I used to joke that every single sideboard I played had at least one Needle in it when I started playing Legacy
Mega-Mega Cycles, on the other hand, have cycles that are completed in a completely different block to the one they started in, which means they can still happen (and do more often now that every set is considered its own block)
In the various three or more coloured versions of UG control decks I would always chose to play a Negate over an Actual Counterspell, those kinds of deck have an unrivalled ability to deal with permanents while coloured mana is more of an issue
Thanks to lots of ways to warp, sneak, or flicker creatures in white this is relatively easy to pull of each turn
I don't mind the Blight mechanic at all, but it's barely made an impact on Standard play, and this deck just isn't quite on the same level as many of the others released so far this year
7 Death's Shadow Death's Shadow is an iconic mono-black creature that has a powerful namesake deck within the Modern format