Paranoid Delusions

Sorcery

Target player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Cipher (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may play a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)

Combos

• Mist Intruder + Paranoid Delusions

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

9-lives on HELL MILL

2 years ago

If you really want to use your mill as player damage tactic, we could have Slither Blade and Paranoid Delusions, cipher Paranoid Delusions onto the Slither Blade. Each connected hit would make Paranoid Delusions cast. Unless your Slither Blade is removed from game, it is also a way to consistently remove cards with a low MV of one blue for the Slither Blade and one blue and one black with the Paranoid Delusions. I'm not saying this si a good idea, just throwing things out there that you might find an affinity towards. Any and all mill would help if you want to win fast, and the opponent wouldn't be expecting you to mill from combat damage. Think of this as a slow chipping away while waiting for bigger spells, as most of your mill spells are somewhat MV heavy.

carpecanum on Dead: Flooded Catacombs

2 years ago

Maybe some typical mill cards to fill graveyards? Sphinx's Tutelage , Traumatize , Startled Awake  ^Flip, Paranoid Delusions .

Phenax, God of Deception is a solid blocker and steady mill.

TheVectornaut on Blue-Black Deck

3 years ago

I'd start by identifying what you want the main goal of your deck to be. I see two main ideas here that could be built around.

The first is dealing unblocked damage by disincentivizing blocks with deathtouch. Darkblade Agent , Eternal of Harsh Truths , Graveblade Marauder , and maybe Blightsteel Colossus (with enough reanimation) fit this archetype. Because of the two "blade" cards, there is some overlap with the second archetype which I'll cover next (and if you keep them, cards like Notion Rain , Mission Briefing , Thought Erasure , and Discovery / Dispersal are likely to get more mileage than Divination or Secrets of the Golden City ), but there may be even better ways to profit from unblocked creatures. Curiosity enchantments like Curious Obsession , Sixth Sense , and Keen Sense are frequent accompaniments to the Invisible Stalker s and other bogles of the world, and Bident of Thassa is a strong option for those going wide. I like Quietus Spike as a sort of midway point between Basilisk Collar and Master of Cruelties in decks like these too. Other beaters to get in with could be Tomebound Lich , Oona's Blackguard , Dimir Cutpurse , Looter il-Kor , Shadowmage Infiltrator , Surrakar Spellblade , Wharf Infiltrator , or Virtus the Veiled if he's legal in whatever format this is for. More generic deathtouch synergy could include Hooded Blightfang , Viridian Longbow , Thornbite Staff , Psionic Gift enchantments, and any source of first strike. Finally, I like Cipher as a way to gain advantage from repeated attacks, so maybe a Hidden Strings or Paranoid Delusions could come in handy.

The second main idea is to stack the graveyard(s) with as many creatures as possible to extract value from Undergrowth and similar mechanics. Avatar of Woe , Lotleth Giant , Trepanation Blade , Teferi's Tutelage , and some of your Disentomb effects fit here. Major threats in these kinds of decks include Wight of Precinct Six , Jace's Phantasm , Consuming Aberration , Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker , Fleet Swallower , Nemesis of Reason , Bonehoard , Mortivore , and Nighthowler . If you want to focus on your own graveyard, green is a great color to dip into as I alluded to earlier. Ghoultree , Boneyard Wurm , Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord , Splinterfright , Nyx Weaver , Nemesis of Mortals , Spider Spawning , and Kessig Cagebreakers are just some of the tools you get access to. Golgari is also the king of Undergrowth, so Hatchery Spider , Izoni, Thousand-Eyed , Molderhulk , Rhizome Lurcher / Undergrowth Scavenger , Kraul Harpooner , and Necrotic Wound are on the table. If milling your opponents is more your thing, some staples to consider are Thought Scour , Sphinx's Tutelage , Drown in the Loch , Traumatize , Fraying Sanity , and the crab duo. Jace's Erasure , Psychic Corrosion , and the Tutelage pair benefit the most from other draw synergy, and Visions of Beyond is an obvious inclusion if that's the route you take. Either way, I'd cut down to only the most efficient of your reanimate to hand cards and the like since you don't want to be stuck with a fist full of them and no creatures in the graveyard to target. Speaking of cuts, for maximum power, it's usually correct to play as close to the 60 card minimum as possible. Picking a single strategy to hone in on should make it easier to whittle down to the most important 60 in the deck.

If you have questions, let me know. Good luck with your build!

Barbarian_Sun_Pope on Dimir Unblockable Equips

3 years ago

Have you considered Invisible Stalker? It's got protection built in and it is also unblockable. Triton Shorestalker can also be pretty good additional copies of Slither Blade if you want to double up. Looter il-Kor is practically unblockable and also provides some card filtering. If you do go this route you could also add in Cloak and Dagger because it auto equips. Also, not sure if Paranoid Delusions quite fits this deck, since it appears you could probably win through damage so much faster than milling. Not counting Trepanation Blade since it does both damage and mill. Hope this helps.

Spell_Slam on UB Phantasm Control Mill Variant

3 years ago

You are definitely focusing too much on mill to enable only 6 cards in your deck. You could be doing it much more organically, as you mentioned, with removal/discard/counters.

If there is a mill card you could look at, it might be Paranoid Delusions, since you can mill an opponent 6 cards in one turn with it easily and potentially get to 9 the following turn, which can enable your plan consistently throughout the game.

I would definitely cut Mind Sculpt and Memory Sluice in favor of more control cards. Chainer's Edict, another copy of Cast Down and Disfigure are classics. Artful Dodge is another one that confuses me and could probably be cut.

Wight of Precinct Six doesn't seem like a great card, since it only counts creatures. In the very late game it will be big, but it seems like most of the time it will be a weaker and more expensive Gurmag Angler (not to mention getting weaker with graveyard hate).

Esper Panorama is not a very common piece of fixing and I'm curious why you chose it over Dismal Backwater or Dimir Aqueduct.

You could also definitely use more card draw (those slots get sucked up by mill right now). Preordain and Augur of Bolas are classics for Dimir Control.

EleshNornsFs on Prismatic Dragon

3 years ago

Plenty of cards have activated abilities that are just other cards, and it's not like Paranoid Delusions was ever Top 8. I don't see anything wrong with it being on an activated ability.

EleshNornsFs on Prismatic Dragon

3 years ago

When I saw the dimir ability, the first thing I thought of was the card Paranoid Delusions. It is a repeatable milling effect that costs UB, but it mills 3 instead of 1. If you just increased the mill to 3 or even 5 to match Tome Scour, that would fix that ability.

jakeelephant006 on its too late they are already under your bed

3 years ago

This deck performs very well with some decently large deficiencies. I think you need to cut some weaker cards (sorceries and creatures mostly) and add in more Ninjas and ninja synergies.

Cards to Cut: Creatures: Definite cuts are Jeskai Infiltrator, but I'd also heavily consider trimming Dark Impostor, Deathcult Rogue, Etrata, the Silencer, and Nezumi Cutthroat.

Sorceries: Definitely cut Hour of Eternity, Kefnet's Last Word, Paranoid Delusions and consider trimming Ghostform, Slip Through Space, or Stealth Mission.

Artifacts, Enchantments, Instants, Planeswalkers, and Lands: I would definitely cut Briber's Purse, Fatal Push, and Vraska, Scheming Gorgon while also giving thought to the merits of including Skygames, Bontu's Monument, Forge of Heroes, Unclaimed Territory, and of, or at least the Amonkhet, cycling lands.

The cards I have recommended are either slow, have low to zero synergy with the rest of the deck, or are typically weak in commander.

Cards to Add Creatures: Ninjas, ninjas, and more ninjas (plus some cheaper unblockables for good measure). There are 19 Ninjas in mtg history (excluding changelings). You have 11 in this deck. I think you ought to have more. The cheapest are Mistblade Shinobi, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Skullsnatcher, Throat Slitter, and Walker of Secret Ways. Higure, the Still Wind and Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni are both reasonable splurges in terms of powerful Ninjas to acquire. Now for other creatures to enable Ninjitsu. First off, I could have included Changeling Outcast in the last section since it is also a Ninja and you should absolutely be running it in here. Other small unblockables for you to Ninjitsu into are Gudul Lurker, Slither Blade, Tormented Soul, Faerie Seer, Mothdust Changeling, Gingerbrute, Dimir Infiltrator, Baleful Strix, Invisible Stalker, Augury Owl, Sage Owl, Spire Owl, and Cloud of Faeries. All of these cards are less than 3 cmc, and are either entirely unblockable or have good etb/ltb or dealing combat damage synergy (and are mostly pretty cheap too). I'd recommend adding at least 3 or 4 of them in addition to the above ninjas.

Other cards: This section is mostly for general things that you could do to make this deck more consistent and enjoyable to pilot, but there are a couple specific synergies I think you're missing out on. They're both pretty intertwined so I'll just address them together. I think you could be putting in a few more cards that are good to reveal off of Yuriko's trigger and ways to manipulate the top of your library so you get those card when they are most impactful. I am referring to cards like Treasure Cruise, Sibsig Muckdraggers, Temporal Trespass, Dig Through Time, Draco, Consign / Oblivion, Murderous Cut, Far / Away, Curtains' Call, Into the Story, Submerge, Commandeer, Commit / Memory, Discovery / Dispersal, Rags / Riches, In Garruk's Wake, and any other high cost card that has an alternate mana cost, mana reducing ability, split card, or is a high impact card. Then you could also throw in a few ways to manipulate the top of your library like Brainstorm, Ponder, Serum Visions, Tamiyo's Epiphany, and Crystal Ball. The only other synegystic thing you could put in here is making your other creatures Ninjas as well with Conspiracy, Xenograft, Arcane Adaptation, and Amorphous Axe.

Otherwise, you could probably add in some more ramp (Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Star Compass, etc.), card draw (see cantrips above and Last Thoughts), board wipes (could probably replace Bontu's Last Reckoning with some of the ones from the last section or just add those ones or some other good boardwipes) and spot removal or counterspells (I don't see a lot of good ways to deal w/ non-creature permanents in here).