Liliana of the Veil

The plus ability that costs you nothing extra is the whole design philosophy in one line: symmetrical discard that the controller breaks by deploying threats faster than the opponent can rebuild. Both players empty their hands at the same rate, but the Liliana player is the one with a planeswalker on the board doing the emptying, so the symmetry is a fiction the moment she resolves. That single tension (you and your opponent draw down to the same point, but only one of you is winning the position) made her the spiritual heir to Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole-era hand attrition, recast as a repeatable engine that grinds across many turns instead of resolving once. The minus is the other axis: edict removal that ignores hexproof and protection, asking nothing of the controller except a loyalty payment. Together they answer the two things a black control deck historically struggled to keep up with at once: refilled hands and resilient single threats. The ultimate is almost decorative; games are decided by the +1 and -2 grinding long before loyalty climbs to six. She defined what a fair black midrange deck looked like for years, the card every "what does black do besides ramp and reanimate" conversation eventually pointed to, and the reason discard-plus-edict became a recognized strategic spine rather than a pile of disconnected effects.