The Best Black Wincons in Magic’s Biggest Formats

Doomsday | Illustration by Jaime Jones

Black is usually tied to grindy situations in Magic. It’s a color that relies on 1-for-1 removal, drawing cards by paying life, returning creatures from the graveyard to play, or win conditions that slowly drain your opponent’s life.

That said, black cards are crucial to many combos throughout MTG’s history that see play in competitive decks to this day. Let’s see which black cards are the best win conditions in different competitive MTG formats.

What Are Black Wincons in MTG?

Tendrils of Agony | Illustration by Volkan Baga

Black wincons in MTG are black cards that win you the game in many scenarios when you cast them, or ones that can tip the scale heavily in your favor. For the purposes of this list, I’m considering cards that have a black color identity in Commander, or mono-black cards across different competitive Constructed formats. Note that sometimes you can “effectively” win the game after a well-timed turn-1 Thoughtseize, or after casting an edict on your Voltron opponent’s creature, but that’s not the kind of wincons we’re aiming for today.

Honorable Mentions

• Hopeless Nightmare
• Grief
• Liliana of the Veil
• Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• Griselbrand

These cards are engines that make you win in different formats, but they aren’t “Oops, I win” cards. An early loop of Hopeless Nightmare with a bounce effect or an early Liliana of the Veil ultimate can often mean the game is over, not to mention the Grief loops in Scam decks. Griselbrand can win you games, but you need to reanimate it into play somehow. You’re hardly ever winning a game by paying 8 mana into old Grisel. These cards can all facilitate a winning strategy, but it's usually the cards surrounding them that actually lead to decisive wins.

Best Black Wincons for Standard

Bloodletter of Aclazotz

Bloodletter of Aclazotz, in conjunction with a single Unstoppable Slasher attack, causes your opponent to lose the game. The fact that you can curve one into the other is an important part of a powerful Standard deck. It’s also a good support card for Unholy Annex because it’s a demon, so each turn you’ll draw two cards and drain 4 life from them while gaining 2 life yourself.

Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting Ultimate

Green-black has a way to win on the spot, by having cards like Doubling Season or level 3 Innkeeper's Talent. Just cast Vraska, Betrayal's Sting with one of these enchantments in play, ultimate right away, and win. Not only will Vraska enter with double counters, it'll also put double the poison counters on your opponent, reaching 18 poison counters total.

Doomsday Excruciator

Doomsday Excruciator is used in conjunction with mill cards to finish off your opponent’s library, and Jace, the Perfected Mind is usually the prime candidate for this. Cast this demon, and your opponent’s library dwindles down to six cards. A single mill card or two wins from here.

Best Black Wincons for Commander

Torment of Hailfire

Pay a high amount of X, and Torment of Hailfire everybody else. They’ll lose everything, including permanents, cards, and life. It’s especially effective after a board wipe, when your opponents have fewer permanents on the board to sacrifice. As with every X spell, it’s better if you have ways to generate infinite mana, but just tapping a bunch of lands and mana rocks is often enough.

Exsanguinate

Exsanguinate scales well in Commander, draining everybody for X life and gaining three times X life. This can save your bacon or kill a player on the spot, or you can amplify it with certain lifegain payoff cards to reach true wincon status.

Professor Onyx

Your magecraft triggers will drain 2 life from each player with Professor Onyx around. Chain of Smog lets you go infinite by letting you endlessly copy the same spell. You can also play spells/draw cards while draining your opponents in a control deck.

Sanguine Bond + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

One of the best lifegain/life drain combos involves cards like Sanguine Bond. The “Whenever you gain life, they lose life” condition is very powerful, so all you need is a way to gain a lot of life and punish your opponents. You just need drain effects, extort, lifelink creatures, and the like. If you combine Exquisite Blood with Sanguine Bond, any 1 life you gain or 1 life they lose sets off your infinite combo.

Tainted Pact

In singleton formats, Tainted Pact lets you remove your entire library from the game. That’s often enough to win via Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac. It’s an instant, so you can fire it after the trigger that cares about you having zero cards in your library.

Ad Nauseam

Many combos in cEDH require you to resolve Ad Nauseam. Once you do that, you can draw a good chunk of your deck and win from there. This card strongly benefits from the 40 starting life you get in Commander, allowing you to take more risks and see more cards.

K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is one of the more popular cEDH mono-black commanders. Turns out that paying life for mana is a powerful accelerant. If things go well, you’ll manage to establish a loop where you can keep casting your cards and draining your opponent for more life than you lose on each loop, effectively winning from there. It's a bit of a glass cannon, but has explosive early-game potential.

Best Black Wincons for Modern

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

The best pure black win condition for present-day Modern is Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, seeing as many combos revolve around this card. Yawgmoth combos rely on undying cards like Young Wolf, where you’ll create sacrifice loops and go infinite with a card like Blood Artist.

Best Black Wincons for Pioneer

Black wincons in Pioneer are cards that aren’t legal in Standard but aren’t good enough for other Eternal formats, aside from casual EDH.

Peer into the Abyss

Casting Peer into the Abyss nets you a win if you have any card in play that damages your opponent each time they draw. These range from Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to Psychosis Crawler or Underworld Dreams.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Old Gray Merchant of Asphodel can still rock in a deck built around black devotion, zombies, or both. You’ll just need many black permanents in play, and a way to loop this creature or blink it.

Best Black Wincons for Legacy and Vintage

Reanimate

One mana and some life for the best creature in your graveyard often win games, especially after a turn 1 Entomb. Sometimes, even the turn 2 Troll of Khazad-dûm can give you an unfair enough advantage. Many players argue that Reanimate is too strong in Legacy and should be banned.

Tendrils of Agony

Tendrils of Agony is the classic win condition for storm decks in Legacy or Vintage. Chaining cards like Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Past in Flames, and repeating this chain ultimately nets you a 9-10 storm count and enough mana to cast a lethal Tendrils for the win.

Doomsday

Doomsday lets you keep five cards in your library, and you’ll win by setting a pile with a card like Thassa's Oracle and card draw or rituals. In this case, resolving Doomsday sets up your win by emptying your deck with the remaining cards and casting Thassa's Oracle as the last card.

Necropotence

We can still play Necropotence in Vintage after a classic turn-1 Dark Ritual, like in 1995. Necro is a very unfair card that allows you to draw a good part of your deck, and after that, you should be able to win by chaining cards in your hand that are free to cast and net you mana, like Lotus Petal/Black Lotus, or rituals that amplify your available mana. Eventually, you’ll find your combo and win from there (or die trying).

Wrap Up

Tainted Pact | Illustration by Benjamin Ee

As predicted, we don’t find many “Oops, I win” cards in competitive black decks. That’s not to say black cards are weak, though; it’s just that black's power often comes as a support color, and in UB, BG, or RB gold cards. Many cards that have been banned recently couldn’t make this list, like Grief in Modern and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord in Pioneer.

What are your favorite black wincons? Any that didn’t make the list? Let me know in the comments section below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and please check out our blog for more on the other colors’ best wincons.