Typal is one of the most beloved deck archetypes in Magic: The Gathering. Looking at EDHREC’s most popular Commanders heavily suggests this, with five of the top 10 Commanders of the past two years having strictly typal themes, while two of them have partial typal synergies.
In constructed, however, typal is a lot harder to get off the ground. You need some serious payoffs to make the archetypes worth running, and they need to be reasonably fast and consistent at what you want to do. This is because, instead of offering immediate value, typal decks generally offer exponential value. In Commander, snowball strategies are a lot more viable than in constructed, where players will rarely let you start to accrue value.
That’s why, when a typal deck does do well in a two-player format, players get excited. Even more shocking is that a popular Commander has made a grand appearance in Legacy. There have been some strong reasons to play this archetype for a long time, but Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow gives the archetype a lot of game. This deck recently saw a 5-0 league result and a top 4 in a Legacy Challenge, suggesting that Ninjas might be a fun semi-competitive alternative to playing one of the format’s typical giants.
Legacy Ninjas
Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow is no joke if she can connect with the opponent. This card doubles as both a card advantage machine and a massive clock, especially if you’re connecting with multiple Ninjas. As you might expect, Yuriko is far from the only Ninja you run in this deck, so she threatens to bury the opponent in advantage. If that weren’t enough, Yuriko’s card advantage isn’t even the biggest advantage you gain from playing Ninjas in Legacy.
That is the fact that Ninjutsu cannot be countered by cards like Force of Will and Daze. This means that all of your biggest threats can get around the most common interaction in the format, while you can still play these cards to disrupt your opponent.
The threat package that Ninjas have is surprisingly strong, as well. In addition to Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, Ingenious Infiltrator draws a surprising amount of cards, allowing you to bury tempo matchups in card advantage. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, of course, adds to this, and improves the clock that your Ninjas threaten significantly with the Emblems he creates. The -2 effect of Kaito is surprisingly relevant in Legacy as well, partially thanks to tapping down Emrakul, the Aeons Torn through all of its protection. All of that said, you’ll likely be using Kaito’s 0 ability the most, fixing your draws and pulling ahead of your opponent in the card advantage game.
All of that is great, but in order to use Ninjutsu, you need to have unblocked creatures to get your Ninjas into play. Some Legacy developments have helped in this department, as well.
Getting Your Ninjas Into Play
Getting these cards into play is surprisingly easy, as well. The Ornithopter Retrofitter Foundry package is a classic for Legacy Ninjas. This allows Ornithopter to double as a way to get your Ninjas in play for cheap, and turn into a 4/4 after you no longer need it. Notably, Retrofitter Foundry is a weaker part of this package than in traditional Legacy Ninjas decks, as the deck generally plays Changelings to fill similar roles.
Instead, this Ninjas deck runs a bunch of high-value creatures with evasive qualities. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student was not in Legacy the last time Ninjas were a semi-viable archetype, and does exactly what the deck is interested in doing. It’s easy to flip thanks to Brainstorm, Ponder, and card advantage from your Ninjas, and Tamiyo offers a cheap, evasive creature to Ninjustsu your cards into play.
Baleful Strix has certainly had an uptick in play recently as well, thanks to trading well into bigger creatures like Murktide Regent and Archon of Cruelty. The card doesn’t play well into Orcish Bowmasters, but Baleful Strix otherwise offers an evasive body that replaces itself and can remove problems. Ninjutsu with this card, and you can even draw extra cards.
Speaking of Orcish Bowmasters, it rounds up the creature package as a necessary way to combat all the card draw in the format. Creating two bodies can also be occasionally relevant for getting your Ninjas in play, but this is mostly just a solid, cheap creature that heavily punishes common plays.
Outside of the creatures, Dimir Ninjas plays a typical interaction package seen in these colors. Lots of free counterspells are coupled with card advantage and cheap removal like Fatal Push and Drown in the Loch.
Sideboard Considerations
Outside of being very strong into Force of Will and Daze, Dimir Ninjas plays like a typical tempo deck, which means it has game against a lot of archetypes, but doesn’t have many incredible matchups.
The sideboard for Ninjas suggests that this archetype really struggles with Cori-Steel Cutter. Dread of Night and Plague Engineer both come equipped to blow this card’s value out of the water by killing Monk Tokens, considerably helping Delver matchups. Otherwise, lots of graveyard hate and sacrificial removal is available to give Dimir Reanimator a harder time.
All in all, it’s great to see Ninjas succeed in Legacy at any level, but a lack of results overall suggests that this might not be the most competitive archetype. That said, the deck has had decent results recently, so it might be on the uptick. You’ll also get points for opponents not knowing how to play against you optimally.
Notably, many of these cards are also Historic legal, with Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow coming to Historic through Final Fantasy’s Through the Ages Bonus Sheet. It might not perform quite as well there since you don’t need to worry about Force of Will, but it’s a competitive alternative to what we commonly see, and that’s refreshing indeed.
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