Check it out here if you're interested: You made it to the end! This is a subreddit dedicated to playing the Commander format of Magic: The Gathering at the highest power level possible. If you can't see my ninjas, you may only be a few extra turns away from death!". This, and the fact that a bunch of fairly optimized Edric lists are circulating the internet, granted him a stigma of being a fairly competitive commander among my playgroup. This is great in that it can copy Yuriko and win games, and can be tutored with Whir of Invention. In the current version, we can't justify Mirror Gallery, the generic Clone spells, or even Helm of the Host (which still works but is too costly in cmc) any more. If you're able to take 2-3 turns in a row with a couple of triggers from Yuriko each time, it's almost always enough to take the win. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site. We still have Arcane Adaptation for this purpose, but with Neon Dynasty we're better off just playing more and better ninjas. Hypnotic Siren scales nicely with the state of the game, and will let us steal opposing creatures in the late game. Morrison103 1 minute ago. This approach to the deck was also not afraid to play big expensive cards like Enter the Infinite, Draco and the like which were almost never cast, but served well to kill the table with multiple Yuriko triggers. That's not a cEDH thing, mostly a Yuriko thing. Of course, prior to Yuriko, there wasn't really a great ninja commander for two reasons. Privacy statement | Privacy statement | Of these, Arcane Adaptation and Conspiracy are our best options, as they change the creature types of the dudes in our hand. To make this happen, we need to be picky with our opening hand: Only keep an opening hand with , , and an enabler for Yuriko. These are the abilities that made me fall in love with Yuriko. Second, we're likely going to play out our hand pretty quickly. Let's go back in time and discuss the impetus for this deck. More on that below! Feeds | This combination seemed like a better version of the Vela deck I had been building, but again there was a problem. Tapped out has the "maybe" board already loaded, but I am holding onto copies of [[cryptic command]], [[deadly rollick]], [[fierce guardianship]], [[swan song]], [[mystic remora]], [[rhystic study]], [[time stretch]], and [[phyrexian metamorph]]. It is also important to note that you need to be careful with casting Insidious Dreams particularly if you are playing against a control deck with lots of counterspells. Now that we've addressed the our Ninja enchantments, lets take a look at the Ninjas we'll being employing. They're especially important when playing Yuriko since our game plan relies on dealing combat damage to our opponents, so clearing a blocker is a big deal. Blinkmoth Nexus, Creeping Tar Pit, and Faerie Conclave offer us three additional ways to get damage through, and the opportunity cost is virtually nothing. Competitive EDH Decklist Database . Ramp is one thing that Yuriko decks are not very good at. 0 0 31. Even Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer has the potential to go off the rails in very fun ways, but today we won't be discussing any of these. Attention! Sometimes it isn't though, and there is a risk of being blown out and having to rebuild. The key here is that Image offers us this ability for two mana. By Theme Given that one of my primary issues with Vela was her cost, I began searching around for other commanders that might be successful with a similar strategy. Need advice on a budget cEDH Yuriko (based on Playing with Power's deck) please! After much testing I am pleased to offer up my Yuriko ninjas list. However, like we pointed out when assessing our protection options, we don't particularly care what our opponents are doing as long as they aren't disrupting our board or combo-ing out. Ninjutsu then bounces the unblocked creature to your hand and replaces it with the ninja, who then is guaranteed to get through for damage. This realization lead to the inclusion of Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Arena. Tempo Based on the title of the article alone, I've spoiled the surprise. By the way, please don't be intimidated by the cost! When I started playing commander in 2017 I was so disappointed to find out that ninjas weren't supported in EDH and there wasn't a good ninja commander that could support the archetype. These interactive ninjas allow us to control the board and maintain our proactive game plan at the same time. DMCA requests | I'm assuming that's equivalent to a 7-8, shy of cEDH? That's until you consider that we can copy Yuriko, and now draw two cards and inflict twice as much burn damage for each attacking creature. That all changed with C18 when Yuriko was printed, and the tribe got a whole lot of support when Modern Horizons released. There are 2 ways we can do this: One-time use tutors like Vampiric Tutor or repeatable effects like Sensei's Divining Top. It is ninja tribal in cEDH. However, if Door turns out to be too difficult to activate, I plan to swap in Obelisk of Urd. In a deck where everything is evasive, any amount of extra buff is worth our attention, and this is one of our better options. The second is Larceny, which is effectively an inverse Coastal Piracy. She also draws cards without "drawing" them (thus avoiding any draw hate), and uses the cmc of the cards she draws to damage all of our opponents. Thank you so much for reading through my Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow deck and primer! It hurts myself to see that, but I trust the processThat's the first time I dip my toe into cEDH territory, so I'm quite helpless with everything going on there, hence every help would be highly appreciated. Check out the changelog if you're curious what I added/cut. The following primer will be extensive and have a good amount of detail, and some of the earlier sections will explore the evolution of the deck from release till now. It is a testament to Yuriko's power that she can and is played in cEDH. Lord Windgrace would make sense because of my fondness for lands. I've also talked about a few cards that nearly made the cut, like Obelisk of Urd and Rhystic Study. Luckily for us, Yuriko already does a really good job of ensuring that we draw lots of cards, but blue and black have the best options for card draw, and I think it would be wasteful not to take advantage. The last creature I want to highlight is Thada Adel, Acquisitor. These cards are great because they not only provide great value throughout the course of the game, but can help us to finish well also. Over time I want to get those blinged and autographed since it's my first deck. This means that you're the primary target for your opponent's interaction. Dimir Infiltrator is 2cmc, but his transmute ability allows him to function as a tutor for any 2cmc card, which is great whether we use him as an enabler first or not. We can still play small unblockable creatures, and we can still have our Edric-esque ability, but we're going to have to work for it a little bit, making us inherently less threatening. The more subtle benefit is that we can tutor for it using the Transmute abilities of Dimir Infiltrator and Muddle the Mixture. In order to sort out exactly what all this means and why it is brilliant game design, it might help to look at a classic ninja and understand how ninjas work generally. Unlike most commander decks, our "mid game" starts around turn 3, the turn after getting our first Yuriko trigger. In this deck the best card is, This is where we win the game! During the mid game, we mostly want to put our "high cmc but still interactive" cards on top, such as Submerge or Force of Will. Dimir Infiltrator is also a great tutor who can grab us Counterspell, Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive,Cover of Darkness, and more as suits our needs. As such, the only thing Yuriko really has to fear is being stolen with Control Magic spells and abilities or hit with an Imprisoned in the Moon type of effect. At one point, cards like Thassa, God of the Sea were included in this list, but as I whittled the deck down, I began to realize that focusing on an "Edric" style of attack would likely be the best course of action. This led me to cut all the 1 mana unblockable creatures, as I believe a 1 mana flyer with a relevant ability is more crucial to our game plan now. Can it be used at instant speed? Functionally, Yuriko operates more similarly to Edric than Vela, but many of the cards that made me interested in Vela for an unblockable strategy are equally applicable in Yuriko. For those of you unfamiliar with the way a typical Edric deck operates, I recommend you do a quick browse of his EDHREC page here. Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack, Soothsaying, and Lim-Dul's Vault all are in the deck to help us get what we need, to smooth our our draws, and to get Yuriko's triggers to do what we want them to do. A collection of Magic: The Gathering (MTG) decks from the Competitive Commander (EDH) Format. The problem of course, is that these cards are most likely to rot in our hands and possibly draw us early aggro. Among our one-drops, there are a few standout creatures. The suite of 8 cards I use here have in my experience been the cream of the crop (Mothdust Changeling, Slither Blade, Wingcrafter, Triton Shorestalker, Changeling Outcast, Mist-Cloaked Herald, Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, and Dimir Infiltrator). So I'm putting up what I have and seeing if I can learn from the crowd. But we can bounce them to hand if necessary! Yuriko is my all-time favourite commander, and I hope you'll enjoy the deck as much as I do! When I was new to the format and still fancied myself a control player, I put together a Dralnu, Lich Lord deck, but I quickly discovered I didn't enjoy the feeling of being on the defensive. The first mtg precon I ever bought was the Ninjutsu theme deck from the Kamigawa block, and I soon picked up the black ninjas to make my favorite casual deck. The fact that Hope of Ghirapur also has a colorless cost shouldn't be ignored. What's particularly excellent about Student is that, in this deck, it's a Phantasmal Image with no downside that counts as a Ninja even if it copies our opponent's Progenitus. I think we'll do better with more ninjas. Don't forget, ninjutsu is not affected by commander tax since it's an activated ability! When most people think of UB, myself included, the signature abilities that come to mind are mill, clones, counterspells, and recursion. Likewise if you can afford an Imperial Seal, this deck certainly won't complain about another one-mana way to find Arcane Adaptation. Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow Introduction As an avid budget deck creator, I took it upon myself to help the players that don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a card game, and still want to destroy their friends and have fun doing so as well. I'm debating taking [[fallen shinobi]] and [[scheming symmetry]] out as it's been pretty expensive and risky to pull off. Or maybe Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle so I can try to unlock that hot 12/12 body. While stacking your deck with Scroll Rack, Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, and Higure, the Still Wind probably won't win you the game outright, it will help you get into a strong position to be able to do so later. But I still might put him back in some day for old time's sake. One of the best is Higure, the Still Wind, who can tutor up any ninja we need for the task at hand, and hence is also allows us to make full use of our ninja "toolbox." Maintaining a good balance of these is our key to success! I didn't end up including this card because it seemed too "cute," but it could be a fun option if you're in a Wrath-heavy meta. This site 2023 TappedOut.net, LLC Sakashima even protects herself, and lets us reset her if something more desirable enters the battlefield. Most of the main cuts for this deck were Ninjas and cards that gave unblockability, like Thassa, God of the Sea and Vela The Night-Clad. So not running it makes a lot of sense as it plays out very clunky. That being said, ninjas tend to have abyssmal damage on their own, so you don't gain life off of him, and he doesn't have ninjutsu, making him dependent on other things giving him evasion. The first thing we'll note is that Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow is a ninja, and that she cares about ninjas dealing combat damage to opponents. Infiltrator and Muddle are two cards that do things that our deck wants to be doing anyway, and the fact that they can represent two additional copies of Unnatural Selection increases the value of all three cards. Once we go up a step in size, we begin to notice some more significant abilities. Ghastlord of Fugue was another creature I originally considered for its natural unblockability, but got cut for its high cost.