@@brucedavis191 Might need to activate full control for some of those tricks, but I don't see why not. Neo is coming out and I'm pretty sure you'll be able to do everything in this video in Arena. Now, if only there were an unblocked digital only format I could return to my hand and discard pronto...
My favorite ninjutsu moment was from a cube draft. master of cruelties attack, no blocks, his ability goes on stack, ninjutsu happens, life becomes 1, and ninja deals 2 damage for lethal
I splashed red into the blue-black ninja Planechase deck just to play this combo... nobody ever seems to see it coming until you actually activate it. Even when they've already seen me play ninjas, they wonder why I'm running MoC.
These are the things I explain to my friends at the start of the match, play the match, do the things, and re explain later. So thank you for putting it in a video to help my legal battle later 🤣
I once saw the card Rocket Launcher in a binder at my LGS. I immediately bought them for dirt cheap and made a deck called "Ninjas with rocket launchers." Once I won one game by activating Rocket Launcher, the deck was retired.
@@bwhunnel - Rocket Launcher is garbage. Never play it. I only used it so I could tell this story. You have a 60 card casual deck. 4 copies of Rocket Launcher + a normal blue black Ninja deck. Remember that it was about 2004/2005. "I have a deck for you: ninjas (dramatic pause) with rocket launchers." The smiles and laughter are worth it every time. Actually activating rocket Launcher to deal lethal damage is just the icing on the cake. Their face and the face of others in the room when that garbage artifact was successfully used to win. I also have put Rocket launcher in an EDH deck that creates infinite mana.
@@bwhunnel rocket launcher says “pay 2 mana: deal 1 damage to any target, sacrifice rocket launcher at the end step” because it isn’t a tap ability you can pay the 2 mana as many times as you want because you don’t need to sacrifice it until the end step. So in a 60 card game with 20 life, paying 40 mana is lethal damage. Plus he had ninjas so he probably did a bunch of unblocked damage before hand, and had 4 copies of the artifact which meant he didn’t need to pay all 40 mana at once, he could split it into 4 turns of 10 mana each, minus however much damage the ninjas did
The most obvious advantage of the End of Combat Ninjutsu is using it to deal combat damage with a bigger creature that has some on-play use or needs to be protected, but is still a bigger beater than the Ninja you're flipping in.
My favorite trick is ninjutsu'ing after my opponent uses Maze of Ith; despite untapping it and preventing the damage, it still is an (often unblocked) attacker
the maze and kor haven were really slowing down my Yuriko edh deck until i realized this. recently in my local meta everyone has been putting those kinds of land in their decks, taking advantage of nobody playing land destruction.
I was about to reply that it doesn't work like that, and then I realized I was confusing Maze of Ith for Labyrinth of Skophos. If it doesn't say "remove from combat," this trick will work with it.
@@enricofavali4466 In order to be considered 'unblocked', it has to enter the declare blockers step. People often activate their labyrinth effects in the declare attackers step, so Skophos wouldn't give any opportunity for Ninjutsu, but Ith would.
Being able to activate ninjutsu multiple times using 1 ninja is one of my favorite tricks and it saved me so many times. I can see this being relevant again with Satoru. Great video and amazingly explained.
There are some other great uses for Ninjutsu not mentioned, such as protecting your creatures from targeted spells that occur during combat. If a card says "Deal 3 damage to target creature" and its played after they declared blockers, you can ninjutsu it out with another card, thus removing the previous target from the battlefield and their spell resolves with 0 effect. It doesn't happen extremely often, but when it does happen it's sure to cause some head-scratching from your opponent.
I learned the second loophole when I started getting into commander and was looking into some Etrata, the Silencer decks. That's a very neat way to abuse her ability
@@matshbocks it would make for a very fun deck, for sure! Just to be sure: you can put her into play again 'cause her ability that's on the stack won't recognize her upor reentering, right? It's like a blink effect.
@@mrpinguimninja yeah, her ability only shuffles her in the library if she's still on the board, so immediately bouncing her back to your hand with, say a skull snatcher, it counts as a replacement effect and stays in your hand.
Given that you can activate ninjutsu duringbthe declare blockers phase you can then use an instant to grant the first ninja first strike then between first strike damage and normal combat damage you can ninjutsu in a second ninja and if you have a ronin wsr club or sai of the shinobi their equip triggers break timing restrictions on when you can equip things
@@GoodMorningMagic so if the NINJA has double stirke, they wouldn't get the FIRST strike damage just the regular strike since the first strike phase already happened?
I love the mechanic and had no idea it was this versatile. I hope Arena can handle these edge cases well since, at least to me, it has been the best tool for learning other complicated mechanics and interactions.
As an Umezawa super fan, building Satoru has yet again completed my collection of all 4 Umezawa legends in commander. Hyped to learn these tricks for the new deck!
Though when blue and black steal creatures, you usually don't have to worry about giving them back, so that's a little less useful for the average ninja.
Stealing their blocker with gilded drake, then paying 1-2 mana for a spell to bounce "their" gilded drake to your hand is definitely the superior play here..
0:55 I'm glad seeing this here. Because on Satoru Umezawa's Gatherer's page there are multiple mistakes "As you activate a ninjutsu ability, you reveal the Ninja card" "Although the Ninja is attacking" instead of "you reveal the creature" "Although the creature is attacking" This is probably a copy/paste error since Ninjutsu only showed up on Ninja cards before. But it could still lead to some arguments at some tables ^^ '
You didn't mention "Cunning evasion", or newer "Grazilaax" trick, where for ex.: you attack with 2 creatures (yuriko and a normal 2/2), the other player has a 3/3 and blocks Yuriko, then the Cunning evasion triggers and you return her in your hand. At this point the 2/2 is unblocked and you ninjutsu yuriko on him. That is very useful.
A fun use of the looping trick is to get around removal. You attack and they let it through. You then use it to ninjitsu in a creature, likely with a damage effect they don't like (draw, discard, bounce) so they try to kill it before damage. You then use a different ninja in your hand to save it.
The other note is that ninjitsu is not a cost discount as it usually seems. The total cost to bring in the creature is the ninjutsu cost PLUS the cost of the unblocked fodder you are bouncing
That's kind of the downside, so many of the cards only have mildly useful effects, deal combat damage draw 1 card or otherwise underwhelming. It's a tempo loss for not entirely enough to justify it on it's own. You just paid for 2 creatures, got to keep one, and then maybe drew a card, and now you've spent mana you can't use to hold in reserve to counter spell or w/e. It's the handful of of fun ones like Thousand-Faced Shadow becoming a copy of something else, or taking advantage of other come into triggers, or paying 4 mana to Ninjutsu a Blightsteel Colossus into play, that'll do something. As for the cost keep in mind these mostly blue and/or black cards, that makes tempo a bit more crucial if you're not ramping mana.
Nice Video and well explained. I already knew those tricks, since i digged deep into the rules when i did build my first Ninja Commander Deck, but i applaud you bringing them all up it took me some weeks to find this stuff out. If i could give a tipp, i would say to remember that Ninjutsu is an activated ability and can be reduced by Heartstone and Zirda, the Dawnwaker. Biomancer's Familiar, and Training Grounds won't work because they only reduce for creatures you control.
Using it in response to Etrata, the Silencer triggered ability on the stack Get to exile their creature and put a hit counter but not have to shuffle her away
@@senkrad5 What? You do it while the whole trigger is on the stack. She does her damage, trigger goes on the stack and you pick the target, before the trigger resolves you use Ninjutsu to send her back to hand, trigger goes to resolving and exiles the target with a Hit counter and shuffles away the now non-existent Etrata.
my favorite ninjitsu trick is to attack with an unblockable creature while sataru in on the field, then ninjitsu in blightsteel and insta kill someone.
Idk how I missed multiple njnjutsu after playing the mechanic in pauper so often. Seems great for picking up multiple spellstutter sprites. My favourite trick you didn't go over is saving a creature from a removal spell. Although that isn't super specific to ninjutsu.
At a table of decent players that know you play ninjas, this will rarely help. A decent player knows do deal with creatures that won't be blocked Before they are not blocked😁 Anyone who does not know this, I'll respond with ninjutsu, explain why their spell fizzled, then they say if they knew that, they'd have done it before blocking, and I'll let them. Yuriko is too good to not give newish players a fighting chance.
The winning move is ninjutsu in a Blightsteel Colossus for 4 or less mana, insta kill a player, then ninjutsu a measly 1 mana ninja, allowing you to hold onto Blightsteel for another lethal strike later on
Me too! My younger friends are always complaining about my vintage cards “oh thats OP” “oh I think that’s banned”. Built a sixty card ninjutsu deck 95% kamigawa, its a killer
One more trick that might not come up often, but if your opponent tries to cast some removal on your unblocked attackers after the blocker step, you can ninjutsu at instant speed to save your creature (and potentially fizzle the spell). Same thing if they have some triggered ability that could get rid of your attackers after receiving damage
Very cool! Hey! Regarding the final 1st Strike trick, many years ago, even before Yuriko saw print, I built a Wydwen Ninjutsu deck that wants to actively find Bladed Pinion to hook onto an attacker. Deal 1st Strike damage, then Ninja-in the next “battle player”. Ronin Warclub was an excellent addition to this shenanigan too
A trick I used was I had two attackers. One wasn't blocked, and one was dokuchi silencer. I ninjutsud the card back to my hand after blockers were declared and played a shriekmaw. I killed the creature blocking my silencer. Went to damage, silencer dealt damage and i used his effect to kill one of his other creatures that stayed back. Wasn't a big play, but made me feel more intelligent than I probably am.
Now I want ninjas even more! I want the old ones and the ones to come. Thanks for showing us that first strike trick! Personal opinion: revisiting the early sets is awesome for some casual players so we can remember the old days. cheers
It was good to see my pet card Tetsuko Umezawa make an appearance. She's been the cornerstone for getting attacks through for my Blue ninja deck since Modern Horizons gave us such great gifts as Mist-Syndicate Naga. Good Times, Gavin!
Another thing: Ninjitsu can do something no other ability in Magic can do. Technically, you can take control of an opponent's creature, attack with it, and when you Ninjitsu it would go into your hand (as it does *not* say "owner's hand"). It has been a big no-no since the beginning of the game for an opponent's card to go in your hand or graveyard because, well, at the end of the game the card might get stolen! It would be interesting to see what the ruleset said at the time of this mechanic's original introduction. I believe this to be an indicator of the nature of ninjitsu being broken, as it was poorly worded from the getgo; because of this, all of the awesome points in this video don't surprise me, and whether they were intended or not (putting an opponent's stolen creature in your hand is not intended!) may just be a side-effect of having to accept the mechanic. Also, awesome video, thanks.
FYI: Reminder text is not official rules text. The official rule for Ninjutsu (Rule 702.49a) does say "Return an unblocked attacking creature you control to its owner’s hand".
Trick #3 is even more silly with instant speed wraths like Rout. Since the COST is putting it in your hand, the effect (put this card on the battlefield) goes on the stack. So after you bounce your three things, play Rout while Mistblade Shinobi is on the stack. Once the stack starts to resolve, Rout goes off first, then nukes the board. THEN your Ninjutsu ability resolves, putting it on the battlefield... possibly still able to deal damage and draw a card or whatever other effect it has from combat damage. All your stuff is safe, include the 'sacrificial' ninja.
My 'trick' that I believe works in multiplayer: because the ninjutsu-placed creature is put into play attacking after the declare blockers step, you could potentially attack a player, then after blocks ninjutsu in a creature attacking a different player (considering that there is no restriction on what the placed creature is attacking). This would allow you to attack past potential blockers if another opponent is open
Doesn't work because of a specific rule with Ninjutsu, actually. Nice try though! :D 702.49c A ninjutsu ability may be activated only while a creature on the battlefield is unblocked (see rule 509.1h). The creature with ninjutsu is put onto the battlefield unblocked. It will be attacking the same player or planeswalker as the creature that was returned to its owner’s hand.
So given I got a Pre-Release box of Kamigawa: ND, and me having not played Ninjas or Vehicles (the other card I got a few of) before, this was super useful! That "First Strike" mechanic was so good, not something I may have thought of, and now the idea behind my new deck build!
I enjoy equipping Konda, Lord of Eiganjo with Grappling Hook, Kusari-Gama, and Neko-Te and swinging away with other creatures, so I can bring in my ninjas.
Favorite expensive mana ninja trick I do is Cast my commander (Chromium, the Mutable) from the command zone. then Ninjustu it on my turn.Let the turns go by and recast my commander after a turncycle goes through
Thanks for the tips, Gavin. I'm definitely going to have to remember these tricks when I build a sultai ninjas list I'm working on. And if ur wondering what green is for, pump spells. Just pump spells. Attack with a Phantom Warrior, ninjutsu in Ninja of the Deep Hours, Giant Growth, Giant Growth, and they're dead. 👌
- play Yuriko in (c)EDH - opponents have a dockside and 5+ enchantments or artifacts - attack unblocked - ninjutsu Sakashimas Student for 2 - create 5+ Treasures on etb - loop Yuriko and Sakashimas Student - profit . jk, profit falls short once you have to explain to the whole table that this works out just fine
Another scenario for "Looping Ninjutsu" rules niche is to dodge removal during combat. If your opponents lets a creature through with the intent of using Lightning Bolt/Swords/etc on the Ninja you replace it with, you can return that Ninja for another Ninjutsu creature. The removal spell checks for the creature that's left the battlefield and fizzles.
Looping ninjutsu was one of my (many) win conditions in one of my earliest commander decks, a Vela combo deck. I'd swing with something and then ninja in a sakashima's student copying a palinchron or great whale, untapping seven lands which I'd use to ninja it out for a different ninja then back in to repeat. Vela's triggered ability did the rest. :) Teenaged me was so proud of myself when I realized it on the fly one game and won that way.
A not so loophole, but i'm totally sneaking an eldrazi or two or something equally absurd into my soon to be built ninja deck, simply for that card that gives units in your hand the ninjutsu ability.
Some of this is why Reconnaissance is a stupid, stupid card for just W. Even if all it did was give Vigilance for W, it'd be busted, but it does so much more. Why does it do so much more? Who knows, but it does.
I think many people also forget that you can counter ninjutsu. It's an activated ability, and cards like Bind and Defabricate can counter target activated ability. Doing this will cause the cards to be returned without anything else coming into play.
That multiple ninjutsu trick could also be great for playing against a Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. All your creatures hit, trigger Teysa, activate your ninja before her ability resolves.
Etrata, the Silencer works extremely well with ninjutsu. Responding to her combat damage trigger to bounce her to your hand instead of losing her to the shuffle makes her a quick finisher for commander games.
In what marvel universe? :D Sure it's a good theory, but I don't know what kind of games are played in your country, but in mine you take something like 4-5 turns to do that.. when you already must have like 7-8 mana available. At that point if you reach to do his damage twice and the game isn't already over is a miracle. I would't remember it in the list of "Quick finishers" tbh. I've never seen a game won by her either.
Edit: Etrata can't be blocked and deals a hit counter to a creature and exiles it. (You win the game after 3 hit counters.) Then shuffles it back into the deck, you can avoid the shuffle into your deck by ninjutsuing her back into your hand after combat damage. And with a few haste cards you can attack immediate without having to worry about summoning sickness. It's pretty brutal in modern/pioneer. I use ninjutsu with my 4 Etrata the silencer's. I have 4, 1 black and 1 colorless ninjas with that ninjutsu cost plus 2 Satoru Umezawa. So if I don't have those 4 ninjas, it's all good I can just have any card with ninjutsu for a cost of 4 which works great by turn 5 if I can get an Etrata and an Umezawa. With mana on each turn.
I love using the ninjutsu trick with Drana, Liberator of Malakir. First strike damage and then ninjutsu with the trigger on the stack so not only do you get to double dip, but your ninja comes in with a +1/+1 counter. I have had to explain a few times that this was a legal play lol
Turn 1 bring in a cheap un-blockable (I.E. Slither Blade), up until turn 2 attack with un-blockable to get them used to not being able to stop damage. Turn 3 Get out Satoru and attack with un-blockable. Turn 4 Attack with un-blockable then Ninjitsu in Blightsteel Colossus with infect for 11 Poison counters and a 4 round win. Works with other large creatures but you will have to figure out how to give them Infect (Tainted Strike).
It gives me so much respect for the card design team that you explain all the exploits to the rules before you even release the set, making it clear that you made the set with the exploits in hand. Most games work the opposite way: they come out and people exploit a rule until some time later a designer's commentary is released saying "guys don't do this, this rule was obviously not meant for that". May I ask how many of the Ninjutsu exploits did you know ow before the first time Ninjutsu was released?
I did know all these tricks, my usual one was to double dip on Drana, Liberator of Malakir's combat damage trigger. Before it resolves (putting a +1/+1 counter on each of my tapped and attacking creatures) I'd swap her back to hand and put a Ninja out, giving it the extra buff in stats, and letting it hit for just a bit more. It also puts Yuriko out of bolt range which is relevant more than it should be.
I loved it. They really captured the whole idea that gods can be anyone and anything around you, much like how the norse gods would take different forms to play games with mortals. So much mythology to take inspiration from. It would be cool with a return to the plane.
Not sure I follow. The return of the unblocked creature to the hand is part of the activation cost of the ninjutsu ability. Costs cannot be countered. Or do you have some means to make them discard from hand at instant speed while the activation is on the stack?
@@mikearms1478 yeah, make them discard the ninja after they've returned the unblocked creature to their hand, there aren't many ways to do so, but it isnt impossible
That one where you deal damage and then just bounce back the creature to your hand via ninjutsu is one I use a lot in my Etrata, the Silencer deck, so you get the damage, you get the creature exiling trigger+hit counter and before you shuffle her back into your deck you get her back into your hand.
Should have watched this yesterday before my pre-release.... Tremendous Help. Have One again today, lets hope for good ninjutsu pulls. Love this mechanic
Saw ninjutsu at prerelease. My first black blue variation included using virus beetle to attack then constantly using ninjutsu to replace and replay it to essentially keep an opponents hand empty
love it, while i already knew all the tips in this video and how the steps work i found this video great to share with my less experienced group mainly because of the detailed explanation told in such a short time frame
Peregrine drake and thousand-faced shadow means any ammount of unblocked attackers. Sakashimas student and something like mistblade can combine with Peregrine drake to make any ammount of mana in combat. Great with instants or simply getting expensive ninjutso with mana to spare. I did it! I broke peregrine drake! But still. If you do play Yuriko the drake is great eitherway, so interacting with it is useful.
Ninjutsu with a second Ninja is also a tech way to fizzle out spot removal in combat. Many times in pauper, I would save Ninja of the Deep Hours from a lightning bolt this way.
Almost done with a Ninja deck so I am adding this to favorites, because I know as soon as I pull off that end of combat trick "you can't do that" is gonna fly out of some mouths!
Multiple Ninjutsu also seems great for saving attacking creatures from a boardwipe like Settle the Wreckage. I really like using cards like Ukkima, Stalking Shadow who is unblockable and still does his damage when he trades places with a ninja and returns to hand. My favorite thing about Satoru's ninjutsu is that you can play any creature card *even cards not in the colors black or blue* which lends to the possibility of some real surprises. I'm not sure if there's a combo by playing with loop ninjutsu to continually bring back Smoke Shroud from the graveyard to activate effects that care about enchantments. I guess you could mill with Sage of Mysteries. The better combo with loop ninjutsu probably lies with Sakashima's Student, since it can come in as any creature, and thus activate a wider variety of effects. A foretold Mystic Reflection and loop ninjutsu could take it further to cause a "shadow clone jutsu" effect.
Just saw 2 short "stories" on Daily.MTG that showed two vertical arts depicting a kimono and a fang. Clearly a glimpse that Sagas (or a variant) is returning in this set.
I was going to say you could ninjutsu during the declare attackers step but after looking into it, rule 509.1h says creatures become “blocked” or “unblocked” creatures after the declare blockers step. Even though logically your creatures don’t have blockers before the declare blockers step and wouldn’t be blocked yet… If it wasn’t for the way creatures have to *become* unblocked creatures in rule 509, you could use Satoru Umezawa’s ability to ninjutsu out a blightsteel colossus before your opponent gets the chance to block all of your creatures and prevent ninjutsu from happening…
I actually have a 2 person cube with abyssal persecutor in it. There are some sacrifice shenanigans to help get around the drawback. But I was just expanding the cube and happened to add skullsnatcher. I didn’t think of using ninjutsu to get the demon out of the way! I like that little interaction hidden in there now!
So, if you're playing with un-set cards that have the last strike/triple strike mechanic, you could potentially get two additional seperate times for damage to be dealt? Kamigawa and Un-cards what a flavorful fun combo!
Most ninjas dont have Last strike though. So if first and normal strike is dealt you Ninjitsu something in, it will not do last strike, since it doesn't have last strike.
My personal favorite thing to do with Ninjutsu involves my Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign EDH deck. I love attacking with Yennett, putting her trigger on the stack, and then because Flying and Menace make her super annoying to block, Ninjutsu in one of my favorite Ninjas (who all also happen to have an odd mana value for Yennett shenanigans) like Fallen Shinobi, Silent-Blade Oni, or Yuriko. Double dipping like that is so much fun! Oh and since Satoru Umezawa has an odd mana value I will definately be trying him out in that deck!
