Pointed Discussion

yey, first comment!

Anyway, lovely card! In a creature removal deck, combined with a few avatar of woe, this is a pure winner!

Pernicious Deed is far superior, but for the budget, mono-black player, I could see how this would be nice, especially if you pack high CMC creatures and your opponents have weenies. In multiplayer it's pretty good, but I wouldn't use it in duels.

Or against tokens..

This card destroys creature no matter what size they are, base purely on their cost. In today's environment where 2~3 cmc would give you 3/3 or bigger, this card is a selective sweeper you could manage strategically.

It almost every case, Damnation is better.

this is awesome when you desperately need to break a stalemate with a token deck. or a lot of decks, for that matter.

Death Cloud is the same cmc and much more fun, but this has its uses

This card is really really strong.
Of course the forces black as the main color, but black has four-mana fatties and this card for kills every token, Leatherback Baloth, Tarmogoyf, and stops weenie decks, elf decks, merfolk decks, goblin decks, ...
Yes, you can have the same effect at instant speed for less with Consume the Meek, but the variable CMC threshold can be useful, so I consider this card equally powerful.

@Kirbster:
Sorry, but their CMC stays the same, even if you cast them for cheap. Look at the rulings for Avatar of Woe.

This card is lethal against token and weanie and is great for keeping your own fatties on the table. Whatever you can't kill can be taken down by the plethora of spot removal that has available. And since so many creatures love to be sacrificed anyway, it isn't bad when it hits your own creatures. Still, I'd prefer using Damnation between the two.

Holy crap. I wound up here after damnation and consume the meek. This card is bonkers. Every black EDH deck needs one. Stunning, especially for Mercadian Masques.

A lot of people seem to not like this card. Personally, I think it's pretty cool. It works with creatures that have high converted mana costs but you can play cheaply - such as affinity creatures or Avatar of Woe - and can easily brutalize a weenie or token deck. Besides, when has black minded having its own creatures in the graveyard?

Plus, those trees in the art are pretty awesome.

EDIT: Okay, normally I don't do this... but BastianQoU is just so fuckin' daft.
Look - I know Avatar of Woe's converted mana cost stays the same. The idea is that if you play the avatar for two mana, then you can still play Forced March for 7 without killing her, all right? I'm not saying this is super-secret tech for killing one card. You use both together because her CMC remains the same.

The worst part may be that you pretty much went on to repeat my comment. Yes, it's good against "token or weenie decks." Golly, where have we heard that before. Oh, what's that? It leaves your big creatures untouched? Man, this guy's ahead of the curve. Yeah, but watch out, or you'll kill your own Myr Enforcer because you played it for free, right? Oh, and it's not bad if you hit your own creatures. BOLDLY BLAZING NEW TERRITORY.

Seriously, you just made me yell over the Internet at someone. I'm almost as disappointed in you as I am in myself now....

Deck dependent whether or not you'd rather run Black Sun's Zenith, Necroplasm, Consume the Meek, etc..

(I won't compare to damnation because it's $20+ a card ;) )

In my opinion BSZ will normally be better because you can screw up board positions regardless of having enough mana to actually kill everything; however they do play to different strategies. Certainly your big expensive creatures here benefit more from this and CtM, same with Necroplasm. BSZ coordinates more with a control strategy and less of a counter-strat to issues your big-creature deck may have.

I'd say that the instant speed on CtM and the fact you're unlikely to be casting this at 4+ puts CtM ahead. Necroplasm also allows one to eliminate tokens the turn it's played and can be dug out any time it's needed. Comboing with Slitherhead is an easy way to ensure you kill what you need, but these of course rely on a graveyard strategy.

Still, a decent 3.5/5 card IMO; though I'd almost never use it over the other options, as it's versatility is harder to build around and less powerful in general.