One of the greatest things about plunge is that you can use it how YOU want to. Nightshade, you seemed to imply that your most common use for it was as a turn before set up card. I definately do that a lot, but more often I will use it during my combo turn, completely nulifying the life loss. And that is the thing, people play plunge very differently. You definately make a very valid point about the life loss with ETW, and I have lost in situations very similar to that before, but if you know before hand that you are going to ETW, then plunging for 12+ is probably a poor play. You can run into situations where you are going to combo with tendrils IF you hit the LED on the plunge, then you don't and you are forced to ETW, but that doesn't occur frequently enough to use a different card. I am certainly open to exploring other options, but, as emidln so eloquently said, many of the things you suggested do not find LED, and that is a very big problem. Plunges ability to find LED is what allows tutor heavy hands to combo off. If you are holding plunge + infernal + infernal/bwish and you can make 6 mana then you can win only because plunge can find an LED. In that situation (which I find to occur on a regular basis) if you swapped plunge for any of the other tutors that you are suggesting then you wouldn't be able to win (need 7 mana to win with intuition). Another thing that many people, including myself up until a couple weeks ago, overlook is plunge's 2nd ability. Some decks will stabalize with creatures after an ETW for 8-14 guys. In my experience, the deck that does this most often is Meathooks, and in this type of situation plunges 2nd ability allows you to dig through your entire deck for a tendrils to finish off the last few points of damage.

Kronicler