Extinction Event is one of those cards players keep asking about. Here is, in plain words, what its official text says, the rulings published by Wizards of the Coast, and the combos players actually run.
Official card text
Choose odd or even. Exile each creature with mana value of the chosen quality. (Zero is even.)
Complete guide
Extinction Event is a powerful and flexible board wipe from the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths set. It offers black mages a way to bypass indestructible and graveyard triggers by exiling specific threats based on their mana values. Whether you are facing a swarm of tokens or a curve of efficient creatures, this sorcery allows for surgical precision.
Choosing the Fate of the Board
When you cast Extinction Event, you do not choose 'odd' or 'even' until the spell is actually resolving. This is important for strategy: your opponents must decide whether to use protection spells or countermagic before they know which creatures you intend to name. Once the spell begins to resolve and you make your choice, it is too late for anyone to respond; the chosen creatures are immediately exiled.
Understanding Mana Values
To use this card effectively, you must understand how Magic defines mana values. A creature's mana value is the total amount of mana in its casting cost, regardless of color. If a creature has {X} in its cost, such as a hydra, X is treated as 0 while it is on the battlefield. Furthermore, standard creature tokens have a mana value of 0, which the game considers an even number.
Strategic Timing and Placement
Because Extinction Event exiles rather than destroys, it is your best tool against recursive threats or creatures with 'dies' triggers. Unlike cards that reduce toughness, it doesn't care about the creature's size, only the numbers printed in the top right corner of the card. Use it when your opponent's board state is heavily weighted toward one parity while your own key creatures fall into the other category.
Interaction examples
VictimizeIf your opponent uses Victimize to bring back two powerful creatures with mana values of 3 and 5, they are both odd. On your turn, you cast Extinction Event and choose 'odd.' Because the effect exiles them, your opponent cannot simply use another recursion spell to bring them back later, as they are removed from the game entirely rather than sent to the graveyard.
Toxic DelugeImagine a board full of 1/1 Soldier tokens. Unlike Toxic Deluge, which requires you to pay life to clear the board, Extinction Event can clear all those tokens for a flat mana cost. Since tokens that aren't copies have a mana value of 0, and the rules state zero is even, choosing 'even' will exile every token on the battlefield without affecting your creatures with odd mana values.
Guide written with AI from the official text and rulings. Official English text prevails.
How it works : Extinction Event
Original English text — Wizards of the Coast / Scryfall
- #1· Wizards of the Coast
You choose odd or even while Extinction Event is resolving. Players can't take any actions between the time you make that choice and the time some creatures go extinct.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #2· Wizards of the Coast
If a creature on the battlefield has
in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.No other card is named in this ruling.
- #3· Wizards of the Coast
The mana value of a token that isn't a copy of another object is 0. A token that is a copy of another object has the same mana cost as that object.
No other card is named in this ruling.
Legal formats
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Meta decks with Extinction Event
No archived Top 8 deck with this card yet.