Invoke Despair

Red vs Enchantments

Hi Mark! We got black interaction with enchantments in several cards, including the infamous Invoke Despair. Will red ever get something against enchantments, and if yes, will it be soon?

The equivalent to red and enchantments is black and artifacts. Black is now (a distant) third at enchantment destruction.

Artifacts Black Enchantments Invoke Despair Red

Black Enchantment Interaction

"Invoke Despair" hitting enchantments feels really, really bad. From a flavor perspective, it makes much more sense for black to interact with artifacts than with enchantments. We're in the middle of a story about evil cyborgs, after all.

We changed black to allow it to destroy enchantments because enchantments were the only card type three colors couldn’t destroy. Red is now the one non-blue color that can’t destroy enchantments. Black is the one non-blue color that can’t destroy artifacts.

Artifacts Black Card Types Colors Destroy Enchantments Flavor Invoke Despair Red Story / Lore

Monochrome Cruel Ultimatum's Card Function

Re Cruel Ultimatum being mono-black: Are syphon mind, archon of cruelty and waste not breaks? Drawing off of someone else's discard seems to fit in black's color pie best. And invoke despair draws cards with the opponent paying the cost. Skull raid is a straight draw 2 against an empty handed opponent, so the opponent doesn't even need to lose anything.

We’ve done a few opponent discards and you draw as sort of a “drain cards” effect, but it was a mistake. Black needs to pay some cost to draw. The opponent losing cards is not a cost.

Archon Archon of Cruelty Black Color Pie Cruel Ultimatum Discard Invoke Despair Raid Skull Raid Syphon Mind Waste Not

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