Dimir Sinister Surveilance, part 3

I’m slowly grinding towards my favoured build of Sinister Surveilance in Arena. I’m still missing some key pieces, but at least I have two Doom Whisperers in the deck, and I’ve substituted some cards with things I have available. This allows me to experiment a little, to see what cards I like in practice.

So, I put in a single Hostage Taker, since I unlocked one. This counts as a removal spell that potentially turns into multiple blockers. So far I liked it for this deck, even if it doesn’t do anything with surveil. But often it’s a source of card advantage.

This does lead me into thinking about a card that is in some ways similar: Etrata, the Silencer. It’s easy to look at Etrata and think “Hey 3 hits wins me the game!” but in practice, she will function as a 3/5 wall that discourages opponents from casting their bombs, and that I sometimes can cash in as a removal spell, for instance against flyers that she can’t block. Sure, it’s a Dimir control deck, with lots of surveil, and it’s not impossible to win with hit counters, but I don’t see that happen very often while I only include one or two of her.

So, I’ll be testing her for her ability to make me not lose that game, not for her ability to win me the game (It’s a nice bonus if she can manage that though.) If I like her wel enough that she’ll become a 3 or 4 of, and shift the focus towards her, it’s a different story. Then I can conceivably win with her more often.

Another plus of Etrata is that she can help deal with some random planeswalkers I encounter. The unblockable damage can keep them manageable, and she doesn’t shuffle herself when she hits one, so she’ll keep on the pressure on those things.

I’m looking forward to try her out. Once my deck develops and I have more Thought Erasures to see what opponents are up to and to disable any removal or tricks they have, having utility creatures like this is probably going to work better. Etrata should make people more nervous too.

Having a big “wall” to stem the bleeding is one thing. I encounter a lot of token decks, and making it costly to attack into me is one thing, but my focus on dealing with threats one for one sometimes causes me to be overrun. For that reason I may want to include some mass removal. Mephitic Vapors is one option, but -1/-1 isn’t enough in general. Ritual of Soot is a little better, but it also deals with my Thoughtbound Phantasms.

Other cards concidered are River’s Rebuke and Find // Finality, but at 6 mana they might be too expensive to deal with the problem of quick decks. Find // Finality also forces me to splash if I want to use it as a boardwipe.

I think Selective Snare might be the best choice here. Heroic Reinforcements often kills me, and the combination of the sudden boost and haste makes a sorcery speed solution less of an ideal pick, but I have Sinister Sabotage for that. For other mass soldier, saproling or vampire token decks, it seems like a good solution, that is flexible enough to work as an early tempo play. I would have loved it as an instant, but what can you do. As long as the many tokens are a big part of the metagame, it certainly is a card to try out.

The deck is still very much a work in progress, and it’s all about tweaking the numbers. I want to have enough surveil cards to keep my draws smooth and enable the synergies. Doom Whisperer and Notion Rain are good sources of surveil, but they really dig into my life total. I’m not yet quite prepared to spend some slots on Creeping Chill or Whispering Snitch, though the latter can become a split 2 and 2 with Dimir Spybug, for a slightly more defensive stance and more long term value.

 

Posted under Commander / EDH