Hello and welcome back to Magic Project: Omega!

This one should hopefully come out at a reasonable time, and thankfully was easier to do.

We are going to be going over the Common instants and sorceries cycle by taking a look at the black instants and sorceries.

Having done the other two colors prior, this was a bit easier, but there were some other aspects that helped make this a bit easier, especially when compared to the other two colors.

Let’s take a look!

Design Approach

Unlike white and blue, black had an even mix of instants and sorceries at Common in ABU, which is much more of a blessing than you would expect.

The thing I’ve noticed about making instants and sorceries is very much considering how a card can be played, obviously, but with instants you need to consider that they can be played on any player’s turn, which can often be better when compared to sorceries.

This means though that sorceries can be a bit stronger because they can only be played on your turn, though it needs to be strong enough to warrant being cast on your turn while also not too strong or cheap to cast to make them ubiquitous.

However, since this set is aiming at a higher power level, I decided that I could tweak the knobs on certain card effects and see how things shake out.

Looking at ABU for reference, there is a decent spread of effects to choose from, plenty of interaction pieces as well as some amount of ramp in the form of Dark Ritual.

While I could make six kill spells and call it a day, I also took a look at the most recent set, Edge of Eternities as of writing, and wanted to see what sort of effects were allowed at Common and with a mix of both I think I have found some interesting compromises.

There were also some more opportunities to make reference to ABU in a way that used most of the Common instants and sorceries from ABU while also using modern effects and templating for how certain cards were made.

What was really challenging for black was determining the mana costs to start with for the cards, because while I am still not too set on the mana costs of cards, I still want a decent starting point on costing cards so I need fewer tweaks in the future.

I would say that this is the most bold I’ve been with starting mana costs so far, and while I don’t think that they will be problematic now, they may be problematic in the future or may lead to some problems in the future.

For now, I think that these starting mana values will be a nice benchmark to see how low I am willing to go for cards in the future, and will provide some interesting data for the future.

Cards

Here’s what I came up with!

These were the easiest of the colors that I’ve done so far, and I do like the cards came out overall, though there might be a tweak or two down the line depending on how much I want to push things.

Starting off with Execution, I wanted a destroy creature spell along with adding a Bone Shards type of cost in order to have a solid removal piece at Common at a cost. The life loss was added more so to help keep the game moving, because there are times when a game needs to go and while a kill spell can help, a bit of life loss is not a bad thing.

Next came Shadow Ceremony, which is a two mana ritual card that gives you four mana, very much being a direct reference to Dark Ritual. I thought that having this at Common would be fine, and while one of the Boon Charms I made also adds mana, I think that one additional source won’t be too bad. I could end up making it a sorcery in the future to balance things out and switch one of the sorceries here to be an instant instead.

Night Howl is a reference to Howl from Beyond, a combat trick in black that existed in ABU. The other interesting aspect is that it was a Common spell that gave an X bonus, which has fallen out of favor in modern design, but this version does give a fixed boost and an ability that didn’t exist at the time while also playing into the sacrifice synergies of the set.

Moving onto the sorceries, Drain Blood came about as an homage to Drain Life rather than a direct reference because Drain Life is a bit complicated. Instead I opted for a card that reduce power and toughness while also gaining you life and drawing cards, though at Common I may end up changing it to losing life if I feel its necessary to balance it.

Graverobbing is another direct reference, this time to Raise Dead, but I wanted to push how many creature cards you could bring back. I originally had it as X creature cards, but then decided that since Raise Dead already gave you one creature at one mana that this card also get you a creature card plus however much mana you put into it as a bonus.

Lastly was Grim Recruitment, which serves more of a functional reason to have been made because having a bit of graveyard removal is necessary for a set to have made available, and to add a bit of synergy with the white and black archetype of Knights in making a Knight token if a creature was exiled.

Overall it wasn’t too much of an issue making the black instants and sorceries, though I do think that they are the ones I may need to tweak a bit more in the future, if only slightly to make sure that they aren’t way too strong for Commons.

The next time we come back to Magic Project: Omega, we will be looking at the red instants and sorceries at Common, which hopefully isn’t just six burn spells.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual