If you're worried about Boros Tokens and its lame ass brethren I don't know what to tell you. You can't have a good matchup vs everything.. unless its Steelydanno's Witch Maw deck.

If you want a BETTER matchup vs tokens you need trample in these colors.. that means Terra Stomper and/or Enlarge. There's not much else in these colors other than a resolved Spider Spawning.. which should have the 3rd copy of in here anyway.

Leaning towards Red. Ground Assault rocks spot removal. Only downside is Anger exiles, not kills.

Jund spiders is legit. There are a few lists of that in the Jund thread.

Alright, got it up on the Jund thread.

bump

So after fiddling with discard in Dimir colors, I decided to try something new. Blue offered me draw, Strix and Dinrova Horror.. all good things but overall.. their creature to creature ability to fight was weak. I needed better creatures, or ones I didn't mind dying. The issues I was having were:

Blocking early: I didn't have any chumps or tough guys early. Guard Gomazoa and Phyrexian Rager came out on turn 3.. but I was already pretty behind by then vs agro. A lot of times Gomazoa would get hit with Goblin Shortcutter or Banisher Priest, then I'd take a hammering. Elvish Visionary does a lot here. She gives me a little bit of gas, and she's a great early Undying Evil target for more gas and a bigger ass to block with. She also doesn't come with the -1 life Rager did.. which added up. Which brings me to my next point.

Life management: I didn't want to run Ulcerate in my Dimir build bc I was down to pretty small life totals often vs agro. I really wanted the card though so I could 2 for 1 Satyr Hoplite/Furor of the Bitten, or Hero of Iroas getting spammed with white enchants. The combat trickery is also nice. This is where Pelakka Wurm saves the day. Arbor Colossus also lets us stabilize totally on turn 4-5 (is there a better stabilizer in the entire game then Arbor Colossus? I don't think so. Baneslayer comes close but Colossus wipes the floor with her, so I think he's better).. something Indulgent Tormentor can't really do, and Shadowborn typically only does for a turn.. but with Undying Evil here.. he can do it twice in a row if I need him to (right Barney?). Suffer the Past could help here but I like to keep it back as a finisher (my Banefire) and to hose Spider decks.. which it does admirably since Cultivate is in the deck. I had Griselbrand in the Dimir build and he surely won games.. he could find a way back into this list. That's it for my 'issues'.

The other reason I went green was draw. Blue certainly has the best draw in the game, then green, then black IMO. So by switching to green I can still retain a good bit of card draw (Visionary, Hunter's Prowess), and I can throw Muse back in the list since I don't have Rager plinking me. I also went with 3 Mind Rots this time around. I'm really dedicating myself to hand destruction with this build.. it's not a 'subtheme' or anything. It originally started as pure ramp with Elvish Pioneer, all 4 Cultivates trying to get to turn 3 Monomania.. but that plan was so inconsistent. I don't think it ever happened actually. Basically.. if you T2 Maggot, T3 Spectre, T4 Mind Rot, T5 Colossus, removal or more discard.. Opponenet's are going to be extremely hard pressed to do anything.

Give it a run.. I'd love to hear feedback. I'm leaving tonight to go fishing/diving for at least 4 days. I'll be anxious to see this thread when I get back to port.

Barney: This is the deck I used to beat up that mono green deck last night.

I'm down with this deck. Looks very fun, but I might be biased...

Beast, I would say:

-4 Lilly Spectre
-3 Mind Rot

and max out your Ulcerates, Cultivates, Flesh to Dusts and Suffer the Pasts. I think it'll make it more consistent. Brain Maggot is enough annoyance for hand disruption.

Did you forget what that Mind Rot did to you last night when you were on 3 cards? The Spectre the turn before set it up.

Suffer the Past is great until you have two in hand.. then you realize how bad that situation is.

I don't feel I need a lot of 5cmc kills because (ideally) the opponent won't have that many creatures that need such a powerful answer.

Already maxed out on Ulcerates.

I would like to fit the 4th Cultivate though..

I don't remember the Mind Rot doing anything particularly devastating. I lost a land and something else.

I'm only a fan of Mind Rot in a dedicated hand devastation deck. Otherwise I think Brain Maggot does the job far better.

It got a land and a Nylea's Disciple.. brought you to one card in hand while you had only 4 power on the board (Disciple/Visionary). Unless that one card in hand was a bomb (which it was) then you were pretty screwed. You played the Wurm, then I killed it with Shadowborn.. used Undying Evil on Shadowborn next turn to remove the Disciple.

oh right, I remember. I had a land and two Nylea's Disciples in hand. I didn't see losing her as a big deal to the game state at that time, especially against your deck.

that was the rampiest opening hand I think I've ever had too

The card itself wasn't that big of a deal.. but bringing you to one card in hand was pretty big IMO.

That's what I'm saying about the game state. Going to one card when I have garbage in hand and have lost the game anyway isn't a big deal.

This is why Mind Rot is so, so terrible. Even when it FULLY resolves, the value is not certain. It either does nothing, does next-to-nothing, does a little or is devastating (at Sorcery speed).

I think we can do better than that card.

Truth...limiting your opponent's options is pretty huge. My biggest issue with using Mind Rot is that it is a card that is either really good or really bad.

It does no damage to your opponent (health wise), and is a horrible draw if they a)have no cards in hand, b)have a lot of cards in hand or, c)are playing dedicated recursion.

That is why Brain Maggot and Lilly Specter are way better...you get a body as well. Even if you draw them when the above conditions are met, they aren't totally wasted.

Ah, where is Megrim or The Rack when you need them?

The problem with going just Brain Maggot and Spectre IMO is that its just not enough discard to matter. I don't want to just get one card here or there.. I want to crush their hand.

Barney: The Mind Rot vs you wasn't a great one, but it was still decent. The reason it wasn't great is bc you were flooding out. Ideally, you want to play Mind Rot when your opponent misses a land drop. If you do that.. its brutal. Forcing discarded spells is just as good as countering them, forcing creatures into the yard is just as good as removing them.

Kryder: I'd love for those enchantments to be in there. Alt wincons are a beautiful thing that add variety.. and more variety is always welcome.

After a few play throughs, the HD just deals weak and out of place here. It might fit better in a Dimir Mill/HD deck.

I disagree, I like Mind Rot a lot and most of the time it's very much worth it. Playing it when the opponent has 2-3 cards that he has been holding on to......there's bound to be something juicy in there that they do not want to discard.
It's also a psychological edge. You're messing with someone's gameplan and how they plan on 'lining up' their spells.

I'm not a huge fan of Ulcerate and would rather run another Flesh to Dust, especially in a deck that wants to get up to 5+ mana.
Also, Arbor Colossus is a great stabilizer

I love discard (well making people discard - I hate being forced to discard!!) and always wanted Mind Rot to be good but; if you're using it tactfully like Left4Doner is implying, than only the first one is any good. The card just continues to get worse after that. Unless you have things like the bounce effects to continue to get value out of the card later on, it's not worth including in my opinion (again coming from a fella who wants the card to be good and made a build around it trying to give it value after the first use).

In my opinion Liliana's Specter, Undying Evil and Brain Maggot are enough to get the desired disruption effect without costing you space for Mind Rot.

elk

/agree