Foundations: The 5 Best Black Cards

Foundations Has So Many Interesting Reprints In It

The black cards are really powerful in Foundations. The reprints, especially. I did not expect that we would have these options just sitting around in standard now. All but the fourth cards on this list are fully capable of changing the course of a game. They will (sometimes indirectly) win the whole thing. Plus, you can put all of these into the same style of deck.

Desecration Demon

It kills in only a few hits. If your opponent doesn’t want it to slam into them, then they have to keep losing creatures. And then it gets bigger. If they do not have a removal spell for this, it’s just brutal.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General

I can’t think of many high-cost planeswalkers (in or out of Foundations) that I would want in a deck, but Liliana is the exception. The card draw alone is enough reason to play this card, but in any control shell, you can make that second ability not even a downside and eventually win off the first ability. Honestly, it’s the ideal top-end card for lots of different builds.

Massacre Wurm

It’s a board wipe that sometimes wins the game on the spot. And, even if the opponent isn’t completely wiped out right away, it’s a source of continuous damage. Heck, the actual creature underneath all of this is powerful enough to become a problem for most opponents.

Midnight Reaper

This is the weakest one of the lot—because all it does is draw tons of cards and make sacrifice decks more powerful. That’s all. Yes, it is possible for this card to ruin its owner—you have to be careful with it—but it’s a nice option for decks that rely on a steady stream of creatures to win. It’s even a knight, for what it’s worth. Foundations has some support for that archetype.

Phyrexian Arena

Two cards a turn. Every single turn. In any control shell, this is ridiculous. In aggro and midrange, it’s still useful. You have every ability to win through attrition or speed. You just have to make sure there’s some reliable way to gain life. Red has some serious burn options in Foundations.  

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And those are the black cards. Even as I am writing this, I am wondering if I could build a good midrange black deck that uses copies of all of these cards. It seems possible. But, even if they never culminate in that, I expect to see these cards frequently in the coming years.

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