Shatter the Oath

Sorcery

Destroy target creature or enchantment. Create a Wicked Role token attached to up to one target creature you control. (Cards can only have one Role attached to it at a time. If there is already a Role attached to it, put that one into the graveyard before attaching this one. When this Aura is put into a graveyard, each opponent loses 1 life.)

Tokens

• Wicked

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (4)

SaberTech on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

5 months ago

You can also see how inefficiency was build into Early Winter's enchantment removal option in comparison to Shatter the Oath. Early Winter is instant speed and exiles but the opponent gets to choose which of their enchantments they will exile. That's a potential pattern that WotC could follow going forward; if black gets instant speed enchantment removal then it would have to be limited to an edict effect instead of direct targeting. It kind of gives black this vibe to its enchantment removal where it isn't good at it so if it has to try to do it quickly it's sloppy in its execution.

Black has to be aggressive with its enchantment removal. It doesn't get the luxury to sit back and wait to see how the game develops. It either gets ahead of the game and forces the opponent to discard their enchantments or it has to clear an enchantment right away before the opponents can give themselves options against edict effects. As for black's targeted enchantment removal that costs life, black needs to use it before the opponent's board pressure makes paying that life too steep of a cost.

legendofa on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

5 months ago

Shatter the Oath and Early Winter are 5 mana, not a drawback but inefficient enchantment removal. Vile Mutilator is 7 mana plus a sacrifice. Withering Torment's been covered pretty well in this thread.

I also didn't really count Braids, Arisen Nightmare, which needs a sacrifice and let's the opponent choose the outcome.

Bookrook on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

5 months ago

How do you feel about Taken by Nightmares? It exiles, offers a scry effect, and costs only 4 mana compared to Shatter the Oath.

SaberTech on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

5 months ago

I have mixed feelings on how WotC is approaching giving enchantment removal to black. I enjoy playing black so when Feed the Swarm was printed I was pretty excited to have that sort of option for enchantment removal, and the life loss aspect of the card made sense to me because enchantment removal was something that black was bad at so it should have a pretty high cost to it either in terms of mana or life.

Black edict effects to get rid of enchantments like on Extract the Truth make sense to me too because they aren't always a reliable method of removing what you really want to removal, emphasizing black's lack of skill in dealing with enchantments.

I do agree that Withering Torment is a bit too efficient for what I personally think black should be able to do to remove enchantments though. The three mana to cast it would normally put it in the "meh" tier for removal, but it being an instant on top of also having the option to kill a creature instead starts to tiptoe across the line for me. Sure, you also lose 2 life to the spell, but I think that's still too light of a cost for black to get rid of an enchantment.

Maybe if Withering Torment was worded more like this I would consider it more in line with what I think that black should be able to do:

Choose one:

• Destroy target tapped creature. (the tapped restriction keeps it from being a straight power-creeped version of Murder)
• Destroy target enchantment an opponent controls. You lose life equal to its mana value.

I think that rewording gives the card enough of its own pros and cons in comparison to Feed the Swarm that it can stand as its own variation while staying within the same power range. I also think that it should be standard for black's targeted enchantment removal to cost you life equal to the enchantment's casting cost unless the removal spell costs at least five mana to cast like Shatter the Oath.

I'm not fully decided on if it's bad that black has ways to get rid of its own Demonic Pact type enchantments. Black is more than capable of being able to kill its own creatures that might have detrimental effects, so is it too out of character that it can destroy its own problematic enchantments too?