The following deck description was copied from the main Ninja Miscreants list on 09/02/2016, and has been condensed slightly to offer only relevant information:
About the Deck:
The main concept of the deck is to start hitting with a Ninja of the Deep Hours or a Mistblade Shinobi from a 1-mana cost Faerie, later returning it to hand to replay it again. It uses efficient two-cost hard counters, featuring Deprive and
Familiar's Ruse
, to protect its threats, the downside of both not being significant in a deck with so few land or comes-into-play effects on creatures. Spellstutter Sprite in particular is oppressive when used against most modern decks, whose average cmc is around two.
This is an evolved version of a deck I have had kicking around for the better part of ten years and is designed as a hybrid aggro-control deck.
Other Deck Options:
There are three alternatives available:
- Ninja Miscreants - The deck that I play with currently, and the most up-to-date version of this deck. If all goes well, this ought to be the most competitive, least-budget of the decks. Of course, that's not necessarily true, but let's hope I don't start doing silly things.
- Budget Ninja Miscreants - This is a significantly cheaper version of the deck that can be put together for under $50. It keeps almost all of the core cards, and should compete against other budget Modern lists relatively well.
- Azorius Flying Ninjas - This is a "casual" version of the list. What I mean by this is that most of the countermagic is gone, and a lot of the strength disappears. I put this list together when I realized that my casual play-group really dislikes it when you counter the first five cards that they attempt to play in a game. Instead this is a U/W flying beatdown deck that tries to keep most of the same central deck while making it more casual-friendly. It goes wide quickly and plays an awful lot less interaction.
Card Choice:
Aside from the Vendilion Clique and the
Sword of Fire and Ice
, this deck is a budget deck. I have already weighed up Cryptic Command and Snapcaster Mage and it is my suggestion that you swap them in if you own them, but that the deck will not be significantly worse if you do not.
Particularly with Cryptic Command - it is so expensive that we will not want to play it until turns 5-6, at which point we expect to be ahead anyway. Besides that, the budget nature of the deck has very little impact upon the card choice, making this an incredibly cheap deck to put together.
With that in mind, consider reading through the details below to understand why each card was chosen.
Creatures:
Creatures in this deck are split up into three categories - Ninja Enablers, Utility Creatures and Ninjas. Decks running alternatives to this one may run more utility creatures (e.g. Snapcaster Mage), but by and large the backbone of this deck is its Ninjas, so every missing Ninja Enabler is a lower chance of a perfect first three turns. Ideally then, any utility creatures ought to be able to double as Ninja Enablers.
The goal is to hit multiple times with cards like Ninja of the Deep Hours while re-using powerful ETB Effects. Other forms of this deck may put more emphasis on the Ninja aspect, or the ETB Effects, however, I feel that this configuration strikes a good balance between the two.
Ninja Enablers ought to be cheap to play (e.g. 0-2 mana), and have some form of evasion. In an ideal world, they would also have a decent ETB effect. As such, the following are our Ninja Enablers of choice:
-
Faerie Miscreant
is an amazing creature for this deck - if you draw two of them you will regularly draw 2-3 cards out of it by bouncing one and replaying it with Ninjitsu, and that's forgetting hitting the opponent with a Ninja of the Deep Hours. They could be replaced by
Signal Pest
or Ornithopter for similarly good plays, but it also pairs well with Spellstutter Sprite, making this a better choice for your control aspect.
-
Zephyr Sprite
- the Faerie Miscreants #4 and onwards, they are slightly sub-par, and would not be run if it weren't for Spellstutter Sprite as Ornithopter and
Signal Pest
would be better in almost every other way.
Other viable alternatives include Ornithopter,
Signal Pest
,
Gudul Lurker
, Hypnotic Siren and Judge's Familiar. Each with their unique up- and down-sides; however in this build, we use Zephyr Sprite because of the synergy with Spellstutter Sprite.
Due to the nature of this deck, other cards often vie for position here. Cards of note include Delver of Secrets
(a poor Ninja enabler, but a great card in its own right) and Jace's Phantasm (who will almost always just be a 1/1 for 1). The argument against Delver is the small number of instants or sorceries that we play, and the high number of creatures. Our deck would benefit from a 3/2 flyer that can be put down on turn 1, but we are not a "delver deck" - despite having similar stategies, we focus more on drawing more cards and keeping our tempo advantage than most delver decks do. As such, while I would not fault you for running him, I don't think he belongs in this list. If you do run Delver, consider the Phantasm, Thought Scour and Distortion Strike as an accompanying package.
Jace's Phantasm would benefit from a change in strategy - cards like Thought Scour would turn him into an early Ninja Enabler and a late-game beater. Still, the sacrifices made elsewhere in the decklist would be too great to keep this strategy up. As we have no other benefit from running cards like Thought Scour (particularly without Snapcaster Mage), he doesn't make the cut.
"Utility Creatures" exist in this list where other lists would just place "creatures". They offer unique and useful effects, and ideally synergize with our bouncing Ninja plan.
- Spellstutter Sprite is the real star of the deck - between Ninjitsu and
Familiar's Ruse
, any one drawn ought to be good for multiple uses, and ought to generally be able to counter spells of CMC 2-3, making them decent in the deck. She should be run as at least a three-of, but here we run four - as she can double as a flash-based Ninjitsu enabler, letting us leave counterspell mana open, and flash her in if unneeded, ready to bounce back to our hand next turn. In the mid game, she is amazing, but she is also almost a dead draw against many decks (e.g. Tron).
Still, a 1/1 flash with evasion for 2 isn't the worst thing in the world, and in a push she can be played without using her counter ability. - Vendilion Clique is a natural home for a one-of, especially with the ability to replay its enters-the-battlefield ability. It's a strong beater and can help your control game. It also has flash and so can be kept in hand in lieu of a counterspell, and can even cycle useless cards out of your hand as and when required. Running more than three would probably be sub-optimal as it's a three mana creature for a deck that wants to be bouncing 0-2 mana creatures regularly, but it is still a fantastic play when you draw one. As it is, a singleton is included because it is all that I own; this is a "budget" deck after all.
- Mistbind Clique - An incredibly strong effect, it relies on having a faerie around to work, and so running too many of these is a trap; however it does almost everything we want to do - it locks down the opponent for a turn, provides a body that's capable of closing out a game, survives against Lightning Bolt and provides an incredibly powerful, re-usable effect. Over all, it's an amazing card when it works. It's also the highest card on our curve, and so should be used carefully. These are often some of the first cards to cut.
If you felt like changing the deck entirely,
Aven Mimeomancer
is a very interesting card to pair with a Ninja or two. He is an enabler himself, buffs existing enablers, and gives you a lot of power to continue to hit opponents with. He is a compelling reason to go U/W, and with cards like Judge's Familiar and powerful tempo cards like Azorius Charm available, it is entirely possible that this would be a good choice.
The Ninjas are the core that this deck is built around, but they are probably not the strongest card available in your arsenal. In particular,
Mistblade Shinobi can really struggle in many match-ups and will often be the first card sideboarded out. Regardless, they help keep the deck flowing, providing re-usable, powerful effects.
Ninja of the Deep Hours and
Spellstutter Sprite vie for the position as "best card", and so you should keep that in mind. Games in which you keep your Ninja alive and attacking are games that you ought to win.
- Ninja of the Deep Hours is the main card this deck is built around - he plays as an evasive two damage on turn 2 with card advantage built in and can help the game quickly spiral out of control. He is truly the cornerstone this deck is built on. Being able to bounce him with
Familiar's Ruse
or potentially even your own Vapor Snag can be useful, and in the late game he grabs a Ronin Warclub and finishes off the opponent very quickly. Finally, he sits incredibly well with an Aqueous Form on him, with your Scry letting you choose the card you're drawing (to some extent).
- Mistblade Shinobi is the other ideal turn-2 play, and gives the deck its much needed edge in tempo. With an Aqueous Form on this guy, be becomes an Unsummon per turn, and really causes many aggro decks a lot of hurt. While not as strong in every matchup as the other Ninjas in this deck, when he is good he is *really* good. I think that three Mistblades is the right number (and not 4) as in some match-ups this is a dead (or mostly dead) draw (e.g. Boggles).
The only other modern-legal blue Ninja we are not playing is Walker of the Secret Ways. 2 mana and no increase in damage or card draw makes this a debateable inclusion at best. She's similar to running a Gitaxian Probe, with a small amount of re-usability and synergy at the price of some over-priced abilities.
Non-Creature Spells:
Our creatures are good and provide us a lot of utility, but they need a lot of support. The main area that we are lacking in is damage, but we also don't make the most of our Ninjas after they have landed. As such, most of our utility cards will either be to keep creatures on the board stay there, to buff our damage output and speed up our clock, or to help in our plan of keeping tempo on our side.
This deck is also a control deck - it lands small efficient threats and then attempts to keep them on the board long enough to do the full 20 damage without being outdone. This means it needs ways to remove enemy threats, prevent others from landing and generally keep the damage rolling. Creatures like
Ninja of the Deep Hours ought to keep our card advantage rolling in, meaning that we can afford to do this slightly inefficiently, turning us into something of a tempo deck. This means that cheap, temporary answers are good answers, but more permanent, expensive answers may well be the wrong choice. We also need to run cards here to ensure our primary plan actually goes to plan, and to ensure that opponents don't get ahead of us in the damage race. As such, we include the following cards:
- Aqueous Form will help a landed Ninja get through and generate additional card quality. If it lands a single Ninja of the Deep Hours hit that otherwise wouldn't land, it's paid for itself and then some, making it a fantastic card to include. The main rival for this position is Distortion Strike, but this ought to last better into the late game, and is also significantly cheaper. The benefit of Distortion Strike is that it can be used to bypass flyers with your flyers, and then hit with the Ninja on the subsequent turn.
- Vapor Snag can help clear blockers to get damage through and keep the tempo on your side of the board. The card advantage usually granted by hitting with creatures like the Ninja of the Deep Hours, or bouncing a
Faerie Miscreant
will cancel out the loss of the card, netting you lots of positive tempo. If you're running an even more budget version of the deck, they could be swapped out for Unsummon. They can be used to protect your own creatures. Considering our ETB effects (and the utility of Ninjitsu from the hand), returning your own creature is often the right play.
There are other utility cards to consider - notably Gitaxian Probe, Peek, Thought Scour and Distortion Strike, with secondary concerns to cards like
Mizzium Skin
and similar. We're so tight on mana in the early turns that we don't run any cycling effects, and Gitaxian Probe removes one of the main advantages of being mono-colour (a lack of self-inflicted life loss). Cards like Thought Scour are not good without something to enable, and Distortion Strike is arguably worse than Aqueous Form, espercially considering the filtering Aqueous Form gives of out draws.
We use two pieces of equipment here, one of which is a budget option and one of which isn't. The two pieces of equipment are:
- Ronin Warclub looks horrible. It almost is horrible. It requires three mana in your main phase and provides no immediate benefit. It's also surprisingly useful - it turns your lowliest beater into three damage, and likely halves the enemy remaining clock. It pairs well with Ninja of the Deep Hours. It pairs well with Mistblade Shinobi, and it also pairs well with Spellstutter Sprite and Vendilion Clique. A 5/2 blocker at instant speed? Sure, why not? It seems crazy and you should try it before throwing it away. The argument isn't over whether it gets played, but whether we play 2, 3 or 4.
-
Sword of Fire and Ice
is meaty. We'd probably run two or three if we could. They give you more draws, more damage, spot removal, and (semi)-relevant protections - Lightning Bolt no longer destroys your game plan, and Electrolyze has to hit you before the equip finishes. These are very relevant cards, and it helps make our armies of 1/1 flyers continue to be relevant in the late game. It fights for space with the same 1/1's (the number of swords vs.
Zephyr Sprite
is the main point of contention). Overall, these could be cut for other cards like Cryptic Command or similar, or another Aqueous Form if you're unable to substitute in a similar card.
We play three different dedicated counterspells, and Spellstutter Sprite; each with their various up- and down-sides, and for the most part, I feel each of them is ideally suited for this deck:
- Spellstutter Sprite is listed here because it's the crux of how our deck is designed to play. It's re-usable, via either our own Ninjas, our Vapor Snag (it becomes a Cancel that costs us 1 life), or even a
Familiar's Ruse
- letting us counter two spells at different times for Cryptic mana. Ninjas make this just silly, and since she can pick up equipment as well, she has so much synergy with this deck, and will counter most of the business spells found in Modern, from Path to Exile to Pyroclasm and even Tarmogoyf. We're not quite as good with it as a dedicated Faerie deck, but it's the next best thing, and the power of these should not be underestimate.
- We run
Familiar's Ruse
as our main counterspell - its "downside" is good for nearly all of our creatures - allowing us to pick up a Vendilion Clique or Spellstutter Sprite to re-use their ability, or a Ninja to ensure they get through the next turn. The only "Bad" creature to pick up is a
Zephyr Sprite
or a
Faerie Miscreant
when it's the only one out, and even then they effectively make it a Cancel that the third mana can be paid for in another phase/turn. There is an argument to not run four because drawing them in multiples is painful, however it's such a powerful card in this deck that we run four anyway. You need 3-4.
- Deprive serves as
Familiar's Ruse
number 5, and while its downside is an actual downside, drawing a singleton of it is rarely going to be a problem after turn 3, due to our low mana curve. Still, we don't run more because having to use two in a row would be terrible for our tempo. We run this over Mana Leak because it continues to be relevant against many of the decks we struggle against (e.g. Tron), and we don't mind the downside all that much.
- Spell Pierce is our fourth counterspell, and is run as a solution to early-game worries like Pyroclasm, allowing us to continue to play aggressively against many decks. It's also good against many of the common removal spells in the format (e.g. Path to Exile). It's generally good against most decks, and deals with the non-creature threats that we otherwise can't bounce. Against some decks it should probably be sideboarded out immediately, but it will always provide at least some usefulness, and is often decent when drawn in multiples. It lets us play close to on-mana while still being able to respond to most of the common early game plays. It also punishes decks that like to tap out, such as decks going for a combo kill, and finishing a counter war.
Obviously, not all Ninja decks require counter magic, but Spellstutter Sprite encourages playing with other counters to really drive her power home. In other configurations of this deck, removal (in U/B or U/W) and hand disruption could easily fit here. In a mono-blue shell, countermagic is the main and largely only viable way to support the kind of plays this deck makes.
Land and Sideboard:
Before getting into the details, this deck runs 22 lands to lower the amount of mulligans required. I am not certain if we could safely go lower and still reliably hit counterspell mana on turns 3-4, and would appreciate any advice that people feel like providing.
In an attempt to not get completely decimated by Blood Moon and any Chord of Calling/Collected Company decks running
Magus of the Moon
, we are running a primarily basic land base. This potentially leaves us open to Choke and Boil - something difficult to play around without significant monetary investment. A secondary consideration when composing the manabase is the amount of blue symbols we are running - since almost all of our spells will be cast for either or , we need an inordinate amount of blue mana. The only common early game plays that can use mana of other colours would be playing a Ninja of the Deep Hours as he's Ninjitsu'd, or a Spellstutter Sprite. All other plays tend to be for later in the game (e.g. Ronin Warclub comes down as you start to run out of threats). As such, we really need to hit 3-4 blue mana before we start picking up colourless lands, making any non-blue land difficult to include without a strong reason.
Our Faerie Conclave is in there as a backup Ninjitsu enabler that will survive most board-wipes, and is really only included for desperation, but there will be turns where the mana will be unneeded (e.g. having no good turn-3 play, or needing to keep a counterspell open), making them not too painful to drop. We only run two because drawing multiples of them could really slow down the tempo we're trying to build up, and an opening hand with 2-3 of them would be an instant Mulligan. The main alternative to this is
Blinkmoth Nexus
- it comes into play untapped (meaning the turn-2 play of Ninja of the Deep Hours from a Faerie can still be done, even on a two-land hand), and can be activated one turn earlier. A Blinkmoth would also let us keep more mana open for counterspells, and making the replacement of it following a Ninjitsu effectively "cost" one mana less. While these are all incredibly strong reasons to run it, running more than two colourless lands could potentially hurt what would otherwise be great draws, so the
Blinkmoth Nexus
fights for space with other lands like Ghost Quarter. It might be ideal to run two of each, or even a total of 3 (and one Conclave), but due to the price it won't be included in this deck for what would be a relatively minor increase in the efficiency of what is ultimately the third-tier backup plan. If you have them lying around, I would consider including 1-2 of them, potentially 3-4 if you are not running Ghost Quarter, or don't feel the need for more than one counter per turn.
Our Mutavault is another backup Ninjitsu enabler, but actually is more of a utility card to buff Spellstutter Sprite or to improve the reliability of Mistbind Clique. In theory, we would like to run more, but in practice our heavy-Blue spell requirement makes running more than three colourless lands difficult. In decks without the Mistbind Clique, Blinkmoth Nexus may well be the stronger card. With the Clique, there is no debate over which one we prefer.
Ghost Quarter is included as a way to deal with Tron decks, and without it we can only win on a near-perfect draw by us, or a poor draw by them. As such, I recommend the following:
- Against R/G Tron it is my suggestion to keep it for the Eye of Ugin, as they tend to only play a singleton. Potentially it could be used to destroy their green mana early if a Forest comes out, as they tend to play only one basic land, to slow down their putting the pieces together. You can use it to keep them off of the Tron, but I would only do so if you think you only need 1-2 turns to win or you are certain they are going to land a turn-3 Karn Liberated that you have no way to deal with.
- Against Mono-Blue Tron, killing the
Academy Ruins
is probably the way to go, but this matchup is one I've not played against as much, so there may be more merit in trying to keep them off Tron. Without
Ancient Stirrings
or Sylvan Scrying finding all of the Tron pieces is much harder for mono-blue (they only really have Tolaria West, which requires ) and Expedition Map. As such, keeping them off of Tron seems like a more reasonable idea, especially as you can counter or bounce their common late-game threats (Karn Liberated, Wurmcoil Engine,
Mindslaver
).
There is an argument for running three or four main, as we have very little in the way of colour problems, but if it comes to a counter-war, we need four blue mana to cast two counterspells, making any non-blue land we play only good for playing a small selection of our spells - a single mana towards
Vendilion Clique,
Ninja of the Deep Hours' Ninjitsu cost,
Spellstutter Sprite and
Ronin Warclub are the only plays that don't require pure blue mana, so having one colourless land out is fine, but multiple may well start to hurt your board position. I would still consider two in the sideboard if you find Tron is an important match-up for you to win.
I think that these are better than Tectonic Edge as we don't want to hurt our counter-magic base to use them, and their "downside" is not a negative against the decks we want them for (Tron notably). They are also cheaper, which is a large plus, and can be activated before the opponent gets to 3 mana - e.g. you're trying to delay a turn-3 Tron after seeing them reveal the third Tron piece, keeping them away from a turn-3 Karn Liberated and giving you time to counter him.
Decks that I expect us to struggle against include anything running Lingering Souls, early Planeswalkers (e.g. Liliana of the Veil), early combos (before we can get our countermagic up), Storm and decks making heavy use of the graveyard - particularly Unburial Rites.
As such, the sideboard has been constructed to best those match-ups. I am aware that it doesn't cover all of our bases - against decks like Tron, we will have our work cut out for us, however the reason behind each card is as follows:
- Echoing Truth - this deals with tokens and planeswalkers much better than Vapor Snag does. In fact, against decks featuring multiple Lingering Souls, it can single-handedly win entire games. It's slower than Vapor Snag and so worse in many match-ups. Further, against creatureless decks, AEtherize is often going to be useless. This can substitute in for either piece.
- Pongify - Against early large creatures, we have a problem - bouncing a 'goyf won't keep it off the board indefinitely, meaning that we need to do something to deal with it. Pongify lets us turn it into a 3/3 and then bounce it, destroying it permanently. Since it doesn't fly, we can still fly over the top of it, meaning we may not even need to bounce it to render it useless. It also deals with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in a pinch too, but I would not want to use it against a Wurmcoil Engine (three 3/3's is just getting silly - at least, unless you have an AEtherize in hand). Protection Blue is almost unheard of in the competitive scene, meaning that this is only really bad against hexproof creatures - something this deck struggles with a lot without AEtherize. Decks like Boggles and decks that run Thrun, the Last Troll will just laugh at you if you use this, which is why we run...
- Ratchet Bomb - it destroys decks who run many cheap creatures (e.g. Elves/Merfolk @ CMC 2), can deal with Boggles, and can kill Thrun if they ever don't leave up regenerate mana, slowing them down significantly. It also deals with problematic cheap permanents such as Liliana of the Veil, but it wil need to be ticked up quickly and some damage dealt to her so that her ultimate can't be triggered. Still, it's a decent answer to a wide variety of threats.
-
Annul
-This is run as a one-of, and should be brought in instead of (or as well as) Spell Pierce vs. Affinity and Boggles, but is also surprisingly good against
Pyromancer Ascension
and token decks (where it can counter the anthems they play). Overall it's a fantastic card and I wish we had room to include more. The reason that we don't is because our regular countermagic suite should be "good enough" in almost all situations.
- Tormod's Crypt - While it's arguably worse than Relic of Progenesis if it comes down early, it's often better than it if it comes down right before they go off, and is cheaper so it doesn't set our tempo back. It's also cheaper on the wallet, meaning that for me it was an easy decision. Consider running Relic of Progenesis if you already own them, but I'm still not sure which is the right choice in which match-up. You generally won't want to play a Relic on turns 1, 2 or 3 (which are busy turns for us), and most graveyard decks can be well into their shenanigans by turn 4, making this the better card for us in my eyes.
- AEtherize - This is included as a catch-all for worrying match-ups and ought to be able to get back games that you are losing badly. Other alternatives in this position include Cryptic Command (more card advantage and control, less tempo, and it requires keeping mana open more regularly, leading to less aggressive plays), Gigadrowse (which can be better or worse, depending on the match-up, but is probably the more versatile, but less impactful card, and doesn't deal with problem matchups in the same way that AEtherize does). Overall, this is one of the most contentious slots in the deck, and I wouldn't fault you for replacing some or all of it with countermagic, or even other answers. I've not tested the deck out featuring this yet, meaning it might not fit as well as I expect it to, but it's certainly a powerful budget card that can give you a huge one-sided swing in board state.
- Dispel - Due to trying to be aggressive while keeping mana open for countermagic, this deck can lose to other decks packing efficient removal or countermagic. Dispel deals with both of those problems. The main "downside" is that it's often only slightly better than Spell Pierce, meaning running too many of these in the sideboard is a waste of sideboard slots. Still great and comes in in many match-ups.
- Hurkyl's Recall - Fantastically strong card, and should be brought in against Affinity in every game.
As such, we have outs against almost all of the problematic match-ups. There is an incredibly strong argument to run Spell Snare, even if just to counter Pyroclasm - a card that will often end our game. In my place, I regularly play against a Storm player, and decks that run Anger of the Gods and similar cards, making this less of an auto-include. Since it can also hit an early Liliana, I feel that Spell Pierce may well be the better card in this role too, but Spell Snare is so good in major tournaments that it would be hard to consider not running it in its place. Everything else is fantastically strong in at least one match-up, or fixes a problem we have with the deck. Of course, this sideboard has never been played with, so I would appreciate any suggestions as they are given.
Alternatives:
While this is how I've chosen to build the deck, I can understand that you may disagree with my reasoning. Below I've included a bit on alternate options, why each of them is strong, and also why they didn't make it into my deck. If you can think of anything I have not included and should have, feel free to suggest it. I think I was relatively extensive in my card selection, but I am sure something managed to slip through at some point.
The main role of the Ronin Warclub is to land damage to finish out the game, and the
Sword of Fire and Ice
is to strengthen your mid-game, making your Ninja Enablers valuable in the late game. This means that almost any way to buff the damage your creatures are dealing would be ideal to replace the Warclub with, and almost anything to make the 1/1s relevant in the late game would do to replace the sword with.
Another, non-budget alternative would be either the
Sword of War and Peace
or the Sword of Feast and Famine - both of which would work fantastically in the deck, presuming we can get the attacker through to hit the opponent. Ultimately, I think the SoFaI is better than the other two, marginally, but it's included because I actually own one. A second sword (and maybe even a third) would go down well, but a fourth would be far too many. My order of preference is
Sword of Fire and Ice
==
Sword of War and Peace
> Sword of Feast and Famine >
Sword of Light and Shadow
> Sword of Body and Mind.
This is because the Sword of War and Peace protects us against most of the commonly played removal (Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt), while also being buffed by our bounce and speeding our clock.The Sword of Feast and Famine provides protection against one of our most feared spells - Abrupt Decay, while also allowing us to untap to hold counter mana up next turn, making forcing a Ninja through much more appealing. The
Sword of Light and Shadow
would be a decent inclusion as it provides relevant protections (unblockable by Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Dark Confidant etc) while helping our aggro matchup, defeating tokens and returning our cheap creatures like Spellstutter Sprite.
The reason that the
Sword of Fire and Ice
comes out ahead of most of this is because it still provides protection against Bolt, while drawing us more cards - in effect, turning a Faerie into a Ninja. It acts as permanent removal, and can also speed up our clock significantly. I wouldn't fault anybody for playing any of the swords, but I feel that the SoFaI and SoWaP are by far the two strongest options for this deck. Just remember that the
Sword of Fire and Ice
is a nombo with Aqueous Form.
Alternatives for the Ronin Warclub are actually numerous due to the interaction with First Strike (creature attacks, hits for first strike damage, and is then Ninjitsu'd so the Ninja also hits), so these are other options worth considering:
- Stormrider Rig (cheaper, and a payable equip cost, with an optional clause, but one less damage per turn)
-
Shuriken
(direct damage, repeatable, expensive)
-
Flayer Husk
(extra creature for Ninjitsu, and buffs later. Interesting, but too expensive).
-
Ghostfire Blade
(good if running Ornithopter and
Signal Pest
, bad otherwise).
- Infiltration Lens (gets is working again if we stall, but no extra damage, making it sub-par).
-
Silver-Inlaid Dagger
(good on Ninjas, but activates the turn after they hit, making it less useful).
- Cranial Plating (Might be worth considering if we ran black and more equipment, but not as a strict replacement for Ronin Warclub).
- Lightning Greaves (too expensive for the deck, but worth considering if you own them, but Ronin Warclub is still better at closing out a game).
-
Mask of Riddles
(Decent in U/B Ninja/Faerie decks).
- Runechanter's Pike (Would be good if we ran Distortion Strike as First Strike is amazing with Ninjitsu, but otherwise very sub-par).
-
Viridian Claw
(first strike and +1 will regularly hit for more damage than a Ronin Warclub, especially when paired with a Vendilion Clique - as that's an additional 4 damage. The downside is the extra mana each turn to use it will really hurt in some match-ups, and you can't use the first strike trick with other Ninjas who have Aqueous Form, making the damage increase slightly smaller. Worth considering)
-
Chariot of Victory
(first strike lands for more damage than otherwise would have happened and haste lets you swing more often with your smaller beaters. Overall a potentially solid choice).
Overall, I believe the Ronin Warclub is probably the right call, but the equipment/additional damage slot is the most hotly contested slot in this list. There is even an argument for upping the number of them from 3 to 4, but I would consider running Stormrider Rig as number 4, to ease the pain of multiple draws eating up so much mana in subsequent turns. If we were in Vintage, running Sai of the Shinobi or
Umezawa's Jitte
would be the best bet, but we have to make do with what we have in Modern.
Aside from the core three (or four) options, the only other countermagic to consider are cards like:
- Spell Snare - Such a powerful card, but also very narrow. We use Spellstutter Sprite in its place, so doesn't quite fit in this deck, and doesn't hit a lot of the threats we worry about (such as Liliana of the Veil).
- Disrupting Shoal - Good, but we're attempting to keep card advantage, not give it away. Could work if we had more damage quickly (e.g. if we tried to turn into a Delver of Secrets
deck), but not in the current setup.
- Cryptic Command - Too expensive in money, and difficult to cast until late game. Could include 1-3.
- Mindbreak Trap - Too narrow or too expensive. Good vs. Emrakul and Abrupt Decay, so arguably good in the sideboard.
-
Annul
- Good vs. Twin and Affinity, as well as Boggles (amongst others). Great sideboard card, not good in the main.
- Dispel - Fantastic in counter wars, and very rarely a dead card. Hits many of the cards we care about - arguably good to replace one of the Spell Pierce with, and maybe run one in the sideboard.
- Pithing Needle - Mostly to deal with opposing Planeswalkers, especially Karn Liberated. A good solution to unanswerable threats, and a very versatile card that is live in most match-ups.
Almost all of the counterspells listed are too expensive for their utility, or too situational. Most of the 2 CMC spells that aren't Pyroclasm are not a worry for a deck that can bounce creatures and keep swinging, making Spell Snare slightly less useful. In particular, we are not as afraid of Dark Confidant or Tarmogoyf as most decks.
Disrupting Shoal is an interesting one, but this deck runs very few 2 mana cards (that aren't counterspells themselves), and most of the time you'll want your 1, 3 and 4 CMC cards on the table and not in hand, making it occasionally good and otherwise bad. If it weren't for the price, I would consider testing some out, but it is my suspicion that they would be sub-par, even with the card advantage we are trying to generate. The main time I feel it might be useful would be to keep a Liliana of the Veil off the board on turn 3 by pitching a Mistblade Shinobi or a Vendilion Clique. In almost all other situations, keeping mana open to use it would be difficult if not impossible, meaning as a main-deck card it is out of the question, and it becomes somewhat situational as a sideboard card. Its price has caused me to rule it out here, but I feel there is a strong argument for it if you encounter Liliana of the Veil, or turn 1/2/3 wins from decks like Storm.
Cryptic Command may well work well in the deck instead of AEtherize in the side, or potentially Spell Pierce and Deprive in the main, however it's worse against some of our bad match-ups (e.g. Boggles), meaning it's not an easy replacement to make. If prices were more reasonable I would suggest including some, as it is you should include to taste, but I'm quite happy with the 2 CMC counters we run allowing us to be more aggressive with our plays.
The other counterspells might fit the sideboard in your meta, but almost none of them will fit main board. Of particular note is Mindbreak Trap. It shores up two of our bad match-ups - Storm and Tron, as it can deal with an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn without them being able to search it up again. In the early to mid game you will be unable to keep up 4 mana, meaning that it (and most of the other cards listed) are terrible suggestions mainboard.
Overall the main room for improvement may well be the Spell Pierce run main, but it should be catered towards the meta you expect to encounter.
Of course, there are other non-basic land that might be worth considering. I've listed them in order of most desirable to least desirable:
- Oboro, Palace in the Clouds - Useful against people who want to hit you with Land Destruction, and occasionally useful as a mana converter if you've not played a land that turn (colourless -> blue). Practically necessary if you expect to see Choke or Boil. Excluded from this list due to budget.
- Minamo, School at Water's Edge - We run so few legendary permanents it's primarily tech against Choke. Considering the price, I'm happy without it, but if you have one spare, it should probably go in..
-
Blinkmoth Nexus
- expensive and non-blue. Probably better than Faerie Conclave, but it's not a Faerie making it marginally worse with Spellstutter Sprite. Probably worth swapping in two of them.
- Mutavault - good with the Spellstutter Sprite and against non-aggro decks, but worse against everything else. Worth consideration.
- Creeping Tar Pit - If it didn't require black mana, it would be worth considering compared to the conclave. As it is, there is no comparison. Consider if splashing black.
-
Soaring Seacliff
- Too slow, but not a terrible idea. A pseudo-free Distortion Strike.
- Halimar Depths - useful with Deprive, but since we only run a singleton, probably not worth the potential tempo loss, especially as we are running two Faerie Conclave. Might be worth considering if we were to swap out the Conclaves for these and up our Deprive count to two or three, or to run a Karoo-style land (e.g. Dimir Aqueduct, but ultimately not fantastic in the deck as it slows it down.
- Tectonic Edge - Worse against the decks we want the Ghost Quarter for. Still a good card. Worthy of consideration, to let us further control the enemy deck, but not in my main because of price.
- Desert and Quicksand - We will almost never block, making these semi-decent inclusions, however the decks that crumble to these are generally not worth worrying about, as we will out-race them, meaning that they are sub-par at best.
- Radiant Fountain - Might be good if you really struggle against an aggro match-up, but the lack of coloured mana can hurt even this mono-blue manabase. Be cautious if including even one of these.
- Tolaria West - Unless we start to run more utility lands, or Pact of Negation not worth the inclusion.
Overall, we could do with a few blue lands that enter the battlefield untapped to lower our inability to handle Choke or Boil, but if you expect them, you'll just have to keep a counterspell up.
In addition to the cards included, there are quite a few other cards worthy of being in the sideboard, and likely better for any form of competitive play:
-
Sower of Temptation
- Would be fantastic, but is very expensive and so hard to justify for me. It's also a 4 cmc spell cast at Sorcery speed, making it very much a late-game play.
- Vedalken Shackles - Again, the price. Slightly worse than Sower because it can't hit the creatures that land a big clock quickly (e.g. Wurmcoil Engine, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Gurmag Angler). Slightly better than Sower in that it can hit Splinter Twin targets on their turn, making it live in more match-ups. It's also 1 cmc cheaper to play, but has a 2 cmc activation cost. If you put all of this together, it means Shackles or Sower would very much be a meta call.
- Glen Elendra Archmage - for those games when your counter suite is still not enough. Too slow to mainboard, but bringing 1-2 in in slower matchups might make sense.
-
Shadow of Doubt
- good in many matchups. Debatable use generally. Good vs. Tron and decent when holding up mana for a counter, but they become less useful in the late game. I don't think they are "swingy" enough to warrant a full sideboard slot unless you play against Scapeshift and Tron an awful lot.
At the end of the day, the sideboard should be configured based around cards that you expect to be strong against your local meta. Cards I wouldn't bother with that are common in many other blue sideboards include cards like Negate - our countermagic suite is generally better, so I wouldn't waste a slot on it.
