+ Bolas's Citadel: In limited testing, this thing is absolutely nuts. You may... kill yourself playing this card. I'd be careful with it.
+ Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge: This card, in limited testing, is also nuts. A lot of the creatures don't have too much color weight and it functionally removes all generic cost requirements by the time you want to play this. If you have a draw engine to go with this then you basically go off. It essentially performed much of the role Storm the Vault did but provides extra utility plus provides the mana savings immediately. The plus 2 does a pretty hefty amount of damage. Don't ever ult unless desperate.
+ Spark Double: Copies Marchesa, copies creatures with a +1/+1 counter attached, AND it copies walkers (in csse we care). What we care about mostly is the +1/+1 counter. Copying Jhoira is pretty insane too.
- Pact of Negation: Good in theory, but we often need more than 1 counter to make it truly worth and we can't slow ourselves down too much.
- Storm the Vault: Not getting immediate value and being situationally good is not good enough. It is powerful but it kind of breaks the flow of the deck.
- Clever Impersonator: A good goodstuff card but clone with a +1/+1 counter that can act as an extra Marchesa is too good.
Normally Skullclamp and friends love zombie decks, but what it loves seeing more than anything is a ton of sac outlets. Not sure if you want to go that route, although cards like Fanatical Devotion serve multiple purposes other than just being an excuse to off your own guys.
Other than that, it has the same strengths and weaknesses as any "critical mass of permanents" deck that I'm familiar with. Semi-resilient board states, lack of room for instant speed answers due to critical mass requirements, certain cards that are by definition win conditions of the deck.
Deck is inherently fair, which is fine. This is neither too terrifying nor a pushover, making it likely viable for most playgroups. This is something I can't say for my builds.
Bolas's Citadel: Powerful artifact draw engine Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge: Powerful global drain option combined with passive affinity being a very strong bonus for colorless artifact creatures combined with draw engines.
Definitely included: Spark Double: Two Marchesas make the deck even tougher than it already is.
Hmm. Finding colorless draw sources is tough. You got 5, which is decent for colorless, but has the ratio so far been giving any problems? I personally have a preference for going for 8-10 when reasonable.
Secondly, you are pretty ramp light for a colorless deck and have multiple cards in the likeness of Planar Portal. Has it been working out for you?
I wouldn't run O-stone in here either. Losing your artifacts puts you too far behind as you rely on them for positional advantage.
The deck looks really interesting.
I've been considering building a Yuriko deck, but I wouldn't make it quite as cut-throat. I do like the idea of topdeck manipulation with her though.
A question: How useful is Mothdust Changeling? Yes, it triggers Yuriko, but it seems otherwise unimpressive vs. another actual ninja.
Good question. The changeling is a 1cmc ninja that can grant evasion to itself via another creature, even if that other creature has summoning sickness.
The problem here is that the ninjas aren't exactly being cast.
Even if you never cast a creature with ninjutsu, you can scry off of Mothdust Changeling and Arcane Adaptation, and upon further consideration, Snapcaster Mage, Spellseeker, Wingcrafter, Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, and Invisible Stalker are humans. With bouncing to hand, you can get multiple turns of scry 1 from one card. I don't mean to suggest it's an immense upside that would wildly change the deck, but the floor on the card is swapping a basic for a guildgate, and the ceiling is a few free scrys in a deck that explicitly likes to scry.
Hmm. I'll actually think hard about this one given the deck's current state.
ETB tapped lands are generally problematic, but playing it on the first turn is potentially acceptable. Testing should tell how much better it is than the temple.
Mox Amber is pretty reliable with a commander that essentially always costs 2 mana and is counterproductive to kill.
Yuriko decks in general still very much have no clear consensus on what card setup is optimal. For example, there is no consensus as to whether 1 mana unblockables or two mana owls are better for the deck, although competitive builds lean toward the owls.
Nonetheless, I have found 3 points that make building this deck actually very restrictive.
1) Too many lands will sink your deck. There is very much a randomness factor that will cause you to lose games if you are forced to blind flip too often. This means in these types of decks it is often correct to opt for one fewer land than needed rather than one more.
2) High printed cmcs. Find every trick out there to use alternative costs to your advantage.
3) Low functional cmcsa. Ninjutsu and playing enablers will often cost most of your mana on certain turns and you will want to account for it.
Symmetrical hate cards are actually very easy to bypass with this deck, hence the competitive builds actually being stax builds. Effectiveness of them is unknown.
+ Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge: This card, in limited testing, is also nuts. A lot of the creatures don't have too much color weight and it functionally removes all generic cost requirements by the time you want to play this. If you have a draw engine to go with this then you basically go off. It essentially performed much of the role Storm the Vault did but provides extra utility plus provides the mana savings immediately. The plus 2 does a pretty hefty amount of damage. Don't ever ult unless desperate.
+ Spark Double: Copies Marchesa, copies creatures with a +1/+1 counter attached, AND it copies walkers (in csse we care). What we care about mostly is the +1/+1 counter. Copying Jhoira is pretty insane too.
- Pact of Negation: Good in theory, but we often need more than 1 counter to make it truly worth and we can't slow ourselves down too much.
- Storm the Vault: Not getting immediate value and being situationally good is not good enough. It is powerful but it kind of breaks the flow of the deck.
- Clever Impersonator: A good goodstuff card but clone with a +1/+1 counter that can act as an extra Marchesa is too good.
This has happened more times than I would like to admit.
Other than that, it has the same strengths and weaknesses as any "critical mass of permanents" deck that I'm familiar with. Semi-resilient board states, lack of room for instant speed answers due to critical mass requirements, certain cards that are by definition win conditions of the deck.
Deck is inherently fair, which is fine. This is neither too terrifying nor a pushover, making it likely viable for most playgroups. This is something I can't say for my builds.
Bolas's Citadel: Powerful artifact draw engine
Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge: Powerful global drain option combined with passive affinity being a very strong bonus for colorless artifact creatures combined with draw engines.
Definitely included:
Spark Double: Two Marchesas make the deck even tougher than it already is.
Secondly, you are pretty ramp light for a colorless deck and have multiple cards in the likeness of Planar Portal. Has it been working out for you?
I wouldn't run O-stone in here either. Losing your artifacts puts you too far behind as you rely on them for positional advantage.
But average generally isn't good enough for EDH these days.
Good question. The changeling is a 1cmc ninja that can grant evasion to itself via another creature, even if that other creature has summoning sickness.
It also sends in Yuriko on turn 2. Very good.
Also on Sublime Exhalation, isn't that a white card?
Hmm. I'll actually think hard about this one given the deck's current state.
ETB tapped lands are generally problematic, but playing it on the first turn is potentially acceptable. Testing should tell how much better it is than the temple.
Yuriko decks in general still very much have no clear consensus on what card setup is optimal. For example, there is no consensus as to whether 1 mana unblockables or two mana owls are better for the deck, although competitive builds lean toward the owls.
Nonetheless, I have found 3 points that make building this deck actually very restrictive.
1) Too many lands will sink your deck. There is very much a randomness factor that will cause you to lose games if you are forced to blind flip too often. This means in these types of decks it is often correct to opt for one fewer land than needed rather than one more.
2) High printed cmcs. Find every trick out there to use alternative costs to your advantage.
3) Low functional cmcsa. Ninjutsu and playing enablers will often cost most of your mana on certain turns and you will want to account for it.
Symmetrical hate cards are actually very easy to bypass with this deck, hence the competitive builds actually being stax builds. Effectiveness of them is unknown.