If you support black aggro, I think Carnophage is one of the cards you just have to run. It's great because it doesn't trade with 1/1s and turns on Gravecrawler and other incidental zombie shenanigans you might have. At 465 cards, I'm not looking to cut it at all (nor Sarcomancy, for that matter).
I started playing Magic in between Stronghold and Exodus. My first really competitive deck was mono black aggro with Carnophage, Dauthi Horror and the like, so my opinion on the little zombie might be a bit biased just from nostalgia. With that said, though, I have no intentions of cutting Carnophage any time soon for reasons other than I just like cubing with cards that really mean something to me.
He's a 2/2, which automatically puts him over several of the 2/1 options. Life is a resource, so the one damage a turn really isn't that big of a drawback. They're taking two, I'm taking one. I think I win this race. And lastly, he's a zombie which can be relevant in some instances.
All of that goes for Sarcomancy as well. I'd play them both over Carrion Feeder unless I was really pushing black sacrifice deck, but even then, I'd probably try to find room for all three.
I started playing Magic in between Stronghold and Exodus. My first really competitive deck was mono black aggro with Carnophage, Dauthi Horror and the like, so my opinion on the little zombie might be a bit biased just from nostalgia. With that said, though, I have no intentions of cutting Carnophage any time soon for reasons other than I just like cubing with cards that really mean something to me.
He's a 2/2, which automatically puts him over several of the 2/1 options. Life is a resource, so the one damage a turn really isn't that big of a drawback. They're taking two, I'm taking one. I think I win this race. And lastly, he's a zombie which can be relevant in some instances.
All of that goes for Sarcomancy as well. I'd play them both over Carrion Feeder unless I was really pushing black sacrifice deck, but even then, I'd probably try to find room for all three.
In a vacuum the opponent takes 2, but in reality they often trade creatures or chump block and you are the one that ends up taking damage. Sarcomancy even worse because once the zombie is gone you are taking damage for the rest of the game most likely unless you happen to have one of the 6 or so other Zombie creatures in the cube in your deck and on the field. More often than not when I had them in my cube and an opponent played them I would be happy and watch them take damage more than they inflicted. Both just seem like super pet cards to me with really minimal upside besides being zombies and being 2/2 for 1 with serious drawbacks.
I feel like if you think taking one damage per turn from my own 2/2 is a "serious drawback" then we're speaking different languages.
Even if I'm on the draw and play Carnophage on turn one, I can still swing into and possibly trade with any bear my opponent might play on their turn two. This is a completely fine trade. I paid a single black and took one damage to kill your two drop. If I were on the play in that scenario, I probably also dealt two damage to my opponent. Pretty sweet deal for a single black mana, if you ask me. And if they do trade, I'm on the Carnophage deck. My two drop follow up is probably also aggressive and might even provide some card advantage.
I love Carnophage and aggressive black strategies in general, but I would hardly consider it or cards like it pet cards. A pet card is a card you tend to know deep down probably isn't good enough, but you keep it in because it's fun or your draft crew just really likes it. Desolation Angel is a pet card. Morphling is probably a pet card. Carnophage is an essential support card for black aggro decks.
I feel like if you think taking one damage per turn from my own 2/2 is a "serious drawback" then we're speaking different languages.
Even if I'm on the draw and play Carnophage on turn one, I can still swing into and possibly trade with any bear my opponent might play on their turn two. This is a completely fine trade. I paid a single black and took one damage to kill your two drop. If I were on the play in that scenario, I probably also dealt two damage to my opponent. Pretty sweet deal for a single black mana, if you ask me. And if they do trade, I'm on the Carnophage deck. My two drop follow up is probably also aggressive and might even provide some card advantage.
I love Carnophage and aggressive black strategies in general, but I would hardly consider it or cards like it pet cards. A pet card is a card you tend to know deep down probably isn't good enough, but you keep it in because it's fun or your draft crew just really likes it. Desolation Angel is a pet card. Morphling is probably a pet card. Carnophage is an essential support card for black aggro decks.
It's hard to imagine Carnophage being much better than a card like Vampire Lacerator for example (in fact in some situations Carnophage is a strictly worse version), and yet Vampire Lacerator is gone from many cube lists nowadays. Why? It is a 2/2 for 1 mana with a drawback of taking 1 damage a turn, which according to your argument is enough for it to be a black aggro staple.
Because it turns on Gravecrawler (and to a lesser extent, it works with Sarcomancy). In addition to all the advantages of being a 2-power 1-drop. Plus, you can turn off the lifeloss at will if needed.
It's hard to imagine Carnophage being much better than a card like Vampire Lacerator for example (in fact in some situations Carnophage is a strictly worse version), and yet Vampire Lacerator is gone from many cube lists nowadays. Why? It is a 2/2 for 1 mana with a drawback of taking 1 damage a turn, which according to your argument is enough for it to be a black aggro staple.
Carnophage makes the cut over Lacerator not because it's "better", but because it's more synergistic. If I were to go up one more black one drop, it would almost certainly be Lacerator. Fortunately we've gotten a lot of great black one drops in recent years. They've admittedly out classed some of the classic ones we were running. Obviously small to medium sized lists can't run all the black one drops, so decisions had to be made. Lacerator was less synergistic overall, despite being very similar to Carnophage, so it had to go.
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He's a 2/2, which automatically puts him over several of the 2/1 options. Life is a resource, so the one damage a turn really isn't that big of a drawback. They're taking two, I'm taking one. I think I win this race. And lastly, he's a zombie which can be relevant in some instances.
All of that goes for Sarcomancy as well. I'd play them both over Carrion Feeder unless I was really pushing black sacrifice deck, but even then, I'd probably try to find room for all three.
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In a vacuum the opponent takes 2, but in reality they often trade creatures or chump block and you are the one that ends up taking damage. Sarcomancy even worse because once the zombie is gone you are taking damage for the rest of the game most likely unless you happen to have one of the 6 or so other Zombie creatures in the cube in your deck and on the field. More often than not when I had them in my cube and an opponent played them I would be happy and watch them take damage more than they inflicted. Both just seem like super pet cards to me with really minimal upside besides being zombies and being 2/2 for 1 with serious drawbacks.
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Even if I'm on the draw and play Carnophage on turn one, I can still swing into and possibly trade with any bear my opponent might play on their turn two. This is a completely fine trade. I paid a single black and took one damage to kill your two drop. If I were on the play in that scenario, I probably also dealt two damage to my opponent. Pretty sweet deal for a single black mana, if you ask me. And if they do trade, I'm on the Carnophage deck. My two drop follow up is probably also aggressive and might even provide some card advantage.
I love Carnophage and aggressive black strategies in general, but I would hardly consider it or cards like it pet cards. A pet card is a card you tend to know deep down probably isn't good enough, but you keep it in because it's fun or your draft crew just really likes it. Desolation Angel is a pet card. Morphling is probably a pet card. Carnophage is an essential support card for black aggro decks.
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It's hard to imagine Carnophage being much better than a card like Vampire Lacerator for example (in fact in some situations Carnophage is a strictly worse version), and yet Vampire Lacerator is gone from many cube lists nowadays. Why? It is a 2/2 for 1 mana with a drawback of taking 1 damage a turn, which according to your argument is enough for it to be a black aggro staple.
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Cheers.
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Carnophage makes the cut over Lacerator not because it's "better", but because it's more synergistic. If I were to go up one more black one drop, it would almost certainly be Lacerator. Fortunately we've gotten a lot of great black one drops in recent years. They've admittedly out classed some of the classic ones we were running. Obviously small to medium sized lists can't run all the black one drops, so decisions had to be made. Lacerator was less synergistic overall, despite being very similar to Carnophage, so it had to go.
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