Devastating Mastery

Pay the printed cost and this is a clean, unconditional sweep: every nonland permanent dies, no strings, nobody granted a reprieve. The design turns interesting where it runs the usual alternative-cost trade backward. Most flexible sweepers charge you more for a wider effect; this one lets you pay less and takes something back. Drop the price down to the discount and the wrath comes stapled to a concession: an opponent gets to pull up to two of their nonland permanents to safety before the board is cleared. The load-bearing word is an, and it is doing subtler work than it looks. The spell never uses the word "target": the choice happens on resolution, so player hexproof does not stop it, and the caster still decides which opponent is forced to make the give-back. In a duel the discount bites, since the only opponent available is the one you are trying to answer, and they keep their two best pieces (the payoff, the threat, whatever the sweep was meant to erase). Across a wider table the math flips: point the clause at whoever holds nothing worth protecting and the drawback quietly evaporates while the wrath resolves in full. That is the tension the card sets up: read the boards, weigh the cheaper cost with its concession against the full cost clean, and price that give-back against who is forced to make it.