Hey guys! Welcome back to Konglicker's Premiere Primers, the series where I take a brand-new, never-before-played Legendary Creature from the latest MTG product and build a commander deck around it, speculating its ideal strategy. I began the series with Azor the Lawbringer: The Premiere Primer, which I hope you'll check out!
When WOTC confirmed the Dominaria set leaks in an untimely fashion, I began to Pore Over the Pages, looking for a legendary creature whose abilities stood out to me as top-down, build-around potential. I found several, all of whom I'll cover. For this article, I'll look at the legendary owner of Umezawa's Jitte. You saw it here first, ladies and gentlemen: the Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive premiere primer!
The General
The long-awaited owner of the Jitte is 1 colorless and 1 Blue for a 1/3 Legendary Creature--Human Rogue that reads: "Creatures you control with power or toughness 1 or less can't be blocked."
Until Tetsuko's card actually comes out on this site, you'll see Vela the Night-Clad as the placeholder commander on the list. You'll find that this deck plays similarly to a typical Vela build, minus Black of course. However, you will also find that Tetsuko Umezawa covers many of Vela's shortcomings despite only being 1 color.
Deck Strategy and Playstyle
While Vela the Night-Clad's ability grants all of your creatures (not just tiny ones) intimidate (limiting blockers to artifact creatures and creatures that share a color), Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive makes EVERY SINGLE ONE of your creatures with power or toughness 1 or less UNBLOCKABLE, no exceptions. You may have noticed that most Vela builds already use tiny blue creatures with abilities that activate whenever they deal combat damage to a player (mostly card draw). However, those Vela decks would be screwed if they sat at a table full of blue, black and artifact players.
For this deck, we want to include all of the blue weenies you might see in a Vela build that gain value whenever they deal combat damage to a player. In addition, the Ninjutsu creatures have a new supreme commander in Umezawa, since almost all of the creatures in this deck cannot be blocked. To make the most of Ninjutsu interactions, we'll also want creatures with power or toughness 1 or less that have "enters the battlefield" effects. These cards will be the primary targets to bounce back to our hands with a ninjutsu creature so we can get their ETB effect once more. Deadeye Navigator can abuse those creatures too. Can't say no to value!
We'll also want permanents that trigger whenever a creature we control hits someone OR attacks, from enchantments like Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy to equipments like Quietus Spike, Captain's Claws and Rogue's Gloves. Cards like that will be out of control in this deck.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE PERTAINING TO EQUIPMENTS: If you include equipments that boost a creature's stats in this deck, the equipment must ONLY boost power OR toughness, not both. Take Captain's Claws, for example, an ideal choice for this deck since it makes more 1/1s that can swing freely. Its other crucial component is that it grants +1/+0, not +1/+1. Equip it to a creature that has a toughness stat of 1, because if you were to equip it to Scroll Thief (a 1/3 creature) it would become a 2/3 and lose the unblockability provided by your commander, because Tetsuko Umezawa only makes creatures "with power or toughness 1 or less" unblockable. Notice that Umezawa's ability does not say "BASE power or toughness" (meaning original power or toughness printed on the card). If it did, the viable equipment options for this deck would be MUCH wider. So REMEMBER: EQUIPMENTS THAT BOOST TOUGHNESS BELONG ONLY ON CREATURES WITH POWER 1, AND EQUIPMENTS THAT BOOST POWER BELONG ONLY ON CREATURES WITH TOUGHNESS 1. DO NOT INCLUDE EQUIPMENTS THAT BOOST BOTH. I will be sure to check when the card is officially spoiled to see if it includes the word "base", because all I'm going off of is a translation. With equipments that don't boost stats, you have nothing to worry about.
As you look through the deck, you'll notice that a lot of the "Value on Combat Damage" cards make you draw, so a good strategy is to include a subtheme revolving around the number of cards in your hand. When this deck gets going, you will draw an INSANE amount of cards. That, in tandem with this deck's relatively low mana curve, means that you can afford to run a slightly lower land count. This also means you'll need to include as many cards that give you "no maximum hand size" as possible to exploit this. Cards like Venser's Journal, Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel are a must, as well as other cards that give you benefits or scale in power in accordance to the number of cards in your hand.
Having a lot of cards in your hand as a blue player is fantastic, because that implies that your hand is flush with control spells! Umezawa's ability is important and your creatures are small, so include a decent-sized suite of countermagic to stop boardwipes and targeted removal. The cheaper and more encompassing, the better!
Mono-blue is great at drawing, but has no ramp spells aside from colorless mana rocks. You cannot rely on the draw power of this deck alone to hit a land every turn, so include a collection of mana rocks (preferably ones that you can sacrifice to draw cards when they are no longer needed). We include an Oblivion Sower package of creatures that exile cards from the top of your opponents' decks when they hit, from Ingest creatures like Salvage Drone to the ridiculously powerful Raven Guild Master. Cast Oblivion Sower after you've exiled a good chunk of cards from the deck of a player with blue in it to steal their lands and laugh in their face.
Looking at this deck's strategy (free attacks with creatures, insane card draw and meticulous control), it will come as no surprise if you find yourself the primary target of the table. The idea of a blue player attacking with reckless abandon is nauseating to many, so you need ways to deter your opponents. Your 1-power/buffed-toughness creatures are decent blockers, and leaving some mana up with a full hand should deter any intelligent player. Your boardwipes (like Cyclonic Rift) can only bounce, not destroy. Use the creatures with power and toughness tied to cards in hand for defense.
A good Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive deck attacks relentlessly with small creatures to keep the player's hand full of protecting countermagic while reaping extra value off of a full hand. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed this Primer!
Card Categories
The creatures you'll want are blue creatures with either power 1 or toughness 1, or both, with an "enters the battlefield" ability or an effect that triggers when it attacks or deals combat damage to a player. For this list, we're focusing on creatures that draw cards or exile the top cards of our opponents' decks, like
Salvage Drone and
Scroll Thief.
To provide defense, you'll want creatures with power and toughness tied to the number of cards in your hand, like
Sturmgeist.
Kefnet the Mindful is also great since he's an indestructible threat who can battle if your hand has seven or more cards, a very easy thing to maintain in this deck.
Because mono-blue sucks at ramp traditionally, you'll want lots of mana rocks. Rocks that can be sacrificed in a pinch to draw more cards, like
Mind Stone, are the best.
Paradox Engine abuses your mana rocks by untapping them with each spell you cast. Since this deck's curve is so low, you can easily go off and have huge turns in the late game, rebuilding your board if you can't counter a board wipe.
This deck has a rather dirty alternative way to ramp that Tetsuko enables rather well: Eldrazi Processing. There is a creature package in this deck that exiles cards from the tops of your opponents' decks if they hit:
Salvage Drone,
Mist Intruder,
Benthic Infiltrator,
Scalpelexis, and the busted
Raven Guild Master. Once you've exiled a decent chunk of cards with them, cast
Oblivion Sower to steal a bunch of lands. It goes without saying that you should be attacking blue players with these creatures...
Include a basic suite of hard, no-exception counterspells to preserve your board state and keep the game from coming to an abrupt end at the hands of another player. Drawing so many cards means you're bound to have at least one in your hand most of the time.
