Journey Into Nyx EDH Set Review, Part 3: Black

Are you ready for some more Journey Into Nyx action? Me neither. Let's all go home for the day.

Oh, okay, fine. We'll do another review. How about Black this time?

Deal.

Black

Not great, but not completely unplayable either. Basically just outclassed...

... by this, for instance. I guess "Four mana to exile a dude in Black" is officially a thing now. It's fine. Dealing with Indestructible things is good sometimes. I personally have yet to feel any compulsion to play one of these spells, but I know they are popular nonetheless. 

I don't see too many Enchantress decks with Black in their color identity, but since Constellation (worst ability name of the block, in a block full of terrible ability names) triggers on ETBF not casting, I would snap jam this into a Zur deck all day.

Godawful. 

Lame.

Great effect, but too expensive to really be good. 

Possibly the best card in the set. Sure it only really goes in decks that already run Grave Pact, but until you play one of those decks, you just can't understand how much of a boon this will be to those decks. 

Generic and bad. Being bad is bad, but being generic is worse.

Fine for Nekusar decks, I guess. Not very good in general though.  Downright suicidal in a competitive group.

Graveyard hate is always good... but this is pretty bad in relation to Black's other options.

Very cool design. Has potential, but I'm not quite sold on it. Let's put it this way: I want this to be good.

To be clear, this is not a very good sweeper when compared to, well, almost any other sweeper in Black or White. It really should say "Exile" instead of "Destroy". But, since Damnation is pushing $50 a pop these days, any budget-friendly sweepers should be welcomed wholeheartedly by Black mages. It's a card well worth picking up if you can't afford Damnations, even if its mana cost is almost as inflated as Damnation's IRL price tag.

Crap.

Obviously, this is crap outside of Minotaur Tribal. Is that a thing yet? Have we hit critical mass on the Minotaur front? I don't know, I stopped paying attention. If not, I guess we'll have to wait for Return to Theros in about 7 years.

Before you knee-jerk, try to keep in mind, what makes Mindslaver so hated in this format, is Academy Ruins (or Bringer of the White Dawn, or whatever). Getting Mindslaver-ed once is no big deal. Unless your a sissy baby sore loser.

This card is fair. Which means it should be socially acceptable to play it. But don't. Why? Because Mindslaver kinda sucks if you play fair with it. It's only actually GOOD if you lock someone with it. A one and done Mindslaver effect simply isn't all that good (most of the time, exceptions will always apply).

GROSS!!!

It's a powerful effect, for sure, but if you're okay with making this kind of move, there are better cards with which to make it.





















So, Black seems to have fared only slightly better than Blue or White. This set isn't shaping up to be one for the ages, is it? Not so far, at least. A few goodies sprinkled in among a vast sea of chaff. At this rate, Born of the Gods might be the better set, which is saying something, because BNG was not very good. Let's hope the remaining colors can shake things up a bit.