The 14 Best Dimir Combos in Magic Ranked

Toxrill, the Corrosive | Illustration by Simon Dominic

Blue and black, or Dimir (), has always been a strong competitive color combination thanks to its combination of card draw, countermagic, and disruption. Aside from controlling the board, Dimir is also good at combos.

I’m showing you the best Dimir combos, which often involve zombie tokens, mill, discarding and drawing, and more. For each combo, I’ll show which cards are involved, and the necessary steps and conditions to go off. These combos are simple, usually require two to three cards, and most of them go infinite. And at least one of these is a staple in cEDH.

Enough said, let’s dive in!

What Are Dimir Combos in MTG?

Duskmantle Guildmage | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Dimir Combos in MTG are combos that require two or more cards, and all of these cards need to have a combined Dimir () color identity. In other words, you can play them in a Dimir Commander deck, or in a blue and black deck in the formats where the cards are legal (mostly Legacy and Vintage). We can, of course, use colorless cards.

Keep in mind that the new bracket system ranks a deck with a 2-card combo that wins on the spot in Bracket 3, at least. Decks with many tutors, Game Changers, and/or a combo that works in the first turns can be placed in Brackets 4 or 5. With that in mind, let’s see which combos the Dimir color combination has to offer.

#14. Unraveler of Eons

Cards: Fate Unraveler, Echo of Eons, Phyresis.

Prerequisites: You have Fate Unraveler in play, enchanted with Phyresis, and enough mana to cast Echo of Eons and flash it back.

Result: Each opponent loses the game via poison counters.

Variations: Any creature that deals damage whenever you draw works instead of Fate Unraveler.

This janky combo involves a lot of cards, but it’s easy to grasp. Whenever an opponent draws a card, Fate Unraveler deals 1 damage to them. Phyresis makes it deal damage as poison counters thanks to infect, so they just need to draw 10 cards and they’ll lose. To speed up the process, Echo of Eons makes them draw seven cards, and seven more cards after you cast it with flashback.

#13. Maha, the Corrosive

Cards: Maha, Its Feathers Night, Toxrill, the Corrosive.

Prerequisites: Both creatures are in play.

Result: Soft lock on your opponents’ creatures while you make a lot of slugs.

Variations: None.

Here, we’ll combine two black creatures for a soft lock against creatures. This counts as a Dimir combo because Toxrill, the Corrosive has a color identity due to its activated ability. The combo is very simple. While Maha, Its Feathers Night is in play, each creature your opponents control has toughness 1, and Toxrill shrinks them by -1/-1 each turn. While this duo lives, your opponents’ creatures won’t.

#12. Gray Merchant Replication

Cards: Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Rite of Replication.

Prerequisites: You have Gray Merchant of Asphodel in play, you have Rite of Replication in hand, and enough mana to kick it.

Result: Drain everybody for a lot of life, gain loads of life.

Variations: Replacing Gray Merchant with an impactful enough black creature can also do the trick, depending on the battlefield.

A kicked Rite of Replication produces five token copies of Gray Merchant of Asphodel, which gives you 12 black devotion and five enter triggers. Those triggers drain every player in a 4-person game for 60 life minimum, while you gain 180+ life, while also working in a 1v1 match as well. And, of course, I’m not factoring in the black devotion you already have from other black permanents.

#11. Wilhelt’s Zombie Factory

Cards: Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, Poppet Stitcher/Poppet Factory, Phyrexian Altar.

Prerequisites: Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and Phyrexian Altar are in play, Poppet Stitcher is transformed into Poppet Factory and in play.

Result: Infinite enter triggers, infinite dies triggers, infinite mana.

Variations: Altar of Dementia as a sacrifice outlet produces infinite mill triggers.

This combo uses the Poppet Factory’s ability to turn Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver’s decayed zombies into tokens with no abilities. That means you can sacrifice a zombie to Phyrexian Altar and Wilhelt immediately creates another—without decayed thanks to Poppet Factory. Interestingly, this combo has a popular Dimir commander as one of its main pieces.

#10. Riverchurn Rupture

Cards: Riverchurn Monument, Singularity Rupture.

Prerequisites: Riverchurn Monument is in play, you have enough mana to cast Singularity Rupture and exhaust Riverchurn Monument.

Result: Mill their entire library.

Variations: You can use other effects that mill half your opponents’ library, such as Traumatize or an attack from Terisian Mindbreaker.

The exhaust ability from Riverchurn Monument mills them a number of cards equal to the number in their graveyard, which is at least half their library after you cast Singularity Rupture. I chose this combo because right now it’s playable in Standard, and works in other formats like Pioneer or EDH. It has a few weaknesses, notably graveyard exile. If your opponent exiles their graveyard, the exhausted Riverchurn Monument won’t do a thing.

#9. Phenax’s Mill Variant

Cards: Phenax, God of Deception, Consuming Aberration, Maddening Cacophony.

Requisites: Both Phenax, God of Deception and Consuming Aberration are in play, and you cast a kicked Maddening Cacophony.

Result: They mill their entire library.

Variations: Many cards that mill half your library exist in MTG, as well as creatures that grow depending on the graveyard contents.

Phenax, God of Deception can team up with cards like Consuming Aberration that grow when your opponents fill their graveyard. This combo works exactly like the previous one, except that the execution is a little different. If you mill half their library with cards like Maddening Cacophony or a Traumatize, Consuming Aberration’s toughness is equal to half their library, and Phenax can then tap the Aberration to mill the second half, winning from there.  

#8. Peer into the Insight

Cards: Peer into the Abyss, Teferi's Ageless Insight.

Prerequisites: You have Teferi's Ageless Insight in play and cast Peer into the Abyss while your life is 2 or greater.

Result: Draw all the cards.

Variations: Psychic Corrosion can make them mill their whole library if you have it in play.

This is a very peculiar combo, and you’d better have a good reason to draw your whole library, or else you’ll lose. You can use this in a Queza, Augur of Agonies deck to make them lose life, or if you’re planning on winning via empty library. Peer into the Abyss makes you draw half your library, which Teferi's Ageless Insight upgrades to drawing your whole library.

#7. Guildmage Mill

Cards: Duskmantle Guildmage, Maddening Cacophony.

Prerequisites: Duskmantle Guildmage is in play, you kick Maddening Cacophony.

Result: Near-lethal damage.

Variations: You can use other effects that mill a lot of cards, like Traumatize or an attack from Terisian Mindbreaker.

With Duskmantle Guildmage in play, you cast Maddening Cacophony kicked. Your opponent will usually have around 15-40 cards milled, which may just be enough to wipe them out. This combo is very mana-intensive considering that you’ll have to spend on the Cacophony plus on the Guildmage activation.

#6. Infinite Turns with Time Sieve

Cards: Time Sieve, Thopter Assembly.

Prerequisites: Time Sieve is in play, Thopter Assembly is on the battlefield, you don’t control other thopters, and you have the mana to recast Assembly.

Result: Infinite turns, infinite sacrificed artifacts.

Variations: You can use any artifact that enters and makes four tokens, like Myr Battlesphere, as long as you have a way to retrieve it, such as Emry, Lurker of the Loch, or Academy Ruins.

Here we have a very straightforward combo. Thopter Assembly will return to your hand on upkeep and produce five Thopter tokens. Sacrifice these to Time Sieve for an extra turn, then cast Thopter Assembly. On the next turn's upkeep, you’ll return it to your hand and do the same loop over and over.

#5. Metamorphic Dross

Cards: Metamorphic Alteration, Archfiend of the Dross.

Prerequisites: You have Archfiend of the Dross in play, they have an enchantable creature, and you cast Metamorphic Alteration targeting said creature.

Result: They lose on their next upkeep.

Variations: Exchange of Words makes another creature have Archfiend of the Dross’s text box.

This combo rocked Pioneer for a time. When you enchant an opponent’s creature with Metamorphic Alteration and you have Archfiend of the Dross in play, you can make their creature a copy of the Archfiend, but without the oil counters. That means your opponent loses on their next upkeep unless they can remove their enchanted creature.

#4. Guildmage Crank

Cards: Duskmantle Guildmage and Mindcrank.

Preqrequisites: Both permanents are in play.

Result: Infinite mill triggers and near-infinite damage.

Variations: The Mindskinner and Syr Konrad, the Grim together will work in very similar ways, although potentially not infinite. You can use Bloodchief Ascension instead of Duskmantle Guildmage.

This combo has both permanents feeding into each other. Whenever you mill a card from a library, its owner loses life thanks to Duskmantle Guildmage. Mindcrank then mills more cards. You’ll mill all the cards from that library this way. If they have more cards in their library than life, they’ll be left with 0 or less life.

#3. Doomsday Oracle

Cards: Doomsday, Thassa's Oracle.

Prerequisites: You can cast Doomsday, Thassa's Oracle is in your library or graveyard, and you have a way to draw the first card of the pile.

Result: You win via Thassa's Oracle trigger.

Variations: There are plenty of ways to set up a Doomsday pile, including Laboratory Maniac and a way to draw. You can also win via enough blue devotion.

This combo works in formats where Doomsday is a legit win condition. When Thassa's Oracle enters play, your library needs to have two cards at most for you to win based on the devotion alone. When you cast Doomsday, you make a pile of five cards, with many possible ways to arrange this pile, like Gush, Thassa's Oracle, and three other cards. Casting Gush for free draws Thassa's Oracle and another card, and leaves you with two cards in library. You then cast Thoracle and win.

#2. Gravecrawler Storm

Cards: Gravecrawler, Rooftop Storm, Carrion Feeder

Prerequisites: Rooftop Storm and Carrion Feeder are in play, and Gravecrawler is in play or in your graveyard.

Result: Infinite enter triggers, infinite death triggers, infinite +1/+1 counters on Carrion Feeder.

Carrion Feeder can be replaced by any zombie free sacrifice outlet, such as a commander that takes advantage of this combo like Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. Relentless Dead can be used instead of Gravecrawler if you have Phyrexian Altar as a sac outlet. Some other cards allow you to cast zombies from your graveyard, too.

Rooftop Storm makes it so that casting a zombie always costs . Gravecrawler can be cast from your graveyard as long as you control another zombie—Carrion Feeder—so you first cast Gravecrawler, sacrifice it to Carrion Feeder, and immediately cast it again. With a card like Blood Artist in play, you can have infinite drain triggers, or you can generate infinite mana using Ashnod's Altar.

#1. Oracle Consultation

Cards: Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation

Prerequisites: Just be able to cast both cards in the same turn.

Result: Win the game via Thassa's Oracle’s trigger.

Variations: You can use Inverter of Truth instead of Demonic Consultation to empty your library. Tainted Pact too, provided that all your cards have different names (one Island and one Swamp at most). Laboratory Maniac also works as a wincon, but needs a way to draw a card.

Thassa's Oracle has been a mainstay of win conditions in EDH and cEDH, as well as other 1v1 formats. This little combo wins by combining two cards and only costs 4 mana. With a few tutors, you can come up with these in the first few turns of the game. It’s also a commanderless combo, so your commander just needs a Dimir color identity. Inverter of Truth was also heavily played in Pioneer with Thoracle, to the point where it was banned.

Wrap Up

Time Sieve | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

And that’s about it for Dimir combos, folks. It’s funny that Dimir, as a Ravnica guild, was centered around the idea of alternative win conditions and milling, with cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable and Vedalken Entrancer doing heavy lifting. Twenty years later, most of Dimir’s competitive combos involve milling players, or having no library at all.

What did I miss, guys? Which blue and black combos do you play? Do they involve crazy set-ups and many card interactions? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and keep emptying those libraries.