Okay so is it ramp? Kinda? It's debatable. The deck ramps to 5 mana to curve out asap using Dimir Aqueduct and Wayfarer's Bauble. It's not a lot, but it's what black and blue have access to. 5 mana is important to start casting Balustrade Spy hopefully hitting a lot of cards (though this is a bit luck based), and possibly setting back our opponent by forcing them to draw a land next turn rather than more gas but this is heavily dependent on board state and what deck you're playing. 5 mana can also cast Mnemonic Wall, allowing us to recast any of our mill spells. Most importantly, 5 mana is enough to begin casting Stream of Thought replicated. Ideally stream will be cast for more, but that won't be happening early on and it can shuffle itself back into our library anyways along with our other spells for great utility. Pelargir Survivor functions as ramp for spells, most notably Stream of Thought, while also serving as a mana sink mill effect.
The deck Relies on Iceberg Cancrix, milling your opponent for 2 each time a snow permanent etb's. This is fantastic, and ideally we will be playing snow lands and bouncing them with Dimir Aqueduct to allow them to trigger Cancrix again. Iceberg Cancrix will also trigger off of playing another copy, or Priest of the Haunted Edge. In addition to Priest of the Haunted Edge, Grisly Spectacle also functions as removal and both Didn't Say Please and Induce Paranoia supplement that as counterspells that also mill. The deck runs 4 copies of Darkness, a fog for one black mana. This sets up a similar strategy as the popular Simic Turbofog with fogs and Stream of Thought, albeit less consistent without as much card draw.
The mill and stall strategy is supplemented with big butt creatures to hold against aggro decks and small creatures, allowing our expensive removal and counterspells to be held up for big format threats that can get around 4 toughness. The mainboard creatures aren't really built to damage opponents, but the sideboard is built to be aggressive if needed, having 4 Jace's Phantasm, 2 Wight of Precinct Six, and 2 Tolarian Terror to help Balustrade Spy in beating down the opponent. Obvious cuts for these would be some 0/4 creatures that contribute more to the mill strategy, such as Merfolk Secretkeeper and Pelargir Survivor as well as maybe a copy of Mnemonic Wall or Priest of the Haunted Edge.
Despite being both blue and black, this deck struggles for card draw, only having Pilfered Plans. This needs to be tested, but the idea is this won't matter too much because the deck wants to play high cost spells with powerful effects.
Note: Unfortunately almost all of this decks budget goes towards 4 copies of Darkness. This would be incredibly budget without them, and while they aren't needed they help with stalling a lot. The deck could be run with 3 to a similar effect but 2 or less copies may just be worth cutting it entirely. If for some reason you decide to pick up this deck, I would purchase it without the darkness, and leave it open as an upgrade for another time. For anyone interested, the cheapest printing of Darkness is the commander deck reprint, at around $5 per copy.
