Skullsnatcher

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Skullsnatcher

Creature — Rat Ninja

Ninjutsu (, Return an unblocked attacker you control to hand: Put this card onto the battlefield from your hand tapped and attacking.)

Whenever Skullsnatcher deals combat damage to a player, exile up to two target cards from that player's graveyard.

TheoryCrafter on Cards that exile Libraries in …

1 year ago

Any creature with Ingest including, but not limited to, Dominator Drone, Fathom Feeder, and Salvage Drone exile the top cards of graveyards each time they deal combat damage.

Other cards that exile after doing damage include, but aren't limited to, Lord of the Void, Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion and Skullsnatcher. Rogue Class also permits this on creatures.

Each Ashiok Planeswalker except for Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears exiles cards. All of them have some sort of graveyard or exile interaction

Planar Void allows for the cards to be directly exiled from the graveyard. If you add this one, be sure you include Syr Konrad, the Grim.

Another shuffling shenanigans card you may wish to consider is Archive Trap.

If your opponent is somehow able to get cards into the graveyard before they can be exiled, other options include Bojuka Bog and Surgical Extraction.

I hope this helps. Happy Hunting!

Virlym on Yuriko, Shadow of Fate EDH

1 year ago

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with the Thassa's Oracle line. There's much better generals out there for it over Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (like any Thrasios, Triton Hero deck partnered with something that has black in it). Doomsday could still work with Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow as a game ender tho if you really wanted to keep that in. It's really your call, but I never liked setting myself up to lose if something gets countered (Trickbind makes you lose to the Thassa's Oracle line, and something like Angel's Grace will make you lose to the Doomsday line). Having said that, the following will assume you are focusing on Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, and not a planted "good-stuff" strategy.

glaring issues in a general sense from your list :
1)You have poor ramp choices for Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
2)Your land base is too awkward and has unnecessary things in it.
3)You have some turtle cards that don't really have much use in Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

1)Mana Vault is more for a deck that wants big explosive turns, not ramp for small things over multiple turns. You are hardly ever going to want to dump 4 mana into untapping it. Same concept applies to Dark Ritual as well, especially considering it only gives you black mana. Lotus Petal falls into this category as well to an extent. You don't want explosive turns, you want consistent pressure. Mox Opal makes you life more complicated for a potential free mana, which leads into the next issue.

2)Your land choice is too awkward. You have artifact lands to turn on Mox Opal, but they serve no other purpose and can be wiped out with artifact removal. If you are running so many different lands, you generally want to be taking advantage of something where that matters (like Field of the Dead, and you usually want to avoid using the non-indestructible artifact lands unless you have a lot of artifact synergies. They are too vulnerable to just have for 1 or 2 cards. You have more fetch lands than you have targets for those fetches. You have 3 black fetchs, 3 blue fetches, 1 black/blue fetch, and 1 basic land fetch. You only have 4 basic lands, and 2 fetchable dual lands (giving you 8 fetches for 6 targets). Spire of Industry is honestly too reliant on other things that it can basically be counted as a colorless land with no utility.

3)Satoru Umezawa is cute, but doesn't help in a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. It's main purpose is to cheat in big things for 4 mana. Anything you have over 4 mana should already have a ninjutsu reduction to that. Spellseeker is only good for the Thassa's Oracle line and has no real impact with Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow aside from tutoring for a tutor, which is awkward (Solve the Equation follows the same line of thought). Viscera Seer's scry ability may seem decent to try and find something for Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, but you would need to sac ninjas or enablers, which would lower the amount of triggers you would get. The only real payoff for it is if you're trying to win that turn and you sac your ninjas after they trigger Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. Praetor's Grasp is too reliant on your opponent having something useful to you, and isn't reliable enough for what Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow wants to be doing. And if you're using it to remove you opponent's wincons from their deck, you might as well just use something like Extract for that as it's cheaper, or Sadistic Sacrament as it will hit more targets. Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar is a little too fragile for the bounce it gives and you would be better off running Cunning Evasion. The card draw on it really isn't necessary. Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow tends to give you more cards than you need, you don't need additional card draw reliant on damage. Opposition Agent kinda just falls under the "good-stuff" category and will most likely have a prompt death by any1 after you get a land off it, otherwise if kinda just sits in your hand and people will assume it's just a counter.

Ninjas of note that aren't included: Thousand-Faced Shadow, get it, it's too good. 1 drop flier is an enabler spot, but it is also a ninja. Later on, it can be used to double up some ninja triggers as a toolbox card. Mist-Syndicate Naga, expanding your ninja army is really nice and forces value from your opponents to deal with the growing threats. Moon-Circuit Hacker / Ninja of the Deep Hours, extra card draw on cards ninjas with low ninjutsu costs.

Some more meta call ninjas: Throat Slitter / Dokuchi Silencer, removal is nice, especially when it's already lending towards what you already want to be doing and not taking up additional space. Mistblade Shinobi temp creature removal, can set people back a turn if you hit something big, has a tap effect, etc. Skullsnatcher, graveyard hate.

Virlym on Yuriko, Shadow of Fate EDH

1 year ago

Just to not clutter up azja's feed, I'll give my input to the questions you asked. I'm no azja, so I can't answer for them, this is just my educated guessing.

Capture of Jingzhou is rather expensive, and it's easier to just run something like Time Warp over it. But for Karn's Temporal Sundering, it domes for 1 more when it's a trigger off Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, and it has a Void Snare attached to it, which could clear out some other problem like Platinum Angel (niche example, but gets the point across), or put a ninja back into your hand so you can ninjutsu it out on the extra turn.

Tormented Soul being just black is a huge drawback for what azja was going for in competitiveness, it also can't be pitched to Commandeer, Force of Will, nor Force of Negation.

Kaito Shizuki requires further testing. in most cases, it's 3 mana for a single unblockable ninja token and a filter the following turn. You'll hardly ever even want to get the emblem due to trying to win through Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow triggers utilizing small ninjas and not cheating out something big. It's more beneficial to have ninjutsu creatures in your hand so you can get them to hit an opponent utilizing an enabler rather than trying to find some way to deal combat damage with a rather lackluster attacking ninja.

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow enablers want to b as cheap as possible. There's a HUGE fall-off from having a 1 CMC enabler to having a 2 CMC enabler to where that extra mana, and delaying Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow from hitting someone turn 2 better be a big payoff. Faerie Seer and Spectral Sailor are both 1 CMC enablers, and flying is generally scarce enough early game to where it effectively says "unblockable". Wingcrafter is a way to grant Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow flying so she can activate her own ability fairly reliably, it also let's you cycle ninjas out by giving one flying, and using ninjutsu shenanigans to keep more expendable ninjas on the board. Example, you could have it paired with a Skullsnatcher, swing it in, ninjutsu it out for a Fallen Shinobi, then after damage (after the triggers and before combat is over) ninjutsu the Skullsnatcher back in so that the Fallen Shinobi can stay a little safer in your hand. Augury Owl Sage Owl being able to see 3/4 cards into your library helps set up a big Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow play, or can at least give u information to see if you'll get answers to threats or if you need to crack a fetch as you nothing coming up and need to refuel, etc. That extra digging and set-up is basically a Sensei's Divining Top activation, but on an enabler body.

There's no instant-win combo in the deck because azja doesnt like them. "But I don't really enjoy playing combo decks, so I've opted to not include the aforementioned Demonic Consultation & Thassa's Oracle combo.". Having said that, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow is typically a really fast agro deck. It will have the general agro problems of puttering out if faced with a deck that has enough lifegain and board wipes. But that deck was also designed more in the cEDH realm, so if a game is going longer than 6 turns, the super control deck is probably going to win anyways. As for trying to throw in more alternate win-cons, you usually want to avoid that. If you need multiple cards for an alternate win-con and they cards otherwise could either be dead, or put you behind in your initial game plan, they are just a hinderance in cEDH. Every individual card needs to be doing something to push you further. You can't have dead combo pieces in hand when you have 5-turn games. Thassa's Oracle is more often than not a dead card in decklists like this. You need a deck build around what it wants you to do, otherwise it's just a 1/3 for 2 mana, and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow really doesn't need that baggage.

Scheming Symmetry isn't really a "play and win" card, it's just another 1 CMC top deck manipulation card. It also works REALLY well if you have something like Fallen Shinobi in hand, waiting to hit the person you just let search their library.

"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.?" River of Tears is a bad card to try and deal with when you're running on a really low curve. If you play it turn 1, it adds B, so you can't play your 1 CMC enablers aside from Gingerbrute. If you play an island turn 1, and River of Tears turn 2, you now have double blue on turn 3 with no black, and if you play a black mana land, you now have double black and only one blue. If you need the double blue and a black, you would need to tap it before playing a land, but doing something like that makes it so you can't use it for ninjutsu. It's just a hassle of a land and adds too much to keep track up when there's already a lot that's going on in an EDH game. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is basically just a swamp. City of Brass would generally be a good include though, assuming you're ok with the price tag and games aren't typically decided by 4 life. Drowned Catacomb will generally always come in untapped if you play right due to the amount of fetches. Mystic Sanctuary will generally come in untapped in a deck this heavily blue, and the upside of being able to recur an answer or even a big spell that Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow can trigger with makes the chance of it coming in tapped irrelevant. Sunken Hollow is the worst offender of the 3, but it still has the basic land typing, so it can be fetched. And that upside is generally enough to warrant including it.

azja on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

2 years ago

@freezerboy Thank you for the comment!!

Thalakos Seer (and similarly Baleful Strix) are definitely powerful with ninjutsu and extremely close to being in the decklist. I chose to lean towards speed/mana efficiency with my deck, so they unfortunately didn't make the cut. If it were a bit slower and value-based (i.e. playing better ninjas than Skullsnatcher) I would likely include them.

The decks in my playgroup are a bit too competitive for Hatred on an unblockable creature to work consistently, but I would love to see someone try that out, it's just janky enough to work :')

As for Tainted Strike, if I targeted one of my unblockable creatures wouldn't it just deal 2-3 infect and not much else? Maybe I am missing the synergy here, let me know!

Hoobynobber7395 on Yuriko Ninjitsu

3 years ago

I love Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow this is a great deck! A few considerations for big damage on her flip:

Draco

Blinkmoth Infusion

Discovery / Dispersal

Commandeer

Force of Will

Dig Through Time

Commit / Memory

some 0 and 1 drops to consider as well:

Phyrexian Walker

Memnite

some ninjas to consider:

Fallen Shinobi

Sakashima's Student

Silent-Blade Oni

Skullsnatcher

for any other ideas check out my deck if you'd like:

Ninjitsu

Epicurus on Make a Sand Token and Maybe I'll Actually Cast You

3 years ago

I agree with 1empyrean about the keyword soup stuff. It may seem intuitive, since there's a lot of keywords amongst the mutate creatures, but it's a secondary theme that's taking up space for cards that better help the deck.

I disagree, though, that your commander should necessarily always be the target of the mutate pile. It's a good strategy to do so, but not the only course of action that could be beneficial in the course of any given game. As such, I believe it's a good thing to include other strong candidates for mutation.

To that end, I also agree that Mysterious Egg is not a great base for a pile. Some of my favorites, though, are Adanto Vanguard, Gladecover Scout, Troll Ascetic, and Gruul Spellbreaker (also, Slippery Bogle, but you're not playing blue).

Now, in case you start your pile on one of these guys, but then later wish you had started with your commander, you could include some cards that bounce the pile to your hand. Obviously, and unfortunately, blue is the best color for doing this. However, black has ninjas! Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, Throat Slitter, Azra Smokeshaper and Skullsnatcher are all good options for that. Also, Dust Elemental is a lot better for a mutate deck than it might seem.

That's all I got, but this comment is too long as it is. Cheers!

jakeelephant006 on its too late they are already under your bed

3 years ago

This deck performs very well with some decently large deficiencies. I think you need to cut some weaker cards (sorceries and creatures mostly) and add in more Ninjas and ninja synergies.

Cards to Cut: Creatures: Definite cuts are Jeskai Infiltrator, but I'd also heavily consider trimming Dark Impostor, Deathcult Rogue, Etrata, the Silencer, and Nezumi Cutthroat.

Sorceries: Definitely cut Hour of Eternity, Kefnet's Last Word, Paranoid Delusions and consider trimming Ghostform, Slip Through Space, or Stealth Mission.

Artifacts, Enchantments, Instants, Planeswalkers, and Lands: I would definitely cut Briber's Purse, Fatal Push, and Vraska, Scheming Gorgon while also giving thought to the merits of including Skygames, Bontu's Monument, Forge of Heroes, Unclaimed Territory, and of, or at least the Amonkhet, cycling lands.

The cards I have recommended are either slow, have low to zero synergy with the rest of the deck, or are typically weak in commander.

Cards to Add Creatures: Ninjas, ninjas, and more ninjas (plus some cheaper unblockables for good measure). There are 19 Ninjas in mtg history (excluding changelings). You have 11 in this deck. I think you ought to have more. The cheapest are Mistblade Shinobi, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Skullsnatcher, Throat Slitter, and Walker of Secret Ways. Higure, the Still Wind and Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni are both reasonable splurges in terms of powerful Ninjas to acquire. Now for other creatures to enable Ninjitsu. First off, I could have included Changeling Outcast in the last section since it is also a Ninja and you should absolutely be running it in here. Other small unblockables for you to Ninjitsu into are Gudul Lurker, Slither Blade, Tormented Soul, Faerie Seer, Mothdust Changeling, Gingerbrute, Dimir Infiltrator, Baleful Strix, Invisible Stalker, Augury Owl, Sage Owl, Spire Owl, and Cloud of Faeries. All of these cards are less than 3 cmc, and are either entirely unblockable or have good etb/ltb or dealing combat damage synergy (and are mostly pretty cheap too). I'd recommend adding at least 3 or 4 of them in addition to the above ninjas.

Other cards: This section is mostly for general things that you could do to make this deck more consistent and enjoyable to pilot, but there are a couple specific synergies I think you're missing out on. They're both pretty intertwined so I'll just address them together. I think you could be putting in a few more cards that are good to reveal off of Yuriko's trigger and ways to manipulate the top of your library so you get those card when they are most impactful. I am referring to cards like Treasure Cruise, Sibsig Muckdraggers, Temporal Trespass, Dig Through Time, Draco, Consign / Oblivion, Murderous Cut, Far / Away, Curtains' Call, Into the Story, Submerge, Commandeer, Commit / Memory, Discovery / Dispersal, Rags / Riches, In Garruk's Wake, and any other high cost card that has an alternate mana cost, mana reducing ability, split card, or is a high impact card. Then you could also throw in a few ways to manipulate the top of your library like Brainstorm, Ponder, Serum Visions, Tamiyo's Epiphany, and Crystal Ball. The only other synegystic thing you could put in here is making your other creatures Ninjas as well with Conspiracy, Xenograft, Arcane Adaptation, and Amorphous Axe.

Otherwise, you could probably add in some more ramp (Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Star Compass, etc.), card draw (see cantrips above and Last Thoughts), board wipes (could probably replace Bontu's Last Reckoning with some of the ones from the last section or just add those ones or some other good boardwipes) and spot removal or counterspells (I don't see a lot of good ways to deal w/ non-creature permanents in here).

dingusdingo on Yuriko Reality and Consultants - cEDH

4 years ago

MadCatMax I gave a very clear reasoning. You are able to hit your infinite turns combo much faster if you are able to pay the mana reliably.

Your combo costs

  • for the Oboro activation
  • Play a land and have at least 3 other islands in play
  • Cast Time Warp for
  • Total cost is
  • 3 Islands + Mystic provides
  • There is still required every execution of your turns loop
  • You run 3 rock accelerators in a 99 card deck, and also Dark Ritual which is not effective for the loop
  • Even utilizing the untap effect from Oboro on one of your own lands, the earliest you can rip this combo is turn 6 without accelerators.
  • This is assuming you hit a land drop every turn for 6 turns. 29 lands, probably not.

You have colorless mana costs in Intuition Oboro Breezecaller Commandeer Force of Negation Misdirection Spellstutter Sprite Tale's End Gingerbrute Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive Fallen Shinobi Ingenious Infiltrator Mist-Syndicate Naga Mistblade Shinobi Sakashima's Student Skullsnatcher Universal Automaton Brazen Borrower Contagion Cyclonic Rift Snuff Out Submerge Whiplash Trap Back to Basics Chains of Mephistopheles Cursed Totem Grafdigger's Cage Scroll Rack Temporal Manipulation Temporal Mastery Temporal Trespass Time Warp Demonic Tutor Diabolic Intent Hope of Ghirapur and Snapcaster Mage. That's 35 cards, literally exactly half of your non-land cards. Of course you can argue that a handful of these have alternate costs that don't include colorless mana, such as the pitch-to-play and some of the ninjutsu, which removes 10 cards from the "uses colorless mana" list. Either way, a quarter of the actual cards you draw and a third of the non-land cards you draw use colorless mana, and the alternate cost cards you will undoubtedly sometimes pay full price for when games go long and resources are available. I didn't even count your two burn cards.

I know you're trying to be clever by cutting slots, and I know this deck doesn't have the explosive plays of hitting Sol ring into mana rocks. Don't try to reinvent the wheel and get clever by cutting mana positive rocks in a deck that uses mana.

My comment is more directed at your friend, who I wrote a very elaborate response to as for inclusions for Sensei's Top in his Doomsday list, and how being reliant on your commander and creatures entirely for card advantage as well as pile cracking is setting him up for failure. Rather than respond, he chose to delete and block me. These decks have a bigger overall problem of being decent competitive decks against most match ups, but absolutely entirely worthless against certain match ups that completely hose the strategy because of how reliant on the commander these decks are. Nevermore on your commander either causes you to scoop or pray for amazing top deck. Repeated Pyroclasm effects resolving cause scoops. Choosing to run Misdirection over Swan Song means if you're counting on Misdirection to stop Pyroclasm you're scooping, or if you're counting on it to stop Demonic Consultation or Flash or Tainted Pact you're scooping. Yes I know it makes a bird token for blocking, but slotting bad cards is your biggest problem.

No I'm not joining your discord. You two are clowns, enjoy brewing your mediocre deck on your own. I'll enjoy the free wins if I ever end up in a pod against someone playing one of these decks.

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