Best Dimir (U/B) Budget Commander Staples Under $5
The schemers, the millers, the ninjas. The multicolor blue-black staples that turn information into advantage — all under $5.
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Dimir is the guild that wins by knowing more than you do. Blue draws the cards; black makes you discard yours. Together they make the format's iconic information-war color pair — mill, ninjas, reanimator, and the kind of grindy value engines that let you cast more spells than every opponent combined by turn ten. It's a deck that punishes a slow start and rewards patience, and almost everything that makes it tick is cheap.
The reputation that Dimir requires premium mythics (Hullbreacher, Bruvac the Grandiloquent, The Scarab God) is mostly a story the secondary market tells itself. The cards that actually do the work — modal counter-or-discard, an evasive draw engine on legs, a budget mill god, and an alternate-damage commander — are heavily reprinted commons, uncommons, and budget rares. You can build an oppressive 99 without touching the chase list.
What follows isn't a "proxy this if you can't afford the real thing" list. These are the actual best-performing budget cards in their slots, full stop — they just happen to also be cheap. Prices move constantly, so sanity-check before you buy, but the picks below have long sat comfortably in budget range.
→ Short Version
Modal interaction is Dimir's identity — Drown in the Loch, Soul Manipulation, and Dimir Charm cover almost any slot for pennies. The evasive value package wins the long game (Baleful Strix, Notion Thief, Hostage Taker). The mill/discard payoffs close it (Phenax, Mind Funeral, Lazav). Skip the chase mythics — Hullbreacher is banned, Bruvac and The Scarab God are luxuries, and you don't need them to win.
→ Expand Your Arsenal
In This Guide
The Top 3 Modal Instants
Dimir lives on cards that do two things, because a deck about asymmetric information doesn't get to spend a card slot on a single-purpose answer. These three are the cleanest examples of the guild's modal philosophy.
Drown in the Loch
{U}{B} — Instant. Inexpensive and reliably available.
Why it wins: Counter a spell, or kill a creature, where the cost scales with the number of cards in an opponent's graveyard. In a Dimir deck that's milling and discarding for value, you almost always have the resources to fire it — meaning a two-mana card that fills either of your most important removal slots. Modal interaction this clean usually costs three times this price.
Soul Manipulation
{1}{U}{B} — Instant. Cheap.
Why it wins: Counter a creature spell, return a creature from your graveyard, or both. The "both" mode is the kicker — it's a two-for-one that turns reactive interaction into proactive value. In a Dimir deck happy to put creatures into its own graveyard, this is a Force of Will-shaped effect at common-uncommon prices.
Dimir Charm
{U}{B} — Instant. About as cheap as a card gets.
Why it wins: Three modes for two mana — counter a sorcery, destroy a small creature, or reorder the top three cards of your library. The library control mode is sneakier than it looks: in a Yuriko deck or anything that cares about the top card, it's a tutor. See our mana curve guide for why top-deck manipulation matters. In an emergency, it's a counterspell. Classic charm flexibility at the classic charm price.
The Top 3 Evasive Value Creatures
Dimir wins the long game by sneaking in damage and triggering effects under the opponent's radar. These three are the engines that compound over turns, each one paying you back several times the cost to cast it.
Baleful Strix
{U}{B} — Artifact Creature. Inexpensive.
Why it wins: A two-mana 1/1 flying, deathtouch, draw-on-ETB that has been a Dimir staple for over a decade. The body trades up against almost anything thanks to deathtouch; the flier slips through; the card replaces itself the moment it lands. Every Dimir deck running creatures should run this; in a flicker or reanimator shell, it's a full engine. One of the highest density-of-value cards in the entire format.
Notion Thief
{2}{U}{B} — Creature. Cheap.
Why it wins: If an opponent would draw a card, you draw it instead. Land it on the turn before a draw-spell, a wheel, or a player's draw step, and you stack three or four cards in one trigger. Flash gives it the instant-speed ambush plays that define a great Dimir card. The kind of "what just happened" effect that ends games when paired with the deck's tempo tools. For more draw engines at every budget level, see our ramp vs card advantage breakdown.
Hostage Taker
{2}{U}{B} — Creature. Inexpensive.
Why it wins: Exile a target creature or artifact when it enters the battlefield, and you may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled. Soft-removal-plus-theft on a 2/3 body for four mana is excellent rate; in a flicker shell, it becomes an "exile and keep" engine that walks off with the table's best permanents. Steals the opponent's commander as a clean blowout play.
The Top 3 Mill & Discard Payoffs
Dimir's signature win condition is putting the opponent's library in their graveyard. The budget engines here are the ones that turn mill from a meme into a real strategy.
Phenax, God of Deception
{1}{U}{B} — Legendary Creature. Cheap and abundant.
Why it wins: Tap a creature to mill that many cards from target player's library. With a wide board of high-toughness blockers, Phenax becomes a single-turn mill engine that closes out games — one big creature can mill an opponent's entire deck. The cheapest dedicated mill commander in the format, and one of the best.
Mind Funeral
{1}{U}{B} — Sorcery. About as cheap as a card gets.
Why it wins: Mill until four lands are revealed — usually 10–14 cards from a typical 99. For three mana. Mind Funeral is the cleanest big-mill spell at budget price; one cast disposes of a noticeable chunk of any deck, and three or four casts disposes of the whole thing. The closest thing the budget shell has to a one-card finisher.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
{U}{B} — Legendary Creature. Inexpensive.
Why it wins: Two mana, becomes a copy of any creature card that hits an opponent's graveyard via mill or removal. In a mill deck, you're filling opponents' graveyards every turn — meaning Lazav is going to be the best creature at the table by turn six. Functions as a free toolbox win condition and a payoff for the mill plan in one slot.
The Budget Picture: Slots vs Cost
A common worry: "Doesn't every Dimir deck need Bruvac the Grandiloquent, Hullbreacher, and The Scarab God to actually function?" The honest answer is that it doesn't — the budget options below cover the same slots. The deck loses its high-end ceiling without the chase mythics, but the floor it builds to is genuinely strong.
Budget vs Premium, By Slot
Each row shows the slot, the budget pick from this guide, and what the premium upgrade would replace it with. The point isn't that premium is wrong — it's that the gap is smaller than the price gap suggests.
Illustrative pricing — secondary market moves with reprints and demand. Hullbreacher is banned in Commander outright, which is a useful reminder that "premium" isn't always "playable." The budget shell does the same jobs as the premium one, with a slightly different angle on each.
Budget Dimir Commanders
If you're building around the guild, three budget commanders headline the strategies these staples support — pick the angle that excites you and lean into it.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
{U}{B} — Legendary Creature (Ninja). Inexpensive.
Why it wins: When a Ninja deals combat damage to a player, reveal the top card of your library and that player loses life equal to its mana value. With a deck of cheap evasive creatures and ninjutsu enablers, Yuriko triples or quadruples your damage output without ever attacking with her. The single best budget Dimir commander in the format, and one of the strongest budget commanders period.
Phenax, God of Deception
{1}{U}{B} — Legendary Creature. Cheap.
Why it wins: The mill commander. Listed above as a payoff too — he doubles as a commander for a dedicated mill build, where every high-toughness creature you play is a mill-X spell on legs. Pair with cards like Wall of Tanglecord and Doorkeeper for the classic Phenax shell.
Anowon, the Ruin Thief
{2}{U}{B} — Legendary Creature (Rogue). Inexpensive.
Why it wins: Whenever one or more Rogues you control deal combat damage to a player, that player mills four and you draw a card. Rogue tribal mill is a real budget archetype, and Anowon is the engine. Slower than Yuriko but more resilient; the deck snowballs harder once it gets rolling. If tribal appeals to you, our goblins tribal build shows the same budget-tribal template in red.
Honorable Mentions
A few more multicolor Dimir cards worth a slot in the right build, but that didn't quite make the top tier:
- Damnable Pact. An X-cost spell that draws X cards and loses you X life — the budget Blue Sun's Zenith. A win condition for life-as-a-resource decks and a refill button for control shells.
- Ashiok, Dream Render. A three-mana planeswalker that mills your opponents three and shuts down tutors — an outstanding hatebear effect in the right meta. Note that Ashiok is technically mono-blue but lives in every Dimir deck thanks to her two abilities being exactly what the archetype wants.
- Forced Fruition. An enchantment that makes opponents mill four whenever they cast a non-creature spell — a passive mill engine that compounds quickly in a four-player game. Niche but powerful as a finishing piece.
Common Mistakes
Trying to mill three opponents at once.
Mill is a 99-card-per-opponent problem in Commander, and four players means three different decks to deplete. Pick one target (usually the biggest threat) and focus the mill plan on them — trying to mill the whole table just means everyone reaches a half-empty graveyard and nobody loses. Single-target mill kills; symmetric mill stalls.
Underestimating Baleful Strix.
A 1/1 for two mana looks unremarkable on paper, but Strix is one of the highest-density value cards ever printed. Run a playset-equivalent (multiple copies, recursion, or flicker) and your card advantage compounds for the entire game. The Dimir mistake is treating it as a filler creature instead of an engine.
Skipping the win condition for "more interaction."
A Dimir deck full of removal and counters with no closer is a deck that stalls every game it plays. Pick a win plan — Yuriko triggers, Phenax mill, Lazav copies, or a budget combo finish — and build the interaction package around it. Dimir's reactive package is supposed to buy time for the engine; the engine has to exist.
Where to Buy the Pieces
Dimir is built from singles, so a singles marketplace is the way to assemble it affordably. TCGplayer and Card Kingdom are the go-to stops for the cheap commons and uncommons that make up this list — buy the modal instants and Baleful Strix first, since they're inexpensive and define the deck's game plan. eBay is useful for bulk Dimir lots, and Amazon carries sealed precons that often include several of these staples. Prices vary between sellers, so compare carts before checking out.
Dimir Budget FAQ
- Is mill actually a viable win condition in Commander? Single-target mill is, yes — you can absolutely take one opponent out of the game by emptying their library. Table-wide mill is much harder and usually a losing plan in four-player games. Focus the mill plan, and it works.
- Do I need The Scarab God? No. Yuriko, Lazav, and Phenax are all under-$5 commanders that win on their own engines. The Scarab God is a powerful card and a fine upgrade once you've outgrown budget — but it's not the floor of a Dimir deck. Our $50 deck blueprint walks through how to allocate a tight budget across slots.
- What about Hullbreacher? Banned in Commander. Notion Thief does most of what Hullbreacher did at a fraction of the price and is fully legal. Always check banlist status before chasing a "premium" card.
- Will Dimir get hated out at the table? Mill in particular can attract attention from players who don't like watching their decks get exiled. The Yuriko damage plan is usually less threatening to the table because each individual hit is small — until it isn't.
Win Quietly. Win Often.
Dimir is the guild that turns information into advantage. Modal interaction that does two jobs at once. Evasive creatures that draw cards for landing and steal cards for hitting. A mill plan that closes one opponent at a time. A commander whose card hand reveals are the win condition. Every piece of it sits comfortably under $5, and Hullbreacher is banned, so the chase-mythic story was always partly fiction.
Build the engine, pick a finisher, and let the table watch their libraries disappear one card at a time. Dimir is the budget deck that punches the hardest above its price.
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