When Ted first approached me and asked me if I had “done the Daily” yet, I thought he was referring to a ritual that takes place between 10 and 11 AM in my workplace’s bathroom. I responded, “Of course I’ve done the Daily, it’s well past 10 am, son.” When he responded that he didn’t, in fact, mean the Daily Deuce, I was puzzled. What else could possibly carry the moniker of “The Daily”?
This is the Daily, huh? Great.
So, I have to come up with five short articles that have to be between eight hundred and one thousand words in length. I can feel free to let the funk flow at any point too, but there has to be at least some Magic related content in each installment. Well then. Since I usually write about decks for Standard, it makes sense that I’d lead off The Daily with my latest pet deck. I played it at States and went 6-2, narrowly missing the cut.
Dimir Control
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Moroii
3 Dimir Infiltrator
4 Last Gasp
4 Mana Leak
4 Telling Time
3 Cruel Edict
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Hinder
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Hideous Laughter
8 Island
6 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
4 Underground River
1 Miren, The Moaning Well
1 Tomb of Urami
Sideboard:
4 Distress
3 Dimir Cutpurse
2 Dimir Doppleganger
2 Persecute
2 Hideous Laughter
1 Death Denied
1 Boomerang
The deck was basically tuned to beat R/W first and foremost, while the control elements gave it some flavor against a completely wide and varied format. My two losses were to some absurd Legendary potpourri deck and a U/W/R Control deck that I had roughly 0% chance of beating anyway. I cleaned up against R/W, Gifts, and some Blue control variants. However, despite the good showing, I still felt like I wanted the deck to be a little bit more proactive. Not like I have acne like Diddy… but a little Oxy-10 might make the deck win a little faster. Many of my games at States I simply spent waiting on a threat while sitting on a grip full of counters after all of my reactive removal cards had done their dirt. Instead of using counters to protect my threats / board position, I could use discard to check the opponent’s grip to see if the coast was clear, and then run out a threat. As a bonus, I would gain space to add the two angriest pipe hitters in Magic (Meloku and Ink-Eyes for the uninformed). After a seance and some pondering while doing the Original Daily, I came up with the following:
Dimir Aggro
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Dimir Infiltrator
2 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
2 Moroii
4 Last Gasp
4 Distress
3 Telling Time
3 Cruel Edict
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Phyrexian Arena
2 Hideous Laughter
1 Death Denied
1 Boomerang
8 Swamp
4 Island
4 Watery Grave
4 Underground River
1 Miren, The Moaning Well
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
Sideboard:
4 Nezumi Graverobber
4 Cranial Extraction
3 Nightmare Void
2 Blackmail
1 Moroii
1 Hideous Laughter
I actually like this deck better than the one at States for a few reasons. First of all, my sideboard at States was kind of horrific. Cutpurse never lived a day in his life when he infrequently saw the light of day (instead of the inside of the deck box). I also determined that the transmute targets in my board should definitely be in the maindeck – they are that gross. Transmuting for Death Denied should be outlawed – really. [He’s right. I love Death Denied so much. – Knut] All of the U/B aggressive variants floating around out there totally missed the boat on Dimir Infiltrator. He is absolutely disgusting: an unblockable two-drop that basically tutors for every card in the deck, survives Hideous Laughter, and gets Ink-Eyes through unabated to the quarterback. Oh, and if Mr. Infiltrator is carrying Umezawa’s favorite weapon and gets through… cancel Christmas.
Hideous Laughter gives you a huge edge in the mirror and particularly against the variants of this deck that run Green for Putrefy and mana accelerants. I don’t endorse those decks, by the way. Putting seven mana creatures and some other junk in the deck doesn’t seem that great in a format that so far has been driven more so by card advantage than anything else. Sadly, I could only fit in a few extra creatures because the deck simply wants to keep all of the controllish cards. I traded Gifts Ungiven for Phyrexian Arena as the card drawing piece and that’s been going well. I had to take Tomb of Urami completely out of the deck though. All that card has ever done for me has made me lose the game when I would have won if I left my lands in play. Never activate it unless they have no hand, no creatures in play, they’re at five life, and you know what the next card on top is. That’s the only way to be safe when you’re an over-aggressive bonehead like me.
The sideboard is tight now, I feel. The rats come in against Gifts, Greater Good Combo, B/G, and Bennie Smith stupefying Dredge-o-Matic deck. Cranial Extraction and Nightmare Void are wonderful against those White-based control decks like Fungus Fire that just love to sit on a grip full of Wrath of God, Faith’s Fetters, Devouring Light, etc. Blackmail is good against control and excellent against anything that wants to accelerate out into a big fatty. I always catch em’ slippin on the three-card hand the turn before the big dog would have hit the table. Moroii is just more random aggression against decks that can’t handle the Best Vampire Ever Printed and an extra Hideous Laughter comes in when deemed necessary.
I don’t really know which way the deck wants to roll, but I’ve had good success with both lists. Feel free to share any feedback in the forums, as always. As far as for what tomorrow will hold… I don’t know. I’ll probably figure it out sometime at work… between 10 and 11 AM…