[Mid] Yuriko: Ultimate Ninja, Assemble!

Commander / EDH Equip UB (Dimir) Voltron

kremsers

Artifact (25)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Cliffhaven Kitesail
• 1x Colossus Hammer
• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Cranial Plating
• 1x Decanter of Endless Water
• 1x Fireshrieker
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Loxodon Warhammer
• 1x Quietus Spike
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Vengeance
• 1x Sword of War and Peace
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Thran Power Suit
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Vorpal Sword
• 1x Winged Boots

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Eldrazi Conscription
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Rhystic Study

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Fabricate

Land (34)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Homeward Path
• 10x Island
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Sanctum of Eternity
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Watery Grave

Creature (14)

• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Blade of the Oni
• 1x Brass Squire
• 1x Changeling Outcast
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Faerie Seer
• 1x Ingenious Infiltrator
• 1x Mausoleum Wanderer
• 1x Ornithopter
• 1x Slither Blade
• 1x Spectral Sailor
• 1x The Reality Chip
• 1x Thieving Skydiver
• 1x Wingcrafter

Commander (1)

Instant (20)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Baleful Mastery
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Infernal Grasp
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Resculpt
• 1x Soul Manipulation
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Void Shatter

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Maybeboard

Artifact (47)

• 1x Accorder's Shield
• 1x Bident of Thassa
• 1x Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus
• 1x Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1x Cathar's Shield
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Crystal Shard
• 1x Darksteel Forge
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Encroaching Mycosynth
• 1x Gavel of the Righteous
• 1x Glamdring
• 1x Goldvein Pick
• 1x Grappling Hook
• 1x Haunted Cloak
• 1x Helm of the Host
• 1x Hero's Heirloom
• 1x Inquisitor's Flail
• 1x Kaldra Compleat
• 1x Kusari-Gama
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mask of Griselbrand
• 1x Mask of Memory
• 1x Mask of Riddles
• 1x Masterwork of Ingenuity
• 1x Mithril Coat
• 1x Nettlecyst
• 1x O-Naginata
• 1x Pact Weapon
• 1x Prying Blade
• 1x Ring of Xathrid
• 1x Rogue's Gloves
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sting, the Glinting Dagger
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Hearth and Home
• 1x Sword of Hours
• 1x Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1x Sword of Once and Future
• 1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
• 1x Tamiyo's Journal
• 1x Tormentor's Trident
• 1x Wand of Orcus
• 1x Ward of Bones
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Creature (38)

• 1x Alora, Merry Thief
• 1x Brazen Borrower
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Darksteel Juggernaut
• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Ethereal Investigator
• 1x Faerie Mastermind
• 1x Glen Elendra Liege
• 1x Gudul Lurker
• 1x Halo Forager
• 1x Hypnotic Sprite
• 1x Invisible Stalker
• 1x Mist-Cloaked Herald
• 1x Mist-Syndicate Naga
• 1x Mistblade Shinobi
• 1x Moon-Circuit Hacker
• 1x Mothdust Changeling
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Oona, Queen of the Fae
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Orcish Bowmasters
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Prosperous Thief
• 1x Saiba Cryptomancer
• 1x Sakashima's Student
• 1x Schema Thief
• 1x Shadow of Mortality
• 1x Silent Arbiter
• 1x Silver-Fur Master
• 1x Siren Stormtamer
• 1x Skullsnatcher
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Spellstutter Sprite
• 1x Thousand-Faced Shadow
• 1x Tormented Soul
• 1x Triton Shorestalker
• 1x Vendilion Clique
• 1x Void Beckoner

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Ancestral Vision
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Stolen by the Fae
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Enchantment (17)

• 1x Aether Tunnel
• 1x Aqueous Form
• 1x Coastal Piracy
• 1x Combat Research
• 1x Cover of Darkness
• 1x Curiosity
• 1x Eternal Thirst
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Reconnaissance Mission
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Sleeper's Robe
• 1x Smoke Shroud
• 1x Thopter Spy Network
• 1x Vampiric Link
• 1x Wound Reflection

Instant (13)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Commandeer
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Familiar's Ruse
• 1x Filter Out
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Murder
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Village Rites

Land (7)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Detection Tower
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Witch's Clinic

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[Mid]: This deck is designed for mid-power games as defined by PlayEDH--very expensive cards and highly-efficient wincons are deliberately excluded.

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Are you excited about the dozen new sets coming out next month? Great! Neither am I. Let's go back to an old favorite that was already a throwback to a much older set when it first came out and see if reinventing the wheel nets us some fun jank. Yuriko is a commander who wants to keep landing combat damage on players, and sure, evasion is a good way to do that--the good way to do that, really, where Yuriko is concerned--but there's more than one way to keep a single creature swinging. Yeah, you know what I'm thinking!

"But kremsers," you ask, "if that is your real name, why Voltron a creature with a base power of 1 and no inherent combat tricks? Surely there are better candidates for this archetype!" To that objection, I raise the following counterarguments:

• Shut up
• One of the biggest problems with Voltron decks is that the linchpin of your strategy will be removed over and over, getting more and more expensive, until it's simply locked in the command zone for the rest of the game, forcing you to rely on Marit Lage to finish the job, or else some smug Eldrazi with its smug Eldrazi face and its smug Eldrazi tentacles. Yuriko, on the other hand, is one of the most difficult cards in the game, perhaps the most difficult, to lock in the command zone. Yuriko herself can be plans A through Z, and that's what's best in life!
• Yuriko gives you free card advantage just for brute-forcing your opponents' life totals down, which is what you want to do anyway in a Voltron deck. That card advantage becomes more equipment slapped onto Yuriko to make her better at doing her one job. Unless you're a professional Magic player, nobody is paying you to think, so a deck that swings in order to get better at swinging just makes sense. Work smarter, not harder!
• Using a different commander for Voltron would require you to run a commander who isn't Yuriko. Why would you ever want to do that?

We still want some of that old Yuriko charm to help us power through the early game, assemble Voltron, and redeploy Yuriko when needed, but we need a lot less of it than a normal Yuriko deck does. Because we're buffing our power, a couple of the old tricks, such as Access Tunnel and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, won't work here. Whispersilk Cloak also won't work because equipping Yuriko is central to the deck's strategy. There are still a few ways to make Yuriko unblockable and a few other creatures that are or can count as ninjas, but it's generally going to be easier to give Yuriko flying or trample and get your Yuriko triggers that way. I've never seen much reach nor flyer spam in EDH pods, so you should probably be fine. Losing Yuriko hurts a lot more than it normally would, of course, but she should be relatively easy to rebuild.

Bitterblossom is a card-efficient way to get evasive bodies, and I've considered other 1/1 token spam options, but they didn't make the cut for this version of the deck. They might find their way in after some testing, along with Wound Reflection, which is always good in a deck with Quietus Spike and would also complement just buffing Yuriko's power. There's a lot of other equipment that also might fit well here; for instance, Skullclamp just barely didn't make the cut because there's not much 1/1 token generation, and Kusari-Gama just barely didn't make the cut because it doesn't synergize with deathtouch, but either one could potentially be a good inclusion.

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.27
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Elemental 4/4 UR, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C
Folders	Ready to Print