Pauper Dimir Control

Yeah, though many of the decks seem like themed brews that have no hope of ever being optimized into anything competitive. In pauper this is a huge problem as A tier 4 deck costs 5-15$ less than a tier 1 deck.

Thanks for the +1! Running Bojuka Bog, or any other land that enters tapped for that matter, would likely make the deck too slow. It's already a deck that spends its early turns rather passively, I don't think it's a good idea to add to that. Though many of the decks I see online run only 19 lands of which around 9 enter tapped, so maybe I'm wrong.

As for making cuts, neither Thought Scour nor Gurmag Angler are cards that you can run less than 4 of. Brainstorm, Anlger, Accumulated Knowledge, and Ghastly Demise all rely on Scour, and 4 threats is already a number low enough to where losing games due to milling one, getting 2 counterspelled or killed, and not finding the last one is a real danger.

You might be right about Forbidden Alchemy. The card used to be the main star of the show 2 or 3 years ago in decks like this as it provided card advantage via flashback, card selection for obvious reasons, and also fuel for delve an other gy interactions. These days it's possible the card is no longer any good. Though I'll have to wait for some pauper events to be held to test whether this is the case.

Feed the Swarm targets, the main draw of Libation is that it is great against boggles *and* against Tortured Existence, while also being useful against the new threat-heavy cascade midrange decks.

Theswarmer:
Add one bojuka bog, then keep track of its success on a notepad.
Note only when it locked down your opening AND you lost, and note down when it took down a graveyard AND you won. Play enough games with the notepad nearby and you will know if you can add one after about 20 games where it surfaces.

@swarm on pharikas libation- i think theres still an argument for it and against it. Its also an instant which is nice to hold up your counterspells, but with the mana curve being an issue still- feed the swarm still might have an edge- you're already running chainer's edict that'll deal with bogles and feed the swarm can still take out whatever they're best aura is. Up to you though! depends on how they test out for you.

And yeah I might just be a bojuka bog devotee but I also hate devoting sideboard space to it- I'd quicker grab nihil spellbomb or fairie macabre (faire macabre might actually be cool here also as an extra threat- might be more flexible than stormbound geist). Interested to see what you end up on!

Also ur reasoning for keeping scour to me means probably means there might not be a point going the rivewinder route- I was thinking of it as a "one or the other" plan as they dont really work well together in my brain (i could be wrong though). My reasoning is- If you're running exhume- your probably not going to want to be delving away your yard? and vica versa- if you're running winder probably not gonna want it delved away either. It might still work out though- it just feels like it could potentially run into itself occasionally. I dont actually know. If your worried about milling stuff away maybe go up on soul manipulation in the main though? Or heck corpse churn maybe if you need it lower to the ground (might work well with faerie macabre as well)?

Thought scour is a proven card, he can run both strategies.
Think of it like this.
When cast, it "mills" two and put itself in the grave, totalling 3 cards in the grave. The card you drew will potentially be something that goes to the graveyard the next turn totalling 4 cards in the grave. So gurmag angler is usually a turn 3 happening with it.

Then theres the interaction with brainstorm. You brainstorm, putting the useless cards on top, then you thought scour them away, gaining card value.

the issue i was stating is that the cards that get milled could be riverwinder which you may not want to happen (though you may not care I guess as long as you get something out so i see your point). So i see it working- but its going to dilute some part of the control plan down i guess. He still needs exhume for it to work and its a tight list. I guess the cuts would be forbidden alchemy and soul manipulation and agony warp? But thats still a few cards short to get the playsets in- but maybe theres an argument that you dont need to go all in on the exhume plan and just view it as a replacement for soul manipulation or something? Idk lots of ways to view it i guess

Playstyle is one of magics most interesting aspects.

At some point in time I started analysing decklist on the web, and though almost all decklists can be pretty much the same builds over and over again I observed that people in general changed the mana of the decks, but not the rest of the decklists.

I remember being very puzzled by that peculiarity, until I realized that each player had been adjusting the deck to their own personal game style.

If a decklist would be rakdos with burn and discard, one player would put the importance on being able to play thoughtseize as early as possible, while another player would prefer to apply pressure with monastery swiftspear, and depending on how their gameplan is set up, the mana of the exactly same decklist would vary a lot.

So when you say there is a lot of ways to view it, I can only smile and agree.

For years I've been brewing with so many different tools, simulations and paperstrips, to make my decks better because I want to see them being played, but the downside is that my decks are then developed to fit the precise pattern that I would play them in, making them absolutely unplayable by others.

In around the 2018's I was playing a very versatile deck that caught the interest of some pro's and I sat down with them guiding them through how to play with a proxy of the exact same decklist.

None of them were able to imitate my playstyle despite me being guiding them through it.

One of the funniest moments were at the opening of a game, the deck was grixis colored and played a number of fetchlands, and one of the pro's cracked a fetchland at turn one, searched through the deck and then said "is there no watery graves in this ???"

The deck was adapted to playing bloodmoon, and one of my innovations had been design the deck as if it had turn 0 bloodmoon in play, and still be playable. That meant that all duals were red because then I'd only lose 1 color if moon was played. Watery graves was excluded from the deck because they lost two colors.

So yeah, I smile and agree :)

Whoa, no way I'm responding to all that xD

I guess the way to answer all the relevant raised points is by saying that I always have a notepad on me that I use for testing notes. What I tend to do is identify the flex spots (Dimir Aqueduct, Libation, Echoing Decay, Alchemy, etc.) and the cards that might better fill those flex spots (Feed the Swarm, Bojuka Bog, etc.). Then, each time a situation comes up where I use one of the flex spot cards (or even if I just draw one) I make a note as to whether I would or would not prefer to have drawn/played the other card (e.g, Feed the Swarm instead of Libation).

I'll be sure to do this once playing pauper is an option again.

Yeah im interested to see what ends up working for you- especially if you end up jamming riverwinder in and what cuts you make for it. I hear wizards is going to maybe open up playing in person events again soon maybe (hopefully haha)

Theswarmer:
Flex spot cards is a nice name for how you do your stuff :)

The biggest edge I've gained from playing with my own paperstrips is the power to measure several cards through one.

If you made sure to have several different flex cards in your deck, like 1 dimir aqueduct, 1 watery grave and 1 downed catacombs you'd be able to measure a lot more accurate and in multiple directions. (One land could cover creatures, another could cover removal and the third could cover support type cards)

I like your version, it's simple and elegant, but can be expanded upon.

I've been wondering a lot recently about how I would run my own evolution project in arena where I wouldn't be able to slip paperstrips down any sleeves :)

The solution is to sort of build EDH style decks. A sheet of paper with 60 cardnames on it would make everything into a paperstrip/flexcard.

The fact that there is currently a lutri deck being played in arena would be a nice starting point for someone who would like to evolve their entire deck while having fun at playing at the same time. I know user alfred might give it a try as he plays in arena. The same process could be done in ordinary paper.

Also, theswarmer,
Where did you come across the concept of flex spot cards ?
It's a variation of my paperstrip method, but from what I've been able to google, it ties in with my deck core system.

That means that whoever has copied me, have started copying after I began describing deck cores.

Also, do you know how widespread the concept is, and do you have any links to a general outline?

I'd like to see what the others have innovated, because I got into all of this around 2006 where I started using "blank cards"

Having spent so much time on this, I'm pretty sure I can use some of their materials and my own to create a new more efficient shell.

I do computer networking and I extend the troubleshooting mindset that the field often demands of you onto everything amendable to it. I started in I think February 2018 when I played in my first sanctioned pauper event, but I could be wrong on that detail.

In the end I just think that stats matter, they're what those parts of the world that run well run on, no reason to not include that in Mtg.

The issue with further optimizing this stat-keeping approach is that at some point my time is better spent elsewhere, especially these days.

The thing is, I've been trying to get people to evolve decks almost forever, and then I hear you use a different phrase
Than I would have used, google it and discover that my project is suddenly everywhere :)

It's great news :)

I stumbled on someone named fluffywolf2 which describes a similar process than yours and mine, but using prison moon as the example.

I think that means that whoever started to spread a similar evolutionary tool got their inspiration from my two tags:
Wdm core build
Wdm prison

Except there are articles about deck cores and flex cards back to 2017, which is where I talked most about deck cores all the time. Dedwards tried out my paperstrips at that point, so someone might have seen him do it.

There seems to be so many articles out there now, which might lead to the final fall of copycats.
I did not see this comming.

Sure I've dreamed of it.

Now I just want to track down the article that is mainstreaming the process, so I can see what words I should have used :)

So far the only change in words about the technique is the change of "blank cards" into "flex cards". Flex is more positive as a word, so the person who did this probably flavoured it all in positive words.
It's a proven marketing trick :)

Nudge nudge