This would be one of my personal candidates for
the title of the most unfair card ever printed.
Mana Drain might be more demoralizing, and Sol
Ring might be more format-warping (I'm not
entirely sure about that, but it might be). But
there are very few that flaunt the fundamental
rules of Magic as flagrantly as Necropotence
does - even Ancestral Recall is, barring other
restricted cards, a one-time effect. Skipping
your draw step is a drop in the bucket compared
to the endless stream that it gives you;
consider that it was printed in adjacent sets to
Zuran Orb and Ivory Tower. Even today, there are
few entirely satisfactory answers to it. Pithing
Needle, which is theoretically devastating,
nonetheless gives them a window to activate it
19 times in response and have a good chance of
finding Nature's Claim or some other thing to
do. I actually find it very difficult to give
Necropotence a rating: in an environment where
it's not banned, landing one on the table means
you're effectively playing a different game from
your opponent.
Rounding off the week is probably one of the
most broken Magic cards ever printed. Its power
is a function of both its environment and just
the effect itself.
Necropotence had the good fortune of existing at
the same time as Dark Ritual, which enabled a
turn 1 Necropotence. Being able to refill your
hand at the cost of life is the kind of effect
that can propel you very far ahead, and being
able to dig out the pieces to your combo also
proves to be quite powerful. It's a cheap,
reusable, and incredibly fast card-advantage
engine, and it's telling that it was the most
warping card in Standard and Extended's long
history, creating the period known as "Black
Summer”. Who cares if you aren't drawing a card
normally when you can get a full hand every
turn?
Today, the Skull is restricted to one in Vintage
and playable in EDH, and it's still one of the
most horrifying cards to be on the other side
of.
