Lazav, Dimir Mastermind | EDH

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Mill Reanimator UB (Dimir) Vorthos

Rooolandd

Creature (25)

• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Avatar of Woe
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Body Double
• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Dimir Doppelganger
• 1x Dreamborn Muse
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Evil Twin
• 1x Fleet Swallower
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
• 1x Mortivore
• 1x Nightveil Specter
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Shadowmage Infiltrator
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Stunt Double
• 1x Thief of Sanity
• 1x Vizier of Many Faces
• 1x Wight of Precinct Six
• 1x Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Fraying Sanity
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Psychic Corrosion

Land (36)

• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 8x Island
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Extract from Darkness
• 1x Mind Grind
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Traumatize
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Whispering Madness
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Artifact (12)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Keening Stone
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mask of Riddles
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip

Instant (9)

• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Grim Return
• 1x Grisly Spectacle
• 1x Memory Plunder
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Murderous Cut
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Tragic Slip

---

Maybeboard

Creature (10)

• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Faerie Artisans
• 1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1x Nemesis of Reason
• 1x Nighthowler
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Siren of the Silent Song
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Stitcher Geralf

Land (2)

• 1x Mirrorpool
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Hex
• 1x Life's Finale
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Spelltwine

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Underworld Connections

Instant (6)

• 1x Crypt Incursion
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Into the Story
• 1x Psychic Strike
• 1x Soul Manipulation

Artifact (5)

• 1x Bonehoard
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Perilous Vault
• 1x Prowler's Helm

---

After you got lost in the Undercity of Ravnica, after many hours... you were able to get to House of Shadow the guildhall of House Dimir, from where Necrosages sends their Agents and Shapeshifters to assassinate,spy and manipulate the flow of information for their mysterious Guildmaster...

Welcome everyone in my guide for Lazav, Dimir Mastermind | EDH Deck.

Since I started reading Magic lore, my first books were the 3 novels from original Ravnica and I immediately fall in love with Dimir .
So after getting into commander and buying few precons, I decided to build my own deck, and with my love for Dimir I chose no one other than Dimir Mastermind himself and made deck around him, that reflected my favourite playstyle: reanimating, stealing, cloning and milling my opponents.

Deck is very flavorful and fun to play, most of the time you will reanimate your opponent's big creatures or clone them with Lazav and other Shapeshifters, casting their spells from graveyard for free, and finishing them off with unexpected combos.

Deck started as budget but quickly gone up in price, not the most expensive but still. And if like me, you play kitchen table magic with friend most of the time, and can't afford more pricey cards look into maybeboard section for replacements, or just make some proxies.

Playing the Deck

Early game try to get some ramp going, Sol Ring, Commander's Sphere, Dimir Signet, Thaumatic Compass   (ramp early, good protection late), Dowsing Dagger (easy to transform, just target one player and attack another), Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Crypt of Agadeem provide more mana later in a a game. Deck got many card draws so you shouldn't run out of gas during the game.

Unlike others Lazav decks, we dont try to win through Commander damage, since our color combination dont have access to vigilance,and we dont have that much creatures on the board most of the time, I thought attacking and leaving yourself vulnerable to attacks is not the best idea (especially in commander where you play with more players),it doesn't mean you shouldn't attack at all, if you get some sweet creatures like Avacyn go for it, Propaganda should keep your opponents away and Spires of Orazca can protect you from big creatures.

Mid to late game try to mill your opponents, and fill their graveyard so your creatures (Consuming Aberration, Mortivore, Wight of Precinct Six) can be nice and healthy. Reanimate/steal enemy creature or spells with Body Double, Sepulchral Primordial, Diluvian Primordial, Animate Dead, Memory Plunder, Extract from Darkness, Grim Return or use Rise of the Dark Realms and swing with everything to win.

Deck got 4 board wipes, 5 targeted removal, and many options to pick some from opponents graveyards. Cyclonic Rift (arguably best board wipe in commander) targets our only our opponents, Toxic Deluge and Tragic Slip can get rid of indestructible creatures, and since U/B doesn't have many options to destroy artifacts or enchantments we run Nevinyrral's Disk.

Deck also run 2 tutors Muddle the Mixture and Demonic Tutor so you can get your combo pieces or answers to enemy threats. With Muddle the Mixture you can disrupt enemy combos or find the pieces for your own (Duskmantle Guildmage, Mindcrank) or just get one of these cards: Cyclonic Rift, Baleful Strix, Animate Dead or Thaumatic Compass   (if you got 7 lands already it will flip and become Spires of Orazca).

Also this deck suffers from any graveyard hate cards like Bojuka Bog, Necrogenesis, Nihil Spellbomb, Rakdos Charm, Rest in Peace and Anafenza, the Foremost as commander.

But overall this deck is very, very fun to play.

Synergies and Win Conditions

Milling your opponents

• Traumatize + Fraying Sanity Pretty nice combo, however Traumatize makes your opponent put the top half of his library, rounded down into his graveyard, and if he has odd number of cards in his deck for example 49 he will still get to draw one card on his turn.


• Traumatize + Keening Stone nice combo, and Stone puts cards from opponents deck equal to the number of cards in his graveyard, so even if he got odd number of cards, there is 99% chance that he will have more cards in a graveyard.


• Fleet Swallower + Fraying Sanity When our Fish attacks, opponent put the top half of his or her library, rounded up so it's insta mill for him, also fish doesn't have to deal combat damage to mill opponent, and you can attack diffrent opponent and still target player with Fraying Sanity.


• Fleet Swallower + Keening Stone Straightforward combo, but require a lot of mana, so your opponents might see it coming, but you can surprise them with Lightning Greaves.

Damaging opponents when cards are put into their graveyards

• Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank If you activate Guildmage's first ability and then second ability(or if you just do damage) when you have a Mindcrank out, your opponent will put all the cards from his library into his graveyard and lose that much life.The dream sequence would be: T1 play Swamp then Sol Ring into Mindcrank,T2 play Island then Duskmantle Guildmage, T3 activate Guildmage's ability, and attack opponent without blockers.


• Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank Once Bloodcheif Ascension goes online if a card goes into any opponent graveyard that player looses life to Bloodcheif, then put cards into graveyard thanks to mindcrank, this process will repeat until no life remain, or no cards are left in that player's library


• Duskmantle Guildmage / Bloodchief Ascension + any discarding effect Fleet Swallower / Traumatize / Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker / Nemesis of Reason / Keening Stone / Mind Grind / Whispering Madness this is not really infinte combo, just a synergy, but sometimes it will be enough to kill your opponents.

Interesting synergies

• Lazav and his clones.
  One thing worth mentioning is Lazav won't trigger enters-the-battlefield effects if he became let's say Avenger of Zendikar, also he won't become someone else's commander since they never go into graveyard (replacement effect), ok maybe except Elenda, the Dusk Rose cuz she kinda wants to go there. And this is where clones can cover weakness in his ability, they can become creatures, Lazav dont have access to, and they trigger ETB effects.


• Legendary rule.
  Let's say your opponent plays Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite you can copy that legendary creature with your Evil Twin. If you manage to kill the original Elesh Norn, Lazav will become a copy of it, but won’t be named 'Elesh Norn', which means he will get around Legendary Rule, and you will keep both creatures.


• Notion Thief and wheel effects.
  This is really cool interaction, you can play Whispering Madness, Windfall or activate Jace's Archivist's ability and flash in Notion Thief. If this will successfully resolve your opponents will discard their hand, draw 0 cards and you will draw (lets say you play with 3 people, and they discard 5 cards each) 20 cards! Sweet, and with Reliquary Tower even sweeter. Also remember that you can use wheel effects when opponent tutor for some key card, and make them discard it. However...
  Warning! If you know people in your playgroup play Consecrated Sphinx you have to be very careful when playing Notion Thief, because the moment both creatures are on the battlefield, one cards draw can result in milling your hole deck (unless you got mana, and some instants to kill one of the creatures).

Cards you can put in a deck or swap

• In my Maybeboard you can see what cards you can put into deck, and below I will talk a little about why I choose certain cards




• Geth, Lord of the Vault this guy I see in almost every Lazav deck, the synergy is obvious, you get him, you res some enemy creatures/artifacts, and mill them. But for me he doesn't do much, you play for him, wait a turn, then you have to pay to get creature or artifact and it enters to the battlefield tapped, he's just too slow for me, so I swapped him for Arcanis the Omnipotent to get some more card draw


• Mortivore / Nighthowler / Bonehoard, similar cards with similar CMC, the reason why i choose Mortivore, is that Regenerate abilty, obviously he won't survive board wipes like Damnation but can hold his own vs targeted reamoval, and he can block enemy creatures. Of course after board wipe, if you put Nighthowler on something you will get a creature, or you will get Bonehoard with option to attach it to some other creature, the thing with bestow is that you have to put it onto creature so instead of having 2, you will get 1. And I like to have some extra creatures that can hold on their own.


• Clever Impersonator very versatile card I'm actually thinking about putting it into my deck, but i dont know which card to pull out... Evil Twin can kill creatures on its own, Phyrexian Metamorph turn into arifacts too and can cost mana, with Stunt Double i like the Flash option and Vizier of Many Faces can be recurred from graveyard. Tough choice.


• Protection / Evasion.
  Since we can't add Ghostly Prison, you can add Crawlspace for more protection. I tried Hammer of Nazahn to protect my creatures, but most of the time they would be just returned to my hand, exiled or targeted by something, so i swap it for Lightning Greaves, and when board wipe comes, all creatures will die (most of the time) so I'm not that worried. Deck run Mask of Riddles for some evasion and card draw, but if you feel you need more you can add Prowler's Helm.


• Leyline of Anticipation, playing your cards with insta speed is very powerful, you can add this to your deck.


• Removals and Counter spells.
  Originally this deck got much more counter spells, but eventually I got rid of most of them because they ruin fun, no one likes to play against them, and people start targeting you in response.
  Like I said earlier U/B doesn't have many options to destroy artifacts or enchantments so we run Nevinyrral's Disk, but if you feel you need more, add Perilous Vault and/or Steel Hellkite.
  Life's Finale / Necromantic Selection. Simply I think there is not much room for more than 2 expensive board wipes, and I would much rather draw bunch of cards from Decree of Pain, than put some creatures into opponent graveyard (you dont always got the option to res them).
  And black's favourite Damnation, personally I choose Toxic Deluge over it, just because you got option to adjust the damage you need, and it can kill creatures with indestructible, but you can choose what suit you better.

Sorry that guide doesn't have any images or links, but im not sure if basic users can add them, or tappedout is just bugged for some users. But i hope you enjoyed it.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.72
Tokens	Copy Clone, Plant 0/2 G, Vizier of Many Faces 0/0 W
Folders	My Decks, idk, 4565, Interesting Ideas, Commander, Awesome Decks by other People, Decks, Commander Upgraded, TTS, Decks to Try
Based on	Budget Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - EDH / Commander BudgetMTGDecks EDH