@Elipson Silver-Fur Master is usually a trap in most Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow decks due to turning off Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive.

@Virlym Although it's true that Silver-Fur Master and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive are a nonbo, I think you can still get away with playing both in the same deck without much trouble. I'm glad you pointed that out though! It's an important thing to note if you draw both in the same opening hand, for example

@azja that sounds like my kind of combo. Looks like I have something else to go into the very small sorceries category in my deck.

Virlym I completely forgot that Silver-Fur Master would cancel Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive ability. I got tunnel vision on all the new ninjas. Thanks for looking out!

azja and Virlym what are your thoughts on Otawara, Soaring City and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire?

I'm thinking about since I have 3 Legendary creatures maybe it could provide a little utility. But then again how often would I have all three on the field.

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive

Hope of Ghirapur

@Elipson For the new Kamigawa legendary lands, I think it's more important to consider if your deck can afford to play a single-coloured land that isn't fetchable, rather than how many legends you have. So that being said, I think Otawara, Soaring City will easily slot into my deck since it's extremely blue-heavy, but I'm undecided on Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. I plan to try out both though!

Hey azja,

Nice deck, no comments yet, I'm just starting to work on a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow deck of my own.

Found your primer and discussion valuable, thought I would follow the deck and likely have some questions/suggestions later as I dive into the build.

Cheers!

azja,

Couple early questions if you don't mind. Let me know if I'm a bother :) My Yuri Deck

Karn's Temporal Sundering hitting an opponent for 6 is good, but wouldn't Capture of Jingzhou be more efficient for CMC1 less? Perhaps its a budgetary/availability consideration?

You have 15 enablers, I read the notes on them, couple questions. What's the critical mass on this, like would 10 be deterimental. When I did a rough pull in had the following questions:

Why is Tormented Soul excluded, is it just as simple as the Force of Will? He still not better than the 2CMC options like Augury Owl?

Kaito Shizuki thoughts? I'm worried that the CMC3 for the -2 is the wrong tempo/timing, but, he does come in, make a unblockable, then phase out to also get the draw next turn. If you don't need the unblockable, it's draw 2 for CMC3, tough to see hitting his ultimate at 7. 3CMC planeswalker are usually good, some I'm tempted to think this one will be too? But I have no play experience on this deck.

I just can't get my head around the flying evasion guys though, Faerie Seer, Spectral Sailor, Wingcrafter, Augury Owl, Sage Owl. They feel "sub-optimal" to me and difficult to include, but as I said what's the critical mass here? I was considering Baleful Strix in the 2CMC drop, just because he replaces himself in hand (which may just be discarded anyway, but looting never that bad anyway), with deathtouch less likely to be blocked by flying/reach, and he can be an effective (deathtouch) defender.

I've roughed in "12" for the timebeing.

Honestly my first thought was this is a turbo-draw to tutor, fish-pact/fish-consul strategy. I was looking at Tatsunari, Toad Rider instead, but I think I like "big splashy spells" more than the aristocrats method. So that got me thinking, what the heck do I win with, is this viable or am I off-base here:

Primary: Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact ASAP / Draw for tutors

Tertiary Maverick 'Turn and Burn': Temporal Trespass, Temporal Mastery, Temporal Manipulation, Capture of Jingzhou with perhaps something like Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip or Dig Through Time as possible damage enablers in addition to the 'turn'.

I skipped Secondary intentionally, is there no room here for a Doomsday? I can think of multiple stacks with varied CMC, E.G. if devotion to blue 3 + Doomsday + Thassa's Oracle (BBBUU) is a win, if you don't have Thassa's Oracle, somethig like Doomsday + Gitaxian Probe/Street Wraith into a Night's Whisper or something could be around CMC7, Gush kinda useless here for a CMC3 (BBB) stack.

Thoughts on that? I see you intentionally don't run the fish, but this seems viable for this deck?

For Scheming Symmetry doesn't the player just pull a counterspell to stop your win, does it really "win on the spot", if you have to pass it feels useless, but with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Opposition Agent it does work. Reliability? I "should"? run it?

Has Mutavault been enough value for a possible swing vs. the downside of the colorless mana? It dodges board wipe and is a ninja, so kinda-of makes sense to me, but I'm on the fence?

Also, would avoiding the enters tapped lands be better? E.G. Drowned Catacomb, Mystic Sanctuary, Sunken Hollow be far better as say City of Brass, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, River of Tears, Etc.?

I do have TOO MANY potential colorless mana Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Caverns, Reliquary Tower, Strip Mine. I feel like Reliquary Tower is a trap and I should remove, where I feel like, what's my strategy vs. a Glacial Chasm or Maze of Ith.

It's still a work in progress, I think I need more Ninjas then I have, still evaluating them one by one, and trying to figure out what each tutor gets me, but first I need to know what my win-con plans are to know what i'm looking for!

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

A Kamigawa card I've been having some success with is March of Swirling Mist. It's both saved my ninja from a wipe and made a temporary path for me through blockers to get the last hit I needed.

Spirits

The reason he's using that owl over an unblockable spirit is likely for the amazing scry 3 effect on the owl. Yuriko benefits from being able to filter the next card so that it can potentially be a big cmc card for dmg against the opponent. Also, Toad Rider isn't Blue/Black... it has green in its CMC :)

Hey @Spirits, sorry for taking so long to get back to you! You asked such detailed questions, so I wanted to make sure I had time to write out detailed answers :D

Karn's Temporal Sundering vs Capture of Jingzhou:

Like you said, just a budget consideration. Yuriko is my pet deck so I don’t use any proxies, but I highly encourage it for others! While the bounce effect of Karn's Temporal Sundering is nice, I’m thinking of replacing it with Time Warp or just cutting it altogether for Treasure Cruise.

Enablers:

Since I don’t have any combos, I’m all in on the Yuriko damage plan. So having an enabler at all times is much more crucial for me, which is why I play 15 of them. Comparing my list to others, it seems 15 is on the higher end, so you could probably get away with cutting a couple. You’re correct about Tormented Soul, it can’t be pitched to Force of Will, as well as the mana base being more blue-heavy. As for the flying enablers, they’re included for redundancy (since there aren’t 15 unblockable 1-drops). It’s pretty rare for every opponent to have a flying/reach blocker, and we don’t really care who we attack, so flying does a pretty good impression of unblockable. Plus, many of them have relevant abilities, especially Faerie Seer’s scry 2 and Wingcrafter which can give Yuriko flying. If you’re mainly trying to win with combo, I wouldn’t play any of the 2 mana enablers except Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. But don’t underestimate Augury Owl in the “winning with big spells” shell!

Kaito Shizuki

I haven’t tried him out yet, so I’m also unsure whether he makes the cut. Normally I wouldn’t consider playing a planeswalker, since we’re not very good at blocking to keep them around for longer than one turn. But with Kaito, we’re guaranteed 2 activations since he phases out eot, so I think he’s worth testing out for sure.

Win-Cons:

I think the wincons you described are all totally viable. Most of the cEDH Yuriko lists win with Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact since it’s only 2 cards and 3-4 mana (and tough to interact with outside of counterspells). Doomsday is significantly weaker than fish-consul, but its also a reasonable win-con. It’s convenient that cards that would go in the doomsday pile such as Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are already good cards for the deck anyway. When I first built this deck, I didn’t include doomsday for power level considerations. Now, I doubt doomsday would be too powerful for my playgroup to handle, but I decided to leave it out since I prefer to win with Yuriko’s ability.

Scheming Symmetry

Scheming symmetry is pretty much my budget replacement for Imperial Seal until we get a reprint. It’s true that you can do some cute plays with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Fallen Shinobi. But most of the time, I save it until someone is below 16 life, choose them to tutor with me, put Draco on top of my library, and eliminate them before they can use the card they grabbed.

Mutavault

I’m a big fan of Mutavault since it allows me to rebuild a turn earlier after a boardwipe, or just to have an extra ninja that usually goes unnoticed by your opponents. Unfortunately, colourless lands are really, really awkward in this deck, so I wouldn’t play more than 1 or 2 at the most.

Drowned Catacomb, etc.

Since I’m currently playing 10 basics, I usually don’t have any problems with Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Hollow entering tapped. As for Mystic Sanctuary, it definitely sucks when you draw it and have to play it as a tapped island. But, imo it makes up for it in the late game when you can grab it with a fetch land and put an expensive spell on top of your library in response to a Yuriko trigger. If you’re including Tainted Pact, or just playing less basics in general, I would definitely cut those lands for City of Brass or River of Tears, like you mentioned.

Colourless Mana

I touched on this a bit in the Mutavault discussion, but you definitely want to stay away from colourless lands as much as possible. Although Ancient Tomb and Gemstone Caverns are really powerful lands in a vacuum, the early mana they provide isn’t worth it imo. I definitely agree with you that Reliquary Tower is a trap. I wouldn’t play it in very many decks in general, especially not in Yuriko. As for Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith, they aren’t played enough in my playgroup for me to need an answer for them. But if they did become more popular, my plan would likely be to cut Mutavault and include Strip Mine/Wasteland instead.

I hope everything I explained made sense and was helpful to ya! Don’t hesitate to ask me more questions!

Hey azja,

Appreciate the detailed response!

I like the insight on the Scheming Symmetry, let's you negate the downside with the player removal.

Mystic Sanctuary, because it likely comes in tapped, if I think of it really as put a card ontop of library, instead of as a land. Added to my maybe have to think on it.

I have put together a sort-of initial build, it's still a work in process, but think i'm getting closer to the right initial build. Spirits Yuriko Deck.

I'll defintely be back with some questions late, going to do a side-by-side differential.

How have you been liking the changes? I'm curious your reasoning on testing entomb, Is it just redundancy to try to get wonder most of the time?

Have any cards over or under performed so far? Definitely cool to see so many new ninjas.

azja,

I've only played 5 cEDH games so far (won 2 lost 3).

If you ignore the ninjitsu ability on Thousand-Faced Shadow, it's really a better Mothdust Changeling.

Any thoughts on Wash Away? I really can't tell, to counter a commander, or anything impulse cast like s Jeska's Will or Dauthi Voidwalker etc.? Multi-use at MV3.

I'm at 29 lands, hasn't been an issue yet, thinking of going to 30? I'm also short an Imperial Seal really need that card in here unfortunately.

I run Doomsday only tried to win that way once, was counterspell though (too bad).

Temporal Mastery and Temporal Trespass have been great, is there any way to turn them into an immediate win though?

Hey Spirits, sounds like your games went well!

To add to your last comment, Mystic Sanctuary only triggers if you have 3+ other islands, so it's probably not worth it with a Tainted Pact mana base. Also, in my past couple games I've had issues with Sunken Hollow coming in tapped, so I think I'll replace it with City of Brass like you mentioned.

You're right about Thousand-Faced Shadow, it's been treating me very well so far.

Wash Away isn't bad, but there's just so many good counterspells in edh I don't think it makes the top 10-ish that we would want to run.

I'm currently trying 32 lands, and it's felt good so far. But I tend to run 1-2 more lands than most lists I've seen, so I think 30 is a good number too.

As for the extra turn spells, I don't have a sure-fire way to win other than tutoring Draco/Blinkmoth Infusion on top if my opponents are low enough. But I've found that the 2-3 extra Yuriko triggers you get by taking an extra turn put you very far ahead, even if the damage isn't enough to be lethal.

Would love to hear everyones feedback on how one of the new upcoming card releases: shadow of mortality it looks very well suited for Yuriko with high card mana cost but with it situational cost of only 2 black mana if you have lost 13 life already. For me it looks to have the benefits of Draco (only 1 less yuriko trigger damage) but a strong 7/7 creature potentially for 2 black mana. Shame it doesnt have flying but this one is going to get tested in my deck for sure.

Thoughts?

@Agieryna Apologies for taking so long to reply! I play edh less frequently these days, so I didn't have enough reps with my new Yuriko list to get back to you until now.

Starting with the ninjas, I've been very impressed by Moon-Circuit Hacker and Prosperous Thief; They have powerful combat damage triggers and cheap ninjutsu costs. I've also been liking Inkrise Infiltrator and Thousand-Faced Shadow which are easy to hard cast and evasive. I ended up cutting Dokuchi Silencer because I often didn't have a creature I wanted to discard, and if there is a problematic creature on board I'd rather just use a removal spell. I also found Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion pretty underwhelming, but I think it's reasonable to include if you play it with the Enter the Infinite/Thassa's Oracle combo.

I've also been pleased with Memnite and Phyrexian Walker. I didn't play them before because they don't have any evasion, but the tempo advantage they provide is so much higher than a 1-mana enabler that they're worth including. Network Disruptor has been amazing: A 1/1 flyer that also taps down a blocker is really powerful.

As for the evasion package, Cover of Darkness is much stronger than it used to be due to the higher number of playable ninjas, same goes for Wonder. And like you mentioned, Entomb is strictly for grabbing Wonder. I haven't run into the situation where I don't have a target for Entomb yet, but that's something you sign up for when you play a tutor that has only one good target.

I think that covers most of the new changes, let me know if you have any other questions/comments!

@DinGo90 I could definitely see Shadow of Mortality replacing Draco. Although it's "only" 15 cmc, it's a card that we can can pretty reasonably cast for BB, unlike Draco. The reason I'd still like to play Blinkmoth Infusion is that it's blue, so we can exile it to Force of Negation, Force of Will, etc.

Let me know what you think!

you should fit in shadow of mortality

@magwaaf I do plan on trying out Shadow of Mortality, I just haven't gotten a hold of one yet! I think it will take the spot of Draco since it's actually cast-able, but Blinkmoth Infusion is likely still our best "burn" card since it can be pitched to Force of Will and similar cards.

Oh, don't bother casting them, just try to keep em on top. 8 deal with a yuriko deck regularly and it doesn't need to caat any of them...ever..... I hate it lol

Might be dumb queston but why no rhystic or mystic? have you thought about chains of mephistopheles or diabolic intent?

@grrKate Thanks for the comment!

Rhystic/Mystic: Not a dumb question at all! I don't have Rhystic Study in the list because I've always been all-in on Yuriko's tempo gameplan. Yuriko generally doesn't want the game to go on longer than it has to, so sitting back and drawing cards that aren't also dealing damage isn't where we want to be. But maybe it's powerful enough on its own to earn a spot in the list, even if it doesn't further our gameplan. So I'm not opposed to trying it out in the future! As for Mystic Remora, I think the card is very overrated outside of max-power cEDH (which I rarely play). My rule of thumb is that if you won't draw at least 2 cards off it before you have to pay the cumulative upkeep cost, its not worth a slot. Another reason is that Yuriko is extremely mana-intensive, especially on turns 1-3, so you don't want to waste tempo/mana paying upkeep costs with mystic.

Chains/Intent: I've never considered Chains of Mephistopheles simply because this is a pet deck of mine and I kinda want every card to be real. But the card seems great in Yuriko, and I encourage other players to print one out and give it a try! Moving onto Diabolic Intent, I didn't include it because I don't have a "win the game" combo such as thoracle/consult, so it's not really worth sacrificing a creature to use a tutor "fairly".

Thanks again! Hope that answers your questions!

where are all the cards over 10cc? shadow of mortality, and a bunch of the eldrazi

Hi magwaaf!

I'm currently testing Shadow of Mortality in place of Draco, but I haven't officially updated the decklist yet.

As for high cmc cards in general, adding more than a few of them hurts your deck more than it improves it. The reason being that we play a very low number of lands and ramp spells, so we can't cast anything more than 6-7 mana very reliably. Although it feels awesome to flip an eldrazi titan to Yuriko's trigger, we're not casting it anytime soon, so we're better off filling our deck with "pretty high cmc but still playable" cards like Consign / Oblivion, Dig Through Time, etc.

Hello,

Thank you for all the work you have done at maintaining this page!

What is your opinion on Black Market Connections? Have you had the chance to test it yet?