Dimir control Kraken + Trendils combo (Casual)

Budget casual 1v1 Dimir control deck. Lots of fun because you never know if it's going to fully work so the opponent has a chance to win and games become interesting - not just one of those control decks that don't let the opponent play anything. This is my very own personal deck that I use to play with friends, and includes the exact editions that I have of the cards.

It feels more like a midrange control-oriented deck because it's a bit heavy in creatures for a for a regular control deck but they're there for their control abilities - Temporal adept for board cleaning, Archivist and Arcanis the Omnipotent for drawing, Cabal interrogator for discard, Patron wizard for counter synergy and support.

The land set is pretty ok since a third of the lands tap for black mana, and every black card in the deck has only one black mana in the cost (except for Tendrils of Agony, but you'll be playing this in the combo win condition sequence in which you only need one Dimir aqueduct to float 1 black mana) so as soon as you have one of these you'll be playing the whole deck while every single land tap for blue. The deck is a bit weak for the first 3 turns as it doesn't have any 1-drops and blue 2-drops, and you won't be using black spells until turn 3 unless you have Sunken hollow in your opening hand and have it as your first land drop. So ideally you go first to be ready to answer anything in turn 2. There's a fairly high amount of countermagic (6 spells) and bounce cards (4 spells) plus early removal (Terror) and this should keep you protected, so don't keep the first ones you draw too long (early Counterspell or Boomerang can really make a difference, and even Unsummon or Force spike against high tempo decks).

Once you get an Archivist the game will start to accelerate for you. It's crucial to play as many lands as possible: when you reach 7 or 8 islands the game is very much in your favour. Sensei's divining top gives you control over your drawing and allows you to make it suit your needs. If you manage to get Arcanis the Omnipotent out you will probably win in a few turns. Honden of the Seeing Winds and Mind's eye also give you really good drawing boost (potecially you could be drawing 3 cards every turn since turn 6) while Consult the necrosages is a lovely flexible mixture between Divination and Mind rot, good option if there's a turn when you can't do anything special or your opponent is keepining a big hand. Temporal adept can target any permanent including lands, and that will really slow opponent's board developement. Patron wizard also have very strong impact if you play it early since all creatures except for Deep-sea kraken are wizards. Augur of skulls is a beautiful recurrent 2 mana Mind rot.

Damage-aggro win condition is unblockable Deep-sea Kraken nicely generating stress to the opponent from turn 3 with accelerated countdown by Kraken's time counter removal ability when suspended - the opponent's spell only needs to be casted, not successfully casted, so you can still counter it and remove a time counter from Kraken.

The combo win condition has two options. First option is doing the whole combo in one only single turn playing all the cards together in the same turn in the right sequence, and goes as it follows: have in hand Equilibrium, 2 Cloud of Faeries and Tendrils of Agony, and in play you need just Dimir aqueduct and four other lands - just a regular mid game land set. Tap Dimir aqueduct and one island to cast the first Cloud of faeries and untap them for faeries ability floating 1 black mana. Immediately after, cast Equilibrium using 3 lands. Then comes the key opperation: tapping Dimir aqueduct plus the remaining land means tapping 2 lands for 3 mana, so you can cast one Cloud of faeries paying 1 extra for Equilibrium effect to bounce the faeries already in play and then untap these 2 lands getting them ready to use again exactly in the same move. So this last step can be looped endlessly to accumulate any amount of spells casted this turn before storming Tendrils of Agony, which you will be able to cast because of the 1 black mana floating plus the Dimir aqueduct and the island you were using for the loop: cast Cloud of faeries one last time tapping only Dimir aqueduct and one island, but NOT using the third mana to Equlibrium effect. Untap aqueduct for faeries ability, and you'll have three mana available from lands plus the black mana you floated in the very beggining. Nos is when you cast Tendrils of agony and win the game because of storm. Second option is having Equilibrium in play before executing the combo in case you don't wamt to risk too much in the combo sequence or get it countered, or even if you had to cast Equilibrium at any time before executing it: just delete the first few steps. Plus, you'll need less lands so you can keep a couple island untapped to counter if necessary. If Equilibrium is in play, you only need one Dimir aqueduct and any other one land. It doesn't make any difference if you already have faeries in play before executing the combo. Get straight to the loop process and that's it.

What's even more interesting is that looping the faeries using two Dimir aqueduct gives you infinite mana in any black-blue combination (tap for 2 black + 2 blue but pay 3 for the faeries loop, then untap both aqueduct and repeat endlessly) so you can throw in the deck ANY win condition that requires X mana such as the classic Brain geiser/Stroke of genius to mill the opponent or splash red for the other classic version burning with Fireball.

Sideboard designed to enhance any desired deck's mechanics: Creature combinations allow extra board-cleaning, extra counter or aereal protection (Soratami savant), extra aggro win condition speed, more aggressive but non targeted discard effect (Augur of skulls). Control spells combinations are flexible to focus on different countering tempos (Force spike) or even permanent stealing (confiscate, Blatant thievery), while Addle works as a 2 mana Thoughtseize if you are going against monocolour.

This build of the deck is VINTAGE legal. For LEGACY legal just switch Sensei's divining top for Brainstorm.