Misery's Shade (Patreon)

The set Torment came out at an interesting time in the history of Magic. With the release of Odyssey, for the first time ever Dark Ritual wasn't legal in standard. And most black cards back then were costed with the assumption that players would be running four Dark Rituals if playing black. This left many people wondering when black would be competitive again. For myself, I was actually a big mono-black player at the time, conditioned by playing Necropotence whenever I could after it was printed in Ice Age and inexplicably reprinted in 5th Edition. So I too was eagerly wondering what was the future of black. For these reasons, when Nantuko Shade was previewed, everyone went nuts about this card. How times have changed.