“I was strong, wasn’t I?”
Art:Final Vengeance
by David Szabo
We ranked all of the commanders, so now it’s time to go through all of the black commons from Duskmourn and evaluate them on a scale from 1-10! Black is a very strong color within this set, and quite a few cards are strong. I think I will see a decent amount of play within the format. From strong removal to some cool utility creatures, black has a lot to offer in this set Duskmourn has some absolute wins at commons and has cards that help and work well with commanders old and new! I will also be including some commanders I think these commons would work really well with! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
Rating for Appendage Amalgam 7/10:
I think this card is pretty good and is perfect for a deck focused on filling up your graveyard. I don’t really understand why this creature has flash but being able to flash them to get around summoning sickness can be pretty good, this card offers a decently consistent way to put cards in the graveyard, I don’t think this card is super powerful but is a decent piece of utility.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Balemurk Leech 3/10:
The only reason this card gets such a low rating is because of all of the competition it has at common, its trigger is just not better than cards like Creeping Bloodsucker
or Ill-Gotten Inheritance
which are far more consistent and easier to trigger, the only deck I think could run this is a enchantment heavy Voltron deck like Uncle Istvan
.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Cackling Slasher 8/10:
I like this card a lot and think its quite strong in decks that have a ton of creatures being sacrificed or dying, whether its our or our opponents its decently easy to trigger within pretty much any black deck. I think this card is a great aggressive attacker when it has the counter and is an amazing blocker as well.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
In an aritstocrat strategy
Rating for Cracked Skull 9/10:
I am a huge fan of this card; not only do you get a Duress
effect, but the next point of damage destroys the enchanted creature, which can be great on pretty much any big threat that our opponent has; discard can be quite relevant as well depending on the deck. I am a big fan of this card and think its quite strong.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
We can target ourselves!
Rating for Derilect Attic/Widow’s Walk 9/10:
I think this card is quite strong, but only in the right deck, I like this card a lot in Voltron decks where you are attacking alone quite a bit and the card draw you get is quite nice as well, I think a lot of Voltron decks will run this as it provides quite a bit of utility.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Fanatic of the Harrowing 7/10:
I think this card is quite good, just like almost all of the other black commons in this list. I think that is quite deck-dependent, and this is not a card that all black decks would want to run, but any black deck that has discard elements to it would like this because not only do you get an attacker/blocker, but you also get some discard and card draw which is always nice.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Pretty much any discard focused commander.
Rating for Fear of Lost Teeth 3/10:
Fear of Lost Teeth is a cool concept with awesome flavor, but overall it just doesn’t do that much; it is quite cheap, but the death trigger is quite unimpressive, which leads it to not be very good, I think this card is quite forgettable and don’t think there are many decks that would want to run this.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for the Fear of the Dark 10/10:
This is one of my favorite cards within the set; I would imagine it is quite rare for your opponents to control glimmer creatures, so this is often a 5/5 with menace and deathtouch, which is quite a strong card for most decks and most opponent’s decks will have trouble dealing with this in combat. Awesome card that I think can fit into most decks.
I think this card is generally quite good in most black decks.
Rating for Final Vengeance 10/10:
Final Vengeance is a very strong card, while it does kinda suck that its sorcery speed being able to exile a creature for cheap is quite strong and there arent an absolute ton of exile effects in the format and I think that most black decks can comfortably run this, I think this card sees a lot more play when people are putting more and more combos in their decks, while it is sorcery speed exiling a combo piece can really hurt your opponents.
I think this card slots nicely into most black decks.
Rating for Give In to Violence 6/10:
This is another card that has a lot of competition; while the lifelink can be nice there are already quite a bit of buffs in black that make this card not feel that great. This card certainly isn’t bad, but it’s quite unremarkable, and overall, I don’t think it will see very much play.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for Innocuous Rat 2/10:
If you’ve read some of the other set reviews we’ve done, you will know that I am not a huge fan of the manifest dread mechanic; I just don’t think it works super well within the format, as there are already a ton of better options for filling your graveyard. I’m sure there are decks that will want to run this, but I certainly can’t find any.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for Resurrected Cultist 3/10:
Resurrected Cultist is a very weird card that I personally don’t think is that good, while delirium is quite easy to turn on within the format, this card really doesn’t offer much since the format is so combat-heavy. I don’t think a 4/1 and a 4/1 again is really all that good.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for Spectral Snatcher 0/10:
Spectral Snatcher is another member of a very unremarkable cycle, this card just like all of the others is not very strong, there is just not enough good swamps to grab, this card is quite bad and I cant think of almost any decks that would want to play this.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for Winter’s Intervention 7/10:
It is a decent, cheap early-game removal spell. Any deck that cares about life gain would probably want to run this one; this can be a great and cheap removal spell for early-game commanders. I like this card a lot and any deck that wants lifegain would probably like this.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
Conclusion:
Black has a lot of very high highs and a lot of low lows; overall, I think it’s a decent color for the set, and the highs of the color certainly make up for its lows. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!