I was just looking through the new ninjas from modern horizons and i think there is potential for a fun casual pauper ninja deck. Run something like Slither Blade or Mist-Cloaked Herald that is cheap and unblockable, and then treat your ninjas like a toolbox. For example, you can pop a flipped delver back into their hand as early as turn two with an attacking slither blade ninjutsu-ing into Mistblade Shinobi.
Its probably not competitive or people would already be playing it, but I love tribal, so I thought I would build it out. I love the recursion from Smoke Shroud for a little extra evasion for those ninjas already in play. You can really sneak in that last chunk of damage too with the beefy Ninja of the New Moon with a smoke shround. 7 unblocked damage is nothing to sneeze at.
Might swap out some of the counters for the Writ of Passage to help some of the ninjas continue to get through especially since you don't have to commit to attaching it as an aura. Smokeshaper helps protect your bigger boys from combat tricks or instant speed removal during combat, presuming you have an unblocked creature to help drop it in. Man-O'-War and mistblade keep big threats like angler off the board, plus if you can get Man-O'-War through, you can bounce a bunch of things on one turn.
I'm not an expert on the pauper meta, so i'm sure this deck has some pretty terrible matchups, but I think it would be fun to run casually. I think i'm going to swap out Artful Dodge or Distortion Strike for writ of passage, but im not quite sure which one is better. I like being able to choose when to flashback with artful dodge, but i do like the power increase from distortion strike.
UPDATE
Going to remove the black from this deck Its not adding a whole whole lot other than surprise bust damage and spot removal. Going to add in some faeries for their ETB and flying. Also going to bump Smoke Shroud up to 4 since it can stack on an incoming ninja, and you arent really at risk of losing it. Also going to go down to 21 lands.
UPDATE 2
So after some play testing and just general internet lurking, I've found some better creatures, and decided to add in some more cantrips/disruption. Thalakos Seer was basically created just to be in this deck, and im not sure how i didn't find it on the first go round. Going to replace the heralds and some of the slither blades to make this a 4 of since it works so perfectly with the ninjas.
