This week’s card is Elusive Tormentor, originally printed in Shadows over Innistrad.
The Good: Starting off strong with a 4/4 body for 4, the Tormentor is a solid mid game threat.The vampire type has decent support, including in set cards that can be discarded without much issue like Stensia Masquerade. The discard to flip is a double advantage when it comes to SoI, as there is a prevalence of madness and delirium that this helps. Attaching any kind of +power equipment or aura can cause the unblockable side to become even more terrifying, akin to an Invisible Stalker with indestructibility.
The Bad: The cost of flipping can start to eat away at you hand rather quickly, even if the deck is prepared for it. When flipped it loses the vampire type for the lesser used and supported (in this block) elemental type. Dies to the fairly widely used Languish.
Where it might see play: Filling a similar role to Ætherling, Elusive Tormentor could see play as a control finisher. Unfortunately, the prevalence of Languish in control decks puts the poor vampire at a disadvantage in the very deck it would see the most play. Some Modern decks might have use for it to provide a soft counter to Ensnaring Bridge that can be run in the mainboard.
What it deals with: The ability to attack as a 0 power creature allows it to sneak under an Ensnaring Bridge of any size. In addition, the ability to dodge both board wipes and targeted removal make it a strong finisher.
What deals with it: Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker can be used to lock it into the 4/4 form, from where it can be easily dealt with. Shrivel effects are really the only thing that can take it out while transformed, but they do so incredibly well, as it can only flip to Insidious Mist at any time, not back at any time. Discard spells limit the effectiveness of the Tormentor, forcing a dwindling resource to be channeled into protection. Languish is a good option, as it kills the vampire in both forms.
Final Verdict: As long as the controller has open mana and cards in hand, the Tormentor is an incredibly hard to deal with threat.