Welcome back to the Future Sight edition of First Impressions. In this article, I will be featuring the Black cards of the set.

Considering the number of people who live and die for Black as a color, I anticipate there being a lot of people trying to lamb-baste my opinions, but I say… BRING IT ON!

Black has always inspired me to not play Black. I just don’t have the feeling for it, nor do I really think that I want to. You pay your precious hit points for practically everything, you get poor toughness creatures for a moderate cost, it can’t deal with any Artifacts or Enchantments once they hit the board, nor can it deal with Instants or Sorceries. Since it can only affect 1/3 of the cards in the game, why should I even try to play the color?

Because it is a beast and a half against those 1/3 of the cards. With that thought in mind, I launch into my review of Future Sight, and hope that Wizards gave Black an arsenal of creature removal that would make anyone spin on their heads.

Augur of Skulls
1B
Creature - Skeleton Wizard (C)
1/1
1B: Regenerate Augur of Skulls.
Sacrifice Augur of Skulls: Target player discards two cards. Play this ability only during your upkeep.

Oh yea, Black can make you discard. How could I forget something like that? I didn’t, I was being sarcastic.

I’m not really sure that this guy really needs to be able to regenerate, since either he will be killed on the opponent’s follow up turn or sacrificed on my next turn.

This guy should be good.

Grade: B+

Bitter Ordeal
2B
Sorcery (R)
Search target player's library for a card and remove that card from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Gravestorm (When you play this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Gravestorm... How much do I need to pay in order to send a lot of permanents to the graveyard first, and then I have to pay 3 during my turn in order to get the triggers going.

I guess if I get three cards out of your library for 3 that I should be happy, but I don’t really feel satisfied about it. I would feel better if I paid 4, got to play a Jester’s Cap, and then paid 2 to get three cards from your library. (Don’t mind me; I think I am a moron too.)

Brainstorming... I guess if on turn three my Augur of Skulls goes to the grave, then I sacrifice my Chromatic Sphere to get a mana and a card, and then cast this, I would be getting three cards from your library before you get access to them, so I guess it is not all that bad in that situation. Ok, that makes it a good card since I found a good situation for it.

Grade: D

Bridge from Below
BBB
Enchantment (R)
Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from play, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token into play.
When a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from play, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, remove Bridge from Below from the game.

Ha, I’d like to sacrifice my Mindslaver now and force you to hard cast your Bridge from Below.

Seriously, this reminds me of Zombie Infestation as it makes a ton of Zombies. How come Zombies are always 2/2? When I watch all of those Zombie movies, they take shotgun blasts and knife stabs and baseball bats and continue moving forward. Why wouldn’t a Zombie be a 2/47?

Just a question.

Oh yea, the card. It’s ok at best.

Grade: A+

Cutthroat il-Dal
3B
Creature - Human Rogue (C)
4/1
Hellbent - Cutthroat il-Dal has shadow as long as you have no cards in hand. (It can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)

Ahh.. Ahhh… AH.Choo! Damn, the Cutthroat just died again. Crap.

Grade: C- Kills creatures in Limited.

Death Rattle
5B
Instant (C)
Delve (You may remove any number of cards in your graveyard from the game as you play this spell. It costs 1 less to play for each card removed this way.)
Destroy target nongreen creature. It can't be regenerated.

What, because you gave it Delve, it must cost no loss than 95? Thanks for reprinting Terror.

Grade: F

Deepcavern Imp
2B
Creature - Imp Rebel (C)
2/2
Flying, haste
Echo-Discard a card. (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)

Ooo... I like him. A hasty flyer (A taste of White here) that helps out with an early Madness outlet. Solid little creature.

Grade: B+

Festering March
3BB
Sorcery (U)
Creatures your opponents control gets -1/-1 until end of turn. Remove Festering March from the game with three time counters on it.
Suspend 3-2B (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay 2B and remove it from the game with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost.)

Damn you Teferi!!!

Grade: A

Fleshwrither
2BB
Creature – Horror (U)
3/3
Transfigure 1BB (1BB, Sacrifice this creature: Search your library for a creature card with the same converted mana cost as this creature and put that card into play. Then shuffle your library. Play only as a sorcery.)

Hrmm... what would I like this guy to be? Nekrataal, Lightning Angel, Shivan Wumpus, Timbermare, Rumbling Slum, Loxodon Hierarch, Avalance Riders, Mystic Enforcer, Magus’s of the Moat, Disk, Abyss, Giant Solifuge, Faceless Butcher, Giant Oyster (are you really reading my list?), etc.

Grade: C+ Should see Limited play. Perhaps Casual since there are nice 4 cc creatures in older formats.

Frenzy Sliver
1B
Creature – Sliver (C)
1/1
All Sliver creatures have frenzy 1. (Whenever a Sliver attacks and isn't blocked, it gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)

Bleh, slivers (note… not even capitalized anymore).

Grade: not going to bother

Gibbering Descent
4BB
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player loses 1 life and discards a card.
Hellbent - Skip your upkeep step if you have no cards in hand.
Madness 2BB (If you discard this card, you may play it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)

Oh, look what we have here. Disrupting Scepter and Rod of Ruin on a... stick? Can I really call it a stick if it is an enchantment and I was talking about two sticks? Anyways, I think this guy would combo nicely with all of those Upkeep cards like, say, Calciderm. You know, the cards that you really don’t want to have an upkeep for.

Grade: B+

Grave Peril
1B
Enchantment (C)
When a nonblack creature comes into play, sacrifice Grave Peril. If you do, destroy that creature.

I wonder how many fights will break out soon. “But it doesn’t say target! So it’s not targeting!!” “Yes it is! It says THAT creature!”

I’ll keep my mouth shut, as I would rather enjoy the numerous battles to come.

Memo to you; yes you, reader. You know who you are. You are the guy getting ready to scroll down and click the forum button and answer the question for the other guys. Refrain from doing so. Let these guys fight amongst themselves. I repeat, fight the temptation. I know it is strong, but fight it. It is better this way.

Grade: Blank, as I don’t want to give an indication to the fighting guys as to if I think it is good or not, which would tell them what it does.

Grave Scrabbler
3B
Creature – Zombie (C)
2/2
Madness 1B (If you discard this card, you may play it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)
When Grave Scrabbler comes into play, if its madness cost was paid, you may return target creature card in a graveyard to its owner's hand.

Why wouldn’t you just play Gravedigger?

Grade: D because I need to do more than tap mana to make a Gravedigger.

Ichor Slick
2B
Sorcery (C)
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn.
Cycling 2 (2, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Madness 3B (If you discard this card, you may play it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)

I don’t like when they try to be cute. It’s not funny Wizards. Just because you can undress Last Gasp and put it in a new suit with more buttons on the coat, and then charge me more for the same dog gone thing doesn’t mean its better.

A Cheeseburger with lettuce and a tomato is still a cheeseburger! Don’t charge me an extra buck and a half for it!

Grade: C- I can draw a card in Limited.

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
2BB
Legendary Creature - Zombie Warrior (R)
*/*
Korlash, Heir to Blackblade's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Swamps you control.
1B: Regenerate Korlash.
Grandeur - Discard another card named Korlash, Heir to Blackblade: Search your library for up to two Swamp cards, put them into play tapped, then shuffle your library.

Wow, couldn’t you fit more text on the card? This is a really tough beast. And!! And having a second copy of a Legend in your opening hand doesn’t suck entirely. Nice touch with Grandeur.

Grade: A+

Lost Hours
1B
Sorcery (C)
Target player reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. That player puts that card into his or her library third from the top.

I think there was a card in Scourge called Long-Term Plans. You could Demonic Tutor for a card, and then put it three cards down. No one played it, because I can’t long term plan in this game. But more importantly, we would forget what we did, then use a Fetch-land, and then end up shuffling our deck after we Long-Term Planned (funny). Anyways, this is the opposite, and I think it should be considered as a good card because of the reason above stated. It sucked to have to wait to get the card.

Grade: B

Magus of the Abyss
3B
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
4/3
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, destroy target nonartifact creature that player controls of his or her choice. It can't be regenerated.

Why is Magus of the Abyss not an Artifact Creature? Stupid stupid stupid Abyss.

Grade: C

Mass of Ghouls
3BB
Creature - Zombie Warrior (C)
5/3

Still waiting for the card text to appear on my screen. They can’t possibly want me to pay 5 for a 5/3 with no abilities, can they?

Grade: ...

Minions' Murmurs
2BB
Sorcery (U)
You draw X cards and you lose X life, where X is the number of creatures you control.

It would be nice if it was an Instant, but I can deal with this. I can see me paying three life and drawing three cards. That is the same as Concentration. … … But if I don’t have creatures in play... nooo good.

Grade: C+ Situational at best.

Nihilith
4BB
Creature – Horror (R)
4/4
Fear
Suspend 7-1B
Whenever a card is put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, if Nihilith is suspended, you may remove a time counter from Nihilith.

Hrmm... Another of those tricky Black creatures that I typically underestimate. It takes quite a time to get into play (in theory), but with discard and creature removal this could be a 4/4 hasty fearful creature on turn five or six. With no creatures in play, and no hand, he would be difficult to deal with.

Grade: A- I’ll score him high to be safe.

Oblivion Crown
1B
Enchantment – Aura (C)
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has "Discard a card: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."

I don’t like it. It looks like Wild Mongrel, and smells like Wild Mongrel, but Boomerang and Repeal make it not taste like Wild Mongrel.

Grade: C- Auras are Auras. If they are not Elephant Guide or Rancor family Auras, they are wasted cards.

Pooling Venom
1B
Enchantment – Aura (U)
Enchant land
Whenever enchanted land becomes tapped, its controller loses 2 life.
3B: Destroy enchanted land.

This has a cool little concept that I like going on. Back in the Scourge days… seeing a pattern here… there was an Artifact called Ark of Blight. It cost 2 to play, and then 3 plus a sacrifice to destroy target land. While it seemed to be costing 5 mana to destroy a land, it was not. What it was doing was saving you a card slot; easy… let me explain.

Normally, you were going to be Stone Raining on turn three. Instead, you were playing this ‘Replacement Stone Rain’ on turn two, then on turn three, instead of casting Stone Rain, you were sacrificing the Ark, which kept the Rain in your hand to be used on turn four. Why was this important? Because if you went first, on turn two, your opponent only had one land in play, and could not counter your Ark, and since the Ark was an ability on turn three, there was no countering there either. By the time the Stone Rain came down, they were already two lands behind and were in trouble.

To Pooling Venom… On turn two, there is only Spell Snare to help out (ignoring Mana Tithe). So on turn three, when Rain of Tears falls, they are paying 2 and 2 life to save a land for one turn, as you will just activate the Pool and destroy the land on turn four anyways.

I love Land Destruction strategy.

Grade: A for letting me reminisce.

Putrid Cyclops
2B
Creature - Zombie Cyclops (C)
3/3
When Putrid Cyclops comes into play, scry 1, then reveal the top card of your library. Putrid Cyclops gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is that card's converted mana cost. (To scry 1, look at the top card of your library, then you may put that card on the bottom of your library.)

I hate Cyclops’s. Why do they always suck? In mythology, they were gruesome and wooped (yes, I said wooped) people. In Magic, they compete with Giants in sucking contests.

Anyways, I guess in Limited you could find a much-needed early land, put it on top and then not kill your own Cyclops.

It’s a piece of crap otherwise.

Grade: D- -

Shimian Specter
2BB
Creature – Specter (R)
2/2
Flying
Whenever Shimian Specter deals combat damage to a player, that player reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Search that player's graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that card and remove them from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

HA HA! A specter that lobotomizes you. Let’s face facts here. If your name is not Blazing Specter, you’re not going to be hitting anyone. Hypnotic Specter had his time in the sun back in the day, but can anyone guess why he is in print again? Anyone? Anyone? He is no longer a threat. Every color can deal with him now and so he can be safely printed again.

Grade: B+ Because the concept is really cool.

Skirk Ridge Exhumer
1B
Creature - Zombie Spellshaper (U)
1/1
B, T, Discard a card: Put a 1/1 black Zombie Goblin creature token named Festering Goblin into play with "When Festering Goblin is put into a graveyard from play, target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn."

I am not a fan of Spellshapers. I liked Mageta and maybe Jolrael, but the others really don’t excite me. This one doesn’t either. Maybe I can turn a land into a Goblin, but I don’t see it being helpful, let alone earth shattering.

Grade: C-

Slaughter Pact
0
Instant (R)
Slaughter Pact is black.
Destroy target nonblack creature.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 2B. If you don't, you lose the game.

The Pacts are all good. This one will pop an unexpected guy at the end of a turn, and the best thing is that the cost is not bad at B2, Contrary to UU3. Thanks for trying to neuter Blue again. We still win though.

Grade: A

Snake Cult Initiation
3B
Enchantment – Aura (U)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has poisonous 3. (Whenever it deals combat damage to a player, that player gets three poison counters. A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.)

Another not really good ability, why are they bothering with stupid stuff? Look, if a creature is dealing damage, it’s doing at least one point of damage. If it has ‘Poisonous 1’ then it means the creature really is a 2/1. When you give me an Instant or Sorcery or even an Enchantment that directly gives Poisonous counters, then I might be interested in the Alternate win.

Back to this; when the creature gets this Aura, two things happen. First, he becomes a 3/X where X is a bull’s eye. Then a Condemn hits the table and you lose the card and the creature. Just stop playing Auras guys. We should all rebel, and only play Equipment. Then maybe two more things will happen.

1.) They will make better Auras.
2.) They will make better Equipment.

Until then, we will be sitting pretty playing Teferi and Troll Ascetic all day long like we do now with nothing lying casually behind them.

Grade: G (F is not low enough)

Street Wraith
3BB
Creature – Wraith (U)
3/4
Swampwalk
Cycling-Pay 2 life. (Pay 2 life, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

All colors can Cycle him.

Grade: C

Stronghold Rats
2B
Creature – Rat (U)
2/1
Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)
Whenever Stronghold Rats deals combat damage to a player, each player discards a card.

Another Black creature with a discard ability. Oh, and it can be regenerated by Swarmyard.

Grade: D

Tombstalker
6BB
Creature - Demon
5/5
Flying
Delve (You may remove any number of cards in your graveyard from the game as you play this spell. It costs 1 less to play for each card removed this way.)

Oh, finally, something interesting. A Demon that could be potentially a 5/5 flier for BB. Thank God that Black can make you discard your bounce stuff, or else this guy could just be a personal Tormod’s Crypt every few turns.

Without Delve, Tombstalker is an expensive 5/5 flier at 8!!! Mana with no abilities, see the cards with Delve must cost 95 or else they would not be printed. Why do they hate Graveyards so much all the sudden?

Grade: A (Seriously, he will be good)

Witch's Mist
2B
Enchantment (U)
2B, T Destroy target creature that was dealt damage this turn.

Limited maybe? I can’t see one reason why a tournament caliber Black deck would even consider this card. Why doesn’t it have Morph? It could block, flip over, 2B T: cap that creature!

Oh well, nice try anyways.

Grade: F

Yixlid Jailer
1B
Creature - Zombie Wizard (U)
2/1
Cards in graveyards lose all abilities.

I’m telling you, they hate graveyards all the sudden. I suppose I can’t blame them. The entire Dredge thing and now the Bridge from Below make it a dangerous place to hang out at night.

Why would someone play in a graveyard anyways? My ex-wife’s family takes picnic trips to the local graveyard. When I went to meet them, they asked if I wanted to go on a trip with them. I just stared at them. Of course I don’t want to go to the graveyard. What the hell did I marry into? I think that was the first time I ever washed my car, as I took it to the local car wash and spent the next four hours or so detailing the thing... let’s call a spade a spade here… I was avoiding the freaks. I don’t see it as fun to go hang out and eat food on top of dead people. And I don’t think it would be fun to then stop at the local hot dog shop (yes, they have a hot dog shop) and get hot dogs with the sauce that is kept in the back. Anything that is kept in the back is there for a reason. These people ate this nasty stuff and it literally boiled their lips, and they enjoyed it.

What the hell is wrong with people?!

Damn the graveyard all to hell!!

Grade: ...

I’m punching out; I have to go back to therapy.

cpn

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