Withering Torment

Instant

Destroy target creature or enchantment. You lose 2 life.

Legality

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

Discussion (16)

PhyrexianPraetor on Back in Black

4 days ago

I saw your list and thought I would suggest a couple of ideas.

Since you're running fetch lands you could consider running some number of Godless Shrine and a long side of it, Silent Clearing. My reason is that you can then substitute Damnation with Damn, it's far better than Damnation due to it being both spot removal and a board-wipe when needed. Silent Clearing will also give you additional card draw in the late game and since you run fetch lands you could consider Fatal Push since you will have a decent number of opportunities to have revolt.

Another card you might want to consider is Withering Torment. It costs one more than Feed the Swarm, but is an instant and only costs you two life points. If you do consider my idea of running dual lands you could even go with Vindicate as an option. It would effectively fill the role of Feed the Swarm and Fulminator Mage at the same time, the only downside is that you can't recur it like Fulminator Mage. Another option would be Anguished Unmaking in place of Feed the Swarm. It would deal with every problematic non-land permanent and could potentially cost you less life than Feed the Swarm would.

I would also suggest looking at adding cards like Hopeless Nightmare, The Meathook Massacre and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Hopeless nightmare will still give you control over your opponent's hand and will add to your devotion count. In the late game it can be sacrificed to scry away needless cards. If you play both The Meathook Massacre and Kalitas you end up having a very strong combo. You can clear the board with Kalitas in play and gain some life while creating zombie tokens.

If you wanted some additional ideas you can take a look at my list on my profile.

legendofa on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month 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.

legendofa on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month ago

White and green still have the most, the most common, and the most mana-efficient enchantment removal.

In Standard right now, white has fifteen cards that destroy or exile enchantments specifically (as opposed to "target nonland permanent"), and they start at 1 mana commons. Green has a lot more (I counted thirty before stopping), mostly as modal spells or creatures, mostly starting at two mana, with a lot of commons.

Black has five. Only Feed the Swarm is common or under 3 mana; the other four are rarer or higher mana value.

So I don't think black is stepping on white or green's toes at all. White and green each get multiple 1-2 mana common enchantment removers every set, while black gets maybe one at a higher rarity and mana cost. It's still a recent decision, so whatever's happening now might not be happening in five years, but I don't see black competing with white or green here at all. It's likely that Withering Torment is the ceiling, not the standard.

SaberTech on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month ago

I initially thought that it was weird that WotC decided that black should be the tertiary colour for being able to deal with enchantments because I thought that blue was in that position with theft effects. After thinking about it for a second though, I remembered that black always had a way of dealing with enchantments through discard effects. Black's limit was that it had to deal with enchantments before they hit the board with cards like Thoughtseize and Duress, it's just that those cards can hit so many other targets beyond enchantments that it slipped my mind they they counted as black enchantment removal (more like proactive counterspells).

It has been a part of black's mechanics that it has been able to infringe on the other colours' mechanical spaces a bit as long as additional costs in the form of life or sacrificed creatures are paid. I think that's why I'm ok with targeted enchantment removal cards like Feed the Swarm. The spell is sorcery speed and saps the caster's life to give black a 2 mana spell that deals with enchantments. Compare that to cards like Thraben Charm and Heritage Reclamation, which give more options with no downside while being instants, and I think that even with targeted enchantment removal it's still pretty clear that black is third rate in providing enchantment removal options.

Again though, Withering Torment is kind of pushing it. Maybe black shouldn't be allowed access to instant speed enchantment removal without having it jump through hoops like finding a way to reanimate a creature like Ghastly Death Tyrant at instant speed?

DemonDragonJ on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month ago

Bookrook, Taken by Nightmares cannot destroy or otherwise remove enchantments, so I have no problem, with that card.

SaberTech, your last point is actually a very good one, because that is a very interesting question to ask, and I suppose that it is one that we should debate; as long as black's ability to sacrifice or destroy enchantments does not intrude upon white and green's ability to do so, I shall not be bothered by it. I would prefer cards such as Mire in Misery or Extract the Truth over Feed the Swarm or Withering Torment, since those cards allow the caster's opponent to choose what enchantment they sacrifice, rather than allowing the caster to choose it, which means that the caster needs to play it very strategically, to produce the best result, from it.

SaberTech on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month 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?

DemonDragonJ on Mark Rosewater's Statements About Enchantment …

1 month ago

In these two posts, Mark Rosewater spoke of how black is able to interact with enchantments, and I have no problem with black having some ability to destroy enchantments, but Rosewater stated that black's ability to destroy enchantments would always be inferior to those of green and white, and Feed the Swarm certainly meets that criteria, but I feel that Withering Torment is too powerful for a mono-black card, since it is an instant and can destroy its own controller's enchantments, when Rosewater previously stated that black was not allowed to destroy or sacrifice its own enchantments, to require players to be more strategic in dealing with the drawbacks of "deal with the devil" enchantments that are a major part of black's identity, which Devouring Sugarmaw can do, so it is clear that the people at WotC are changing their minds about how black can interact with enchantments, but I hope that black does not intrude too severely on white and green's ability to destroy or otherwise remove enchantments.

What does everyone else say, on this subject? Do you agree with Mark Rosewater's opinions on how black is able to interact with enchantments? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, about this matter.

psionictemplar on LongLegs

2 months ago

Just to chime in on the blood moon discussion, I would probably look at black based removal options so that if you do get locked out of your White mana you can still remove it. Personally, I suggest Feed the Swarm but there's also Debt to the Kami, Extract the Truth, Pharika's Libation, or Withering Torment.

Truthfully though, you could probably pull this off in mono black, but it is fine with the way it is currently.