"The walls are empty, but your wallet won't be."
A sturdier, different version of an Assault Formation deck that isn't so helpless if it loses the enchantment.
The formation allows you to attack with toughness to turn all these puny monsters into serious threats. These monsters also can fight without said enchantment, so it is not all lost if you get hit by Dromoka's Command. You can also laugh all day at the dead Abzan Charms in your opponent's hand as you push big damage with low power creatures.
Benthic Infiltrator is an annoying one, and with formation on board, it's a major annoyance.
Prophet of Distortion is the low drop of the deck, with great stats for the mana, and the chance to turn into late-game draws.
Tide Drifter is an amazing support card, and becomes a boss with formation on board.
Vile Aggregate works all-round in this deck. If you have a lot of creatures but no formation, it's still an amazing beater, and with formation, it's hardly different.
Radiant Flames, while not colorless, is a suitable boardwipe as its max damage is three, and the creatures in this deck have at least four toughness, so I don't see why not.
Reality Shift is arguably Path to Exile for blue when it comes to Standard. After thorough playtesting, I believe instant-speed exiling will get you out of a lot more threats than just keeping them pinned down, and sometimes better than even destroying; It deals with basically anything non-hexproof. Creature-gideon, Ulamog, creatures like anafenza, rhino, hangarback, and basically any huge creature that you can't handle with yours easily, out of your hair completely; Trading their boss monster/threats for a 2/2 whenever you feel like it is definitely worth the keep in my opinion even if there's a risk that the manifest is another creature. To be honest though, there's better odds of that manifest being a noncreature spell, and even when it is a creature, "enter the battlefield" and "When cast" are walked-around because they're being flipped up onto the board instead.
Ghostfire Blade helps your aggro push, also a nice supplement while not holding onto a formation.
Anticipate for consistency, given there's no standard format search for enchantments at the moment.
Sideboard picks:
Crumble to Dust is a good way to tilt the game in your favor against more complex mana bases.
Negate and Dispel will help you against long match-ups. Control seems to be the thing everyone and their mother plays in my local game store, so this is ultimately a thing I'm picking on my own accord.
Spidersilk Net is an amazing choice if your opponent has a lot of flying presence. Doesn't cost any mana to cast, and if you have formation out, it becomes a buff, but can also block huge creatures if you don't have a formation out.
Touch of the Void is for extra aggro, also exiles if it kills anything.
The maybeboard is massive, but it shouldn't stir you away from suggesting things anyway; I still want to hear your feedback on the idea.
Sideboarding
Against aggro I would swap out the Ghostfire Blades and/or Reality Shifts (because they cap out at low mana and you don't want to give them more creatures, you also don't want to spend extra time setting up your blades, but that one is just me) for Touch of the Void and Dispels or Negates to get rid of some pump/token spells. If your local gamestore isn't so control-heavy I could recommend Horribly Awry in your sideboard, against aggro. The latter also helps against midrange to some extent.
Against midrange, I would probably swap the Radiant Flames out (maybe go down to 2 ghostfire blades) for negates and if anything, go all in with the Crumble to Dusts, hopefully screwing up their mana just enough to tilt the game in your favor. Reality shift will be crucial to keep in this one.
Against control, I would swap out the radiant flames and reality shifts for dispel, negate, and perhaps 1 crumble to dust; They don't have many creatures, and you want to cancel out their hand tricks as much as possible. Ghostfire blades will help you get early aggro in and hopefully just barely topple your opponent before it's too late. You can also choose to keep your reality shifts in so you can fight the control finishers, you can ALSO side in the Touch of the voids if you see them playing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which is pretty likely.
Some credit goes to The Cheap Deck Club. for being a nice little haven of efficient, cheap deckbuilding and peer reviewing/promoting of amazing, fun decks like this.
