Trait Doctoring
is one of the most maligned cards I know of, and for good reason. It's the only one-drop Cipher spell, and its ability is so situational that it's largely useless, let alone usefully recurrable.
However, there is one spot in which
Trait Doctoring
really shines, and that is in Merfolk tribal. Merfolk is the only tribe to have two 2-drop lords in
Lord of Atlantis
and Master of the Pearl Trident, which both grant islandwalk to all your merfolk. Useless outside of the blue matchup in most cases, but with Trait Doctoring, it renders all of your creatures unblockable.
Now, yes, one major downside of
Trait Doctoring
is that it only activates after combat, so it's only useful to give creatures unblockable once. How do we take advantage of it then? Enter Livewire Lash and
Triton Fortune Hunter
. Now every time you deal combat damage with the Ciphered creature, you can deal damage or draw cards!
These cards have incredible synergy with Hidden Strings and
Gigadrowse
, both of which are excellent cards by themselves, and both of which can clear the way for more attacks and thus more Cipher triggers.
Finally, since so many of our creatures have in their casting cost, we can include devotion cards like Thassa, God of the Sea and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, both of which fit excellently in the deck. I rounded out the deck with Harbinger of the Tides and
Wake Thrasher
, since all are very powerful cards.
Happy Trait Doctoring!
