Dimir is the Black-Blue color pairing in Magic and is very, very strong. There are a lot of powerful cards available in these two colors. Looking at the top level of Commander, cEDH Dimir is a dominant force. Even at lower bracket levels, Dimir can do a whole lot. From Control to Mill to Zombies, Dimir has an archetype for everyone. This article will look at various Dimir tactics, from deckbuilding options to combos to the cards every Dimir deck should be running. There are a lot of cards to get into, so let’s get to it.
Dimir Tactics: Tribal Commanders
Ninjas
There are a lot of flavors of Dimir commanders. The most played is Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow because who doesn’t want to never actually need to pay commander tax? Yuriko is a Ninja commander, and Ninjas are a popular Tribal deck within the Dimir color pairing. On top of Yuriko, you also have Satoru Umezawa, Splinter, Radical Rat, and April O'Neil, Live on the Scene partnered with Splinter, the Mentor. Even Pauper Commander has a great Ninja commaner with Silver-Fur Master.
If you’re planning on building a Ninja deck, there are a lot of cards you should come along with. Ingenious Infiltrator is drawing you a ton of cards, Prosperous Thief is ramping you, and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares can keep buffing up your Ninja creatures with an emblem.
Ninajs want to be bouncing back to the hand so you can keep using ninjutsu abilities. So, unblockable cards are great inclusions for Ninja decks such as Triton Shorestalker and Mist-Cloaked Herald. You can also hard-reset creatures back to your hand with Cunning Evasion and Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar. You take advantage of unblockable creatures to then make use of the enter-the-battlefield triggers of your various Ninjas.
Zombies
Zombies are the most popular Tribal deck when it comes to Dimir. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver is a common commander thanks to being a precon commander. Other options include The Scarab God, Gisa and Geralf, and Narfi, Betrayer King, to name a few. There are a ton of options when it comes to Zombie commanders, and there is no real wrong answer for a good Dimir Zombie deck.
There is a plethora of Zombie support cards. Rooftop Storm is one of the best, as it turns all your Zombie creatures into free spells. Zombies are built to die a lot of the time, making Diregraf Captain a must-run in any Zombie deck. To flood the battlefield with Zombies, Diregraf Colossus makes every Zombie into a two-for-one. If you want each Zombie to come with two, Necroduality doubles up on the creature itself instead of just making a token.
As mentioned before, Zombie decks have their creatures die a lot. So, you can punish your opponents when your creatures die. Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos both make it so your opponents have to sacrifice a creature whenever one of yours dies. Bastion of Remembrance burns your opponents and gains you life, and Vengeful Dead burns your opponents whenever any Zombie dies.
Faeries
Dimir has filled out a niche of being the color pairing for Faeries, with many commander options. Some are simple like Obyra, Dreaming Duelist and Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor, while others have a bit more going on, including Alela, Cunning Conqueror and Oona, Queen of the Fae. You can make a Faeries deck as simple or complex as you’d like.
Faeries are very popular, so there are a lot of powerful cards within the creature type support. Scion of Oona gives all your other Faeries shroud so no one can ever target them. You can double up on all Faerie creature spells with Archmage of Echoes, and Faerie Bladecrafter grows in stats before delivering a blast of lifegain and burn. If you can bounce them, Cloud of Faeries and Spellstutter Sprite are great cards to loop for their effects.
A trait of Faeries is that many of them have flash, so you can make use of permanents that care about spells being cast on other players’ turns. Faerie Tauntings is passive burn, and Voracious Tome-Skimmer can provide you with card draw. Feywild Visitor can provide you with a ton of extra Faeries, so long as it and your commander are on the battlefield. If you want a boost of damage for your flying creatures (which most Faeries are), you have Gravitational Shift and Favorable Winds to deliver.
Horrors
Dimir has a lock on Horror decks, and you’ll be hard-pressed to make a good Horror deck outside the color pairing. Captain N'ghathrod is the most common since it was a precon commander. Other options for commanders include Umbris, Fear Manifest and Zellix, Sanity Flayer with any Black background (usually Haunted One). There are some generic commanders, but these are ones that directly support Horror creatures.
If you’re interested in a Captain N'ghathrod deck, you’re in luck! We have a complete deck overview of the commander this way.
There are plenty of powerful Horror creatures you have at your arsenal. You can utilize Sludge Monster to negate the abilities of any non-Horror creature once you get a slime counter on them. Hullbreaker Horror is a combo staple, while also just being a powerful card on its own. All your Horrors can steal abilities of any artifact by utilizing Grell Philosopher.
Horror decks are largely Mill-themed. So, you want to bring along cards that make opponents Mill more. Bruvac the Grandiloquent is the best Mill card out there. If you play any card that makes an opponent mill half their library, such as Singularity Rupture, then it will make them all mill their entire library instead. Other ways to mass mill in Horror decks include Nemesis of Reason and The Mindskinner. If you’re running Horror, you’re also running Mill.
Like Mill decks? Then check out our full overview of the Mill archetype over here.
Rogues
If you played Standard during Zendikar Rising’s release, then you’re probably very familiar with how well Dimir and Rogues go hand-in-hand. Strangely, Anowon, the Ruin Thief is the only Dimir commander that directly supports the Rogue creature type (but it’s very good at it). Zareth San, the Trickster interacts with Rogues, but is better in the 99 as opposed to your commander since you need it in your hand to actually use the effect of it optimally.
There are a lot of very strong Rogue cards. Oona's Blackguard makes them come in with a +1/+1 counter that can then force your opponents to discard cards when they connect for damage. Both Soaring Thought-Thief and Thieves' Guild Enforcer can force milling when Rogues attack or enter, respectively.
In Rogues, you can make use of their evasive abilities to your advantage. Court of Cunning becomes especially strong, since it’s easy to get the monarch back if you ever lose it. Rogues can draw cards a lot (especially if you control things such as Kindred Dominance and Reconnaissance Mission), making Psychic Corrosion very strong since you’re already milling a ton with passive Rogue effects.
Dimir Tactics: Control Commanders
Dimir is a very good color pairing for control decks. Many of the best Control cards are found within the Dimir color pairing. After all, Blue is the best color for counterspells, and Black is the best color for removal. Some of the best Control commanders include Lord of the Nazgul, Vren, the Relentless, and Toxrill, the Corrosive. These benefit from you playing spells, removing creatures, or stalling out the game.
For counterspell options, you have plenty in the toolbox. Of course, there’s the namesake Counterspell, along with other popular ones such as Negate, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Arcane Denial. With counterspells, you want to use them to stop a spell from resolving that you know you can’t handle, or if it’ll pose an immediate threat. You don’t need to be countering a mana dork, and should be saving them for the payoffs, not any enablers. Otherwise, you’re wasting the ability to cut a spell off.
On the other side of the equation, you have plenty of strong removal options. Feed the Swarm and Withering Torment are the only ways to actually remove enchantments in Dimir that aren’t just bouncing them. Toxic Deluge is one of the best board wipes in the game, since it brings down stats instead of destroying or exiling creatures, getting around various protection effects. Blue even has one-mana removal in Rapid Hybridization and Pongify. With removal, it’s best saved for creatures that will push the advantage of opponents more. Since many removal spells are instants, it can be good to wait to see if your opponent will attack you before you commit to removing something.
Dimir Tactics: Combos
Thassa’s Oracle: Ol’ Reliable
Any cEDH player knows the nightmare that is Thassa's Oracle combined with either Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact. All you have to do is cast with Consultation or Pact, and that gets rid of your entire library so you can play Thassa's Oracle to win the game with its win condition. If that sounds very easy, that’s because it is! It’s a staple win condition for many cEDH decks, and one of the most hated combos for a reason because of how simple it is.
Gravecrawler Loops
Gravecrawler looks simple at his core, but its the core of many infinite combos. All you need is a free sacrifice outlet (like Carrion Feeder), and a way to either generate mana when a creature dies (such as Pitiless Plunderer) or a way to make Gravecrawler free (Rooftop Storm). While on its own, it can’t do much. But if you have any card that burns when a creature dies, like Bastion of Remembrance, or a storm payoff like Grapeshot, that wins you the game. Gravecrawler loops give you infinite death triggers, infinite enter-the-battlefield triggers, and an infinite storm count.
Maha Lock
If you want to be extra mean, you can shut down the ability for anyone to ever have creatures. With Maha, Its Feathers Night on the battlefield, all creatures your opponents control have their toughness reduced to 1. Then, get Toxrill, the Corrosive onto the battlefield, and at all of your end steps, they’ll get a slime counter to make it -1/-1. Since their toughness is 1, that will cause them to die instantly, getting around keywords like indestructible, hexproof, and even shroud. Your opponents only get one turn with their creature if both these stick on the battlefield, as once your turn comes around, they’ll be getting removed guaranteed (unless they have stat-boosting cards on their battlefield).
Time Sieve Infinite
Another easy infinite you can achieve in Dimir is one that utilizes Time Sieve. The only other card you need is Thopter Assembly. At the start of your turn, Thopter Assembly returns to the hand to make five Thopter tokens. Simply sacrifice them to Time Sieve, then recast Thopter Assembly. Once you do that, you officially can just loop these cards and take infinite turns. It is worth noting that you can’t control any other Thopters, and you have to make it through a full turn cycle since Thopter Assembly triggers on the upkeep. So, both cards are prone to removal, but luckily, you have counterspells to keep your stuff safe.
Teferi’s Lock Box
Don’t you hate it when your opponents can draw cards? Good news, you can stop that from happening! All you need is Teferi's Puzzle Box and Notion Thief on the battlefield. This makes it so that at the start of everyone’s draw step, they put their hand into their library, and it stays there since Notion Thief stops any additional draws. The only thing that happens is that you draw a card instead. This enables a lock so only you can actually draw at the start of your turn since they draw a card before Teferi's Puzzle Box triggers.
In Conclusion
Dimir is very strong and has a ton of different toys to play with. Dimir tactics are all about making the most out of the plethora of powerful cards the color pairing has access to in order to advance your main plays and win conditions. Dimir has so many options in its arsenal that you’re likely to have an answer to whatever your opponents throw your way.
