Welcome back! If you haven't noticed, Wizards has been messing around with the idea of letting Black get some enchantment destruction. So far, it's been attached at the hip to creature destruction and only edicts enchantments (see also Pharika's Libation.) And it's unlikely to allow you to target your own enchantments for a long time to prevent players from destroying harmful black enchantments that were designed knowing the mono-black player would be stuck with them.

But trying to explain black enchantment removal flavorfully is another problem unto itself. What would this card, for example, be called?

Hmmm, it's some kind of murder ritual that you can stretch to also either cleanse your creatures or remove an opponents advantage.

Of course, 'ritual' has special meaning in magic already, so I can't use that name. Hitting up the thesaurus I come across "Sacrament" which is nearly perfect, since that refers to the thing being sacrificed. (Only nearly, because it's a noun). Phone it in as "Unholy Sacrament" and realise that sounds like something from Alpha they'd never be allowed to use today? Looking for something that indicates cleaning or removal - and hit the problem that they all tend to sound like white names. Except "depurgate", which presumably is a horrible extension of 'purge'. (Seriously, is that a word? Expurgate would seem to be, like, the same word but better). Where was I? Ah, how about something really brutal sounding?

Forced Sacrament

(One problem with coming up with stuff this way, of course, is non-english-language sets which tend to have huge mismatches on what words have lots of synonyms)

Horrible design. This should not require an enchantment on the battlefield to cast the unkicked spell.

Bah, the intention is clear. If it technically needs a 'may' because magic-template-language isn't quite natural language, it doesn't detract from it.

Wait so this is a four mana Murder, but also a six mana Demystify? Yikes, seems weak.

Oh wait... there is no 'instead' at the end, so does this mean you cannot just blow up an enchantment, you also need to kill a guy for this to have valid targets? Seems weird, but technically less weak since you'd be forced to get full value out of it...

Actually, worse case scenario this is a -costed card that reads, "As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature

Destroy target enchantment an opponent controls"

Anyway, as for a name I'm really bad at naming black removal cards, because I'm generally uninspired to do so, but I guess it couldn't hurt... um... what about, Cruel Unmaking?

I do like the idea of unmaking things... but IDK if this name will be popular :shrug:

I also really like Vitenka's suggestion, but I actually prefer Unholy Sacrament over their final idea...

@SecretInfiltrator: The word 'may' is not necessary. If the spell is unkicked, it only has one target. See also Gatherer's current wording for Jilt or Orim's Thunder.

I admit, the wording sent me for a loop too.

­Laboratory Meltdown

Resonant Shriek

Residual Decay

The poll is now active. Go here to vote on your favorite choice!

I voted for Forced Sacrament, and somebody else should, too. It's way better than mine but I'm in the lead.

To be honest, Link, I was afraid of a five way tie. They're all rather good.

Anyhow, I apologize about taking so long with this voting cycle. I got busy this week. I'll make sure to update this card later tonight.

Link wins this week, much to his chagrin. ;)

See you all in a couple of days with (((NTC #044)))!

😅