Editor's Note: This article is an exercise in deckbuilding, and the results are untested in the metagame. The decklist is not intended to be a tournament winner, at least not in its current untested state.
Out of the Game: Super Turbo Ninja Robots
Ninjas. Who doesn't like Ninjas? I mean, seriously, they're awesome. They wear black, sneak around, kill people, know kung fu, AND they can do backflips. Did I mention they wear black? Heck, Batman was a Ninja before he was Batman, Chris Farley was a Ninja, and James Bond worked with Ninjas. That's got to give the guys some street cred.
So I was reading this old thread in a forum somewhere on the Magic Internet and saw this big old section where this guy talked all about his great idea of making the ultimate deck by putting all the best cards from Affinity and Goblins into one deck. Pretty cool, eh [har har -Ed]? So cool in fact, that I was immediately inspired to build a mono Black aggro deck with Dawn Elemental as the finisher. A bunch of other people got into the act with creations such as the Leviathan Tribal deck and Lithatog. It ended up being a pretty good read. But anyway, back to Ninjas.
Fusion or Confusion?
Take one part Vampire, one part hottie, one part
leather... see? Fusion does work.
Looking at the Standard decks that went 6-0 at Worlds (Gifts, , Glare, Tron), I wondered how they would work if properly combined into one. Then I thought about what kind of guy would use such cool, disparate elements. Not a Wizard, bit too eclectic of a grouping for that bunch of thinkmongers, but then all of a sudden, it hit me. NINJAS!!
Ok, actually, that sounds nice, and it's about how the deck ends up looking. What really happened is, I was reading though some Tron thread and saw the suggestion of Gifts for Life + Tron. There is no way on earth the current builds of Tron could support that, so I started thinking about how to make it actually work. A couple of thoughts came to mind.
- Fewer copies of the Tron were needed since you could search them out.
- If you're using Green, trying to stall/skip the early game and want to have lots of mana, you need to run Elder.
- If you're running Elder, you need more sources of early Green.
- Gifts works best with recursion, and if you're not running the Hana Kami/Arcane engine, then you should think about Recollect/Reclaim.
- If I'm going to run Recollect/Reclaim, wouldn't it be great to have a way to put them back into my library so I could Gifts for them again? Hello, Reito Lantern.
- That's a pretty mana intensive, but powerful, recurring tutor engine. Some kind of massive mana engine was required. Oh look, we're already running the Tron.
- Life from the Loam decks usually end up with lots and lots of cards in hand, how can we take advantage of this? Saviors of Kamigawa had a "hand size matters" theme didn't it?
Ninja Rap
Ninjas always have all the coolest, bestest stuff. Whether it's magic smoke bombs, or grappling hooks, or just plain badass swords and throwing stars: if they need it, those super utility pocket black robes have it in one sleeve or another. Batman was a Ninja; where do you think he learned how to pack everything he needed into his utility belt? So what are the hottest toys and tech that every Ninja is packing this year? Well, first of all we've got the newest I-can't-believe-they-printed-that mechanic from Ravnica, Dredge. Next we've got the old all-star from Kamigawa Block, Gifts Ungiven, to make sure that our little Ninjas always have the right tool for the job. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles taught us that all Ninjas must have a good master, so Sensei's Divining Top carries all the lessons they learned from the rat in a cage.
Remand, have to include Remand . . . I mean, have you read the flavor text on that puppy? Definitely uttered by a Ninja telling some fool off after he's smacked him around a bit. Finally, just as Matthew Broderick realized as great as Nicole Kidman is, a robot Nicole Kidman is even better. Why? Because robots are cool. Just ask the guys from Voltron.
| Super Turbo Ninja RobotsMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
|---|---|---|
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Creatures 4x Sakura-Tribe Elder 3x Keiga, the Tide Star 1x Grave-Shell Scarab Sorceries 1x Life from the Loam 1x Nightmare Void 1x Invoke the Firemind 1x Recollect 1x Exile Into Darkness 2x Savage Twister Artifacts 4x Sensei's Divining Top 1x Pithing Needle 1x Reito Lantern Instants 4x Gifts Ungiven 3x Remand 4x Mana Leak 3x Electrolyze 1x Reclaim | Lands 2x Urza's Tower 2x Urza's Mine 2x Urza's Power Plant 1x Shivan Reef 3x Steam Vents 4x Yavimaya Coast 1x Island 1x Mountain 1x Stomping Grounds 5x Forest 1x Overgrown Tomb 1x Watery Grave | Sideboard 2x Jester's Cap 1x Cranial Extraction 2x Pithing Needle 2x Hinder 1x Ivory Crane Netsuke 1x Arashi, the Sky Asunder 1x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant 1x Thoughts of Ruin 1x Orochi Hatchery 1x Leyline of the Void 2x Naturalize |
Mana Analysis:
Mana Potential: 32
Mana Percentage: 28/47
Play Factor: 100(Top)/83(Elder)/81(Any Counter)
Turn Acceleration Percentage(4): 44/49
Turn Acceleration Actual(4): 36/41
Mana Density: 24 (8 if you count Gifts thinning)
Cost to Build Online: 295tix
Cost to Build Paper: $378
(Costs are estimates since GP singles prices aren't set yet. Whenever possible estimated prices are based off of what the similar cards in RAV cost.)
Stall
Ok, the basic idea of the deck is pretty simple: stall with Remand, Mana Leak, Sakura-Tribe Elder and Electrolyze until you can Gifts for the Tron and Life from the Loam. Go crazy using Dredge to get lotsa lotsa mana, then win with a big Invoke the Firemind or just beat with Scarab and Keiga. Your second option with Gifts is to grab Reito Lantern, Reclaim, Recollect and Gifts. It will cost a lot of mana, but now you can put any card from your graveyard back into your library and Gifts for it plus some other cards. Any Gifts after those should be used to grab Gifts and three more lands. Basically, you're thinning your deck at this point to get more options with Top.
Now I'd like to take a second to reiterate my first point about playing this deck. You have one goal, and one goal only in the early game. STALL. That's it. You sit there and PLAY DEFENSE. STALL. Just in case you didn't hear me the first time STALL THE EARLY GAME.
The deck has two parts: Part 1) Electrolyze, Remand, Mana Leak, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Sensei's Divining Top, Pithing Needle. These are all included in multiples of three or four for the simple reason that you want to see them early and often. This is your early game. These are the best cheap stallers currently available in Magic, and among the best stall cards ever to see print. No deck can rush you through these without an absolutely amazing draw.
Part 2)Tron, Gifts Ungiven, Invoke the Firemind, Reito Lantern, Savage Twister, Keiga, the Tide Star, Exile into Darkness. This is your late game, and it is as strong or stronger than any other deck's late game. Another Tron deck can be dealt with by Thoughts of Ruin from the board. Leyline of the Void deals rather well with other Gifts decks.
Where's the Bat-Shark Repellant?
Holy PETA Batman! Don't jump the shark!
Jester's Cap is in the board because it's a)a card everyone seems to have forgotten about in their stampede to use Cranial Extraction, and b)a card that nicely takes out those three different 1x cards that people put in their decks to get around Extraction, and c)Cap can hit lands.
There are a LOT of interactions here that probably aren't immediately obvious. Dredge + Top gets you a bunch of new cards, and Dredge also provides a way to get rid of excess Tops for more useful cards. How? Put all the Tops into play, then draw a card off of one, use another to put it second or third down, and repeat until all unwanted Tops are on top of your library. Then Dredge them into the yard having cantrip'ed all of them.
The sideboard is a tuning one. Most of the cards in it could easily be, or already are, in the maindeck. In every matchup, you're trying to take out the most useless cards in your deck for something else that's slightly better. Some of the cards are obvious, like Arashi coming in for an Electrolyze against MUC, or Leyline of the Void against anything that uses the graveyard. Sometimes, a switch will be much harder; for example, do you want Pithing Needle or Naturalize against a deck with Umezawa's Jitte and artifact destruction? Or, deciding if you'd rather have Hinder or Mana Leak against another Gifts deck.
If You Can't Dress Like a Ninja, Play Like One
Note: the following paragraphs are not the result of testing, they are the result of speculation: Endnote.
When playing against other decks, you should use Aikido. Seriously, you're playing like a Ninja, go ahead and break their arms. They can't play very well with broken arms. The easiest way to break someone's arm is to start with . . . (Dr. Tom has just informed me that this would most likely result in a match loss, so we'll skip that section for now).[He also knows that aikido is a defensive discipline, so you'd have to goad your opponent into swinging on you first. -Dr. Tom, still learning what "sotto voce" means]. Good news for you: you can still use a Martial Arts philosophy, even if you can't use actual Kung Fu on people. Basically, you're going to try and force people into doing things that aren't what they want to be doing. You don't really have a proactive plan with this deck other than "play lands until you can Invoke for 20". This means that you can adopt whatever role your opponent most dislikes.
Don't wear this to the tournament. Seriously.
Don't do it.
For example, against Blue, simply sit there. That's right, don't play anything except possibly a Tribe Elder on turn 2, or a Top anytime you can do it and still have two mana open. You have instant speed drawing in the form of Gifts. They don't. This means that you can sit there and play lands, doing nothing until they decide to try and cast something (usually Jushi), at which point you can now have a big counter fight over it, which they will probably win. This is fine, it's what you want to happen. On your turn, casts Gifts for Tron and Life. Play lands, out-mana them, and win. The second option is what you do if you draw two Gifts Ungiven. Cast one during their EOT, have a counter fight over it, lose, then cast the second during your turn. Even if doing nothing means that you sit around doing draw-go and you discard cards, don't worry about it. You can get all that stuff back. Big Blue can't. Patience wins this game every time. Bring in Erayo, Netsuke, one Needle, and Arashi; take out Electrolyze and Exile.
Against aggro, play counter-Twister-Keiga control. Use Invoke the Firemind as spot removal, hitting card-drawing creatures first. Whenever you can kill something, do it. If you're on the draw and they play a creature on turn one or two before you can counter it, let it beat on you until you can kill it, and counter their next one that turn. The only time you need to immediately kill it is if its Bob, Specter, Cutpurse, or Ninja. Take out Nightmare Void, and bring in Netsuke or Arashi depending on how many fliers they have. Gifts for Exile, Netsuke, Reclaim, and Recollect. Given enough time, Exile and Netsuke can win this match on their own.
Against another Gifts deck, you have Tron, Counters, graveyard hate, Cap, Leyline, and Invoke. They have none of the above, or at most, two of the above. Take out the Needle, Electrolyzes, and Exile; bring in Extraction, Caps, Leyline, and Erayo.
Against Heartbeat Combo game one, your main plan is to find and drop your Needle naming Drift of Phantasms. With their tutoring engine cut off, you should have enough time to set up your slower combo and win that way (Gifts for Scarab, Keiga, Recollect, and Reclaim). Board out the Electrolyzes, Exile, Twisters, Keigas, and two Tops; bring in the Hinders, Caps, Naturalizes, Extraction, and Needles. Use Extraction to take Heartbeat, use Cap to take Maga and Blaze (or the Mountain and Swamp if they've already drawn them).
Flores' Wild Gifts deck is an interesting challenge, as it features many of the same cards as your deck, but has some key differences, and a Wildfire game plan. Game one isn't going to go very well for you; the best advice I can offer is to try and slow down the mana acceleration and Wildfires. This deck has a much higher top end than your opponent's. After sideboarding, things shift radically in your favor as you get to remove seven completely dead cards -- the Electrolyzes, Needle, Twisters, and Exile for two Hinders, the pit of doom, Erayo, both Caps, and the Extraction. Pulling out a spinner in exchange for the tower wannabe isn't too bad of an idea either.
Dimir Mill seems like it could be a pretty bad matchup, and Wildfire decks and Eminent Domain also don't really look like walks in the park either. If Wildfire decks are big in your meta, I'd recommend taking out one Forest for a Temple Garden and putting a Sacred Ground in the board. Shred Memory and Reminisce are sideboard options if Mill or Dredge are big in your area. Although Dredge strategies can be largely invalidated by the use of Leyline. Priviliged Position is another option that kicks Eminent Domain and several other decks in the nutz. So this definitely is not a I BEAT EVERYTHING I AM TEH 1337!!, but it is capable of competing with anything, and in a diverse metagame, that's not too bad.
Psst, I'm in a Tricky Disguise!
This deck looks pretty confusing at first, until you realize its just a Green/Blue Gifts deck that splashes red and black and includes the Tron. Think of it much like a Silver Bullets deck with the card drawing/advantage engine of Dredge + Life, the tutor power of Gifts, and the mana advantage of the Tron.
Look, I don't play anymore. I haven't tested any of this. No one else is running anything like this (unless you count Wild Gifts, same philosophy -- Gifts + Life -- different objective). All I can do is ask, ask, ask, ask you to try this out. When I come up with a wacky idea like this, it's usually pretty good. I've never been much better than average as a player, but I've always been a good to very good deckbuilder. That doesn't mean all my ideas work, just that I have a lot of them and some turn out to be amazing. Does the deck need to be tweaked? Yes. Will there be games when you draw only lategame stuff and no early-game cards? Yes. Are there decks out there that this doesn't take into consideration and will absolutely wreck it? Yes. Does Leyline of the Void make this play like Van Damme in a real fight? Yes. All I'm saying is, the basic concept of Gifts + Life + Tron is amazingly strong. Backing that up with the Wisdom/Hand Size Matters cards from Saviors is synergistic. Running recursion and lots of singleton targets for Gifts backs up this plan further. I imagine this deck will play out a lot like Slide: play defense, set up, play defense, set up, play defense, WIN.
Who was that Masked Man?
Four and Five Color Tron looks and feels like it should blow heavy monkey chunks. It takes three turns after Gifting to set up the Tron if you don't have any pieces out yet. That's slow, I'll admit it. But that's OK. This isn't supposed to be a fast deck. That's why half of it is set up solely to stall things. That's why there ar Remands instead of Hinders. Hinder is an answer, while Remand is a temporary solution that fast forwards you out of the early game, your least favorite place to be.
But hey, maybe the counter mix is wrong, maybe Erayo should be main deck, maybe Privileged Position should be. Maybe Keiga is the wrong critter here. Maybe the Tops should be copies of Mortify and Putrefy, maybe the Electrolyzes should be. Maybe it should be 4x Urza's Tower and one each of the Mine and Plant. All I'm saying is, this is the framework for something very, very powerful. Tinker with it, make some changes. Put in your favorite card. Test it, see what you think needs adding, and win a bunch of games.
Until next time.
Credits:
Banner: I Love Atogs
Editing: Dr. Tom
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