by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 04, 2009

One of the reasons that black is a popular color among high level magic the gathering players is that it has one of the larger chunks of the color pie. The reason for this is that generally black can do most anything so long as you are willing to give up enough to do it. You can kill creatures, do direct damage, draw cards, and more often at the cost of your own life or the lives of your creatures but you can still do it. This ability to do many things is also powerful in cards that have multiple possible uses because it has more range to work.

The command cards are a cycle from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering that allow for great versatility. Profane command is the black sorcery in that set and the only one with an x in the casting cost, giving it even more versatility than the others. It costs two black and x to cast and reads "Choose two - Target player loses X life; or return target creature card with converted mana cost X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield; or target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn; or up to X target creatures gain fear until end of turn. (They can't be blocked except by artifact)"

Unlike most of the other command cards there is no filler here. These are all useful at many points during a game and being able to pay x for two of these means that the mana value remains remarkably good.

The first of these abilities is the most simple and the fallback position if the others are not valuable. This in essence makes the card a black fireball that targets the opponent and only costs one more mana than a fireball. Since x does not have to be black mana this opens up possibilities of simply ending the game for the opponent.

The second of these is a reasonably good animation spell, and while it doesn't allow for you to put out large creatures you can't afford it does allow for creatures that would be otherwise difficult to play such as five color creatures. Mostly though it will bring back something you have already used.

The third ability is going to kill a creature most every time you use it making this card a natural card advantage spell.

Finally is the most powerful of the abilities. Assuming you have even three creatures this combine with the first ability can allow you to do a lot of damage in a single turn, or combine with the third ability can let you kill the opponent's only artifact creature then attack freely. It could even allow you to bring back a haste creature from the graveyard with the second ability and then attack without it being blocked.

These are all powerful abilities and being able to combine them makes them more so and so if you are playing black this is a card that can fit into nearly any deck.

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