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House Dimir—” License to Kill!”

 

A Ravnica block deck by Anthony Skinner.

4 July 2006

 

I have been persuaded to look at making a Casual / Cheap deck for the upcoming Casual Guildwars. It didn’t take much persuading to get me to have a look at this guild as I have always liked control and tempo decks. My first ideas revolved around using Dimir Doppleganger, Vigor Mortis, with several discard enablers like Drowned Rusalka, Compulsive Research and large creatures, see Szadek / Tidesprout Tyrant etc. It didn’t take me long to realise that I was already bordering on 10 rare cards and as this is meant to be casual I decided to look at a tempo deck instead.

 

The first version started with Dimir Infiltrator into Daggerclaw Imp to Moroii to Stratzoepepeld (who comes up with these names!) and finally Skeletal Vampire – the decks only Rare and available for about £1.50. I had backed this up with several bounce and kill spells. Enter Magic Workstation and a bit of analysis, the deck clearly wanted to play control! Or well, I want to play control! I cut the creatures that weren’t cutting it, namely Daggerclaw Imp and the unpronounceable flyer for five!

 

Here is the final decklist I came up with,

 

Casual Watch – Approximate deck cost £12 using a leading supplier

 

Dimir Infiltrators – License to Kill

 

Creatures (15)

 

4 Dimir Infiltrator

4 Moroii

4 Skeletal Vampire

3 Dimir Guildmage

 

Instants / Sorceries (18)

 

4 Rise / Fall

4 Last Gasp

4 Remand

3 Clutch of the Undercity

3 Ribbons of Night

 

Lands / Signets (27)

 

4 Dimir Signet

4 Dimir Aqueduct

9 Island

10 Swamps

 

The deck has lots of tricks and plenty of power, the main tricks :-

 

Dimir Infiltrator / Rise & Fall – Transmute the Infiltrator to get Rise and Fall, cast the Rise to return an opponents creature to their hand and return the Infiltrator to yours, rinse and repeat!

 

Recycling is cool you guys, save the planet! So always recycle your Skeletal Vampires, Return it from the ‘yard with Rise and bounce it with Clutch or Rise again for lots of Bats.

 

The deck is full of card advantage, you will win attrition wars, making it good against the other controlling guilds.

 

 

Adding Money to the deck,

 

Obviously the dual lands always help, but with 27 Mana sources this deck rarely gets screwed for colour. I can’t think of any other blue / black cards I would want to add, maybe Dimir Cutpurse, although I feel the Guildmage is better as you generate lots of mana to abuse it.

 

I wouldn’t mind taking this along to a Block Constructed tourney, I think I would add some Red and find room for Electrolyze and the Fall half of Rise / Fall. With spells like Consult the Necrosages and Cry of Contrition in the board the deck could go disruptive against opposing Control and Combo decks. Extra counterspells will help against decks sporting the SSS, Helldozers and opposing Skeletal Vampires. Twisted Justice should help against the mighty SSS.

 

The Sideboard (15) (cost approx £2)

 

3 Disembowel

4 Trial / Error

2 Twisted Justice

2 Induce Paranoia

1 Leyline of Singularity

2 Dimir House Guard

1 Nightmare Void

 

I won’t actually be at Guildwars to play the deck, but good luck to whoever decides to play House Dimir!

 

Anthony

Editor