Sweep

For board sweep, see board wipe.

Sweep
Ability Word
Introduced	Saviors of Kamigawa
Last used	Saviors of Kamigawa
Typical Text	Sweep — Return any number of [basic land] you control to their owner's hand. ...
Storm Scale	8
Scryfall Statistics
cards

Sweep is an ability word first introduced in Saviors of Kamigawa.

Description

Sweep is a mechanic based on returning one's lands to hand to fuel certain mechanics. For each, the ability was also bound by the basic land type that matched the color of the spell. It is an unbound version of the Moonfolk mechanic in Kamigawa block and ties into the wisdom theming of the set. As all moonfolk were blue, there were no Sweep cards in blue; overall, there were only four Sweep cards printed: Plow through Reito, Barrel Down Sokenzan, Sink into Takenuma, Charge Across the Araba, all of which follow the naming scheme of "movement"-"direction"-"location in Kamigawa".

While measured as 8 (unlikely but not impossible to return) on the Storm Scale, it also made the list of "worst mechanics" as understood in 2024 by Rosewater. All were given a cost as though the effect could be unbounded, in that the mana cost was higher than other contemporary cards of that effect, but in exchange, casting them for one land returned was ineffectual and actively bad. None had any effect when no lands were returned. However, the average use case is extremely costly to play with a modern understanding of rate, and making them high-impact even more so: returning three lands to hand is the point at which the effect is stronger than for the mana cost paid. The premise that the effect was unbound was also untrue: all the lands had to be the same basic land type. That made them weak in two-color decks, was realistically capped at five anyway from land-spell balancing, and for three of them had an inherent upper bound of effectiveness. The cost of returning lands is generally not done, as Rosewater found that players would undo all their mana development to play these cards for impact and lose as a consequence, marking this mechanic as inherently flawed.

Rulings

• Sweep cards require you to return some number of a specific type of basic land card to your hand as they resolve. The rest of the card's effect depends on how many land cards were returned.
• Lands with multiple basic land types can be returned to your hand with any sweep card that applies to one of those land types.

Examples

Example

Plow Through Reito
Instant — Arcane
Sweep — Return any number of Plains you control to their owner's hand. Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each Plains returned this way.