The deck plays as a tempo deck, making favorable trades while increasing board pressure by buffing your Strangers. The AI works in such a way that it will not attack with units when it has low health (I'm assuming to use them to block). The key here is to stall long enough for your Strangers to become impossible to deal with.
Try to mulligan for at least 3 power and 3 influence. Crazily enough (for Gauntlet), the latter is better than the former.
This deck has a weakness to fliers. Currently looking into how to deal with this besides quicker snowballing.
Base Card Explanation
The foundation of this deck is built upon the following Strangers:
Ruthless Stranger: Decent one drop, good enough body to trade into aggro if needed.
Hair-Trigger Stranger: Quickdraw allows favorable trades. Works well with any Strangers that buff Attack.
Steely Stranger: A high HP and cheap blocking body against aggro decks. Text sounds amazing, but have not seen it shine in any games yet. May be replaced with
Kodosh's Stranger, but I lack the shiftstone to test this. Besides, it is a slower card, that costs one more mana and one more green influence, which in this deck is very costly.
Varret, Hero-in-Training: Great card that will carry most of your games. Transforming him is a quick process thanks to the buffs from other Strangers.
Determined Stranger,
Battle-Tested Stranger: These are the most cost-efficient and versatile Stranger cards, as their buffs allow for trading and blocking. Very scary when combined with Quickdraw from
Hair-Trigger Stranger.
Forsworn Stranger: A cheap 5/5 (or at worst 4/4) for 3 mana and has the Stranger archetype? I think so.
Triumphant Stranger: These quickly snowball your board into something unstoppable in about three turns if not dealt with. If you're able to play two, it's game-over, as the value of trading in infinite strangers is too much for any AI to handle.
Linrei's Stranger: Game quickly ends when this is played. Endless stuns and flying creep is too much for AI decks to handle. Hardest part is getting the two Blue influence. Arguably better than the other single faction Stranger legendaries in the new set.
Misc Card Explanation
Traver's Farm: Wouldn't be a stranger deck without it. It is not a terrific card, but will tip the scales in your favor if on an even playing field. Four health is a great blocker for 4 mana, and the
Triumphant Stranger that comes out will snowball the game quickly if not dealt with.
Stranger's Mark can be used on merchants, and very rarely, on an enemy unit to buff your
Triumphant Stranger.
Display of Ambition,
Display of Honor,
Display of Instinct,
Display of Destruction: Decent three cost spells that are fast and do a variety of things. I focused on the displays that were direct removal or life steal/increased your own health.
East Annex Smuggler 2x,
Pearl Abbey Smuggler,
Red Canyon Smuggler:
I tried at first having all 5 influences in the market, but this pigeonholed me too much by forcing me to only draw between 1-2 cards for each merchant. This way, the Market is ruled by Red, Green, Yellow, and you'll always have a good selection of units to grab from.
Market Explanation:
Display of Creation: Next best Display, and any of the three merchants can pull it out.
Strange Duelist,
Strange Gladiator: Decent three drop bodies with great card text.
Grodov's Stranger: Ends the game very quickly by cutting Sigils out of your deck. Rarely pulled out.
Harsh Rule: Never had to pull this out, game is usually won by then. Can probably be replaced by spell removal or draw.
Power Card Explanation
2x of each sigil - three is too many, two is plenty.
1x of each banner - one is plenty, two is too many.
4x
Common Cause - A necessity for any tribal deck.
4x
Seek Power - Great for pulling out the influence type you need.
1x
Diplomatic Seal - Second best power card to get an influence of choice, but we only have one slot left.
Stalling is hardest part of this deck as well. I would think trading out the four-cost Mask Maker for something is the way to go, though I'm still not sure what. Board clears would go against the entire concept of creating a wall of strangers to stall, and there lacks a Market in which to put one in there, so I don't know how well they could really fit in. Removal spells are an option though.