Archetype of Imagination

Enchantment Creature — Human Wizard

Creatures you control have flying.

Creatures your opponents control lose flying and can't have or gain flying.

Combos

• Archetype of Imagination + Teferi's Moat

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Casual	Legal
Custom	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal

Discussion (49)

ActionReplay on Zombies Wilhelt base

2 months ago

Also, I highly recommend you add Distant Melody. Best draw card in my deck. Sometimes I draw 7+ cards with 4 mana. If you have the money for it Necroduality Is similar to Reflections of Littjara and if you have them both out you'll be cranking out zombies at an incredible rate. If one of those zombies happen to be Gray Merchant of Asphodel You will heal a lot and might just outright win on the spot. (copies of gray will also give 2 devotion I believe) If you need more flying Eternal Skylord has pulled me out of some binds. If you don't mind humans in your deck Archetype of Imagination will also fix any flying needs. At that point it just comes down to preference and what is in your playgroup. Most of the players I go up against have lots of fliers so it is always an issue. Sometimes I want more uses for those decayed zombies and Gravespawn Sovereign gives it to me. With him and four decayed zombies you can pull a creature from any graveyard onto your battlefield once every turn. If you just got board wiped and all you have left are decayed zombies from either Wilhelt or Crowded Crypt Gravespawn can help you bounce back. Just pointing out that these cards exist and what I use them for, but I would highly recommend Distant Melody and Necroduality for your deck. Hope you have fun playing and comment how you do with the deck as you gain experience with it. I play the same commander and would like to know if you find some cards work really well with your deck and if others don't. Good Luck!!

TH3WAFFL3R on Horse Riding Ninjas Revengeance

3 months ago

I was just looking at the price for this deck and thinking Damn, that's crazy. Good thing I already owned all of the old mono blue ninjas. But I'm left wondering why is my boy Wu is so expensive? He's just the hipster version of Archetype of Imagination. When did he become so popular?

JANKYARD_DOG on Alela's Automotive Museum

3 months ago

What about Archetype of Imagination? Could be some nice tech for an alpha strike considering Alela buffs flyers.

multimedia on Froggy Fresh

4 months ago

Hey, frogtastic, but how do you win? If your primarily using Tatsunari's Commander damage to win then I don't think you need as many Frogs because Keimi is easy to create. If you're wanting to win with Frogs then that's different, but I don't see that happening. Some advice is expand on enchantment voltron with Tatsunari less Frogs, but keep some Frogs to help out with ability to make Tatsunari pseudo unblockable.

Changelings are Frogs. Changeling Outcast is one drop who's unblockable. Mothdust Changeling is another one drop. Bloodline Pretender grows when Keimi is created and cares about +1/+1 counters. Metallic Mimic also cares about counters.

• Outcast
• Mothdust
• Spore
• Unwilling
• Mimic
• Avenger
• Plaxcaster
• Pretender
• Grolnok
• Gitrog
• Froghemoth

Maskwood Nexus can create Frogs as well as make all other creatures you control a Frog. Croaking Counterpart can copy an opponents creature including a Commander, but the copy is a Frog. Croaking with recursion such as Eternal Witness, Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip and Regrowth seems like a good way to have Frogs.

If trying to win with Tatsunari's damage then making creatures with flying unable to block or taking away flying from your opponents creatures makes Tatsunari's ability actually unblockable unless opponent has a creature with reach. Bower Passage and Archetype of Imagination are enchantments which is helpful.

Good luck with your deck.

Guerric on [Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja *Update*

4 months ago

February 7, 2022- Continuing Thoughts on Neon Dynasty Spoilers

Once again, I'll post my thoughts on some additional ninjas as well as a few non-ninjas that may be relevant to the deck.

First of all, the underwhelming

1) Inkrise Infiltrator He's an evasive ninja I guess. Even without ninjutsu he'd be playable if he was a one-drop, but paying two just isn't worth a slot. We also have to remember that 2cmc is still bad off the top. We always prefer a higher cmc with a heavily discounted ninjutsu ability. If its going to be an enabler it needs to be one.

2) Mukotai Ambusher What's good here is that it does four off the top but can come down turn two with ninjutsu. Its otherwise a vanilla lifelinker though, which makes it an otherwise underwhelming choice. The fact that it isn't enabled by Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive just aggravates this.

Second, the Promising

1) Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion This is essentially a second copy of Fallen Shinobi that gets more cards, but you can only use one of them and have to pay for it in life if it has a cmc. This is definitely very powerful and something that will scare your opponents. I have to say though, I'm not always a fan of random effects like this, and we aren't in a deck where paying life is usually a great idea. This one is interesting, but time will tell if we want to include it.

2) Dokuchi Silencer This card is much better, and is likely to at least be tested. Single-target interaction is something we need to be running in much higher quantities in commander today, and getting a two-for-one by stapling removal to a ninja is one reason why Mistblade Shinobi and Throat Slitter are two of our best cards. Yuriko usually makes it so we have way more cards than we can use, so the cost of discarding a card isn't much of a drawback here. The only thing that would make this better is if it had a higher cmc. 2cmc is great for its ninjutsu entry, but I wish it would do four or five off the top. Still, beggars can't be choosers in this category, so it will probably make it in.

3) Moon-Circuit Hacker Ninja of the Deep Hours is perhaps the most famous ninja of all time, and this is a discount version that comes down for one, except it loots if it didn't enter the battlefield this turn. That alone might make it good enough, as 1cmc ninjutsu abilities are rare indeed, and helpful for early game tempo. We generally don't mind looting as we're discarding cards do to overdrawing from Yuriko anyway, so a little extra hand sculpting is great. The biggest drawback is that Ninja of the Deep Hours does four off the top whereas this does only two. That is a limitation. We always have to remember that as far as ninjutsu creatures goes, the higher cmc the better as we'll rarely if ever cast it for cmc, and we might as well be doing damage. Still, the benefits are substantial, and it certainly could serve as an early enabler if we don't get a one drop.

4) Prosperous Thief This is where we hot the boundary between promising and truly great, and I suspect this will make it into the latter category, though I'll reserve my optimism for now. Earlier we mentioned how there is an early game tension between getting out ninjas early and ramping. Covert Technician is one possible answer to this dilemma, and this card is another. This can come down on turn two and make us temporary mana in the form of treasure tokens whenever a ninja hits. Nice On top of this, it comes down for two but does three off the top, so it narrowly fulfills that criterion. While Covert Technician gives us permanent ramp when it works, it can potentiall whiff if we are lacking an artifact, whereas this ninja will always be doing something for us. I suspect both will make the deck, and in any case I am really glad to see the design people at wizards seem to have a real knowledge of how one of their most popular commanders works.

The Truly Great

1) Moonsnare Specialist This is effectively a second copy of Mistblade Shinobi, one of my favorite cards in the deck, except that it can bounce our own stuff back as well, which is awesome utility. It comes down for three, which is well worth if if we are removing a problematic creature, and does four off the top. What's more, just like Mistblade Shinobi it will deter our opponent from casting big, scary creatures which we can bounce for three. This deck needs more ninja-based interaction, and this is a perfect example of how to do that.

Non-Ninja Items

1) Kaito's Pursuit While giving all your ninjas menace for a turn might seem like a good way to get through, I'd rather have a more expensive (and hence higher damage off Yuriko) but permanent mass evasion card like Archetype of Imagination any day. We don't need this.

2) Secluded Courtyard An Unclaimed Territory that works with Ninjutsu? Neat! The fact that its in a Kamigawa set with appropriate art is an added bonus. There is no reason not to play this.

3) Otawara, Soaring City This is a legendary land that comes in untapped, but which we can discard if we need some recurion. Its not lifechaning, but there is absolutely no downside here, so it goes in.

4) Takenuma, Abandoned Mire Ditto what we said about Otawara. There's no reason not to include this.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Synergistic Win-Cons for Kotori, Pilot …

4 months ago

I found another wincon: Armed and Armored is just absurd in a vehicle heavy deck. Maybe combine it with Archetype of Imagination to let your opponents go up in flames while your mechs turn around in epic slo-mo.

Guerric on [Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja *Update*

5 months ago

January 16, 2022- Thoughts on Neon Dynasty

Hi everyone! Spoiler seasons officially starts tomorrow for the new Kamigawa set, but a few cards have spoiled and I am already beginning to assess what impact they might have on the deck. I am going to post my thoughts on all of the ninjas from the set here as they become available, and will let you know as I test upgrades. Here is what I've noticed so far.

1) Satoru Umezawa One of the first cards spoiled is a new Dimir ninja commander, only the second after Yuriko herself. He will no doubt lead his own deck (perhaps a precon), which will not be so much a ninjas tribal deck as a cheat massive, scary things out with ninjutsu deck. That being said, he may have a role as a lieutenant to Yuriko as well. At three mana he definitely fits our curve, and getting a mini-brainstormlike every time we activate ninjutsu is a nice little extra payoff that can help us with out with card selection. He could also play an incidental role in cheating some of our more expensive cards (Archetype of Imagination out for a small discount. He's by no means a guarantee for the final cut, but I will definitely be testing him out.

2) Kaito Shizuki For the first time ever we now have a planeswalker that cares about ninjas. How interesting. On the plus side, he comes down early, protects himself for the first round after coming out, incentivizes attacking with our ninjas or evasive pieces for card draw, and makes evasive ninja tokens that we can use to get out other ninjas later. Despite the apparent upside, I doubt he makes the cut. Planeswalkers are just fundamentally bad in ninjas because we don't keep up much of a defensive line to protect them. I think the normal scenario is that he makes it one two turns (since he phases out turn one), and we net a single card and a single ninja token before he dies. For three mana we might do better with an extra one-mana evasive one drop who can draw cards off Yuriko and enable ninjas repeatedly (since the token will disappear). The best part of the card is that the evasive ninja token is a guaranteed Yuriko trigger each turn, but I'm not sure if this is enough. I may test this, but I am reserving my enthusiasm for not.

Unconfirmed

1) Thousand-Faced Shadow Images of this have shown up on magic spoiler sites, but it hasn't been officially spoiled. Its a {U} 1/1 ninja with flying and ninjutsu {U}{U}{2}. When it enters the battlefield from your hand, if its attacking, it makes a copy of another target attacking creature. IF this card is real, its almost a shoe-in for the deck. It is the reverse of the usual ninja format- it has a lower cmc than its ninjutsu cost. While this makes it do less damage off a Yuriko trigger, the payoff is that it can function both as a ninja and a ninja enabler, which is fabulous! This card can function perfectly early to enable other ninjas, while having a very useful ninja ability and also delivering reliable Yuriko triggers later on. There really isn't anything here not to like, and its almost a guaranteed inclusion if its real.

2) Nezumi Prowler This is a {B}{1} 3/1 ninja that has an identical ninjutsu cost. When it enters the battlefield, target creature you control gets deathtouch and lifelink until the end of turn. This is really just a much improved Throatseeker in my opinion in that it is better costed, has ninjutsu, and grants an extra ability. There is nothing to hate or love too much here. If your opponents get used to you it might make them think twice about blocking you, and lifelink in any deck is always better than one thinks. That being said, it would be hard to figure out what to ut for it.

Vessiliana on Runo, Vampire of the Seas

7 months ago

multimedia, thank you for the interest! This was my first stab at the deck, and I love a lot of the suggestions. I will definitely consider them, especially Wonder and Archetype of Imagination!