I won’t lie, cipher is a pretty sick deck. It’s a hyperactive combo deck designed to dump as many xyz monsters on the field as possible, mostly rank 8 dragons and numbers. It’s really solid at otks and does it’s job very well, they got new support and recently I decided to make a complete guide to the archetype, my card reasonings and stuff of the like.
Before that I’ll explain what cipher is. Cipher is a archetype built out of light monsters, at least intended to be that way, there are two additional monsters who ended up with cipher in their names, I play one of the said monsters in this deck for extra names.
My run down with this archetype and optimal ratios from my understanding.
Cipher Biplane
Biplane is a new monster debuting in the anime collection, it was used once and never again in the anime, it retained its anime effect though and has another effect to boot. Biplane can summon itself from your hand if you own a cipher monster. It can also relevel two cipher monsters to be level 8, it’s thirty effects is that it snags a cipher card from your deck to your hand if destroyed, this effect will pretty much never be used unless your opponent crystal wings or something.
Biplane is played at a triplane ratio due to the lack of better extender options cipher has and the fact that you need level 8 monsters
Cipher Twin Raptor
Cipher Twin Raptor is one of the best cards the archetype has to offer, combined with Biplane this card is a solo x dragon, Twin Raptor can summon itself if you don’t own anything and then summon a cipher from your deck once per turn, the second effect locks you out of anything but ciphers for the rest of the turn but you can summon whatever you like before that, and in the end a free boss is a free boss.
Play 3 Twin Raptor in any cipher build. Doesn’t matter one bit on anything else just play 3, even if more support comes out Twin Raptor should stay eternal.
Cipher Wing:
Wing is a simple card, it summons itself from your hand if you have a cipher and it also can tribute itself to add on 4 levels to all of your ciphers, it’s an extender and that’s kinda it
Play 2-3 wing, wing would normally be played at a lower ratio but I won’t lie, ciphers doesn’t have much to work with so we have to use what we have
Cipher Mirror Knight
Mirror Knight is the only in archetype grind tool Ciphers have. It has a revival effect for if a cipher gets bombed by battle and a search effect at the end of the turn it was sent to the graveyard, at a glance this card sucks, and it kinda does, but it’s effect has something the other ciphers lack which is providing a follow up play next turn.
Play 3 knight, not because of it’s battle revival effect but because a follow up play is something ciphers lack so you need to have what you can have for a follow up.
Cipher Entranger
This card is very different compared to nearly any other cipher, first off, it was obviously made with no intention of being used for actual xyz monsters. But free xyz materials that reincarnate and a search on use is amazing.
Play 2, entranger will keep on recurring and is searchable enough that 3 is definitely not too necessary.
Storm Cipher
Storm Cipher was obviously not intended to be a cipher but it works, it’s a bad beatstick for the extra monster zones and it’s a cyberse, it’s searchable via mining providing six extra names though.
You can play 0 or 3 in pure builds if you choose to do so, but play 0 in variants, ciphers don’t have a lot of names to work with so storm cipher can be kinda a 3 of in pure, only because it’s actually level 4 though, in other builds you don’t play the card at all.
Cipher Soldier
This is unintentionally the oldest cipher card, and it shows. It sucks these days and there isn’t much to say about it.
PLAY ZERO, I know we are tight on space but this card is an absolute useless waste of cardboard and shouldn’t be played in any deck: period
Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon
The star of the show, this monster is super important for ciphers for providing a name to rank up with
Play 3, you need it to rank up and even cheese your opponents with its own effect along the way!
Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Blade Dragon
A neat monster with spot removal and reincarnates your galaxy eyes that you get for absolutely free
Play one, you’ll never need it more than once a duel and can easily go duels without it but it’s a nice option to have regardless.
Neo Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon
This card is hilarious, only for one reason though, vampire xyz monsters. The idea here is to take your opponents field, overlay them all for vampire, attack with Galaxy Eyes, main phase 2 overlay vampire and you got yourself a Zeus, if you stole 3 monsters for this then you got 4 materials to boot!
Play 1, it takes the rank up spell and is a one shot deal that’ll likely rope you the win when it goes off, I love the card but space is tight and this card only needs to resolve once in a whole duel.
Galaxy-Eyes Cipher X Dragon
X Dragon is a neat monster that allows a recycle of a dragon xyz, and you can summon it for basically nothing.
Play one or two, games don’t last long enough for you to use any more than that
Cipher Interference
Interference was used a lot in the anime, it doubles the atk of a cipher who shares a name with your other ciphers. It’s not able to be negated thanks to it triggering in the damage step, it’s cheesy but it sometimes does rope in a random win.
Play 0 or 1, ciphers don’t need much of a win con because of how big of monsters they can already make but if you like gimmicks it could be used at one. I opted 0
Double exposure
It doesn’t have the cipher namesake but it a solid card as far as ciphers go, you can’t search it but it makes you get level 8 monsters so I play it regardless.
Play two, due to a lack of cards that let level 8 monsters hit the field I play that at two for that purpose, I’d play one if it was searchable but it’s not.
Rank-Up-Magic Cipher Ascension
The rank up card for ciphers, there isn’t much to say about it than that.
Play 3, this is the card that lets you put Neo Cipher out, I cannot stress playing 3 enough, neo cipher is a ridiculous card that you want in your toolbox
Cipher Bit
This card is straightforward enough, it gives you an xyz control and a destruction protection effect, it’s not a opt either so there’s that too. Sadly most removal these days are not by destruction
Play 0, this card just doesn’t have the merit to catch up with the rest of the game and is not worth the space in any cipher deck, it’s just an unnecessary brick.
Cipher Spectrum
Cipher spectrum revives a monster and brings out another cipher to boot, but only if your opponent destroyed the first monster.
Play none of this card as well, there’s nothing this card does that’s of any use in a cipher deck.
Double Cipher
Sure it has a stupid duplication effect, but if your opponent has the biggest monster on the field than what’s another cipher monster with the same attack as another one of your monsters going to do against that? Also ciphers and numbers are big, you are probably going to have the biggest thing out at all times anyways.
Play 0, there’s nothing that justifies playing this conditional card that’ll never get used and has an effect that isn’t even that rewarding, if it were a spell then maybe we’d be talking something else like drago future in the side if your opponent will likely summon something that is big enough to trigger it, but it’s just a trap so drop the concept.
That wraps up every cipher card! Now for engines and techs you would like to run
The most important one is this small Zexal engine:
3 utopic astral hope
1 zexal field
1 double or nothing
1 utopia double
1 utopia dragnir
This engine is actually the best engine to run in ciphers at the moment, it gives you a monster who has the ability to jump start a boss and an amazing field spell that gives you a free materials, in fact at the moment this is the engine that is basically necessary.
This engine is highly recommend, it allows you to play tons of other different numbers and I’ll just say it, PLAY THIS ENGINE, you can’t go that far without it.
Extension on small zexal engine: tiny photon engine.
2-3 photon thrasher
1 reinforcement of the army
1 number 90
Number 90 can attach thrasher from your deck so the fact that it doesn’t have any materials when dragnir summons it won’t matter. At the point where you are playing both the zexal engine and the photon engine you have enough Warriors to run rota as well.
The win con engine:
1 number 97
1 number 37
1 number 100
0-1 number 92
Who likes big numbers? I do, and here’s how to make them, as you know ciphers pump out big xyz monsters, this engine profits the most from it, I do highly recommend this engine because of how funny it can be watching numeron dragon getting as big as it does
The vampire xyz
Sheridan and the undead vampire can overlay over monsters you take from your opponents, it’s a funny tactic.
That’s what I got in this deck, there are many more techs I missed but this build has a few to work with, this build is likely not the best possible cipher build but it should give you a basic idea of how to play them, I can’t exactly say that there are any specific combo lines though, just mess around with it and try it for yourself!
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