The strategy here is to attach equipment and cipher unblockable creatures.
Specifically, the
Tormented Soul
acts as a straight up 1-drop unblockable creature early game.
Dimir Infiltrator
is another unblockable that adds a bit of tutoring. Shadowmage Infiltrator is not technically unblockable but the fear and the card draw off the fear helps keep the deck rolling in card advantage. The last unblockable creature,
Blind Zealot
, has intimidate and gives an opportunity for creature kill if the opponent lays down a beater. The only non-unblockable creature is Dimir Doppelganger, which serves to take advantage of the opponents' heavy discard by essentially cloning one of their beaters they end up throwing into their graveyard.
There are two counterspells that act as discard engines: Dimir Charm
+
Psychic Strike
. I especially like the multi-use aspect of the charm.
The rest of the cards act to buff the unblockable creatures in two categories: equipment and cipher spells. The equipment includes
Trepanation Blade
, which is a discard engine that buffs the equipped creature, and Bonehoard, which also capitalizes on the discard engines and adds a graveyard-volume-dependent amount of buff to the equipped.
The cypher cards include
Paranoid Delusions
for added discard for Bonehoard and general disruption, Hands of Binding
+
Hidden Strings
for taking care of creatures and giving my creatures pseudo-vigilance if the opponent's creatures are getting out of hand. Undercity Plague and
Stolen Identity
are there for late-game bombs as they allow for me to reduce the opponents' boards while strengthening my own.
The slots I'm struggling with are the two currently holding
Flight
. I might want to put in a couple of discard spells like Despise
+
Distress
+
Duress
or some protection like Eel Umbra
+
Mizzium Skin
. I'm going to keep them all in a sideboard until I figure it out. Also, I might want to put in more finisher cipher cards as I'm not sure how this curve is going to work out.
EDIT: after pulling a Languish and a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
at pre-release, I've placed these two in there in place of flight for now. I figure that Languish will be a good board sweeper in case board state gets out of hand and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
will be useful getting card advantage before he flips and acting as some defense while I can use his flashback and milling strategy.
