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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 |
| Historic Brawl | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Pauper Duel Commander | Legal |
| Pauper EDH | Legal |
| Planar Constructed | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Azra Smokeshaper
Creature — Azra Ninja
NInjutsu (, Return an unblocked attacker you control to its owner's hand. Put this card onto the battlefield from your hand tapped and attacking.)
When Azra Smokeshaper enters the battlefield, target creature you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Guerric on
[Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja
3 years ago
Just a quick update on how the deck is performing so far with the new additions from Neon Dynasty. The basic is that it is simply even faster than it was before, and the turn at which I threaten to kill the table if left unchecked is definitely earlier. There's not one particular all-star, it's simply the power of all the new low cmc ninjas which makes it so that you are consistently drawing cards and doming the table for damage from turn 2 on, usually with multiple ninjas from turn four on. I ahd previously played the sub-optimal Azra Smokeshaper simply because a ninjutsu cost of 2 is just that good, and we have now added several ninjas at that cost. It's getting to the point that I will probably play this deck less with my main playgroup just because the win rate is getting higher than I like. It's just really strong!
Guerric on
[Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja
3 years ago
IN-
OUT-
Island x2
Swamp x2
I'll keep you up to date on how these changes go, though I expect them to improve the deck quite a bit. My main agony was between whether to cut Arcane Adaptation or Conspiracy. The former is obviously easier to cast and more efficient since you can often use it and then do something else on the same turn. This ultimately dictated my decision. On the other hand, the latter is more flavorful, deals more off the top with Yuriko, and when you use these cards you usually aren't worried about casting more than one spell per turn. I might reverse this later, but this is where we are at for now.
I also would like to try Biting-Palm Ninja, but it will remain out for now while I test the new cards I've added. I also hate cutting Smoke Shroud, which is always more useful than one things, but with a better curve it may be less critical.
I ultimately ruled against Satoru Umezawa, who just seems a bit redundant in this deck, though I will be curious to hear from others how he does and might consider it in the future. I also am not super thrilled by Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion, but will be curious to hear what others feel as well, including whether they think it better than Silent-Blade Oni or Fallen Shinobi, which are the cards it would likely replace.
Guerric on
[Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja
3 years ago
February 11, 2022
What I am thinking about cutting one Neon Dynasty releases:
1) Azra Smokeshaper There's no question here, this one is going. It only ever made it in because it was a ninja we can reliably get out on turn 2, but we have better options now.
2) Swamp Given the amount of draw this deck has, combined with the fact that it draws on turn 2 consistently, makes it so that we rarely miss our land drops. We can afford to drop to 35 lands, and blue is the most relevant color.
3) Bolas's Citadel Its funny that I'm listing this, because I resolved this earlier the other day and was able to drop a boatload of ninjas that turn only to do mega damage to my opponents the following turn, resulting in a strong win. This card is amazing here if we can get it out early in the game when our life totals aren't a problem and we can seize the advantage. It also does six off the top, which is good whether we resolve it or not. Nonetheless, it's useless in our hand late game. We don't really run life-gain in this deck, and we don't have a lot of blockers. Later in the game this card is generally dead unless we draw it off Yuriko. It might stay and it might go, but my intuition at this time is that I might prefer a higher ninja count
4) Arcane Adaptation/Maskwood Nexus/Conspiracy I won't remove all of these, but likely at least one of them will go. In the old days when we had fewer ninjas these cards were key as they increased our ninja count. They are still good in that we still play a bunch of non-ninja enablers and other evasion pieces, but three is probably too much for the deck of tomorrow. These cards can be good, but are sometimes totally dead (when we have all ninjas on the board anyway), and are not critical in the way they were pre-Modern Horizons. At least one will stay, and at least one will probably go to make room for new toys.
5) Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni He is such an iconic ninja, and just slightly under half of Yuriko decks still run them if EDHrec is to be believed. Unfortunately, I just haven't found him to be that great. Very often I find that there won't be any good targets for him in my opponents' graveyards, in which case he becomes a vanilla ninja that costs five to get out with ninjutsu. By contrast, Silent-Blade Oni and Fallen Shinobi will almost always get us something relevant, even if in the latter case it's just a land. I like the six off the top but I suspect I'll find a better use for the slot.
6) Smoke Shroud I really like this card and will probably keep it. There is a chance that I'd prefer another ninja though. The great thing about it is it always comes back from the dead and makes non-evasive ninjas evasive. The bad thing is that it only helps one ninja at a time. It's still good though, but not essential.
7) Whir of Invention It's always a weird world when you ponder cutting a tutor, and in particular one of my favorite artifact tutors. However, our artifacts are really cheap in this deck, and there aren't enough of them them to power improvise, so we usually overpay, and by the time we overpay for scroll rack or a mana rock we probably don't need it any more. Prosperous Thief could help with this if we can tap treasures, and Bolas's Citadel is a great target if we keep it. But I suspect things would be much simpler if we switched out Whir for Solve the Equation, which can grab a board wipe or Insidious Dreams.
jamochawoke on
3 years ago
What an absolute horror of a deck!
Wondering why no Damnation or Damn though?
There's lots of ways to protect your commander from them too with Equipment or Black cards like Darksteel Plate, Azra Smokeshaper, Daring Fiendbonder, Gift of Doom, Oblivion's Hunger, Professor's Warning, Renegade's Getaway, Rush of Vitality, Unlikely Aid, and Without Weakness.
azja on
Yuriko (Optimized) Primer
4 years ago
@Snake57 Sounds like you've got a good plan!
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If your group is okay with proxies, then I would definitely add Mana Crypt , Mana Drain and all of the zendikar fetches. If not, I would actually prioritize getting the fetches first. They drastically improve the cards Sage Owl , Spire Owl , Scroll Rack , Sensei's Divining Top , Brainstorm (and probably even more that I'm forgetting!) because you can fetch to shuffle away cards that aren't useful.
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Also, I think Yuriko is no longer a ninja once she's enchanted by Song of the Dryads , so Walker of Secret Ways wouldn't be able to bounce her. Although I still agree that you can cut Azra Smokeshaper for it.
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Abjure seems really spicy. I've been thinking about trying it out soon, as well as Divert . I love one mana counterspells, so I want to add more of them eventually.
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Mystic Reflection seems pretty strong. Like you mentioned, it turns an enabler into one of your ninjas, or the next best creature on the board.
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I'm a bit skeptical about Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire . It has to survive at least one turn around the table to attack and costs a combined 5 mana. I would suggest Cruel Tutor instead if you feel like you're lacking topdeck manipulation.
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Hullbreacher is insanely powerful, especially if your playgroup plays a lot of wheels. I still have to get my hands on one, but the even harder part is what to cut for it :')
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Maskwood Nexus definitely replaces Conspiracy and Xenograft for any Yuriko lists who have them. But like you said, 4 mana is pretty slow. Plus it isn't blue, so you can't pitch it to Force of Will like Arcane Adaptation or Unnatural Selection .
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I've never tried out Nether Traitor , but I'm hesitant to add any more 2 mana enablers. I would probably add Baleful Strix first, if you need stronger enablers.
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I think Karn's Temporal Sundering is stronger than Alrund's Epiphany because it costs one (or two) less mana and bounces a potential blocker. Plus if you foretell it, it's not in your hand to pitch to Force of Will effects. And if your playgroup is familiar with your deck, they know exactly which card you foretold.
Thanks again for the feedback and suggestions! I really appreciate talking Yuriko with someone else who's super invested!
Snake57 on
Yuriko (Optimized) Primer
4 years ago
It's always a pleasure to read through your thoughts and what you've been testing, again thank you so much for the detailed response!
Unfortunately (and for obvious reasons) I haven't been able to play much paper magic recently but I have been playing around with some new ideas for inclusions, however my primary focus right now it to tune the manabase further, I'm still missing some of the new cards from recent sets like Agadeem's Awakening Flip, Clearwater Pathway Flip and Sea Gate Restoration Flip in addition to some of the more expensive fetches you've recently added.
I'm also looking to add a Mana Crypt , and Mana Drain , with those additions I'm also feel pretty good about adding a Cyclonic Rift . In my playgroup "hate pieces" like Engineered Plague aren't very common so I will be swapping out Azra Smokeshaper for Walker of Secret Ways , also since it get's Yuriko out of Song of the Dryads like effects, which are more common in my case. I've also wanted to add more targeted removal so I will be trying out Dismember and Snuff Out (especially since there always seem to be plenty of targets for it in my playgroup). I'll also consider adding a Commandeer instead of Commit / Memory However I still haven't quite gone through finding out what to remove, so I'll be keeping an eye out for your final verdict! :D
I'm also really looking to add Abjure since the value of sacrificing one of the many small creatures we tend to play to counter any spell for one blue definitely seems to be worth it in my book.
Looking at more recent cards I'm also strongly considering Mystic Reflection for it's versatility and Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire which seems great considering you can use the boast ability in tandem with the Yuriko trigger, maybe Hullbreacher since there are a lot of wheel effects in my group. Maskwood Nexus also seems good, but I'm unsure if I'll end up with too many of those effects and if 4 mana may be a bit too slow. Nether Traitor seems like a surefire way to connect and similarly to Gingerbrood lets me start getting Yuriko back onto the board again as fast as possible after something like a boardwipe. I'm also considering to cut Karn's Temporal Sundering for Alrund's Epiphany , not too sure about that one though.
As always I'd love to hear your opinions! :)
Wishing you all the best!
P.S. Oh, and I'm still a big fan of Gingerbrood based on my play experience! Try giving the cookie monster a chance ;)
azja on
Yuriko (Optimized) Primer
4 years ago
Hey @Snake57! It's great to hear from ya!
I haven't been able to play too many games with the new cards that I'm testing, but this is what I think so far:
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Darkwater Catacombs is great for paying for Yuriko's ninjutsu, but is awkward for casting 1 mana spells. Agadeem's Awakening Flip is an improvement and it plays very similarly to Sea Gate Restoration Flip.
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Walker of Secret Ways was helpful because I got to look at my opponents' hands and adjust my plan accordingly. But it got easily shut down by Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Engineered Plague . In these scenarios, Azra Smokeshaper would have been practically unaffected, so I'm unsure about this swap.
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Commandeer countered a game-winning Victimize when I was tapped out, and hits hard when you flip it with Yuriko. Exiling 2 blue cards is a steep cost, but it's more helpful than Commit / Memory , which is pretty difficult to cast.
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As expected, Snuff Out is a lot less powerful in my playgroup since black is our most played colour. Even so, it can usually hit one creature on the battlefield, which clears the way for Yuriko. The card that I had to cut to make room was Cover of Darkness . It tends to be a win-more card, in that it's good when my board state is good, but bad when my board state is bad. So far I think that snuff out deserves the spot more.
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I haven't drawn Cyclonic Rift or Liliana's Triumph , so their reviews will have to be postponed :')
There are also a few cards that I plan on trying out later on:
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Gingerbrute is a card I've always been on the fence about, but I've heard nothing but good things from other Yuriko players.
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Merfolk Windrobber is a classic 1/1 flyer for 1, and can replace itself in the late game.
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Street Wraith deals 5 damage when you flip it with Yuriko, then you can immediately cycle it for another card that's more useful. It fills the graveyard for delve spells like Temporal Trespass and Dig Through Time too.
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Gitaxian Probe is a cedh staple, and banned in both modern and legacy. For only 2 life, you get to look at your opponents hand and it replaces itself. It also fills the graveyard for delve spells.
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Dismember is a 1 mana removal spell that kills most creatures, and hits for 3 damage with Yuriko.
I hope that all made sense! Let me know if you have any questions, or if you've found any hidden gems for Yuriko!
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