After watching the meta evolve for the past few months, one thing that I’ve constantly noticed is just how good black removal is. Golgari used to be considered the best deck in Standard, but now that people have learned how to play against it, it is starting to lose its grip on the format. As decks such as Boros and Arclight start to run rampant, the need for powerful removal is more important than ever. Removal such as Moment of Craving and Vraska’s Contempt hits some of the most dangerous threats in the format in Adanto Vanguard and Arclight Pheonix. When people decide to play 4 Tocatli Honor Guard in their decks though, Golgari is not where you want to be. So if you want to play a deck with black removal spells, and not get hated out of the format, the most logical place to start is with Dimir.

Dimir has a lot of untapped potential in this format. Dimir is an unsolved deck at this point in time, with many different lists existing such as decks that play Disinformation Campaign, others that splash red for Nicol Bolas, or even decks that try to mill cards like Creeping Chill into the graveyard. One thing that I’ve noticed across a lot of these decks is the number of powerful cards that are still fairly cheap. Moment of Craving, Syncopate, and Disinformation Campaign are all cards that you can get the entire playset of for less than a dollar. While the finishers for these decks may be incredibly expensive, such as Doom Whisperer and Nicol Bolas, the interesting thing about Control is that if you can control the game for long enough, you can win with just about anything.

One of my favorite budget options of winning the game is with my opponent’s cards. With the help of The Eldest Reborn, you can simultaneously kill and steal their best creature or Planeswalker. You don’t need to buy Doom Whisperers or Lyras if you’re opponent brings some to the table for you. The main thing you need to pay attention to when playing with a budget control deck is what kind of cards you are using to control the game with. Fortunately, there are so many effective options in Standard right now that the only removal options that this deck can be considered as missing would be Vraska’s Contempt and Cast Down, 2 cards that aren’t necessarily seeing play in every deck either.

When you eventually move to game 2, this deck also has the option of boarding in a lot of threats that your opponent might not expect. Game 1 you’re opponent will see that you have no creatures, and will board out most of their removal only to be surprised when a Dimir Spybug is cracking in for 5. All of our removal gives us plenty of game against aggro, while our Disinformation Campaigns and Spybugs help us grind down and beat up on any control decks we might come across. This deck is also very customizable and has many avenues of upgrades making this an excellent deck to tinker on for this Standard season. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have a great week and an amazing Tuesday!

Link to Budget Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1480722#paper

Link to Upgraded Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1483414#paper

Link to Grixis Decklist: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-grixis-control-60567#paper

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