This deck uses ninjas as a draw engine and faeries as high octane gas.
The faeries we run like
Faerie Miscreant
and
Faerie Seer
are 1-drops to get them out early and often like voters in Chicago. On top of that they have the benefit of letting us scry off the etb or potentially drawing while also having flying to get them in and set up ninjutsu triggers.
Changeling Outcast
falls into this category except is unblockable without an etb, however he counts as both a faerie and a ninja for further synergies.
With gas on the field, we start up our engine by bouncing these 1-drop evaders to our hand and playing ninjas. All of our Ninjas:
Ingenious Infiltrator
,
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
, and
Ninja of the Deep Hours
help us draw. The former two draw more and more as we get more ninjas out, which can get a little out of hand when the deck goes off. This is why outcast is so good.
With all the draw power, we need to have things to do with our (sometimes over) filled grip. The deck tries to only spend 1 or 2 mana on anything so it can put plenty on the field while also having plenty of answers with little mana left open. While also being able to dump are hands to maximize value before pitching to hand size, which can certainly happen.
Our win cons can be either a "death by a thousand cuts" through a combination of low end aggro and control with counters and removal or burn for game with Yuriko if lucky draws and plenty of ninjas are on your side. The scrying off seer can help set this up.
The deck tries to balance having a critical mass of ninjas and/or faeries.
Spellstutter Sprite
can consistently counter 3-drops, but 4 and up takes explicit prep-work to pull off. We run
Cloud of Faeries
to put a freeby out while keeping enough mana open to drop spellstutter or plus mana by untapping dimir aquaduct with it.
Quickling
helps out here by either A) bouncing yuriko for protection B) recycling spellstutter when we can't get through to do it with ninjutsu or C) bouncing
Cloud of Faeries
for additional play extension. All this while leaving a faerie on the board to help spellstutter.
The biggest pit-fall of this deck is that it has to get in and do combat damage while only running 1/1's and 2/2's. We try to counter that with running plenty of removal and counters to keep troublsome blockers away. Don't be afraid to make a few trades if it means being able to get in and start drawing: you'll either draw into a replacement or a way to make sure you can get in clean next time. This deck does nothing if you can't get in. However, field presence is crucial too, choose your trades wisely.
Finally, the biggest tweaks in the deck is in the answers department. We want to spend little to no mana on our answers, though this comes with plenty of drawbacks.
Fatal Push
is great but makes 5-drops+ extra cumbersome while
Vapor Snag
bounces any creatures (including your own in a pinch) but really just buys you time and can make things worse if they got a good etb effect. I'm currently experimenting if the deck fills its grave enough to make
Murderous Cut
cost 1 and be practical running one or two. May break down and buy some fetch lands for the deck to help mana fix and help out that delve. The potential burn off Yuriko could be great if so. Likewise, run 4
Force of Will
if you have the budget. Perfect for the deck, but that price tag though...
If you've managed to read this far, thank you so much for checking the deck out and please leave a comment. Always excited to hear any critiques or recommendations.
