Innistrad
Innistrad/Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored
M13
Return to Ravnica
Innistrad was a great set to reenter the game with, and was my (and lots of others') favorite format. Runner up would have to be M13, and very solid, well-crafted set. Avacyn Restored was probably the worst, due to bad color balance (black was generally awful and didn't pair well with others), shallow pack strength, and overall higher variance (think miracles).
When I first saw the Gatecrash spoilers, I was afraid it was going to be a lot like Avacyn Restored. Thankfully, it's not. It's a decent set for Limited play, though not great. One thing I'm not a huge fan of in the last two sets is the decreased flexibility in drafting. You are shoehorned into one of the five guilds (unless you draft a Verdant Haven five-color monstrosity). This means that you really have about six viable color combinations, though some guilds support more than one archetype. Compare this to M13, where you really could draft any two-color combination and do well. I am looking forward to Dragon's Maze to see just how nutty things get. I thought RtR would be a true multi-color set...instead it and Gatecrash play a lot more like traditional sets, except that your color combination choices are severely restricted.
Now, of the available guilds in Gatecrash, the consensus seems to be that they rank in power levels something like this:
Boros
Orzhov
Gruul
Simic
Dimir
Of course, your experience may vary, though I think it is generally uncontroversial to say that the best two guilds are Boros and Orzhov. Personally, I've had the most success with Gruul, Boros, and Simic, but I've seen some insane Orzhov decks. Sadly, I've been unable to draft Orzhov (I keep getting cut and having to switch). One day...
Anyway, Dimir is generally regarded as the weakest guild of the set (though again, I'm sure there are a few people out there who have had amazing results with it). I wouldn't completely avoid it in a draft, but it's not where I'm looking to go. I think the biggest problems with Dimir are:
- Lack of strategic synergy: Dimir has two primary archetypes (evasive aggro and control mill) and those strategies and the cards in the guild don't complement each other
- Bad support for mill: If you want to make mill really viable, there are certain key types of cards you need in the set (more on this in a minute) that are lacking here
- Not enough multicolor UB spells that won't get cannibalized by Simic or Orzhov
I smashed one MTGO queue with an evasive aggro Dimir deck (lots of rogues and flyers supported by good removal like Hands of Binding, Killing Glare, etc.). This is the most consistently viable Dimir deck. One problem with it is the issue of point three above...both Orzhov and Simic want the single-color flyers (Cloudfin Raptor, Basilica Screecher, Metropolis Sprite, Balustrade Spy) and the single-color removal, so Dimir is going to have a hard time getting those pieces. When it can, it will do well, but moving in in that strategy is a bit risky.
What about mill? The problem inherent with a mill strategy is generally that spells that mill must be incredibly powerful or serve a dual purpose, because they aren't going to affect the board state. A card like Mind Grind is powerful, but you have to survive to turn 9 or 10 to make it effective and if it's in your opening hand it's basically a dead card for most of the game. Same with Paranoid Delusions, though this card goes further in working as support for cards like Death's Approach and Wight of Precinct Six. The one thing Wizards R&D did to make mill slightly more viable in this set than past ones is creature-based mill, e.g. Sage Row Denizen, Balustrade Spy, and Undercity Informer. All in all, though, the mill archtype is still fairly weak, especially in a set with such explosive starts and massive burst damage from some of the Boros and Gruul decks in particular.
I think R&D did a slightly poor job in enabling a mill archetype, and mostly in not including two key types of cards for Dimir: cheap, flying defenders and better multiple removal (potentially hits more than one creature). Corpse Blockade and Clinging Anemones just don't get the job done on defense. They're slow, clunky, and only block ground dorks. The only multicolor common creature Dimir got was Mortis Strider. Think about that for a second. Boros got Skyknight Legionnaire and Wojek Halberdiers. Dimir got Mortus Strider. Not cool.
One key piece that the mill strategy sorely needs are great, cheap walls. Fog Bank would go a long way in this set to making mill more viable. And being blue, Simic probably wouldn't prioritize it since Simic is generally going for the beatdown. Even better would be a flying cousin to Dutiful Thrull, that is pure Dimir, something like:
Void Wisp (U)
Creature -- Spirit
Flying
B: Regenerate Death Wisp.
0/1
Common
I had an argument with a friend about reprinting Will-o'-the-Wisp. He said that at Rare it was fine, which would kind of defeat the whole purpose of giving Dimir a cheap early blocker. Is the card above overpowered? I don't think so. But if you wanted to nerf it even more, you could give it defender. You'd need to playtest, of course, but something like Void Wisp or Fog Bank is sorely lacking in a deck that wants to make it to late game in such an aggressive format. Mortus Strider doesn't cut it...not by a long shot.
The other big issue is the 1-for-1 nature of the removal. Dimir simply loses due to card advantage, even in a deck crammed full of Devour Flesh and Killing Glare. You simply can't keep pace with an aggro deck constantly dropping creatures. What's needed is removal that gives you the potential for 2-for-1's or more. Barter in Blood, Cower in Fear, or Infest are all cards that would fit perfectly into the Dimir mill strategy, helping to disable battalion attacks from Boros and gaining crucial card advantage. Even better would be a multicolor card that captures Dimir flavor while giving that multi-card advantage, something like:
Sewer Purge (2UB)
Sorcery
Destroy target non-black creature and/or return target creature to its owners hand.
Uncommon
Flexible and powerful, but not overly so. Again, it would need testing, but it doesn't seem particularly less balanced than Into the Void (which would also be a good card for Dimir mill). Dinrova Horror comes closer to this, and is a great card, but at six mana, it often comes too late. Dimir mill needs better, faster, early defense against the crazy rush of the aggro decks. I wish R&D had included these key components, because I really would like to see mill be just as viable a strategy as aggro in a Limited format. As it stands, it's not good enough to consistently compete with the more aggressive archetypes, and I think that's a shame.
With at least two more months in the format, though, I may just get bored enough to try it again.
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