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My take on Yuriko + Ad Naus, an idea reinvigorated by Braden's work on Smol Blue.

DISCLAIMER:

This list is fairly untested and currently being experimented with after hearing about Braden's success with a similar build, and we have worked together to see where this idea takes us. This is not a primer, it is an attempt to see where Ad Nauseam in Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow decks can go. There are test slots that I swap out too often to have a dedicated section for, and I am not recommending this build over my standard build.

Since the beginning, Yuriko has existed in my mind primarily as a card advantage engine with a cute line about winning through damage, so combos were unnecessary and diluted the deck (With the printing of Thassa's Oracle, this has most certainly changed). We're able to start drawing cards while other people are usually attempting to still set up their board states, so barring an early flash or something of a similar nature, while we set up for a long game, we're also already enacting our main gameplan: Drawing cards. Because our early turns are taken up with putting Yuriko into play turn 2, I was not a fan of playing the 2cmc mana rocks, but playing them turn 3 is perfectly fine, especially when all of your countermagic costs 1 or 0 mana to cast; playing any of the rocks in the deck still means you have two mana to hold up, so you can play a rock, a dork, and hold up mana, and you've developed your board state for the next turn better than you could have previously as well as holding up mana.
So, what do you get when you prioritize general card quality and lower cost over cards with an inflated cmc, such as Consign / Oblivion) and other cards that lean too heavily into their synergies with our commander, such as Contagion? It's just a worse Tymna the Weaver, right? However, Yuriko offers an explosiveness that Tymna is unable to in the form of both Ingenious Infiltrator as well as Mist-Syndicate Naga, is able to play a variety of meta-destroying stax pieces, and can effectively threaten life totals with cards like Bloodchief Ascension and naga, both of which are cards that are also just generally solid and give a lot of inevitability that tymna/x decks are unable to provide as far as life totals are concerned.
Now, with a hyper-focusing on card quality in regards to cedh in general, the lower the card's cost to play, the better it is. So if we have a generally low average cmc, we're able to play Ad Nauseam with little trouble unless we hit Temporal Trespass or Force of Will into some ninjas, so we're playing a similar naus curve as The Gitrog Monster: a deck with a generally low curve with one or two haymakers that just ruin your Ad Naus. However, this deck doesn't attempt to win off of the casting of Ad Nauseam. We're specifically casting it to stock up our hand with good cards. If you hit an enabler, you take 1 damage off of the flip and are able to continue diving for useful spells, so outside of the two scenarios listed previously, not much is lost in our search for more cards.
This is the primary difference in which Braden's build and my own differs. Firstly, Braden plays in a meta full of Pyroclasm effects, so the weaker ninjas that fold to this card are conspicuously absent from his build. Additionally, they flip for much more than what they're actually worth off of Ad Nauseam. So why play any of them outside of Ingenious Infiltrator? Yuriko accumulates value the more ninjas you have in play, but a Dark Confidant in the command zone provides enough value that the occasional upside isn't worth the dead cards in hand or the higher naus curve, right?

However, Yuriko's effect snowballs quickly, and the value that Thassa's Oracle provides off of just casting it, alongside the other etb effects in the list, means that playing ninjas isn't completely ridiculous. Mist-Syndicate Naga provides a single trigger the turn it comes down, two the turn after, and it very suddenly becomes a must answer threat, and can even pressure the life totals of players who have stolen your Yuriko. The snowball effect is the one thing that sets Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow apart from Tymna the Weaver and her allies. The highs and lows of Yuriko are much more exaggerated, but by building in such a way as to mitigate many of her flaws, you're able to have a card advantage general that is nearly on par with a contender for the title "best commander for cEDH" and can occasionally even exceed it.

Pyroclasm is a card that I first remember being championed by 4C Rashmi - Curious Control as a way to deal with Tymna the Weaver's card advantage, and clasm remains a minor nuisance to us. Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive is a stellar card in this deck because most of our ninjas become unblockable when Tetsuko is on the field—but that's a weakness when it comes to Pyroclasm. A board full of Mist-Syndicate Naga copies is wiped away in an instant, quickly melting through your avalanche. However, when dealing with the sorcery speed clasm effects, your ninjas are still able to provide at least one card, replacing themselves. The real issue comes with Fire Covenant and Flame Sweep, as the instant speed nature allows for an insanely high blowout potential. If you play in a meta full of these cards, you might want to prioritize Azra Smokeshaper over other ninjas, as its body has been honed to survive such devastating catastrophes.
Stax pieces such as Oppression and Psychic Surgery are meant to disrupt opponents, preventing topdeck tutors and forcing them to play in a much riskier style than the grindier decks that attempt to conserve countermagic and hold up their wincons generally try to—if you cast a cantrip, a mana dork, or a value engine, you lose a card, as does your interaction and even your win attempts, so you're unable to play as freely as you would like. Chains of Mephistopheles does a lot of work in the longer games, because almost every card advantage engine says "draw a card"; chains prevents Mystic Remora from amassing a hand of 12 cards before you untap, as well as denying Tymna, Thrasios, Kraum, and other commanders value. Thus, we're able to accrue card advantage freely while preventing opponents from doing the same.

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Casual

100% Competitive

Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 0 Mythic Rares

52 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

19 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 1.93
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, On an Adventure
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