Hmmm I swore the artifact 'untested' deck got changed quickter than 3 episodes.... It's cause you've filmed them already isn't it?!?!?!?!


With the influx of self mill and the odd graveyard recursion/spiders (which this deck would be helping) and the fact that the deck does force some reasonable discard, it seems fine to keep 1 copy. I'll spin the idea later before I go too far down this rabbit hole but I think it has merit.

RSD is fine for what you said and can/does win games but I do think the Strix and Pestermite are proper fits for this deck so where do you cut to fit it in? Like you mentioned there would be 12 evasive creatures beating down so the need to have 2 additional beaters (which is why you tutor the 2nd RSD instead of the 'answer' card) doesn't seem necessary. Considering the limited number of toolbox targets that you'd want to find, it seems like the deck would be fine without it. Again rabbit hole/testing but I think it'll be fine to make that cut.

elk

I don't really see the purpose of pestermite in that deck. Strix? Maybe.

It's already a bit disjointed, not sure if that helps it or not.

The reason why RSD is better than anything is bc he is really 1-2 more creatures that are all really bad to.deal with.

Strix has no ETB and Pestermites ETB is just ok in a deck.like this.. also.. now your main damage strategy dies to Triplicate Spirits, Squardron Hawk, Guard Gomazoa, and Anger is an even bigger blowout.

This deck wins slowly.. but it wins. I still haven't. played it against anyone 'good'.who is smart enough to sandbag lands.. but.. hopefully I will.

I think that Phrexian rager is greatly under appreciated as a black cantrip. Considering the options I feel it is a necessary evil for the cantrip as well as the body at the 3 cost spot. Not to mention it has added synergy with undying evil.

Rune scared I wouldn't cut here either. You want guys that can potentially close out the game alone if unchecked in the later rounds. Plus it can draw it undying evil to protect itself if your opponent still has a card in hand.

I am gonna play around with this list today. However I don't feel Monomania is right. And instances where mindrot just sits in hand as a dead card always makes me cry.



Could you point me in the direction of the "original"?

viewtopic.php?p=287194#p287194

-4 Mind Rot +3 Tribute to Hunger +1 Sheoldred

I had found it and ran it a bit. Didn't do too bad and monomania really shines in that list without the mind rots and all the bounce.

It's actually one of my more fun decks to play on line IMO. Not OP, but still competitive. It just loses so badly to Rabblemaster though. It may still make more sense to flip void snare for dead weight or ulcerate.

Hi everyone. Does anybody have a good Dimir build that features Griselbrand and the other big demons? I've been trying to make one work, pretty much entirely on the back of Warden of Evos Isle and Guard Gomazoa. Ideally I go Warden into something like Indulgent Tormentor but I'm having a lot of trouble with the early game.

I'm really not sure what such a deck wants to do. Stall of course, but what's the best way to do that? Counterspells have been clunky since I usually want to tap out for a Warden so I've been trying death touchers and Brain Maggot. Unfortunately, then with a few removal spells I don't have room for any draw spells, so if I draw the wrong half of my deck, (which seems to happen a lot, and imo is the sign of a bad deck) I just peter out with 2 power fliers and end up dying.

If anyone has tried something like this or has any advice I'd really appreciate it.

Self-Mill could maybe be where you want to go?

Shadowborn Demon already sort of wants you to be on the Self-Mill plan anyways, and Rune-Scarred Demon is usually a staple of these builds as well.

Would allow you to run Dead Reckoning which is pretty good with all the big demons, especially Griselbrand. Rescue from the Underworld could help to circumvent the excessive cost of Griselbrand as well which could be nice.

Counterlash could be an interesting idea with Griselbrand as well, although I am not a huge fan of the card overall.

This should basically cover your high end.

Staying alive in the early game seems like it would be the biggest issue, what with blacks lack of good cheap removal for non-aggro decks.

Are you married to the idea of going Dimir?

Adding red to go Grixis could give you some more early removal and Anger which could help quite a bit.

Or you could go green which would supplement the Self-Mill plan further and give you access to some cheap creatures to gum up the board like Visionary/Wayfinder and such.

If you are married to Dimir, you have a much more difficult road. Since creature-wise they tend to not have a lot of good early creatures, they lack good early removal and sweepers, and the counterspell/discard suite isn't exactly ideal either.

When I mucked around with a Dimir Self-Mill build I ended up having to rely on Vicious Hunger as early game removal because the deck couldn't afford the life hit from Ulcerate and that isn't exactly an ideal place to be at. It worked decently, but definitely not anywhere near enough to really shore up the early game issues the deck had.

Dimir is one of the weakest 2 color combinations in this card pool IMO. If I had to pick the single weakest mono color it would be black - poor removal options, low early game defense, limited card advantage options. Black has a great late game simply due to RSD/Sheoldred though. Blue has similar weaknesses, generally slow to develop board position, although it has strong control and card advantage options later in the game.

Like Eon said, red makes it easier to get to Griselbrand because of the removal options it provides. Green can ramp your mana to cast him faster, and provides solid board presence.

I don't think UB has enough synergy to make self-mill practical. There are a few other cards that would help such as unearth, but this is pure offense and won't help you get to 8 mana to cast Griselbrand.

Off the top of my head, I would go for something like:
4 dead weight
4 vicious hunger
3 flesh to dust
4 think twice
3 inspiration
3 nullify
3 dissolve
1 suffer the past
2 runescarred demon
1 sheoldred
1 griselbrand
1 undying evil
2 counterlash
1 shadowborn demon
1 monomania
1 kozilek
25 land

This is a very creature light deck and it lacks blockers, which is a problem against token decks. That said, Dimir fares pretty poorly against token decks, period. Your goal with this deck would be to get the board clear, draw cards and counter what your enemy plays. Counterlash offers way of getting your fat creatures into play cheaply. 1 undying evil, 1 monomania and 1 suffer the past are there for utility and as tutor targets. This list is untested but this is the direction I would go in for dimir control.

Edit - after a little bit of testing I might swap counterlash for 2 tribute to hunger and swap 2 vicious hunger for 2 ulcerate, but I think the basic build is solid. Black kills stuff in the early game, blue cements your lead with counters and draw, black finishes the game with its uber fatties (and/or Kozilek). I would also like to fit Archaeomancer in here but I really can't find the cut.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not especially attached to Dimir. The deck started out with the goal to cast Griselbrand, without being just another Green/Black deck. Green + Black is my favorite color combination, and I make a lot of decks with it so I was trying something different. Warden of Evos Isle as a cost reducer seemed good and Guard Gomazoa blocked well to let me get to 8 mana so that's why I was trying Dimir.

If I were to drop Griselbrand I would be a lot more comfortable adding a third color. Either Grixis or Sultai could be good choices for such a deck. If I keep him it might be a problem though, because of the BBBB in the mana cost. I could see a case for Rakdos instead of Dimir, or Grixis with just a splash of blue. That'd clean up the early game fairly well. If I decide one way or another, I'll post it in the correct thread and link to it here.

Maybe WB with a lifegain them to stall would be easiest with Griselbrand. That deck exists already, and certainly can/would work.

After a little more testing, this is what I came up with.

1 x suffer the past
1 x ulcerate
1 x undying evil
4 x dead weight
2 x vicious hunger
3 x nullify
4 x think twice
3 x tribute to hunger
3 x dissolve
3 x inspiration
2 x flesh to dust
1 x shadowborn demon
2 x counterlash
2 x runescarred demon
1 x sheoldred, whispering one
1 x griselbrand
1 x kozilek, the butcher of truth


This deck works surprisingly well. You have 10 cheap (3 mana or less) board removal spells and 6 cheap counterspells to stabilize the early game. Tribute to hunger is pretty important for this deck because it allows you to deal with high toughness creatures like Brimaz. You have the tools to slow down the early game dramatically, and enough draw to keep some removal in hand while you hit your land drops.

You can play the deck in different ways once you hit 6-7 mana. You can just start dropping bombs and try to overwhelm your opponent - they can all help you stabilize reasonably quickly vs tokens. Or you can deploy some of the limited tools the deck has to keep fat on the board. Runescarred can easily search for undying evil to dodge the first removal spell your opponent sends at it and allow for another tutoring. Counterlash enables you to get fat on the board while your opponent is mostly tapped out. Counterlash on Griselbrand or Kozilek is a virtually guaranteed GG in your early turns. This will also make it easier to keep dissolve mana open to protect them if you want to.

I have played basically every variation on control that is possible in this limited card pool. This deck isn't the strongest and it cannot survive the ultra long game, it is just designed to have enough tools to stall until 7-10 mana so it can deploy its bombs. On the other hand, I think it would be very hard for this deck to lose in the aura matchup, which happens sometimes when I play my 5 color control pile. Similarly, this deck has a reasonably good matchup against burn, especially when you can hit a big creature with tribute.

The deck would be a bit stronger with red for shock and anger of the gods, but it wouldn't make a huge difference IMO. The early game removal is basically sorcery speed but you have counterspells and more instant speed removal later on.

Hi again guys. Thanks for all the tips and advice. I'll be making the deck with Counterlash in it just because that card sounds like fun. After messing around and getting frustrated with Blue and Black earlier I saw the End of Days deck over in Mardu and made that my Griselbrand deck. It's a lot of fun.

Anyways, back to Dimir. I actually lost to what I am fairly certain was the stock Blue/Black list with the End of Days deck by getting milled out the slow way.

My respect for the colors has dramatically improved after that match and I'll be giving it another go with a more controlling deck. I don't usually play control decks, but I like to shake it up now and then and am getting tired of midrange.

Anyways, does anyone else think a solid Dimir control list is possible? I'm really tempted to throw white in just for Planar cleansing, and possibly reprisal. The mana for that would be rough, and it might slow an already slow deck too much. If anyone has any thoughts or experience regarding such a deck I'd appreciate it.

For now I'm gonna mess around with a controlling Dimir deck with Counterlash and other controlling cards. Thanks for the list HenWen!

Hey deets, here's the dimir build I use for demons. I play 2 different dimir decks and this one is fun for getting out the big demons.



some simple things of note is that the strategy is to counter the early game creatures and use your tributes later on when they play their big fatties. Try to hold onto your mid game creatures such as indulgent tormentor and graveborn if it will cause you to tap out and will put you in a situation where your counters wont help.

-Spells that can be changed easily without hurting the deck
-liliana's specter for which ever you prefer. I would suggest phyrexian rager or brain maggot.
-Flesh to Dust is what I prefer as I feel I have enough for early game to stall opponent until I can get some demons on the board but you can change these for more early removal such as ulcerate, dead weight or even assassinate though i'm personally not a big fan of the spell as your most likely taking a hit to use it.
-I like a singleton elixir of immortality for the mirror control matches or long winded matches but many do not like this spell and you can easily swap it for anything such as completing the playset of liliana's specter or another inspiration

The great thing about control shells is that it is highly customizable to fit your playstyle and can still be fun and competitive to boot. hopefully this can spark some ideas for you or you can take it out for a spin as is and see if you enjoy it. which ever you end up doing good luck to you and have fun!

edit: very similar to henwens at a second look of the thread. I really should stop grazing over posts and actually read them

edit: was having some mana issues and not enough draw. the specters were acting as a chump blocker most of the time which was ok but at 2 black he was never an early play in the early game as I wanted mana for counters so he sat in hand and put me in situations where I debated playing him or holding mana open. I cut them to smooth out the deck a little better and im a lot more happy with it.
-3 lilianas specter
+2 inspiration
+1 Island

Deets - Planar cleansing is just not worth the splash. Triple white is very difficult.

I wanted to emphasize something about Tribute to Hunger. It the cheapest card that can potentially kill anything on the board (although Ground Assault can kill almost anything).

The problem is that it functions poorly by itself. When you cast it, your opponent loses their worst creature. Thus I think it is only worthwhile in decks that are packed with cheap removal spells. Thus I do not like tribute in Trustag's list posted above. You need to kill a bunch of 1/1s and 2/2s with spells like dead weight before tribute has value. Deets you mentioned playing 2bestest's RBW build - tribute is good there because he runs 4x shock and 2x dead weight.

Deets I will also say that you mentioned counterlash - this is a very very difficult card to build a deck with. It happened to fit here but I have made a ton of control builds where it does not work. It is a fun and powerful card when it works, but be careful. If you start adding more creatures it will be harder and harder to leave 6 mana open. I sort of run counterlash as a balance against all the cheap removal I run.

After a bit of online testing my dimir control is pretty damn weak vs spider spawning... but I don't think there is much I can do to fix that. Counterlash is amazing with Grisel and Kozi. I do consider this the strongest Dimir list I have played. The one change I would make would be going up to 26 land, the top of the curve is pretty heavy and you cannot afford to miss land drops. It is hard to get too flooded with this deck because once you hit 7+ CMC you have ways to draw a ton of cards, tutor up answers, etc, I think the cut would have to be the singleton Ulcerate. So the manabase would look like:
9 UB taplands
9 islands
8 swamp

After maybe 8 games vs the AI I can say that I have never hardcast Griselbrand at 8 mana, not because of the BBBB cost but because he usually enters the field via counterlash, or I don't feel the need to tap out to play him. If you can cast Grisel with a good chunk of mana open and 14 life there is a significant chance you can draw into cards to keep him on the board. Blue mana is more important early on due to 3 nullify and 3 dissolve costing UU vs only 2 vicious hunger costing BB, plus I often want to think twice the same turn that I nullify/dissolve.

Hi guys. I've been testing out a mix of your deck lists and just messing around. So far I've haven't been able to get value off of Counterlash yet. I've countered things, but just never had something in my hand to cast with it at the time. It's just the random number generator I think.

Yes, I've also noticed a weakness to Spider Spawning with the deck. I got lucky once with Suffer the Past cleaning up after I countered the first one, but I really don't think I want two Suffer the Past in the deck. I've also noticed a bit of a problem with resilient threats, which Spider Spawning is a good example of. For instance, without early blockers (which is fine with me), Young Wolf, Bloodghast, and Vengevine, plus a few others, can be a pain. Is there any grave hate in this game other than Suffer the Past?

As an aside, anybody have a good answer to a turn three Woolly Thoctar? If I don't have Blue Blue up and ready and Nullify in my hand when it gets cast I feel like my only answer is Tribute to Hunger or to wait it out and use Flesh to Dust. But the deck I ran into running Woolly Thoctar almost always had some random dork or token that came down on turn one or two.

I'm running a list closer to the one Henwen posted with Counterlash at the moment because I hate tapping out for early creatures with Dimir, and I realize it's basically entirely because the removal in the colors is not great. I'd love to have Drown in Sorrow and Murder in the card pool, or a mass bounce spell. But we play with what we've got.

I'll almost certainly go up to 26 mana because this deck doesn't want to run out of mana ever. Another possibility I was considering was putting in Traumatic Visions, but I've actually been pretty happy with the counter spell package. With plenty of Nullify and Dissolve and with Counterlash as a backup I feel okay about it. So I might just stick with a land instead. Maybe Traumatic Visions would be a good idea if I go Grixis though?

Overall I like the deck. I think it does a good job when playing against things that aren't Spider Spawning, and it's surprisingly smooth though I will add another land.

Now for a change of pace. TheTruStag, do you like the Vapor Snags in your deck? I am hesitant to include them in a more controlling deck because they don't necessarily solve a problem, and I feel awful if I have to use one on something like a Pelakka Wurm or any other thing with a strong ETB effect. They could give me another chance to counter something scary of course, and be an early answer to say, Woolly Thoctar. Do you like the Indulgent Tormentors in Dimir? I'm not sure about them myself. I've used them in Black/Green decks before just as yet another way to grind out card advantage and liked them there, but was wondering how well they fit a deck with more control elements.

Thanks again everyone!

Deets your point about counterlash is correct - it isn't always reliable. In the list below I cut the deck down to 5 possible counterlash targets. The problem is A) there are not many other creatures available that would fit here and B) the more creatures you add, the harder it is to keep mana open to cast counterlash in the first place.


I am afraid the resilient threats in this game outdo the removal. White has angelic edict and arrest, red has anger of the gods. Other than that, exile effects are pretty rare. A bloodghast by itself is a 10 turn clock, and this deck has a bit of lifegain too. If you can eliminate all other threats you should be able to get a fatty onto the field via hardcasting or counterlash.

Re: thoctar - the reason for 6 cheap removal spells is so that you can kill those dorks and get value out of tribute to hunger. Most decks that play thoctar will be relying heavily on taplands to play a turn 3 thoctar, which usually rules out a turn 1/ 2 play.

You are right on both the land count and traumatic visions, this deck does not get as much value out of visions as a 3+ color deck, but visions is a reliable way to hit land drops that can be another hard counter when needed.



I cut shadowborn demon. In most decks you can sac creatures to keep him on the board - which doesn't work here. In most decks you can eventually get 6 creatures in your graveyard and he will stick around, which doesn't happen here. Finally, if he is the only creature in your graveyard and you have Sheoldred on the board - he WILL kill Sheoldred if she is the only non-demon creature around.

I like vapor snag as a spell if being evaluated on its own. to be able to bounce a creature at instant speed for is awesome. not only can it be used against opponent but I have used it to save my talrand or sheoldread from removal. when used against creatures with powerful etb effects yea its crap, but I would only do such a thing If I was confident that I could counter it on a follow up play. in a control shell I find vapor snag to be great, it can be used as stall, remove a blocker or save your own creatures. I'm sure they can be exchanged for something else but I do like having some form of bounce in a control deck and that's just my personal pref.

as for the indulgent tormentors I agree that they can be lackluster and at other times they can really shine. I really find them to perform best in control builds as it really adds more stress to your opponent as any decision made is a boon to you. You want card advantage, is a way to force opponent to sac or he loses life and then you swing for 5 for a total of a 8 dmg swing. I don't use indulgent tormentor a lot in any decks so I threw him in here cause not only do I find that he has value in a deck like this, I also just wanted to play him for the pure fun of it.