Awesome deck Hakeem, going to test it now. I rolled w the original you linked but stopped when tokens became the new norm. Going to give a spin tonight

It's not just a chump in this deck, it gets in for damage, fits the curve, and helps you get to seven mana consistently. It's good here.

It's a first-draft, but it is based on prune's deck as I said so it has been good. Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to improve it.

This deck is crazy fun. So far I've won 8 out of 10 (both losses to tokens). Maggot's are great here. Opponents always want to get rid of them ASAP, which leaves them with less options for your badder guys. Numerous times I've had opponents shock my Maggots which saved the Talrand I dropped next. Undying is pretty awesome on Liliana's Specter.
I'm with the others though that Rager isn't the strongest card out there, but it's been solid for me. I actually just won a game simply by overwhelming my opponent with Ragers and Specters. Might experiment with something else in his spot though. Ulcerate to take care of Pyromancers? (one of my loses was against a turn 3 Pyromancer followed by a turn 4 Krenko's Command and Raise the Alarm tapped into 2 Triplicate Spirits)

This deck's only play to the board before the third turn is Brain Maggot and you are not blocking with that guy. If you're going to replace Rager then you need a creature at 3CMC or less, preferably one with an EtB to synergize with Undying Evil. Frost Lynx or Pestermite could be semi-playable, but they don't really scream out to me.

I really think Rager needs to stay solely for the card draw. You just want to disrupt your opponent with a bit of discard and bounce his threats while you advance to seven mana and drop a Sheoldred or a Demon to fetch him. The other path to victory is just dropping Talrand with Undying Evil to protect him (which is awesome) but it doesn't come up as often.

You could just concede your aggro matchup and swap the Ragers for Mind Rots to wreck the midrange/control opponents and you would have more spells for Talrand but I'm not sure I'd want to do that. I may give that swap a shot, though, just to see how it plays. I really think the deck needs the additional card draw, but we'll see.

I think

-1 Rager
-1 Horror

+2 Agent of Fate is the best aggro defense. Agents often stops poor players cold as it has Deathtouch, and you can bounce it into your hand when they try to remove it and they lose a creature.

I'm not sure about cutting Dinrova Horror, it answers any permanent. And I really think the deck needs the Ragers because of the card draw.

With that said, I think finding room for Agent is correct. I'll play a few more games and think about where to fit it in. My guts says cut Talrand/Shadowborn because Talrand is Legendary and Dinrova Horror hits and permanent while Shadowborn misses some key creatures.

I'll get back to you after I play a few more games.

I've been running your Dimir Discard deck with:
-1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
-1 Rune-Scarred Demon
+2 Agent Of The Fates

At first I cut Shadowborn instead of Rune-scarred but I feel like 3 7CMC cards is too many with no ramp, and a really missed Shadowborn because he works so well with Sheoldred.

Why not replace some of the bounce with Void Snare so you can answer other permanents too with bounce & discard ?
Like, say, 3xVoyage's End, 3xVapor Snag and 2xVoid Snare
Sure, sorcery speed kinda hurts, but at least it means you can Void Snare + Brain maggot a troublesome artifact or enchantment without *having* to use an horror at 6 CMC.

It could be right but I hate sorcery speed. I think the Horrors are enough outs to non-creature permanents but I will certainly keep it in mind once I get back to testing.

Well, it's only 2 out of 8

I put some time on your deck Hakeem.. it runs very well as is. I don't know what I'd cut for Agent, and I'm not sure he's even needed.. but in theory, its a great fit. You were right about the Ragers, without them.. seeing your 5th, 6th and 7th land drops would be problematic. I still don't like them as an Undying Evil target though.. unless you're getting a solid trade out of it.

DLC updated deck.



Dimir Aggro deck based on pushing through damage due to your opponen't reluctance to make poor trades, while building up potency via lord effects and using unblockability to finish.

This has changed a bit, mainly to make it faster and meaner. I've taken out the draw element and added more kill and power to try to win games quicker. The theme of unwelcome blocks is still there, and as the deck gets people down to below 10 quickly, Guul Draz is an excellent addition as a finisher to compliment Arftul Dodge's unblockability. I only want 2 though, as you only want it for the 10 life boost ability. If it comes before that, it isn't of much use.

Hi Steve, I have a similar deck to this focusing on the poor trade theme. What do you think about taking out 1 Hall, 1 Ulcerate, 1 Dragger for 3 Brain Maggots? I really like them especially with the Undying save.

I think that's an excellent assessment of Guul Draz Vampire's value Steve. It's not a turn 1 aggro drop.. its a turn 4-6 finisher. I hate seeing them in my opening hand, but they are a nice closer later on. I think two is the right number in just about any list.

Yep, Guul Draz is not Bloodghast, whose self-ressurection ability means he's valuable at all stages. If it's hitting the board before they're below 10 life, it's a poor man's Pharika's Chosen, or Tormented Hero.

Regarding Brain Maggots - I love the card, especially with Liliana's Specter, but not in this deck. It won't ever be able to attack or block without ruining its utility, and this is all about giving difficult decisions. Blocking and killing a Maggot is an easy one. I both together in a more controlling Orzhov build where I think the tempo for that card is much better.

Hey Hakeem, try taking this out for a spin for a couple of games. Something I was messing with a little earlier.



Edit: The Flesh to Dust could likely be swapped out for another Rager or maybe a Talrand. It helps to catch stuff that slips through Discard/Horror/Dissolve and being able to bring it back with Archaeomancer is nice. I will admit that it is the epitome of clunky though.

Vicious Hunger seems kind of funky here but it really does help us survive the early game.

On A Dimir Kick lately it would seem.

Going a different direction with this one (although I think the list I posted above this one is SUPER fun to play and seems pretty solid).

So here is me trying to make a Dimir Self-Mill thing work.



I played with this for about 2 1/2 hours tonight with relative success, at least enough so to stay at parity. Then again, I didn't play against a lot of Aggro decks tonight, and the ones I didn't weren't exactly fine tuned.

The deck seems to be pretty soft in the early game but once you hit about 6-7 mana the deck often just steamrolls whatever it is playing against by being able to constantly drop huge bombs almost every turn.

Mercurial Pretender is a blast to play here. It can serve to copy cards like Hedron Crab and Necromancer's Assistant when we really need to mill ourselves with the assurance later you can bounce them back and copy better things if need be.

They also extend our pseudo combos. Going Runescarred>Runescarred>Sheoldred or Sheoldred>Runescarred>Runescarred>Dinrova Horror is already pretty stupid as it is, but being able to extend that twice with Mercurial Pretender can get pretty crazy. Runescarred>Runescarred>Pretender>Pretender>Sheoldred or Sheoldred>Runescarred>Runescarred>Pretender>Pretender>Dinrova Horror is pretty silly hehe.

If you get to the point where you can consistently bounce them and replay them they can become pretty abusive. If you can get 9 mana on the table you can begin to really abuse some of the bombs the deck has. Tutoring every turn with Runescarred? Killing something every turn with Shadowborn? Bouncing something and making them discard every turn with Dinrova Horror? The ability to peek at your opponents hand every turn and swap up what they take with Brain Maggot?

Dead Reckoning helps us as removal (and with this many high power creatures it often works to kill just about anything when you cast it), recycles Bombs we have cast and had removed, or picks bombs out of the yard we self milled to up the chances we draw into them and get the stream of huge creatures flowing.

Undying Evil plays a lot of different roles here. Saving Hedron Crab to continue the self-mill plan and make it a 1/3 which is much more durable, and a much better blocker. Getting another trigger out of Necromancer's Assistant to help self-mill and turn it into a 4/2 while trading with an opponents creature. Saving Runescarred/Shadowborn/Dinrova Horror while also triggering their ETB effects again. Saving Sheoldred to continue to be able to pull stuff from your yard. Saving Brain Maggots to get another peek at your opponents hand, take something, and turn it into a 2/2. Saving Mercurial Pretender to allow it to come back as another creature and trigger their ETB and get a +1/+1 counter.

Think Twice helps us hit our early mana drops and filter through our deck. It also works well with the self-mill, getting you free cards for each one milled.

Traumatic Visions again helps us hit those early land drops and gives us a nice answer to opponents late game bombs.

Brain Maggot helps us stay alive in the early game and disrupts some annoying plays.

Voyage's End helps us survive early on by disrupting tempo. Helping us stall out until we have the mana to take over the game. The scry effect also works rather nicely with the self-mill. When you have a Dead Reckoning in hand and nothing worth using it on in the yard, having that scry effect to help make sure you mill what you need can make a huge difference.


I plan to mess around a bit more with this in the future. As I said at the beginning, it is a bit soft in the early game, which could potentially be worked on. For the most part it works pretty well though. Outside of its weakness in the early game it works pretty consistently. I will admit there was a game or two where I sort of floundered with a hand full of Dead Reckoning and kept hitting nothing but Land/Hedron Crab/Brain Maggots off my self mill. I think that just had more to do with terrible luck than anything though.

That is a pretty cool concept Eon.. I might give that one a go tomorrow. I love Dimir!

It is pretty fun to play as. Well, as long as you don't play against some of the really fast Aggro decks and get trounced before you can do anything lol.

I can't take full credit for this. The idea for this (and the other deck I posted above it) actually came from a random I played online the other night. He played a deck that was nearly identical to this, but had a few cards that weren't really jiving with me like Chill of Foreboding and Thassa's Bounty.

I liked the deck so much I wanted to try it out, so I put it together and replaced some of the cards I didn't like quite as much with stuff like Traumatic Visions and Voyage's End to try and smooth things out a bit more.

I kind of wish I would have been able to get a full deck list from the guy, as I am curious to know how close my list is to his exactly outside of the changes I made. Since there are a few things I am not sure on (like I don't know if he ran Dinrova Horrors in his deck or not).