The Ten Most Dreadful Black Cards, According to Gatherer – Part Two

by jmgariepy · December 10, 2014

We changed things up in Part One of the Ten Most Dreadful Black Cards, so I never got around to revealing this list’s Dishonorable Mention. Behold! Stinky Poop!

Mold Demon is a 6/6 Fungus Demon for with a bonus ability that helps you lose the game. The artwork features some sort of Winter Wizard fighting an invisible wolverine. It’s a card that screams in confused anger for flavor text to explain that the Universe is not a chaotic void, and there is meaning to our lives. And why, for all that is holy, did someone pay $18.92 for a playset of this card on eBay? Were they planning on combining this card and Momentary Blink to achieve Threshold? Because I’ve got an easier way to put seven cards in your graveyard. Give me a dollar, and you can discard as many cards as you like.

The craziest part, though, is that Mold Demon was once reasonable. This is a mono-black six power creature. In 1994, cracking one of these bad boys was like winning the lottery. There were no big black creatures, except for Demons who demanded a sacrifice every turn, like Lord of the Pit, Yawgmoth Demon or Minion of Leshrac. Mold Demon was a fatty two-by-four who demanded a sacrifice, but for something ultimately irrelevant. In the early days of Magic, what were you planning to do with seven mana anyway? Cast Mold Demon? That card sucked!

Listen, I’m not saying Mold Demon is or was a fair card. I wouldn’t even use it as a bookmark, for fear the words in the book would slide off the page to get away from it. I’m only saying there are twelve worse black cards in the game than this one. I’m so sorry. But if we’re going to get past this pile of turd, we need to dive directly in the center of it.

Number Five – Cursed Monstrosity

Hooboy. I’m as confounded as the Nomad Sentry in this card’s flavor text. What is this thing? And don’t tell me it’s a giant mole with bat wings. Both the Sentry and I can see that. I mean my brain keeps shutting down every time I try to process all the stupid on this card.

Where do I begin? How about “Why would a rare 4/3 flyer for five need a drawback?” Isn’t the power and toughness drawback enough? This monstrosity was printed in a block that includes Sengir Vampire, and that card was outclassed by all the goodies Torment provided.

Then there’s the card’s printed drawback, which is great on a cheap creatures. I used to love dropping Tar Pit Warrior on the battlefield via Dark Ritual on turn one, and Phantasmal Bear is one of the best blue beaters I ever saw. Those cards are great because, while vulnerable, they tend to draw spells destined for bigger threats. At this cost, Señor Molebat is pretending to be your big threat. Granted, the drawback comes with an out. You can discard a land every time your opponent targets Officer Molebat with Master Decoy. That doesn’t prevent it from tapping, mind you…

But what I want to know, is what’s going on in that picture? I really want to look over the art direction assigned to Jeff Remmer. “Depict a mole who was previously standing on a bridge spanning over a dried out gulch with his one true love, and was told that they could never be together. Devastated, the giant mole bellyflops to the mud packed Earth below, never breaking eye contact with she who broke his heart. Give the giant mole wings, so we understand he could have ceased plummeting to his death at any time, yet chose not to.” Cripes, Wizards, that is both deep and twisted. I wonder if Jeff Remmer cried while painting this. I’m crying just from looking at it.

Best comment by Dolorosa: “Don’t worry, Cursed Monstrosity, I certainly love you more than I love this Swamp. Forget even trying to summon anything better than you, you’re my allstar and I’ll do everything I can to keep YOU around! Must destroy more Swamps! NO ONE CAN HAVE MY MOLE! *** ALL THE OTHER GUYS IN MY HAND, THIS MOLE IS MY LIFE!”

Number Four – Numai Outcast

Hey, it’s the fahionista emo hipster Numai Outcast! We already met you once in the 2013 update to the 10 most reviled Magic cards. You were number four then, right below card number five, Mindless Null. And check out who’s hanging out at the number three spot this week! It’s Mindless Null! You’re moving up in the world, Outcast! No more hanging out with your hipster friends in your parents’ basement, ironically listening to their old cassette tapes. Now you work two full time jobs as a coffee barista to pay off the rent in the crappy studio apartment you share with two other people, and to pay off the credit card bills for that dumb hat you’re wearing.

I see you’re still angry at the world. Don’t worry. Eventually you, too, will become numb to the injustice of wage labor. Here are some other things you can look forward to as you get older: Financial security, customers won’t hit on you as much, nobody will expect you to follow musical culture and will be impressed by your minimal knowledge, you can wear sweatpants all the time, you’ll no longer exhaust yourself caring about politicians as individuals but instead will blindly vote for any candidate that represents your party, and cats, cats, cats, cats, cats!

Unfortunately, twenty years from now, your card will still suck. Sorry about that. As long as Wizards keeps printing cards, though, you might no longer grace lists like this. Maybe.

Second best comment by j_mindfingerpainter: “Combos with and losing.”

Number Three – Mindless Null

As we discussed in the 2013 update, Mindless Null was a data entry accident, that became an inside joke for development, that built up enough steam to get its own card. Mindless Null is to Magic: the Gathering, as William Hung is to American Idol, as dogecoin is to currency, as The Flaming Moe is to cocktails, as Calendar Man is to Batman villains, and as the Gillette Five-Bladed Fusion is to razors. All were terrible ideas which couldn’t help but spark the imagination and ultimately become real boys. Sometimes the Blue Fairy makes mistakes, creating Pinnochios who should have kept their strings on. Calm down, Ultron wannabe. You ain’t taking over the Marvel Universe any time soon.

Second best comment by Tapir: “I’ve never looked closely at a Zendikar booster pack, but I imagine that the fine print legally has to warn you that you might get this card.”

Number Two – Face of Fear

Why, hello there beautiful!

I have one complement for Face of Fear. Unlike Shinen of Fear’s Chill, at least it does what it says it does. I’m still jumpy about the Shinen; I kind of expected Face of Fear to do something loopy, like “target artifact can only block Horrors.”

But what a horror this is! If Gluttonous Zombie is supposed to be fair (which is a lot like saying “If Jim Varney, who plays Ernest in Ernest Goes to Jail, is supposed to be a real actor”) then this card is charging you a premium for that single point of toughness. Face of Fear is the unnecessary high end model of Gluttonous Zombie, and comes with a leather interior, head rest and all the peanuts you can eat.

I’d like to call your attention to Face of Fear’s flavor text:

“It’s only frightened five people to death. Not my best work.”

—Braids, dementia summoner

If Braids means that only five players were dealt lethal damage by Face of Fear, ever, then I believe her. Seems suspiciously high, though. Braids may be prone to exaggeration. I think she’s counting games where one player cast Face of Fear, and their opponent conceded because it occurred to them that they were paired against an idiot.

For those keeping track at home, this list was a neck and neck race between Kamigawa Block and Odyssey Block, with both blocks submitting four cards apiece. Since Face of Fear weighs in as the second most dreadful black card, Odyssey Block takes home the golden Razor Boomerang. I think both blocks can be proud of what they accomplished here to day. But I think we can agree that we are all the real losers.

Best comment by Opined_Fluke: “Some cards make you wonder whether finding a joker card in your booster would be less insulting than actually designing a card to be totally unplayable…“

Number One – Bog Hoodlums

Which brings us back to Bog Hoodlums, pack leader of terrible black cards. Where are you running to little hoodlum? I think he’s trying to escape. “Please! Let me out of this card!” You got to give him credit. He never gives up.

Second best comment by vadaaa: “ı used to love goblins until see this oh my god what is this”

We learned a lot of things today. I mean collectively, and in our own separate lives. I learned little from writing this article. These cards are gigantic stinking messes. But if you add together the number of people reading this article, we become one superman with the collective knowledge of all the things those people learned total. Our biggest weakness would be an intrinsic understanding of terrible black Magic cards. Whenever someone asked us what a Bog Hoodlum did, we would cower in fear and shame that the knowledge was so readily available to us. Don’t worry. No one will ever know our weakness unless there’s a way to cache webpages published on the internet by the Library of Congress for historical purposes.

Like many early superheros written by authors with no direction, it will take time before we eventually meet our arch-nemesis. Until then, we’ll be punching the faces of hoods who rob banks, or a guy with vulture wings who robs banks. In the meantime, perhaps you’d enjoy reading some other articles in According to Gatherer? It can be our secret headquarters, like the Batcave, or the Fortress of Solitude, or Aunt May’s den. Fine, rag on Aunt May’s den all you want. But does your den turn into a super-computer room when you pull on the football trophy? I don’t think so.