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In Magic: The Gathering, Black as a color is dominated by strategies of graveyard retrieval and removal. It’s generally paired with skeletons, zombies, horrors, and other monstrosities. In Dominaria United, Magic: The Gathering’s latest expansion, this trend certainly seems to have continued. As always, Black has quite a few colors it synergizes well with, especially in the Limited format.
Whether it’s removing creatures from the board, or dragging them back into existence, Black is going to likely be a powerful color in both the Limited and Standard formats for Magic: The Gathering players in this expansion.
Black cards in Magic: The Gathering offer significant value to Limited players
One of the most popular combinations for Black is the Black/Blue control partnership (Dimir), but control is seldom successful in Limited. This is when it's compared to more aggressive decks at any rate. That said, Black’s card removal - discard and creature destruction - will possibly be quite useful.
When it comes to Limited, Black/Red and Black/Green will be especially powerful, as will Black/White. It may also be possible to see success with White/Black/Red, a Defender deck built with Glibbering Barricade.
- White/Black: Sacrifice/Drain synergy
- Black/Red: Aggro/Sacrifice
- Blue/Black: Control
- Black/Green: Graveyard retrieval
While there are plenty of great low-cost, high-value cards in Black, here are some of the best Magic: The Gathering cards to keep an eye out for. Fortunately, it’s not an exhaustive list of commons and uncommons as there are plenty of other choices that players could find useful.
1) Cult Conscript (Creature)
A common trope for Skeletons is that they have high power and low toughness. This 2 power, 1 toughness creature comes into play tapped, but only costs 1 mana, making it an excellent turn 1 drop. It can be returned from the graveyard to your battlefield for 2 mana, only if a non-Skeleton creature you control died this turn.
This makes it a very ideal creature to play, and it’s not a very rare mechanic for skeletons. In that regard, Cult Conscript is an excellent card to sacrifice, because you can just bring it back whenever you need it to return. Just sacrifice a non-Skeleton, and if you have 2 free mana, it’s back, and ready to be sacrificed again!
2) Cut Down (Instant)
Players in Limited will constantly be on the lookout for useful, potentially powerful creature removal. At Instant speed, this is going to be incredibly useful, but it’s got a bit of a caveat.
Cut Down destroys a target creature with a total power and toughness of 5 or less. Since most of the creatures players will likely see in Limited are around this total, it’s going to be a very in-demand 1-cost removal option. Essentially, it’s an easy-to-understand card in Magic: The Gathering that packs some serious power.
3) Braids’s Frightful Return (Saga - Enchantment)
A powerful caster for the Cabal on Dominaria, Braids is a well-known lore figure in Magic: The Gathering. She’s also incredibly mad, making her moderately unstable, at least for the purpose of lore. This new Saga also features “Read Ahead”, which is a brand new mechanic for Dominaria United.
Players can skip ahead to start on whichever chapter of this Saga they’d like, but they do not gain the use of abilities they passed up. This new enchantment does the following:
- Chapter 1: You may sacrifice a creature. If you do, each opponent discards a card.
- Chapter 2: Return a target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Chapter 3: Target opponent may sacrifice a nonland, nontoken permanent. If they don’t, they lose 2 life and you draw a card.
As seen above, it's clearly a potent card. It simultaneously offers discard, a sacrifice engine, returns a card of yours to your hand, and is a potential sacrifice for the other player. Since it also specifies nonland, nontoken, players can’t simply cheese out something relatively unimportant. This is going to be an amazing card, especially for 3 mana.
4) Urborg Repossession (Sorcery)
As previously stated, one of the best parts of splashing Black into your Magic: The Gathering decks is graveyard retrieval. Urborg Repossession is one of those cards, and is a fantastic card for Black/Green decks.
For 1 mana, this Sorcery allows you to return a creature card from your graveyard and put it in your hand while you gain 2 life. If you pay the Kicker of 2 mana (1 green), return another permanent card from your graveyard back to your hand.
This is especially convenient, as the Kicker allows you to pull any permanent from your graveyard, be it Enchantment, Artifact, or Land. It’s a useful card in sacrifice decks as well as retrieval shenanigans decks. It could also be used in three-color decks to really put some power down. For just 1 base mana, this card is a great choice.
5) Splatter Goblin
Splatter Goblin represents yet another Magic: The Gathering trope for Black creatures. When it dies, it debuffs a creature that your opponent controls. It’s an incredibly aggressive creature with a low mana cost and high value.
If your opponent has low-health creatures, they’re less likely to block this 2 power, 1 toughness Goblin. If he dies, he will give a creature -1/-1 until the end of the turn, making it significantly more dangerous. It can also be sacrificed to trigger that -1/-1, and be brought back for further trickery, say, with Urborg Repossession.
Dominaria United’s Black cards are looking especially powerful in Magic: The Gathering. There are plenty of amazing cards in this expansion, and this is just a sampling of great Limited/Draft options. This latest Magic: The Gathering expansion releases digitally on September 1, and in physical storefronts on September 9, 2022.
