MTG Salvation

Introduction

Welcome to the 3rd deck thread by yours truly! And yet, we still aren't playing something that doesn't include Black - go figure! This time we're taking a look at a Vela the Night-Clad build that I threw together last week, that I'm continuing to work on as I get the cards for it. After some testing, my partner and I have found the deck to be pretty fun to pilot so far and it always has something to do on it's turn, and often responses for opponents on their turns. For more about why Vela? Well, read on below!


History/About This Deck:

This deck is the result of a lot of compromise between my partner and I. You see, my partner loves theme/tribal decks. Tribal doesn't always work out the best in EDH because many tribes don't have enough support to be able to go full in on a theme. When he wanted to make a deck for Knights, it took an argument or two and him huffing and puffing before I made him settle on a mostly Soldier-deck that happens to have some of the few good Knights in it (it helped that I convinced him Adriana, Captain of the Guard seemed like Magic's version of Gwendoline Christie's Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones). I'll not even go into details about when he wanted a Disney themed deck.

Vela is the culmination of efforts to try and swing him away from a Faeries and Rogue deck. He's very impressionable, you see. A close friend of ours that co-manages our local game store has a Sygg, River Cutthroat EDH deck that happens to have a few Rogues and Faeries in it. I had previously explained that there weren't really enough Faeries to make a whole deck around them, and ditto that with Rogues. Mind you, when I say not viable, I'm considering the metas at our local stores which range from casual to fairly competitive - I don't want him getting waylaid every time we play so he has fun playing Magic.

Eventually, when we got the Planechase Anthology and he got to play the Ninja deck that included Vela, he fell in love with Vela. She has considerably pretty artwork, the Ninjitsu mechanic was fun and the unblockable creatures attacking through for card advantage and effects was also fun. Vela supplanted his need for a Faerie deck with Oona, Queen of the Fae at the helm, which would be a fairly expensive deck if we wanted to make it right because even if there were enough Faeries for a theme deck, they're expensive af and we have several other projects we're trying to finish with $10-20 cards being the remainder.

After a small purchase at our LGS, I was ready to try to help put something together for him. It's not the best, but it's been fun, and will be getting further updates down the line. More than anything, I can say it's been surprisingly resilient and effective. Importantly, we have many decent Blue and Black cards sitting around unused because of upgrading other decks and having previous builds such as Grimgrin, Corpse-Born or Phelddagrif that we didn't end up liking that much. Some of those cards have now found a home,

You'll Like/Dislike This Deck If:

+You like a deck that functions well without it's Commander
+You enjoy stealing opponent's stuff
+You like playing with mechanics not many people remember even exist
+You want to embrace the flavor of the Dimir
+You believe Ninjas are better than Pirates, which you rightfully should!
+You enjoy slower decks that aren't about pumping damage out as fast as possible

-You want to focus entirely on your Commander
-You want to win games fast
-You don't like using the Combat Phase as the main place you win the game
-Your meta is entirely competitive
-You prefer huge plays instead of incremental progress and advantage

The Decklist (By Card Type)



The Decklist (By Function)


What's This Deck Do?

The main goal of the deck is to swing in combat damage through evasion or being unblockable and generating advantage by doing so. A few ways this happens are:

Gating Effects - Gating is a term that goes back to the Planeshift expansion, back when the theme was getting a greater effect or creature at the cost of returning another creature to your hand. Cavern Harpy and Doomsday Specter are two examples of this. Ninjitsu also enables this, letting you bounce an unblocked creature to your hand to put a Ninja into play which will give you some form of card advantage once it deals it's unblocked damage to the opponent, and also letting you re-cast the bounced creature for it's ETB effect, again. Many of the creatures in the deck have powerful triggered effects when they enter the battlefield. By utilizing gating, you can re-cast those creatures to do things like destroy other creatures (Nekrataal/Noxious Gearhulk), return instants and sorceries to your hand (Archaeomancer), draw more cards (Baleful Strix/Ninja of the Deep Hours), steal your opponent's spells (Gonti, Lord of Luxury/Silent-Blade Oni), ramp out Solemn Simulacrum), or copy another ETB effect already on the board repeatedly (Sakashima's Student/Clever Impersonator). Obviously this gets easier with Vela the Night-Clad on the board. Grey Mechant of Asphodel can be a finisher in this way because it is easy to get a very high devotion to Black in this deck with all the Hybrid permanents.

Assassination Attempts - Many of the creatures in the deck are unblockable or hard to block to enable easy Ninjitsu as well as effects that trigger on combat damage. Vela makes this easy by giving everything you control Intimidate, including herself, allowing you to swing in for Commander damage. There are other ways to quickly bring the game to a close, however. Quietus Spike will half an opponent's life total when an equipped creature connects with it. Casting Rites of Replication on Vela triggers the Legendary Rule, and when you sacrifice all of the copies of Vela, each copy sees four creatures leaving the battlefield which means you can hit the table for 20 damage. You may even consider putting Scytheclaw in the deck as a redundant Quietus Spike, though more expensive.

Removal + Advantage - Many of the removal spells in the deck help you by bouncing your own cards to let you cast them, such as Evacuation. Disappearing Act is a Counterspell that requires you to bounce a creature to your hand to play it again for an ETB later. The ultimate play is a board with a mix of Ninjas and hard to block creatures, bouncing the Ninjas with Paradoxical Outcome to draw a lot of cards, then using Ninjitsu to get them back into play and so on. The synergy between much of the removal and gating is very strong in the deck.

Lowkey, Low Threat - Most people are going to see cards like Elusive Tormentor or Shadowmage Infiltrator and aren't going to think anything of it. Many of the cards in the deck are ones that no one will pay attention to until the incremental advantage in the deck has ticked up so high that it catches them by surprise. In the late game when you're stealing spells and wiping the board, it'll be too little too late. The advantage of not making swingy plays is that everyone is focusing on the player who is trying to win on Turn 4 or 5 to slow them down. While you'll surely help, no one will think anything of your cute Ninjitsu abilities... until suddenly you steal a spell with Silent-Blade Oni.

Other Considerations/Future Inclusions

This is close to a first pass of the list I put together. Being that as it is, there's a list of a lot of cards I'm still considering for this deck or that I simply haven't acquired yet. Those cards are as follows:

• Ashling, the Extinguisher
  
• Bident of Thassa
  
• Consuming Aberration
  
• Dire Undercurrents
  
• Ghastlord of Fugue
  
• Mindleech Mass
  
• Raven Guild Master
  
• Rootwater Thief
  
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
  
• Tunnel Vision
  
• Venser's Journal
  
• Thought Vessel
  
• Clever Impersonator
  
• Thalakos Seer
  
• Wrexial, the Risen Deep
  
• Leyline of Anticipation
  
• Crystal Shard
  
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
  
• Cabal Coffers
  
• Underground River
  
• Sunken Ruins
  

+Various tutor effects

...and many more are potentials to be included. It actually began to be really difficult to make cuts to the deck.