All 14 Black Enchantment Removal Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on September 30, 2025

Feed the Swarm | Illustration by Andrey Kuzinskiy

Much like your grandma’s mincemeat pie that held together your family's Thanksgiving and other holidays, Magic's color pie keeps the game intact on a fundamental level. Some might say the color pie is Magic at its core, and the game wouldn’t have persisted as long as it has without the distinction between colors and color pairs.

The existence of the color pie also means there are certain game actions that certain colors can’t take. Blue ramp isn't much of a thing, green cards don't usually counter spells, white has a hard time with straight-up destruction, and red cards don’t get clean card draw.

Black is the color that typically gets to do everything, but at a cost. However, removing enchantments is a relatively new addition to black’s arsenal, with very few premium effects that fit in this space.

Let’s check them out!

What Is Black Enchantment Removal in MTG?

Baleful Beholder | Illustration by Lars Grant-West

Black enchantment removal refers to spells and abilities that can remove an opponent's enchantment from the battlefield. Today I look over every black removal card that specifically calls out enchantments in their rules text. There aren’t many cards that do it, and most of the ones that can aren’t very good, but it’s something that black creeps into more and more of in recent Magic sets.

I stick to cards with a mono-black color identity, since cards like Mortify and Tear Asunder get their Disenchant/Naturalize capabilities from their non-black color. I need to see what options that mono-black decks have to remove enchantments. “Mono-black color identity” also means I ignore colorless cards, otherwise this is the way black decks skirt the color pie. I end up with cards like Goblin Firebomb, Meteor Golem and Spine of Ish Sah to take care of problematic permanent types. None of those today.

I include effects that specifically mention enchantments but don’t necessarily target them. Many effects in this vein force opponents to sacrifice enchantments rather than straight-up destroy them, which keeps black firmly among the worst in the enchantment removal department. I evaluate cards with the Commander format in mind, but honestly, the Commander and Constructed versions of this list are probably perfectly in sync.

#14. Feast of Dreams

I mean, it technically counts right? Feast of Dreams only pops an enchantment if it’s also a creature, in which case any old Doom Blade variant would’ve already done the trick. I’m only including this black instant for completion’s sake, though maybe it gets a bump up in Limited environments with enchantment creatures.

#13. Baleful Beholder

Beholder? More like I won’t be holding this card any time soon. Baleful Beholder wasn’t even that good in Adventures in the Forgotten Realm Limited, let alone anywhere else. It does eat an enchantment from each opponent, but I’d have to stretch pretty hard to think of a deck that wants to run this black creature.

#12. Ghastly Death Tyrant

Maybe I’m missing the Dungeons & Dragons references, but it’s strange how nearly identical Ghastly Death Tyrant is to Baleful Beholder. It’s a step up, as you’d gladly take some damage to destroy the permanent you need to rather than leave it up to an edict effect. The deathtouch mode is probably worse on average than Beholder’s menace mode, but I’m not putting much thought into either one on a 6-mana creature.

#11. Vile Mutilator

Vile Mutilator is a monster of a demon and budget reanimator target that ensures it'll hit more than a token creature or role. Expensive to cast, but great if you can cheat it into play in creative ways.

#10. Mire in Misery

Wizards’ first real attempt at giving black some enchantment removal, Mire in Misery missed the mark. Even if an opponent only controls one key enchantment, they can just sacrifice their worst creature to keep it around. Likewise, the creature removal’s just too weak and gives players the buyout of sacrificing an enchantment to keep their Voltron creature intact.

#9. Early Winter

Early Winter is made-for-Limited removal, and not the type that we’re even that excited to pick up anymore. Catching an enchantment is a fine add-on to Final Reward, but not enough to consider it outside Bloomburrow booster drafts.

#8. Gaius van Baelsar

Gaius van Baelsar hits a fair point on the mana curve, and is stuck offering a choice to opponents. The nature of choosing the most beneficial mode on this card is very helpful to maximize your sacrifice payoffs.

#7. Braids, Arisen Nightmare

Braids, Arisen Nightmare is a legend among sacrifice commanders when it comes to edicts, but you need to first sacrifice your own enchantment, and they still get to choose their worst enchantment. The last part of the effect with life loss and card draw is not to be forgotten though.

#6. Extract the Truth

Extract the Truth is already a step up from Mire in Misery if all you care about is removing enchantments. You miss out on being able to remove creatures with this black sorcery, but you’re probably already playing better cards that do that if it's a concern. The discard effect is a reasonable failsafe, though discard spells aren’t at their best in Commander to begin with.

#5. Shatter the Oath

Shatter the Oath actually caused some [minor] Twitter hubbub when it came out, with some players claiming it was a blatant color pie break since it destroyed an enchantment outright with “no drawback.” Of course, 5 mana and sorcery speed is the hidden drawback here, so I’d say it’s fair game. You’re not really considering this anywhere, though maybe there’s a super casual Hateful Eidolon deck out there that just really wants the role token.

#4. Pharika’s Libation + Debt to the Kami

Debt to the Kami is better than Pharika's Libation, but by a small enough margin that I lump them together. These are kind of what you want Mire in Misery to be, but at 3 mana they’re still not that interesting, especially since they only target a single opponent.

#3. Invoke Despair

Well, that’s a big leap in quality. Oppressive enough to get banned while it was in Standard, Invoke Despair isn’t all that impressive in Commander. Part of that stems from the fact that you can’t target different opponents for the repeat effects; it all has to be aimed at one target player. There are just splashier things to be doing in Commander for 5 mana, though sniping a few permanents and drawing a card or two isn’t nothing either.

#2. Feed the Swarm

Feed the Swarm is about as clean as it gets and really drives home black’s mantra of “greatness at any cost.” It's enchantment removal that feels appropriately black, and doubling up as creature removal means it’s pretty safe to run without fear of never having a target. I don’t use the word staple lightly, but this is an auto-include in my mono-black decks.

#1. Withering Torment

Not long after Bloomburrow, Duskmourn: House of Horror released and completely uprooted what we thought we knew about black enchantment removal. Withering Torment is the best card in this category by a long-shot, even beating out Feed the Swarm. An extra mana and some life loss is worth grabbing this effect at instant speed. In fact, it's so efficient it raised questions about the color pie, though personal opinion: This is well within black's grasp as far as the modern-day color pie is concerned.

Black's Best Alternatives to Remove Enchantments

Without colorless cards, one of the lines for black to remove enchantments is to Thoughtseize and force a discard of that nasty enchantment before it can be cast, then once the enchantment is known, Surgical Extraction can extract it before it affects the battlefield, and lastly, the final ability on one of the best black planeswalkers of all time, Liliana of the Veil can get rid of enchantments, but it is still up to your opponent.

Wrap Up

Invoke Despair | Illustration by Olivier Bernard

I wish I had more for you, but that’s really all the dabbling Wizards has done in this space. There’s a concerted effort to expand black’s ability to deal with enchantments while ensuring it remains a tertiary enchantment removal color behind white and green. Mire in Misery and Feed the Swarm were the first attempts at doing this, and while some people believe it’s against the philosophy of the color pie, I see it more as Magic evolving and adapting to the needs of the game after sticking around for more than 30 years.

Your turn, enchantress-haters! What are you using to blow up enchantments in your black decks? Did I miss any mono-black enchantment removal spells, and do you expect to see this portion of the color pie get pushed more in the future? Let me know in the comments or over in the Draftsim Discord or on Draftsim's Twitter/X.

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