I wonder if it makes sense to play with creatures spread over 1, 2, and 3 mana like that with Vial. Might it make more sense to cluster your threats at one mana cost, so that your vial threatens everything in your deck?
...
And then round out the deck with early game disruption (FoW, daze, etc) to ensure you reach vial at 2?
Of course Vial becomes less predictive and therefore more dangerous if all my creatures cost the same. However, in this case im left with 2 choices:
focus on cmc 1... obivously that won't work as Arbiter (and Mindcensor) are a must.
focus on cmc 2 or higher... then the deck is absolutely relying on Vial and isn't really doing anything threatening until turn 3. Especially vs. MUD this deck would lose without vial.
So I'm left with the option to spread the cmc's. On the plus side, this makes Vial a "faster" thread, as it is possible to put a creature into play every turn while charging up.
But you hit a weak spot nevertheless. Another cmc2 critter besides arbiter would be nice for vial. Qasali Pridemage would be fantastic... but it's in the wrong colors (at least for my build). Spellstutter Spriter seems to be the next best option. I think Lavamancer needs to make room for the fae. (*sniff*... Lavamancer is such a house in the fish-mirror. But in a lot of matchups he is the weakest cmc1 critter.)
Currently I would play these critters:
4 Curse Catcher
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Sage of Epityr
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Spell Stutter Sprite
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Vendillion Clique
3 Ninja of the deep hours (Instead of Standstill as suggested today by a friend of mine. This makes Sage even better than it already is in this deck.)
Thats 10x cmc1, 8x cmc2, 4x cmc3. Which I like much more than before.
Now if I only could squeeze Lightning Bolt into the deck... but I don't know what to cut.
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