Pointed Discussion

This has got to be one of the coolest pics ever.

It's easy to forget how cool this card is when you don't use it for a while, but I've had a lot of fun with it.

Great card. If only my madness deck wasnt also part hellbent part threshold I'd be all over this card.

This card fits so perfectly in my blue-black deck. Blue keeps me drawing and discarding, then black turns the discarding into madness spells. The fact that this card also acts as a mini kill-spell merely sweetens the deal.

This is a tweak of Nekrataal, better because it can kill black creatures and indestructibles, but worse because you need a hand full of black cards and it usually can't deal with huge creatures.

Do Swamps count as black cards?

All lands are colorless unless otherwise stated on the card.

Actually, achilles, it seems more along the lines of Nightshade Seer from Urza's Destiny. Though the seer is a spellshaper, the whole "reveal X number of black cards in your hand to give -X/-X to target creature" is identical on both. So while this may look like Nekrataal, it's closer to the Seer.

It's a fusion of Nekrataal and Scent of Nightshade (which is the spell that Nightshade Seer spellshapes) his body and cost come from Nekrataal, his effect and madness cost come from Scent of Nightshade

If you are playing black heavy casual with a decent draw engine this is pretty good to side-in for nekrataal against black. Fun = 8/10.

@tcollins

Reread the card. If you use Painter's Servant to turn all cards black then even a revealed land would cause -1/-1 if used with Nightshade Assassin. Nightshade assassin doesn't care about mana cost on the cards it only cares if the card is black or not.

If this were a Ninja Assassin, it would also have Flash, Shadow, and Shroud--not Hexproof, SHROUD. Because Ninjas are tricky enough to prepare for their masters getting Mindslavered with a Go For the Throat in hand.

run with instant speed discard for flash, and you have a very nice combat trick, having first strike makes it able to block and kill attacking creatures with toughness of X+2

I'd say this is one of the most assassin/ninja like cards in the game. Very cool card!

No one can escape the Red Miles!

(forgive me)

@TongueSlicer

No, lands are considered colourless. Unless there is another effect causing cards to be coloured in different zones (Such as Painter's Servant choosing black). Even if there is an effect allowing you to reveal a Swamp as a black card, it's converted mana cost is zero, causing the targeted creature to get -0/-0 until end of turn...which would be useless unless there's something like Cowardice on the battlefield, or an opponent's Cursed Monstrosity

Nonetheless this is a really good and versatile card, fits into Madness decks and very few black creatures have first strike. Even if it isn't in a deck built around some of it's mechanics it's still an excellent card.

EDIT: Foot in mouth.

Nearly every card in Time Spiral block was a throwback to at least one previously printed card.

This card references the cards Nekrataal and Scent of Nightshade (including mimicking those two cards' costs in the mana cost and madness costs!)