I haven't been able to play legacy recently, how is our maverick matchup?
Barring a really clutch Scryb Ranger, it's pretty good. Game 1 is about 60:40 in their favor. After boarding stuff in like Sower of Temptation for KOTR, maybe Surgical Extraction for STP, maybe Pithing Needle for their equipment or SFM or Scavenging Ooze (been trying a number of different boards), it becomes about 50:50. Not sure if I'd want to cut Daze for Spell pierce post board, since they don't have much trouble playing around Daze and Spell Pierce can hit GSZ (but not much else). Haven't tried that. I'm also thinking about adding Phyrexian Revoker to the sideboard, but I probably won't end up doing this. It can hit things like Serra's Sanctum and Gaea's Cradle however, something that Pithing Needle cannot do.
Edit: I wouldn't play that enchantment. Only buffs our fliers, and it serves no alternative purpose other than +1/+1 to fliers. Whereas most other cards in the deck have multiple purposes, even ornithopter. (Ninjutsu in, replay for free untap, chump block things like goblin lackey all day) It would also be a horrible topdeck when you're looking for another counterspell or equipment.
The counterspell package (of which I'm categorizing Stifle under) varies with meta, and with decks like RUG showing strongly, Stifle should definitely be considered.
When considering this card, ask yourself: 1) what would you cut for it, and 2) is Favorable Winds be better than the card you're cutting?
This deck's slots is tight enough as is, and while having an Anthem effect is nice, it doesn't do anything that this deck doesn't do already. To me, FNS is about using counter-magic and card advantage to fuel an aggro-based strategy. IMO, buffing the former (counters and card advantage) take precedence over the latter.
The real question is whether or not to run 1 or 2 Jitte. Or in general how much equipment to run. 3-4 seems right, since you only need 1 at some point to basically win you the game.
I'm fairly adamant about three copies, mostly because the other slots are tight as is. Plus, considering that conventional wisdom that you play four copies of a card if you want to see it in your opening seven, and three copies if you want to see it once in a match, three copies seems reliable enough for me.
My balance is generally two Jittes and one Sword, mostly because, while useful, the extra mana investment in Swords can be tough sometimes. I am liking the idea of toying around with Sword of Feast and Famine, though. Untapping + disruption is really alluring...
Aside from pumping Assembly Workers (which you aren't looking to do with this deck anyways), Mutavault does everything Mishra's Factory does and then some, e.g. counting as a Faerie for Spellstutter Sprite.
I really like this deck. I just dont like the ninjas, so I replaced them with Invisible Stalker.........which is ridiculously good. Hexproof and unblockable and Jitte means winning. Ive been playing 3 Jittes maindeck and its been stellar. CoFae into IStalker or Jitte is amazing. Knowing Jitte is assured to connect on a stalker is really satisfying as they cant do anything about it.
Yea, but having run the build with stalker, the main problem is that you run out of gas early because have very little ways to draw cards. Versus decks running hand disruption, Diabolic edicts effects, etc. , Ninja of the deep hours ends up being much more of a threat. Rarely will they take him with like, say a thoughtsieze, he can't be Inquisition of Kolizeked (stalker can) and he typically ends up drawing you 1-2 cards, sometimes even more, sometimes even MORE, giving you more counterspells and whatnot because they have to break Standstill and this is more important, imo, than resolving a Stalker and going all in with a Jitte. A lot of decks can disrupt Jitte as well, and with 3 Jitte and 4 Invisible stalkers (I assume) you're REALLY going all in on that strategy. It probably works really well against a lot of decks, don't get me wrong (anything running StP as main removal will cry)
Stalker also gets hit by Spell Snare. Something to consider because Ninjutsu doesn't break Standstill and dodges all counter spells. It can be slowed down by a stifle, but IIRC correct you can then just Ninjutsu again next turn.
If your meta is mostly Maverick or other such decks, and not heavy in combo, the Stalker/Faeries/4-5 Equipment route seems like it could be very good. Only problem is, this deck really does NOT have a lot of slots to mess around with. So much stuff is auto-included, it's kind of tough to make a shell with enough tempo/counter magic.
Still, I think there's something in a Stifle / Stalker / Equipment deck that just goes for as fast of a win as possible.
Without Ninjas, that is a different deck. We run Ninjas not only because they are inherent card advantage, but also because of their synergy with Spellstutter Sprite and Standstill.
While a Hexproof equipment aggro deck would be an interesting concept, it is
not one for this thread.
I do want to get 4x of Favorable Winds, though. I don't think it's so easily dismissed, we have 16+ creatures that can take advantage of it and it does increase our clock significantly.
-T
favorable winds probably does deserve some testing in a very fairy heavy build. If I ran favorable winds I would definitely be running Zephyr Sprite. It might even be time for bitterblossom...
I haven't been satisfied with a list since MM was banned, do we need to move in a more aggro direction?
Wingcrafter anyone? This seems like the perfect application... practically guaranteed to get two connections turn two, then it gives your ninja flying (they should have had flying and shroud, I mean they are ninjas:P)
It's arguably better than Zephyr Sprite, in that it's not a Faerie. However, offering flying to our Ninjas is quite huge. In my build, they will certainly be the replacement.
-T
You'd have to cut into other one drops to put them into the deck. The current one-drops that are a possibility for this deck are, imo, Stifle (best) , Signal Pest (second best) , Zephyr Sprite (I really don't like this one, except versus combo. Battlecry is so huge for this deck to actually win with a bunch of 1/1s / 2/2s.) And now, this guy, who can give some of your non-fliers flying. Seems not too good, as you must draw into a ninja, not a faerie, and him to get the engine going. And everything in else in the deck is already evasive, so in my thinking he will be a dead draw most of the time. Still, I can see the interaction with the ninjas and it is very good. Consistency is this deck's number one strength, and weakness, however. You have a limited amount of time to act, and you assassinate your opponent very quickly, or you will lose in most matchups. You're always racing someone else, whether it be their combo, their G/W endless dudes, their SFM getting Jitte and Batterskulls, their burn spells... etc. It's nearly impossible to recover from mistakes with this deck, because all of your removal comes from counter spells.
New list. Riptide lab and nonbasic lands (Factories) are gone. This deck is trying to hit decks below the belt. No more shenanigans, no more trickery. Long gone are the days of ninjas flying in on ornithopters. Just strip them of their fetches, choke them with BtB, and while they're digging for a response, drop a Standstill and go in for the quick kill with battle cry, evasive creatures, and dig more with the occasional Ninja. They, your loyal servants, lie in wait in your hand to strike, either as looters or as Force of Will food.
Cut: Ornithopter (too cute, yes a sweet chump blocker and ninja engine but it's honestly very slow and takes up a space in your hand that could be something better.) 1 Daze (daze is the worst topdeck in the history of the world, and setting you back an island is not something to scoff at with this deck.)
Riptide laboratory: If a game has gone on to the point where I need to bounce my wizards back to hand, I've already done something wrong.
Factories: I'd love to keep them, but they get choked out by Back to Basics.
Mistblade Shinobi: Ideally I want them to actually spend their resources on trying to resolve a couple threats. Using MY turn to bounce their guys was sometimes good, but with the omnipresence of ETB creatures this guy is occasionally actually unplayable, for example against SFM or Snapcaster Mage. Keeping him in a game one list is COMPLETELY dead against combo, except for Show and Tell Emrakul maybe. But we have Sower (this is about the funniest thing ever to SnT in against Emrakul) and Spell Pierce, and Surgical Extraction postboard for that, and having Back to Basics main board hurts MORE decks equally (combo AND aggro, specifically.) It actually becomes something that they have to deal with, (enough window of opportunity to kill, on average with a decent hand this deck typically swings from anywhere between 3 and 10 by turn 3-4, and this is just creatures, not factoring any of the four equipment you might topdeck) and, being an enchantment, it's a hell of a lot harder to deal with that just StPing away your Ninjutsu engine/Ninjas. Also, for one mana I'd rather just Stifle or Spell Snare.
The sideboard:
Tormods/ Surgical : The obligatory 1/3 of your sideboard dedicated to grave hate, only Surgical doubles up against sooooo many decks. It kills Intuition, Snapcaster mage, Bridge from Below, Lingering Souls.. and so on. To be honest, I might actually cut Tormods altogether and go for 4 Surgical extractions.
Pithing Needle: Equipment, Top, Jace, Elspeth, Candelabra, etc.
Annul: Enchantress, decks that hardcast Artifacts/Enchantments. It's nice to hit a lot of these for one mana.
Sower of Temptation: Steals fatties, steals Emrakul off a SnT, is inherent 2 for 1, bumps up your faerie count. Lets see maverick recover from a turn 3 BtB into a turn 4 Sower.
Threads of Disloyalty: Steals.. weenies. And is an enchantment. Dunno if I should cut this or not, but having one around for taking a Tarmogoyf or Bob for one less than Sower, and dodges the hate that Sower cannot dodge seems really good.
Other choices: Chill, Hydroblast, Misdirection (I really wanna make room for 2-3 Misdirection in this deck.)
A pest with at least one 1/1 flier is a clock that generally warrants breaking standstill. Because playing draw-go against this deck isn't exactly too thrilling either. Easy enough to achieve. The ninjas of the deep hour are really just icing on the cake. They, along with Standstill, are pitched to force of will more often than anything else.
If you can find room for Ornithopters, cut the Signal Pest for either it or Zephyr Sprite, that might work better. Signal pest can speed up your clock, but alot of the times I find it sits in your hand and you can't play it because you want to hold up land for Counterspells. Also, it is really awkward with Ninjutsu and very, very squishy. So, maybe I'd cut 3 of them for Ornithopters, and the last one for a Daze or Stifle. This will be a much, much slower clock than the old build, however.
Trust me, without Standstill this deck would be a lot weaker. So the answer isn't to cut Standstill, but to find a way to add enough threats to make Standstill have to be broken.
Maybe, I would cut the 4x Signal pest for 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor if I was looking to change anything up. Because Jace + Standstill is enough to warrant breaking the Standstill.
edit: Propaganda would slow down aggro, no doubt. Only problem is that it is dead against every single combo deck besides one using Empty the Warrens. If I'm playing monoblue, I really wanted to make a maindeck that had 0 dead cards against combo. I really want the game 1 advantage against combo decks.
True. Metagame is very very important for this deck. Ornithopters are actually quite good against tribal aggro decks like Goblins, I'd prefer them over signal pest in this situations because thopters can chump Lackeys and whatnot, and still act as a Ninjutsu engine.
If I had to cut an equipment it would be a Sword. Probably Feast and Famine or Jitte, but still, I like having ~1/10th of the spells in the deck be an equipment. The deck would probably even work with more reactionary stuff and just 1 Jitte or Sword.
My problem with JTMS is that, at 4CMC, he's tough to reliably cast, while 1) keeping pressure up via aggro, and 2) holding up for counters. Of course, that's not to say that he doesn't pull his weight, but if I had four mana to spend, I think there's better options that synergize with FNS's strategy more.
thethirdbardo - I like that your deck mains several meta-dependent cards (e.g. Back to Basics, Stifle), but I'm still skeptical about the removal of man-lands. Mutavault's been indispensable in most matches I've played, and, even as a 2/2, this deck needs all the power it can get.
Eh. It's just a beater in the end. It's really good, and there is a more aggro variant of this deck that is quite good too. Choke effects, imo, outweigh the benefits of Nonbasics: Although I would still run maybe 1-3 of them to bump up SSS for this deck. You would need to curve into 1 of them and a bunch of islands, but you could use one as a permanently tapped extra faerie. Or you could just block with it.
Stifle , Cloud of Faeries , Pest1-2 or Ninja, Btb turn 3, Standstill turn 4. With a good amount of counter magic available to them as well. Standstill could possibly be changed into a Sylvan Library or 2 if you splashed green, or StP in white is another good route. Splashing white is very good in fish decks.
For SB, this is my new version:
3-4 Surgical Extraction (Best graveyard hate for this deck hands down)
2-3 Pithing Needle (When you want it, you need 2-3 or so)
2 Sower of Temptation (Maverick, Show and Tell)
1 Threads of Disloyalty (Helps against goyf, Bob)
3 Spell Pierce (Any combo deck, burn)
3 Washout (Underrated, something I'm trying out. Makes prison matchups like Enchantress a lot easier, because you need to interact with them less and just set up a kill before bouncing either green or white permanents)
The black splash seems intriguing, and since this deck runs into Chokes left and right (based on anecdotal experience), some variance wouldn't hurt; plus, Bitterblossom provides the necessary pressure that this deck can sometimes lack.
My problem with that build's that it doesn't have great synergy with Standstill; cutting down on Ninjas and adding more non-creature spells that are arguably not worth breaking a Standstill for seems sub-par, at best. Indeed, disruption like Inquisition and Thoughtseize immensely help our early game, but running enough disruption to see it in your opening seven seems like a stretch, especially considering how tight our slots are.
Also, I wanted to gauge peoples' opinions: what do you (or this deck, rather) do against early disruption? Provided you don't have Spell Pierce handy, a T1 Inquisition or Thoughtseize can really hurt or slow you down if they remove a key piece, e.g. Standstill, Ninja, etc. Moreover, depending on the deck they're running, countering those dinky 1CMC disruption spells with an alternate-cost Force of Will or Daze oftentimes does more harm (to tempo) than good. Match-ups like Rock, Junk, and even some janky combo (e.g. Gate with a Depths package) are tough precisely because of this.
I never find hand disruption , besides Hymn to Tourach, hurting me too bad. They're still just one for oneing you. It's mass edict effects that hurt me way more than hand disruption.
I really enjoy this deck but found it had to many flaws in the standard list in my opinion. Mainly that you run out of steam even with the standstill and NotDH to win alot so I tweaked it a bit. Mainly with a small white and black splash. First white for geist of saint traft who has just proven absolutely phenomenal under still and gives you a free flyer to ninjitsu off of. So its either six damage or a ninja or they crack the standstill and give you cards which your probably going to counter anyways. Then I added PtE at first this was swords but I found with such small beaters even with swords or jitte the life gain killed me but I dont run daze and Im fast enough to race so the land did not hurt as much. the white splash also allows me to play wrath of god not ideal but gobs and elves are run by alot around here and that was a solid answer. Now on the topic of black protection has anyone considered cabal therapy I upped my count of walker of the secret ways to 4 and so far its worked extremely well when combined together as well as flashback giving me a use for extra ornathopters or useless creatures later. Plus she bounces ninjas allowing me multiple use out of their ninjitsu effects as well as a semblance of evasion on them. I also swapped signal pest out for slippery boggle as I never found the few points from its ability to be key and with spellstutter and v cliques all over usually blocked while the hexproof makes a huge difference especially with a sword. It also pitches to FoW.
So in all I have just in case some think its to diluted:
Ive found the creature count balanced I know the mana base if easily disrupted by not a lot of land hate around here. The sword of body and mind are because I only own them lol but I would like to change that around and put in jitte eventually when I get some.
You only have 1 fairy in the list, so you can't hit spells with CMC over 1, for the price of 2 untapped lands.
Where are the cloud of faeries and Vendilion Cliques?
Also, you can only Walker of Secret Ways on your own turn. So I ended up cutting her early on, because using 1B on your turn to ninjutsu again next turn for another card was really not worth it. Probably works well with Cabal Therapy, otoh. But I'd still rather have more reactive cards like Stifle and Daze. Still, I think splashing black for hand disruption or white for StP seems to be a good route to take with the deck.
Truth Im probably a freak but I hate V cliques and I know about the low fae count the spellstutters tend to be counter removal or ways to give me a beater for the next turn I can ninjitsu and the mishras would be mutavaults if I owned them. Which is why I run snare then FoW as ways to ramp and Cabal fixes what I cant. Originally you were right I cut her after a few games but with the cabals and running sweepers her abilities become much more useful. The biggest issue I was having was I could get the first swing in unblocked but with out ways to reuse the fliers or unblockable creatures to ninjitsu off of my ninjas just sat there eating blocks and removal. For a few mana though I can swing with thopter play NotDH replay thopter. Next turn bounce NotDH rinse repeat. I may end up trimming the numbers down with more testing however.
Edit: I may consider Bitter Blossom ive always wanted to use this card as I love the idea but cant get past the life loss if your tokens eat a cheap ratchet bomb or powder keg
i dont get why people go and ninjutsu an angel token up... why would you go and hurry up and draw instead of waiting for your opponent to let you draw. jeez. some people are just missing the point of why you are playing ninjutsu. if you have geist for 6 damage, let your opponent go take 6 damage. would you exchange 2 damage for a draw? thats silly. and it doesnt give you advantage at all, you ninjutsu up a creature to use the ETBT ability of the creature therefore gaining card advantage. what do you get from nijutsuing a 4/4 token? opponents laughing. ninjutsuing a land is fine as long as you have established mana source.
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Eh.. I'd like to try bitter blossom but I'd probably run it in a BtB build without duals (fetches maybe) as I don't have any.
I just really find BtB to be overwhelmingly powerful. Too powerful to pass up. And so is Bitterblossom, it's starting to look like. I'll only need to draw one basic swamp or polluted delta to be set.
why do you prefer Slippery Bogle over cloud of faeries or the fourth ornithopter? I don't get the point.
It can't be even equipped with the sword.
slippery boggle can be equipped with a sword. just FYI. and still a bad choice of creature. unless you are on a budget. but still, i prefer sage of epityr in that case.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A team should be as happy as a meal - TEAM HAPPYMEAL
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tronGR
Buy All the planeswalkers!!!
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
slippery boggle can be equipped with a sword. just FYI. and still a bad choice of creature. unless you are on a budget. but still, i prefer sage of epityr in that case.
Its not as bad as you think and that doesnt mean its a permanent choice. I just do not have much love for signal pest and I just happened to find a set of boggles and thought id try them. So far its proven to be hard to get rid of and still provides a turn one beater. Unlike the pest I dont have to worry about creatures and removal. I just save my counters for their creatures or big bomb spells while they sit on a useless hand of PtE or StP. But theres a good chance Ill swap them for something else and try those. This tends to be my most frequently changing slot. The thopters I keep bouncing around on sometimes three seems to few but 4 seems to many.
About cloud of faeries I like them and use them in other builds but here they dont seem proactive enough ok I got a free 1/1 flier and they up your count for spellstutter but just doesnt seem like a strong enough reason to play them. Id rather try other creatures in those slots.
@thirdbardo I may try to get the V cliques today I won a box in the last tourney so Ill have trade bait. I just keep getting mixed responses about them. I personally prefer a counter to just hoping what you get rid of is worse then what they draw. But you never know till you try.
i dont get why people go and ninjutsu an angel token up... why would you go and hurry up and draw instead of waiting for your opponent to let you draw. jeez. some people are just missing the point of why you are playing ninjutsu. if you have geist for 6 damage, let your opponent go take 6 damage. would you exchange 2 damage for a draw? thats silly. and it doesnt give you advantage at all, you ninjutsu up a creature to use the ETBT ability of the creature therefore gaining card advantage. what do you get from nijutsuing a 4/4 token? opponents laughing. ninjutsuing a land is fine as long as you have established mana source.
Never said I always do but its a reason to consider geist in the MB and can make a very solid field. Sometimes I bounce the angel yes its two damage that turn but next turn Ill get that extra two and have a draw engine on the field or be able to see my opponents hand etc. Sometimes CA is much more powerful then two damage for a turn and something Id happily consider doing every time. Particularly as the angel token disappears anyways so why not put a permanent beater/draw engine down in its place.
:sympu:NinjaFaerieStill:sympu:
:symb:Maga, Traitor to Mortals:symb:
Barring a really clutch Scryb Ranger, it's pretty good. Game 1 is about 60:40 in their favor. After boarding stuff in like Sower of Temptation for KOTR, maybe Surgical Extraction for STP, maybe Pithing Needle for their equipment or SFM or Scavenging Ooze (been trying a number of different boards), it becomes about 50:50. Not sure if I'd want to cut Daze for Spell pierce post board, since they don't have much trouble playing around Daze and Spell Pierce can hit GSZ (but not much else). Haven't tried that. I'm also thinking about adding Phyrexian Revoker to the sideboard, but I probably won't end up doing this. It can hit things like Serra's Sanctum and Gaea's Cradle however, something that Pithing Needle cannot do.
Edit: I wouldn't play that enchantment. Only buffs our fliers, and it serves no alternative purpose other than +1/+1 to fliers. Whereas most other cards in the deck have multiple purposes, even ornithopter. (Ninjutsu in, replay for free untap, chump block things like goblin lackey all day) It would also be a horrible topdeck when you're looking for another counterspell or equipment.
When considering this card, ask yourself: 1) what would you cut for it, and 2) is Favorable Winds be better than the card you're cutting?
This deck's slots is tight enough as is, and while having an Anthem effect is nice, it doesn't do anything that this deck doesn't do already. To me, FNS is about using counter-magic and card advantage to fuel an aggro-based strategy. IMO, buffing the former (counters and card advantage) take precedence over the latter.
I'm fairly adamant about three copies, mostly because the other slots are tight as is. Plus, considering that conventional wisdom that you play four copies of a card if you want to see it in your opening seven, and three copies if you want to see it once in a match, three copies seems reliable enough for me.
My balance is generally two Jittes and one Sword, mostly because, while useful, the extra mana investment in Swords can be tough sometimes. I am liking the idea of toying around with Sword of Feast and Famine, though. Untapping + disruption is really alluring...
...Why?
Aside from pumping Assembly Workers (which you aren't looking to do with this deck anyways), Mutavault does everything Mishra's Factory does and then some, e.g. counting as a Faerie for Spellstutter Sprite.
Stalker also gets hit by Spell Snare. Something to consider because Ninjutsu doesn't break Standstill and dodges all counter spells. It can be slowed down by a stifle, but IIRC correct you can then just Ninjutsu again next turn.
If your meta is mostly Maverick or other such decks, and not heavy in combo, the Stalker/Faeries/4-5 Equipment route seems like it could be very good. Only problem is, this deck really does NOT have a lot of slots to mess around with. So much stuff is auto-included, it's kind of tough to make a shell with enough tempo/counter magic.
Still, I think there's something in a Stifle / Stalker / Equipment deck that just goes for as fast of a win as possible.
While a Hexproof equipment aggro deck would be an interesting concept, it is
not one for this thread.
I do want to get 4x of Favorable Winds, though. I don't think it's so easily dismissed, we have 16+ creatures that can take advantage of it and it does increase our clock significantly.
-T
Tech Manager at MTGOSS <- I make MTGO bots!
I haven't been satisfied with a list since MM was banned, do we need to move in a more aggro direction?
:sympu:NinjaFaerieStill:sympu:
:symb:Maga, Traitor to Mortals:symb:
-T
Tech Manager at MTGOSS <- I make MTGO bots!
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Signal Pest
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Spell Snare
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Daze
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Annul
2 Sower of Temptation
New list. Riptide lab and nonbasic lands (Factories) are gone. This deck is trying to hit decks below the belt. No more shenanigans, no more trickery. Long gone are the days of ninjas flying in on ornithopters. Just strip them of their fetches, choke them with BtB, and while they're digging for a response, drop a Standstill and go in for the quick kill with battle cry, evasive creatures, and dig more with the occasional Ninja. They, your loyal servants, lie in wait in your hand to strike, either as looters or as Force of Will food.
Cut: Ornithopter (too cute, yes a sweet chump blocker and ninja engine but it's honestly very slow and takes up a space in your hand that could be something better.) 1 Daze (daze is the worst topdeck in the history of the world, and setting you back an island is not something to scoff at with this deck.)
Riptide laboratory: If a game has gone on to the point where I need to bounce my wizards back to hand, I've already done something wrong.
Factories: I'd love to keep them, but they get choked out by Back to Basics.
Mistblade Shinobi: Ideally I want them to actually spend their resources on trying to resolve a couple threats. Using MY turn to bounce their guys was sometimes good, but with the omnipresence of ETB creatures this guy is occasionally actually unplayable, for example against SFM or Snapcaster Mage. Keeping him in a game one list is COMPLETELY dead against combo, except for Show and Tell Emrakul maybe. But we have Sower (this is about the funniest thing ever to SnT in against Emrakul) and Spell Pierce, and Surgical Extraction postboard for that, and having Back to Basics main board hurts MORE decks equally (combo AND aggro, specifically.) It actually becomes something that they have to deal with, (enough window of opportunity to kill, on average with a decent hand this deck typically swings from anywhere between 3 and 10 by turn 3-4, and this is just creatures, not factoring any of the four equipment you might topdeck) and, being an enchantment, it's a hell of a lot harder to deal with that just StPing away your Ninjutsu engine/Ninjas. Also, for one mana I'd rather just Stifle or Spell Snare.
The sideboard:
Tormods/ Surgical : The obligatory 1/3 of your sideboard dedicated to grave hate, only Surgical doubles up against sooooo many decks. It kills Intuition, Snapcaster mage, Bridge from Below, Lingering Souls.. and so on. To be honest, I might actually cut Tormods altogether and go for 4 Surgical extractions.
Pithing Needle: Equipment, Top, Jace, Elspeth, Candelabra, etc.
Annul: Enchantress, decks that hardcast Artifacts/Enchantments. It's nice to hit a lot of these for one mana.
Sower of Temptation: Steals fatties, steals Emrakul off a SnT, is inherent 2 for 1, bumps up your faerie count. Lets see maverick recover from a turn 3 BtB into a turn 4 Sower.
Threads of Disloyalty: Steals.. weenies. And is an enchantment. Dunno if I should cut this or not, but having one around for taking a Tarmogoyf or Bob for one less than Sower, and dodges the hate that Sower cannot dodge seems really good.
Other choices: Chill, Hydroblast, Misdirection (I really wanna make room for 2-3 Misdirection in this deck.)
If you can find room for Ornithopters, cut the Signal Pest for either it or Zephyr Sprite, that might work better. Signal pest can speed up your clock, but alot of the times I find it sits in your hand and you can't play it because you want to hold up land for Counterspells. Also, it is really awkward with Ninjutsu and very, very squishy. So, maybe I'd cut 3 of them for Ornithopters, and the last one for a Daze or Stifle. This will be a much, much slower clock than the old build, however.
Trust me, without Standstill this deck would be a lot weaker. So the answer isn't to cut Standstill, but to find a way to add enough threats to make Standstill have to be broken.
Maybe, I would cut the 4x Signal pest for 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor if I was looking to change anything up. Because Jace + Standstill is enough to warrant breaking the Standstill.
edit: Propaganda would slow down aggro, no doubt. Only problem is that it is dead against every single combo deck besides one using Empty the Warrens. If I'm playing monoblue, I really wanted to make a maindeck that had 0 dead cards against combo. I really want the game 1 advantage against combo decks.
If I had to cut an equipment it would be a Sword. Probably Feast and Famine or Jitte, but still, I like having ~1/10th of the spells in the deck be an equipment. The deck would probably even work with more reactionary stuff and just 1 Jitte or Sword.
thethirdbardo - I like that your deck mains several meta-dependent cards (e.g. Back to Basics, Stifle), but I'm still skeptical about the removal of man-lands. Mutavault's been indispensable in most matches I've played, and, even as a 2/2, this deck needs all the power it can get.
Stifle , Cloud of Faeries , Pest1-2 or Ninja, Btb turn 3, Standstill turn 4. With a good amount of counter magic available to them as well. Standstill could possibly be changed into a Sylvan Library or 2 if you splashed green, or StP in white is another good route. Splashing white is very good in fish decks.
For SB, this is my new version:
3-4 Surgical Extraction (Best graveyard hate for this deck hands down)
2-3 Pithing Needle (When you want it, you need 2-3 or so)
2 Sower of Temptation (Maverick, Show and Tell)
1 Threads of Disloyalty (Helps against goyf, Bob)
3 Spell Pierce (Any combo deck, burn)
3 Washout (Underrated, something I'm trying out. Makes prison matchups like Enchantress a lot easier, because you need to interact with them less and just set up a kill before bouncing either green or white permanents)
4 Jitte seems very very ambitious, since it's legendary after all.
My problem with that build's that it doesn't have great synergy with Standstill; cutting down on Ninjas and adding more non-creature spells that are arguably not worth breaking a Standstill for seems sub-par, at best. Indeed, disruption like Inquisition and Thoughtseize immensely help our early game, but running enough disruption to see it in your opening seven seems like a stretch, especially considering how tight our slots are.
Also, I wanted to gauge peoples' opinions: what do you (or this deck, rather) do against early disruption? Provided you don't have Spell Pierce handy, a T1 Inquisition or Thoughtseize can really hurt or slow you down if they remove a key piece, e.g. Standstill, Ninja, etc. Moreover, depending on the deck they're running, countering those dinky 1CMC disruption spells with an alternate-cost Force of Will or Daze oftentimes does more harm (to tempo) than good. Match-ups like Rock, Junk, and even some janky combo (e.g. Gate with a Depths package) are tough precisely because of this.
So in all I have just in case some think its to diluted:
4 Walker of the secret ways
2 Mistblade shinobi
3 ornathopters
3 Slippery Boggle
2 Geist of Saint traft
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Sword of body and mind
4 Path to Exile
4 standstill
4 cabal Therapy
2 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
4 tundra
2 scrubland
2 marsh flats
2 flooded strand
3 mishra's factory
Ive found the creature count balanced I know the mana base if easily disrupted by not a lot of land hate around here. The sword of body and mind are because I only own them lol but I would like to change that around and put in jitte eventually when I get some.
Where are the cloud of faeries and Vendilion Cliques?
Also, you can only Walker of Secret Ways on your own turn. So I ended up cutting her early on, because using 1B on your turn to ninjutsu again next turn for another card was really not worth it. Probably works well with Cabal Therapy, otoh. But I'd still rather have more reactive cards like Stifle and Daze. Still, I think splashing black for hand disruption or white for StP seems to be a good route to take with the deck.
Edit: I may consider Bitter Blossom ive always wanted to use this card as I love the idea but cant get past the life loss if your tokens eat a cheap ratchet bomb or powder keg
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV
UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tron GR
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
I just really find BtB to be overwhelmingly powerful. Too powerful to pass up. And so is Bitterblossom, it's starting to look like. I'll only need to draw one basic swamp or polluted delta to be set.
That's a shame, because they're ridiculously strong against, like all the decks.
slippery boggle can be equipped with a sword. just FYI. and still a bad choice of creature. unless you are on a budget. but still, i prefer sage of epityr in that case.
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV
UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tron GR
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
Its not as bad as you think and that doesnt mean its a permanent choice. I just do not have much love for signal pest and I just happened to find a set of boggles and thought id try them. So far its proven to be hard to get rid of and still provides a turn one beater. Unlike the pest I dont have to worry about creatures and removal. I just save my counters for their creatures or big bomb spells while they sit on a useless hand of PtE or StP. But theres a good chance Ill swap them for something else and try those. This tends to be my most frequently changing slot. The thopters I keep bouncing around on sometimes three seems to few but 4 seems to many.
About cloud of faeries I like them and use them in other builds but here they dont seem proactive enough ok I got a free 1/1 flier and they up your count for spellstutter but just doesnt seem like a strong enough reason to play them. Id rather try other creatures in those slots.
@thirdbardo I may try to get the V cliques today I won a box in the last tourney so Ill have trade bait. I just keep getting mixed responses about them. I personally prefer a counter to just hoping what you get rid of is worse then what they draw. But you never know till you try.
Never said I always do but its a reason to consider geist in the MB and can make a very solid field. Sometimes I bounce the angel yes its two damage that turn but next turn Ill get that extra two and have a draw engine on the field or be able to see my opponents hand etc. Sometimes CA is much more powerful then two damage for a turn and something Id happily consider doing every time. Particularly as the angel token disappears anyways so why not put a permanent beater/draw engine down in its place.