Dimir Lazav (Standard)

The deck needs creatures to provide Lazav with . . . inspiration, and it needs ways to get them into the graveyard. For the latter, I opted to go with a tried-and-true Dimir specialty: surveillance. Leveraging the Guilds of Ravnica Dimir mechanic allows this deck to smooth out its mana and provide all the graveyard-bound creatures that Lazav needs. There are also some gems from other sets that help turbocharge Lazav's nefarious deeds. One of the most noteworthy is Tomb Robber, which serves as a discard outlet for creatures in hand, a way to explore creatures from the library into the graveyard, and as a mechanism to give Lazav +1/+1 counters that persist regardless of whose skin Lazav is currently wearing.

Creatures are the backbone of this deck, though, and there are a lot of good ones to choose from in Standard. I tended to ignore creatures that had abilities upon entering the battlefield, since they don't work with Lazav's ability. Other than that, I wanted to be able to shift around and deal with whatever situation Lazav might be facing. I've got Mist-Cloaked Herald for a bit of unblockability, Slippery Scoundrel for hexproof later in games, and Mistcaller to stop any token shenanigans. Every creature in the deck either furthers getting creatures in the graveyard, serves some useful purpose, or allows Lazav to sort of skirt the rules a bit.