Dimir Guild Kit

So between having an excuse to hang out in my local (sort of - more that it was near the place I was returning tuxes for my best friend's wedding - Best Man duties, you know the drill) game store and a giant injection of nostalgia for Ravnica driven by the D&D book I've made definitely over 20 posts about (two series with a post for each guild) I bought the Dimir Guild Kit - one of a group of sets you can buy that include a deck of cards themed around the given guild with cards from all the Ravnica blocks, a guild-themed d20 life counter, a pin with the guild insignia, and a cardboard deck box along with a little folded note that, at least for the Dimir, has heavily redacted instructions (that are unfortunately hard to read as blue on black is not really the most legible color combination.)

The deck is of course the main event. It's ready to go (albeit after a lot of shuffling to make sure the lands and spells are mixed) and while I doubt it's going to be winning any tournaments - there's rarely more than two copies of the same card, not counting lands - it's a veritable who's who of Dimir legendaries and classic cards. You get a foil Etrata the Silencer, then a regular (but updated to current templating) Mirko Vosk, Lazav (the one from Return to Ravnica block,) Szadek, and Circu (I had Circu back in the day. He was nasty.)

Most of the cards have a Dimir sign for their expansion symbol, except for a couple of lands, I believe.

While it's not going to be the most consistent deck with its single-copies, it does look like it is going to really power you through some milling or other alternate win conditions (like Etrata.) You have a fair number of walls or other deterrents against aggressive decks, and a bit of removal as well that looks particularly suited to smaller creatures. I suspect that if your opponent doesn't have good creature removal and can't break past your defense quickly, the cumulative power of your many milling cards is going to be overwhelming, either powering up some of your creatures or just killing them in the old milling way.

Naturally with its milling theme, this deck is going to struggle against the Golgari, though there are also a few mill cards (like Circu or Dimir Doppelganger) where you can remove that advantage.

I am of course totally ignorant of the current metagame. Dimir has always tended to be a somewhat slower deck, except when it focuses on a kind of aggro-evasion theme - but even then it tends to be more careful in its aggression than, say, a Boros or Rakdos deck.