@shadowcran
I just realised that lilliana's spectre is a premium
Other than mind rot I cannot think of alternatives, advice?

Yeah, gonna put suffer back in. And rescue.

The idea with bounce is to stall out the game early until they have few cards in hand, then force them to discard those cards and then you bounce their bombs with etb, forcing them to discard them.

My bounce build works fairly well. Haven't had tons of issues with vs etb creatures since its aims to stall till there are few cards in their hand then force them to discard.

Works well when you have Talrand to take advantage of all the bounce spells.

That has been the best strat overall that I have found for Dimir personally.

Hanika, you can test your build vs some of my aggro decks if you want to see how it works out vs that style of play too.

2best, what's the build you're running atm? I gave up on mine, it has too many weaknesses...

I just added a third Dinrova Horror to the Pharika's Chosen list as the 61st card and it runs smoothly. Thanks Hanika!

Lexx, check out Prunes build. It's identical to my build with the exception of ONE card!

Got it, best. Hope it will work beter for me than my own.

Sorry for late response. With my eyesight I can't often see on others threads if someone responded to me. Feel free to PM me in the future.

Let's see. 3 mana, go with Giant Scorpions. An attack deterrent if there ever was one. It's also just above the "get rid of it with a shock" toughness. But for the goal of the deck, which is to force things back into their hands and force discards, try 3 mind rots and 1 monomania.

I'm working on a more control Dimir atm. I'm about to get some sleep or I'd post it. Yes, it does contain 4 x Giant Scorpion and it's been a very reliable winner.

(For some reason, I'm growing to hate using Think Twice...Man, I hope there's better draw in the expansion. I know I'll already be using the Courier's Capsule instead but hoping for even better. There's about 27 cards we have no clue about that should be in there. I'm a realist enough to know it won't be something awesome like Ancestral Recall. Yes, I'm a draw nut from way back and the desire to see what I get next is one of my big weaknesses. I'm the last person you want in your party fighting a monster..I'll be so damned preoccupied wanting to see what's in the chest I'll fubar the whole attack. And no, it's not because I desire what's in it, ...I'd probably give it away. No, it's just curiousity)

My premium Dimir control...

2 Artful Dodge
3 Dissolve
4 Inspiration
4 Think Twice
3 Voyage's End
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Guard Gomazoa
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Soul of Ravnica

4 Flesh to Dust
1 Suffer the Past
1 Ulcerate
2 Graveborn Muse
2 Rune-Scarred Demon

2 Elixir of Immortality
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand

3 Dimir Guildgate
12 Island
9 Swamp

It's fun to play and pulls itself out of trouble time and time again.

Trying out a new idea here. Deathtouch + Undying Evil + Bident of Thassa = LOLZ?


Filthy Deathtouchers **Premium Build **



Lands

4x Island
16x Swamp
3x Dimir Guildgate


Creatures

3x Pharika's Chosen
2x Bloodghast
2x Agent of the Fates
4x Giant Scorpion
3x Liliana's Specter
3x Paragon of Open Graves
2x Indulgent Tormentor
1x Rune-Scarred Demon


Spells/Artifacts

2x Artful Dodge
2x Bident of Thassa
3x Dead Weight
3x Deviant Glee
4x Undying Evil
2x Dead Reckoning
1x Hall of Triumph

Please someone with more Magic experience help me make this work better?

Without playing it I can't give you too much info but I'll point out a few things I noticed straight away:

You're probably going to have a bit of trouble casting Bident of Thassa, with two in its mana cost, with only four Islands and three Guildgates in your deck.
Paragon of Open Graves is okay for the buff, but everything you'd want to give deathtouch to pretty much already has it.
The best thing about Deviant Glee is that it can give the creature trample, so without its probably not worth running.
Dead Reckoning is not great removal when most of your creatures have only 1 or 2 power (and if your using it to exploit the bug with deathtouch then that's not good either), and if you're using it just for recursion, then it is really bad.

so any thoughts on what to run instead?

I want to tell you how to change it for the best.. I want to give you solid alternatives to the cards DJ listed should be changed. (Which I agree with) I want to give you constructive criticism but the problem is I honestly feel if you're not running the list Prune posted (with very minor tweaks if any) then you're really handicapped in going blue/black.

The only thing I don't like about Prunes build is that he got it posted before me!

Hmm, I'm probably not the best person to ask as my deck has been out-shined by some more creative endeavors here.

Cards I'd consider would be:
Negate: To counter things that aren't creatures because creatures you can deal with.
Hysterical Blindness: Make your opponent attack all out with Bident of Thassa, kill their stuff with your deathtouchers and at the same time take no damage and lose no creatures.
Voyage's End: Bounce your opponent's creatures, recast Liliana's Specter, scry for more goodies and even trigger Agent of the Fates in a pinch.
Quest for the Gravelord: Punish them even more for dealing with your deathtouchers and another big body is always welcome.
Pharika's Chosen: You should really go all out with the deathtouchers.
Paragon of Open Graves: I've been reconsidering him, the pump could be good and you can give a Liliana's Specter or Bloodghast deathtouch in a pinch. But I'd remove Hall of Triumph.

That's great and all, but I'm not here only to discuss the "best possible build". Meta is awesome, don't get me wrong, but I'd also like to explore other ideas on fun decks. This is only a video game and not the Pro tour after all




Great ideas! Not sure why I didn't notice Hysterical Blindness before. Thank you very much for the positive feedback.

The only thing I question is if I take out Deviant Glee will I have enough target spells and a reason (besides deaththouch) to still run Agent of the Fates?

A 3/2 body for is nothing to scoff at in black, and with deathtouch and his sacrifice ability I'm sure he'd still deserve a place, plus if you throw in some bounce then he's still relevant.

I was thinking the same thing. Replace Glee with Vapors or Voyages.

So after some advice, here is a newer version. It's doing pretty well and is fun to play. I have yet to kill a bomb by triggering Bident of Thassa to my death touch creatures yet.

Filthy Deathtouchers **Premium Build ** Ver 1.1



Lands

7x Island
14x Swamp
2x Dimir Guildgate


Creatures

4x Pharika's Chosen
2x Bloodghast
2x Agent of the Fates
3x Giant Scorpion
3x Liliana's Specter
3x Paragon of Open Graves
2x Indulgent Tormentor
1x Rune-Scarred Demon


Spells/Artifacts

3x Artful Dodge
2x Bident of Thassa
3x Voyage's End
3x Negate
4x Undying Evil
2x Hysterical Blindness

Information
Been making quite a few control and/or combo decks lately, so thought I should try something a bit more aggressive. It was hard coming up with something that hadn't already been done to death though. But eventually I came up with this. It's pretty quick, not as quick as goblins, but it does have a few more tricks than goblins.

My favorite win was against a RDW deck that got me down to 1 life, several times, and I managed to survive with artful attacking and blocking and unnecessarily casting Artful Dodge over and over again on a Tormented Hero, hehe.

You almost always want to be attacking with this deck. Use Quickling and Undying Evil to save your creatures from removal and Artful Dodge on an Agent is a pretty nasty trick.

Military Intelligence and Bident of Thassa should keep you flush with cards and can get Chasm Skulker very big, very fast.

this looks fun to play and once i finish decks for my tourneys im going to give this a shot. if i may ask, everything looks like great synergy but i dont see what artful dodge is for. i'm going to look for an alternative but was wondering what the idea was behind it is all.