Hello and welcome back to Magic Project: Omega!

We come back working on some Common creatures of the set, this time taking a look at Common creatures in black.

As with the other, I wanted four Common creatures that were defined parts of each of the archetypes that I had set up and the fifth one to be a general purpose creature that could be used in any deck.

Black in ABU is very well defined in that it has destruction effects, interaction, decent creatures, and thematic for the time it was made. There are also some strong cards that I could make reference to, but still have some interesting effects for Common.

As per usual, mana costs and creature types are subject to change.

Design Approach

Taking a look at the black cards in ABU, I was trying to look for effects that would match the theming of the archetypes while still feeling like they matched the theming of ABU. The archetypes for black being Control, Sacrifice, Knights, and Graveyard.

The Common creature for Control was probably one of the harder ones to come up with. The reason being that a lot of what black does in terms of control is destruction based tempo play, and I went back and forth on what form of destruction to go with. I decided to make reference to a card that does a strong form of tempo play, but I am on the fence about the kind of destruction it does.

The Common creature for Sacrifice was much easier in comparison, mostly because there are a ton of examples to pick from throughout Magic’s history on a Sacrifice archetype. I decided that making a reference to a sacrifice card from ABU would fit best, and have it be pretty strong if paired with other archetypes.

The Common creature for Knights also came about pretty easily. I decided that I could slip in another reference to a classic creature type that originated in ABU that would work well with how I want Knights to go in this set.

The Common creature for the Graveyard archetype is one I’m much less confident about. It is a decently common effect so I don’t mind having it, but I feel like I could do more with it. I think this might get boosted in some way in the future, but I’m not quite sure how.

The general Common creature is another reference to a classic card in ABU, which I think is powerful, but I may be pushing it a bit. Plus I made a reference to this card already, so I can imagine myself changing it to something different.

Cards

Here are the cards I ended up with!

This series of cards is filled with both very solid designs and some designs that I think need a lot of tweaking, which is good to be aware of potential issues that may crop up as the set goes along.

Horde Fiend is a very strong and potentially oppressive card for being a Common, even though this was an effect on a Common card in ABU, I do think I can tone it down a touch.

Pit Servant and Knight Shade are the two strongest designs to come from this series of card in terms of how confident I am in them. With Pit Servant it incentivizes you to sacrifice it while it has a higher power and Knight Shade has a Shade pump ability that works well with the Knight archetype boosting other Knights. I am also so happy about the play on words for Knight Shade.

Death Caller is a reference to Raise Dead with a bit of additional life gain and this is where I am back to feeling down on the design. I do think it is a fine card overall, but it feels like it’s missing something that I can’t place.

Cultist of Shadows is a Dark Ritual reference that I think I will probably change in the future. I made a cycle of Boon Charms and I feel like that this card is encroaching in that space, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets a complete overhaul in the future.

There are a lot of ups and downs on this series of cards, but I do think that they are all fairly cohesive and have aspects that either just need retooling or one major overhaul. Otherwise they are pretty strong designs for Commons in my opinion that I think help set things up for the future.

When we come back to Magic Project: Omega, we’ll be taking a crack at the five Common red creatures and figure them out.

See you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

Bluesky: @jmcasualnerd.bsky.social

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jmcasual