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Moxonomy

Demonic Torment

Enchantment — Aura2 generic manaBlack mana

Pacifism, four years early and a color off. The design problem the card solves is the oldest one in white and black removal: how do you neutralize a creature without killing it, and what do you charge for the privilege? The answer here is the double clamp (can't attack, and a damage-prevention rider that catches blocking, trample, and the various ways a creature can still deal combat damage while tapped or restricted). That belt-and-suspenders construction is the giveaway that the template had not yet settled; later auras in this lineage trust a single clean line to do the work, but in 1994 the rules were still load-bearing enough that designers wrote the redundancy in by hand. Black paying three mana for a pure neutralization effect also reads as a color-pie artifact from a period when the pie was drawn with much fuzzier edges: this is the kind of effect that migrated almost entirely to white within a few years, leaving black with destruction, edict effects, and -N/-N shrinks instead. The card is a useful fossil of how the rules and the color pie were both still being figured out in real time; as a playable, it has been outclassed by its own descendants for almost the entire game's lifespan.

Demonic Torment (leg)
LEG · #95uncommon
Pricing
Normal: $4.71
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Enchant creature Enchanted creature can't attack. Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by enchanted creature.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
Legal
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
Legal
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
Legal
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

1 set
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