Fear of the Dark

Umbris, Fear Manifest is one of the latest additions to my collection of Dimir decks I play a lot on PlayEDH. He’s weirdly voltron in playstyle while not having to focus too much on effects you expect to see in voltron decks, such as loads of equipment and aura’s to assist your commander, because your commander support comes in the form of Nightmares and Horrors in your creaturebase.
Due to the nature of his exile ability providing him with +1/+1 buffs, Umbris gets quite high power/toughness consistently, causing you to have a lot of free building space to slot support and pet cards, or cards that are nightmares or horrors by accident that just happen to work very well with his exile effect.

As per usual with my deck techs, enjoy the Umbris metal playlist to accompany this article.
A complete decklist can be found on our PlayEDH Low Hub and at the bottom of this page.

Umbris has two abilities. The first one is continous effect: Umbris gets +1/+1 for each card your opponents own in Exile. This means Umbris likes busy pods and thrives in a 4 man (or more) EDH pod and weakens the moment a player is taken out or leaves the table. In a way, he has the same struggle as Araumi of the Dead Tide: once the table shrinks in size, so does your commander's potential.

The second one is a triggered ability: Whenever Umbris or another Nightmare or Horror enters the battlefield (ETBs) under your control, target opponent exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a land card.
If you’re unlucky, you’ll hit one card from the top which is a land and Umbris gets +1/+1.
My biggest hit so far is 16 cards from the top due to an opponent having played close to every ramp card in their possession and continuing to ramp with Sword of Hearth and Home and Sword of the Animist for several turns, thinning out their deck quite nicely and causing Umbris to enter as a 36/36 upon first cast due to earlier resolved exile effects.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to make Umbris a commander damage lethal threat upon resolution so it’s smart to keep Umbris back somewhat until you can guarantee you can protect him with a counterspell, hexproof, or evasion.

Nightmare

While some of these creature cards are strong in their own right, a lot of them are here because of the tribal aspects Umbris cares for. As per usual in most EDH decks, a lot of these will have a use outside of ‘being a Nightmare or Horror to trigger Umbris’.

I’m generally not a fan of cards that only serve a single purpose, I’m assuming most other EDH players share this vibe. Just keep ‘+ 1 Umbris trigger’ in the back of your head every time a creature is a Nightmare or a Horror.

Falthis, Shadowcat Familiar provides Umbris with deathtouch and menace making him more annoying to block - add a source of trample like Shadowspear (mentioned later) to allow for easier lethal commander damage.

Forgotten Creation - reprinted in the Wilhelt precon - gives us some potential draw on top of having Skulk, meaning we can trigger our combat-related draw in the rest of the deck more easily.

Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar while initially slotted as a draw piece, allows us to return our cheap CMC mana value nightmares and horrors to later on reuse their ETB effect. Your opponents are essentially choosing between letting you draw a card or making Umbris bigger again.

Overcharged Amalgam is just an ‘expensive counterspell with the option of countering abilities and being a horror’. We’re playing Low power so there is plenty of room for weird and quirky cards.

Ravenous Chupacabra is ETB removal, and while technically not great for its mana value, it’s a fun piece to recycle for its ETB with Grazilaxx and other flicker effects present in the deck.

Sludge Monster is a way to turn off other peoples value pieces - ‘frogify but somewhat worse’ but at the same time repeatable thanks to its attack clause.

Spellskite is a neat combat trick to have - this one turned out to be a ‘horror by accident’ rather than ‘being slotted because they’re a horror’.

Changeling Outcast is a 1 mana Umbris trigger and synergises well with our combat damage/attack draw present in the deck.

Yaroks’ Fenlurker is surprisingly good for it’s mana cost! This seemingly innocent card provides you with a minimum of 3 extra cards in exile and gets you a horror on top, outperforming most green or white equivalent auras that attempt to buff your commanders power and toughness for the same mana cost.

The best creature to support Umbris has got to be Nightmare Shepherd.

”Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, create a token that’s a copy of that creature, except it’s 1/1 and it’s a Nightmare in addition to its other types.”

If people remove Umbris, you can choose to leave Umbris in the graveyard, and instead wait for Nightmare Shepherd’s trigger to exile him before sending him to the Command Zone. This causes a 1/1 Nightmare copy of Umbris to be made, which triggers itself (because it’s a Nightmare). While the copy won’t count towards commander damage, if you already had a large Umbris, the body you are left with will be even larger due to the copy triggering itself.

Keep in mind this interaction leaves Umbris vulnerable to Stifle-type effects because of Umbris getting sent to the graveyard from getting removed initially, instead of putting it into the Command Zone. People can Stifle the Nightmare Shepherd trigger leaving Umbris in the graveyard with no token on the field leaving you with zero access to your commander.

Nightmare Shepherd also works as a boardwipe repellent. If someone wipes your entire board, choose to exile whichever creature you want with the Nightmare Shepard trigger, ensuring you choose to exile Umbris last (and return him to the Command Zone) so that his trigger is on top of the stack, and the Umbris nightmare 1/1 copy is on the field letting the other exile/nightmare copies hit the battlefield, subsequently all triggering the Umbris copy.

Exile

Your opponents collectively having 20 cards in exile is enough to make Umbris a one-shot kill from commander damage alone, and the deck already has plenty of potential triggers coming off the creature support package. That said, non-nightmare and non-horror effects that put cards straight into exile from their library or effects that exile graveyards are still necessary sometimes due to a slow start, or to hamper graveyard-centered decks or self-mill decks that are looking to use their graveyard as a secondary hand.

The more I play Umbris, the more I realize he is actually a very anti-myself deck as utilizing your graveyard as a resource is something most my other Dimir decks do, and I realise all too well that my own Araumi and Eloise decks would struggle hard to operate efficiently if an Umbris deck was at the same table.

Ashiok, Dream Render both mills and exiles, in addition to stopping people from tutoring. This card is quickly becoming my new pet card in EDH and most Dimir decks I pilot will include it. Preventing others from finding what they need, punishing expensive landbases by turning off their fetch lands and stopping the green player from being ‘more ahead’ by turning off their landramp all in a compact 3 mana package.

Dauthi Voidwalker made enough splashes in several formats so there’s no need to go too much in detail here. Any opponent’s card going to exile instead of the graveyard is strong, on top of that we get access to what we exile which activates the ‘Dimir theft happy chemicals’ in my brain.

Sire of Stagnation is our ‘strictly worse(?)’ Consecrated Sphinx but I’ve yet to see people hold off playing lands from their hand to not trigger it. Any land your opponents play giving you 2 extra cards in hand and giving Umbris +2/+2 is just good value over time, especially in games that are dragging on.

Soul-Guide Lantern got included over Lantern of the Lost because I prefer my own graveyard to not be exiled (the irony of this is not lost on me). You can run one or the other or both if you feel it’s necessary in your pod, but Soul-Guide Lantern leaves my own graveyard alone. On top of that it doesn’t require mana to exile each opponent’s graveyard and sometimes you just really don’t have the mana open to activate Lantern of the Lost.

Web of Inertia is surprisingly effective. After playing the deck several times, I noticed more often than not people end up with no graveyard due to the way the deck operates, meaning they have zero cards to actually exile to Web of Inertia’s trigger. It may as well read ‘You can’t attack me’ as that’s how the card usually ends up working.

Psychic Surgery seems rather tame at first until you realize the amount of times people just ‘happen’ to shuffle during a game. Any tutor, close to all ramp spells, fetchlands, etc. There is an abundance of ‘then shuffle’ stapled onto cards people run in a regular game of EDH. It’s also a direct counter to cards like Vampiric Tutor and Scheming Symmetry as you can choose to exile away the card they tutored.

For webcam play: you can use SpellTable’s ‘block’ feature to temporarily obscure the view to the rest of the table if your opponent prefers others not to see ‘what should technically be hidden information only known by you’ (Psychic Surgery specifies ‘you may look’, as in ‘you, the controller of Psychic Surgery’, so ‘just reveal your top two cards’ may not be desirable to every player).

Make sure to ask the pod how they wish to resolve the effect to keep it pleasant to everyone. Some cards are just harder to resolve due to webcam play - technically your opponent doesn’t get to see the top two either, which is quite impossible to do if you don’t have physical access to their deck, you just have to make concessions sometimes.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter is potentially one of the strongest cards in the deck for its mana cost. Funnily enough this card will become better the higher your power level goes due to the nature of running less lands and a lower curve the more you go up in power level.

In Low power this card tends to exile 6 to 12 cards per opponent and is an important ‘each opponent’ sorcery due to not focusing on ‘each opponent mills (then exile later)’ in the deck too heavily outside of Ashiok. Ensuring each opponent has ‘some’ cards in exile is important to keep Umbris big enough if an opponent gets taken out.

Kill with Power

We need to ensure Umbris actually connects for lethal so a less in-theme support package of a few cards was added in, providing him with some of the necessary keywords and abilities to ensure he gets to hit.

Swiftfoot Boots over Lightning Greaves for me. The response package in the deck has some ‘exile target creature, then return it to the battlefield’ cards and those do not work if Lightning Greaves are equipped.
If the battlefield is void of creatures outside of Umbris, we also can’t equip other equipment on Umbris or cast auras on our own commander while Lightning Greaves are equipped.

Aqueous Form makes Umbris unblockable and provides top deck information which is always a nice thing to have. Knowledge is power, and I feel adding some sources of Scry in EDH in general is never a bad idea.

Trailblazer’s Boots … I was a bit reluctant to add this initially but I have yet to find an opponent who runs an ‘exclusively basic lands’ land package in Low power so they’re here to stay.

Shadowspear serves as a trample and lifelink enabler. Yes, the activated ability on Shadowspear is good, but Umbris regularly goes above 40 power in a game and the trample to ensure we can hit for lethal, on top of the lifelink to keep our life total healthy makes the entirety that is Shadowspear an amazing card in the deck.
This card was 5 USD upon release and is now climbing upwards of 20 USD already. Wink nudge, please reprint Shadowspear in a voltron precon soon WOTC, thank you.

Rogue’s Passage is essentially a 4 mana ‘and then you lose the game if you can’t remove Umbris’ card. Targeted land removal are few and far between in Low power and this seemingly innocent card has closed out more than one game.

Slaves to the Metal Horde

I had a foil Maskwood Nexus in my collection since Kaldheim released but I noticed I don’t really often play tribal decks. There are some cards here that help with exiling that produce quite the number of tokens, and having a Maskwood Nexus to ensure those tokens are also nightmares/horrors which will then trigger Umbris once per token just felt like a fun interaction to include.
If there’s absolutely nothing relevant to cast from hand, activating Maskwood Nexus for 3 mana will generate one Umbris trigger. While it’s not the most exciting thing to do, it certainly beats doing nothing.

Oona, Queen of the Fae is a last resort ‘before my turn let me dump my mana into an outlet so I at least did something’ card. While it’s true she exiles, she is too expensive to slot with the ‘reliable’ exile effects we went over first. Getting Umbris triggers in combination with the tokens generated thanks to Maskwood Nexus giving them every creature type makes Oona way better to consider activating. It’s instant speed too, so doing this before combat damage while Umbris is unblocked can turn a ‘safe to not block’ Umbris into a ‘lethal’ Umbris in a flash.

Chasm Skulker is a rather slow card but with Maskwood Nexus will make us build an army of nightmare/horrors should it get taken out. Bonus points if you have a Nightmare Shepherd out and get a brand new Chasm Skulker and Umbris after a board wipe.

Szat’s Will makes for another fun combat trick to pull out with Maskwood Nexus in play. Take out every opponent’s beefiest blocker, then make tokens equal to the biggest creature you just took out, trigger Umbris thanks to Maskwood Nexus. I’m looking at you, Ghalta.

Rite of Replication should be considered a finisher in the deck. Resolving a kicked Rite of Replication targeting Umbris means you will have 6 Umbris..es? - Umbris is already a plural of Umbra… let’s go with Umbrises? - on the field. 5 Of those entered now, triggering ETBs, sending 30 Umbris triggers to the stack. (6 Umbrises x 5 ETBs).
While State Based Actions (SBAs) will need to be resolved before these triggers can resolve, you still get 30 Umbris triggers after SBAs have been handled. All of these triggers can also target a different opponent.

You will have to choose all 30 targets before any of those triggers can resolve, so spreading them out across your opponents is advised - you don't know how many lands are in an opponent's deck so there's a potential to under or overshoot here. Consider your targets wisely pending gameflow and boardstate.

This card also helps close out games if you’re left in a 1v2 or 1v1 situation. Pointing all 30 to the same player late game close to always means they are left without a library in the mid to late game, considering it’s 9mana to cast/kick and assuming a normal land distribution of 34-36.

Clone

There aren’t actually a huge amount of creatures that are horrors or nightmares that are relevant to our deck that we aren’t already running, even in a Nightmare/Horror ‘tribal’ list. Sadly, most creatures that have a double creature type and are Nightmare Horrors aren’t very great either.
Having ‘more than one’ of the same thing in the singleton format that is EDH is never a bad thing, so rather than force more mediocre tribal cards in, I opted to slot in some clones instead.

Phyrexian Metamorph can enter as a copy of Umbris or as a copy of any creature or artifact on the battlefield. I’ve yet to have it enter as a copy of Trailblazer’s Boots and start hitting one player with the original Umbris and the other with an Umbris clone but it’s something I’ve been meaning to pull off for a while.

Sakashima the Imposter can bounce itself at instant speed which makes for a repeat Nightmare/Horror ETB trigger (this is also why you’ll notice a Thassa, Deep-Dwelling in the decklist).

Spark Double is the only non-legendary clone effect present to copy Umbris. This is by design. Permanently having access to several Umbris triggers felt a little oppressive here and I wanted to limit my options in this deck to just a singular creature. That said: If you manage to Spark Double Umbris and then Rite of Replication later so you get to target your non-legendary version… your opponents now have one turn to deal with the board.

Heavy Metal Kibbles

All of the cards mentioned here are pet cards. While they serve a nice niche slot in the deck, they can be replaced with either more horrors, more nightmares, or some more card draw or ways of ensuring Umbris can’t be blocked.

Callous Bloodmage gives us a nice ‘three choices on one card’ but 99% of the time I choose to exile one player’s graveyard - this makes it a 3 mana singleplayer graveyard exile effect which is just not very great. I’m aware it’s mediocre and it’s likely getting replaced with something else soon.

Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is the definition of a pet card to me personally. When I got back into Magic: The Gathering, around the Dominaria / Guilds of Ravnica period, I knew Dimir colors interested me (from way back when I started during Prophecy) and I picked up a Dimir Guild Kit. While his effect is fun, when he dies those ‘can’t play’ restrictions fall off again.

Nightveil Specter and Thief of Sanity fill that same slot - yes, they do exile one card per turn rotation if they connect, but they’re here more for my love of Ravnica and more specifically House Dimir.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector ensures Umbris grows large after somebody boardwipes.

Rod of Absorption leans into the same ‘theft = happy’ playstyle I try to put in my Dimir decks.

Be careful playing Gisa, Glorious Resurrector; Rod of Absorption and Dauthi Voidwalker at the same time.

All three of these are trying to replace the same event - Dauthi Voidwalker sees any card going to an opponent’s graveyard (from anywhere); Gisa, Glorious Resurrector sees opponents creatures going to the graveyard (from the battlefield), and Rod of Absorption sees instants and sorceries cast by any player going to the graveyard (after it resolves).

If you have more than one of these effects on the field, the spell/card’s controller selects how replacement events apply. This can cause situations where you’re hoping to get creatures with Gisa or insants and sorceries with Rod of Absorption where your opponent chooses to exile them with a Void counter instead. Make sure you resolve these effects in the correct way!

Roots and Leaves

The remainder of the deck will be ramp, draw, removal and ‘in response’ cards. While we could go over those in depth, they’re not the most interesting thing to talk about and most of the ones present in the deck are relatively known in EDH already. Your deck needs these to operate at a certain level so they’re a necessary evil more than an interesting talking point.

I would like to highlight Essence Flux; Teferi’s Time Twist and Suspend. I feel not enough Umbris decks run these. While it’s true most of the time you’d prefer a counterspell, spells that can’t be countered exist and a counterspell isn’t always a fix-all solution for every situation.
Save your commander from targeted removal at instant speed, bring it back larger due to Umbris triggering itself upon ETB. They work quite nicely when targeting clone creatures too in case you want to have them ETB as something else. I should likely find a spot for Planar Incision from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty in the future.

Faster

If you’re looking to sidegrade and keep Umbris within Low power, here’s some small pointers:

Cuts:
Take a look at the pet cards in the ‘Heavy Metal Kibbles’ category and start making cuts there first. There are a lot of them in the current deck and I grouped them all together so they were easier to find.

Includes:
The deck could do with some more reliable sources of draw. Note how I’m not on the Rhystic Study / Mystic Remora play you’re used to seeing in most EDH decks with blue. You could consider a few more mill cards like Court of Cunning or Psychic Corrosion to ensure your opponents actually have enough cards in their graveyard to exile but again: Umbris tends to grow large on his own.

Cards I removed over time:
I initially had more flicker effects in the deck like Conjurer’s Closet and Sword of Hearth and Home, and doublers like Panharmonicon and Strionic Resonator, but these all felt like winmore cards. I noticed Umbris got to be 21+ power regularly enough without needing to double down on those effects.

I used to also have a heavier mill plan with cards like Maddening Cacophony and Fractured Sanity but in the end those cards ended up putting too big of a target on my back due to Umbris ‘looking scarier’. It meant Umbris was +60/60 upon first cast sometimes, and people immediately flipped aggro to my board because ‘now suddenly you have this massive commander’. Somehow Umbris hovering around the 20 mark makes him seem less aggressive to people than when he goes upwards of 60 power.

If you’re looking to upscale Umbris to mid power:
Lean way more into the hard mill and clone plan, ensuring your Umbris comes out as a lethal threat, but also having other means of closing out the game that do not involve your commander. You’re likely looking at less horror/nightmare tribal and more at dedicated mill and more mass exile outlets.

Umbris already costs 5 mana to cast, you want to make sure when you cast him that he comes out to hit for commander lethal damage, and preferably keyworded/hard to block/hasted when possible. If you don’t have access to Umbris, you’ll need more of a backup plan that does not involve Umbris and can operate on its own. Potentially a Mid Umbris deck tech is something to consider in the future!

Shoutout to Reyemile for doublechecking the wording and rulings laid out in the article - I never realized how thorough I had to be explaining how certain interactions worked to an ‘outsider’ point of view until I actually put my decks interactions into words. Knowing how some effects work and laying them out in a clear rules-abiding way can be two very different things!

Joining our Discord is free! If you wish to use PlayEDH purely as a social platform to talk about everything commander, come join us!

If you want to play moderated webcam commander on our server that’s possible through automated Patreon integration. Several tiers of patronage are available varying from basic play access to higher reward tiers such as dice, playmats, or private one on one sessions where we brews decks just like this from the ground up to fit your needs and preferred powerlevel! See you soon?

“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”

Explosive Engineering - Umbris, Fear Manifest - Low Power