MTG Salvation

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa

Long story short, this thread is for brewing ideas of combining Kondo’s ability with face-down creatures and ninjas. If this direction interests you, please read on.

I’ve always loved the ideas of face-down cards, because they are like your extra hand similar to how Karador uses graveyard, and unlike cards in hand face-downs could also attack/block when you need it. Further, Kondo makes 2/2s hard to be blocked, allow you to trigger all kinds of combat effect.

So why ninjas? Well, face-down creature are result of morph or manifest, and one big problem with manifest is that if they’re not creatures they couldn’t turn face-up on their own, and in most cases people rather cast those spells than watch them die. Also, creatures with morph-trigger become useless after they turn face up. Ninja with their ninjutsu however could bounced those creature back to your hand as long as they’re not blocked.

Therefore, it seems natural to have Kondo helm a group of faceless ninjas like Ra's al Ghul leading League of Assassins.

The next question is, who should Kondo partner with to make this work?

Ninjas as a creature type is easily obtainable (like with Arcane Adaptation), but only true ninjas have ninjutsu and they are blue and black, which means means Kondo needs to at least partly associate with either color.

Potential partnership are:

Bant - Highest concentration of blink and small creature mechanics.

Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Potentially explosive with cards like Bident of Thassa.
Thrasios, Triton Hero - Draw engine and benefits from Kondo’s offensive ability.
Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker - Personal evasion.

Abzan - Persistent creature presence with revival.

Ravos, Soultender - Return precious creatures back to hand, but making them bigger means they won’t benefit from Kondo’s ability.
Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper - Life gain.
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan - Not recommended due to her ability counteracts Kondo’s.
Tymna the Weaver - More combat = more cards, and your creatures are hard to block.

4 Colors - Max card choices.

Kraum, Ludevic's Opus - Evasion helps ninjutsu, and draw you cards when opponents play spells.
Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - Group hug and distract opponents’ from attacking you solely.
Vial Smasher the Fierce - Not recommended since most spells (including morph) will be low cc.
Silas Renn, Seeker Adept - The only partner that gives access to all ninjas, also allows artifact sub theme such as trinkets (low cc) and Glissa, The Traitor. Also with U/B we could add Aminatou, the Fateshifter and Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow into the fold.

Personally, I think blue is more crucial than black in utility weight, but I’d like to hear everyone’s opinion on this. I will update the list as I get more time.







Below are cards that I’d use with different partners specifically, will add more later.



Let’s brew!

Whisperwood Elemental

I've been very keen to make a deck around Primordial Mist. I'm not sure if this theme would be it, but I'm certainly looking for face down cards as a way of gaining advantage.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Whisperwood Elemental

I've been very keen to make a deck around Primordial Mist. I'm not sure if this theme would be it, but I'm certainly looking for face down cards as a way of gaining advantage.

Thus far, I've tried Aminatou for a similar theme as this one, mostly manifest and almost no morph due to blinking doesn't cause morph-trigger to trigger, yet blinking a manifest creature may at times result in a powerful permanent (such as Omniscience).