In playtesting, this deck either works fantastically or not at all. It really revolves around getting the right hand. Ideally, an artifact (Avacyn's Collar is the ideal) is dropped turn one or turn two, and the other turn is spent controlling threats of the opponent through Duress, Victim of Night, or
Typhoid Rats
. Turn three drops a 5/5 indestructible Phylactery Lich, turn four (in a perfect world) drops another 1 cost artifact and another Phylactery Lich to make removing both of them very hard.
From that start, you can just go to town and control the opponents board. Duress lets you get rid of whatever artifact removal they draw into, and with an indestructible 5/5 (or two), their life gets very hard very quickly.
Inquisitor's Flail allows for a 10 damage [Phylactery Lich] on turn four, and Avacyn's Collar lets the Lich hang back after swinging (and probably destroying something) to be the best blocker ever.
Skirsdag High Priest functions as a finisher and a threat that makes the opponent scared to block the Phylactery Lich. And as a nice little synergy,
Haunted Guardian
, one of the very few artifact creatures in standard, has first strike, meaning that the equipment does very well on his body (the equipment in this deck only gives power upgrades).
This deck revolves around the assumption that everyone forgot about artifacts in standard, and hopes to kill you before you can figure out what to do about an artifact based strategy. +1s, feedback, and sideboard tips would be way appreciated!
