Dimir Control Deck

Welll.... off hand I'm not a fan of the deck, I see what you're trying to do and it seems good on paper, but execution with these cards leaves a lot to be desired.  cipher is only about 1/4th of a card better than an enchant when it comes to getting 2 for oned.  You get some dumpy effect that doesn't do a lot and then you "enchant" a creature with it.  Then a lot of times it just gets removed.  You lose the investment in mana for the creature and the cipher (because all the cipher cards are over costed).

Dimir charm is very good in the format and you're including zero, devour flesh stops a lot of cards you'd have trouble interacting with like blood baron.

Counter spells aren't terrible, but you're not going to be holding mana open to play them while you drop your cipher cards and your creatures.  The plays are working against each other in that way.

I have some questions for you, looking at your inventory, you have 3 muta vaults, a hero's downfall, erebos, nykthos, temple of silence, lifebane zombie, whip of erebos, none of which are in your deck lists? each and everyone of of these cards is better than any 2 cards you currently have in the deck, minus the temples.  You're hedging towards monoblack which is a much stronger deck.  I can't understand why you wouldn't just try that instead.

So, you have them but are unwilling to move them from another deck to use them temporarily in another for an FNM?  does not compute

You must write your decklists in stone tablets.

Cipher stuff seems to be REALLY a lot better in a Grixis shell, given that you can repeat trigger Young Pyromancer, Guttersnipe, Nivmagus Elemental etc... get access to removal that CAN deal with Blood Baron (Mizzium Mortars) and some other options.

To be honest, while we're still lacking the Izzet Temple, I have intentions of trying to figure out some sort of Grixis build once Born hits...

my dimir is kinda mono-black splashed blue, bc i want a backup plan lol
pretty much pack rat, des. demon, consumming aberation, ashiok, jace, shadow ally denizen, mutavaults, phenax, tome scour, nightveils and tramatize

pretty much play like normal T1 thoughtseize/tome scour, t2 pack rat, t3 rat/nightveil/tome scour another packrat , t4 demon, t5 C.A t6 phenax, t7 tramatize and tap C.A (mills the other half due to phenax's ability)

also kinda stack hero's downfall/doomblade's to help survive, use jace memory adept to help mill, ashiok for creature advantage/mill

Last edited by Eliterawr (2014-01-28 17:21:26)

You and I talked about this strategy a little bit in the Mill deck thread... I have to agree with elpablo though that Tome Scour is bad here (and probably everywhere). 

I think a good way to make the Consuming Aberration, Traumatize and Phenax "combo" work is playing heavy hand attack style control early with some counterspells available in turn 3 and 4. 

Something like:
T1: Watery Grave, Thoughtseize
T2: Swamp, Dimir Charm to choose/know what they will draw next and get rid of the 2 "best" cards in their top 3
T3: Land, you should know what their hand still looks like, either stay untapped for a counterspell or do something like Mind Rot if you don't think they are going to do anything useful
T4: Land (hopefully, probably want to run 25-26 land minimum with this style deck), Thoughtseize or Duress keep 3 open for counter. 
T5: Land and Traumatize

T6: Depending on what you think or know about what they have in their hand is going to dictate how you proceed.  Keep in mind depending on what they've done so far they should have nearly half or more of their deck in their GY.  You can look at the entire thing.  Did you mill and/or make them discard all or most of their hate cards?  Can you guess how many more are in there?  Based on your last peek at their hand and what's in the GY can you calculate the probability they have a hate card in their hand.  What about the odds they top deck one during their turn?  Do you have another land to drop?  If you can have 6 mana you can Duress or Thoughtseize before playing the Consuming Aberration to increase it's chances of survival. 

If you have the 6th land and think they have the hate card but you're holding a Dispel play the Consuming Aberration then counter the hate and let them mill some more cards.

T7: Phenax, tap Consuming Aberration likely mill to zero. 

The whole idea is that you can destroy and control to a great degree what they have in their hand to interact with you and your cards.  You counter and remove threats that they do manage to play.  You hopefully put them in the position of having to top-deck a response to your strategy. 

The only problem would be to find a good way to get some draw to perpetuate even greater card advantage.  If Divination were instant speed it would be a decent option... perhaps the new black 2/2 with Inspire and the mana drum thing could help, a little ramp and extra draw.  With 26 lands he may not even hurt you too bad. 

Just some ideas.

My buddy has been running Esper Control in standard and while unorthodox he runs Mind Rot in the SB for aggro/burn.  Getting them to top-decking quickly causes them to burn out before you do in a lot of games.

yeah i keep forgetting bile blight is gonna ruin rats
but the tome scour is if all else fails its a U and makes C.A 5 bigger, thats my thought on it
the only downside to ashiok is she exiles so doesnt feed ca
the trama is probably a bad way to go, like u said wall of frost+phenax mill 7 each turn, beef up C.A tap C.A
its slow so maybe more walls or dare i say burnished hart lol no i dont lol outside of standard sure but 3 then 3 next turn for 2 tapped kinda hurts the flow
idk i like the idea of mill but its so hard to mill in tournment lol

I agree that Traumatize is unnecessary, especially since it's another 5 drop and you're already looking for a pair of 5 drops for your primary win condition.

I hate mill, but I think the upcoming set is going to make it viable.  Consuming Aberration + Phenax is basically a 2 turn automatic win, regardless of board state, as long as you've done a decent job of putting some cards into their GY on the way.  With the counterspells and targeted destruction available to dimir, it's simply a matter of picking which to use and balancing their ratios.  Lots of effective walls to keep aggro at bay as well.  It basically builds itself.