Lurking in the shadows you wont see this deck coming!
Art: Satoru Umezawa
by Anna Pavleeva
Todays Featured Commander is:
Satoru is a really awesome Dimir commander that lets us combat trick our way to victory, being in Dimir we can run a very midrange style deck with controlling elements and a ton of creatures. Since we are a midrange deck we can adapt to our opponents playstyles with many of our games being more aggressive focused and some being control focused. Satoru is a really fun commander that allows us to do unfair and put creatures in very early!
The Deck:
Satoru Umezawa Ninjitsu!
Why Satoru Umezawa?
Satoru is a really great Dimir commander and is absolutely perfect for ninjitsu decks, while this is not a ninja focused deck we can use Satoru’s ability to ninjitsu in big creatures and help end the game. To assist with this we are packing a bunch of little creatures who are evasive so we can get consistent ninjitsu triggers and switch them out. Satoru allowing us to cycle through cards when we activate a ninjitsu ability can be a great way for us to filter through the deck and find one of our big creatures like Blightsteel Colossus
.
Deck Overview:
Since our main focus is getting as many ninjitsu creatures as possible we have a bunch of evasive creatures like Slither Blade
, Tormented Soul
and Dimir Infiltrator
just to name a few of our unblockable creatures with these they are basically guaranteed ninjitsu triggers. Since we are ninjitsu-ing pretty much every turn we have some big creatures that can come out early and take over the game as well as some creatures that are straight up game-enders like Blightsteel Colossus or Lord of the Void
. Blightsteel is a straight up game-ender most of the time and Lord of the Void can just give us a ton of value and allow us to kill our opponents quicker through combat. One of our piece of creature evasion is Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
since he gives all of our creatures horsemanship he basically says that all of our creatures have unblockable, I would be quite shocked to see any other horsemanships cards in EDH these days. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
is another great card that allows us to steal opponents cards and gain more card advantage! Silver-Fur Master
is a great lord for ninjas and the reduced cost for ninjitsu abilities is great as well! Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar
is a great way for us to draw cards with our evasive creatures as well as for the rare occasion where we have a creature get blocked we can also bounce it back to our hand! Silent-Blade Oni
is one of our most expensive ninjitsu abilities but luckily Satoru makes him only 4 to ninjitsu in and when he does hit he allows us to cast a card from that opponents hand for completely free!
Our planeswalker package is quite small but it does allow us to create more evasive creatures for ninjitsu-ing and draw some cards! Kaito Shizuki
is a great planeswalker since pretty much all of their abilities are a benefit for us! In testing we rarely ult Kaito but we always use the +1 and the -2 can be great if we need a ninjitsu enabler. You may recognize our second planeswalker who is Kaito, Dancing Shadow
Kaito’s passive ability is great for us since we can bounce one of our or 2 mana creatures back to our hand and activate abilities twice, in testing I almost always used this to draw 2 cards. While Kaito’s other abilities are not that strong we can consistently activate his passive and draw 2 cards!
Our spell package is full of destruction and tutors, for tutors we have format staples Demonic Tutor
and Vampiric Tutor
we typically use these to grab one of our game-enders like Blightsteel Colossus. For destruction we have Pongify
, Hero's Downfall
and Damnation
all of these are great, in testing I typically held damnation until I fell behind and began to get outpaced. Disallow
is a very interesting spell since we can counter an activated ability or triggered ability this can be used in a very wide range of situations and is a great spell all around. Filter Out
can be a great way for us to completely destroy artifact or enchantment decks, while this card may not be fully effective against all decks its cheap and can be used to bounce disruptive enchantments, artifacts or planeswalkers. Since we cast our commander as soon as we can we have Fierce Guardianship
is one of the best cards in our deck since it is pretty much always free.
We really have nothing too exciting in our artifact package pretty much all mana rocks the only thing of note is that we have Lightning Greaves
as a piece of protection for Satoru!
Our enchantment package is pretty small but has some great cards like Cunning Evasion
is a great way for us to protect our creatures who are not evasive, this card is really good for this deck and when combined with big creatures or ETB creatures can make it threatening for our opponents to block. Rhystic Study
is one of the best blue cards of all time and allows us to draw an absolute ton of cards and fill our hand up! Reconnaissance Mission
is just another way for us to draw cards and allows us to draw a ton of cards.
Our land base is full of Dimir duels but we do have some lands that have special abilities like Card not found which can become an unblockable creature and trigger ninjitsu again this can be a great way for us to get an extra trigger every turn or do some damage! Card not found is a great land that allows us to make our creatures more evasive!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Midrange build style allows for us to adapt to opponents speed
- Plenty of interaction / counterspells
- Able to end games quickly Ninjitsu-ing big creatures
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Deck is noticeably weaker without Satoru on the field
- Weak to creature hate
- Without big Ninjistu targets in our hand it can be difficult to deal a lot of damage
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We dont have any infinite combos in the deck so we typically rely on Ninjitsu-ing a big creature like Card not found , Card not found or Card not found. In addition to our big game-enders we have a bunch of very evasive creatures as well as ways to make our other creatures evasive. We don’t have a ton of ways to buff our creatures up but since we can attack early and often we can begin whittling down our opponents that way!
Conclusion:
In conclusion I think that Satoru is a really fun commander who allows us to play a fun midrange shell and put some very big creatures into play. We have a ton of evasive creatures that allow us to get free attacks and allows us to easily ninjitsu creatures. I think that Satoru is a really fun commander for beginners or experienced players and is a great deck to bring to something like an FNM or a kitchen table game!
Thanks for reading to the end!
