[Deck] Ninjas

Erian Ignis
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Post by Erian Ignis » 4 years ago

Nice to see other Ninja enthusiast. I'll try to answer in order based on my own experience. If I miss anything let me know.

Your build is kind of like mine. At least I believe you are trying to achieve the same game plan as me. I however run only 18 lands. I've been wanting to try Changeling Outcast but as I run 4 Force of Negation + 2 Disrupting Shoal (previously 3) I am scared I won't have enough Blue cards to pitch.

On that note, I am currently testing a 4+2 FoN/DS spread to see how it works. I did this because I added 2 Black discard Spells and swaped some enablers (the SSSs) for 4 Ornithopters, reducing my amount of Blue cards by 6. Needs further testing, so take this spread with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, with 6 discard Spells the Ornithopters have been amazing. It is possible to cast a Spell/leave mana open and have a Turn 1 enabler ready for Ninjutsu. With 18 lands having a 0-mana enablers works amazing, too. You can Ninjutsu in and re-cast the Thopter for another Ninja next turn. Due to the Land amount I do not use Shinobi but do Naga (and love it btw). Also running colorless lands is for me impossible.

With 6 discard Spells it is possible to proactively protect your enablers/threats. I run 4+2 IoK/TS, but any combination of them is possible I think. I guess that in more aggresive metas I'd favor IoK.

I run a 1-of Scorn as a flex slot. 2 Smoke Shrouds but that is still in testing. Imma post my latest build in a while.

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The Fluff
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

With 6 discard Spells it is possible to proactively protect your enablers/threats. I run 4+2 IoK/TS, but any combination of them is possible I think. I guess that in more aggresive metas I'd favor IoK.
glad to see that this amount of dicard is also working well for you.
6 discard feels like just the right amount to have a chance of having at least one in our opening hand.
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Erian Ignis
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Post by Erian Ignis » 4 years ago

Indeed, 6 discard Spells fells like the correct amount. As you correctly point out it is much more often to have 1 in the opening. Which makes the Thopter all the more powerful to our deck plan imho.

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ZephyrScarlet
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Post by ZephyrScarlet » 4 years ago

So after some testing, I've discovered that going with discard is pulling into one too many directions at once, thus I've settled that (at least for my playstyle) it's better to answer our opponents reactively rather than proactively. Why is that? Because discard both:

1) Forces you to run Ornithopter, which while it's the best enabler for Ninjutsu, is still a 0/2 that does literally nothing and hits for 0 damage, which in turn makes it a terrible topdeck late game. It's also not a Blue card to pitch to FoN / Shoal. On the flip side, it survives Lava Dart / Gut Shot.
2) Forces you to play at sorcery speed, which goes directly oppossite with Ninjutsu. Also if played at any turn other than 1 followed by an Ornithopter, it basically makes all your Ninjutsu cards cost B more.

More discard also means less Blue cards to pitch to the free counters, and Ornithopter means no Faeries which in turn means even less blue cards for the pitch spells. Since we're not exactly outgunning anyone in terms of speed, it makes no sense to speed up the deck and give up what I think is one of our core strenghts: pitch spells at almost no disadvantage. Since we have 8 Ninjas that draw on damage, the card disadvantage from the counters doesn't sting as much, and it even helps us dig for the correct CMC for a Shoal. That said, I still think Shoal is superior to FoN for it's ability to protect the Ninjas on our own combat phase and make sure they connect. Here's a second draft for the deck:
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:

I've cut the Spell Pierces for a pair of Force of Negation, although if 8 1-drops for Disrupting Shoal are enough remains to be seen. I've also cut a single Changeling Outcast for a Smoke Shroud, increasing a bit the 2-drops for Shoal and just for overall testing to see how it performs. I feel the list still needs polishing though, as it can use a second Shroud if it overperforms and 1-2 Spell Pierce back in for sure.

BloodyRabbit
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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

I did well with Sultai, if anyone is interested in it.







I ended up 4-1, winning against Cheerios, Jund, Grixis Control and Mardu Pyromancer. Lost against Mono Red Phoenix.

I think Goyf is a great addiction because we do need some kind of insurance against big creatures and blockers. It also helps having more threats which don't die from Wrenn&Six.

Erian Ignis
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Post by Erian Ignis » 4 years ago

[mention]ZephyrScarlet[/mention] : I understand your logic, although I do not completely share it. Please, do test further and let us know your results. I'd argue that even though Ninjutsu is Instant-speed it is in practice a Sorcery as it can only be cast on your turn.

[mention]BloodyRabbit[/mention] : It is interesting indeed. That is something I'd like to test had I access to Tarmogoyf. Alas, I have zero of them and also an incomplete Ice-Fang Coatl set.

Yawgmoth
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

I've been trying to merge the Horizons Ninjas with the classic modern faeries deck. The Faerie Seer obviously fits perfectly and I was drafting some Lorwyn/Morningtide this past weekend and it sort of clicked. Apparently I'm not alone as there is a Snow Ninja+Faerie list in the "Bitterbible" (Faerie primer on reddit) which had a very similar basic idea.

There are 3 major additions with this approach:

1. Ice-fanged Coatl is a great enabler for ninjitsu (as well as removal and card draw).

2. bitterblossom as a recurring enabler.

3. Creeping tarpit and Faerie enclave as hard to remove evasive enablers

Additionally, faeries can abuse bouncing/etb effects which works well if we want to get our ninjas back in hand. Overall, I think that treating ninjas as faeries can lead to an interesting direction.

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The Fluff
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
3. Creeping tarpit and Faerie enclave as hard to remove evasive enablers
have two tar pits in my build. But I would have to disagree that it is a good enabler. Activating tar pit needs 1ub plus tapping the tarpit itself to attack, that's 4 land tapped plus 2 cmc ninjutsu of ninja of the deep hours for example... that's 6 lands you need to tap. Most of our builds cap off somewhere at 18-21 land, tapping 6 lands to ninjutsu something is too slow.

However, Tar pit is good in the sense, that being unblockable.. It is a decent planeswalker killer, and also to pressure our opponent's life total during board stalls or after a board wipe has been cast. For Stutter Sprite builds, faerie conclave is better than tar pit because conclave counts as a faerie.
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want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

dautt
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Post by dautt » 4 years ago

Hey everyone, just thought I'd extend a hand out from the faeries discord where we actually have our own section of ninjas builds that we regularly discuss. If you'd ever like to join, let me know!
This is my current list that I played last night to a 3-1 finish at Modern Mondays locally:
I went over all my matches in the discord and it's a long copy/paste so I wont bore you with it here, but I'd make some slight changes to the sideboard moving forward and that's about it. Probably cutting the 3rd ceremonious rejection for Noxious Grasp, and Kalitas will be cut either in favor of doubling up on one of the 1-ofs in the sideboard, or with some recent thought from a local of mine, possibly something like a Thassa, God of the Sea.
Anyways, would love to see what you guys think. Thanks!

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The Fluff
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Long time no post here. :)

Had some exciting practice matches today.

Learned some things.

1. Faerie Seer is best enabler. Scry helped so much when i was under pressure from aggro.

2. Ghost quarter almost lost me a game. Had 5 mana, but only one black, so can't ninjutsu a Fallen Shinobi and cast a typhoid rats on the same turn. One Ghost quarter shall be replaced with a swamp.

3. The single Moonblade Shinobi surprisingly performed well. Creating blockers and dealing 6 damage to one of my opponents before being killed by removal. I only have one in the main, but will up her to two now.

4. We definitely need a wipe against aggro decks. I'm adding one damnation and one languish to the sideboard.

5. It's because my sideboard is obsolete, still had 5 grave hate for Hogaak. So aggro decks were so hard. :grin:

6. Goblin Piledriver is a problem, there's one game I lost solely because of that card. Good thing there are not many pro blue creatures in modern.

7. Fallen Shinobi is dope whenever he connects. I won a game simply because he connected twice - with the help of removal clearing the way.

8. Smoke Shroud proved itself very useful. Helps giving evasion to ninjas already on the field, as well as extra toughness making some ninjas bolt proof and tarfire proof.

9. Seriously, considering to put back 1 Higure, the Still Wind, as he would help a lot when games become attrition matches. Would probably have to take out a fallen shinobi to make room for him. The deck can only handle four cards with ninjutsu cmc 4.
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AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

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