I.  Introduction

So in my quest to write about a deck using every color combination, I knew that I had to write about a Dimir deck.  Black/Blue has a few unique issues.  Among the problems of the color combination are the fact that they have a difficult time dealing with artifacts and enchantments.  Sure, there are ways to deal with them, with the easiest being counterspells, but I generally wanted to avoid that route.  However, among the color combination's strengths are the ability to draw a ton of cards as well as tutor up answers.  So essentially, Black/Blue is sort of like Robin without Batman.  Good on their own, but with weaknesses.

Or like Nightwing without Batman.  Because he's black and blue?  Like a bruise?  Ah, forget it. 

But anyways,  I knew that I had to take the problem head on.  Here's what I came up with.

II.  The Deck:  Large and in Charge

I was originally going to go with Sygg, River Cutthroat.   He seemed cool with his ability to draw cards.  I was going to basically include a ton of equipment so that I could make sure that Sygg himself could do the 3 damage required to trigger his ability.  However, after putting together a quick draft, it felt like a weaker version of my Zhang Fei deck that I used in my very fist article.  It just never really got off the ground for me, so I quickly moved on.

Looking at the other Commanders in this color combination, the two that stood out were Oona, Queen of the Fae and Wrexial, the Risen Deep.  Oona is a little more scary, in that it is possible to generate infinite mana with the current online cardpool and deck people.  And people generally don't like the fact that Oona removes their decks from the game.  As such, I went with the less threatening, but still powerful, Wrexial.  Let's take a closer look at him.

I love the fact that he's busting out of the water and tossing ships all over the place.  So Wrexial likes picking at your opponent's graveyards.  Plus, he comes with two pretty good forms of evasion.  If you really wanted, you could incorporate a milling theme with him to make sure that he always has something juicy in the graveyard to grab.  However, due to the nature of the format, there is almost always something in a graveyard without your help, as people generally play powerful spells.  As such I decided to avoid the milling strategy.  Mainly because I hate it.  

So it looks like we have a winner.  Instead of trying to build around Wrexial, I just use him as a beat stick, and include a bunch of cards that I like.  Sounds like fun to me!  On a side note, I did include Oona in the deck.  So if you get tired of Wrexial, you can always switch up your Commander.  Oona can tie up your mana a little bit, but in reality the deck doesn't play much differently either way.

Let's take a look at the deck.

Wrexial, the Risen Deep

A Commander Deck

Creatures 1 Body Double 1 Coffin Queen 1 Dimir Doppelganger 1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief 1 Dread 1 Duplicant 1 Gilded Drake 1 Graveborn Muse 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 1 Puppeteer Clique 1 Roil Elemental 1 Sakashima the Impostor 1 Shadowmage Infiltrator 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Sphinx Ambassador 1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu 1 Sygg, River Cutthroat 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep 24 cards Other Spells Artifacts 1 Dimir Signet 1 Expedition Map 1 Gilded Lotus 1 Journeyer's Kite 1 Mind Stone 1 Mind's Eye 1 Nevinyrral's Disk 1 Oblivion Stone 1 Talisman of Dominance 1 Temporal Aperture Enchantments 1 Bloodchief Ascension 1 No Mercy 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Phyrexian Reclamation 1 Rhystic Study Instants 1 Desertion 1 Hero's Demise 1 Imp's Mischief 1 Memory Plunder 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Spelljack 1 Time Stop 1 Trickbind Sorceries 1 Acquire 1 All Is Dust 1 Ancestral Vision 1 Beacon of Unrest 1 Blatant Thievery 1 Bribery 1 Damnation 1 Decree of Pain 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Grim Tutor 1 Profane Command 1 Promise of Power 1 Recurring Insight 1 Rite Of Replication 37 cards

Lands 1 Academy Ruins 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Cabal Coffers 1 Creeping Tar Pit 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Dreadship Reef 10 Island 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Polluted Delta 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse 1 Strip Mine  1 Sunken Ruins 10 Swamp 1 Terrain Generator 1 Thawing Glaciers 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1 Vesuva 1 Volrath's Stronghold 1 Watery Grave 39 cards

The curve is all right, but there's a bunch of stuff in the 5 drop area.  It looks controlling enough.  Let's look at the cards.

Card Draw

Graveborn Muse, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Sygg, River Cutthroat, Mind's Eye, Phyrexian Arena, Rhystic Study, Ancestral Vision, Promise of Power, Recurring Insight:  There's a good amount of card draw here, but there could be plenty more.  Both Shadowmage Infiltrator and Sygg are pretty under cover, in that they are small so people do not usually worry about them.  Sygg in particular can draw a bunch during the mid-game when people are beating down.  The rest are just standard favorites in these colors.

Theft

Gilded Drake, Roil Elemental, Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Desertion, Spelljack, Acquire,  Blatant Thievery, Bribery, Sphinx Ambassador:  So we have a couple different forms of theft.  We have the ability to steal things in play, with the Drake, Elemental and Thievery.  We also have the ability to go into your opponents' decks and steal things directly from there with Acquire, Bribery and Sphinx Ambassador.  Finally, we have the ability to steal stuff as it is being cast, with Spelljack and Desertion.  Good times. Roil Elemental is sort of fragile.  However, without targeted removal, people are not going to be able to get their stuff back without doing some gymnastics.

Recursion

Coffin Queen, Dimir Doppelganger, Memory Plunder, Phyrexian Reclamation, Puppeteer Clique, Beacon of Unrest, Profane Command, Body Double, Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins:  I will admit that only about half of these cards are of the traditional recursion variety.  The other half, like Coffin Queen and Dimir Doppelganger, are good at using your opponents' creatures against them, as well as removing them from the game.  But you definitely have enough of the traditional recursion as well.

Mass Destruction

Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral's Disk, Decree of Pain, Damnation, All is Dust: I like making things go boom.  Don't you?  The Stone, Disk and All is Dust are you main ways of getting rid of annoying artifacts and enchantments, so use them wisely.  The rest of the stuff is creature control.  You have lots of ways to draw cards, so Kagemaro usually is able to wipe the board.  Combine with Volrath's Stronghold to keep creatures under control.

Targeted Removal

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Duplicant, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Hero's Demise:  Not a whole lot of targeted removal, but this stuff is powerful.  Drana is awesome, in that she can hit hard while taking care of multiple creatures.  However, the big bad here is Ulamog.  Yes, this is the first deck I've written about with an Eldrazi.  However, he fulfills an important purpose in that he can get rid of any permanent on the board, which can definitely help.  I am not ashamed to say that I like Ulamog in this deck.

Tutors

Expedition Map, Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor:  Not nearly as many tutors as their could be.  The Map is good for getting Cabal Coffers or Urborg.  There are plenty of other tutors to consider in these colors, so feel free to include as many as you want. One thing to note is that there are two landfall creatures in the deck.  As such, Fabricate may be a worthwhile inclusion so that you can get Journeyer's Kite and ensure your land drops.

Mana Help
	Dimir Signet, Gilded Lotus, Mind Stone, Journeyer's Kite, Solemn Simulacrum, Talisman of Dominance:  Pretty standard stuff here.  I like Mind Stone a lot in this deck.  There are times you can be overflowing with mana, so you might as well draw a card and dump the artifact you no longer need.

Goofiness

Temporal Aperture, Imp's Mischief:  Ok, so I was looking for some fun cards that I had not used before, and I found these two.  I remember thinking how cool I was to use these guys, and they actually did come in handy a couple of times.   You will see that I was able to put the Aperture to use in the game I report below. Unfortunately, I did not take me long to realize that Blue just has better versions of both of these cards.  Instead of the Aperture, I would usually be better off playing Future Sight.  Sure, occasionally you can cheat out something that costs more than the 5 it takes to activate Aperture.  But Future Sight allows you to dig farther.  Especially if the majority of your deck consists of cards that cost under 5 mana. Imp's Mischief should probably be Redirect.  You won't have the life loss with the blue version, which can be big sometimes.  The only advantage Mischief has is that it is black, so you can tap out all your islands and lull people into thinking they won't be facing a Counterspell.  I don't know if the card is worth it just for that reason though. So what I'm saying is you should take these cards out for Future Sight and Redirect.

So, control and beatdown.  Sounds good.  There are a bunch of cards here that are fun to play with, and stuff that I haven't used before.  So it's pretty fun, for this type of deck.  It is controlling though, but not as controlling as the Dakkon deck I wrote about a while back.  When people play you, they will be expecting counterspells.  This is good, typically.

This isn't the most brutal version of this deck, or the most efficient.  But it is good enough to get the job done without getting you on the blocked list.  Let's see how it does.

III.  The Game:  Fight!

This is actually the very first game that I played with the deck, but I wanted to write about it because it was one of the few games where counterspells were used and how people played around them.  Here are my opponents: 

Phyrexian Reclamation, Decree of Pain, Island, Sygg, River Cutthroat, Puppeteer Clique, Academy Ruins, Dimir Signet
 

Ummm... yeah.

Interesting.

Exile, Gravitational Shift, Wing Shards, Future Sight, Dust to Dust, Hinder, Kor Sanctifiers
 

Never seen his guy before, but it could be useful with Life from the Loam.

Holy Cow!

That's a big spider!

Yay card draw!

IV.  Conclusion

So that was not too bad.  Some good control and mass destruction.  I think I would have had a good shot at winning even if I hadn't conceded.  Not playing that Phyrexian Reclamation earlier was a mistake, but didn't really end up hurting me.  To look into purchasing the deck from mtgotraders, just click HERE and you are one click away from downloading it or buying it.  The deck comes out to approximately $175.  Keep in mind that this version still has Temporal Aperture and Imp's Mischief in it.

You can go a variety of different ways with the deck.  You could add some mill effects, with Nemesis of Reason being the one that I like the most.  Other stuff to consider would be Altar of Dementia and something like Traumatize.  Another way you could go would be to include more Counterspell effects, but that isn't as fun.

Another card that I forgot to consider was Thawing Glaciers.  This color combination does not have too many ways to ensure land drops, so the Glaciers could come in handy.

Hope you guys liked the deck.  Until next time!

Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO
mrmorale32 at yahoo dot com