Standard: Dimir Bounce - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

With the recent rise of Esper Pixie, Standard players are exploring the Bounce theme a bit more to generate value with their cards. One such variant is Dimir , whose greater ease of access to colors allows it to use one of the best answers against the Mirror: Get Out.

Complemented with the interaction between Entity Tracker, Fear of Isolation and enchantments with ETB effects, Dimir Bounce has become another popular proposal in recent weeks. In this article, we explore this deck with a Sideboard guide for the main matchups in Standard!

Unlike the Esper variants, Dimir Bounce is still in a very experimental phase in Standard and there are a few different versions of it. The list above follows the most famous line of the archetype today - and the most distinct of Dimir Midrange - where it is based on the interaction between Entity Tracker with enchantments to generate card advantage, including “looping” Fear of Isolation to draw several cards in a turn.

Maindeck

Our enablers, whose abilities allow us to reuse our cards every turn.

Fear of Isolation has a decent body for its cost and can return any permanent to its owner's hand, including a land to cost only if its controller has not made a land drop. The interaction between two of them and Entity Tracker is one of the main attractions of this variant.

This Town Ain't Big Enough is a super efficient Tempo play that allows us to extract value from our cards' ETB while returning a permanent to our opponent's hand. We can also use it to protect our creatures from sweepers.

Get Out is another motivator for opting for the two-color version. Due to the growing popularity of Esper Pixie and the placement of archetypes with creatures or enchantments at the top of the Metagame, it is a very well-positioned card for Standard today and can also be used as 5-8 copies of This Town Ain't Big Enough to protect our permanents.

Entity Tracker guarantees an extra draw for each enchantment we play in the match, and with so many one-mana pieces in this category, it is common to draw two or more cards per turn when it is in play.

Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is an extra bounce and win condition, with good top filtering, increasing board pressure, or controlling the opponent's battlefield. Since we have a slower strategy, it is a good option in the maindeck.

Our complementary creatures.

Floodpits Drowner is cheap, easy to reuse, and provides space for creatures to attack and/or for Tempo plays that slow the opponent down. If something really needs to be resolved, we can shuffle it back with the chosen permanent.

Stormchaser's Talent provides a 1/1 body with Prowess, triggers other tokens created by it, interacts with Entity Tracker, and costs only one mana to put more pressure on the board. In general, it is our main route to victory.

Hopeless Nightmare mixes cheap disruption with damage to extend our clock in the game. It's a common side out in games where cards in hand matter less, such as against Aggro.

Nowhere to Run is a comprehensive answer in the Metagame today and handles many cards from different decks, with the only exception being common late-game bombs from Ramp archetypes, or creatures like Archfiend of the Dross and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Go for the Throat and Anoint with Affliction come in as extra removals against cards that Nowhere to Run doesn't resolve, but they are flexible slots and can be transformed into whatever is needed for your Metagame.

With two colors, we're looking to maximize the number of duals and utility lands we can have in the list, with one set of each of the lands that enter untapped in the first turns, combined with Restless Reef as an additional threat and Undercity Sewers to provide some filtering, as well as helping to enable Gloomlake Verge.

Sideboard

Tishana's Tidebinder offers a way to deal with triggers that we have trouble dealing with otherwise and/or that generate too much value for the opponent. Examples include Zur, Eternal Schemer, the Overlords cycle, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, and sometimes even Abhorrent Oculus is a relevant target for this card.

Ghost Vacuum is primarily used against Azorius Tempo, but there are other matchups where having an answer against graveyards helps delay the opponent's plan.

Cut Down and The Witch's Vanity are answers for Aggro games and can also be used in the mirror, with the advantage of The Witch's Vanity being reusable with our bounces.

Blot Out is used against Midrange games to deal with Planeswalkers like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares or Nissa, Ascended Animist, but it also works against high-cost creatures and against Four-Color Zur.

Gix's Command works against both Aggro decks and Dimir Midrange games. A second copy of it might be a good choice in the current Metagame, but five mana is a high cost for this archetype.

Malicious Eclipse is our answer against Jeskai Convoke and other go wide archetypes like Azorius Aggro or even the Caretaker's Talent variants.

Negate and Duress are our usual answers against stack interaction, best used against Control archetypes, but also useful against Midrange or in the Temur Otters matchup.

Dimir Midrange

IN

OUT

Gruul Aggro

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OUT

Esper Pixie

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OUT

Jeskai Convoke

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OUT

Azorius Tempo

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OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!