Selective Obliteration 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
Each player chooses a color. Then exile each permanent unless it's colorless or it's only the color its controller chose.
Complete guide
Selective Obliteration is a powerful colorless sorcery that forces a tough decision upon every player at the table. It acts as a specialized board wipe that rewards mono-colored strategies and colorless builds while punishing multicolored permanents. This spell is particularly unique because its effectiveness depends entirely on the choices made as it resolves.
Making the Choice
When Selective Obliteration resolves, players choose a color in turn order, starting with the active player. This means if it is your turn, you choose first, and your opponents will know your choice before they make theirs. Each player only chooses one of the five colors: white, blue, black, red, or green.
What Stays and What Goes
After choices are made, the spell checks every permanent on the battlefield. A permanent survives if it meets one of two criteria: it is colorless, or it is exactly and only the color its controller chose. It is important to note that your choice only protects your own permanents; you cannot choose 'Red' to save an opponent's red creature.
The Multicolored Trap
Because the card specifies a permanent must be 'only the color its controller chose,' multicolored permanents are always exiled. Even if you choose Blue, a creature that is both Blue and Green is not 'only' Blue. Consequently, gold cards and creatures with multiple colors have no way to survive this spell unless they are somehow made colorless.
Timing and Strategy
Since this costs colorless mana, it is a staple for decks that lack access to traditional color-based board wipes. It is best played when you have a board state of colorless artifacts or creatures, or when your deck is focused on a single color, allowing you to wipe out an opponent's complex multicolored board while leaving your own forces intact.
Interaction examples
Wandering Archaic // Explore the VastlandsIf you control Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands and cast Selective Obliteration, the Archaic is safe regardless of what color you choose. Because Wandering Archaic is a colorless creature, it fails the 'unless' condition for being exiled. Colorless permanents, including most lands and artifacts, are naturally immune to this wipe.
Calamity of the TitansSuppose you have both Selective Obliteration and Calamity of the Titans in hand. While both are exile-based board wipes, Selective Obliteration is more surgical. If your opponent has a massive multicolored creature that survived your Calamity of the Titans because its mana value was too high, Selective Obliteration will exile it guaranteed, as no player can choose a color combination to save a multicolored permanent.
Guide written with AI from the official text and rulings. Official English text prevails.
How it works : Selective Obliteration
Original English text — Wizards of the Coast / Scryfall
- #1· Wizards of the Coast
Players decide and announce in turn order, starting with the active player, which color they are choosing. Players later in the turn order will know which colors were chosen by players before them.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #2· Wizards of the Coast
Lands have no mana cost, so they are colorless unless an effect states otherwise. The colors of mana that a land can produce do not affect that land's color.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #3· Wizards of the Coast
No matter what color any player chooses, all multicolored permanents will be exiled.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #4· Wizards of the Coast
The colors chosen by players affect only whether or not permanents they control will be exiled. That choice does not affect whether particular permanents controlled by other players will be exiled.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #5· Wizards of the Coast
For example, say you control a colorless creature, a blue creature, a green creature, and a creature that's both blue and green. No matter what you choose, your colorless creature will not be exiled, and your creature that's both blue and green will be exiled. If you choose blue or green, the creature you control that is only that color will not be exiled. It doesn't matter what anyone else chooses.
No other card is named in this ruling.
Legal formats
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Meta decks with Selective Obliteration
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