Guild · Color Identity
Dimir (Blue-Black): History, Playstyle and Best Commanders
Blue-black takes what it wants and knows what you are holding. Dimir is the pairing for mill, for evasive creatures nobody can block, and for the format's most flexible interaction, because it counters what it can and kills what it cannot.
Dimir is blue and black, the two-color identity. The guild nobody was supposed to know existed: mill, theft, evasion and secrets.
Also called UB, House Dimir.
Where the Name Comes From
House Dimir, Ravnica's secret guild, named in Ravnica: City of Guilds (2005).
House Dimir was Ravnica's joke that landed: a guild whose entire flavor was that the other nine did not know it existed. It was one of the four guilds in the original Ravnica: City of Guilds in 2005, and its mechanics have always been about information. Transmute swaps a card for another of the same cost, and it was followed by Cipher and then by Surveil in Guilds of Ravnica, which has since escaped Ravnica entirely and become one of Magic's evergreen-adjacent mechanics.
As a color pair, blue-black is the oldest "do whatever you want" combination in the game. Between them the two colors have the best card draw, the best tutors, counterspells, unconditional removal and the best recursion, and the only thing they genuinely cannot do is deal with an enchantment or win a fair fight on the battlefield. That breadth is why Dimir is the most common pairing in competitive Commander and why it is the easiest two-color identity to build badly, with that many good options, a Dimir deck needs a plan more than most.
All 32 color combinations and where each name came from →How Dimir Plays
The classic Dimir deck wins with evasion. Creatures with flying, menace, unblockable or ninjutsu connect every turn, and the pairing's card advantage keeps replacing them faster than the table can remove them. Yuriko decks are the purest version: hit an opponent, flip a card, deal that much damage to everybody at once.
The other classic plan is mill, and Commander is the format where it works. A hundred-card library is large, but three opponents means every symmetrical mill effect is three times as good, and Dimir has the tools to keep itself alive while the counters run down. It is also the pairing that can use the graveyards it fills: everybody's, not just its own.
Underneath either plan, Dimir plays a resource game nobody else can match. Tutors find the piece, counterspells protect it, removal clears the way, and reanimation brings back whatever died. If you want a deck that can answer any specific problem card in the format, this is the identity that has an answer for every one of them except enchantments.
What It Does Well, and What It Doesn't
Strengths
- Both of the format's best card-advantage colors in one identity: draw, tutors and selection.
- Interaction at every layer except enchantments: counterspells, spot removal, edicts and discard.
- The best evasion in Magic, plus ninjutsu and other ways to make unblockable creatures matter.
- Graveyard recursion and theft, which turn every other player's cards into resources for you.
Weaknesses
- No enchantment removal at all, which is the single biggest hole in the identity.
- Very little ramp, so the deck is usually the slowest one at a fast table.
- Poor at fighting a wide board: its removal is one-for-one and its creatures are small.
- Reads as a threat immediately. Counterspells plus discard is the fastest route to being archenemy.
Best Dimir Commanders
The command zones that define the identity rather than the ones winning this week: the pips beside each name are its color identity, which is what it lets you play in the other 99.
Commander Spotlight
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow ↗
Ninjutsu her in for two mana, flip your top card, and deal that much damage to every opponent at once. The most efficient commander in the identity and one of the strongest in the format.
Phenax, God of Deception ↗
Every creature can tap to mill for its toughness. Turns high-toughness blockers into a mill engine that closes a four-player game.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind ↗
Becomes a copy of any creature that hits any graveyard. The best creature the table has ever had is yours, permanently.
Gisa and Geralf ↗
Mills you every turn and lets you cast a Zombie out of your graveyard. The tribal deck that uses the graveyard as a second hand.
Oona, Queen of the Fae ↗
Exiles chunks of an opponent's library and makes a Faerie for every card of the named color. Mill and an evasive army from the same activation.
Anowon, the Ruin Thief ↗
Rogues are unblockable and grow, and each one that connects mills every opponent. The clean version of "mill is a combat deck".
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Dimir mean in Magic?
Dimir is the blue-black guild of Ravnica: House Dimir, the guild of spies and secrets whose defining trait is that the other nine guilds do not know it exists. It appeared in Ravnica: City of Guilds in 2005, and players now use "Dimir" as shorthand for the blue-black color pair anywhere in Magic.
Does mill actually work in Commander?
Yes, and better than in most formats, because every symmetrical mill effect hits three opponents at once. The trap is treating it as a race: a hundred-card library is a lot to grind through one player at a time. Working mill decks either mill everybody simultaneously or attach the mill to combat damage, and they always pack a way to stop the graveyards being used against them.
What can a Dimir deck not answer?
Enchantments. Neither blue nor black gets real enchantment removal, so a Rest in Peace against a graveyard deck or a Ghostly Prison against an attack plan can be unanswerable. The usual fix is colorless (cards like Karn Liberated or Meteor Golem) plus countering the enchantment before it lands, which is the option Dimir does have.
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