Greatness, At Any Cost

Black is the color that can do literally everything now, but oftentimes at a cost.  Are you willing to pay? 

Loading The Graveyard

Any black mage knows that death is only temporary and will view the graveyard as an extension of their hand.  One way of using this to your advantage is to load your graveyard.  Entomb is the absolute best card at this effect as it can take any card in your library and place it in your graveyard, regardless of type and at instant speed.  The ability to place the card in the graveyard at instant speed allow you to have the right card at the absolute right time.  This can be especially important in decks like Lazav, the Multifarious.  Other methods of filling your graveyard are from discard outlets, there are enough of them that allow you to do this for 0 mana as a "downside" of the card that there is usually not a reason to chose an option where you have to spend mana.  Putrid Imp is a favorite of mine for this do the low mana value.  This allows you to start to fill your graveyard as soon as turn 1 and get in for chip damage at the same time.  Dredge is a famously broken mechanic that if used properly will fill your grave in no time.  The obvious downside to Dredge is that you have no control over what cards make it into the yard and can oftentimes send cards you don't want to be in your graveyard to the yard.  Vile Entomber is the most easily abused because you can get the ability any time that it enters the battlefield and is extremely budget friendly.  

Let's Bring Them Back

Not only is black good at putting things into the graveyard, it excels at pulling things out of it!  One thing to pay particular attention to on cards like Reanimate or Animate Dead is that you can pull creatures from an opponents graveyard instead of your own if they happen to have a great target.  Animate Dead combos with Worldgorger Dragon + something that will deal damage on ETB.  Living Death is a classic card where you need to be prepared to explain how it works a few times, and it performs optimally when you have a free sacrifice outlet on board to empty your side of the battlefield before reanimating your whole graveyard.  This card is special in that it can serve as both a win condition and a board wipe and will typically break parity.  Victimize is a great card because you will often benefit from the "downfall" of the card by sacrificing one of your creatures in return for two creatures.  This is a great way to sneak higher cost creatures into play while perhaps sacrificing a card like Stinkweed Imp that will continue to load your graveyard. (Golgari Thug is also now printed in retro frames)

Creature Removal

Black excels at creature removal but can, at times have some restrictions such as "Destroy target nonblack or nonartifact creature".  With the relatively new ability "Ward" becoming more and more popular, edict effects such as Flare of Malice are becoming better, as are board wipes.  One of the absolute best board wipes in the format is Toxic Deluge since it will get around Indestructible, Ward, Hexproof, and Shroud as well as any "Protection from xyz" cards.  When I play black, I try and find removal spells that are attached to creatures, even if they may cost a little bit more to play and can only be played at sorcery speed.  I find that there are enough syngergies with aristocrat type effects or provide sac fodder for cards like Attrition or Flare of Malice pictured above.  Black is the color that rewards having high devotion (lots of pips or lots of swamps) the most and that is reflected in the card Defile which scales great as the game progresses as well as the new card Consuming Corruption from Modern Horizons III.

The Impossible

Black does have two major weaknesses in comparison to other colors.  Black struggles to get rid of two permanent types, artifacts & enchantments.  To get rid of artifacts, you have to dig deep into the history of Magic.  Phyrexian Gremlins & Gate to Phyrexia from Antiquities (1994) or Phyrexian Tribute from Mirage (1996).  None of these cards are particularly powerful but if you need this effect in your deck, this is all you have to choose from.  Feed the Swarm was one of the first times Wizards allowed black to get rid of enchantments (2020), but can come at a cost in terms of life loss.  Feed the Swarm is the only card printed in a retro frame that allows you to interact with enchantments in black at this time.  

Rituals

Black doesn't have access to ramp spells that put lands directly onto the battlefield like green does or the ability to catch-up like white does with cards like Land Tax, but what black does have is access to what's called Ritual spells, named after Dark Ritual.  The above photos are the best of these effects, I particularly like Songs of the Damned in a Syr Konrad deck.  As a whole though, rituals are not usually considered to be very strong in casual commander games as they can be kind of a dead card later on in the game.  

Card Draw

Greatness, at any cost.  The flavor text from Dark Confidant perfectly summarizes what black is about.  Necropotence & Necrodominance are great card draw cards as long as you don't want to utilize. your graveyard.  Necropotence still allows you to have dies triggers and for those cards to head to the graveyard where Necrodominance doesn't even allow for this.  For this reason, I am not particularly high on Necrodominance in commander.  Phyrexian Arena has fallen out of favor with people over the years as more powerful draw options such as Bolas's Citadel have been printed.  I still personally really enjoy Phyrexian Arena, it's slow and steady and is rarely targeted with removal.  Read the Bones is one of my favorite draw spells because it allows you to potentially see four cards.  Phyrexian Rager is a card that I always throw into a retro commander deck as there simply are not as many options as you have without this limitation.  What I like about it is the synergy with reanimation spells, cards like Deadly Dispute, or aristocrat effects.

Sacrifice Outlet & Payoffs

Wow, Warren Soultrader is EXTREMELY powerful.  We lack some of the stronger sac outlets that those who build decks without limitations have access to, but thankfully we now have Warren Soultrader which is, in my opinion, the second strongest (non artifact) sac outlets printed behind only Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.  Aristocrat decks are finally getting payoffs printed in retro frames starting with Zulaport Cutthroat in Time Spiral Remastered.  Marionette Apprentice is a new addition thanks to Modern Horizons III and pairs particularly well with Warren Soultrader.  When we get Innistrad Remastered, hopefully we get some more solid cards in these categories. 

"Good Stuff"

Black has a lot of really good cards.  Doomsday, Demonic Consultation, & Tainted Pact are all CEDH staples.  Ritual of the Machine allows you to get a sacrifice trigger of one of your cards while you gain control of the best creature on your opponents board.  Yawgmoth's Will is the best at what it does in the format but sometimes can have your opponents raising their eyebrows, so be careful for the meta you play it in.  Royal Assassin may not be a super staple by any means but this art is absolutely incredible.  Back in the day, you paired the Royal Assassin with an Icy Manipulator for a frustrating combo.  When I first got back into the game, I immediately built a mono black assassin typal deck with Royal Assassin being the star paired with a Rathi Trapper, I thought I was invincible! Gray Merchant of Asphodel is another card that rewards having a high devotion to black and I love it.  It's the wincondition in my "Mono Black Control" pauper deck and pairs nicely with reanimation strategies. Hatred is hilarious and can kill an opponent out of nowhere, it doesn't even have to target your creature attacking.  Dauthi Voidwalker is incredibly powerful and can really give your opponents a headache and more often than not feeling a little salty.  I do still run it in every deck I can but just know it can have the table feeling a certain kind of way.

Legends

Volrath is probably my absolute character in magic.  I'm not a very vorthos person but all of his art is just amazing.  I've never built him as my commander but I really want to.  There are a lot of really high costed creatures out there that can go in the deck.  Syr Konrad & Yawgmoth are two of the strongest mono black commanders ever printed.   Syr Konrad in particular is a pretty unique build, just know it will be removed often.  Balthor is a really great card but I think it is more suited to the 99.  I love this card in a Chainer or Syr Konrad but always keep in mind it will reanimate your opponents creatures too.  I have never seen a Fain commander deck but it looks like something that would be a lot of fun.  I think to build it in an all retro frame deck, we still need to have some pieces printed but I anticipate having more options after Innistrad Remastered comes out in 2025.  Massacre Girl is another one that I think is better off in the 99 than as your commander.  I love that there is a board wipe attached to a creature that you can reanimate whenever you need one.  This is another card that I put in every mono black deck I build.