Magic: The Gathering’s Dominaria Remastered is a nostalgic return to the game’s history. Popular reprints are featured from 27 different MTG sets, including Alpha, Urza’s Saga, Invasion, Odyssey, and more. Dominaria is one of the core worlds in the canon, where Gerrard and the Weatherlight crew first made their name. It’s also the setting for The Brothers’ War of ages past.
Black mana receives all sorts of gifts in Dominaria Remastered. Classic staples and nightmarish origin stories lay in wait for the planeswalker ready to use them. These reprints let you pick your poison. Discard, destroy, and instill dread into your opponents – it’s all in play among the swamps.
10/10 Dread Return
Dread Return represents a favored choice among the many Graveyard recursion spells out there. Four mana to return any creature from your Graveyard to the battlefield is a deck builder’s dream. A flashback cost doubles its value and even provides another method of sacrificing creatures as well.
Originally from Time Spiral, Dread Return has been reprinted primarily for special sets and other remasters. Time to once again re-welcome this bony underworld monstrosity to the realm of the living. Eat your heart out Zombify.
9/10 Entomb
Entomb is the ultimate Graveyard tutor effect. One mana, instant speed, go get your biggest brute to reanimate. Or maybe you want this card in the Graveyard for another reason, maybe to steal its abilities for your Lazav, the Multifarious or Trazyn the Infinite. No matter your dark plot, Entomb delivers the body.
Entomb comes from 2001’s Odyssey – one of the first sets to center Graveyard interaction in its core themes, via Threshold and Flashback. This iteration’s art and flavor text make you wonder: who is Liliana saving for later?
8/10 Faceless Butcher
The Faceless Butcher is here to give your opponent a headache. This headless, xenomorph-looking monster takes out another target creature on sight, keeping them exiled until the Butcher leaves play. At only four mana for a 2/3 body, the wretched critter provides a violent two-for-one.
One of Chainer’s legion of Nightmares from 2002’s Torment set, Faceless Butcher provides temporary removal on a body. It certainly fits the bill for the creature type “Nightmare Horror.” You may see a Faceless Butcher emerge from Stephen King’s The Mist, or behind that dumpster in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
7/10 Chainer, Dementia Master
Chainer, Dementia Master supplies your Nightmares with a master. Aside from the mass +1/+1 boost to creatures of the type, Chainer’s true value comes with a duo of three-value payments. Three black and three life marks the ability to return a creature from any graveyard, now nightmarish and under your control.
Untouched, Chainer threatens to win the game on his own. Destroy enough creatures, something black does best, and you can start building your army from the wreckage. Be careful not to lose Chainer though – once he’s removed, every Nightmare is simultaneously banished to exile.
6/10 Nantuko Shade
Nantuko Shade is one of the most elegant card designs in MTG. Simple and powerful, this Insect Shade instantly becomes as strong as your mana base allows. Brian Snoddy’s shadowy depiction makes the normally green Nantuko look like a supernatural ninja.
Nantuko Shade provides tremendous offensive and defensive strength for the Mono Black Control player. When attacking or blocking with a full grip of Swamps ready to tap, your opponents will never know what kind of Shade they are going to get. Pair with Dark Ritual and Cabal Coffers for maximum effect.
5/10 Mindslicer
Kev Walker’s Mindslicer unleashes a potent effect upon death, something almost every planeswalker wants to prevent. Discarding your entire hand in Magic generally spells doom. Sacrificing Mindslicer dumps every hand into the Graveyard at once.
Designed for discard decks to take advantage of, Mindslicer can assume the role of boogeyman in your game. No hand means no hope. Spawn that quintessential sense of dread that only a well-played black deck can deliver.
4/10 No Mercy
No Mercy is the perfect defensive enchantment for black. Opponents must attack at the peril of those attackers. Non-combat damage dealt to you, such as through activated or triggered abilities, will also be a death sentence. This Urza’s Saga enchantment clearly inspired Dread, black’s fearsome Elemental Incarnation from Lorwyn.
No Mercy depicts the sudden desolation caused by the Phyrexian invasion into Dominaria, right at the doorstep of Urza's venerable Tolarian Academy. With advance sleeper agents like Kerrick sent ahead to prepare the world for the taking, the Phyrexians carried overwhelming advantages into their interplanar war.
3/10 Royal Assassin
One of black’s most efficient killers, Royal Assassin has been MTG’s top professional hitman for decades. Pro tip: tap to “destroy target tapped creature” includes creatures that have just been declared as attacking but have not yet dealt their damage.
One untapped Royal Assassin on your side of the field is all you need to strike fear into the hearts of every creature that must tap to attack. In multiplayer games, this little Human Assassin doubles as a rather convincing diplomat for your interests.
2/10 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Yawgmoth rivals Nicol Bolas for king villain in MTG’s lore. Originally a physician for the highly developed Thran civilization, Yawgmoth’s political party favored eugenics and was eventually exiled after a civil war. From the shadows, Yawgmoth traveled the planes committing atrocities until he found a ruined world and plotted to create Phyrexia.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician presents his origin story in card form, a Human Cleric interested in all things black mana. Paying life, sacrificing creatures, generating -1/-1 counters, drawing cards, discarding cards, proliferating. All advantages gained by using life. Protection from Humans must be an indication of this renaissance man’s lovely personality.
1/10 Vampiric Tutor
Vampiric Tutor is the GOAT (greatest of all time). As far as tutors go, you can’t get much better than one mana, instant, and two life paid — to get any card from your deck on the top.
Vampiric Tutor has been unlocking decks and winning games since the 6th Edition. Though Alpha’s Demonic Tutor is nearly as good, players should never underestimate the power of casting an instant over a sorcery. Maybe the best thing about black tutor spells is that you never have to reveal your trump card before it is cast.
Source: Read Full Article