Even if Dimir is "the best deck" in this world, I think losing to midrange value is a whole lot less irritating and disheartening than the Izzet combo deck.

Vivi could go from practically nothing to taking a 5 minute turn making 40 mana and drawing 17 cards and killing you

I sold one I opened to a local friend for $20 when that was the going price, expecting it would come back down 🥲

I think mostly the reason is just that once you go down the Vivi path, the cauldron + Proft's synergy is just so strong there's no reason for any other combination of cards. If only cauldron was gone, Vivi would likely end up in a prowess shell as the next best thing w lots of pump spells for mana

In my experience, a single Vivi can make something like 3-5 mana in a turn without much hassle, which is already refunding his cost and then some.

The multiple instances turns it into 15-40 mana in a turn which is obv insane, but even the baseline has a pretty low bar to clear to be very bad news

A little of both. The artifact exacerbates the issue of "why in the world is his ability 0:, with no tap requirement, no initial mana investment, no safeguard to keep pump spells from turning into rituals" etc.

He was the one doing the bullying

And with cauldron he was teaching sharks and gaseous detectives to do the bullying with him

All in all he deserves detention at least

I feel like the bit at the end of @tolariancommunitycollege.com's recent Pauper episode was a perfect encapsulation of it

Funny as a bit, but also a great example of why something so obnoxious shouldn't be happening

Em, no matter how small and cute he is, he's still a war criminal

I think Proft's feels like the highest likelihood after Vivi, but I wouldn't hate one piece of Dimir going as a 3rd.

But I think Dimir is mostly just a solid deck that isn't necessarily oppressive, especially in a format where Izzet being knocked down won't be pushing other decks out