Psychonaut

[Vacrix]

List is super rough, but I put one together for discussion.




Psychonaut -

60 cards
(12) Land -
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darkmoss Bridge
2 Urza’s Saga
2 Agadeem’s Awakening

(10) Initial Mana Source -
4 Mox Opal
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

(3) Chapter 3 targets -
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Hex Parasite

(7) Instants -
4 Dark Ritual
3 Plunge Into Darkness

(12) Creatures -
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Death’s Shadow
4 Hunted Horror

(8) Piece -
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Torpor Orb

(8) Distruption -
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize

(15) Sideboard -
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Defense Grid
1 Hope of Ghirapur
1 Plunge into Darkness

Artifact count -
Only 0 cmc: 19
Total artifacts: 33



Card discussion -
Urza’s Saga can find Hex Parasite to make tokens each turn. Hex Parasite can also sink the life total, enough to swing with a huge Death’s Shadow. One can also find Tormod’s Crypt or Pithing Needle. Hex Parasite can also remove the counters by 1 to find an artifact each turn. These plans are each secondary.

The main plan (or the ideal line), Urza’s Saga can find Phyrexian Dreadnought. If you have Torpor Orb in play, this is really strong. If you don’t have it in play, you can stall with Hex Parasite to keep the tutor line open.

Agadeem’s Awakening as a land sinks life for Shadow, but the very low cmc of all the creatures means you can get Phyrexian Dreadnought or Death’s Shadow, and a Hunted Horror when X equals 2. Reanimation when X is 1 is also reasonable. Perhaps more of this one since it imprints on Chrome Mox.

Illusionary Mask cheats Phyrexian Dreadnought into play for 1, Death’s Shadow for 1 and just attack when you are at a safe life total to flip it, and Hunted Horror for 2. You do cast the creature with Mask, much like playing a morph creature. (EDIT) X cannot equal 0, you can pay the mana cost or more than the mana cost.

Mask is weird because if you attack with an unflipped creature, before it assigns damage it flips automatically. Insane. If it’s assigned damage, it flips before the damage is dealt. If a 2/2 blocks something like Lackey or anything else for that matter, it flips. So you can be sure that an unfamiliar opponent is automatically going to be at a disadvantage when they swing into it. You have to be careful tho not to flip the Death’s Shadow until you have a low enough life total, so don’t block with it or it will try to assign damage and die when it flips.

Why play Death’s Shadow with Illusionary Mask? You can cheat it into play with a high life total. If you have multiples unflipped for example, the opponent can swing, and then you swing back and they flip automatically perhaps for lethal. That or get them into play and then find a way to sink the life total. Done this way, the life total can stay high until you need to sink it, like pseudo-haste. Death’s Shadow face down in play is also a nice way to get a threat on the board that eats a removal spell instead of Phyrexian Dreadnought or Hunted Horror.

Torpor Orb shuts off the ETBs for both Phyrexian Dreadnought and Hunted Horror. The symmetry is great against Goblins, DNT, and Painter.

Plunge into Darkness sinks life while looking for Mask or Orb, or a creature. A nice way to get your life total low quickly and then flip shadow. Also it can find Death’s Shadow by itself which is excellent if you’re trying to race combo. Petal, Drit, Plunge for 17, Shadow, pass.

The low curve makes me want to run an indestructible artifact land, seeing as its anti Wasteland tech. So Darkmoss Bridge is a placeholder. The other options are Drossforge Bridge and Mistvault Bridge.


EDIT:
Added to how to use Illusionary Mask and corrected some spelling and grammar errors.

EDIT 2:
To my surprise, Illusionary Mask automatically flips the creature if it would tap, assign damage or be dealt damage. Absolutely insane.

EDIT 3:
One must pay the cost of the creature or more. One of the more difficult Oracle wordings I think.