The path of the Ninja is a lonely one. With trust a luxury you may’t afford, your only constant companions, beyond the pale shadow of death, are fear and danger. Thankfully, inMagic: The Gatheringat least, there are notable upsides to pursuing this particular profession, especially if you enlist the help of Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow to help you do so.
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Despite consistently ranking as one of the most-played, most well-known commanders in the format, and therefore bungling the ‘stealth’ aspect of ninjutsu somewhat, Yuriko has a powerful suite of Ninja skills that can contribute to a range of different strategies. Here are ten of her most ruthlessly effective options.
Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow
Before we immerse ourselves in Yuriko’s shadowy world, let’s quickly recap what she does. On the surface, she isn’t especially impressive: three mana for a 1/3 Ninja doesn’t exactly scream ‘broken’, after all. Appropriately enough, though, her true power is hidden just beneath the surface.
Yuriko has two abilities, one of which is completely unique to her. This is ‘Commander ninjutsu’, a variant on Kamigawa’s ninjutsu mechanic that also works from the command zone, providing a consistent means of bypassing commander tax and getting Yuriko into play for just two mana. Her second ability is a huge boon to any Ninja-focused deck: every time one of your Ninjas deals damage to an opponent, you draw a card, dealing damage to each opponent equal to its cost.
10Ninjutsu
By leaning hard into the ninjutsu mechanic, you can leverage both of Yuriko’s abilities to great effect. Her first ability encourages the use of evasive creatures, which you can then swap out for ninjutsu users from your hand (or Yuriko herself) once they get through unblocked, and her second ability rewards such switcheroos with card draw and AOE damage.
Silver-Fur Master plays a key role here, discounting your ninjutsu abilities while also buffing your Ninja. Beyond that you’ll want to include as many ninjutsu users and cheap evasive creatures as possible to round things out.
9Topdeck
Since Yuriko’s AOE damage on each Ninja hit is based on the mana cost of the cards on top of your deck, manipulating the order of those cards is a powerful strategy to pursue. Using spells like Brainstorm and Ponder to filter out cheap cards in favour of pricey ones, you can ensure that every Ninja damage trigger leaves the whole table reeling.
This build naturally allows you to end games quickly, particularly if you have a few Ninjas attacking at once, but it also lets you play a more reactive game, sifting through your deck to find the answer for any given situation. It’s a fun, flexible way to play Yuriko.
8Ninjas
Surprising no one,a straightforward Ninja-themed deckis a great fit for Yuriko as a commander. Since her second ability triggers off of Ninjas dealing damage, the more Ninjas you play, the more often you’ll get to use it.
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You’ll want to include Ninjas both with and without ninjutsu in this build, particularly those with built-in evasion, such as Phantom Ninja. Creatures with changeling are fair game as well, thanks to their full suite of creature types, and you’ll want to slot in Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive for his mass evasion-granting ability also.
7Extra Turns
The fact that Yuriko’s second ability hits all of your opponents at once makes it especially powerful, and even capable of wiping out the entire table simultaneously given enough time. And while that time will amass naturally over a long game, you can also create it for yourself, using Magic’s myriad extra turn spells.
These are much of a muchness, with Time Warp, Temporal Manipulation, and Part the Waterveil all offering more or less the same effect for the same cost. Said effect being, of course, the ability for you to take an extra turn. If you can find a clear window in which you can safely attack into one opponent with a few Ninjas, and take one or two extra turns, you can easily end the game on the spot.
6Big Mana
Yuriko’s second ability rewards you for playing cards with high mana costs, so why not lean into that as a theme, and enjoy some of Magic’s biggest bombs in the process? There are multiple directions to take a theme like this, from a straightforward Ramp build that includes Eldrazi titans and the like, to something a little more sneaky.
Many cards have huge base mana costs that are then reduced by other factors, such as Shadow of Mortality. These cards pull double duty in a deck like this: serving as huge numbers for Yuriko to reveal with her ability, while also being fairly easy to cast, when the in-hand reductions come into play.
5Mill
Mill may just be the most-maligned archetype in Magic’s colourful history. When it does well, it’s awful to play against, and when it does badly, it’s completely unplayable. Whatever your thoughts on this divisive deck type, however, you can’t deny that Dimir (blue/black) is the colour combination in which it shines the brightest. Also, incidentally, Yuriko’s colour combination.
It may seem counterintuitive to focus on whittling down your opponents’ decks rather than using Yuriko’s abilities to do the same to their life totals, but doing so allows you to trick your opponents, and lead them to spend their early resources combating what they wrongly presume is your strategy, leaving them wide open for a good Milling when the time comes.
4Icy Depths
A bit of an archetype cocktail, this build combines Yuriko’s love for Ninjas with snow lands and sea monsters. While it sounds like an odious and overpriced mixture on the surface, in reality the three flavours compliment each other surprisingly well.
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Building your mana base ofhard-packed snowallows access to a range of efficient board wipe options, which can clear the way for your Ninja to get in unopposed. This is also true of the support package for sea monsters (Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents), which excels at washing your opponents’ forces back into their hands, leaving no veil between them and the lidless eyes of your deep-sea horrors.
3Aggro
With her low mana cost, and her ability to generate both AOE player damage and card advantage, Yuriko is an ideal fit foran aggressively-minded deck. While this is harder to put together in Dimir than it is in other colours, it’s certainly still possible.
Black provides access to many excellent one drops, including Bloodsoaked Champion and Dread Wanderer, while blue brings a tonne of evasion and disruption, to help your hordes get through. Once the pressure from your early creatures and the pressure from Yuriko starts piling up, few opponents will be able to resist cracking under it.
2Equipment
While they don’t share the same affinity for equipment as their close cousins the Samurai, Ninjas are still more than capable of handling a weapon, particularly when said weapon grants double strike. This allows the equipped Ninja to deal two instances of combat damage, thus triggering two instances of Yuriko’s second ability.
The best options for this role are Brass Knuckles, Fireshrieker, and Grappling Hook. You can also further support your Ninja with evasion-granting equipment like Cliffhaven Kitesail. With this strategy, you can go tall instead of wide, drawing into more equipment to support your Ninjas with Yuriko’s ability.
1Rogues
Yuriko may not technically be a Rogue herself, but she certainly has a lot in common with Magic’s street-smart types, most notably her love of evasion.Legendary Rogues like Krydleof Baldur’s Gate allow you to slip your Ninjas through unnoticed, triggering Yuriko’s ability in the bargain.
Beyond this, you can play a fairly straightforward mixed-type build and see great results, particularly since Rogues tend to be cheap enough to draw into with Yuriko and play in the same turn. While Ninjas do have a strict code of honour, turning a blind eye to it can lead to huge success at the Commander table.
