Hello. This is a guide to my Dimir tempo deck. I found it to be quite strong, just like how mono blue tempo is built. But this deck has a little twist to it. Not only is it easier to be able to contest what is allready on the board with the black splash added in to the Mono-Blue tempo core, It is also has the added utility of Thought Erasure , Thief of Sanity , Ritual of Soot for emergancy's and Vraska's Contempt for planswalker removal.

The main reason I decided to try this was because I was playing mono blue tempo and I found one glaring weakness that deck has. Dispite all the counters it has in the form of spell peirce, wizards retort and essance capture ect,  it does lack the capability to remove certain threats. Spercifically, threats that are allready on the board on turns one and two before you are able to play your own counter magic to control the board state. In very close mono-blue tempo mirrors this atually lead to me losing the game, simply because it's so much harder to deal with what your opponant has on thier side of the field. Esspessaly if you opponant in that situation has counters of thier own. Dimir tempo aim's to be able to deal with those kinds of situations much better with the black in the deck to enable you to have much more utility to be able to deal with your opponant's board state and then some. It makes it so that it's much easier to deal with Tempest Djinn in the mirror as well as making it much easier to deal with Planswalkers such as Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and so much more. With that in mind, here is the breakdown of the deck.

It includes some the standard package you would expect out of a mono-blue deck. Wizards retort, essance capture, you get the point. If you need a more comprahensive guide on how mono- blue tempo works, I surgest taking a look at any credible guide on mono-blue tempo before you try this deck out. The reason is because you need to have a basic understanding of how mono-blue works before you try this deck because it's much harder to pilot than mono-blue tempo is. That's saying a lot since I got to mythic with this deck!

I run 19 lands in this deck because just like mono-blue tempo, you do need to get your 3rd land drop as fast as possible in order to play what's in your hand most of the time. I only run The Dual color Dimir lands in this deck for black scources because it is still really important to be able to be able to access most of your blue cards. Espessally on turn one. I would never run more than 8 black in this deck because of that. Otherwise, you might not be able to play your blue cards. By the way, I know this is slightly off topic but I need to menton one important thing with this deck in the bo3 format. Do not put in too many black cards into the deck from your sideboard. Otherwise it will make just playing your entire deck much harder. If you still want to Run Tempest Djinn , you will need to cut one dual land for it and put in one island. However there comes a risk with that because a 0/4 Tempest Djinn with this deck is a possibility now. That's why I Don't run them as all and run Spawn of Mayhem instaid.

So now that we have gone over the lands, let's talk about the black cards that we are running in this deck and why.

Cast Down

This card has been a good low-cost removal card for a long time. You see it in sultai-mid range, you see it in esper, you see it in all kinds of lists. And because this card against mono-blue tempo is so good, This card is no exception. I run 2 of these but running 3 of them is a really good idea. Worst thing that happens is you force your opponant to use dive down or somthing and it eats a counter for you. Now imagine this, your opponant on turn 3 decides to jam tempest djinn with no mana up just so that they can start to apply pressure to you. Now you have a direct way to punish that. And not just with this card, but with essence capture as well.

Essence Capture

I run two of these for a good reason. One in the Main board and one in the sideboard. There are a lot of creature decks at the moment in the meta that I find that having this card in your main deck is just too good. Not only does this card allow you to counter and get +1-+1 on a creature you control but it also allows for To trade with your opponant's creatures in a much favourable way. Espessally with cast down in the mix

Moment of Craving

Speaking of Moment of craving, This card against most aggro decks is just too good to ignore. Gain 2 life, -2/-2 on one creature while being able to punish a greedy player attacking with a Adanto Vangaurd ? Yes please xD! This card in combination with Essence capture and dive down allows you to make favourable trades with your opponant instaid of just having to sit still doing nothing because you can't afford to lose your creatures. Dive down  does allow you to do that but you really want to use dive down to protect a curious obbession or a Spawn of Mayhem if possible in a critical moment. You should consider using this card if you are running up against a lot of Mono-red or Mono White. Because just like with mono-blue, The worst match up's you can get with this deck at the moment in standard is mono-red and Mono-White. Moment of craving should help with those situations, so consider this card if you are having a lot of trouble with that.

We all know how strong this card is in a tempo deck like this. In this deck though, there is a weakness to including it. If you don't draw enough islands and end up drawing too many dual lands, you can atually end up at a major disadvantage. Having a 0/4 Tempest Djinn is a real thing in this deck and can be super devistatiing. This card is still worth a mention though. 3-4 islands most of the time is all that you really need for this card. However, if you decide that this card no longer works for you in blue-black tempo, there is now another option...

Now there are both plus and downsides to including this card main deck. But this card can turn into a 5/5 Eventually in the late game. If you run 2 Mist-cloaked Heralds you can be able to still play this on 3 mana with the specticle cost while still being able to be ahead on life totals. Just like with Tempest Djinn. Speaking of witch, This can can still trade with a Tempest Djinn quite well with Spawn being a 4/4 and tempest being at 4 toughness. In addition, this card can act as a win condition on it's own with it's ability. Dealing one damage to both players each time it's your upkeep with a Mist-cloaked herald in play can potentally win you the game. I had a simmilar situation against temur Reclamation with 2 spawns on the field While my opponant managed to top deck Niv-Mizzet and dropped it on the board. He did kill a few of my creatures but I was able to win the game via the extra damage from the two spawns I was getting every single turn. Of course there is the down side that you end up on 2 life and then this card becomes really bad but that is so rare to happen. So I Personally don't really care.

Now the sideboard plan. This is where it get's really difficult. Why? because you have the added Utility of black being in your deck. That's why. Plus adding in too many Black cards to the main deck from your sideboard can compromize your main deck badly. So be careful how you build your own personal main deck and sideboard variations. However, now you have access to cards such as Duress for the mirror, you could get Fungal Infection , you could put in Thought Erasure , you could Put in Kitesail Freebooter , Thief of Sanity Even Cry of the Carnarium if you wanted to open up your game with a little bit of control before you played your creatures. There are so Many options that are avalible with Dimir Tempo in the sideboard and mainboard in this deck that it's going to be impossible to talk about them all in this guide. What I will cover though, is the sideboard I brought into this deck, because this sideboard allowed me to reach Mythic.

I would like to give this card an Honourable mention, as janky as this card might seem at first. Why? Because this card can let you trade with say Carnage Tyrant in way's you could not possibly do otherwise. Combined with dive down, this card can turn a game on it's head and you can draw a card at the same time! Pretty cool right? Plus this card fit's in with the main theme of the deck witch is to get favourable trades with your opponant to win the game. I have used this card against sultai and mono-blue tempo and it's turned out really well. I highly recommend this card if you want to get yourself out of a sticky situation. At worst, this card allows you to filter your hand so I recommend giving it a try. Plus it's a card that not many people will expect so there wont' be many people with an awnser to this card.

Now naturally, this deck is at it's core, still a mono-blue tempo deck in a manner of speaking. so you are still going to want to side in some of the usual blue cards. I chose to include 1 more Negate for when I need more counters , 1 additional copy of Essence Capture for aggro matches and one additional copy of Vraska's Contempt for going up against control. I Chose to Include 3 copy's of Thought Erasure over Duress because I prefer To be able to have the ability to remove say, a really threatening creature somtimes like Niv-Mizzet or somthing. It also allows me to control what I draw much better with the surviel effect that it has. That depends on your playstyle though weather you want to what I just mentioned, or play Duress To keep as much mana as possible open. That's a choice you will have to make and it's an important one for both your main board and sideboard. I also play 2 Surge Mare for aggro/gruul decks. Finally I Finished my sideboard with 1 Vraska's Contempt and 2 Entrancing Melody .

In summary, from my Experiance of being the pioneer of this deck, It's way harder than mono-blue tempo. In fact, I could say it's the hardest deck in the game to play. Why? because you have to be able to tech the deck against what you are expecting to play. That goes for Both your main deck and your sideboard. Not only that, with Arena being Arena, there are currently a Wide Varity of decks currently in the ranked que in arena. Even in Dimond and Mythic. However, Because of the utility you now have available in including black cards into the mono-blue core package, You now have a lot more options you can now put into the deck. Not only that, in best of 3's for example, sideboarding between games is the most challenging part of the match. Because you have quite a lot of options now to play in games 2-3. However, the upside of this deck is that it has made me a better player for it all 100%. I would Have never have got to mythic without playing mono-blue tempo and Pioneering Dimir tempo. So thank's Wizards of the coast for making mono-blue/Dimir tempo possible. :D

One more thing before I wrap this guide up. We all know how good this card is since it got released. But In Dimir tempo, this card is literally broken! Combo this card with dive down, Curious obbession and counter-magic and this card is obsourdly powerful. This card alone has won me a lot of games single-handed many times. I can't explain to you enough how insaine this card is in this deck. Just be careful though when you do play this card, because without protection, it's so vunerable. But when you do manage to get the card to do it's thing for you...well...you will see what I mean when you play it.

That's all for this Deck guide and I hope you like it. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this guide and want more just like it, to check out my youtube and my twitch for more deck guides. Twitch.tv/majorevil and https://www.youtube.com/user/MajorEvilVideos

Edit: I have now done more testing and found that spawn of mayhem really does work, so long as you include 2 mist-cloaked heralds mainboard to ensure you stay ahead on life, you should be fine. it's a little more challenging to pull off but it does do it's thing relativly well. I also cut bladebrand in favour of thief of sanity since that + curious obession is amazing. you basically draw one card from your opponants deck while drawing one from your deck while milling them of awnsers all at the same time. That's crazy against control decks. if you manage to do that a few times, you can take compleate control of the game at that point against any control deck.