By Invitation Only

The number is the whole negotiation. Most symmetrical board wipes pick their own severity: a wrath kills everything, a bounce spell resets the whole table, and the caster lives with the flatness that follows. This one hands the dial to the player casting it and asks them to read the room before pulling it. Choose zero and you have spent five mana to do nothing but bluff; choose thirteen and you have effectively cast a total wrath that no realistic board survives. The interesting range is in the middle, where the "of their choice" clause quietly does most of the work. Each opponent culls their own creatures, so they keep their best and shed their worst, which means the number is really a question about the disparity between your board and theirs. If you are ahead on quality, a small number can gut a wide opponent while leaving your fatties standing; if you are behind, a high number is your equalizer. The card rewards knowing exactly how many creatures each player can afford to lose, and punishes casting it on reflex. It sits in a small lineage of assessment-based sweepers where the caster's judgment, not the card's text, sets the outcome: the spell is a scalpel or a sledgehammer depending entirely on the integer you name out loud.