Discrepancies

The first few games with Dirge went along the lines I expected them to: eking out wins but feeling as though if I didn't get that turn two ogre down, things were going to go badly.

And then I played against one of Jason's mill decks.

Playing against decks that have zero interaction with each other is always an interesting exercise in focus and patience.

Where are the holes in this deck that keep me from advancing my game plan? Are there holes in the other that I can exploit? At what point do you quit? It's questions like these that I have to keep asking in order to not beat my head against the wall while being defeated.

And in games when I was facing down three copies of Propaganda and a Mesmeric Orb, with no way to remove either, it's time to cut my losses.

So what do I know? I know that Dirge is not a Jason deck: It would require hand disruption in order to fulfill this role, or, lacking that, artifact-based board wipes like Nevinyrral's Disk.

I also discovered that having Nameless Inversion was useful because of its interaction with Blood Speaker-being able to get some removal on command isn't bad.

But, after running the deck through the analytics, I realized something:

My paper deck and my online deck did not match.

The biggest change was that instead of Yukora the Prisora, Xathrid Demon took the place of the heavy hitter. That isn't nothing though; the mana cost between those two cards is significant. But the downside to Yukora is too high, leaving me with the low end ogres and nothing of my more frightening demons. I'd replaced it and forgotten to make the change in the digital world.

The other line of play that Xathrid Demon gives me is a way to win when combat is no longer an option,especially if I've been able to get in for some early beats.

In addition to the Xathrid Demon, there was one less Raving Oni-Slave and one more Swamp. These are not insignificant deals.

So first I have to update the deck so I'm playing the same thing everywhere, and then I really do have to take out the Ghostly Changelings for something better. One thing Fuz has suggested: Demon of Dark Schemes, which is a pretty crazy take but...maybe?