Keep Greenwarden of Murasa, multiplayer tends to be more sweeper heavy and Greenwarden gives you great value / insurance against your opponent's sweepers and even your own sweepers.
Sewer Nemesis is quite fine when you play it on curve. It's pretty consistent to find a player with 3 cards in their 'yard when you cast him, and by the time he attacks, he's generally a 5/5 (averaging 4/4-6/6). And he gets bigger as the game progresses, and also helps to enable graveyard strategies if you're supporting them. Nemesis was a fine creature for an aggro curve-topper, and he has a fantastic 3B cost to boot.
I also like persecutor a lot, but you do have to pay attention to the number of ways you can remove him.
He sits in sideboards more than most cards, but when he's playable, I've had him win many many games by himself.
About 3 different times I've convinced teammates to play him (they didn't want to) without many ways to kill him and each time I watched him be awsome heh.
Being able to sit back on defense until you find an answer is big. If creatures are smaller they'll get eaten, if they are bigger, they lose the game.
Nemesis is largely underrated. There are more times when he's fine-to-good-to-great on curve than being close to unplayable. And he is consistently larger than every other 4 mana option. In a slot full of big, stupid guys, he's the biggest.
The only mental game I'm playing with Persecutor is the "Why am I playing this card?" game, where I ask myself why I'm playing it as it sits in a SB or on a board.
I like Graveborn Muse more than Arena. It gives me a bit of board presence for only a mana extra, where Arena ends up not affecting the board in a crucial turn, and it can pick up some equipment. There's also a lot fewer good black four drops than threes. Arena still feels very slow these days, taking two turns after playing it to become a slow and life-lossy Divination. It was only really played in our midrange decks by the end of its tenure. Probably an unpopular opinion, but YMMV.
I much prefer Arena, because it's the hardest to remove for the matchup where you need it the most, which is midrange against control. The games also extend to a length in that matchup where it will generate a lot more card advantage than any of the other options. It's not as good against aggro, but that doesn't matter much considering it gets played in decks that already beat up on aggro decks pretty well. It draws cards faster (and therefore draws more overall cards) than Muse, and it's much harder to get off the table. And the ceiling isn't capped like the 1-shot draw effects are, which already aren't great in the matchups where Arena struggles anyways. It's an old school card, but it still does the job it's included for better than the competition does.
I loved the Muse (like I said earlier, it's a pet card of mine), but that's because it's similar to the awesomeness that is Phyrexian Arena, which is nowhere near the chopping block.
Although, I cut it recently and haven't missed it too much.
It started playing out too much like a sideboard card.
But that's an unfortunate consequence of supporting a lot of decks that go way over the top or way underneath.
Arena is an all star 10/10 Vs Grindy decks, but a dead card vs agro and pretty weak vs ramp/combo/Reanimator
The main deck power of the card is very sensitive to the ratios of those matchups you have in your cube.
I'd cut spell piece and great oak guardian (unless you have both twin and Kiki, then I cut avenger)
As the game goes long ,the more mana leak/force spike type counters you have, the weaker your deck becomes.
Having a mix of hard/soft counters is important.
Think there are many more good soft counters (unless controller pays X) than hard counters.
Spell pierce probably the better cube card by a small margin, but this imbalance makes the difference for me to prefer negate.
Probably doesn't matter much either way tho
Arena is an all star 10/10 Vs Grindy decks, but a dead card vs agro
I'm not too sure about that. Arena into wrath means good luck to aggro making a comeback. Arena into planeswalker, same. Arena into removal spell and a blocker, same. You're passing on turn three to set up an amazing turn four. If you can't make a strong play on turn four, or your opponent manages to neutralize your fourth-turn actions (i.e. recursion or planeswalker against your wrath, or removal against your walker/blocker), you'll be on the defensive. So it depends how efficiently your deck can convert that card advantage into board advantage. Gone are the days where holding a full grip meant you were winning
p.s. I like Spell Pierce and Great Oak Guardian tha most.
Yeah it's not literally dead, (and obviously the more anti agro cards the rest of your deck is composed of the better it is)
But it still
A) requires a turn to do absolutely nothing
B) 2 untap steps to gain a marginal advantage, 3 to gain a sizable.
C) you are being pinged one damage every turn that you have to make sure doesn't kill you. Agro attacking you this resource makes the life loss very real.
There are ways to mitigate these draw backs, but it will never be any better than a bad card Against agro.
Even read the bones is much better, and it's still bad.
Only removal spell -> arena -> wrath of those scenarios you listed could beat a decent (but not broken) agro draw fwiw
Best to worst:
- Staggershock (Can create card advantage, is splashable, 4 damage is a lot of reach.)
- Searing Blaze (Really good in aggro decks. Removes a blocker and brings your opponent closer to death.)
- Forked Bolt (Mostly good against aggro and elves. Against half the decks, it is pretty bad.)
- Volcanic Hammer (We have enough instant variants of this now, making this unnecessary.)
- Brimstone Volley (Really good with morbid, but that is conditional and restricts the timing.)
- Flame Javelin
- Rift Bolt
- Rhystic Lightning
- Bonfire of the Damned
I would not run any card below Volley. (Though in the case for Bonfire, this is more due to miracle being a terrible mechanic rather than its pure power level.)
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He sits in sideboards more than most cards, but when he's playable, I've had him win many many games by himself.
About 3 different times I've convinced teammates to play him (they didn't want to) without many ways to kill him and each time I watched him be awsome heh.
Being able to sit back on defense until you find an answer is big. If creatures are smaller they'll get eaten, if they are bigger, they lose the game.
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Spell Pierce vs Negate
Cut one
Great Oak Guardian vs Avenger of Zendikar vs Terastodon
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I also really like the mental mini-game that Abyssal Persecutor creates, it creates a lot of tension and adds to the experience.
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1. Spell Pierce > Negate
2. Terastodon > Avenger of Zendikar > Great Oak Guardian
I don't think the Guardian is better than those options, but maybe testing will show good results.
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Although, I cut it recently and haven't missed it too much.
It started playing out too much like a sideboard card.
But that's an unfortunate consequence of supporting a lot of decks that go way over the top or way underneath.
Arena is an all star 10/10 Vs Grindy decks, but a dead card vs agro and pretty weak vs ramp/combo/Reanimator
The main deck power of the card is very sensitive to the ratios of those matchups you have in your cube.
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I'd cut spell piece and great oak guardian (unless you have both twin and Kiki, then I cut avenger)
As the game goes long ,the more mana leak/force spike type counters you have, the weaker your deck becomes.
Having a mix of hard/soft counters is important.
Think there are many more good soft counters (unless controller pays X) than hard counters.
Spell pierce probably the better cube card by a small margin, but this imbalance makes the difference for me to prefer negate.
Probably doesn't matter much either way tho
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Terastodon > Avenger ≥ Guardian
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I'm not too sure about that. Arena into wrath means good luck to aggro making a comeback. Arena into planeswalker, same. Arena into removal spell and a blocker, same. You're passing on turn three to set up an amazing turn four. If you can't make a strong play on turn four, or your opponent manages to neutralize your fourth-turn actions (i.e. recursion or planeswalker against your wrath, or removal against your walker/blocker), you'll be on the defensive. So it depends how efficiently your deck can convert that card advantage into board advantage. Gone are the days where holding a full grip meant you were winning
p.s. I like Spell Pierce and Great Oak Guardian tha most.
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But it still
A) requires a turn to do absolutely nothing
B) 2 untap steps to gain a marginal advantage, 3 to gain a sizable.
C) you are being pinged one damage every turn that you have to make sure doesn't kill you. Agro attacking you this resource makes the life loss very real.
There are ways to mitigate these draw backs, but it will never be any better than a bad card Against agro.
Even read the bones is much better, and it's still bad.
Only removal spell -> arena -> wrath of those scenarios you listed could beat a decent (but not broken) agro draw fwiw
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- Forked Bolt
- Searing Blaze
- Volcanic Hammer
- Brimstone Volley
- Rhystic Lightning
- Rift Bolt
- Staggershock
- Flame Javelin
- Bonfire of the Damned
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- Staggershock (Can create card advantage, is splashable, 4 damage is a lot of reach.)
- Searing Blaze (Really good in aggro decks. Removes a blocker and brings your opponent closer to death.)
- Forked Bolt (Mostly good against aggro and elves. Against half the decks, it is pretty bad.)
- Volcanic Hammer (We have enough instant variants of this now, making this unnecessary.)
- Brimstone Volley (Really good with morbid, but that is conditional and restricts the timing.)
- Flame Javelin
- Rift Bolt
- Rhystic Lightning
- Bonfire of the Damned
I would not run any card below Volley. (Though in the case for Bonfire, this is more due to miracle being a terrible mechanic rather than its pure power level.)
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- Staggershock
- Bonfire of the Damned
- Forked Bolt
- Volcanic Hammer
- Searing Blaze
- Brimstone Volley
- Flame Javalin
- Rift Bolt
- Rhystic Lightning
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Bonfire of the Damned
Searing Blaze
Forked Bolt
Rift Bolt
Brimstone Volley
Volcanic Hammer/Fire Ambush
Rhystic Lightning
Flame Javelin
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Yeah, I think I'd rank them in more-or-less the same order. Maybe even moving Bonfire up a slot despite the high variance.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I also think I'd give Forked Bolt the edge over Searing Blaze, just because it's more flexible.
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1. Bonfire of the Damned
2. Searing Blaze
3. Staggershock
4. Forked Bolt
5. Rift Bolt
6. Brimstone Volley
7. Volcanic Hammer
8. Flame Javelin
9. Rhystic Lightning
I play the top 6 of those in my cube.
This is why I think Twin Bolt deserves at least some consideration. I think it would fit in the middle of this list.
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