Hero's Downfall

Before this, killing a planeswalker in black meant attacking it down or reaching for one of the rare answers that named both creatures and walkers: Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse, Mortify. Most black spot removal stopped at creatures: Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Terminate. What this card settled was whether black should get to point its kill spell at a planeswalker at instant speed, and the answer it gave became the template. Three mana, no restriction on the creature half, no edict workaround, no fight clause: just destroy, with the planeswalker line stapled on as if it had always belonged there. The instant timing carries the weight, but not because it changes how many times a walker can activate; a sorcery-speed kill cast on your own turn already does that. What instant speed buys is the right to hold up mana and react: to kill a walker that becomes a creature and swings in combat, to answer a threat that resolves while you were bluffing a counter, to point removal at whatever the opponent commits after you passed with mana open. The double black in the cost is the tax that anchors it to decks genuinely committed to the color rather than splashing it as generic interaction. It is the cleanest possible expression of "black kills things," widened to cover the permanent type that black had spent years unable to touch on its own.