Silumgar's Court, an MTG deck tale.

.....so I play Magic. the much hated, disregarded game on the scene here up north by miniature players. Like pretty much all of you, I played a long time ago. Then quit. Then got back to the game. Dropped again.
I recently got back on the mat and realized that this is the longest-running game in my whole gamer life rotation. To me it is simply awesome and have no match in its category. As most of you know there is many different format in the game, and I personally play Standard and Commander, sometimes drafting if there's enough of my buddies around. The interest of my general group goes up and down a lot, sometimes because of a less interesting set, other times because of a miniature game like Batman or 40k for instance. Either way, everyone agrees that it is a very fun game and we always end up playing every now and then.
My main format being standard, I have to cope with a competitive scene and always have to try to come up with a good, strong deck. This is a big contrast with my tabletop gaming habits of avoiding the most competitive games such as the Warmachine scene here in Montreal. I also like to avoid playing the most popular decks, trying to tweek the meta and try new things. The deck I'm playing now in standard is a deck I like a lot I call...

Dimir Guild Logo

Dimir Dragons! Who doesn't like Dragons out there ?! But....my heart is Blue. I play Blue and must admit this is the most interesting color to me. Don't get me wrong, I like all the colors but Blue always had a special place for me. Sure, there was some amazing Blue Dragons in the past, from the humble Phantasmal Dragon to Keiga, the Tide Star,
but nothing to really base a deck on. In one of the Standard current sets, Khans of Tarkir, Dragons are at the front of the stage with Sarkan the Dragonspeaker and Ugin, the spirit Dragon leading the parade. With this actual breed of Dragons, one especially got my attention, the Dragonlord known as Silumgar.

The first incarnation of the legendary dragon came in the form of the drifting death. It called for more Dragons. Silumgar is not the hardest hitter and could use a little help. Thing is at that time with Ashiok,  
 my favorite planeswalker, still around, there was no room for such a deck. Control simply didn't work that way at that time.

Now with Theros behind, Dimir control decks have a hard time. Control is Ojutai's domain with the Esper Dragon deck and no one really bother to play any other type of half-decent control deck right now. I looked a long time at the Epser Dragon deck, regreting the moment I sold my lone Dragonlord Olutai...this deck, being blue/Black/White, can also include Silumgar amongst a lot of other good stuff. The problem with it is the massive cost of its landbase; it includes a lot of high-priced fetch lands and can easily climb up to 300$ only for this part of the deck. I use to have all the fetchlands needed here, but I also sold them, thinking that I would only play Commander from now on back then. I got a lot of nasty Commander cards, but my Standard collection was at an all-time low. This economic side of things is also part of this great game unless you have unlimited gaming budget, and I personally see it as a challenge in the MTG world. Of course I buy costy singles but pretty much never pay more than 20$ for a card. Keep in mind that most of the time you want 3 or 4 of them.

So, with Ojutai out of the picture for me and my wallet, now on with the Dragons!  With the actual available cards, I think I came up with a might I say good deck. There has, are and will be better decks out there but I can safely say that this deck can go head to head with some pretty good numbers on the scene right now. Let's see how I composed this piece. the first thing I based myself on was my previous Dimir control deck driven by Ashiok, thoughtseize, hero's downfall, a score of counterspells and the great Pearl Lake Ancient.

The balance between counterspells and spot removals was and still is very important here, but more potent mass removals became available, namely Crux of Fate and Languish.


And then Theros and M15 rotated out of standard, leaving a big gap in the instant removal spot. Actually, instant speed spells at large got a kick in the groin with the arrival of Battle For Zendikar, be it burns, removals or else, so every deck out there had to cope with this. The game slowed down in general and aggro decks lost a bit or their edge. A perfect time for slower control decks.

The very first thing I did, with dragons in mind, is to add 4 Silumgar's scorn and 4 Foul-Tongue Invocation, two dragon-dependant spells. I also populated my landbase with Haven of the spirit Dragon and Crucible of the spirit dragon, two dragon-friendly lands. I chipped in 3 Crucible, which can be considered too many, but so far after about 20 games with the deck I can safely say that it worked for me more than it did not. Being able to pop a dragon at half casting cost leaves you enough room to prevent your opponent from removing the big creature, as you need them to stick on the board in order to win.

Then the Dragons themselves; both incarnation of Silumgar were mandatory to me. Then, the Icefall Regent, one of the most underestimated creature out there; this beast is simply amazing, freezing an ennemy creature as long as the Blue flying lizard is on board and needs an extra mana investment from your opponent to get rid of. Three of them seemed to be the right amount! To top things off I shoved in  a couple of the infamous Deathbringer Regent, a 7 mana monoblack 5/7 flying dragon that cleans the house when it hits the mat.

The deck supports 11 counterspells but the sideboard can bring even more. I usually don't add more but rather switch them. The sideboard counterspells mostly exile cancelled spells and against all those Den Protectors, Deathmist Raptors or other Aristocrat/Rally shenanigans out there they work wonders. Another Sideboard option in there is Ultimate Price. This is a card I ran maindeck in my previous version of this brew but nowadays with all the colorless, morphs and multicolored creatures out there I ended up not being able to cast it too many times, leaving me with a dead card in hand. I trade this card in for Ruinous Path as soon as I get the chance to see enough of my opponent's deck to justify its presence but otherwise the slow awaken removal takes the spot.

So how do I play this deck? It's pretty simple and straightforward for any control player out there; patience is key and a judicious balance between removals and counterspells is very important as well.
You can take a bunch of damage on the way but technically when the dragons start swooping down the game is yours. The previous control deck used the Radiant Fountain and Dismal Backwater lands to get some extra life an davoid getting aggroed out. Now with the Fountain out of the loop, I kept the Dismal Backwaters but this is where Foul-Tongue Invocation shines; got a dragon? Gain 4 life on the way! This card saved my ass so many times!

 My main problem with this type of deck is the patience portion; the last competitive deck I played for a while was a Boros Burn deck and there's a world of difference between the two styles of play; the Boros was all about cheap burn instant spells and triggering prowess from the monastery swiftspears and Seekers of the Way, while taking advantage of the Soulfire Grandmaster's sorcery and instant lifelink ability. I really liked this deck and to my standards did ok with it at a major tourney but it was a fast deck that could do ok when the game stretched a bit thanks to Outpost Siege. Now with my Dimir Dragon deck, things are quite slower and I still tend to throw everything at my opponent's face as soon as I have the chance, which is exactly what your opponent wants when facing a control deck.

So there it is, my U/B Dragon deck. I'm open to any suggestions and will be posting a Magic article every now and then. Hope you guys enjoy and do not worry, I will get back with some more tabletop soon. Until then be good and game on!