Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
Sword of Feast and Famine is probably better than Sword of Body and Mind. Getting a 2/2 is certainly nice, much better than discarding a card, but pro-blue is much worse than pro-black (black has way more in terms of creature removal but is much worse at dealing with artifacts so black is unlikely to be able to remove sword but very likely to be able to remove the wielder, while blue can probably only bounce either) and making enemy mill 10 is potentially actually more helpful than harmful for them, with Delve being the big new mechanic and Tarkir in general being fairly graveyard-aligned.

Feast and Famine though: Discard a card is often decent if unlikely to be outright awesome most of the time, but getting to untap all your lands is really good. Remember, your deck has a lot of mana sinks like Kargan Dragonlord, Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare. You can use all your mana pre-combat, hit with Sword, untap everything and use all your mana again post-combat. This leads to fairly scary mana efficiency. The downside with Feast and Famine is that Mirran Crusader has Pro-Black/Green already so on him, the protections are essentially wasted and getting two untaps isn't that good.

Sword of Light and Shadow is also good but the lifegain effect is fairly minor so it's mostly recycling your creatures (of course, with Grim Lavamancer in the deck that effect gets worse). It has nice protections though. The last option is Sword of War and Peace, white/red. Unfortunately it never produces card advantage and the effects are quite situational. Still, pro-red/pro-white is certainly nice on Mirran Crusader and nice in general. The trigger could be better tho. As such, I recommend Feast and Famine or Body and Mind for now. Ultimately, Fire and Ice has by far the universally strongest effect of all the swords. Feast and Famine is probably the second-best and then Body and Mind and Light and Shadow about equal (in your deck, I like Body and Mind better just 'cause of the value of getting guaranteed extra creatures), and finally War and Peace.


Regarding 1-drops: Vexing Devil is kind of a problematic fellow. Yeah, on paper getting either 4 damage or a 4/3 for R is really good but it can be awkward at times; 1-drop creatures usually amount to more than 4 damage over the game and Vexing Devil is easy for the enemy to just take to the face unless you have a lot of burn to aim their way. Furthermore, it's not a reliable burn spell either; later on, getting a 4/3 is nice but if enemy is down to like 8, you probably just want them to take 4 damage instead.

It's kinda, it's way worse than either "Deal 4 damage to target player" or "R for 4/3". Treat it as "Deal 4 damage to target player" with a downside of enemy being able to prevent the damage should situation call for it. Ultimately, I don't think your deck is that well-positioned to take advantage of it. More direct burn-deck that plays a small creature base and a ton of burn-spells to aim at the enemy's face is a better home for it (and indeed, it's not rare for such decks to play it) but your deck is decidedly more creature-based and seeks to win through attacking. My own solution would be to go with Goblin Guide; the drawback is very real but it's still a 2/2 Haste for R, which is really good early on and something you can keep in hand waiting for enemy to be open to Hasty beaters later on (Haste is nice for surprise Sword hits for instance). As such, I'd go with the following:
+ 1 Grim Lavamancer
+ 3 Goblin Guide
+ 3-4 fetchlands
- 3-4 generic lands (you want to make sure you won't run outta stuff to fetch)
- 4 Vexing Shusher
I do wish to Add for War and Peace, that it is quite good in a fast deck with a cheap flier that can start swinging with it before the opponent empties their hand.

I ran a deck with It and Birds of Paradise that was surprisingly effective if the opponent did not have a quick answer for the birds ready.

Though that is really true of any of the swords, Turn 1 Birds, turn 2 sword Turn 3 swing with birds starts the ball rolling on the effects really quickly.