Yawgmoth's Destiny: Black

• Yawgmoth's Destiny: White (Part 1)
• Yawgmoth's Destiny: Blue (Part 2)
• Yawgmoth's Destiny: Black (Part 3)

June 9, 1999

Apprentice Necromancer 1B

1/1. BT, Sac: Return target creature from your graveyard directly into play and sacrifice it until end of turn. That creature gains haste.
EX: Weak
T2, US: Good

You can put this into a normal deck, like Survival. Or you can go nuts. Two of these can easily create a loop. That loop has a small problem, of course: It costs you a mana every time. You can get that mana back with Carnival of Souls. Then you lose a life. You can get that back with Soul Warden. Then, of course, you need to actually do something. (This is what I was talking about at the end of part 2). So maybe this isn't such a good idea. It's just something to keep in mind, in case you're feeling wacky or this fits into a deck for some reason. For the most part, this is just a solid card for decks full of cards that make this into a sorcery.

Attrition 1BB

Enchantment. B, Sac a creature: Destroy target nonblack creature.
EX: Useless
T2, US: Weak

It allows you to seize total control of the game. It turns all your creatures into 6th edition wrecking balls. All that for three mana. And it's bad. The kind of creature battles required to make up for the not unreasonable costs of the card don't happen all that often. If you don't sac at least two creatures, Dark Banishing is a ton better. With the sacrifice added on, you really need to sac at least three. Destroying creatures isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway. That doesn't mean you should forget that in the right situation this is downright huge. The deck it would belong in would clearly be suicide black. Can this break up a Survival deck once it starts assuming control? Obviously not, since the deck will just get the Realist. Stick to black's removal spells.

Body Snatcher 2BB

2/2. When it comes into play, discard a creature card or remove Body Snatcher from the game. When Body Snatcher is put into a graveyard from play, remove Body Snatcher from the game and return target creature from your graveyard to play.
EX: Useless
T2, US: Weak

Body Snatcher seems to be reanimation made simple: You can discard the creature and then put it directly into play. It's not quite that simple. Playing it as your only reanimation will slow you down too much against combination decks and others that don't have to kill it to win the game. Bounce is also a potential problem. In a pure reanimation deck, though, it fits right in by filling the roles of both discarding the big creature and getting it into play. Still, decks that play uncastable or virtually uncastable creatures very rarely work out at the top level.

Bubbling Muck B

Sorcery All Swamps tap for an additional black until end of turn.
All: Weak

Since Muck can give you a lot of black mana, it should be kept in mind. It's no Dark Ritual under normal conditions, since it won't equal a Ritual without four swamps and won't be better without five, and once you have four ritual will get you to Corrupt or Bargain anyway. If you need a fifth ritual or just a totally insane amount of mana, though, this is a good place to look. If Drain Life was in T2 right now, Muck would be a much better card, since going insane with Mucks, Rituals and Wills would have a real purpose outside a combo deck. In Extended you don't want more rituals much if they can't get out Necro itself. US Block doesn't have much to use the mana on.

Carnival of Souls 1B

Whenever a creature comes into play, lose 1 life and B to your mana pool.
All: Useless

There are three ways I can think of to use the Carnival. One is to use it in a black creature deck to get mana. It's really really bad at that. The second is in the Necromancer deck or a similar loop. Since it generates the additional problem of life loss, it's probably too complicated to justify playing so many bad cards. The third reason is to Donate it to your opponent. This seems like the most promising idea, since many will not just lose a life but take a mana burn much of the time as well. This gives you a second card to give your opponent if you don't draw Delusions of Mediocrity or can't bounce it. You can even use it for a few mana to get the engine started. Then the Sengir Autocrats start pounding him. Warning: You probably don't want to take this deck to any sanctioned events.

Chime of Night 1B

Enchant Creature. When enchanted creature is put into a graveyard from play, destroy target nonblack creature.
All: Useless

You only save one mana, and lose control over when the effect happens, and even if it ever will. Limited cards are fine, but they really shouldn't be this obvious. If a card gives a situational effect, then it HAS to offer a card economy gain, a massive mana discount or a similar edge. Duplicating a spell that costs one more mana isn't good enough.

Disease Carriers 2BB

2/2. When Disease carriers dies (I'm using this in place of ‘put into a graveyard from play’ from this point on), target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn.
All: Useless

Under normal conditions, you'll get two for one with the Carriers. But too often, you won't get that kind of 'normal conditions'. In particular, many decks won't have creatures you can kill with it. That's not that bad, although this card is no Nekrataal, but the real problem is that this effect will be a major annoyance if your opponent has no creatures. A 2/2 isn't really enough pressure to put it out alone that often, and putting it out with other creatures will often be like putting out a Servant of Volrath. And it's not strong enough to be a deck's only creature.

Dying Wail 1B

Enchant Creature. When enchanted creature dies, Unnerve.
All: Useless

With Stupor back in the environment, Dying Wail is less than a one mana discount. Discard is dangerous en masse, so this one is worth examining closer than the Chime. But there really isn't a good target for it. Blood Pet comes closest, but spending two cards to force your opponent to choose and discard two isn't that great. I was never that big a fan of Ritualing out Hymn to Torach, because you didn't net any cards, although the potential to take away a key component makes it well worth it under the new mulligan rule. Discard gets much weaker when you can plan for it, though, so for this to work you would have to sac the creature on the spot, and I don't think that's a good strategy.

Encroach B

Sorcery. Look at target player's hand and choose a nonbasic land card from it. That player discards that card.
T1,T2,US: Weak
EX: Good

Assuming your opponent has had the chance to play his lands, you will almost never get an important land with this. If he knows you play Encroach, the chance is even lower. Even more than Black Vise, Encroach is a first turn spell, and its value falls off rapidly. Even then, to work this has to break up the other deck. Since all decks have to deal with Wasteland, they should be prepared to lose one land a lot of the time. And there will be a lot of decks with 0-8 targets. In short, it doesn't belong in non-LD decks, and doesn't belong in LD decks because your opponent won't hold land and LD decks have to play the long game. In Extended without Time Spiral, almost all decks will have mostly non-basic land except Pox (I suspect Sligh was just an early reaction to bad decks that didn't prepare for it and later on to the anti-Tide decks). And Thawing Glaciers is one juicy target. But in general, this card becomes worthless so quickly it should have had Cycling.

Eradicate 2BB

Lobotomy target nonblack creature.
EX: Weak
T2, US: Good

Every now and then Eradicate will wreck a deck, taking Tradewind Rider or some equally vital creature. It could take the Uktabi or Riders or Realist out of living death, and all that. But the real question is how often you'll actually pull another copy of the creature you kill out of their hand. Realistically, you'll normally use this as more or less normal removal. Getting to see their hand and library is probably more important than removing the cards from the game. One very interesting aspect of Eradicate is the ability to turn cards into creatures and then Eradicate them. In particular, Eradicate can take out basic lands, which will often be game. Verdant Touch is the most obvious way to turn a land into a creature. Nature's Revolt is too expensive to deal the blow the same turn and creates other opportunities. The key problem here is that you have to play a land destruction deck to some extent, or their other lands will survive and often be enough. Mana Severance isn't worth a card slot for normal decks, but it's not a bad thing in many situations. This makes the deck B/G LD, and after that the deck designs itself:

Note, however, that you have no choice in this deck being more or less a one-trick pony. If your opponent isn't vulnerable to the deck's trick, it better be vulnerable to the deck's land destruction or to Eradicate on the wrong creature. If you're fine against both, this deck isn't going to work. Note, however, that Vampiric Tutor decks can often incorporate just enough blue to have Lobotomy available, and this allows them a game against decks that would otherwise roll over them.

Festering Wound 1B

Growing Creature Enchantment. Deals X damage during controller's upkeep.
All: Useless

One of my rules is that I'm very skeptical of situational cards that only do damage. Festering Wound's selling point is that it will win entire games, and win them in six turns. But the creature you enchant will still have three turns in which it's probably worth having around. After that, there are a lot of ways to kill off the creature for fun and profit, kill off the wound for same, or end the game. Add to that the number of decks that are creatureless, or whose only creatures are Covetous Dragons or some other monstrosity that will easily outrace the Wound, and this card becomes horrible. Would this card be good if it was an enchantment that could be killed by sacrificing a creature? Growing enchantments that punish your opponent for something like not having creatures would have been more interesting, stronger (since it wouldn't need to be balanced for limited and its targets would be fair game), and welcome.

Lurking Jackals B

When you have 10 or less life, it becomes a 3/2.
EX: Useless
T2,US: Weak

By the time you get to 10 life, 3/2 will probably not be that impressive. The purpose of Jackals would be to gain tempo, by dumping insane amounts of power on the table at an insane pace. But a lot of decks don't do damage, or at least don't do early damage, or at least don't need to. If you're mana burning or damaging yourself, that slows you much more than the mana you saved. So your deck is going to have to do 10 to itself anyway. There are three good ways to do that: Infernal Contract, Lurking Evil and Yawgmoth's Bargain. This strategy is going to mean committing to doing that damage to yourself every game or playing with a lot of dead cards. Are the Jackals good enough to create a truly suicidal black? Can you play both them and Hatred in the same deck? Good questions.

Nightshade Seer 3B

1/1. 2BT, show X black cards: Target gets -X/-X until end of turn.
EX: Useless
T2,US: Weak

At least with this one, you can't fault them for not trying. The effect of Nightshade Seer grants card economy, it grants board control, it wins games by itself even if it ties up all your lands and spells doing it. But it still costs four mana and then three to activate, and if you emptied your hand surviving this long it does nothing. I spent a lot of time when testing for US block playing against four Eastern Paladins with green creature decks. It wasn't pretty, but a lot of that was because they could still use all their spells and because the Paladins could block, kill and survive. Using Dark Ritual to bring this out turn 2 could still be a strong play against some decks, but too many decks that would work against play Diabolic Edict, burn or creatures with protection from black. How about ‘All other creatures get…’ or just ‘Destroy target creature’ next time, and while you're at it make it a rare.

Phyrexian Monitor 3B

2/2, B: Regenerate
All: Useless

If the cost of this was 2B, would anyone even blink? In fact, there's a version of this that costs 1BB called Sanguine Guard, and while the activation is one higher First Strike more than makes up for that. I find this card's casting cost almost scandalous. My opinion of sets gets dragged down by cards like this piled up in my piles of useless commons.

Phyrexian Negator 2B

5/5, Trample. Whenever Phyrexian Negator is dealt damage, sacrifice a permanent for each 1 damage dealt to it.
All: Good

The Negator is huge and powerful. But the drawback is gigantic. If you ritual it out first turn it's vulnerable to Shock. Most creatures in the game can block it without losing card economy, and most that cost more than one mana can even profit by it. If you have enough expendable permanents, though, you may be able to work around that. More probable is that you'll have to use a lot of creature removal to clear its way. Even then, playing it against most red decks is a very bad idea. But if you know when not to play it, it's pretty good, especially in the role of beatdown against combo and control decks that won't damage it.

Plague Dogs 4B

3/3. When it dies, all creatures get -1/-1. 2, sac: Draw a card.
All: Useless

It can be dismissed for multiple reasons. A simple one is that it's five mana for a 3/3 and the abilities aren't earth shattering (like those of Morphling and Phyrexian Plaugelord are). Another is that it's too dangerous to play in a creature deck and not good enough to be your only creature. One more is that you're unlikely to want this weird combination of cantrip status, killing a 4/4 and killing off the other 1/1s, but you will have to pay for all of it.

Rapid Decay 1B

Instant. Cycling 2. Remove up to three cards in a single graveyard from the game.
All: Useless Ebony Charm was a card I never liked. Some people used it to get rid of Hammer of Bogarden or other recycling abilities, but even if it was good back then times have changed. Hammer is rarely recycled anymore. This card is now for the Survival mirror matchup, and doesn't belong anywhere else. And with Repopulate also available, I don't expect many people to choose Rapid Decay.

Ravenous Rats 1B

1/1. When Ravenous Rats comes into play, target opponent chooses and discards a card.
EX: Useless
T2,US: Weak

This could have a place in a ‘massive discard’ deck, the kind where your opponent doesn't expect to have a hand at the start of his turn very often, and you punish him for it. For these decks, having any kind of threat at all, even a 1/1, can be a big plus. If nothing else, this is a fine card for mental magic.

Scent of Nightshade 1B

Instant. Reveal X black cards; Target gets -X/-X.
All: Useless

Obviously, the only way this is going to be good is if you keep your hand full of black cards in the midgame, since on turn 2 you don't need the kind of firepower this card has when it's good. That means you're playing a Necro deck (or a Yawgmoth's Bargain deck) and those decks have better things to do. Maybe this is a decent 5th Diabolic Edict for those decks, but I don't think they really want one.

Skittering Horror 2B

4/3. When you play a creature spell, sacrifice Skittering Horror.
All: Good

Skittering Horror is an improved version of Steel Golem, which was a good card itself. No longer can you be stranded by it. And with burn spells doing two points of damage nowadays instead of three, the switch in attributes is an improvement, although a while ago it would have been a problem. I think Skittering Skirge is generally better, because it can fly over the opposition to do enough damage to sneak in for a win with Corrupts or other direct damage, and because it's the only really good flyer black has while it has plenty of ground troops, but Skittering Horror is solid.

Slinking Skirge 3B

2/1, flying, 2+sac: Draw a card.
All: Useless

We now return you to your regularly scheduled homelands cards. Having ‘cycling from play’ is certainly nice, but it's a throwaway ability worth less than one mana in the casting cost. The Slinking Skirge charges you one and a half mana for the privilege.

Soul Feast 3BB

Sorcery Target player loses four life and you gain four life.
All: Useless

At least it's a step up from Psychic Transfer. Drain Life and Corrupt are good because they can take out both players and creatures. If you can only turn damage against players, it has to be good enough to off the player for good, which this can't, or be cheap enough to be part of a 20-pt damage campaign in the first few turns, and this can't do that either. It can keep Yawgmoth's Bargain going, but it's so bad I'd rather splash white or green than use it.

Squirming Mass 1B

1/1. Cannot be blocked except by artifact and black creatures.
All: Useless

One of the things that dooms a lot of cards is that one damage and two damage per turn are very different. A creature that's just 1/1 is not only easy to kill, it's also very hard to kill with. It can't mount a real offensive on its own, and can only mount a weak one in pairs. It doesn't help you race much at all. If it tapped to do one damage to target player it still wouldn't be worth it. If this issue comes up again in the future (and I'm darn sure it will) I'll try and say something like “It's only cotton wool” or more likely “It's only Squirming Mass.” But whose line is that, anyway?

Twisted Experiment 1B

Enchanted Creature gets +3/-1
All: Useless

This is one of the great cases of name wasting. This set uses up Treachery, it uses up Twisted Experiment. And for what? Those names don't really do justice to the cards at all. In this case, not only is this not twisted, it's positively mainstream Phyrexian work. And mighty useless work at that.

And now, let the rant begin.

Yawgmoth's Bargain 4BB

Enchantment. If for some reason you haven't won by then, skip your draw step. Pay 1 life: Draw a card now. Not on discard. Now. Not after lunch. Now. Not after July 1. Well, actually you can use it after July 1. Panic in the streets! Flavor text: Send the deck to Rosewater before it's too late or Ask Zvi what to do with this card. (Suggested on #mtg), or actually He craves only one commodity. And it's not fine carpeting.
All: Horribly, horribly broken.

It took me about five seconds to realize that Yawgmoth's Bargain was horribly broken. I'm ashamed it took me that long. It took me about 5min to put together the pieces from other cards in the set and build a horribly broken T2 deck on Apprentice, and 5min more to play enough sample games to send the statistics to Mark Rosewater. Again, very slow, and I apologize for it. In my e-mail, I suggested that in T2 they ban Stroke of Genius, Mind over Matter and Yawgmoth's Bargain. I figured that MoMa could easily prove to be a crutch, to some extent, but that banning Stroke as well would safely wipe out the traditional plan of generating huge amounts of mana for Stroke. Bargain was horribly broken by itself and had to go. If you draw 17 cards, how can you not win?

This is where I made the fatal mistake. I didn't consider the case of Bargain not being banned. I assumed Bargain was out the window. It was so obvious. I had proved that something had to go, Stroke wasn't going to solve any problems because you can literally just remove the Strokes from the deck and move on, and they've avoided banning MoMa in the past for reasons I agree with. The question was whether they'd ban all three. Also, after Rosewater's ‘we'll look into it’ I was never told that MoMa was a proposed solution, so I didn't build a Bargain deck without it. It looks easy, and at first I thought it would be. But it actually isn't. It took me several hours of tinkering to get a deck that could win the turn Bargain came out and brought it out quickly. I scoured all the legal sets, tinkered with numbers, tried sample draws, tried different approaches. In all, it took me one day to get to viable, two days to get to tier one, and yesterday I got to broken. I already knew that at least four approaches were broken in concept. At this point, I have three approaches I would consider grounds for banning Bargain on the same principle of Flucuator and Lotus Petal: It introduces a good combination deck to type II, which is a Bad Thing. One of the decks is at the point where one is good enough that it's probably justification for a standard banning based on a broken format. The question is how fast I can take it to the next level, where it can be banned without a banned/restricted day like Memory Jar was.

That's in Standard. In Extended, the deck is much, much worse because it can use Cadaverous Bloom, Lotus Petal and Mana Vault. If Extended is still more than just a race to see who casts the Bargain first, it's because of Arcane Lab and Force of Will, the same tools that kept High Tide in check, but it will have the same result of dividing things into broken and anti-broken. Worlds contains an Extended portion, and Bargain has to leave Extended before then. It really should leave T2 on July 1, in time for the US Open. I'd present the evidence I have so far if I thought it would get the bannings to happen (like the posting of the Memory Jar deck before Vienna) but I don't think it would work.