How Should One Use Darkness?
(the following is compiled by the Site Administrator)

The main principles of the Darkness Civilization are disruption, destruction, and revival of the fallen. Those who add the Darkness Civilization to their decks are usually, if not always, seeking to destroy or disrupt their enemies, and occasionally are interested in reviving creatures that are destroyed, or in some way drawing a benefit from the destruction. Though the creatures often are not strong in battle, or if they are, cannot survive battles, the destructive and disruptive abilities of the civilization protect them from larger threats, making even their limited power enough to pull through.

Darkness is all about dragging the opponent deep into an abyss from which there is no escape. At the 'lower levels' of cost, Darkness creatures can be a match for their Fire, Nature, or Light civilization counterparts in terms of power, but this equality falls away, and is replaced by the Darkness' well known abilities. Once the twisting darkness begins, the opponent must struggle against it at every turn.

Darkness is in almost exclusive possession of the ability to randomly discard opponent's cards from their hand. This ability is insidious and very powerful, as it allows Darkness to remove threats that have not yet manifested themselves, for much less effort than would be required if they were to reach the battle zone. This is especially effective against spells, which, unlike creatures, cannot often be neutralized in any other way. This can be used as a form of protection also, as a Darkness user can discard the opponent's ability to destroy the creatures they have in play, and open opportunities to get through defenses.

Discarding is one of the things that users of the Darkness have to be careful to apply in moderation, however, since once an opponent has been reduced to no cards, relying only on whatever they draw on a turn, discarding effects often lose their power completely, and become 'dead' or useless cards to the Darkness player themself. This can be somewhat balanced by careful shield breaking, but in the case of spells used for discarding, the opponent may quickly make use of the opening.

Spells of Darkness kill opponents usually with no regard for their power, and this lets Darkness decks worry less about the size of their opponent's creatures. In a way, this also allows them to worry less about the size of the opposing mana zone, since even the largest of creatures can be simply removed, and swarms can be somewhat prevented by reducing their hand of cards to the minimum.

Large creatures can also be handled through the use of cards with the ability 'Slayer', and though this is a rather reactive method in most cases, it can be combined with certain other darkness cards which force the opposing creatures to attack. This ability also has multiple uses, ranging from forcing enemies to become tapped, to causing shields to be broken to increase options, to the aforementioned Slayer Blockers. When used in combination with the final abilities within the darkness, even the 'weakness' of losing the Slayers in battle, due to their lower power, can be overcome.

Darkness can devote a large portion of its energy to reviving creatures that have been destroyed or discarded. In this way, the dangerous Slayers, and their counterparts, creatures of great power that die after all battles, are restored, giving the darkness new resources either to summon on the next turn, or to play as mana. In some cases, this mechanic, normally known simply as 'recursion', can be so powerful that the constantly returning creatures remove all hope of the opponent regaining any sort of equal position with the Darkness user. Of course, usually, that is the intent. This is what the Darkness does best.