[Micah]

LA Marignon has the same or better blood potential, better magic diversity, 2 mapmove crossbows (which work great with flaming arrows), better researchers, non-cap-only mages that are actually useful, sailing, and spies, along with some kickass national summons and possibly the best PD in the game, along with non-cap H3 priests that can blood sacrifice up a storm, which is especially important with Rlyeh and Ermor's LA dominions being a very real LA threat. Abysia gets...2 free picks from heat 2? And a shot at S3/B4 on their warlocks, which is one higher than the Goetics. FR troops across the board and one extra MR is nice, but that hardly makes up for everything else being vastly inferior to Marignon. They're going to see maybe 2 anathemants all game since they'll be making warlocks the rest of the time, so less potential blood sacrificing abuse on the whole, even though they do have H3 priests as well. Abysia is a clear loser against any opponent that isn't tossing around gobs of fire magic, so their only good matchup is probably the head-to-head with Marignon. Most of the other LA nations won't really care about the FR til the battlefield enchants come out, and by that point Abysia's reliance on cap-mages is going to start to hurt them pretty badly.