Pain

Decree of Pain is a flexible board wipe that can be cycled at instant speed for a smaller effect. While the impact might be less you can still accomplish your feats in the right spots.

#33. Demon of Dark Schemes

Demon of Dark Schemes is a fine creature on its own as a 5/5 flier. -2/-2 on ETB is enough to sweep away all the small creatures in play, which helps accumulate enough energy to start reanimating targets.

#32. Havoc Demon

Unlike the other board wipes with legs that I’ve mentioned so far, Havoc Demon’s ability only triggers when it dies, making combats a nightmare.

#31. Kagemaro, First to Suffer

Kagemaro, First to Suffer is a weird card, but being a creature gives you the ability to play it multiple times during a match if you happen to run some sort of recursion in your deck since its ability isn’t tied to being cast from the hand.

#30. Zero Point Ballad

Zero Point Ballad is a tricky one because you need to put in the mana and pay the life to destroy stuff. To get to x=6 is tough, but worth the effort because you get a head start on rebuilding.

#29. Massacre Wurm

The ultimate “Infest on a stick,” Massacre Wurm not only sweeps away small creatures, but also occasionally ends the game on the spot. It's the bane of token decks everywhere, and the life loss effect applies to all creatures that die, not just the weenies that got caught up in its ETB effect.

#28. Their Name Is Death

With a few exceptions, you’re downing all creatures with Their Name Is Death. The math changes when you’re playing artifact creatures, and then you’re casting Plague Wind in disguise, only paying 6 mana instead of 9. This black sorcery is good in nonartifact decks, but it’ll truly excel in artifact ones.

#27. Nuclear Fallout

Nuclear Fallout is Infest at base X=1, and it only gets better from there. This card gets much better if you plan on using the rad counters for mill effects, or self-mill.

#26. Day of Black Sun

Day of Black Sun is a flexible board wipe that answers a lot. Remember that tokens have a mana value of 0, indestructible goes away, and any death triggers will get shut off.

#25. Drag to the Bottom

Drag to the Bottom is basically Planar Despair but one mana cheaper. It caps out at -6/-6 with full domain, and usually starts of at -3/-3 with ease.

#24. Noxious Ghoul

Noxious Ghoul is another example of the various one-sided board wipes for zombie decks. The more you zombies play each turn, the greater its effect is.

#23. Plague Wind

Plague Wind is a simple, effective, and expensive one-sided board wipe. Not much else to be said here.

#22. In Garruk's Wake

In Garruk's Wake is the slightly upgraded version of Plague Wind. Same mana cost, but it also gets rid of planeswalkers.

#21. Rain of Daggers

Speaking of cards that look alike, Rain of Daggers is 3 mana cheaper than Plague Wind and In Garruk's Wake, but you need to pay 2 life for each creature destroyed.

#20. Life's Finale

I like Life's Finale because you wipe the board and look at your opponent's library. From there you can gather information on what cards they may have in their hand and, more importantly, get rid of some annoying creatures they may have in their library.

#19. Nature's Ruin + Perish + Virtue's Ruin

Some board wipes destroy creatures based on their colors. Nature's Ruin and Perish both destroy all green creatures while Virtue's Ruin takes care of the white creatures.

#18. Reign of Terror

You can choose to destroy either white or green creatures with Reign of Terror, which makes it a one-sided board wipe if your deck doesn’t run any of those colors or your creatures just don't share them.

#17. Villainous Wrath

Villainous Wrath just wrecks token decks and go-wide strategies. You already want to make it hurt for having too many creatures in play, so if we take 4 mana as the going rate, more for a good chunk of life loss is very much worth it.

#16. Blood on the Snow

Playing snow lands isn't all that difficult, and you can clear the board and still have the most powerful creature or planeswalker on your side of the field if you’re willing to pay Blood on the Snow‘s price (literally).

#15. Bontu's Last Reckoning

If you manage to pay for Bontu's Last Reckoning’s mana cost with something other than lands, you’ll have one of the better board wipes out there on your hands. It's just a cheap way to clear the board.

#14. Heartless Conscription

Eight mana isn’t what we’re ideally thinking when casting a spell, but Heartless Conscription delivers. Getting to play the exiled cards over the course of a few turns guarantees you’ll have fuel for a long time. Theft commanders also want this card, because of all the extra synergies of casting or controlling your opponents’ cards.

#13. Dead of Winter

Dead of Winter reads “creatures get -3/-3 by turn 3” in a dedicated snow deck, and it scales up beyond there.

#12. Feast of Succession

Clearing the board is one thing, but doing that and getting a one-sided Howling Mine that favors you makes Feast of Succession worth looking at.

#11. Languish

Languish is one of the best board wipes I’ve ever seen. But it may be less prevalent in the future if they keep printing somewhat cheap creatures with 5 toughness like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

#10. The Rise of Sozin / Fire Lord Sozin

If I could pay and get right to Fire Lord Sozin, it would be a great card. To get there I can take advantage of two powerful saga chapters of The Rise of Sozin.

Here's a common scenario, a bunch of 2-drops and 3-mana creatures scatter across the board, mucking up any good attacks. Boom. Hit them with a comet-powered board wipe, then aim for that avatar (or any problematic creature you know of) that'll get reanimated, and then go to work bending the will of those little creatures you destroyed onto your side of the war. It's simply devastating.

#9. Final Act

Final Act looks like a black Farewell. Although battles are niche, getting rid of creatures, planeswalkers, and even counters, say energy counters or experience counters, is very valid. Note that you can’t save yourself from poison this way, it only counts opponents’ counters.

#8. Massacre

As I may have mentioned already, 4 mana to give -2/-2 to all creatures is a bit expensive. But Massacre may be a turn-1 board wipe against the right decks running white if needed.

#7. Blasphemous Edict

Foundations‘ Blasphemous Edict has that Blasphemous Act pedigree, in that you can wrath the board by paying only 1 mana, and you get to make each player sacrifice 13 creatures. You’ll then have an improved Damnation, because players usually have fewer than 13 guys at a given moment, and sacrifice gets around a lot of stuff like indestructible and protection.

#6. Deadly Cover-Up

Deadly Cover-Up is a Standard staple, partially because having the option to collect evidence and get rid of a certain threat for good is strong. Against decks that rely a bunch on, say, milling via Jace, the Perfected Mind or the combos involving Worldsoul's Rage, it’s practically an auto-win. You can also answer problematic gods like Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal this way.

#5. Mutilate

Mutilate can act as the best board wipe ever printed depending on the deck, especially if you pair it with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

#4. The Meathook Massacre

The Meathook Massacre is a total bomb. Not only can you adjust the X value to selectively keep your stuff alive, but it also sticks around as a beneficial enchantment. There's tons of value packed into this thing, and if you think your deck's strategy can work alongside this even partially, it's a great inclusion.

#3. Blood Money

As its name implies, Blood Money gives you Treasure tokens for each creature that it kills. Expensive, but it'll pay you back on the following turn.

#2. Damnation

Damnation is by far one of the best board wipes of all time. It's cheap, elegant, and your opponent's creature can't save themselves with regeneration.

#1. Toxic Deluge

Toxic Deluge has to be the best board wipe ever printed, especially in formats where the life total starts above 20. Toxic Deluge was one of the New-to-Modern cards reprinted in Modern Horizons 3, and will probably become a Modern staple.

Wrap Up

Dead of Winter | Illustration by Zack Stella

As you may have seen there are tons of board wipes in black. It's the color with the most variety of ways to kill multiple creatures. Some may be straight better than others, and some are the best according to their format, but there’s undoubtedly a vast selection of them in this color.

Did you like the list? Were there any black board wipes I may have missed that you like? Please let me know in the comments or over on the Draftsim Twitter.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Thank you for hanging out and have a great day!