Scheming Symmetry
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Legality

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

Scheming Symmetry

Sorcery

Choose two target players. Each of them searches their library for a card, then shuffles their library and puts that card on top of it.

LeonSpires on How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

1 month ago

The best way to make cuts is to look over the deck list and consider what serves a purpose (ramp / card draw / interaction) and what works with the theme of the deck and what doesn't. Create a list of cards that don't server a purpose or fit the theme of the deck and figure out what to cut / add.

If more cuts are needed look through the list starting at the highest converted mana cost and working towards the lowest. For each card ask yourself “does this card make a big enough impact for the amount of mana spent to cast it.”

Play the deck for awhile and periodically reevaluate what cards work in the deck and what cards don't.

Personally I would suggest cutting Avatar of Woe, Oona, Queen of the Fae, Extract from Darkness, Illicit Shipment, Notion Thief, Jaxis, the Troublemaker, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Whispersilk Cloak, Maestros Ascendancy, and Spark Harvest.

Having taken a closer look at your deck I would suggest adding Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds for color fixing and extra triggers on Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab. Also Infernal Grasp, Profane Tutor, and Scheming Symmetry (mill what the opponent tutors).

Mill enables graveyard based decks. Having a few answers like Ashiok, Dream Render and Bojuka Bog is useful.

Gidgetimer on How Good is Ring of …

1 month ago

Atraxa contains black and you don't currently run any of the traditional black tutors. If you want objectively good cards that tutor then you are looking at Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Imperial Seal, and Grim Tutor. Cruel Tutor, Mastermind's Acquisition, Wishclaw Talisman, Scheming Symmetry, Infernal Tutor, Profane Tutor, and Diabolic Tutor can be useful as in the right deck or if you need more black tutors. Passable options in low powered metas include Diabolic Revelation and Increasing Ambition.

jaymc1130 on Dealing with politics as an …

1 month ago

Just because you're playing an aggressive focused deck (these fast aggressive decks fall into the "race" style category, be the racing done by spell or by creature) doesn't mean that you won't have political tools available to you. As with real life politics manipulation of known information is a key component that can help lead to success. Targeted discard spells, for example, like Thoughtseize or Duress can help take some of the heat off of you by sharing information that an opponent has something potentially even scarier planned for the table than you do and you get to go "look guys, I spent my spell, I'm in Mardu colors, I took one of Joe Schmoe's scary threats but I can't take his other one away and we might just all die to that thing". A card like Curse of Opulence can prompt players to swing away at some one other than you in order to sell out for some extra ramp, again manipulating opponents via information ("look, there's a reward for smacking that guy instead of me"). A card like Scheming Symmetry is perhaps the most obviously political of the cards you'd have access to in these colors, allowing you to strike a deal (with a trust worthy opponent, not a known scoundrel) to help tutor up an answer for some one else that Mardu colors might typically have difficulty dealing with.

When it comes to politics, it's all about the information battle. Winning it means you'll be afforded opportunities to convince or force opponents to react in specific ways, some of which you may be able to spin to your own benefit with crafty lines of play. Fundamentally, "race" decks will always have the first target of the game pinned on their back because of how quickly they are capable of winning, so learning to do some politicking even when playing a race archetype will lead to an increased rate of success.

Wabbajacke on Circu, Dexile Lobotomist

2 months ago

Love it!

What do you think about Scheming Symmetry as a additional tutor? Your opponent will almost never get his card against your Deck and it works very well with Psychic Surgery.

Spirits on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

3 months ago

Hey azja,

Appreciate the detailed response!

I like the insight on the Scheming Symmetry, let's you negate the downside with the player removal.

Mystic Sanctuary, because it likely comes in tapped, if I think of it really as put a card ontop of library, instead of as a land. Added to my maybe have to think on it.

I have put together a sort-of initial build, it's still a work in process, but think i'm getting closer to the right initial build. Spirits Yuriko Deck.

I'll defintely be back with some questions late, going to do a side-by-side differential.

azja on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

3 months ago

Hey @Spirits, sorry for taking so long to get back to you! You asked such detailed questions, so I wanted to make sure I had time to write out detailed answers :D

Karn's Temporal Sundering vs Capture of Jingzhou:

Like you said, just a budget consideration. Yuriko is my pet deck so I don’t use any proxies, but I highly encourage it for others! While the bounce effect of Karn's Temporal Sundering is nice, I’m thinking of replacing it with Time Warp or just cutting it altogether for Treasure Cruise.

Enablers:

Since I don’t have any combos, I’m all in on the Yuriko damage plan. So having an enabler at all times is much more crucial for me, which is why I play 15 of them. Comparing my list to others, it seems 15 is on the higher end, so you could probably get away with cutting a couple. You’re correct about Tormented Soul, it can’t be pitched to Force of Will, as well as the mana base being more blue-heavy. As for the flying enablers, they’re included for redundancy (since there aren’t 15 unblockable 1-drops). It’s pretty rare for every opponent to have a flying/reach blocker, and we don’t really care who we attack, so flying does a pretty good impression of unblockable. Plus, many of them have relevant abilities, especially Faerie Seer’s scry 2 and Wingcrafter which can give Yuriko flying. If you’re mainly trying to win with combo, I wouldn’t play any of the 2 mana enablers except Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. But don’t underestimate Augury Owl in the “winning with big spells” shell!

Kaito Shizuki

I haven’t tried him out yet, so I’m also unsure whether he makes the cut. Normally I wouldn’t consider playing a planeswalker, since we’re not very good at blocking to keep them around for longer than one turn. But with Kaito, we’re guaranteed 2 activations since he phases out eot, so I think he’s worth testing out for sure.

Win-Cons:

I think the wincons you described are all totally viable. Most of the cEDH Yuriko lists win with Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact since it’s only 2 cards and 3-4 mana (and tough to interact with outside of counterspells). Doomsday is significantly weaker than fish-consul, but its also a reasonable win-con. It’s convenient that cards that would go in the doomsday pile such as Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are already good cards for the deck anyway. When I first built this deck, I didn’t include doomsday for power level considerations. Now, I doubt doomsday would be too powerful for my playgroup to handle, but I decided to leave it out since I prefer to win with Yuriko’s ability.

Scheming Symmetry

Scheming symmetry is pretty much my budget replacement for Imperial Seal until we get a reprint. It’s true that you can do some cute plays with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Fallen Shinobi. But most of the time, I save it until someone is below 16 life, choose them to tutor with me, put Draco on top of my library, and eliminate them before they can use the card they grabbed.

Mutavault

I’m a big fan of Mutavault since it allows me to rebuild a turn earlier after a boardwipe, or just to have an extra ninja that usually goes unnoticed by your opponents. Unfortunately, colourless lands are really, really awkward in this deck, so I wouldn’t play more than 1 or 2 at the most.

Drowned Catacomb, etc.

Since I’m currently playing 10 basics, I usually don’t have any problems with Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Hollow entering tapped. As for Mystic Sanctuary, it definitely sucks when you draw it and have to play it as a tapped island. But, imo it makes up for it in the late game when you can grab it with a fetch land and put an expensive spell on top of your library in response to a Yuriko trigger. If you’re including Tainted Pact, or just playing less basics in general, I would definitely cut those lands for City of Brass or River of Tears, like you mentioned.

Colourless Mana

I touched on this a bit in the Mutavault discussion, but you definitely want to stay away from colourless lands as much as possible. Although Ancient Tomb and Gemstone Caverns are really powerful lands in a vacuum, the early mana they provide isn’t worth it imo. I definitely agree with you that Reliquary Tower is a trap. I wouldn’t play it in very many decks in general, especially not in Yuriko. As for Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith, they aren’t played enough in my playgroup for me to need an answer for them. But if they did become more popular, my plan would likely be to cut Mutavault and include Strip Mine/Wasteland instead.

I hope everything I explained made sense and was helpful to ya! Don’t hesitate to ask me more questions!

Spirits on Yuriko, Shadow of Fate EDH

3 months ago

Hey Virlym,

Thanks for all the great information, very much appreciated.

I've removed River of Tears and replaced with Tarnished Citadel. I prefer not to rely on an Island or Swamp for something like Drowned Catacomb (Not a T1 land) or Choked Estuary. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is out, likely helps opponents more than me anyway. Can't decide if Ancient Tomb any good here or if it's better than Tarnished Citadel, I think the T1 is more important than .

Wingcrafter T1, and then Commander Ninjitsu doesn't give it flying? T3 it's paired with Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. It's unlikely it won't have a target to attack T2 though without flying, not 100% but pretty likely.

Tormented Soul totally makes sense with the number of cards that need to pitch blue cards, and with how many CMC1 unblockables there are.

Prosperous Thief feels ok with the treasure, but only creating one is borderline. Am I missing any other key ninjas? There are a couple with ninjitsu with CMC1 which isn't bad for the draw, but their own abilities not that exciting?

Scheming Symmetry in Fallen Shinobi as you suggested or even a Opposition Agent or Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion will deliver maximum value for after Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow punches for 12 damage.

I think Thassa's Oracle will be the main win-con, and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow damage with control/turns will be the alt. Avoid diluting any more cards. If Thassa's Oracle is exiled, likely games over before could get to a second anyway, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow is always there and can be taken advantage of.

Should Moon-Circuit Hacker be in here too for another drawing ninja? Or just try and tutor the best ninjas and try an win?

Kaito Shizuki feels wrong tempo / timing for the deck to me. I'll let others test him lol.

Scry 3 seems good, adding the Augury Owl to my maybeboard.

I'm thinking this is v1 for testing? Any glaring misses I should fill before spending a million bucks ehre lol.

Virlym on Yuriko, Shadow of Fate EDH

3 months 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.

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