A sneaky, adaptive deck built around ninjitsu and hand control.
A return to the archetype that originally got me into Magic. Ninjas are just as vicious as they were in 2004. As such, this deck is designed around their signature ability "Ninjitsu"
As always, I'll be listing some key cards and combos below to give a better idea of how this whole thing works.
Kaito Shizuki
Starting off with the only planeswalker in this deck, he exemplifies a few key strengths of the archetype as well as having a potentially game winning final ability if you ever manage to pull it off. He also phases out when brought onto the field making him a difficult target for your opponent.
He fuels your hand with his +1 and rarely causes you to discard as you attack frequently.
His -2 creates an unblockable ninja token that essentially operates as a free Ninjitsu target if you can attack with it. Even if you don't want to swap it out its guaranteed damage that can be buffed in a few ways or copied with Thousand-Faced Shadow
His -7 wins the game if you can use it. By the time he has 7 loyalty to spend you should have a few ways to force though attackers at any rate. It allows you to flood the field with every creature in the deck for free. Niche and very difficult to actually use but still, an extra win condition.
Satoru Umezawa
One of the best cards in the entire set in my opinion, Satoru turns every action of ninjitsu into a free brainstorm, allowing you to pick from the top 3 cards and return the others to your deck.
He also grants ninjitsu abilities to the cards in the deck that do not have it innately. This coupled with cards like Silver-Fur Master can take expensive cards down to a combined 2 mana.
It's for this reason that I'm sure he'll see plenty of play in commander decks in future to cheat out massive beasts like the Eldrazi for basically nothing. For now however he fuels your hand and kicks out ninjas at a very low cost.
Kaito's Pursuit
A staple of this deck that can allow you to force through attacks and control your opponents hand all at once. The menace effect will work on every creature in the deck but it's not the main event.
The discard effect coupled with Biting-Palm Ninja means you can often completely stop your opponent from playing by making them discard cards they couldn't play immediately or were intentionally saving.
This is even worse if you manage to steal one of their key cards with Kotose, the Silent Spider but that's a pretty niche tactic, hence Kotose is sidedecked for use in game 2 or against more known quantities.
Moon-Circuit Hacker + Tatsunari, Toad Rider
I could talk about Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or something similar but it's very obvious why she's a good card and I want to draw attention to this particular war crime that seems to frequently slip the net.
I think a lot of people thought Tatsunari was a bit of a joke. I certainly did.
Ninja with no innate ninjitsu, seems to fit into a black/green/blue deck that uses enchantments to create "THE FROG". I thought he was a joke.
He is not.
I have won multiple games by aggressively exploiting this frog and just typing that sentence out made my skin crawl.
Simply bringing out a moon-circuit procs Keimi and as long as Tatsunari is on the field this frog operates as a renewable, unblockable 3/3 ninjitsu target without needing a planeswalker or sorceries.
Moon-circuit is common enough to bring out the frog multiple times and each one is both an opportunity for massive damage and a weight on my soul.
I am allowing this meme to continue. I control the Frog! I control the universe!
Maybe I'm the problem...
Silver-Fur Master + Thousand-Faced Shadow
These two can be exploited in more ways than you'd initially expect. Silver Fur is self explanatory. Cheaper ninjitsu and buffed creatures. However, as he is not legendary he is an ideal target for Thousand-Face's ninjitsu ability. An ability the rat actually makes cheaper to play in the first place.
This can enable some complete nonsense like 7 Silver Furs on the field at once making Network Disruptor a flying 8/8 for one mana. It rarely gets that far but it's possible.
The only issue is that Silver Fur must be attacking in order to be copied. Cards like Return to Action are ideal for facilitating this and often allow his to kill off a blocker in the process.
There's a lot to unpack in this deck. Artifact synergy with Covert Technician and a lot of The Reality Chip exploits. I didn't even touch on some sidedeck cards that can trivialise some matchups or enable frankly ridiculous card advantage.
Experiment for yourself, I'm sure I've missed something.
Have fun.
