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Satoru Umezawa

Satoru Umezawa is the hottest Commander from the new Kamigawa, Neon Dynasty set. He has the ability to give every creature in your hand Ninjutsu for . With this ability you can sneak out creatures in combat. But only for an unblocked attacker so this deck is filled with evasive creatures to meet this requirement. This is a set up to see how many Combos are possible in this Deck. Not all cards made the final cut.

The rulings of Ninjutsu state: The ninjutsu ability can be activated during the declare blockers, combat damage, or end of combat steps if you have an unblocked attacking creature. Notable is that there is no limit to this, so if you have enough mana you can attack and then Ninjutsu several times on the same attacking 'position'. Use cards like Palinchron or Great Whale to untap your lands and do the trick again... and again... and again...

Getting six or even nine lands takes a while in Dimir to pull off. Luckily there are some cards that can help to accelerate your mana-curve. There are four kinds of accelerants in the deck: Creature based, Artitact based, Enchantment based and Land based.

Creature Based

Crypt Ghast or Nirkana Revenant give an extra whenever you tap a Swamp. And also your duals like Underground Sea, Watery Grave and Sunken Hollow count as a Swamp. And when adding Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth you can tap every land in your deck to add an extra .

Artifact Based

Dowsing Dagger  combines well with the evasive creatures and transforms into a land that can tap for three mana of any color. Sword of the Animist works also with the evasive creatures and let you play extra lands each turn. Wayfarer's Bauble is a one-shot mana look up which can get you ahead.

Enchantment Based

With Intruder Alarm you can untap your mana dorks after a creature ETB with Ninjutsu. The dorks in the deck are Ornithopter of Paradise, Leaden Myr and Silver Myr. This might give you just the extra mana to pull of a combo a turn sooner.

Land Based

For Scorched Ruins you sacrifice two lands but gives you a land that can tap for . Temple of the False God taps for . And lands like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Cabal Coffers ask an investment of and with the right board state pay off with more mana. The last one also has great synergy with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Six Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Ninjutsu

This Six Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. There are six possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When one evasive creatures is unblocked. Tap lands for 6.
  2. Have 6 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu: Swap the attacker for Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 6.
  3. Have 8 mana floating. Pay 1 to Ninjutsu: Swap Palinchron for Mistblade Shinobi.
  4. Have 7 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 2, gaining 1 mana each loop.

Seven Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Silver-Fur Master

This Seven Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. There are two possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When one evasive creatures is unblocked. Tap lands for 7.
  2. Have 7 mana floating. Pay 3 to Ninjutsu: Swap the attacker for Great Whale, untap/tap lands for 7.
  3. Have 11 mana floating. Pay 3 to Ninjutsu: Swap Great Whale for evasive creature.
  4. Have 8 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 2, gaining 1 mana each loop.

Seven Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Prosperous Pirates

This Seven Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. There are two possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When one evasive creatures is unblocked. Tap lands for 7.
  2. Have 7 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap the attacker for Prosperous Pirates, gain two Treasures
  3. Have 3 mana floating. Sac one Treasure. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Prosperous Pirates for Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 7.
  4. Have 7 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 2, gaining one Treasure each loop.

Seven Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Cloud of Faeries

The Seven Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. There are two possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When one evasive creatures is unblocked. Tap lands for 7.
  2. Have 7 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap the attacker for Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 7.
  3. Have 10 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Palinchron for Cloud of Faeries, untap/tap lands for 2.
  4. Have 8 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 2, gaining 1 mana each loop.

Six Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Thousand-Faced Shadow

The Six Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. But in this combo also Infinite Palinchrons attacking. There are two possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When two evasive creatures are unblocked. Tap lands for 6.
  2. Have 6 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap first attacker for Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 6.
  3. Have 8 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap second attacker for Thousand-Faced Shadow, copy Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 6.
  4. Have 10 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Thousand-Faced Shadowfor one evasive creature
  5. Have 6 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Palinchron for Thousand-Faced Shadow, copy the copy of Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 6.
  6. Have 8 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Thousand-Faced Shadow for Palinchron, untap/tap lands for 6.
  7. Have 10 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 5, gaining 4 mana and an attacking Palinchron each loop.

Seven Mana Infi-Ninjutsu Combo - Sakashima's Student

The Seven Mana combo consists of three cards, including the Commander. With this combo you can make infinite mana during your combat which means you can make Infinite Ninjutsu moves. There are two possible combos in this deck:

Boardstate for Combo:

How to pull this combo off:

  1. When two evasive creatures are unblocked. Tap lands for 7.
  2. Have 7 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap first attacker for Great Whale, untap/tap lands for 7.
  3. Have 10 mana floating. Pay 2 to Ninjutsu. Swap second attacker for Sakashima's Student, who becomes Great Whale, untap/tap lands for 7.
  4. Have 15 mana floating. Pay 4 to Ninjutsu. Swap Sakashima's Student for one evasive creature.
  5. Have 11 mana floating. Rinse and repeat from 3, gaining one mana each loop.

It is nice to have infinite mana, but remember you are still somewhere in combat when these loops resolve. You will have to finish of your opponents within the Combat Phase. So there are some ways of doing just that. Use the infinite mana and the Commander to Ninjutsu out your wincon with infinite ETB/LTB effects.

Draw or Tutor

If you don't have a wincon in hand you will need to get a wincon out of the deck. For this you can use cards like Baleful Strix, Thalakos Seer, Spectral Sailor and Cavalier of Gales for infinite draw and Rune-Scarred Demon for infinite tutors. Or use Vampire Charmseeker to retrieve a wincon from the graveyard.

Wincons

There are two finishers in the deck with infinite mana and infinite Ninjutsu. Archon of Cruelty gives an infinite life-drain and Mindshrieker for infinite milling your opponents. Nirkana Revenant combined with infinite can be used to swing at one opponent. And Blightsteel Colossus is also a single strike killer. And if you are attacking with two Evasive creatures you can make infinite creature copies with Thousand-Faced Shadow.

Finally lets have a look at some creature picks. There are two main creature types in the deck. Evasive creatures which have a great chance of doing combat damage so you can Ninjutsu out a big creature.

Evasive Creatures

Sneak-Attack Creatures

I am very aware that this brew might not be the optimal Satoru Umezawa-deck. I know I am the guy who always goes over the top when adding possible cards to a combo. So after playtesting there will be some final cuts to make the deck run more smoothly. Right now the deck has a rather high creature count and is low on threat assignment. I will have to choose also which Combo-enablers (ramp) stay in the deck and which ones will go. That is also a little too much for now in this deck.

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