Unlike Bloomburrow before it, Duskmourn: House of Horror is pretty clearly a stacked set. There are a ton of powerful cards in here, and most are getting their due respect right out of the gate. From Valgavoth, to the Overlord cycle, to Razorkin Needlehead, the set is rife with new multi-format bangers. Standing proudly among these great new MTG cards is Kaito, Bane of Nightmares. Not only is this new Ninja planeswalker a bold design, but it’s also proving to be a powerful Standard card in the early hours of the new format.
Kaito, Bane Of Nightmares MTG
- Mana Value: 2UB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Starting Loyalty: 4
- Card Text: Ninjutsu 1UB (1UB, Return an unblocked attacker you control to hand: Put this card onto the battlefield from your hand tapped and attacking.) During your turn, as long as Kaito has one or more loyalty counters on him, he’s a 3/4 Ninja creature and has Hexproof. +1: You get an emblem with “Ninjas you control get +1/+1.” 0: Surveil 2. Then draw a card for each opponent who lost life this turn. −2: Tap target creature. Put two stun counters on it.
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares really isn’t helping the ‘Modern MTG cards have too much text’ argument. This is a real essay of a card and every paragraph makes a valid gameplay point. To start with, the fact that Kaito has Ninjutsu is pretty wild in itself. This is an ability that has been granted exclusively to Ninja creatures so far. Seeing it on a planeswalker, then, is something truly new.
Of course, as you’ll see in the next line Kaito is a Ninja creature too, while he’s in play on your turn anyway. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the ‘planeswalker as creature’ idea. The fact that Kaito gets to be one without using an ability or fulfilling a condition makes him unique, however. This would normally come with a downside, since it would make your planeswalker vulnerable to creature removal. Fortunately, Kaito comes with Hexproof while in creature form to protect him.
After all of that spice, Kaito is still a planeswalker with three great loyalty abilities. The +1 buffs him and all your other Ninjas permanently, the 0 filters your draws and sets up your ‘yard, and the -2 is essentially removal in a tempo deck. There’s no ultimate to work towards here, but Kaito doesn’t really need one. He’s just an incredibly solid card that can come down as early as turn three and start causing a ruckus. Given this, it’s no surprise that many players are taking Kaito for a test drive now that Duskmourn is out in the wild.
Shadow Complex
Kaito’s playability is further boosted by the fact he has a ready-made list he can slip right into. Dimir Midrange is a tier one deck right now according to MTGDecks, and it plays plenty of cards that support Kaito. Most notably the deck’s early evasive creatures, Spyglass Siren and Deep-Cavern Bat. These cards are efficient enough on their own, but when you factor in the ability to Ninjutsu Kaito out on turn three they get even better. That +1 can get out of hand fast, especially if you start stacking it early.
That scalability allows Kaito to serve as a finisher for the deck since his emblems persist even if your opponent deals with one of the copies. Your future Kaitos will come out swinging harder, eventually to the point where your opponent can’t keep up. Kaito’s -2 also makes Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, a staple in the deck, much better as well. By tapping down blockers more of your creatures can get through for damage, and you can draw more cards.
While it is very much early days in terms of Duskmourn Standard, Kaito is already showing up in an encouraging number of Dimir Midrange lists. Sometimes as a one-of, and sometimes as a full playset in the case of MatiArvigo’s list above. In total this nimble Ninja has been added to just under 200 decks, which is pretty significant this early on.
The card plays really well with what Dimir Midrange wants to be doing and even opens up new axes for it to attack on. The Ninja typal aspect may be mostly irrelevant for now, but given there’s another Kaito coming in Foundations I reckon we’ll be getting more Ninja support soon too.
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