Deck Primer:

Never take out Ancestral Vision and one copy of Elixir of Immortality. It is almost never correct to take out Liliana Vess.

Tron Extirpate, all the counterspells, Summary Dismissal, Geths Verdict, Transgress the Mind. Victim of Night, Dismember, Bile Blight, and Engineered Explosives probably come out (unless theyre playing a lot of Wurmcoil Engine). Ghost Quarter/Thoughtseize with Extirpate is great value. Quicken hand disruption is always excellent; Quicken Damnation kills Emrakul (save Geths Verdict for Ulamog). World Breaker can be Extirpated/Dissipated/killed with Kalitas on board. Play out one threat at a time to avoid letting them gain value off Oblivion Stone/Ulamog. Cryptic Command can often be used to bounce an about to be exiled planeswalker/Kalitas; Deprive returning lands can also be good insurance against Ulamog. Focus on their threats and not their land tutoring spells; Tron is not a threat heavy deck. Only aggressively go after their land tutors if those tutors will get in the way of an incoming Ghost Quarter + Extirpate.

UWx control Extirpate, all the counterspells, Summary Dismissal, Geths Verdict in case of Emrakul/Nahiri/Geist of Saint Traft, Transgress the Mind. Spot removal should come out, but it may be correct to leave in some number of them to protect against Snapcaster Mage/Restoration Angel. Engineered Explosives is not at its best in this matchup. Sorin Markov can come in to combat burn damage/Snapcaster Mage/resolved Nahiri. The extra clock provided by Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver should not be relevant. Aetherling is a threat that blocks SnapMage, kills Nahiri, and is almost impossible to answer. Extirpate in conjunction with knowledge of hand from hand disruption or targeting key counterspells/Snapcaster Mage/Nahiri can decide the game very quickly. Bile Blight may be left in to deal with White Suns Zenith/Secure the Wastes, which sometimes act as win cons. Kalitas dies too easily and in too many ways to be kept in.

Merfolk Aggressive matchups are in our favour. Ratchet Bomb and Geths Verdict replace Thoughtseize and Dissipate; a Deprive/Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver may replace Dissipate as a cheaper counterspell/boardstall. Sorin Markov should likely replace Aetherling, owing to islandwalk. Kalitas remains wonderful and should stay in. The lack of burn damage makes extra Elixir unnecessary.

Burn Ratchet Bomb, Geths Verdict, Elixir, Sorin Markov. Thoughtseize is obviously bad, 3 mana counterspells are not at their best here (although a Dissipate may be better than Deprive no. 4 in light of turn 4 Damnation but Engineered Explosives should act as a wrath just the same), and Blue Suns Zenith is not as good a lategame drop as Markov; Jace and Vision should generate enough card advantage to drown the burn opponent anyway. Aetherling may be too slow and can be considered for replacement, but may be left in to serve as a blocker against creature heavy builds.

Zoo, Elves Ratchet Bomb and Geths Verdict replace Thoughtseize and a Dissipate; Sorin replaces either Blue Suns Zenith or Aetherling, as deemed appropriate. Ashiok is too slow to be brought in for these matchups. An extra copy or two of Elixir may be considered over counterspells in case of builds with more reach (Boros Charm and Shaman of the Pack come to mind).

Affinity all the removal (Ratchet Bomb and Geths Verdict come in), cut down on Thoughtseize and counterspells. Sorin Markov may not be at his best in this matchup owing to Master of Etherium, manlands, Steel Overseer, and Arcbound Ravager. Aetherling as a 6 drop unable to block fliers negates his usefulness for the match. Extra Elixir may come in to serve as Galvanic Blast insurance.

Infect all the removal, keep some combination of Thoughtseize/counterspells (Dissipate is probably too slow). The matchup is draw dependent, since infect is an aggro deck that comes with a built in cant gain life, you start at 10 emblem. Watch out for pump spells getting their creatures out of Bile Blight/Dismember range, and heavens save us from Spell Pierce.

Delver all the removal is a good plan; counterspells are likely better than Thoughtseize, depending on how aggressive the opposing build is. It is a fairly even matchup that tilts in our favour significantly after the first Delver/SnapMage/Pyromancer wave has been dealt with. Sorin Markov is likely a good inclusion, and may replace Aetherling in the absence of large ground hitters. Jace, Architect of Thought and Sorin between them ensure the little guys dont get too out of hand. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is a great play too, one that is hard for Delver to answer.

Delving Delver Angler and Tasigur are cheap heavy hitters backed up by Remand. Engineered Explosives/Bile Blight are not at their best, dealing only with Snapcaster Mage and Delver; Geths Verdict and hand disruption possibly bringing in Transgress the Mind against Cryptic Command or delve creatures is the most likely to be successful route. Extirpate may or may not make the cut depending on how aggressive the opposing build is; its ability to rip multiple cards out of the opposing hand/empty the opposing deck of relevant spells/answer Snapcaster Mage is however too powerful to entirely ignore. Relic may come in as a cycler/antiDelve SnapMage card. Leyline is much less useful.

Delirious Delver Our desire to keep Bile Blight to deal with Delver conflicts with its abysmal performance against Goyf and Reveler; our desire to bring in Elixir to fight burn spells conflicts with desiring card advantage in this attrition fight. Sorin Markov/Ratchet Bomb/Geths Verdict is most likely a better package than Bile Blight, however; with the upside of Ratchet Bomb dealing with sideboarded Blood Moon. Counterspells/hand disruption/removal create a delicate balancing act in terms of the numbers of cards in these categories that perform optimally against these decks. Watch out, however, for Blood Moon! Delver/Goyf, Shoal/Remand your removal spell, untap into Blood Moon can end the game on the spot.

Scapeshift all the counterspells and hand disruption, Extirpate. Ghost Quarter and Extirpate on Valakut can be the end; watch out for Titans and Courser of Kruphix beatdown. Obstinate Baloth often joins the party, so it is not incorrect to keep in Damnation/some number of spot removal (although Bile Blight, Dismember, and Engineered Explosives dont match up too well against their threats). Aetherling is a quicker clock than Sorin and also serves to block. Builds planning to just play Valakut and put mountains into play with less emphasis on other threats may merit Sorin Markovs inclusion over a removal spell.

BGx Thoughtseize should come out. These games often go down the long road, and topdecking hand disruption is the worst. Geths Verdict and Ratchet Bomb are great ways to deal with their threats (although Ratchet Bomb may eat Abrupt Decay, Decay is probably not in their deck postboard; Verdict is a nice 1 for 1 that deals with anything up to Thrun). Since Jund is not too reliant on any of their cards in particular, Extirpate is unnecessary. Kalitas dies too easily to merit continued inclusion postboard. Sorin Markov does not threaten their threats well enough to merit inclusion. The games tend to go long, with each side trading cards with the other; eventually, we resolve Ancestral Vision or Blue Suns Zenith to pull ahead. Jace, Architect of Thought is fantastic against Lingering Souls and as a source of cards; Aetherling definitely stays in, owing to its capacity to endure removal and block (however, it should be played only with a significant amount of open mana if the opponent has multiple cards in hand). Ashiok may or may not come in, depending on their creature density.

Abzan Company Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is the single best card against this strategy, with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Sorin Markov, and Aetherling tying in for a close second. Hand disruption is not the best idea, since these attrition matches often go into topdeck mode; and their most relevant spells in the form of Chord and CoCo are instant speed. A lot of removal backed up by some number of counterspells and the threats mentioned above is the way to go; the hope is to outpace their Voice of Resurgence/Eternal Witness/Kitchen Finks/CoCo card advantage plan with Ancestral Vision/Damnation/Blue Suns Zenith.

Living End Thoughtseize is not at its best here, Transgress the Mind misses Living End; Damnation is a neater answer to their combo. Counterspells are of course great; just play to counter and wrath. Leyline of the Void/Relic of Progenitus is the graveyard hate of choice; Extirpate wont do too much unless it is targeting Living End, and that is a fringe enough case that extra counterspells are just better. Take out whatever combination of spot removal is deemed least effective; Kalitas, Aetherling, and Liliana Vess are the stars of this match. Engineered Explosives should most likely go out.

Dredge hand disruption is terrible, counterspells are not at their best (with Summary Dismissal and Dissipate being the obvious exceptions), and spot removal is usually dead removal. Sorin Markov should come in as a source of lifegain/way to ping away their smaller creatures/Mindslaver to take control of the player and the game. Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus and Extirpate are, however, the real heroes. Prized Amalgam/Bloodghast being exiled usually spells doom for the creature builds; Bile Blight buys precious turns/makes for insurmountable advantage with Kalitas in play. Splendid Reclamation decks suffer from Scapeshifts weakness to Ghost Quarter/Valakut. Disdainful Stroke can come in against Splendid Reclamation decks as an answer to Reclamation and Titans. Extra Elixir can come in as insurance against the Valakut plan.

Mill game 1 depends on if Elixir gets milled. Post-board, extra copies of Elixir coupled with many counterspells and strong clocks in the form of Ashiok and Kalitas Sorin Markov also comes in as an extra clock/recurring removal for Hedron Crab backed up by Extirpate should do the job. Thoughtseize may be better than a lot of spot removal (some builds play Jaces Phantasm and Nihilith, however, and Manic Scribe/Hedron Crab are nothing to be sneered at without Elixir in play). Watch out for opposing Surgical Extraction/Extirpate.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/751800-dimir-control

you need to put more lilianas in the deck if you actually want to win

wow this deck has a 2 in 60 chance of winning you need to put more lilianas in the deck or some kalitas in the deck if you really want two win

@im_tapped_out_man, which Liliana did you have in mind, and what you suggest be cut for it?

@infirenc that's actually not true. It has an even win ratio against just about every deck in the format - I make this statement based on six months of testing. That said, I would appreciate thoughts on how it might win faster and more consistently, and just jamming more Kalitas, etc. is not good enough, since for every threat put in, you take out an answer. If you really do think the way forward is by adding more planeswalkers/Kalitas, please also tell me what should be cut.

why do you have a temple of mystery godless shrine and steam vents? no reason for green red or white in 75?

Also I would streamline this a lot more for consistency but you have a good base to work off of.

@Apakakuta - to Engineer Explosives for higher values. Killing Blood Moon/Liliana of the Veil/Detention Sphere/Ensnaring Bridge is sometimes relevant; Leylines, Nahiri, and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas are primarily what I'm killing at 4 cmc (Hero's Downfall is better for the last two, but you know, the extra never hurts).

What streamlining would you recommend?

My biggest concern at the moment is burn - that matchup is completely up in the air at 50/50 and is very draw dependent. With other matchups, it is possible to navigate them into a favoured position; with burn, it's just hoping they don't topdeck it or don't have the crack effect in response to my lifegain. Any suggestions?

I wouldn't rely on EE for bloodmoon and I never EE for more than 3 ever even if I had the option for more.

And what I mean by streamlining is I see a lot of cards in this list for the same reason or for very niche cases.

For example you don't need blue sun with 4x ancestral don't need dismember with all the other unconditional removal. I would also consider serum visions or nice filtering counters like mana leak since deprives drawback is harsh with higher cmc removal. Maybe consider snapcaster or delve spells for extra value from the yard. Murderous Cut and logic knot are amazing. The highest downfall of control in modern is consistency. Having cards that mitigate that or that are good in multiple instances are very strong here (hence why snapcaster is THE best blue card ever printed).

As for decks like burn I've found Collective Brutality to be especially useful. It also destroys game plans from collected company or chord decks and is just great in various other matches.

Hopefully this helps! I do love the idea though keep it up!

P.S. I've really liked Ashiok / Liliana Last Hope in these style of decks.

You may well be right about the colours of EE; going up on on-colour sources seems the best path forward. I do want the EE/Ratchet Bomb, however, because they are often turn 3 boardwipes and also are one of Dimir's only ways of ever dealing with resolved artifacts/enchantments that cause problems. Also pretty amazing against affinity.

I tried maindecking Ashiok, but often he would be a 3 mana enchantment with no text. He shines against grindy green decks, is okay against control, and sucks against aggro. I've been playing with the idea of maindecking Liliana, the Last Hope for a while now, her capacity to ping off Snapjerks and make x/4's vulnerable to Bile Blight is pretty amazing. The only thing turning me off from her is that her -2 will so rarely if ever do anything for me.

Blue Sun's Zenith I actually added after I discovered 4 Ancestral Vision were not enough card draw - lategame, it is a much better topdeck than Ancestral Vision, too. If I was playing white, I would snap off 2x Sphinx's Revelation; instead, BSZ is my go to lategame draw spell. All told, that's only 5 actually raw card draw spells, so I'm not willing to go below that.

Wow, I completely forgot all about Collective Brutality - spell seems silly levels of versatile. I'd definitely cut 2 Elixir in the sideboard for 2 Brutality, and could even see myself maindecking one.

What do you think of maindecking a Batterskull? Currently, my expendables are Signet, at least one Quicken, and Dismember. The pair of Quicken have not shone as much as I'd have liked, despite the occasional blowout/powerful draw step discard spell; I might just keep in 1 to satisfy the Timmy in me, and because it is actually legit great with the addition of Collective Brutality. I'd probably replace Signet with Serum Visions, since cantrips do double time as mana sources early game; Collective Brutality can replace a Quicken, and Batterskull can take over from Dismember?

Thank you so much for the suggestions, I'm confident that you've just upgraded this deck a few degrees by shoring up multiple matchups by reminding me that Collective Brutality is a damn good card.

Oh, and to address the elephant in the room - no Snapcaster Mage, as a matter of principle. Yes, it's me being a bit of an iconoclast by refusing to play SnapMage, but really, I'm tired of not being able to make a three-point turn in the blue-verse without bumping into him. Now, here are the actual reasons I don't play SnapMage: losing value off the 2/1 body to my own Damnation, Explosives, and Ratchet Bombs makes him much worse - draw 3 cards is better than a 2 cmc instant that says target spell gains flashback till end of turn. Next, he's horrendous with Deprive. I'd play SnapMage in a deck with Thing in the Ice, Remand, Mana Leak, and co. - tempo burn control, as opposed to hard control.

I've considered Murderous Cut and Logic Knot, for sure - I wouldn't play M. Cut because it competes with Hero's Downfall (I can't have it online reliably earlier than turn 3, at which point I'd rather Downfall). Logic Knot, I'm considering over Deprive, but what pushed me to 3 Deprive in the first place was Tron. And those are really the best two delve spells for me to consider, I imagine.

I do like the single batterskull it will help in those grinder matches as well.

However i'm still hung up on deprive's additional cost it seems off tempo in a fast format such as modern.

If you are going to play serums visions you'd want at least 3, the card just does what you want to be doing setting up your future draws and filtering what you get. It's not ponder or brainstorm but does a well enough stand in since those other cantrips are banned from the format.

My biggest concern with raw card draw is that it is not immediately board my impacting I've seen a lot of people lose the turn or turn after resolving ancestral or sphinx's rev. Not to mention a late game top deck of ancestral just feels bad when you needed a board wipe or removal spell against aggressive decks.

sidenote tangent I've recently beaten a grixes control list with my deck after they resolved 3 ancestrals just because my deck was more immediately impactful to the gamestate.

3 of has been performing alright. It's not really a turn 2 counterspell, that's why we've got removal; it's more a hard counter for anything mid-late game when people play things that are difficult to deal with by 1 for 1 removal.

I agree with you over the raw card draw not affecting board state - but decks as slow and as controllish as mine need the card velocity to function. If I was going Thing in the Ice, Snapcaster Mage, Torrential Gearhulk to actually, you know, end the game in a reasonable time frame, then I'd just play Serum Visions and relegate AV to the sideboard.

I'd love to see your list, and I'd also love to know what they had in their deck that couldn't deal with a board state after drawing 9 extra cards.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sultais-hope/That is my current list I occasionally tweak the board or main deck by around 5 or so cards ( meta shifts at LGS). But the main deck is mostly set with around 3 flex slots

Oh I forgot to ask how are your aggro match ups? Primarily burn, zoo, death shadow aggro, affinity.

Burn is the worst, everything else is pretty good. I have far too much cheap removal for the opponent's cards to matter if the plan is to hit me with their creatures. Between Engineered Explosives and Ratchet Bomb, I have 3 3 mana boardwipes, and then Damnation is 2 more at 4 mana; this is not counting the spot removal. Against affinity, Explosives for 2/0 is usually also just game.

Quick Chord/CoCo decks like Elves/Voice-Rabblemaster-Nacatl good stuff can present a bit of a threat due to their capacity to bounce back from a boardwipe and make spot removal difficult owing to Voice/Finks while applying enough pressure to not let me capitalise Ancestral Vision to the fullest; but those games are usually just a question of which player maneuvers better.

Hatebears is fine. Their creatures aren't too threatening, and since I don't have as many fetches, Mindcensor/Arbiter bother me less. Black Sun's Zenith really shines here since a lot of their stuff is x/1's.

The hardest aggro matchup is probably Delver, followed by Infect and then Merfolk, just because countermagic is so annoying when I'm using Damnation and not Supreme Verdict. Delver, Remand, Blood Moon can be turn 3 win if I'm not careful; Infect when they have all the Vines effects is hard to beat, although if I'm not dead by turn 4, they're usually done for. Merfolk is maneuverable, but Spell Pierce and Cursecatcher can break games.

Bogles deserves special mention, but between Explosives, Ratchet Bomb, Geth's Verdict, Damnation, Cryptic Command and potentially Black Sun's Zenith ... it's a touch draw dependent, but it is beatable, certainly.

Burn ... this matchup is completely 50/50. Kalitas is great if I don't die by turn 4; haven't tested it with the Brutality yet, however, so will see how that goes. The previous plan of triple Elixir would hit Atarka's Command/Skullcrack too often.

Good run down. The reason I asked is a lot of your removal starts at 3 or is a turn slower like ee or ratchet bomb. Your 2 cmc or less removal is low ( since red and white stole the kill efficiency romantic black) victim of night can be ok yet some corner cases is bad, and bile blight should be an mvp in many scenarios.

Yet sometimes I feel like you can fall a turn too slow by the looks of it.

3 mana removal is fine if it boardwipes, as is the case with EE. But between Dismember, Bile Blight, Victim of Night and turn 1 Explosives (which really works as an incentive for my opponent not to commit things to the board), that's 8 kill spells under 2 mana, so you know, not too bad, all told.

Remand to protect cheap threats, a bundle of Lightning Bolts, and turn 3 Company are usually the situations in which I can fall behind too much to recover. Damnation, Cryptic Command, and Bile Blight are what usually let me regain the lost tempo and regain control.

Since affinity is very dependent on payoff cards like Plating/Overseer/Ravager, targeted spot removal stalls them very well until I can accrue card advantage/sweep the board. Infect really needs to draw a good portion of their hexproofing spells to have a chance. Elves can be shut down by targeting the right elves until boardwipes take over.

I guess I'm just needing to see the deck in action at this point.

Do you play on Cockatrice?

I use to play a bit on Xmage but now that program is not working right on my pc I mostly play in paper.

Well, in that case, Sultai's Hope vs Dark Visions will have to wait until the Pro Tour ...

I wonder if this deck would fare against my Grixis and/or Jeskai Counterburn...

+1 for name and deck!

@Miracles-and-Charms-of-Alara, let's find out! Cockatrice, perhaps? And do you have lists I could take a look at?

The matchup against Grixis/Jeskai counterburn is very skill intensive and it is GRINDY. I wouldn't say either player is advantaged - it could be argued Ancestral Vision, Think Twice, and Blue Sun's Zenith to support Kalitas and planeswalkers gives me the edge, while it could also be argued burn with Snapcaster Mage gives URx the edge - we're both making each other discard cards, countering each other's stuff, and have the answers to deal with whatever the other person manages to resolve. Draw dependent to an extent, it usually ends up with the URx player trying to out-tempo, burn and hit me with SnapMage while I try to stabilise and resolve Kalitas or Aetherling. Postboard, I have Extirpate and Relic, having taken out dead removal, so I might argue that gives me the edge in those games, but definitely not by much.

This shall be a battle to the death!! My Jeskai Counterburn shall quell thou plauged orbs! Let this be a declaration of war!

I could definitely re-download cock at rice or Xmage to play