Dimir Nightmare Tempo

A budget-friendly blue-black tempo-control deck that shreds the opponent's hand, answers every relevant threat with cheap removal, and grinds out the long game on the back of Enduring Curiosity's card advantage.

• Deep-Cavern Bat is the ideal turn-two play: it attacks the opponent's hand for their best nonland card while flying over for lifelink damage, buying you time to set up.
• Nowhere to Run strips hexproof from the opponent's best creature and shrinks it, letting your removal spells (Shoot the Sheriff, Murder, Long Goodbye) actually connect through protective effects.
• Bitter Triumph is your catch-all answer to creatures and planeswalkers, and the discard-or-pay-3-life cost is easily absorbed in a deck with lifelink fliers.
• Enduring Curiosity turns every one of your evasive attackers (Spyglass Siren, Deep-Cavern Bat, and friends) into a card, so each combat step snowballs your hand size and eventually the game.
• Shoot the Sheriff and Long Goodbye provide cheap, efficient, instant-speed interaction so you can hold up mana on the opponent's turn and still advance your board.
• Spyglass Siren generates a Map token that fixes your mana or ramps you into your top-end while chipping in for a point of damage every turn.
• Tolarian Terror is a huge 5/5 with ward that costs one less for each instant and sorcery in your graveyard, often hitting the board for two or three mana after you trade spells.

Keep any seven with 2-4 lands, at least one piece of cheap interaction, and at least one threat. Snap-keep hands featuring Deep-Cavern Bat or Spyglass Siren plus a removal spell. Mulligan one-land hands unless they contain a one-drop and a one-mana answer. Mulligan five-plus-land hands with no action. Because the mana base is almost entirely basics, treat openers with only one color of land and no cheap spell of that color as a mulligan candidate.

Early: Deploy hand disruption and one-drop pressure. Lead with Spyglass Siren or Deep-Cavern Bat, use your Map token to smooth your mana, and hold Bitter Triumph, Shoot the Sheriff, or Long Goodbye for the opponent's first real threat.

Mid: Trade one-for-one with efficient removal while your fliers chip away at the opponent's life total. Land Enduring Curiosity as soon as you can protect it, then attack every turn to convert combat damage into cards. Use Nowhere to Run to shut off hexproof and shrink problem creatures so your removal always works. Tolarian Terror becomes a cheap finisher once your graveyard fills with instants and sorceries.

Late: You should be far ahead on cards. Ride that advantage by continuing to answer every threat, keeping two removal spells up at all times, and finishing the opponent with evasive damage from Sirens, Bats, and a discounted Tolarian Terror. Never tap out unnecessarily when you have Enduring Curiosity online.

• The mana base is nearly all basics, so color screw is the single biggest risk; sequence lands carefully and prioritize the color you need most each turn.
• Very fast go-wide aggro can outrace your one-for-one removal if you stumble on lands or interaction.
• Opponents with hexproof, indestructible, or recursive threats blank much of your removal and force you to rely on Nowhere to Run or race math.
• Enchantment-, artifact-, and graveyard-based strategies dodge your creature-only removal, so you may need to win the race with fliers instead.
• Board wipes hurt you more than most decks because your creatures are low to the ground and you have few ways to rebuild.