Teaching Decks: Dimir Ensoul

by ToastasaurusRex on 08 April 2018

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Creatures (5)


Instants (4)

Submit a list of cards below to bulk import them all into your sideboard. Post one card per line using a format like "4x Birds of Paradise" or "1 Blaze", you can even enter just the card name by itself like "Wrath of God" for single cards.


Deck Description

For the record- I started this deck a few days after the Saga from Dominaria that does the same thing for a single turn was spoiled, and I wish that thing were gonna be in-budget. I WISH.

So this is a project I wanted to engage in- To make a set of 10+ super-budget 60-card decks that are simple, relatively easy to play, relatively easy to understand, and bring across the fundamentals of how Magic Works. We've since gone way past 10, with tons more in the works, and I've really enjoyed the challenge of trying to make these decks easy to play and understand, fun, and all under a $15 budget, sideboard included.

The main goal here is that you could easily build these deck for a low cost and use them as an easy introduction to how magic works, to teach a group of new players both how to play, and give them a sense of Why, a sense of what fun things they're getting into. These decks aren't gonna be particularly good, or even legal in any particular format if it stops me from including a card I think is good for the deck, but they should be fun and interesting without being too hard to get into. They should be an easily-accessible example of how fun Magic: The Gathering can be.

This is one of the more advanced decks- Not really the first decks you want people learning with, but a sweet, budget deck you can use once new players are already on their feet to really knock their socks off and get them to think about something you can do in Magic that they might not have otherwise realized.

I think this one improved a lot when I went over it a 2nd time, because I was able to equip it with a least a bit of an arsenal of different draft artifacts that do things, though a lot of those things are just cycling for cards, which is fine. It'll help you find those 8 copies of Ensoul consistently. I like the patterns of gameplay here- you spill out artifacts, trying to control the board a little and draw to your enchantments, and then when you find one, you start smashing face until they manage to kill it, wash, rinse, repeat. So long as your 5/5s are some of the nastier creatures on the board, you really do have a powerful deck here, and it's fun to mess around with.

As for budget: Maindeck cost is currently at ~$11 (according to the middle blue numbers on this very site under estimated value), sideboard at about ~$3.20, which slips us under our $15 limit with about 60 cents to spare.

How to Play

So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:

The stars of the show are obviously Ensoul Artifact and Tezzeret's Touch, which let you turn any random artifact in your deck into a big, mean 5/5 that you can kill people with.

The Artifacts in question are Prismatic Lens, for a little ramp, Sunset Pyramid, for card draw (And if you manage to draw all the bricks off of it, it's still around to get Ensouled, which is nifty), and the mental image of not only a whole Pyramid standing up and punching someone in the face, but it loosing a fight with an Outland Colossus somehow. Or trading with a single vampire, or a particularly Onery Werewolf. Or many other silly things that could happen.

Ichor Wellspring cycles for 2, and if you Ensoul it, then if they manage to kill the 5/5, it draws you another card, and if you used Touch instead of Ensoul, it comes back to your hand to cycle again, which is sweet.

Implement of Malice is just an artifact for 2 if you want, so you have a target for Ensoul, or it can sac itself to make them discard and let you draw. On top of that, if you ensoul it, you can trigger that ability at instant speed when they kill it to still get your value off of the thing.

And Pacification Array is only alright, but it adds to the Artifact Density and does its best to keep you alive, even if between it and Pyramid, the deck gets a little mana-hungry.

For Answers- Drown in Sorrow will keep you alive against agro, Agony Warp is a solid killspell that can negate some damage, Dimir charm is always flexible and nice, and Essence Scatter and Revolutionary Rebuke are pretty much your bog-standard counterspells here.

Manabase is meant to be a touch lacking, but also super-budget. I'll be doing the same for all of them.

As for the sideboard, this IS supposed to be a sideboard they learn how to use, to make their deck perform better in the right matchups, or just in general to customize their decks within constraints.

Hovermyr is a great target for Ensoul, but is vulnerable to a lot of creature removal this deck otherwise blanks. If you can make your Ensouled artifacts 5/5 Fliers with Vigilance, that's awesome, but you don't always get the chance.

Extra Drown for its good matchups, alongside Golden Urn, which is kind of a sweet agro tech card, since you can board it in, drop it early, and just let it slowly tick up until you need to crack it.

Cancel and Murder serve the opposite purposes- for when you're up against a slower deck and need more solid, reliable answers. The Mainboard answers can be mostly dead against a particularly slow deck, so it's good to be able to replace at least some of them with more live draws.

Glaring Spotlight is a sweet anti-Hexproof card that I had to throw in, even if I don't know how much hexproof is in these decks, and you can just sac it to protect your Artifact creatures and let them crack in for that last bit of damage.

Finally, Crystal Chimes, as a value option for when you've already cast a couple of Ensoul Effects, so you can bring them all back from the 'yard to cast again.

Deck Tags

  • teaching deck
  • Budget
  • Casual
  • Midrange
  • Artifact
  • Advanced Lesson

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

4
Likes

This deck has been viewed 1,736 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0221400

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Teaching Decks: Dimir Ensoul

Picking basic artifacts over free artifact creatures like Thopters helps slowdown removal while you're building your forces, but you could consider adding these to the sideboard. If the player learns that the opponent has few to no removal in the first match-up, then they could add Thopters in the second and third, or vice-versa. They could bait the removal out of the sideboard with the Thopters in the first round, then swap them out for artifacts when they opponent's deck has added removal in the later games.

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Posted 12 April 2018 at 20:51

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Yeah, my problem was just that the only free Artifact that was in-budget was Ornithopter, and they just feel like they're useless if they're not an Ensoul Target, where at least the artifacts in the mainboard do *something*. Particularly because, the way I'm doing this series, with them as teaching decks, the sideboard is less "changes for a best-of-3" and more "The extra cards they have to customize their deck with", so I dunno how practical the purposes you outlined are.

That said- I clearly realized that I did not know how to build this deck as I was making it, so I'm probably doing it all wrong.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 03:38

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The deck looks like a great teaching tool to me. It shows that some bombs are combos, which throws a little wrench in the mind of anyone recently taught the BREAD analogy.

Due to the super low mana curve, mana ramping is very unnecessary. Which other cheap artifacts could replace the Compass or the Lens?

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 14:08

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Yeah, for some reason I thought this was gonna have a much higher mana curve. But some mana rocks would be nice to be able to use Sunset Pyramid. I'll start shopping around for cheap artifacts again, you're right.

Hell, I set up the lands expecting this to be a proper midrange deck, I should probably cut down to just 20 lands, which'll give more room for a balance of stuff.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 19:12

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Artifacts are often tappable for some advantage (i.e. Sunset Pyramid). How about Ghostly Touch or Voltaic Key? These would help teach new players the meta of tappable artifacts. Ghostly Touch basically gives an ensouled artifact vigilance. If you add another artifact like Sunset Pyramid which can tap to produce something, then Voltaic Key would be a nice combo. It would let you re-use other artifacts. It's cheap CMC makes it playable and ensoulable early.

If only Sol Ring was a little cheaper. With a larger budget, Sol Ring and Voltaic Key make nice mana ramping. Imagine this: Ensoul Sol Ring and give it Ghostly Touch. Attack with it, then untap it. At the end of the opponent's turn, use Sol Ring for Sunset Pyramid's ability (or another spell/ability). $10 decks are hard to build!

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 20:04

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OOH! Ichor Wellspring is a great target for ensouling! Nice pick.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 20:06

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Tried Voltaic Key previously, way over budget (EDH staples are like that often), and Sol Ring is WAY higher power level than I want here, in addition to being over budget.

Ghostly Touch is sweet, but because all my 'tap for value' artifacts cost mana to use, I'm not sure how much value I'll get off of it. Plus, I'm not sure I want to set up combos that are already reliant on me getting an Ensouled Artifact up, I'd rather focus my cards on helping the deck get there, because I think that's a lot scarier for this deck than what it does once it already has a powerful creature on the board

I like Pacification Array as an Idea for this deck, because it does a thing that this deck wants, ie protecting itself, but it's both the best version of that effect I could find on an artifact.... and not very good. I wish they did colored artifacts more often, because a version of Pacification Array that actually cost blue mana would probably end up being fairly strong and useful.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 20:59

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Oh, and Crystal Chimes in the sideboard is basically exactly what I've tried to look for for more than one deck other than this, but is absolutely fantastic here as a means to get your enchantments back.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 21:00

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Blinding Drone costs 1 more to play but one less to activate and is sorta blue. This card is a tease, because it's colorless but its not an artifact. Vedalken Certarch needs you to have a decent board presence instead of needing mana. If only it counted as an artifact. I'm not sure if these non-artifacts will satiate your needs.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 21:31

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Ooh, I like Certarch. I should double-check through all the metalcraft cards to see if there are any that would be good here.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 21:34

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Ornithopter would be both a blocker until you draw Ensoul and a way to meat Certarch's aratifact presence requirement to slow down your opponent.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 21:42

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Yeah, though a 0/1 isn't much of a blocker. Certarch does sorta end the "Blank all but their best creature removal" plan, but I kinda like the deck not Ensouling actual Creatures unless you sideboard in the Hovermyrs. Ornithopter would be there if I were trying to make the best deck, but I don't think it's what I want for the teaching deck so much. Though I could 100% cut those Implements of Malice for it and it'd be really easy.

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Posted 13 April 2018 at 21:49

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How about Mobile Garrison for that extra untap ability?

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Posted 09 May 2018 at 09:49

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Other than Certarch and Pyramid (which takes mana to use anyways, so not as much gain there), this deck doesn't gain a ton from untaping, other than pseudo-Vigilance, which is nice, but I'd rather not have artifacts that do stone-cold nothing unless they're enchanted.

Solid suggestion, but I'm not sure it works here.

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Posted 12 May 2018 at 00:30

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