You'd have to be supporting a really specific GR archetype to want Grove of the Burnwillows over Fire-Lit Thicket. Karplusan Forest is the best of those. Also the cheapest. Love it when that happens.
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Karplusan > Grove >> Fire-Lit Thicket, with Gruul decks here almost solely ramp (Im playing the first two cards). Being able to play a mana elf on turn 1 is crucial to the archetype. Like all filter lands, Thicket scales badly with more colors in your deck and doesn't allow you to split mana between phases and turns conveniently. Karplusan is much better for aggressive decks than Grove. Grove is slightly better than Karplusan in slow decks against aggro, but only then and not by as much as the other direction.
I think I would try out Painful Truths if you think you can regularly get three colours together, because 3:2 on a draw spell is massive since it's effectively 2 cards' worth of advantage rather than one, so essentially 100% better. If not, probably Night's Whisper. Arena is really good for midrange but far too slow for aggro these days.
A wildcard option would be Graveborn Muse which I only recently cut and I still think is great.
1. Phyrexian Arena (can dominate long games when you sneak it onto the battlefield early, and does a better job of shoring up a tough matchup; black midrange vs control).
2a. Night's Whisper (costing 2 mana and being splashable is great. 2 cards for 2 mana is just a supurb deal).
2b. Read the Bones (Scry 2 means a lot, and when you're digging, looking a 4th card deep can be really important. And it's not color-bound at all).
4. Painful Truths (has a high celing, but requires a deck that is regularly producing 3+ colors of mana to be playable at all).
That's my order as well. Arena is sweet but is a little slow to get going. I can imagine a time in the future where the meta gets too fast for Arena and Night's Whisper will be preferable. Some cubes might already be there, so you'll need to see if that applies to your cube or not.
Easy Tormented Hero cut. Unless you have a human synergy, your black decks pretty much always do better with a 2/2 versus a 2/1, even with the life loss.
Lacerator is the much better cut, IMO. Black has so many self-damage effects in there already, that I don't think it's nearly worth taking more just for a 2nd toughness.
I'm cutting Tormented Hero for sure. A 2/2 is better than a 2/1, Vampires are better than Humans in my cube thanks to Falkenrath Gorger and Kalitas, and I hate the art on Tormented Hero.
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The Tormented Hero promo looks awesome IMO. I'm keeping it over Lacerator for the reasons wtwlf mentioned, plus I like the art better and it's close enough that I'm happy for that to decide it.
Thanks for the replies. I suspected it would be between Phyrexian Arena and Night's whisper. I'll probably roll with the arena. Would any of you guys consider cutting Sarcomancy instead of Tormented Hero or Vampire Lacerator? Where does Sarcomancy rank among those two cards?
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@Salmo: What about Feeder do you enjoy? Are you actively supporting a sacrifice theme?
I wouldn't say I'm actively supporting it as I'm not going as deep as certain cubes are running things like Bloodthrone Vampire or Nantuko Husk, but I like how it both works well with the on-color recursion creatures and the off-color token decks. The thing that pushes it over the edge for me are the permanent counters and the fact that its a one drop. The engine with Gravecrawler is disgusting, and there are a lot of two drops that they might want to eat in response to your opponent killing them as they are 'must kill'. Sometimes you end up putting all your eggs into one basket and that sucks, but sometimes those eggs get equipped with a sword and bada bing bada boom. It's a card I could see not running for legitimate reasons, but if there is ever a time to give it a try now is that time.
Would any of you guys consider cutting Sarcomancy instead of Tormented Hero or Vampire Lacerator? Where does Sarcomancy rank among those two cards?
Sarcomancy is cool because you can bounce or flicker it, and it's extra sac fodder for Braids / Stax. I rank it behind Gravecrawler, Bloodsoaked Champion, and probably Dread Wanderer, but ahead of the other black 1s.
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Arena or Night's Whisper would be the best choices. I run Arena and I keep kicking around the idea of putting Night's Whisper in too.
I would cut Tormented Hero over Vampire Lacerator or Sarcomancy. It's close between Hero and Lacerator, though, and you can probably cut either and be fine. I would not cut Sarcomancy.
Sarcomancy is an extremely cool card (with a nostalgic feel and IMHO really kickass art) and I'd like to like it, but I'm having a tough time. I don't really buy the usual arguments any more. I'll admit I have limited experience playing the card, but I'm probably cutting it as soon as I get my hands on the new recurring black one-drop.
As stated many times, black aggro decks have a bunch of self-damage effects already. I don't think the synergies are really worth it. I mean, how much of a synergy is there, even? Regarding the Braids/Smokestack synergies, I think it's one of the weakest effects to pair with those cards. Maybe if you really need a critical mass to support the archetype, but from what I witness, most cube managers don't really try to specifically support the archetype other than by including Braids and Smokestack. Most people don't run Reassembling Skeleton even though it's an actual lock piece with Braids instead of a nice value play. And as for flickering, the Magical Christmas Land scenario would be to, what, re-trigger Sarcomancy with Flickerwisp and then Resto Angel the Flickerwisp to do it again? Repeal Sarcomancy, recast Sarcomancy, Snapcaster Repeal, re-recast Sarcomancy? Granted, that is an insane amount of value from a one-drop. But the ACS is a 2/2 for 1, and the WCS is that your lone zombie eats a removal spell or the opponent wraths, and you are left with a Phyrexian Arena that doesn't draw you a card. I'd argue this is worse than damage from other black one-drops, since with those you can at least chump or run them into your opponent's blockers, or let them stay tapped in the case of Carnophage, or... I don't know, Bolt them in the case of a board stall? Black doesn't deal well with enchantments. Getting your zombie killed and taking one damage each turn is especially bad in aggro mirrors, and if your point in supporting black aggro among other things is to have a healthy meta with a decent proportion of aggro, it's going to happen.
tl;dr: I find the synergies around Sarcomancy are pretty niche; there are only a handful of cards that actually let you make value plays with it. Without those, it's just an inconsistent 2-power 1-drop with a low floor. I would cut it rather than cut Tormented Hero - not 100% certain about whether to cut it over Lacerator, but I'm leaning towards "yes".
It's a zombie for Gravecrawler. By default, it's going to be more valuable than the bottom-tier aggro creatures for that fact alone. But you don't need to Magical Christmasland the interactions for it to be good. Sacrificing it to Smokestack, picking it up with Kor Skyfisher or flickering it with Flickerwisp are fine extra interactions to have with a card that's starting off as a baseline of being a 2-power 1-drop. And there are lots of aggressive zombies to play (including a few new cool zombie cards!) which mitigate the lifeloss drawback. I would cut every non-recurring non-zombie 1-drop before even looking in Sarcomancy's direction.
I rank Sarcomancy in the middle - better than Cryptbreaker, Tormented Hero and Lacerator but worse than Diregraf Ghoul, Gnarled Scarhide and the recurring trio. In particular, I lose more life with Lacerator than Sarcomancy on average.
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Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Karplusan > Grove >> Fire-Lit Thicket, with Gruul decks here almost solely ramp (Im playing the first two cards). Being able to play a mana elf on turn 1 is crucial to the archetype. Like all filter lands, Thicket scales badly with more colors in your deck and doesn't allow you to split mana between phases and turns conveniently. Karplusan is much better for aggressive decks than Grove. Grove is slightly better than Karplusan in slow decks against aggro, but only then and not by as much as the other direction.
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Night's Whisper, Painful Truths, Read the Bones, Phyrexian Arena
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A wildcard option would be Graveborn Muse which I only recently cut and I still think is great.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
2a. Night's Whisper (costing 2 mana and being splashable is great. 2 cards for 2 mana is just a supurb deal).
2b. Read the Bones (Scry 2 means a lot, and when you're digging, looking a 4th card deep can be really important. And it's not color-bound at all).
4. Painful Truths (has a high celing, but requires a deck that is regularly producing 3+ colors of mana to be playable at all).
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@Salmo: What about Feeder do you enjoy? Are you actively supporting a sacrifice theme?
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Sarcomancy is cool because you can bounce or flicker it, and it's extra sac fodder for Braids / Stax. I rank it behind Gravecrawler, Bloodsoaked Champion, and probably Dread Wanderer, but ahead of the other black 1s.
EDH: UGEdric
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Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I would cut Tormented Hero over Vampire Lacerator or Sarcomancy. It's close between Hero and Lacerator, though, and you can probably cut either and be fine. I would not cut Sarcomancy.
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As stated many times, black aggro decks have a bunch of self-damage effects already. I don't think the synergies are really worth it. I mean, how much of a synergy is there, even? Regarding the Braids/Smokestack synergies, I think it's one of the weakest effects to pair with those cards. Maybe if you really need a critical mass to support the archetype, but from what I witness, most cube managers don't really try to specifically support the archetype other than by including Braids and Smokestack. Most people don't run Reassembling Skeleton even though it's an actual lock piece with Braids instead of a nice value play. And as for flickering, the Magical Christmas Land scenario would be to, what, re-trigger Sarcomancy with Flickerwisp and then Resto Angel the Flickerwisp to do it again? Repeal Sarcomancy, recast Sarcomancy, Snapcaster Repeal, re-recast Sarcomancy? Granted, that is an insane amount of value from a one-drop. But the ACS is a 2/2 for 1, and the WCS is that your lone zombie eats a removal spell or the opponent wraths, and you are left with a Phyrexian Arena that doesn't draw you a card. I'd argue this is worse than damage from other black one-drops, since with those you can at least chump or run them into your opponent's blockers, or let them stay tapped in the case of Carnophage, or... I don't know, Bolt them in the case of a board stall? Black doesn't deal well with enchantments. Getting your zombie killed and taking one damage each turn is especially bad in aggro mirrors, and if your point in supporting black aggro among other things is to have a healthy meta with a decent proportion of aggro, it's going to happen.
tl;dr: I find the synergies around Sarcomancy are pretty niche; there are only a handful of cards that actually let you make value plays with it. Without those, it's just an inconsistent 2-power 1-drop with a low floor. I would cut it rather than cut Tormented Hero - not 100% certain about whether to cut it over Lacerator, but I'm leaning towards "yes".
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