Dimir - with guildpact U/B
// Deck file for Magic Workstation
// Lands
6 Island
1 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
4 Watery Grave
4 Swamp
3 Dimir Aqueduct
4 Underground River
// Creatures
3 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Cloudhoof Kirin
2 Drift of Phantasms
3 Plagued Rusalka
1 Helldozer
1 Hunted Horror
1 Clone
// Spells
2 Glimpse the Unthinkable
4 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Ribbons of Night
1 Eradicate
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Clinging Darkness
4 Quicken
1 Jester's Cap
2 Stream of Consciousness
3 Leyline of Singularity
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Glimpse the Unthinkable
SB: 2 Induce Paranoia
SB: 4 Compulsive Research
SB: 4 Mana Leak
SB: 2 Hinder
SB: 1 Jester's Cap
posted by god_is_good478 @ 11:21 PM
1 Comments:
And this is the report I wrote for it sometime back in march... wow... =)
Saturday, March 25, 2006
On reading this I felt compelled to build one...
// Deck file for Magic Workstation
// Lands
5 Island
1 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
4 Watery Grave
3 Underground River
5 Swamp
2 Dimir Aqueduct
// Creatures
3 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Hypnotic Specter
4 Plagued Rusalka
2 Ravenous Rats
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1 Cloudhoof Kirin
// Spells
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Traumatize
3 Quicken
2 Clinging Darkness
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Dimir Signet
4 Cry of Contrition
3 Leyline of Singularity
4 Exhaustion
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Soramaro, First to Dream
SB: 1 Szadek, Lord of Secrets
SB: 1 Disrupting Scepter
SB: 4 Shred Memory
It is still in testing. But it holds up alright against Zoo....
But not all the time.
The first decklist i started with was more "fun".. with soramaro, and
Szedak even Circu and all...
It kinda died in a few turns.
Building this deck was rather enlightening. =P
Some things I learnt:
1) The Karoo Lands do not suck... that bad
2) Duskmantle does suck
3) Non-basics suck.. no wait...
4) I like the hippie
5) Ink-eyes is amazing... but she is too fat
6) Kagemaro is really bad when you have nothing in your hand
7) Threads of Disloyalty is quite amazing
8) Exhaustion is your Friend
9) Cry of Contrition is less amazing than it looks
10) Leyline of Singularity is more amazing than it looks
11) Go buy your loxodon warhammers!
12) Glimpse the unthinkable gives you brain farts
13) Quicken is somewhat nice
14)The Kirin is quite pretty
15) Ignore the sideboard
Now I will cover it one by one... its not a really long article at this
point, the 15 points are just a way for me to sort my thoughts as I
write this.
1) The Karoo Lands do not suck... that bad
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I always thought the Karoo lands are pretty bad. Not constructed
viable. Even if it appeared in the Constructed Tourneys I was not
swayed.
But I like Mike Flores articles alot.... So in typical Flores Mindless
Worshipper fashion I took another look at the Karoo lands....
I still hated them.
I looked at them again.
.. hard.
Conclusion?
They suck against bounce and LD. Otherwise...? They are a necessary
evil for slow decks. The Karoo lands basically aloow you to drop TWO
lands next turn. (Or more correctly you have a source of TWO mana next
turn - as opposed to only one mana increment per turn with each land
drop). This is like playing a BOP or dropping a signet with no mana to
activate it.
One of the decks I wanted my mill deck to be able to do is not auto die
to Zoo.
The problem is that a mill deck is very slow to kill. Zoo just runs all
over it and dances on its corpse.
So the Mill deck must have some other way to overcome it. Whether it be
size of creatures, big card advantage effects or a lock. Having more
land is one way of increasing the "access to mana advantage". And that
is what the Karoo lands give you. Albeit just a little.
But in tandem to this line of thought, you must make sure your mana
curve (quick fancy generic way of saying the frequency distribution of
the mana cost of your spells) can take advantage of the "mana
advantage" over the non-karoo playing player.
This becomes very stark when you are doing karoo acrobatics while Kird
Ape says hi and invites the very pretty but highly damaging dryad to
join him(it?) in smashing your face.
3 Karoos generally is nice to have consistent build up of mana around
turn 2/3. But I was holding on to 2 Karoos too often (it is not good to
twiddle your fingers when facing down a kird ape and scab-clan mauler),
so I dropped to 2.
2) Duskmantle does suck
+++++++++++++++++++
Again being the inane Flores fan I am, Duskmantle was on my mind.
And yes it does very little on its own. The thing is it is a very good
Millstone! Vast technological improvement actually. But Millstone only
does its thing in the long game. Against Zoo, twiddling your thumbs
very quickly results in NO game =)
So it is kept to just 1
3) Non-basics suck.. no wait...
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Oh the pain the pain!
The pain-lands are well... pain lands! Zoo does damage quickly enough,
no need to help it. And with the dear dryad sophisticate in the picture
now, you really want to play only the necessary non-basics. If you can
make do with basic lands, make do with basic land. God knows we had 2
color decks before Ravnica ;) If you are not convinced, maybe
moldervine on dryad will change your mind.
4) I like the hippie
+++++++++++++
There it is. Thats all to say. I like the Hippie! But 3cc for 2/2 is
not good enough. They are quite useless in multiples against Zoo. Only
good when you have stabilised the board. At turn three you are normally
almost dead. A 2/2 body should just go home and cry. Hence just 1. If
you want to you can add Drift of Phantasms (I just find them too
defensive in this deck). The cool thing is you can transmute them into
the hippie. So you get a Fatty to block if necessary, and lock their
hand if the situation allows.
5) Ink-eyes is amazing... but she is too fat
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Too often holding out for a ninjitsu... She ain't heavy, she's just
Ink-Eyes.
Still, nice synergy with Glimps the Unthinkable. But too dependent.. so
just one.
6) Kagemaro is really bad when you have nothing in your hand
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Still out on Kagemaro. Amazing when you get to blow him, pathetic when
you just blew your hand.
7) Threads of Disloyalty is quite amazing
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Almost always a 2 for one. 3cc is high, and useless against
creatureless. Still nice.
8) Exhaustion is your Friend
+++++++++++++++++++++
I have never been a fan of exhaustion. I used to play winter
orb/propaganda (the blue ghostly prison). Still, its the best you've
got right now. If you got a better way to slow down fast aggro decks,
tell me.
9) Cry of Contrition is less amazing than it looks
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sometimes its a Cabal Therapy. Other times you need retail therapy
after using it.
10) Leyline of Singularity is more amazing than it looks
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Heh I think 3 is the magic number. It really does slow down aggro
decks. Just be careful with your own permanents. Say clinging darkness
and threads of Disloyalty. Thing is whatever creature you steal usually
dies pretty quickly. So far .. a non-issue, but something to keep in
mind.
11) Go buy your loxodon warhammers!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lifegain gives Zoo fits... Flames of the blood hand sometimes burn.
But with the warhammer just hit them one more time! Just be aware that
the warhammer needs 6 mana total to cast and equip in one turn. Life
gain is scarce for B/U make do with the w.hammer. (though Ribbons of
Night might work.. I haven actually looked at it properly).
12) Glimpse the unthinkable gives you brain farts
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
They are a necessary evil. otherwise you will have to relie on even
more evil things like the duskmantle. With the deal the Dimir cut with
the duskmantle, you'd think they were Orzhov! Would have been lovely as
instant.
13) Quicken is somewhat nice
++++++++++++++++++++++
Oki.... this is going to be debatable. Cantrips make your deck smaller.
So the percentages of each card you put in gets higher. For example my
land count can be taken to be a little higher than 20/60, more like
20/56. But given that quicken costs 1cc (the all time best was the 0 cc
artifact.. that I cannot for the life of me remember its name...)
14)The Kirin is quite pretty
++++++++++++++++++++
Zoo hates flyers, Zoo hates big creatures(at least those bigger than
its own). The Kirin beats the opponent and his deck all in a heartbeat.
Stick it with a w.hammer, and you gain life while beating!
15) Ignore the sideboard
++++++++++++++++++
I know I did =P I have not given it thought yet... but so far
moldervine cloak has given me fits and shred memory looks good.
I think the important thing is to shore up your deck against whatever
runs in your playgroup, but generally it should do alright against the
field and not just one deck. In particular it should at least be able
to stand against the most popular deck in the environment... the good
news is that currently there seems to be no such deck =)
Also important is what are you gunning for?
I wanted a mill cum beatdown if necessary deck. You seem to be going
for spirit craft. Someone else might go for counterspells.
So how you want your deck to play out is another thing you gotta
answer.
Ed
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