Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant just seem unnecessary. Life is our least valuable resource, and we can't really use it like Soul Sisters or B/W Tokens can. I'd rather fit in a play-set of Path to Exiles and some counter-spells.
Silverblade Paladin could be viable. The problems I see with it are that it's not the best ninja enabler itself, and that it doesn't quite fit in with the play-style that the ninjas have (beating your opponent with repeated 2 for 1s vs killing your opponent ASAP).
If you want to deal damage with two different Ninjas by using ninjitsu in between the first and second combat damage steps, you don't need double strike for that -- you would only need first strike. Hanweir Lancer would suffice for this. The relaxed mana requirements make it slightly easier to use than Silverblade Paladin -- it's a nice card, but that double-white is tough to hit on a splash.
If we're looking at Soulbond cards, I think Wingcrafter might be more useful since it launches our team of ninjas into the air for only 1 mana -- very cheap "fodder" creature to get onto the battlefield and use for ninjitsu. Even so, I don't like the conditional-ness of the flying, and I see something like Faerie Miscreant as being more consistent.
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A new LGS opened up this month and they've been doing a weekly Wednesday modern event. I wasn't sure what to play for my first time there, so rather than take any of my tier 1 or tier 2 decks, I decided to bust out my experimental Faerie Ninja deck and see how it fared in the metagame.
I was scrambling to get my sideboard assembled (since this shares a few cards with my Merfolk deck), and in hindsight I should have played fewer Echoing Truth and more Vapor Snag. Bah. Ah well. I'll fix it next time.
I was also experimenting with my Mutavault / Faerie Conclave split here. With all of the heavy blue that this deck runs, having three colorless sources crimped me on colors more than once. It wasn't too bad, but I definitely wouldn't go above three colorless sources -- especially running only 20 lands like this.
Normally I think a deck like this would want around 22 lands, but running 3 Gitaxian Probe lets me feel a bit more confident in keeping land-light hands. I also run Cloud Sprite as a 9th 1-drop creature, which helps smooth my curve out a bit more as well.
Plus, the look on people's faces when I drop a Cloud Sprite on turn 1 is pretty priceless -- they can't believe they're playing someone as amateur-hour as me. This deck definitely caught more than one opponent off guard, though I will note that this time at least some people were vaguely familiar with the build thanks to Saffron Olive's recent feature on a similar mono-blue faerie deck. I think Saffron's build really could have benefited from NotDH, and would have loved for it to get more time in the spotlight.
Match 1: Norin's Sisters
Speaking of obscure decks, I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Soul Sisters, but there is a crazy variant of that deck running around now that not only plays the standard 8 Soul Warden + Soul's Attendant, but it also splashes red for Norin the Wary and Impact Tremors, and adds a whole 'nother level of craziness with Genesis Chamber. It gets seriously insane. Norin cycling in and out every turn to trigger the Soul Sisters and create more Myr tokens and just pinging you to death with Genesis Chamber... ugh. It's unreal.
Anyways, our games took absolutely forever. I was playing a control deck whose plan is to stall the opponent long enough to peck them to death with 1/1 fliers. And we has playing a dedicated lifegain deck whose goal was to survive by gaining 2 or 3 life per turn and grind out the opponent.
Game 1 I was able to get some early card advantage and keep up the pressure. He was able to resolve two sisters, but I was able to keep his life total hovering between 10 and 20 by continually pecking in with my fliers. I had decent card advantage from my Ninja and Miscreants, but I didn't have enough counterspells to get sloppy. Eventually I was able to keep enough card advantage and enough counterspells to keep his critical threats off the board and was able to grind out a win, but it took forever.
Game 2 was similarly grindy, though he got a much faster start. He got down a Norin the Wary on turn 1, and it was incredibly tough to deal with as my deck doesn't have any answers to it. He kept on trying to resolve an Impact Tremors, but I was able to either remand them, counter them, or use [card]Echoing Truth[/url] to send them back to his hand to keep them from doing too much damage.
Late in the game I had him down to 7 life while I was at 5. I had a slight edge on the upper hand, and he only had a Norin on the battlefield. Foolishly I let him resolve a copy of Worship, because I thought if I could keep his creature count low enough, it wouldn't matter so long as he only had a Norin on the field. However, I didn't have enough colored mana to leave open the proper counterspells and he was able to resolve a Genesis Chamber to start churning out Myr tokens. Sadly I didn't have any more Echoing Truth, and even though I could have gotten him down to 0 life, I couldn't deal with the Worship. By this point we were on turns, so I left my guys back as blockers and survived through turn 5. He would have ground me out in the long run, so I was due to lose the game, but I was able win the match overall 1-0-1.
Match 2: Quest for the Holy Argentum Armor
If you played Standard several years ago, you might remember a deck based around the cards Quest for the Holy Relic and Argentum Armor. Its goal is to stick a Quest for the Holy Relic on turn 1, then play free creatures like Ornithopter and Memnite and recycle them with Glint Hawk in order to fire off a Quest as early as turn 2. Generally tutor up a copy of Argentum Armor and go to town blowing up their lands.
Game 1, I played T1 Miscreant into T2 Ninja to get card advantage. He managed to land a T1 Quest and get it to fire off on T2 in order to blow up my second land and hit me for 7 damage or so. I took the hit, then calmly Vapor Snag'd his ornithopter back to his hand on my next turn. Even so, being land cramped really hurt me, and I wasn't able to come back from that.
Game 2, he wasn't able to get his combo entirely rolling, and I controlled the game state long enough to tap down his team with Cryptic Command and swing for lethal on the last turn.
Game 3, he combo'd me off again, and there wasn't much I could do.
So far, I'm 1-1 in matches.
Match 3, Melira CoCo
This was a really spicy build of Melira Combo that splashed white for Anafenza the Foremost and Path to Exile type stuff. Anafenza the Foremost is really strong in this deck, since it's a large beater that can be snagged off of Collected Company and its exile effect also nicely turns off the opponent's ability to combo off in the mirror.
Game 1 I was able to bounce his Birds of Paradise on turns 1 and 2 and slow down his mana a bit, but I wasn't advancing my own board state in the meantime, and by the time we advanced to turns 3 he was able to resolve a Collected Company and steamroll me from there. I had a crucial misplay at the end where I could have countered one of his combo pieces but didn't, and as a result I lost the game. I think I was still going to lose, but it would have perhaps given me another turn.
Game 2 I took out all of my copies of Mistbind Clique since they can just CoCo in response to it and combo off as if I'm not even there. I brought in Engulf the Shore instead but never saw it to cast it. His deck was just very fast with the mana acceleration and my deck isn't set up to cope with that -- he rolled face over yet again.
Match 4: RG Tron
This was a player who I played briefly before the tournament started. This is a really excellent matchup for our deck since we run so many counterspells and them goldfishing for the first 2 or 3 turns really lets us get our card advantage engine online. His goal was to play Simian Spirit Guide and Through the Breach to get out an early Emrakul, which he very nearly did -- except that I was always prepared with the appropriate counterspell on hand when the time came.
It was a beating, not gonna' lie. I did a good job of countering his Ancient Stirrings in game 1 and game 2, and he wasn't able to find tron in either game. The Ninjas were hitting strong and drawing so many cards, it was unreal. I had counterspells for days, and by the end of game 2 I was even countering stupid things like Chromatic Star just because I didn't want him to cycle cards and possibly draw into Tron. I felt bad for the guy.
Overall I went 2-2 in my matches, which was better than I expected to do with the deck. In the end, I would play fewer copies of Echoing Truth in the maindeck -- maybe 1 or 2 is a good number. Boomerang and Glen Elendra Archmage may be coming out of the sideboard, since I don't think Glen Elendra is fast enough. I'm having a hard time imagining the sort of matchup where I would want to bring in that card. And as much as I hate to admit it, Peel from Reality was underwhelming and I would almost always want Vapor Snag or Unsummon in its place. Familiar's Ruse is still the all-star of the deck, and I'm always glad to see it. I still think there's room to put Mistblade Shinobi into this deck, and I think I'll start experimenting with it.
Having a nice variety of counterspells is really valuable. Soft counters like Mana Leak, hard counters like Familiar's Ruse, tempo counters like Remand and conditional counters like Spellstutter Sprite are all great to have access to, and this was a very enjoyable build to play. I might consider running Ancestral Vision as a 1-of or 2-of in this deck, but I don't know how much we want it, since we already have so many good engines for card advantage.
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I am taking UR ninja to deck SCG NJ this weekend and have been playing various ninja decks for a long time. If anyone is interested I will do a write up before the weekend on my experience with the deck. This thread is pretty dead so I dont want to waste my time.
I am taking UR ninja to deck SCG NJ this weekend and have been playing various ninja decks for a long time. If anyone is interested I will do a write up before the weekend on my experience with the deck. This thread is pretty dead so I dont want to waste my time.
I'm still subscribed, and would be very interested! I'm still actively experimenting with this deck, and I would love to hear your experiences with the Izzet version! I think the UB and UW lists are interesting, but they haven't ever appealed to me enough to want to build one beyond mono-blue. Blue / red intrigues me though, and it never really occurred to me to do tempo/control with anything other than Delver in that shell. Color me intrigued -- I would love to hear how the tournament goes for you!
As for my own experimentation with Ninjas, I was just testing with a new Ninja yesterday. My LGS is running an interesting tournament format on Labor Day weekend -- it's fairly wide open with a Vintage banlist, but the main restriction is that the price tag of the deck can't be more than $25 (according to TCGMid). So far in testing: decks like Affinity (Cranial Plating is banned in pauper but legal here), Infect (Invigorate being legal has given me 14 infect on turn 2) and High Tide are all super cheap and effective -- but I think the best answer in the format might be ninjas. Mistblade Shinobi is :incredibly: good against infect (because they can't afford Inkmoth Nexus, and protecting their creatures requires them to burn an Apostle's Blessing or Vines of Vastwood on my turn rather than theirs), Ninja of the Deep Hours keeps up card advantage, and the classic combo of Spellstutter Sprite + Familiar's Ruse does such a great job of locking down against combo in the later turns. Normally I've been a proponent for builds heavier on "faerie" rather than "ninja", but this deck will be the first time I'm running a full complement of 8 ninjas (4 Mistblade + 4 Deep Hours). Both Sea Sprite and Cloud of Faeries will be great additions to the version of the deck that I play in Modern. I'll post my full list after the tournament.
I don't yet know how it will fare against burn / goblins (I'm counting on you, Sea Sprite!), but I still love this shell of a deck, and love tinkering with it to find new angles with it.
All that to say, I would love hearing your experiences with an Izzet version!
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I'll post a write up on my UR deck tonight. But for your tourney, if you can fit them in the budget cloud of faeries and standstill are a house with ninjas. You can ninjitsu through a standstill.
Internet is out so I'm going to just post a few thoughts from my phone.
I've been playing ninjas in some form since Betrayers came out way back when. Ninja of the deep hours is my favorite card of all time so I have always tried to make it work. I casually played ninjas in modern on MODO for years until about a year ago when I decided I wanted to try and make it competitive. My MODO decks were all mono blue and used the ornithopter plan of going for a turn 2 ninja every game. Then using unblockable spells to get ninjas through every turn. It's fun and it works. But it gets crushed by the top tier decks.
Then I tried faerie ninjas in paper. I played it for a few months on and off with delver decks. I came to a really heartbreaking conclusion then. The ninjas were the worst part of the deck. Especially mistblade shinobi. Mistblade looks like it should be a really good card and when it is good it's fantastic. But it's a 1 mana 1/1 that gets blocked by everything. After the initial ninjitsu it's basically just a vanilla 1/1. It requires so much back up to work every turn. I cut them completely from the deck. It was a sad day.
On ninja of the deep hours. I love this card so much. I've been pairing it value creatures for years. It's fantastic and is the glue that holds a ninja deck together. It's also not a great magic card. The turn 2 ninja plan is not great in competitive modern I found. Leaving your ninja exposed for an entire turn is just asking for it to be killed. And most opponents know to kill it on sight. I slow roll my ninjas now. I'm not going to ninjitsu until I have enough mana and cards to at least look like I can defend it. Because of this I have more time to actually draw the ninja so I only play 3. My "competitive" ninja deck only plays 3 ninjas.
Enter red. Ninja is not the win condition in the deck. It's a value creature to gain even more value off of spellstuter Sprite and snapcaster mage. Bolt snap bolt is how I win games now. Ninja is just the engine that gets me there. I'm now running UR ninja faeries with the basic faerie shell. 4 miscrent 4 spellstuter 2 vendillion clique 2 mistbind clique. The mistbinds are also on the verge off getting the axe for more interaction. But they made the cut for this weekend based on some last minute testing.
I'm really enjoying the deck so far and I finished 2-1 at modern night with it last week. I should have been 3-0 but I misplayed against UW control and lost a counter war when I knew he had an extra dispel in hand.
My list is designed to prey on the midrange decks of the format. Mostly jund. The best part of ninja of the deep hours is that it dodges abrupt decay. So we should always have a counter in hand to deal with the inevitable removal spell. From there it's just a grind. Slowly gaining advantage off of ninja and remand.
I guess I'll just post the deck list.
4 faerie miscrent
4 spellstuter Sprite
4 snapcaster mage
2 vendillion clique
2 mistbind clique
3 ninja of the deep hours
2 dragons claw
2 pillar of flame
3 relic of progentitus
2 ancient grudge
1 hurkyl's recall
2 dispel
1 negate
1 spell pierce
1 spellskite
Good matches are jund, infect and combo decks.
Bad matches are burn, Tron and coco decks.
Moderate matches are junk and other blue based decks.
On junk. As long as lingering souls never resolves it's good of us.
On Tron. I think it's unwinnable. The on cast triggers of ulamog and new emrakul wreck us. And Tron will get to those cards no matter what. We are just not fast enough to race.
On blue decks. We have an advantage of an actual clock. It's slow. But it's there. Combined with the cards off of ninja we can usually get there. But these decks are typically paired with white and supreme verdict which we can't beat.
Other blue decks like delver or
Grixis we actually have more interaction and can prevent a threat from actually resolving.
That's the basic plan here. Stall and few turns. Counter the first spell possible with spellstuter then try to ride ninja for as long as possible letting as little resolve as possible. Then bolt them to death.
Sorry of the lack of card tags and my scattered thoughts. I've been known to ramble and tell stories. And this was much longer than I initially planned to type out on my phone. Also sorry for any typos or grammar issues. I'm not editing on my phone.
I went 1-6 in the modern open. It was really rough. Deck just didn't work. I consistently drew the wrong half and was trying to pilot the deck through the aggro gauntlet.
After the initial ninjitsu it's basically just a vanilla 1/1. It requires so much back up to work every turn. I cut them completely from the deck. It was a sad day.
This is a tough realization indeed. NotDH being a 2/2 is actually relevant -- it's amazing how much worse it is for it to be a 1/1.
On ninja of the deep hours. I love this card so much. I've been pairing it value creatures for years. It's fantastic and is the glue that holds a ninja deck together. It's also not a great magic card. The turn 2 ninja plan is not great in competitive modern I found. Leaving your ninja exposed for an entire turn is just asking for it to be killed. And most opponents know to kill it on sight. I slow roll my ninjas now. I'm not going to ninjitsu until I have enough mana and cards to at least look like I can defend it. Because of this I have more time to actually draw the ninja so I only play 3. My "competitive" ninja deck only plays 3 ninjas.
Even worse than my opponents killing my NotDH is when they learn that they need to kill my 1/1's. That's the roughest part for me -- being stuck with three faeries in the graveyard and two ninjas in hand -- feels really bad to have to hard cast a ninja on turn 4 because you have nothing else to do.
Enter red. Ninja is not the win condition in the deck. It's a value creature to gain even more value off of spellstuter Sprite and snapcaster mage. Bolt snap bolt is how I win games now. Ninja is just the engine that gets me there. I'm now running UR ninja faeries with the basic faerie shell. 4 miscrent 4 spellstuter 2 vendillion clique 2 mistbind clique. The mistbinds are also on the verge off getting the axe for more interaction. But they made the cut for this weekend based on some last minute testing.
I'm really enjoying the deck so far and I finished 2-1 at modern night with it last week. I should have been 3-0 but I misplayed against UW control and lost a counter war when I knew he had an extra dispel in hand.
This makes a lot of sense. I originally came to NotDH + Spellstutter because I wanted to be able to recycle spells without having to shell out for Snapcaster Mage. I love the idea of pairing Ninja with Snapcaster -- that's an awesome idea.
Regarding your list, only a couple of thoughts:
I like the green splash for Ancient Grudge. Any room for Jeskia for Path to Exile? Maybe too edge-case.
Against Tron, one thing you might consider is Spreading Seas -- that's a card I've been planning to experiment with, but haven't gotten it in a game against them yet.
Also, Mistbind Clique is really stellar against Tron -- I would definitely board in the full playset against them, provided we can tempo them off of Tron until turn 4 (Boomerang helps with that, since it can bounce their land drop for a turn).
Anyways, I love your list -- reminds me of a blue/red delver list, but uses ninja and faeries as value creatures instead of trying to rely too hard on flipping an early delver.
Sorry to hear about the rough showing at SCG NJ -- it would be one thing if it felt like a fair showing for the deck, but it's disappointing when it feels like the deck didn't have a decent representation for itself.
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Which decks is Mistblade good against in your opinion?
I've seen it put in some good work vs. Infect as a 1/1, but without a way to make it threatening (I.E., Ronin Warclub) then I agree that it's generally very lackluster. I'm running it for very specific meta reasons for my upcoming $25-deck-limit tournament, and that's primarily to deal with Infect. Without access to Inkmoth Nexus, Infect is very vulnerable to sorcery-speed removal, and they either have to pump / protect their 1/1's on my turn when I swing in with Mistblade, or risk getting tempo'd when I bounce them back to their hand. They either spend their precious pump resources on my turn, or they lose a creature, or they get time walked. No matter which they choose, I win.
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I'm inclined to agree with iakor. In my experience I've found mistblade to be good in exactly zero matches. Yes against infect he's fine but we should have a good infect match anyway. Being a 1/1 really hurts him. After the first ninjitsu a decent opponent will never let him get through again.
On Tron and mistbind clique. I've Tron to be such a horrendously bad matchup that I decided to dedicate zero sideboard slots to it. Tron is already on a downswing in modern with rise of dredge and burn to combat it. Mistbind in particular is good against more than Tron but the amount of times where we just don't have a faerie in play to champion makes him dead more often then not. Mistbind only truly excels when he is backed up my bitterblossom to make a huge amount of faeries. If we are bouncing our own faeries with ninjas we are not likely to have more than one faerie in play come turn 4-5 and that is just asking for a 2 for 1 blowout.
On my SCG NJ fiasco. I assumed the with dredge and burn on rise jeskai and jund would rise up to fight them. I wasn't wrong. It's just all the super aggressive players got crushed by midrange in the invitational and signed up for the open. So the open ended up being a linear nightmare especially at the lower tables.
For now I'm going to self the ninjas for a bit until the meta settles down again. The deck is incredibly fun and I love the look on opponents faces when I ninjitsu for the first time. But it's just not competitive right now.
If i don't get lazy I'll do a tournament report tonight. But it's not pretty.
Bumping. Looking for input in my decklist. It's still pretty casual and I haven't have many match ups with it yet but I have already built it. With the little match ups I've had, I can say that the main problem I have is hopefully just because of bad draws (Went an entire match without drawing Miscreant or a Ninja). This is my first build so I'm not expecting much of anything but the Ninjutsu Mechanic really interests me
Enablers
x4 Ornithopter
x2 Zephyr Sprite (Replacing with Faerie Impostor, a vanilla flying 1/1 just isn't that useful, this at least let's me recycle Ninjas and Spellstutter Sprite along with being a 2/1)
x4 Faerie Miscreant
Right now, Mistblade Shinobi only really does is annoy my opponent, I'm thinking of possibly adding Hidden Strings then more Counter Spells possibly creature counter spells since unless I get an Aqueous Form, my Ninja's are sitting ducks, plus it just seems like a good plan, have my MS bounce a creature then counter it the turn after (Preferably with something like Psychic Barrier), alternatively just get more normal counterspells like Spell Syphon and Rune Snag
I know this thread might be archived but, just wanted to share with you guys this deck. Surprisingly did pretty alright on Xmage. I know the deck looks quite unpolished and messy, and i've only tested in a few matches. But i just want to give my feedback that in a ninja based deck the ninjas are only complimentary, i think that everyone pretty much knows this. So i just figured the enablers should finish the game.
Signal pest
You can win by beating down with un-blockables, affinity style.
Inkfathom witch
Inkfathom is the finisher. Dealing loads of damage or ending the game with witch and un-blockables. Inkfathom can also turn opponent unblocked attacking creatures into 4/1s. Maybe we can explore more on that. Imagine letting the opponent's creatures go through, and then you play marrow shards and they have no answer for that.
Dimir Infiltrator
Is actually a tutor too. Many times i use dimir to transmute a counterspell, inkfathom, removal or even a skullsnatcher for Graveyard hate etc etc.
I'll update more when i have the time. I think maybe adding space for ghost quarters would help.
I've attached some in game pictures below. My experience with Ninjas on Xmage was quite fun. There was even an elf player who refused to allow me to rollback when i accidently clicked inkfathom's ability a phase too early to end the game, haha got too excited. He was really really salty and sour.
Bumping. Looking for input in my decklist. It's still pretty casual and I haven't have many match ups with it yet but I have already built it. With the little match ups I've had, I can say that the main problem I have is hopefully just because of bad draws (Went an entire match without drawing Miscreant or a Ninja). This is my first build so I'm not expecting much of anything but the Ninjutsu Mechanic really interests me
Enablers
x4 Ornithopter
x2 Zephyr Sprite (Replacing with Faerie Impostor, a vanilla flying 1/1 just isn't that useful, this at least let's me recycle Ninjas and Spellstutter Sprite along with being a 2/1)
x4 Faerie Miscreant
Right now, Mistblade Shinobi only really does is annoy my opponent, I'm thinking of possibly adding Hidden Strings then more Counter Spells possibly creature counter spells since unless I get an Aqueous Form, my Ninja's are sitting ducks, plus it just seems like a good plan, have my MS bounce a creature then counter it the turn after (Preferably with something like Psychic Barrier), alternatively just get more normal counterspells like Spell Syphon and Rune Snag
My advice is to play more enablers, or you may run into problems where you draw no enablers and you have ninjas stuck in your hand. If you are playing spellstutter, you should increase the faerie count, put in 4 zephyr sprites maybe a few quickling or faerie impostor. If you have the budget mistbind clique is a great card if you go faerie heavy. scion of oona can also be included. I always view ninjas as the compliment cards, the enablers should pack a punch to end the game also.
I think 2 familiar's ruse is enough, there are some occasions where you can't counter because you have no creatures on the board. The best ninja is deep hours because its a 2cc ninjutsu 2/2 and a card draw. You may want to cut down on mistblades, maybe 2 is enough. Because these days many decks play creatures with Enter the battlefield effects, which are unfavorable to mistblade. If you play mono blue, Dismember is a great card to remove huge creatures.
I think Higure is too expensive. I decided to cut him off the list years ago because tapping out for him usually cost me the game sometimes. But i guess in late games he is alright. Hope this input helps!
Don't worry.. every ninja deck is always casual. haha
Ninja of the Deep Hours is one of my favorite cards in magic and I'm surprised I haven't worked more on this type of deck before.
I'm sure it could use twerking, especially the sideboard, I haven't tested the deck much at all, but in the short time I have it's performing pretty well. Disrupting Shoal is very good and also one of my favorite cards in IMO possibly the most underrated card in Modern.
This deck can have a surprisingly fast clock and do a deceptive amount of dmg.
EDIT!: Matchups! (check back here for more matchups results at a later time) I'm quite impressed with this deck! (not much testing yet, but here are all my results vs Tier 1-2 decks)
Vs. Blue Tron 2-0 and 0-2
Vs. R/W Nahiri Prison 2-0 and against a weird version 0-2
Vs. Elves 2-1
Vs. Infect 2-0 and 1-2
Vs. Naya Burn 2-1
Vs. R/G Land Destruction 0-2
Vs. R/G Titanshift 2-1
Vs. Affinity 2-1
Safe to say this can go toe-to-toe with the best decks
Also I've changed up the deck a little
Main:
-4 Vapor Snag -2 Zephyr Sprite +4 Unsubstantiate (allows for game 1 answers to random ***** like Bridge, Chalice, Ghostly Prison) and +1 Dismember
- 5 Island + 6 Fetchland (just to help prevent flooding) -1 Island +1 Cavern of Souls (maybe should be a 3rd Mutavault instead; and I'm also now running 21 lands and 6 fetches)
LEGACY: Soldier Stompy WW // Blue Stompy UU // Fit Variants BGRW // Sol Land Brews BGRUWC MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
Cryptic Command is too expensive. The reason I liked Into the Roil is it's actually an answer all at 2 mana and although we usually would be casting it for 2, it's nice that's it's better in a stalled game.
I've added Commandeer, one of my favorite cards of all time. It's a free spell that is fine when you're drawing cards from Ninja and/or Faerie Miscreant, and stealing a removal spell or discard spell isn't really much card disadvantage anyways. This can definitely be a fast tempo deck, but it can also be quite controlling with Spellstutter shenanigans, and free spells makes sure that I'm casting more spells than my opponent and controlling the battlefield.
LEGACY: Soldier Stompy WW // Blue Stompy UU // Fit Variants BGRW // Sol Land Brews BGRUWC MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
Okay guys I've been out for a while but I'm back and brewing. The meta has changed a lot over the past few years, here is what I have come up with... I don't remember how to autocard so here's just my list.
The gameplane is pretty straight forward. Early game remove removal or back breaking threats with targeted discard.
Mid game kill opposing creatures with mass removal
Late game win with master of cruelty ninja combo or ink eyes board flooding.
Best early game plays
Turn 1 land thoughtsieze take tarmagoyf
T2 collective brutality discarding sedrixas specter to get 2 modes on brutality. Take abrupt decay and they lose 2 you gain 2. Or kill a small creature like birds or hierarch.
T3 reanimate specter. Fly in for 3 they discard again.
At this point they should be depleted enough that you just win.
T1
Thoughtsieze take removal spell.
T2
Oonas prowler
T3
Attack with prowler. They discard a card to prevent damage. Ninjutsu out for throat slitter killing there dude or deep hours to draw a card.... if you go with deep hours and you have another discard spell for 1 mana play it first.
T1
Thoughtsieze taking early game creature or removal.
T2 pass. End of opponents turn if cost is clear flash in snapcaster mage no targets.
T3 attack with snapcaster, ninja of the deep draw.
if this is to expensive and you need a budget version let me know. I've been playing magic 10+ years and building a solid ninja deck has been my life's work in magic lol.
Honestly if your in red is drop the fairy package and run swiftspear, also, consider adding mutagenic growth to protect ninja from bolts. As well as delver and swiftspear. 9 fetches is to many, cut to 7. And disrupting shoal is key for a turn 2 ninjitsu with protection against removal. Don't forget you can always hardcast it. If you want to stay on the fairies plan you need to find a way to do more damage with your creatures. Which is something I've struggled with in fairies lists. I'd go down to 19 lands, 16 creatures, and 25 spells to make delver a constant.
Let's talk about BLUE-BLACK Ninjas enablers (i don't mind other colors, i like em blue and black): who are the best nowadays? (to put together with the awesome ornithtopter that comes back in game the same turn after a ninjutsu cause ZERO mana)
I can't really decide cause we have some options:
-the faerie pack, so the faerie miscreant and the spellstrutter sprite. It just works, They can counter, but it is not so frequent as it seems. It's a semi-trap, you think you can counter the world with them but they woun't. Still some good counters CAN happen. OPTIONS=GOOD!
Besides the added value of the possibility of countering something they just suck, 1/1 with flying means they CAN be blocked and they die to everything.
- Amonkhet gave us the 1mana slither blade that has 2 thoughness and so doesn't die to everything, and as an enabler he is better than every fliers: he can't be blocked. But if we play him we should drop not only the one mana faerie but also the 2mana faerie cause she'd make sense no more.
So as 2mana in substitution of the 2mana faerie i think i would say the dimir infiltrator that has the same effect
The best two mana slot isn't the dimir, but the nether traitor. Cause he will come back, but two black mana is risky.
Silverblade Paladin could be viable. The problems I see with it are that it's not the best ninja enabler itself, and that it doesn't quite fit in with the play-style that the ninjas have (beating your opponent with repeated 2 for 1s vs killing your opponent ASAP).
If we're looking at Soulbond cards, I think Wingcrafter might be more useful since it launches our team of ninjas into the air for only 1 mana -- very cheap "fodder" creature to get onto the battlefield and use for ninjitsu. Even so, I don't like the conditional-ness of the flying, and I see something like Faerie Miscreant as being more consistent.
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Zephyr Sprite
1 Cloud Sprite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Quickling
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Mistbind Clique
Spells:
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Vapor Snag
1 Peel from Reality
4 Familiar's Ruse
3 Echoing Truth
1 Boomerang
1 Mana Leak
2 Remand
1 Cryptic Command
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Mutavault
1 Ghost Quarter
15 Island
3 Engulf the Shore
2 Scion of Oona
1 Quickling
1 Echoing Truth
2 Boomerang
2 Spell Pierce
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Peel from Reality
1 Negate
1 Sower of Temptation
I was scrambling to get my sideboard assembled (since this shares a few cards with my Merfolk deck), and in hindsight I should have played fewer Echoing Truth and more Vapor Snag. Bah. Ah well. I'll fix it next time.
I was also experimenting with my Mutavault / Faerie Conclave split here. With all of the heavy blue that this deck runs, having three colorless sources crimped me on colors more than once. It wasn't too bad, but I definitely wouldn't go above three colorless sources -- especially running only 20 lands like this.
Normally I think a deck like this would want around 22 lands, but running 3 Gitaxian Probe lets me feel a bit more confident in keeping land-light hands. I also run Cloud Sprite as a 9th 1-drop creature, which helps smooth my curve out a bit more as well.
Plus, the look on people's faces when I drop a Cloud Sprite on turn 1 is pretty priceless -- they can't believe they're playing someone as amateur-hour as me. This deck definitely caught more than one opponent off guard, though I will note that this time at least some people were vaguely familiar with the build thanks to Saffron Olive's recent feature on a similar mono-blue faerie deck. I think Saffron's build really could have benefited from NotDH, and would have loved for it to get more time in the spotlight.
Match 1: Norin's Sisters
Speaking of obscure decks, I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Soul Sisters, but there is a crazy variant of that deck running around now that not only plays the standard 8 Soul Warden + Soul's Attendant, but it also splashes red for Norin the Wary and Impact Tremors, and adds a whole 'nother level of craziness with Genesis Chamber. It gets seriously insane. Norin cycling in and out every turn to trigger the Soul Sisters and create more Myr tokens and just pinging you to death with Genesis Chamber... ugh. It's unreal.
Anyways, our games took absolutely forever. I was playing a control deck whose plan is to stall the opponent long enough to peck them to death with 1/1 fliers. And we has playing a dedicated lifegain deck whose goal was to survive by gaining 2 or 3 life per turn and grind out the opponent.
Game 1 I was able to get some early card advantage and keep up the pressure. He was able to resolve two sisters, but I was able to keep his life total hovering between 10 and 20 by continually pecking in with my fliers. I had decent card advantage from my Ninja and Miscreants, but I didn't have enough counterspells to get sloppy. Eventually I was able to keep enough card advantage and enough counterspells to keep his critical threats off the board and was able to grind out a win, but it took forever.
Game 2 was similarly grindy, though he got a much faster start. He got down a Norin the Wary on turn 1, and it was incredibly tough to deal with as my deck doesn't have any answers to it. He kept on trying to resolve an Impact Tremors, but I was able to either remand them, counter them, or use [card]Echoing Truth[/url] to send them back to his hand to keep them from doing too much damage.
Late in the game I had him down to 7 life while I was at 5. I had a slight edge on the upper hand, and he only had a Norin on the battlefield. Foolishly I let him resolve a copy of Worship, because I thought if I could keep his creature count low enough, it wouldn't matter so long as he only had a Norin on the field. However, I didn't have enough colored mana to leave open the proper counterspells and he was able to resolve a Genesis Chamber to start churning out Myr tokens. Sadly I didn't have any more Echoing Truth, and even though I could have gotten him down to 0 life, I couldn't deal with the Worship. By this point we were on turns, so I left my guys back as blockers and survived through turn 5. He would have ground me out in the long run, so I was due to lose the game, but I was able win the match overall 1-0-1.
Match 2: Quest for the Holy Argentum Armor
If you played Standard several years ago, you might remember a deck based around the cards Quest for the Holy Relic and Argentum Armor. Its goal is to stick a Quest for the Holy Relic on turn 1, then play free creatures like Ornithopter and Memnite and recycle them with Glint Hawk in order to fire off a Quest as early as turn 2. Generally tutor up a copy of Argentum Armor and go to town blowing up their lands.
Game 1, I played T1 Miscreant into T2 Ninja to get card advantage. He managed to land a T1 Quest and get it to fire off on T2 in order to blow up my second land and hit me for 7 damage or so. I took the hit, then calmly Vapor Snag'd his ornithopter back to his hand on my next turn. Even so, being land cramped really hurt me, and I wasn't able to come back from that.
Game 2, he wasn't able to get his combo entirely rolling, and I controlled the game state long enough to tap down his team with Cryptic Command and swing for lethal on the last turn.
Game 3, he combo'd me off again, and there wasn't much I could do.
So far, I'm 1-1 in matches.
Match 3, Melira CoCo
This was a really spicy build of Melira Combo that splashed white for Anafenza the Foremost and Path to Exile type stuff. Anafenza the Foremost is really strong in this deck, since it's a large beater that can be snagged off of Collected Company and its exile effect also nicely turns off the opponent's ability to combo off in the mirror.
Game 1 I was able to bounce his Birds of Paradise on turns 1 and 2 and slow down his mana a bit, but I wasn't advancing my own board state in the meantime, and by the time we advanced to turns 3 he was able to resolve a Collected Company and steamroll me from there. I had a crucial misplay at the end where I could have countered one of his combo pieces but didn't, and as a result I lost the game. I think I was still going to lose, but it would have perhaps given me another turn.
Game 2 I took out all of my copies of Mistbind Clique since they can just CoCo in response to it and combo off as if I'm not even there. I brought in Engulf the Shore instead but never saw it to cast it. His deck was just very fast with the mana acceleration and my deck isn't set up to cope with that -- he rolled face over yet again.
Match 4: RG Tron
This was a player who I played briefly before the tournament started. This is a really excellent matchup for our deck since we run so many counterspells and them goldfishing for the first 2 or 3 turns really lets us get our card advantage engine online. His goal was to play Simian Spirit Guide and Through the Breach to get out an early Emrakul, which he very nearly did -- except that I was always prepared with the appropriate counterspell on hand when the time came.
It was a beating, not gonna' lie. I did a good job of countering his Ancient Stirrings in game 1 and game 2, and he wasn't able to find tron in either game. The Ninjas were hitting strong and drawing so many cards, it was unreal. I had counterspells for days, and by the end of game 2 I was even countering stupid things like Chromatic Star just because I didn't want him to cycle cards and possibly draw into Tron. I felt bad for the guy.
Overall I went 2-2 in my matches, which was better than I expected to do with the deck. In the end, I would play fewer copies of Echoing Truth in the maindeck -- maybe 1 or 2 is a good number. Boomerang and Glen Elendra Archmage may be coming out of the sideboard, since I don't think Glen Elendra is fast enough. I'm having a hard time imagining the sort of matchup where I would want to bring in that card. And as much as I hate to admit it, Peel from Reality was underwhelming and I would almost always want Vapor Snag or Unsummon in its place. Familiar's Ruse is still the all-star of the deck, and I'm always glad to see it. I still think there's room to put Mistblade Shinobi into this deck, and I think I'll start experimenting with it.
Having a nice variety of counterspells is really valuable. Soft counters like Mana Leak, hard counters like Familiar's Ruse, tempo counters like Remand and conditional counters like Spellstutter Sprite are all great to have access to, and this was a very enjoyable build to play. I might consider running Ancestral Vision as a 1-of or 2-of in this deck, but I don't know how much we want it, since we already have so many good engines for card advantage.
I'm still subscribed, and would be very interested! I'm still actively experimenting with this deck, and I would love to hear your experiences with the Izzet version! I think the UB and UW lists are interesting, but they haven't ever appealed to me enough to want to build one beyond mono-blue. Blue / red intrigues me though, and it never really occurred to me to do tempo/control with anything other than Delver in that shell. Color me intrigued -- I would love to hear how the tournament goes for you!
As for my own experimentation with Ninjas, I was just testing with a new Ninja yesterday. My LGS is running an interesting tournament format on Labor Day weekend -- it's fairly wide open with a Vintage banlist, but the main restriction is that the price tag of the deck can't be more than $25 (according to TCGMid). So far in testing: decks like Affinity (Cranial Plating is banned in pauper but legal here), Infect (Invigorate being legal has given me 14 infect on turn 2) and High Tide are all super cheap and effective -- but I think the best answer in the format might be ninjas. Mistblade Shinobi is :incredibly: good against infect (because they can't afford Inkmoth Nexus, and protecting their creatures requires them to burn an Apostle's Blessing or Vines of Vastwood on my turn rather than theirs), Ninja of the Deep Hours keeps up card advantage, and the classic combo of Spellstutter Sprite + Familiar's Ruse does such a great job of locking down against combo in the later turns. Normally I've been a proponent for builds heavier on "faerie" rather than "ninja", but this deck will be the first time I'm running a full complement of 8 ninjas (4 Mistblade + 4 Deep Hours). Both Sea Sprite and Cloud of Faeries will be great additions to the version of the deck that I play in Modern. I'll post my full list after the tournament.
I don't yet know how it will fare against burn / goblins (I'm counting on you, Sea Sprite!), but I still love this shell of a deck, and love tinkering with it to find new angles with it.
All that to say, I would love hearing your experiences with an Izzet version!
I've been playing ninjas in some form since Betrayers came out way back when. Ninja of the deep hours is my favorite card of all time so I have always tried to make it work. I casually played ninjas in modern on MODO for years until about a year ago when I decided I wanted to try and make it competitive. My MODO decks were all mono blue and used the ornithopter plan of going for a turn 2 ninja every game. Then using unblockable spells to get ninjas through every turn. It's fun and it works. But it gets crushed by the top tier decks.
Then I tried faerie ninjas in paper. I played it for a few months on and off with delver decks. I came to a really heartbreaking conclusion then. The ninjas were the worst part of the deck. Especially mistblade shinobi. Mistblade looks like it should be a really good card and when it is good it's fantastic. But it's a 1 mana 1/1 that gets blocked by everything. After the initial ninjitsu it's basically just a vanilla 1/1. It requires so much back up to work every turn. I cut them completely from the deck. It was a sad day.
On ninja of the deep hours. I love this card so much. I've been pairing it value creatures for years. It's fantastic and is the glue that holds a ninja deck together. It's also not a great magic card. The turn 2 ninja plan is not great in competitive modern I found. Leaving your ninja exposed for an entire turn is just asking for it to be killed. And most opponents know to kill it on sight. I slow roll my ninjas now. I'm not going to ninjitsu until I have enough mana and cards to at least look like I can defend it. Because of this I have more time to actually draw the ninja so I only play 3. My "competitive" ninja deck only plays 3 ninjas.
Enter red. Ninja is not the win condition in the deck. It's a value creature to gain even more value off of spellstuter Sprite and snapcaster mage. Bolt snap bolt is how I win games now. Ninja is just the engine that gets me there. I'm now running UR ninja faeries with the basic faerie shell. 4 miscrent 4 spellstuter 2 vendillion clique 2 mistbind clique. The mistbinds are also on the verge off getting the axe for more interaction. But they made the cut for this weekend based on some last minute testing.
I'm really enjoying the deck so far and I finished 2-1 at modern night with it last week. I should have been 3-0 but I misplayed against UW control and lost a counter war when I knew he had an extra dispel in hand.
My list is designed to prey on the midrange decks of the format. Mostly jund. The best part of ninja of the deep hours is that it dodges abrupt decay. So we should always have a counter in hand to deal with the inevitable removal spell. From there it's just a grind. Slowly gaining advantage off of ninja and remand.
I guess I'll just post the deck list.
4 faerie miscrent
4 spellstuter Sprite
4 snapcaster mage
2 vendillion clique
2 mistbind clique
3 ninja of the deep hours
3 vapor snag
2 electolyze
4 lightning bolt
4 remand
4 mana leak
3 spell snare
1 spell pierce
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
1 wooded foothills
2 steam vents
2 sulfur falls
1 breeding pool
1 mountain
7 island
Sideboard
2 dragons claw
2 pillar of flame
3 relic of progentitus
2 ancient grudge
1 hurkyl's recall
2 dispel
1 negate
1 spell pierce
1 spellskite
Good matches are jund, infect and combo decks.
Bad matches are burn, Tron and coco decks.
Moderate matches are junk and other blue based decks.
On junk. As long as lingering souls never resolves it's good of us.
On Tron. I think it's unwinnable. The on cast triggers of ulamog and new emrakul wreck us. And Tron will get to those cards no matter what. We are just not fast enough to race.
On blue decks. We have an advantage of an actual clock. It's slow. But it's there. Combined with the cards off of ninja we can usually get there. But these decks are typically paired with white and supreme verdict which we can't beat.
Other blue decks like delver or
Grixis we actually have more interaction and can prevent a threat from actually resolving.
That's the basic plan here. Stall and few turns. Counter the first spell possible with spellstuter then try to ride ninja for as long as possible letting as little resolve as possible. Then bolt them to death.
Sorry of the lack of card tags and my scattered thoughts. I've been known to ramble and tell stories. And this was much longer than I initially planned to type out on my phone. Also sorry for any typos or grammar issues. I'm not editing on my phone.
This is a tough realization indeed. NotDH being a 2/2 is actually relevant -- it's amazing how much worse it is for it to be a 1/1.
That said, I think that Ronin Warclub + Mistblade Shinobi has a place, but it's tough to take 3 mana for the warclub. I'm still intrigued by that plan though -- at that point, they're like a disposable 1-mana Unsummon that you use to recycle your Spellstutter Sprites and Faerie Miscreants.
Even worse than my opponents killing my NotDH is when they learn that they need to kill my 1/1's. That's the roughest part for me -- being stuck with three faeries in the graveyard and two ninjas in hand -- feels really bad to have to hard cast a ninja on turn 4 because you have nothing else to do.
This makes a lot of sense. I originally came to NotDH + Spellstutter because I wanted to be able to recycle spells without having to shell out for Snapcaster Mage. I love the idea of pairing Ninja with Snapcaster -- that's an awesome idea.
Regarding your list, only a couple of thoughts:
I like the green splash for Ancient Grudge. Any room for Jeskia for Path to Exile? Maybe too edge-case.
Against Tron, one thing you might consider is Spreading Seas -- that's a card I've been planning to experiment with, but haven't gotten it in a game against them yet.
Also, Mistbind Clique is really stellar against Tron -- I would definitely board in the full playset against them, provided we can tempo them off of Tron until turn 4 (Boomerang helps with that, since it can bounce their land drop for a turn).
Anyways, I love your list -- reminds me of a blue/red delver list, but uses ninja and faeries as value creatures instead of trying to rely too hard on flipping an early delver.
Sorry to hear about the rough showing at SCG NJ -- it would be one thing if it felt like a fair showing for the deck, but it's disappointing when it feels like the deck didn't have a decent representation for itself.
I've seen it put in some good work vs. Infect as a 1/1, but without a way to make it threatening (I.E., Ronin Warclub) then I agree that it's generally very lackluster. I'm running it for very specific meta reasons for my upcoming $25-deck-limit tournament, and that's primarily to deal with Infect. Without access to Inkmoth Nexus, Infect is very vulnerable to sorcery-speed removal, and they either have to pump / protect their 1/1's on my turn when I swing in with Mistblade, or risk getting tempo'd when I bounce them back to their hand. They either spend their precious pump resources on my turn, or they lose a creature, or they get time walked. No matter which they choose, I win.
On Tron and mistbind clique. I've Tron to be such a horrendously bad matchup that I decided to dedicate zero sideboard slots to it. Tron is already on a downswing in modern with rise of dredge and burn to combat it. Mistbind in particular is good against more than Tron but the amount of times where we just don't have a faerie in play to champion makes him dead more often then not. Mistbind only truly excels when he is backed up my bitterblossom to make a huge amount of faeries. If we are bouncing our own faeries with ninjas we are not likely to have more than one faerie in play come turn 4-5 and that is just asking for a 2 for 1 blowout.
On my SCG NJ fiasco. I assumed the with dredge and burn on rise jeskai and jund would rise up to fight them. I wasn't wrong. It's just all the super aggressive players got crushed by midrange in the invitational and signed up for the open. So the open ended up being a linear nightmare especially at the lower tables.
For now I'm going to self the ninjas for a bit until the meta settles down again. The deck is incredibly fun and I love the look on opponents faces when I ninjitsu for the first time. But it's just not competitive right now.
If i don't get lazy I'll do a tournament report tonight. But it's not pretty.
Enablers
x4 Ornithopter
x2 Zephyr Sprite (Replacing with Faerie Impostor, a vanilla flying 1/1 just isn't that useful, this at least let's me recycle Ninjas and Spellstutter Sprite along with being a 2/1)
x4 Faerie Miscreant
Ninjas
x2 Higure the Still Wind
x4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
x4 Mistblade Shinobi
Ninja Tools
x2 Ronin Warclub
Utility Creatures
x4 Spellstutter Sprite
Instants
x4 Vapor Snag
x2 Negate (Possibly replacing with Mana Leak)
x4 Familiar's Ruse
x2 Spell Pierce
Sorceries
x2 Aqueous Form
Lands
x20 Island (adding more non-basic lands as time goes on, Faerie Conclave, Ghost Quarter for starters)
Right now, Mistblade Shinobi only really does is annoy my opponent, I'm thinking of possibly adding Hidden Strings then more Counter Spells possibly creature counter spells since unless I get an Aqueous Form, my Ninja's are sitting ducks, plus it just seems like a good plan, have my MS bounce a creature then counter it the turn after (Preferably with something like Psychic Barrier), alternatively just get more normal counterspells like Spell Syphon and Rune Snag
4 Ninja of the deep hours
1 throat slitter
1 skullsnatcher
Enablers
4 faerie miscreant
4 ornithopter
4 signal pest
4 dimir infiltrator
4 inkfathom witch
Spells
1 go for the throat
1 doomblade
1 smother
2 negate
1 mana leak
2 spell pierce
2 spell snare
1 echoing truth
2 vapor snag
4 polluted delta
4 watery grave
4 sunken hollow
2 drowned catacombs
1 flooded strand
4 Island
2 swamp
2 surgical extraction
1 pithing needle
2 thoughtseize
2 grafdigger's cage
1 echoing truth
3 hibernation
3 hurkyl's recall
1 dispel
Signal pest
You can win by beating down with un-blockables, affinity style.
Inkfathom witch
Inkfathom is the finisher. Dealing loads of damage or ending the game with witch and un-blockables. Inkfathom can also turn opponent unblocked attacking creatures into 4/1s. Maybe we can explore more on that. Imagine letting the opponent's creatures go through, and then you play marrow shards and they have no answer for that.
Dimir Infiltrator
Is actually a tutor too. Many times i use dimir to transmute a counterspell, inkfathom, removal or even a skullsnatcher for Graveyard hate etc etc.
I'll update more when i have the time. I think maybe adding space for ghost quarters would help.
I've attached some in game pictures below. My experience with Ninjas on Xmage was quite fun. There was even an elf player who refused to allow me to rollback when i accidently clicked inkfathom's ability a phase too early to end the game, haha got too excited. He was really really salty and sour.
My advice is to play more enablers, or you may run into problems where you draw no enablers and you have ninjas stuck in your hand. If you are playing spellstutter, you should increase the faerie count, put in 4 zephyr sprites maybe a few quickling or faerie impostor. If you have the budget mistbind clique is a great card if you go faerie heavy. scion of oona can also be included. I always view ninjas as the compliment cards, the enablers should pack a punch to end the game also.
I think 2 familiar's ruse is enough, there are some occasions where you can't counter because you have no creatures on the board. The best ninja is deep hours because its a 2cc ninjutsu 2/2 and a card draw. You may want to cut down on mistblades, maybe 2 is enough. Because these days many decks play creatures with Enter the battlefield effects, which are unfavorable to mistblade. If you play mono blue, Dismember is a great card to remove huge creatures.
I think Higure is too expensive. I decided to cut him off the list years ago because tapping out for him usually cost me the game sometimes. But i guess in late games he is alright. Hope this input helps!
Don't worry.. every ninja deck is always casual. haha
18 Island
2 Mutavault
Creatures:
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Signal Pest
4 Faerie Impostor
4 Ornithopter
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Zephyr Sprite
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Vapor Snag
4 Serum Visions
2 Exhaustion
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Spell Pierce
3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Negate
1 Trinket Mage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Hurkyl's Recall
SEE UPDATE DECK AT BOTTOM!
Ninja of the Deep Hours is one of my favorite cards in magic and I'm surprised I haven't worked more on this type of deck before.
I'm sure it could use twerking, especially the sideboard, I haven't tested the deck much at all, but in the short time I have it's performing pretty well. Disrupting Shoal is very good and also one of my favorite cards in IMO possibly the most underrated card in Modern.
This deck can have a surprisingly fast clock and do a deceptive amount of dmg.
EDIT!: Matchups! (check back here for more matchups results at a later time) I'm quite impressed with this deck! (not much testing yet, but here are all my results vs Tier 1-2 decks)
Vs. Blue Tron 2-0 and 0-2
Vs. R/W Nahiri Prison 2-0 and against a weird version 0-2
Vs. Elves 2-1
Vs. Infect 2-0 and 1-2
Vs. Naya Burn 2-1
Vs. R/G Land Destruction 0-2
Vs. R/G Titanshift 2-1
Vs. Affinity 2-1
Safe to say this can go toe-to-toe with the best decks
Also I've changed up the deck a little
Main:
-4 Vapor Snag -2 Zephyr Sprite +4 Unsubstantiate (allows for game 1 answers to random ***** like Bridge, Chalice, Ghostly Prison) and +1 Dismember
- 5 Island + 6 Fetchland (just to help prevent flooding) -1 Island +1 Cavern of Souls (maybe should be a 3rd Mutavault instead; and I'm also now running 21 lands and 6 fetches)
Sideboard: the sideboard hasn't really been tested much, sideboards take a lot of testing to figure out
-2 Exhaustion -1 Hurkyl's Recall +2 Vapor Snag +1 Spell Pierce
I think Into the Roil my be better than Unsubstantiate for this deck
Check below Decklist to see all changes that have been made!
Possible Inclusions:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
11 Island
3 Mutavault
Creatures:
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Signal Pest
4 Faerie Impostor
4 Ornithopter
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Zephyr Sprite
4 Disrupting Shoal
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Snapback
3 Commandeer
4 Serum Visions
2 Vapor Snag
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Spell Pierce
3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Negate
1 Trinket Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Hurkyl's Recall
MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
Cryptic Command is too expensive. The reason I liked Into the Roil is it's actually an answer all at 2 mana and although we usually would be casting it for 2, it's nice that's it's better in a stalled game.
I've added Commandeer, one of my favorite cards of all time. It's a free spell that is fine when you're drawing cards from Ninja and/or Faerie Miscreant, and stealing a removal spell or discard spell isn't really much card disadvantage anyways. This can definitely be a fast tempo deck, but it can also be quite controlling with Spellstutter shenanigans, and free spells makes sure that I'm casting more spells than my opponent and controlling the battlefield.
MODERN: Pure Pili-ness GU // Red Devotion RR // Green Devotion Variants GRWUG // U/G Emerge CGU // Lots and Lots of Brews BGRUWC
2 Thoughtsieze
4 lightning bolt
3 fatal push
3 terminate
1 collective brutality
3 mana leak
1 kolaghans command
4 oonas prowler
4 snapcaster mage
2 sedrixas specter
1 vendillion clique
2 master of cruelties
1 throat slitter
1 higure the still wind
1 ink eyes servant of Oni
1 okiba gang shinobi
1 darkslick shores
1 spirebluff canal
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
1 watery grave
1 steam vents
1 rogues passage
1 blinkmoth nexus
2 swamp
1 island
2 mountain
1 blood crypt
The gameplane is pretty straight forward. Early game remove removal or back breaking threats with targeted discard.
Mid game kill opposing creatures with mass removal
Late game win with master of cruelty ninja combo or ink eyes board flooding.
Best early game plays
Turn 1 land thoughtsieze take tarmagoyf
T2 collective brutality discarding sedrixas specter to get 2 modes on brutality. Take abrupt decay and they lose 2 you gain 2. Or kill a small creature like birds or hierarch.
T3 reanimate specter. Fly in for 3 they discard again.
At this point they should be depleted enough that you just win.
T1
Thoughtsieze take removal spell.
T2
Oonas prowler
T3
Attack with prowler. They discard a card to prevent damage. Ninjutsu out for throat slitter killing there dude or deep hours to draw a card.... if you go with deep hours and you have another discard spell for 1 mana play it first.
T1
Thoughtsieze taking early game creature or removal.
T2 pass. End of opponents turn if cost is clear flash in snapcaster mage no targets.
T3 attack with snapcaster, ninja of the deep draw.
if this is to expensive and you need a budget version let me know. I've been playing magic 10+ years and building a solid ninja deck has been my life's work in magic lol.
2 Thoughtsieze
4 lightning bolt
3 fatal push
3 terminate
1 collective brutality
3 mana leak
1 kolaghans command
4 oonas prowler
4 snapcaster mage
2 sedrixas specter
1 vendillion clique
2 master of cruelties
1 throat slitter
1 higure the still wind
1 ink eyes servant of Oni
1 okiba gang shinobi
1 darkslick shores
1 spirebluff canal
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
1 watery grave
1 steam vents
1 rogues passage
1 blinkmoth nexus
2 swamp
1 island
2 mountain
1 blood crypt
You use the deck icon and put the cards in the brackets. Or type them yourself. This is how you do it, just remove the $ sign [$deck][$/deck]
Martyr Proc Thread
Esper Relicblade Thread
Standard:
Mardu Superfriends
Turbofog
Much.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/707993#paper
I'm not sure how I feel about it. To me it looks like delver will never flip. And I'm 50/50 on if shoal belongs here.
I can't really decide cause we have some options:
-the faerie pack, so the faerie miscreant and the spellstrutter sprite. It just works, They can counter, but it is not so frequent as it seems. It's a semi-trap, you think you can counter the world with them but they woun't. Still some good counters CAN happen. OPTIONS=GOOD!
Besides the added value of the possibility of countering something they just suck, 1/1 with flying means they CAN be blocked and they die to everything.
- Amonkhet gave us the 1mana slither blade that has 2 thoughness and so doesn't die to everything, and as an enabler he is better than every fliers: he can't be blocked. But if we play him we should drop not only the one mana faerie but also the 2mana faerie cause she'd make sense no more.
So as 2mana in substitution of the 2mana faerie i think i would say the dimir infiltrator that has the same effect
The best two mana slot isn't the dimir, but the nether traitor. Cause he will come back, but two black mana is risky.
- something else i don't know, you can suggest!