Budget Arena: The Haunt of Dimir (Standard, Magic Arena)
This week, I'd like to honor MTGGoldfish owner Richard by trying to get The Haunt of Hightower to work for us on the ladder!
Gameplan
I've tried multiple gameplans and variations of decks to see if I could get this card to work but the best result was to put it into a Dimir Mill/Control shell to help support our vampiric friend, The Haunt of Hightower! We try to keep the board clear with spot removal and board sweepers like Ritual of Soot, while countering our opponent's removal and disrupting their hand with one of my favorites, Thought Erasure. The difference is we're using Thought Collapse instead of Sinister Sabotage!
It's cheeky and very cute but we use Thought Collapse as a way to counter things but also give our Haunt +3/+3 permanently. On top of that it pairs well with our little mill gameplan. Speaking of our mill gameplan, we even threw in some more jank by adding Millstone and Wall of Lost Thoughts !
The mill plan gives us an alternate win condition and is how I feel we'll often win! The nice thing about Millstone is it gives us something to do every turn if we're at a standstill. It also grows our Haunt and is an artifact! Millstone being an artifact is super relevant right now as there is a ton of Esper control on the ladder and most of them don't interact with artifacts. We also have a couple of Walls as a way to mill and to hold back the early aggression from our opponents!
Lastly, we have The Eldest Reborn as a way to grind out value, serve as another win condition, and get back our The Haunt of Hightower as I expect our Haunt to die a lot. Seriously though, it will die a lot as it's a 3/3 for 6 mana.
Matchup Recaps
Goblins (L): Our opponent flexed on us at the end and it was glorious. However, we were so close to turning the corner!
Mono Blue Aggro (W): We were able to stick The Haunt of Hightower and grind them out of cards so we ran away with this game.
Simic Merfolk (W): We actually won in the best way possible. You've gotta see it for yourself. Here's a hint. It's one for the Mill players :)
Rakdos Aggro (W): We were able to control the board long enough. We countered a ton of threats and then they just ran out of action.
Dimir Control/Discard(W): The opponent was stuck on lands so they fell too far behind on resources
Golgari Midrange (L): We were able to hold onto The Haunt of Hightower but unfortunately it wasn't enough to beat a Ghalta, Primal Hunger and a Carnage Tyrant
Grixis Dragons(W): Their game paired up perfectly with ours as we Thought Erasured on an early Sarkhan, Fireblood which significantly slowed down their gameplan and kept them off their blue mana for quite some time. Our Millstone milled so many things it was beautiful.
Conclusion
This deck was just for fun and a reason to play The Haunt of Hightower. I would probably just go all in on Dimir Midrange if I were trying to climb the ladder. If you just want to play mill, I would drop the Haunt entirely as the Haunt was too expensive and died way too easily, but we all knew that! Ending with a positive win rate is all one can really ask for. Who knows, maybe there's a Haunt list out there that could work? Have you tried making Haunt work? If so, let me know in the comments!
See you at the next one!
- TheAsianAvenger
