@AlphaWolfs : Good point. I feel as though they have, once again, been too cautious about a mechanic. I say "once again", since in RtR, we've had the same experience with the Golgari's Scavenge. It's a very good mechanic, but the mechanic was just so costly that they're really only playable in limited (except for some cards of course).
I feel the exact same way for Cipher.
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That ain't gonna stop me from trying to make it work though :P
Posted By:
Dabok
(1/22/2013 3:05:31 PM)
All I did was look at the artwork, and I was like "Wow, that things a freakin' horror." Then I read the card text, "1/1 blue and black Horror creature token". Well done! Artwork approved!
Posted By:
Opeth2010
(1/25/2013 7:59:26 PM)
Let's just be optimistic and hope that Dragon's Maze is where all of the broken cipher cards are :)
Posted By:
lorendorky
(1/22/2013 3:07:42 PM)
With the number of unblockables 
and 
have access to in this set, I think the ciphers will trigger more often than most people think.
Posted By:
RedJaron
(1/24/2013 9:10:41 AM)
I can see this going into a Dimir mill deck alongside Sage's Row Denizen. A new chump-blocker every turn whose appearance chips off two more cards? Not a bad deal at all.
Posted By:
MisterAction
(2/3/2013 11:25:09 PM)
I don't know why this card is rated so low, especially in the context of Dimir. Yes, the Cipher cards aren't great, but it works out really well if you know how to use it. In fact, I've built a deck that maximizes it.
The deck revolves around Blood Artist and Undercity Informer. Put this onto an evasion creature (I recommend Cloudfin Raptor, it's cheap and will evolve immediately once you get the token in) after you get the token. Then build up your token base, tap land, and start sacking creatures to deal damage and to mill out your opponents. This card gives you the token engine a blue/black deck would otherwise lack. So this card, while not very efficient, is not completely useless. In fact, it's quite useful.
Posted By:
GhostCounselor
(4/7/2013 3:16:59 PM)
Similar to Spawnwrithe, when you think about it, although less multiplicative. Still, the ability to encode this on the token that it creates gets around the potential aura problem some Cipher cards face (it's not as bad as actual auras resulting in two-for-ones, but given that Cipher spells are underwhelming with a single cast it still sucks pretty bad), and the fact that the token has evasion only sweetens the deal. It's not particularly fast, but you're in blue/black, find some way to stall :p
Posted By:
LordRandomness
(5/22/2013 4:28:28 PM)
This is a good card. Play it and get a flyer, then encode on an invisible stalker... A flyer every turn
Posted By:
Yuudoku
(1/29/2013 9:02:48 PM)
insane in limited. don't look for it elsewhere.
Posted By:
Arachibutyrophobia
(1/22/2013 9:44:37 PM)
This card is really indicative of how most cipher cards have been shafted by their high CMC. I don't doubt that Wizards does a lot of playtesting with their sets before they're released, but this (along with a LOT of other cipher cards) seems too steep a cost for what it does. For four CMC in non-accelerating colors, I'd expect a lot more than *maybe* one token per turn, especially given that I can't even swing with these tokens until a turn later.
Posted By:
ThePinkBaron
(1/22/2013 6:43:16 PM)