Blue board wipe spells in Magic: The Gathering brings with them a unique style of play not found in any other color. These spells offer various possibilities in eliminating creatures on the field with a few mind-bending twists. To know the right blue sweepers to add to your deck, you need to understand the value of these spells and be aware of their potential drawbacks.

On average, the best blue board wipe in Magic The Gathering is Cyclonic Rift. Blue board wipe spells do not destroy creatures, they instead return creatures back to their owner’s hand or deck and avoid the use of the graveyard. This is commonly referred to as having a permanent “bounced.”

Wait a second! Why would I use a board wipe that doesn’t destroy anything?

Blue board wipe spells may not destroy creatures, but the bounce effect will cause these permanents to stay off the board long enough for you to take advantage during a game. Also, returning creatures to their owner’s hands bypass indestructible creatures and regeneration effects since nothing is destroyed.

Blue board wipes have a “cunning” and “intellectual” approach to handling permanents on the board, which is why the suitable blue board wipe depends on your strategy of play.

So, check out the list of blue board wipes for Magic: The Gathering to see which one would be best for your deck

1. Whelming Wave

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Penny Dreadful

Return all creatures to their owners’ hands except for Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents.

Whelming Wave is the mass bounce spell that loves giant sea creatures.

This spell bounces all creatures back to their owner’s hands except for Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents – which are almost always blue creatures.

You can work around Whelming Wave by adding creatures of the mentioned type to turn the spell into a one-sided mass board wipe. You can cast this sorcery without affecting your creatures, leaving you an advantageous board state.

Be careful, though, if you are playing with other blue players, it is likely that they may have some of the same creature types immune to Whelming Wave’s bounce effect. Therefore, it’s best to know ahead of time what kind of deck your opponents are playing before you add Whelming Wave to your deck to get the best effect in your games.

2. Inundate

Recommended Formats:	Commander

Return all nonblue creatures to their owners’ hands.

If you’re running a dominantly blue deck, Inundate is a must-have board wipe.

Inundate bounces all nonblue creatures back into their owner’s hands. So for 6 mana, you have a totally one-sided board wipe favoring all your blue creatures.

However, Inundate may be useless if you are up against blue-dominant opponents as it doesn’t bounce your opponents’ blue creatures either.

This spell’s mana is also quite restrictive, needing at least 3 blue mana, making it difficult to cast in multi-colored decks.

ALSO READ: Best MTG Blue Counterspells [Helpful Guide To Blue]

3. Evacuation

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Penny Dreadful

Return all creatures to their owners’ hands.

Evacuation is an excellent mass creature bounce spell in blue.

The spell returns all creatures to their owner’s hands for only 5 mana. On top of that, you can play this card on any turn since it’s an instant!

Instant bounce spells are fun to play because you can time them to force your opponent to discard cards.

For example, does your opponent have 6 cards in hand and 4 creatures on the board? During their end step cast Evacuation.

This will bounce 4 cards into their hand, giving him a total of ten cards at the end of their turn, forcing him to discard 3 into the graveyard.

And who says blue board wipes can’t destroy anything?

4. Engulf the Shore

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Penny Dreadful

Return to their owners’ hands all creatures with toughness less than or equal to the number of Islands you control.

Every blue deck will always have an island, and the more islands in play, the stronger Engulf the Shore gets.

This board wipe spell bounces all creatures with a toughness equal to or less than the islands you control for 4 mana. Meaning you can cast this spell as early as turn 4.

In the late game, this spell becomes more powerful and will be able to bounce most anything your opponents cast into play.

This works best with mono-blue decks because you’ll have an abundance of islands for lands. And even two and three-color decks can make great use of this spell, presuming blue is the primary color and your mana base contains enough Islands.

5. Curse of the Swine

Recommended Formats:	Commander

Exile X target creatures. For each creature exiled this way, its controller creates a 2/2 green Boar creature token.

Blue’s non-bounce board wipe spell is as funny as it is powerful.

Curse of the Swine is a spell that exiles X target creatures and replaces them with 2/2 boar creature tokens. Nothing is as hilarious as expelling a powerful creature like Darksteel Colossus and replacing it with a pig.

Curse of the Swine can exile indestructible creatures and prevent any graveyard triggers from taking place. Giving 2/2 boar tokens to your opponents in exchange is hardly a problem if you are getting rid of some truly troublesome creatures.

I usually target creatures that are immediate threats and high-value creatures whose abilities impede my strategies. I ignore the weaker ones to make sure I’m not spending too much mana on casting this card.

The beauty of this spell is the ability to choose which creatures to exile, thus allowing you a one-sided board wipe when you select only your opponent’s creature.

Of course, paying only one extra mana per creature makes it easier to cast as well. The only thing you have to keep in mind since Curse of the Swine “targets” creatures, those with Hexproof and protection from blue are immune from this spell.

6. Kederekt Leviathan

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Penny Dreadful

…return all other nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.

Kederekt Leviathan is a blue board wipe spell with a 5/5 body.

This creature is a 5/5 leviathan that bounces all other nonland permanents to their owner’s hands when it comes into play.

What makes this card even more powerful is its unearth ability. You can cast this again from the graveyard for seven mana in which the creature has haste and exiled at the end of turn. And yes, the board wipe still triggers!

With unearth, I can use this card in three ways from the graveyard:

• Cast the spell again when my opponent recovers and overwhelms the board.
• Cast the spell when my opponent’s life is at 5, then attack them for lethal.
• Use psychological warfare by reminding opponents of Kederekt Leviathan in the graveyard. If they even think of putting scary cards into play the threat of having them bounced is looming.

I personally enjoy the third way because it’s fun to play mind games with your opponents, just as blue spells are intended to do.

Enjoy watching your opponents second guess themselves every time they try to cast a spell with Kederekt Leviathan in the graveyard.

7. Crush of Tentacles

Recommended Formats:	Commander

Return all nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.

Crush of Tentacles is a board wipe that will pull your opponents to the deep end.

This sorcery spell returns all nonland permanents to their owner’s hands for 6 mana. Anything that isn’t land on the board is bounced, clearing the way for your strategy.

An even better option for Crush of Tentacles is to play it after a spell for its surge cost.

If cast with surge, you get an 8/8 token on the battlefield aside from the board wipe. The requirement spell is not much of a problem since low mana cost spells are abundant with blue, ensuring you always get the surge… and a sure win. 

8. Flood of Tears

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Brawl

Return all nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.

Flood of Tears is a new addition to the blue board wipe arsenal, and yes, your opponents have tears in their eyes when you cast it.

For 6 mana, you return all nonland permanents in the field, but here’s the bonus; If you return 4 or more nontoken permanents back to your hand, you may put a permanent onto the field.

This board wipe is designed to give you an advantage by placing a permanent onto the board from your hand.

Players can take advantage of this effect by choosing a high-cost permanent to put on the field like a massive creature or a disabling enchantment that’ll give them an additional advantage over your already suffering opponents.

The spell can support a powerful win condition by clearing the board and putting it on the battlefield for free.

Anyone seeing such a debating combo will definitely shed a tear.

9. Devastation Tide

Recommended Formats:	Commander

Return all nonland permanents to their owners’ hands.

Devastation Tide is the blue board wipe that cleans everything up for 5 mana.

The spell bounces all nonland permanents back to their owner’s hands, including planeswalkers, enchantments, and artifacts.

What makes this card special is it has Miracle.

This ability synergizes well with blue decks since there are many other spells and abilities like scry that will help position this card on top of your deck to trigger Miracle cost.

ALSO READ: Top Blue Tutors MTG [Pros, Cons, Formats]

10. Cyclonic Rift

Recommended Formats:	Commander, Modern

Return target nonland permanent you don’t control to its owner’s hand.

You are now looking at the most played board wipe in commander and considered one, if not the most powerful board wipe in MTG, Cyclonic Rift.

This spell can absolutely seal your opponent’s fate by giving you so much board advantage that recovery becomes impossible.

First, it’s a one-sided board wipe all the way; Cyclonic Rift only affects permanents you do not control. It even spares any enemy cards that you have gained control of through different means. It also wipes out all nonland permanent types compared to other board wipes with limiting conditions.

Second, Cyclonic Rift is a very flexible spell; You can cast it as early as turn 2 and bounce a target permanent that would cripple your opponent early, leaving him or her playing catch up to you.

You can also use its overload cost of 7 mana in the late game to turn the targeted spell into a board wipe to bounce everything your opponent has worked for this whole time. This flexibility makes Cyclonic Rift an overwhelming card that you can use at any stage of the game.

The spell is also an instant. Many board wipes are cast as sorceries, but Cyclonic Rift can be played at any point of the game when you need it most, like during your opponent’s combat phase or when your opponent’s winning combo card is still on the stack.

Cyclonic Rift doesn’t leave anything to chance and goes for the “let’s just take out everything right now just to be sure” route when dealing against your opponent’s board state.

I have experienced being in both ends of Cyclonic Rift, and I can say this card feels like an actual hurricane! 

Effectively Using Blue Board Wipe Spells

Outsmarting your opponents is one of the defining themes of blue spells.

So when you use blue board wipes, you employ out-of-the-box thinking and patience to decimate your opponents with it. Imagine you’re the Spock or Sherlock Holmes of MTG.

An example of an effective blue board wipe strategy is to add minions with “enter the battlefield” effects in your deck that take advantage of being bounced.

Creatures with significant ETB effects are ideal to be bounced back since you can recast them and trigger their abilities again. Remember Kederekt Leviathan? It’s a great creature to be bounced because of its ability. The combo gives you a repeating series of mass removals that prevents your opponents from ever keeping any permanents on the board. There are more creatures with ETB effects that you can choose, so look for those that fit well with your strategies

There are several instant board wipes in blue and, as a general rule, cast instant spells on your opponent’s turn. An example is casting a mass bounce before your opponent’s turn, as this is an ideal time that you can force a few discards in your opponent’s hand when their turn ends, assuming they have a total of at least eight cards in hand after the bounce.

That’s as good as a “destroy” in my book. Also, the same timing optimizes your mass removal as you include permanents your opponent recently played.

There’s also a subtle effect blue mass removals do that goes unnoticed by new players but capitalized by experienced players.

After a successful mass bounce, your opponents are basically playing with some of their cards in hand revealed. Smart players capitalize on that by remembering and anticipating the return of those bounced cards, like saving a counterspell or two against suspected win cons or force the opponent to be too defensive that they can’t cast potent permanent spells.

It’s not written as an ability in the cards, but gaining information about your opponent’s hand is a great advantage. Knowledge is power.

Due to its inherent theme, blue board wipes are particularly unusual to play and may need a few trials to learn how to use them optimally. But when you do, it’s going to be so much fun for sure.

So start off with the cards mentioned, take them for a spin, learn, and outsmart your opponents with your next-level strategies.