Dimir Midrange

Colors:Archetype: Midrange

Also known as: UB Midrange

Dimir Midrange combines the powerful disruption suite of blue and black with powerhouse threats and a variety of card advantage tools to close out the game. Between countermagic, bounce spells, spot removal, board wipes, and discard, Dimir offers the tools to interact effectively with any strategy. Powerful prison pieces like Opposition Agent, Orcish Bowmasters, and Harbinger of the Seas can invalidate swathes of the opponent’s cards. Once the opponent’s plans have been disrupted, the deck can close out the game with powerful finishers like Abhorrent Oculus, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and Barrowgoyf.

The deck has access to a variety of useful pointed cards, allowing the spread to be customized to suit the expected metagame. After the two moxen, options include Psychic Frog, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Mana Drain, True-Name Nemesis, Reanimate, and Strip Mine, with Psychic Frog seeing the most play. True-Name Nemesis and Reanimate are often chosen to improve fair matchups, while Dig Through Time and Mana Drain are preferable when tapping out is undesirable.

Dimir Midrange has a similar place in the metagame as Dimir Tempo, being strong against combo decks and weak to artifacts and white-based initiative strategies. Midrange trades the early pressure of Tempo for slower but individually stronger threats, making the deck weaker against combo but more resilient against control and midrange, creating a more even matchup spread than Dimir Tempo.

— written by Ian Gitax