Cataclysm
Sorcery
Each player chooses from among the permanents they control an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, and a land, then sacrifices the rest.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Exodus
- Price
- $16.36
- EDHREC rank
- #12255
Cataclysm resets the board to one land, one creature, one artifact, one enchantment per player — a asymmetric reset that leaves whoever built around it standing while everyone else rebuilds from scratch. It's the most punishing symmetrical wipe in white, and the four-mana cost means you can deploy it ahead of the curve.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Cataclysm is a scalpel disguised as a sledgehammer — the symmetry is fake once you've built around it, and wiping three opponents back to one land each is effectively a game-ending tempo swing. Legacy sees it occasionally in white prison shells alongside Armageddon effects, where the goal is the same: strand opponents on minimal resources while you advance through a lock piece. Vintage permits it but the format's speed makes a four-mana sorcery compete poorly against the raw broken-ness already legal there. Oathbreaker is the sleeper slot — planeswalker-forward builds can keep the one enchantment or artifact that generates loyalty while Cataclysm strips the table bare.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
Ravages of War is a functional reprint of Armageddon that hits only lands — cheaper in execution than Cataclysm but without the multi-permanent restriction, so it's better in dedicated land-destruction builds and worse in artifact or enchantment synergy shells. Jokulhaups and Obliterate hit everything including lands for more mana, which loses the surgical precision that makes Cataclysm worth running; they're fallbacks if you just want the table reset and don't need to survive with a specific permanent.
Price Context
Current price
$16.36 mid tier
At $16.36, Cataclysm sits in mid-tier pricing for a Reserved List card with niche but loyal demand — it's not a staple in most decks, but the inability to reprint it puts a floor under the price. For a one-copy effect this specific, $16 is fair if your deck is built to break parity; paying that for a casual wipe in a list that can't exploit the asymmetry is waste.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.