Pointed Discussion

Five for a kill spell is a bit much for my tastes.

A cantrip form of Dark Banishing (cost: 2B) I'd sooner expect to cost 3B. Where's the extra B coming from?

Cantrips on removal spells at instant speed are well worth a high cost, and the cost on Annihilate is well deserving even with it's Dark Banishing removal restriction because of the card advantage it gives.

I was hanging out on this getting a new art, as the current one still doesn't make very much sense. That's just me though, the card is fantastic in Commander regardless.

I was going to say "Surprised this hasn't seen any reprint"-- but then I remembered how few Black Duel Decks there have been.

Liliana
Phyrexia
Sorin

I'm not going to count Golgari because I think guild decks count as their own semi-unique color

but I will count Vraska. I actually hope to see this card again in her deck. It's moderate and just enough. Very glad Wizards has avoided putting "Incinerate in all the Red decks, Oblivion Ring in all the White decks, Doom Blade in all the Black decks"

2 stars still....but this is a 2-star card that I am sympathetic to for unsure reasons. I love those =D

Skynight: 'draw a card' isn't exactly right at 1 mana. it's closer to 1.5 mana. 2 mana is a bit much, but it's better to cost more mana than less mana when it comes to drawing cards. if they could charge half-mana in black-bordered land, they probably would consistently charge 1.5 mana for Cantrip. As is, some cards cost it as 1, some as 2, some as 1C.

Fantastic in commander.

It's too bad they wasted such a cool word as 'annihilate' on this obviously NOT RED card. Oh well. At least Red still has 'annihilation'. The +ION makes it extra cool anyhow.

I know there's the anti-regen and card draw, but with so many other ways in Black EDH to destroy creatures for cheap and draw cards at instant speed, it's a bit too expensive for me to see any real use for.

This is fine for Jeleva. She only cares about her own mana cost.

You might find other kill spells to be more effective than this if you're not running Jel, though.

Not saying this is better or worse than other option, but just that it deserves consideration for an EDH deck since it is both draw and kill on a single card. Yes there are better card drawing options, as well as better kill spells. But to get both together on a single card when space is finite (99 cards), it could be worth the cost. Could be...

Such a waste of a great, great card name.