Paul Hagan's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Budget Ninja Deck - 2.28.05
Hey all, and welcome
to the Deck Garage! Before I get started, I have to go on a
“My Bad” tangent. Apparently, at some point, I got under the
impression that Order of the Ebon Hand has the ability ‘B:
Order of the Ebon Hand gets +1/+0 until the end of the
turn.’ It actually costs BB to pump, which makes the card
significantly less powerful. My Bad! However, looking over
the spots that I screwed up in, I don’t think I would change
the choices I suggested. However, far be it from me to
mislead the readers.
Anyways…
Betrayers of Kamigawa is now legal for tournament play, and
something I have been hearing a lot of people talking about
is a Ninja deck. Well, that’s what we’ll be working with
this week. Here’s the e-mail I received.
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"I've been wanting to make a Ninja deck since the Betrayer's
Prerelease. Before I build it, I thought about running the
decklist past you. I'd have to say my support cards add to
the Sneaky Bastard theme:
10 Island
10 Swamp
4 Mistblade Shinobi
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Skullsnatcher
4 Throat Slitter
4 Walker of Secret Ways
2 Honden of Night’s Reach
2 Honden of Seeing Winds
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Terror
4 Counterspell
I didn't include any rares due to budget. Add a sideboard if
you wish, maybe more instants for Isochron Scepter. Thanks,
good luck!"
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Looking over this deck, there are a few things that jump out
immediately. First, I count six different varieties of
Ninja, and there are four of each of those, for a total of
24 cards. Although I think the Ninja theme is cool, not all
Ninjas are created equal. Walker of Secret Ways lets you
sneak a peek at your opponent’s hand (weak), and
Skullsnatcher allows you to pull cards from the graveyard
(limited). Let’s pull both of those.
-4 Skullsnatcher
-4 Walker of Secret Ways
Okiba-Gang Shinobi is OK, but he also has a somewhat
restrictive cost. I think it would be safe to lower the
count on this card to two.
-2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
I don’t think I was ever a fan of the Honden cards. They
just don’t seem to do enough for the cost and better cards
could be occupying those slots.
-2 Honden of Night’s Reach
-2 Honden of Seeing Winds
Moving to what we want to add, I noticed a basic flaw in
this deck. What is the first creature to swing? The big
weakness associated with Ninjas is that they are pretty
mediocre creatures in and of themselves, but if you can
manage to sneak a creature through, then you get to hit your
opponent and you get a cool effect.
Going over what my options are, I think the best solution
would be to play a couple of low casting-cost creatures that
are decent on their own, but have some sort of evasion
ability. Fear and Flying are the two options that come to
the forefront of my mind. Fear creatures are slightly easier
to block, as there isn’t any shortage of artifact creatures
right now. That leaves us with flying.
Looking over our options in cheap blue or black fliers, I
found Spiketail Hatchling, Cloud of Faeries, and Rootwater
Thief. A good majority of black fliers either had two black
mana in their casting cost or where simply sub-par. I think
the best options out of these would be Spiketail Hatchling
and Cloud of Faeries. Rootwater Thief requires you to pay a
mana to get him in the air, and his ability is only relevant
when you don’t cast a Ninja.
+4 Cloud of Faeries
+4 Spiketail Hatchling
Since our contributor seems a bit attached to Isochron
Scepter and has built in a few quick, useful instants to
take advantage of it, we might as well throw in a few cards
that can compliment it. I think Accumulate Knowledge might
fit well here, as it is both extremely powerful and fits
well with our “budget” theme.
+4 Accumulate Knowledge
The last change I want to make is to throw in Salt Marsh. It
will help smooth out the mana slightly. I’ll put them in
over the two remaining slots we have and two Swamps, as the
deck has lost some of the black spells and gone more towards
blue.
CREATURES (22):
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Mistblade Shinobi
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Throat Slitter
