Commander Deck Tech: Satoru Umezawa
This week we get to go over another great Commander from the Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. I've had plenty of experience drafting the set now, and have done some Ninja shenanigans myself. However, when it comes to Commander the deck is going to play quite a bit different than any limited format. We have a huge jump in power level while playing Satoru Umezawa which will let you do very broken things with Creatures that should not have Ninjutsu. Some of the cards for the deck and some decks I've seen do run a lot more 1 and 2 converted mana cost creatures than this build. I wanted to go a little bit different route with having some 1 and 2 drop Creatures to help ninjutsu early, but I also wanted to have some type of control since we are partly a Blue deck. This build probably runs a few more Counterspell effects than other builds, but it's all what you want to do, and at what power level. The counterspells help protect my boardstate and will help to ensure I get a creature out that will ultimately get a Ninjutsu trigger.
In the base of the build there are 12 creatures which have Ninjutsu. I decided to not run a lot of the cheaper, or more basic Ninjutsu creatures. However if you are on a tight budget running some of the Common and Uncommon Creatures would do just fine. The main goal of the build is to be annoying with your early Creatures then once we have Satoru in play go wild. Most of our early Creatures do have some sort of evasion which could be: Flying, Shadow, or cannot be blocked. This hopefully ensures you can attack and get the ninjutsu triggers which cheats out the big cards. One of the more popular Creatures both in price and demand that has been going in these Ninjutsu builds is Blightsteel Colossus. With just one unanswered swing it can end the game for one unsuspecting opponent.
In this particular build we are also running 12 bombs Creatures that I would consider A Tier. These creatures, if cheated into play by Ninjutsu, will have very powerful triggers that can end or change the game. These 12 creatures consist of: Blightsteel Colossus, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Mindleech Mass, Archon of Cruelty, Silent-Blade Oni, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Sepulchral Primordial, Rune-Scarred Demon, Agent of Treachery, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, Zareth San, the Trickster, and Fallen Shinobi.
A blue deck would also not be complete without some sort of card advantage or card draw. I ended up playing 13 cards that had some type of card advantage, this could be cantrip or other. The cards that can provide some extra cards are: Rhystic Study, Phyrexian Arena, Ponder, Brainstorm, Notion Thief, Consecrated Sphinx, Ninja of the Deep Hours, Ingenious Infiltrator, Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar, Thalakos Seer, Baleful Strix, and Spectral Sailor. As you can see some of these are creatures and not just spells. I tried to incorporate several evasion or ninjutsu creatures that had some kind of card draw or card advantage. There's only 100 cards in each deck so the hardest part is always narrowing it down to the final 100.
As for mana ramp we are running on 2 mana rocks and a Sol Ring to help us get mana faster. There are also a few lands to help get mana faster in Ancient Tomb and Temple of the False God. For removal we are running Cyclonic Rift and Damnation for board wipes. There are also 4 pieces of spot removal in: Feed the Swarm, Infernal Grasp, Deadly Rollick, and Snuff Out. I tried to have removal that was either cheap or free considering the deck does not run a ton of mana acceleration. Keep in mind that when we want to cheat Ninjutsu it comes at a cost of 2UB, which isn't necessarily cheap. There are going to be lots of situations where you're going to want to pay the 4 mana to Ninjutsu, but your opponents are going to have untapped mana and options. In some cases you're going to want to have an unblocked creature plus 6 or 7 mana untapped. This is so we can pay for the ninjutsu cost, and also have 2 or 3 mana open. This is because the deck also runs 6 counterspells. I originally had more counterspells but cut all the more expensive ones for the final list.
Last but not least I wanted to give the deck an edge or some sort of versatility. Both Blue and Black have some of the best cheap Planeswalkers in the game. I wanted to take advantage of that, so we opted to run 4 different powerful 3 casting cost Planeswalkers. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver can single handedly take over a game in any format plus it's annoying. There is also Narset, Parter of Veils which makes it so your opponents do not get card advantage. We also have newcomer Kaito Shizuki, which fits both the theme and flavor of the deck. Lastly I decided to put Liliana of the Veil in because she has been very underappreciated recently and is very annoying in any format.
For me this build and theme is very new and exciting and I cannot wait to get some real games in with it. I'm sure I'll run into a few crazy interactions while playing, but also maybe some areas for improvement. I hope this build will give you some ideas on how to build your own Ninjutsu or Satoru Umezawa deck.
Until Next Time,
Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go!
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