It's hard to say which is the best but imho there are two creatures that draw the line in this pool and they are of course Dark Confidant and DSC. Mongrel negates half of these as well and MMage is MMage, but Confidant and DSC are played all over and they win lots and lots of games. Granted there are plenty of phenomenal creatures in Magic, but with the given cards below most of those great T1 creatures won't really cause problems except my two controls up above. Here's my very quick and to the point take on the problem.
Last Gasp doesn't kill DSC
Terror doesn't kill DSC or Confidant
Dark Banishing doesn't kill DSC or Confidant and costs more than Terror
Smother I like Smother...but it doesn't deal w/ DSC
Sickening Shoal Not bad at all really, but no DSC
Vicious Hunger It's hard to make a case for this in T1 compared to it's competitors
Snuff Out 9 times out of 10 you're paying 4 life, which is fine, but there's better, oh yeah...no DSC
Ghastly Demise Everybody loves this and it's a great Wish target but says 'Nay' to Confidants or DSC
Darkblast Like you said, highly situational and doesn't even think about DSC
Lose Hope Darkblast is better
So I'm left with Chainer's and Edict, both great cards. They will get the job done in most aggro matches as in today's T1 aggro decks every creature is good and worth killing except for in dumb Goblins in which that sucks you were dealt Goblins and Gay Fish in which removal isn't your gameplan. With these two cards one's drawback is the other's advantage, and vise versa. When I play magic, I usually don't play sorceries unless they're called Time Walk or Yawgmoth's Will and I'd rather just win then pay 7 for a flashback so my vote goes to Diabolic Edict FTW.
The point isn't really T1. The answer there seems mostly to be 'none of them'
. I'm looking more for casual decks. Say my rat deck. It bounces Chitterling and Ravenous Rats into and out of play to screw with people's hands while beating down with utility creatures. If DSC hits play then either a) my opponent is playing a deck which is much more broken than mine or b) the game was lost some time ago.
Now, that deck has 4 slots devoted to noncreature spot removal. There's an arguement that perhaps it shouldn't, and that I should use Keening Banshee or something (4 NekRATaals are in there already), but that's not the point. The point is how to evaluate what spell to use in those 4 slots. My personal choice for that deck is Last Gasp.
The reason for that choice is that it gives the deck a way to cope with black creatures, which it can't otherwise deal with. Even large black creatures (like Visara or something) can be killed by a combination of a suicidal attack and a Last Gasp. Other choices exist, like one of the Edicts might be possible, but often I don't want to guy just a random guy, I want to kill the specific guy who is blocking my Nezumi Cutthroats (or whatever). That's the sort of thinking I'm interested in here: What makes you choose one of these cards above another for a casual meta?
