Paragon of Open Graves

One member of a five-color anthem cycle, each tuned to its color's combat philosophy, and black drew the assignment that fits it least comfortably: a static +1/+1 buff to its team. Black is the color that kills creatures, not the color that lines them up for a fair fight, so the anthem half always read as the white or green entry's idea wearing a Skeleton's body. The activated ability restores the color's identity. Granting deathtouch to one of your other black creatures rewrites combat math in black's favor: a buffed body that already trades up now kills anything it touches, and a small creature trades into a much larger one, so every block becomes a losing proposition for the opponent. That is the black answer to the question the anthem asks: attrition through inevitability rather than raw board size. The tension is the rate. The anthem wants you wide, the deathtouch ability wants you to commit three mana and a tap to a single combat, and the body holding the engine is a 2/2 that dies to most of what it is trying to out-grind. It is a lord that asks you to be both a heavily black creature deck and a removal-flavored midrange deck at once, on a frame thin enough that neither half fully delivers before something kills it.