In the world of MTG, there are a variety of different ways players can close games. While simply attacking for lethal is the most common path to victory, you can also win games by making your opponent draw from an empty deck. Generally, you’ll need to mill your opponent to do this, but as one new MTG Pauper brew suggests, you can also just outlast your opponent with some bizarre counterspells.
Stalling for Victory
At its core, elle992’s Dimir shell that 5-0d a Magic Online League is a hardcore control deck. In the early game, the goal is to utilize highly efficient removal spells like Innocent Blood and Wretched Banquet to keep creature decks in check. With Drown in Sorrow and Suffocating Fumes getting rid of smaller boards alongside Cast Down answering bigger threats, this deck isn’t light on removal.
While this makes dealing with creatures easy, some Pauper decks employ a lot of direct damage to win the game. To combat this, Campfire and Pristine Talisman provide a steady source of life gain that helps you make it to the late game. With plenty of card advantage elements, including the newly printed Plunder the Trollshaws, you should have no problem finding these tools in a timely manner.
Once you have your feet under you, all you need to do is use counterspells to stop opposing haymakers and combo pieces from resolving. Counterspell, Rewind, and Devious Cover-Up all fill this role nicely, but the last counterspell is the key to this strategy.
Because Devious Cover-Up can put cards in your graveyard back into your library, you can essentially have one copy of this card place the other back. This way, even without traditional threats to close out the game, your opponent will eventually lose via decking, whether they like it or not!
Cool but Risky
Ultimately, what makes this deck so intriguing is its strong game plan against the two best decks in the format. Against Mono-Red Snacker, you have ample ways to both remove Guttersnipe or stop it from ever resolving. From there, Bojuka Bog and Nihil Spellbomb minimize the effect of Sneaky Snacker, while your life gain effects prevent you from getting punked by Fireblast.
At the same time, it’s trivial to run Mono-Blue Terror out of threats entirely, especially thanks to Innocent Blood’s ability to get around Ward. While Devious Cover-Up is technically vulnerable to getting hit by Dispel, Terror decks spend so much time casting cantrips that they’re likely to deck first even if it doesn’t resolve.
Unfortunately, the Devious Cover-Up gameplan does come with its own set of risks in other matchups. After all, there are plenty of other decks running graveyard hate of their own, and getting your Devious Cover-Ups exiled can be disastrous. Plus, even with all the removal in the world, if an Initiative creature like Avenging Hunter out of Ponza sneaks through the cracks, you’re in a world of trouble.
As such, this Dimir deck feels more like a metacall than a reliable powerhouse in a diverse field. Still, if you’re tired of getting trounced by Mono-Blue Terror and Mono-Red Snacker at FNM, sleeving up this deck as a surprise could be a great decision.
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