Henry

## Overview

Written by: Awesome Sauce

Considered to be the boogeyman of Cipher, Henry is a fearsome deck that likes to discard your opponent’s hand before they can do anything impactful. He initially will spend the first couple turns taking orbs to have his opponent discard two cards of their choice using his second skill and can class change an allied unit on turn 3 to discard another card using his first skill. After his opponent is drained of resources, he can be hit into Medeus 7, allowing him to sit for a solid 100 base while their opponent won’t have any resources to check for said number. From there, the game plan turns into a slow regeneration of Medeus’s strength by using either Genny Overclass or B02 Elise 4(3) to regenerate orbs and resources, alongside using Medeus’s second skill to draw a card every turn.

## Gameplan

You will tend to spend most of your game slowrolling your opponent to deny them of resources until you have completely stabilized.

Turn 1: At most, you will be playing down a cycler card like Laurent 1 or Miriel 1 in order to try to draw into a missing card, such as Medeus or main promo. You will also be using any Linhardt Crest Powers that you have at any point in the game to keep cycling cards.

Turn 2: Ideally you want to be class changing into B01 Henry 3(2). Use his second skill to begin the discarding process.

Turn 3: You will likely be looking to deploy a Genny 1 and class change her into a Genny 3(2) to proc Henry’s first skill. Furthermore, you will continue to use Henry’s second skill to discard a total of three cards this turn. Continue searching for Medeus if you don’t already have him

Turn 4 onwards: Continue looking for Medeus, the game plan from here becomes less of a turn-by-turn basis and more of a “searching for resources” game plan.

Medeus Transition: You will be looking to either activate Genny 4(5)’s overclass skill or use Robin 2 to heal an orb. With any available bonds left, you should be searching for any Nah 3’s, Wrys 2’s, or Triandra 3’s to pick up with Genny 4(5)’s second skill.

Post Transition: Congratulations! You made it past the hard part! From here, you will be building up your resources in tandem with Medeus’s second skill and Nah’s second skill. You will also be flipping your opponent’s bonds face down with Triandra 3. Using the resources you have, you will also be looking to deploy and class change any Henry card into B01 Henry 3(2). This lets you swing at your opponent slowly while draining them of their resources. You can swing at your opponent’s main character until they have two cards in their hand, then activate Henry’s Mortal Hex. Continue doing this until you can reliably win the game.

## Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

* Extremely potent early game discard, obliterates most Turn 4 promoting MCs
* Can abuse B21 Triandra 3, Henry MC will tend to have less bonds than your opponent, so Triandra’s second skill becomes free

Weaknesses:

* Inconsistent: Requires you to promote on turn 2, you can also just lose the game if you can’t find Medeus
* Easily teched against: Cards like B22 Mirabilis or B21 Plumeria will prevent him from playing the game
* Extremely unstable transition: If you don’t have Genny Overclass or some form of orb heal, you are susceptible to death if your opponent can check for 100

## Key Cards

Medeus is essentially your main promotion for the late game. Once your opponent is drained of their resources and you are out of orbs, you can let your opponent kill you in order to activate Medeus’s first skill to transfer Main Character status to himself as long as this card is in your hand. His second skill allows you to stay low on bonds so you can abuse B21 Triandra 3 while regenerating some card value in your hand over time.

Your main value and regeneration engine. Genny’s Overclass skill lets you add any card from your retreat to your orb zone, and can flip 3 bonds face down to grab two non-Genny cards from your retreat. Pretty straightforward card, she adds a form of stability and sets you up for success by setting up your hand with the right cards.

Triandra is a somewhat underused card, and doesn’t see much play in the Cipher metagame, mostly because she fulfills a niche that tends to have better options. Most decks in Cipher will not be able to satisfy the unflip requirement for her second skill, but this is where Henry MC shines. If you are consistently using Medeus’s second skill to stay on less bonds than your opponent, then you will always be able to flip your opponent’s bonds face down while unflipping any one of your own. Once you have flipped all of your opponent’s bonds face down, they will struggle to properly play the game.

Nah is an absolute must have in Henry decks. Nah lets you grab any one of your bonds while replenishing your bond count with a face down bond after activating her second skill. This means you can get away with bonding something crucial to your game plan while having the knowledge that you will be able to grab it later when you need it most. Without the power of Nah, Henry players will face the struggle of choosing the right cards to both bond and send to the boundless using Medeus’s second skill, where said cards will then become unrecoverable.

## Sample Decks

Henry (Genny)
4 Henry, Twisted Mind
4 Henry, Smiling Sorcerer
4 Henry, Silver-Haired Mage Boy
4 Medeus, Resurrected Shadow Dragon
2 Robin (Male), Amnesiac Tactician
2 Robin (Male), Tactician of Many Mysteries
4 Triandra, Messenger of Nightmares
4 Linhardt, Sleepy Crest Scholar
4 Genny, Endearing Saint
4 Genny, Young Cleric of Novis
4 Genny, Supreme Saint
2 Nah, Little Perseverant+
2 Tiki, Manakete Princess
3 Laurent, The Elucidator
1 Elice, Legend-Bearing Princess+
2 Wrys, Healing Altean Curate
MC:
1 Henry, Twisted Mind