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Mar 2, 2013 -- 5:24AM, Ace_Foley wrote:

Mar 1, 2013 -- 11:14PM, Mad_WoodElemental wrote:

I took out Moroi the other day after it was pacified with Pillory of the Sleepless . I mean, come on!

This is why Barrin's Spite can be particularly useful used on your own creatures, sac a uselss vanilla and return your pacified/pilloried/etc creature back to hand. It also furthers why I run the vanillas. 

While I recognize that sometimes you may not really have a choice, I don't think this is a good strategy:  you lose your best removal card, a vanilla creature, and your turn - and effectively the next turn if you're spending it to recast Moroii.  If your opponent doesn't have threats on the board, I think I'd prefer to just take the damage, attack with my vanilla creature, keep the removal card and cast something else.  If your opponent does have threats on the board, I don't think you can really afford to waste your removal on your own creatures, lose a potential blocker and basically forfeit your turn.  If you do this, you'll take a lot of damage and may not even be able to recast Moroii because the damage liability could be too great.

I'm not saying Moroii isn't useful - in many situations it is.  But against certain decks it can become a serious liability: any deck with enchantment based removal, any fast deck, and burn - I don't want it if I'm facing ED, GP, SaS, PK, AS, BoF, MS, GG, BR, AoW, CL, or GM.  It's very good against the rest of the field but for me there are way too many decks where it works against you.

There's an argument for including it against fast decks as a blocker since it might deter attacks, but I think a blocker that damages you every turn isn't a very good blocker - I think Moroii is meant to be played aggressively, not defensively.  I took a slightly more defensive route in my build above and included Wrexial, the Nemesis of Reason and the Harvester of Souls to fill the defensive roll, as well as being potentially outstanding attackers.  My build is weaker against flyers (mainly GM and CL) but more sustainable against everything else, I think.  

If I could fit 2 vanilla creatures into my build (the 2/2 zombies), I would - I liked having them when I ran it that way - but I can't think of something I'd prefer to cut instead.  I used to run 3 terramorphic expanses but the higher overall cc of my current build requires all 4 I think.   Scroll Thief is a possible candidate to cut for a zombie, although that card has been performing well for me. 

I do like Moroii , although there have a been a few games where he's kept my hand warm. Not sure I'd drop both copies I run, although I might go down to one and put Wrexial, the Risen Deep back in the deck. 

Mar 1, 2013 -- 6:30PM, dh50 wrote:

I finsihed a build for this deck that I am finally somewhat satisfied with:

"Dimir final"

61 Cards. 25 Lands (10 11; 4 other).

A library for Rogues Gallery (Dimir)

Library code: ((((((((~~=OTiNK~~Dimir final~~1BdPKsq~~2BYs8I1~~2=n0eOp~~1BJLQCE~~2??gfe0~~1?PNSWE~~4?7ND19~~3BQhOlJ~~1BIuvDt~~2AEYW7j~~1A8pvH5~~4?2vriJ~~1BSyuVs~~2?uf2ih~~1?run49~~1?KUJ=?~~1=1c0nF~~2AuoMei~~1ACt5Z?~~1=J6rF6~~1BQa2qY~~1=XvG2N~~1?VueMX~~1BmdJbZ~~1AE1qCR~~1Ab6gfW~~))))))))

Land
Spell	■■■■	Terramorphic Expanse		Land
cost
Creature	■■	Dimir Guildmage	2/2
	■■	Inkfathom Infiltrator	2/1
Spell	■■■■	Agony Warp
	■	Mask of Riddles
cost
Creature	■■	Dimir Cutpurse	2/2
	■■	Neurok Invisimancer	2/1
	■	Royal Assassin	1/1
	■	Scroll Thief	1/3
Spell	■	Soul Manipulation
cost
Creature	■	Abyssal Specter	2/3
	■	Ashling, the Extinguisher	4/4
	■	Glen Elendra Liege	2/3
	■	Sangromancer	3/3
Spell	■■	Barrin's Spite
	■■■	Helm of the Ghastlord
	■	Memory Plunder
cost
Creature	■	Ghastlord of Fugue	4/4
	■	Grimgrin, Corpse-Born	5/5
	■	Nemesis of Reason	3/7
Spell	■	Dire Undercurrents
	■	Painful Quandary
	■■	Ribbons of Night
cost
Creature	■	Harvester of Souls	5/5
	■	Laquatus's Champion	6/3
	■	Wrexial, the Risen Deep	5/8

Get the deck planner used to make this table.>>>

A few notes:

1. I removed Followed Footsteps after experimenting with it for a day.  In some situations, it's outstanding.  In others, it's pretty bad.  The reality is that I have too many 5cc cards as it is, and the trade for Painful Quandary and Dire Undercurrents was definitely not worth it.  Those cards are always useful.  Followed Footsteps is not.  I tried Flush's solution of removing a Barrin's Spite , but I find Barrin's Spite way too useful to remove.

2. Awhile back, I wrote that I didn't like Memory Plunder in 1v1.  I have since changed my mind about this.  It isn't very good against a few decks - Peacekeepers and Pack Instinct, especially.  But it is so good against others that its inclusion is necessary for the deck to perform well.  This card today gave me perhaps the most ridiculous win I've ever had - I was against AW, they were swinging in with an Elderscale Wurm and a Roaring Primadox , I had 2 life, one 3/3 beast and I was planning on using Memory Plunder to Beast Within the Wurm and live one more turn.  I cast it, and much to my surprise, found a Primal Surge in the graveyard - apparently I forced them to discard it but didn't realize it (I've never even seen this card in 1v1 before).  The instant-speed Primal Surge brought in 4 blockers (including Grimgrin and the liege), 2 lands, and a Painful Quandary before it hit a non-permanent - allowing me to kill both attackers and win a couple turns later.  This is admittedly a ridiculous, atypical anecdote that will probably never happen for me again but overall during the last few days the card has been very useful in a wide variety of situations.

3.  I took out all Moroii .  The card is great but its liabilities are big in a deck with poor removal and poor life gain.  On turn 4 I would much rather be putting a Helm of the Ghastlord on a potential unblockable attacker, or equipping someone with a Mask of Riddles or making something unblockable with an Invisimancer or using Barrin's Spite to remove two blockers.  Moroii is very good against decks without flyers but for the most part I have a lot of options to get attackers through without needing flyers anyway.  The liability of having Moroii locked down with an enchantment is too much.  This is something I may change my mind about after playing more since it is clearly good against some decks, but the build I posted works pretty well without it.

4. the creature ratio is only 50%.  I usually try to avoid that ratio - it's usually too few creatures to reliably draw them when you need them - but the saving grace is that this deck does have a lot of draw options which makes up for it. 

5.  I included Wrexial, the Nemesis of Reason and Harvester of Souls - these are all cards that I had removed at various points, but I've decided that the build works much better with all 3 rather than 1 or 2 of them.  Agaisnt burn decks, you really need the high toughness of all of them.  Against removal-heavy decks, those decks will typically expend all of their removal on lesser (but highly annoying) threats.  And the abilities of all 3 are great.  In the last 2 days I won 2 games solely by milling someone with the Nemesis (including one against Goblins, of all things - but a goblins hand that didn't make a play until turn 4, so something went very, very wrong with it).  Nemesis+Helm of the Ghastlord against Chandra won me the other game - the toughness was too high to kill, and the discard meant that burning my face wasn't quick enough.

All in all the deck plays better than I expected and I had a lot of fun with it the last 2 days.  It's still probably the worst deck but I had more fun with it than many others.

 

Wow.  This is a great build. Best I've played for sure.  Thanks.