I’m going to write an article about how to draft Magic: the Gathering. I’m certainly not the first to do this, and I probably won’t be the last, unless a plague afflicts Tim Aten, Nick Eisel, Scott Wills and everyone else stops writing for fear of said plague. However, I feel like sharing my preferred method of drafting triple Ravnica. Apparently, you feel like reading about it!
Most of my gaming time is spent playing Vs. (you know, the better card game). Unfortunately, Vs. Online isn’t even in the embryo stage. VsOnline’s Daddy is still fantasizing about VsOnline’s Mommy, and the VsMommy doesn’t even know VsDaddy exists. [This sounds strangely like Prosak’s social life. – Knut] Thus, I’ve been relegated to playing Magic to satisfy my online gaming needs. I game quite a bit (read: way too much) so I’ve actually learned a thing or two about Magic. Well at least formats that are supported online. I’ve got a killer Singleton deck, too!
Like many people that read the Worlds coverage, I was also fascinated with the G/W convoke deck. Was it really the best deck in the format, like many of the pros had claimed? Was it really as ridiculous as Affinity? After a few dozen drafts, I can safely say that I hate the deck. The only way I was winning with the deck is by making a trillion tokens then alpha striking them all into their team, dealing a bunch of damage (Superior Numbers, without Mirage!) and then killing their biggest guy with Gaze of the Gorgon. I didn’t really try to cast Siege Wurms or anything like that. I was never a fan of exhausting tapping my guys to cast more guys.
But this article isn’t about G/W, or the Selesyna guild or whatever they want us to call it these days. It’s about Islands and Swamps.
This is how I roll with the Dimir deck.
I might lose some people here, but the goal of the deck is to play as much Magic as possible. This means as many decisions as possible. For some of you, this probably won’t work because you suck at playing Magic. However, if you’re man (or woman) enough to admit that you suck at Magic, this might be a good exercise in getting better at Magic. I remember when I was learning how to play tournament winning Magic, I would try to do things that were way beyond my skill level. Today, it’s quite comical for me to watch most people try to play the Heartbeat/Desire deck in extended. I can only imagine how comical it must have been for someone competent to watch me trying to play the Dream Halls deck or the ZviBargain deck.
So..uhh…yea…The Dimir deck! Right.
Because you want to play as much Magic as possible, you need to draw some extra cards. In Limited, drawn out games are decided by one of three things. Superior evasion, repeatable effects like Selesyna Evangel or Viashino Fangtail, and pure card advantage. The Dimir deck wants extend the game as long as possible and then use its pure card advantage to win the war of evasion and subdue the opponent’s repeatable effects.
Pure Card Advantage
Commons:
Compulsive Research
Consult the Necrosages
Lurking Informant
Uncommons:
Dimir Guildmage
Telling Time
Lore Broker
Wizened Snitches
The three commons are crucial to the deck’s success, and very few uncommons or even rares can substitute for these cards. You need these cards to get ahead, and to find your answers to whatever your opponent may have. The Research and the Consult seem obvious, they’re pure card drawing spells, but the Informant requires some explanation. Once the game goes long enough, your opponent will almost always be in topdeck mode. If Lurking Informant controls their draw enough, they will draw much more land than normal, which essentially become blank cards after awhile. You’ve heard of people complaining about how they drew 273 land in a row, and how they only needed one spell to win. Lurking Informant often makes that happen. When you have an active Informant, Consult the Necrosages often becomes a Mind Rot in order to get your opponent into that topdeck mode faster. There are times when the Mind Rot is golden, and others when just drawing two is the ticket. I could offer sage advice like “Get the read” or “it takes experience”, but I’m not going to do that.
If I want to get a single point across about this deck archetype, it is this:
Magic is a game of imperfect information. Your opponent’s hand and top of library is hidden from you. Using the combination of discard and Lurking Informant, it is often possible to make Magic a game of perfect information, at least for you. This is one of the appeals that this archetype has for me. If you’re sick of losing to that topdecked bomb rare, then do something about it! Throughout the article, I’ll refer to the process of emptying your opponent’s hand with an active Lurking Informant in play as “the Informant lock.”
With the uncommons, the Guildmage is inferior to a steady dose of Compulsive/Consult, as his ability costs way too much to truly be effective. While it’s true that you will never run out of things to do if you have an active Guildmage, the fact that he is so mana inefficient means that you will rarely be activating him and doing something else the same turn. That said, the Guildmage is a good way to bring the Informant lock online. In terms of keeping your hand stocked, I like Lore Broker better simply because the extra card is free, as opposed to four mana. Lore Broker is especially nice once they’re in the Informant lock as it doubles as both a Looter (are they called Couriers yet?) and a mill condition.
Wizened Snitches is exceptionally powerful because of the (im)perfect information capabilities of the deck. Jon Finkel used to love Wandering Eye simply because he could utilize the information better than his opponents. You and I aren’t Finkel (unless of course you are Finkel, which means Finkel reads my articles hehe), but we can still learn to use information to our advantage.
Prolonging the Game
Commons:
Drift of Phantasms
Stinkweed Imp
Survelling Sprite
Tidewater Minion
Dimir Infiltrator
Tattered Drake
Uncommons:
Junktroller
Belltower Sphinx
Mark of Eviction
The Drift and the Stinkweed Imp are your best cards when it comes to drawing the game out. The other four are also excellent blockers, although I consider the Drake barely playable. On the other hand, I think the Infiltrator is vastly underrated. He’s a fantastic blocker, in a mana slot where you don’t have many other options. When you don’t need the early blocker, he can transmute for a more relevant spell. I won’t lie, Lurking Informant and Psychic Drain are common transmutes once the game has stalled out.
I love Junktroller. Junktroller is so awesome that he deserves an entire paragraph to himself. I love going crazy on draw effects and like to dredge with reckless abandon. Without Junktroller, eventually you have to stop. Against a deck with milling capabilities, this “stop point” happens faster. With Junktroller, however, you can just keep going and going. The best part is that you just draw whatever you want after you would normally deck yourself and die. My favorite thing to do with Junktroller is use it to Tunnel Vision people out. A close second however, is using the ‘troller to re-transmute for cards you’ve already used. I love the ole Psychic Drain, Digger the Drain, transmute Infiltrator, then Drain again. Junktroller does all of this while being an excellent blocker as well.
Mark of Eviction is insane. It costs your opponent tons of mana at little cost to you. Most of the cards it can be abused with are not playable in this deck, but you will rarely get run over with this card in your opening hand.
Removal
Commons:
Last Gasp
Brainspoil
Disembowel
Uncommons:
Keening Banshee
Darkblast
Ribbons of Night
The power of removal doesn’t change, so like always, take good removal when you can get it. Removal generally does two things in this deck. First, you need to remove most utility creatures and almost all unblockable creatures. It’s generally not a good idea to go into race mode with this deck, so Viashino Fangtail and Selesyna Evangel should be killed on sight if possible. Same goes for cards like Screeching Griffin and Sewerdreg.
The instant speed removal can also be used as tempo breakers. Most of the time, you’ll be able to use your high toughness characters to force a trick from your opponent. Last Gasp and Disembowel in response to a Seeds of Strength or a Galvanic Arc (on one of their men obviously) can be back breaking, but you knew that. Basically what I’m saying is that pull the trigger fairly quickly against creatures that don’t get blocked, but save it against those that can be blocked.
Try to get 2-3 copies of the good removal, but leave the second string removal like Clinging Darkness, Peel from Reality, and Gaze of the Gorgon at home. Peel From Reality can be good, but only if you either have cards you want to return like Vedalken Dismisser and/or Keening Banshee, or if your opponent has enough removal to expect.
Finish him!
Mill:
Induce Paranoia
Vedelkin Entrancer
Psychic Drain
Duskmantle, House of Shadow
Beats:
Ethereal Usher
Snapping Drake
Dimir House Guard
Sewerdreg
Bombs
Combo:
Junktroller + Tunnel Vision
Mark of Eviction + Vedelkin Dismisser
Terraformer + Flow of Ideas
Giant dude + Vigor Mortis/Dimir Doppelganger (with Compulsive Research)
The key to this category is to get something that is useful at doing something besides killing your opponent. With the focus on Consults and Compulsives, you simply can’t afford cards that can’t play defense. You’ll get run over. More often than not, you’ll want to take the mill route, as it is more reliable. Attacking requires more in game dedication. You can’t attack and block at the same time, but you can mill and block at the same time. Don’t get greedy with your Psychic Drains. More often than not, the extra life will be very welcome, and you won’t want to completely tap out for the Drain. I like “big” mill cards like Drain and Paranoia more than I like the slow grind of Entrancer and Duskmantles. With the constant mana requirement of the Informant, I’m find myself skipping activations with the Entrancer quite frequently.
If you choose to attack, it is likely because you have a bomb that is difficult to answer. Either that or there are literally no mill cards present. While powerful, cards like Moroii and Halcyon Glaze simply do not belong in this deck. Cards like this tear at the general strategy of the deck.
If you have a game-ending combo, value transmute cards higher than normal, even normally unplayable ones like Dizzy spell. With the card drawing in the deck and the prolonged nature of the matches, you’ll see far more cards than you would normally see in a limited game. This makes your combos much easier to assemble than they would normally be. If you have 2 Dismissers and a Mark of Eviction, get that Dizzy Spell in your deck, especially if you have anything else to get with it (such as Disembowel).
When you draft this style of deck, plenty of things need to go right, but they happen with surprising regularity. This is because many of the cards in the deck serve multiple purposes. This is key. Dimir Infiltrator is one of my favorite cards, because it is both and early game blocker when mana is scarce and a late game tutor when mana is plentiful.
Mana:
I don’t splash. I play 16 lands, 2 Aqueducts with Signets optional.
I don’t hate/raredraft very often, so I usually end up with enough playables in two colors. Dimir Aqueduct is amazing. In an archetype that wants to make every land drop the entire game, and an archetype that plays as many Compulsive Researches as possible, bounce lands are nothing short of awesome. Signets are nice, but ultimately not that important. Simply making your land drops gives you enough mana to operate functionally. The acceleration isn’t that important. Most of the time they are strictly worse than a land in the mid/late game, and you have plenty of things to do early. I’m not saying that Signets are unplayable, in fact the opposite is true. Having extra mana makes Compulsive Research much, much better. One of the best opening for the deck is Turn 2 Signet, Turn 3 Compulsive/Consult/Drift then an Aqueduct.
Constructing a good Dimir deck is like putting together a successful NBA/NFL team. No winning team is simply a collection of good players. Good teams have players that are versatile, and different. Peyton Manning is unbelievable, but you can’t win with all Peytons.
For those of you that follow the NBA, here are some parallels:
Bruce Bowen = part of a good team, but you can’t win a game with all Stinkweed Imps. You gotta score somehow.
Steve Nash = the card drawing in your deck. Makes his teammates around him better. MVP worthy.
Allen Iverson = It’s ironic how “the Answer” doesn’t really answer anything. These are the Halcyon Glazes in your deck. They wow people, but they don’t translate into wins.
Chauncey Billups = Tidewater Minion, Belltower Sphinx, Dimir Infiltrator, Induce Paranoia. Versatile cards that win you games. The ability to take on multiple roles cannot be underestimated.
Playing the deck:
Obviously, your deck is going to be different every time, and each deck will play differently. If you’ve drafted successfully, then you have classes of cards that do roughly the same thing. Sure Junktroller and Drift of Phantasms have their differences (which are often relevant), but most of the time they will do the same thing for you.
You will want to match your opponent’s development on the board. If your opponent develops slowly, then take your time and play card drawing spells first. If you just play out blockers before card drawing, then they know what defenses you are capable of mounting before trying to attack them. Worse yet, they could knock out your card drawing with discard spells of their own.
Most of the time, you will be unable to match your opponent’s speed. Your deck is not built for speed. You will probably take damage early on, so spend much of your efforts towards blunting their attack. You will rarely be able to stop their attacks completely, but try and block as much as possible. As the game progresses, the board will hopefully get more complicated. The basic fundamentals of attacking and blocking dictate that complicated boards favor the defender. As the board gums up, use your removal spells to deal with cards that might disrupt or avoid a wall of defenders.
During this time, your opponent will start to run low on cards in hand. Either he will run himself out or you can use a discard spell to empty his hand. Then let Lurking Informant do his work. If you’ve drafted properly, the combination of Aqueducts and card drawing spells have enabled you to hit quite a few land drops and you have plenty of mana to enable the Informant with mana leftover to continue playing spells. Once you have run him out of cards and control his draws with the Informant, then winning the game is fairly easy.
A final note on Induce Paranoia (and counterspells in general)
I think that most of the counterspells are playable, with Induce Paranoia easily being the best of the bunch, as it is both the only hard counter and it doubles as a win condition. When applicable, both Muddle the Mixture and Perplex are decent enough as a 24th card. When you have good cards to transmute for, they naturally become much better.
To wrap things up, here are the last three decks I’ve drafted on Magic Online. I didn’t really draft with this article in mind, but I ended up winning all three drafts. Therefore, I really don’t remember the decisions made during the draft.
Deck #1
8 Island
5 Swamp
1 Belltower Sphinx
3 Compulsive Research
2 Consult the Necrosages
2 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Dimir Infiltrator
3 Dimir Signet
1 Disembowel
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Duskmantle, House of Shadow
1 Helldozer
2 Induce Paranoia
2 Junktroller
1 Psychic Drain
1 Remand
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Twisted Justice
2 Vedalken Dismisser
1 Vedalken Entrancer
Sideboard
1 Smash
1 Blockbuster
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Dimir Machinations
2 Dizzy Spell
1 Ethereal Usher
1 Eye of the Storm
1 Goblin Fire Fiend
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Perplex
1 Selesnya Guildmage
1 Shambling Shell
1 Stasis Cell
1 Terraformer
1 Vulturous Zombie
I make a deckbuilding mistake in this draft. The second Infiltrator should be in the main instead of the Helldozer. While it is true that the Helldozer is a bomb, this deck really doesn’t attack at all and I need the extra early defense. In addition, I have double Junktroller and a Psychic Drain to transmute for. Note the five copies of Consult/Compulsive. [Wow, who doesn’t splash for the Zombie, especially with all that card drawing? – Knut, greedy]
Deck #2
10 Island
6 Swamp
1 Brainspoil
1 Compulsive Research
3 Consult the Necrosages
1 Dimir Guildmage
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Dimir Signet
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Golgari Signet
1 Induce Paranoia
1 Junktroller
1 Lurking Informant
1 Mark of Eviction
1 Psychic Drain
1 Remand
1 Surveilling Sprite
2 Tidewater Minion
1 Tunnel Vision
2 Vedalken Dismisser
2 Vedalken Entrancer
Sideboard
1 Blood Funnel
1 Boros Garrison
1 Conclave’s Blessing
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Frenzied Goblin
1 Galvanic Arc
1 Gate Hound
1 Halcyon Glaze
1 Induce Paranoia
3 Perplex
1 Putrefy
2 Seismic Spike
1 Sewerdreg
1 Stasis Cell
1 Strands of Undeath
1 Terrarion
1 Three Dreams
1 Votary of the Conclave
This deck is very, very good. The only thing I would realistically improve on is the mana. No bounce lands and an off color Signet is rather uncharacteristic of me. Perhaps I was too busy drafting not one but two combo finishes in addition to the solid mill package. The Minions really needed some bounce lands to untap, but this deck has all the appropriate spells.
Deck #3
8 Island
6 Swamp
1 Brainspoil
2 Compulsive Research
2 Consult the Necrosages
2 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Dimir Guildmage
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Dimir Infiltrator
2 Dimir Signet
1 Disembowel
1 Drift of Phantasms
2 Flight of Fancy
1 Keening Banshee
1 Lurking Informant
1 Nightmare Void
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Surveilling Sprite
2 Tidewater Minion
1 Twisted Justice
1 Vedalken Dismisser
1 Wizened Snitches
Sideboard
1 Cyclopean Snare
1 Dimir Signet
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Dogpile
1 Dowsing Shaman
1 Drake Familiar
1 Dryad’s Caress
1 Grayscaled Gharial
1 Greater Forgeling
1 Grozoth
2 Peregrine Mask
3 Quickchange
1 Selesnya Sagittars
1 Stasis Cell
1 Terrarion
1 Veteran Armorer
This deck is missing something. You can’t actually kill people. There are tons of suboptimal cards in place of the finishers. However, once again I had 5 copies of Compulsive/Consult/Informant. Although I generally have a distaste of Flight of Fancy, I needed it simply because I needed to seriously outdraw my opponent to make up for not having any good cards. I won’t lie, I won most of my games this draft by paying four mana to attack with a flying Tidewater Minion. This deck goes to show that defensive cards can extend games long enough to allow your card drawing to get you so far ahead that you don’t really need true finishers to win. Every game that I won I killed my opponent with less than five cards left in my library. If I would’ve seen a Mnemonic Nexus, I would have definitely maindecked it. It really sucked that I couldn’t dredge any of my cards and I had to stop playing card drawing after awhile.
The common denominator in all three winning decks is the presence of Consult/Compulsive/Informant. All three decks had five copies of the three cards in them. The ability to consistently outdraw your opponent over the long game is very powerful. In fact, I haven’t done well with decks that didn’t have multiple copies of the big three.
I’ve had a ton of success lately with decks like this. Hopefully, you can do the same.
Adam Prosak
jezuitsoljaz at yahoo dot com
ihatepants on MODO (No, I won’t join your stupid clan)