What about Thousand-Faced Shadow, Moon-Circuit Hacker, Prosperous Thief and Subtlety?

@Araujodavif I haven't got many of the new ninjas from Kamigawa yet, but Thousand-Faced Shadow, Moon-Circuit Hacker, and Prosperous Thief will all likely make it into the decklist.

As for Subtlety, I think it's better to just play a removal spell instead. Subtlety is nice if you have it at the right moment, but it's quite a bad topdeck when your opponent has a problematic creature already on board.

Thanks for leaving a comment!

azja Thank you for the Kamigawa Ninja Set review

azja what are your thoughts on Silver-Fur Master ?

@Elipson I'm glad you brought this up, because it turns out I forgot to add the multicoloured ninjas to my Kamigawa review!

My current decklist has 9 creatures with ninjutsu other than Yuriko, and only 6 of them can be reduced by with Silver-Fur Master. And although the +1/+1 to all other ninjas is nice, the majority of my damage comes from Yuriko's triggers rather than combat damage. So I don't think it's impactful enough to add to my deck. But in decklists with a higher density of ninjas, it's definitely worth considering.

Fallen Shinobi literally just won me a game last weekend since it ended up grabbing their much needed combo piece and dropping it into play. Very strong card to disrupt plans and get some good drops for free. Glad that ninjas are finally getting more plentiful in the game. Now if only Ninja's Kunai was stronger. Would love something that paired well with ninjas other than Ronin Warclub and Shuriken, and they aren't even that great...

That's awesome freezerboy! Fallen Shinobi can definitely be a powerhouse. One of my favourite plays is casting Scheming Symmetry pre-combat, then ninjutsu-ing Fallen Shinobi on the same opponent to steal the card they tutored! Though you can only pull it off once or twice, then your playgroup will play around your shenanigans :')

@Elipson Silver-Fur Master is usually a trap in most Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow decks due to turning off Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive.

@Virlym Although it's true that Silver-Fur Master and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive are a nonbo, I think you can still get away with playing both in the same deck without much trouble. I'm glad you pointed that out though! It's an important thing to note if you draw both in the same opening hand, for example

@azja that sounds like my kind of combo. Looks like I have something else to go into the very small sorceries category in my deck.

Virlym I completely forgot that Silver-Fur Master would cancel Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive ability. I got tunnel vision on all the new ninjas. Thanks for looking out!

azja and Virlym what are your thoughts on Otawara, Soaring City and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire?

I'm thinking about since I have 3 Legendary creatures maybe it could provide a little utility. But then again how often would I have all three on the field.

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive

Hope of Ghirapur

@Elipson For the new Kamigawa legendary lands, I think it's more important to consider if your deck can afford to play a single-coloured land that isn't fetchable, rather than how many legends you have. So that being said, I think Otawara, Soaring City will easily slot into my deck since it's extremely blue-heavy, but I'm undecided on Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. I plan to try out both though!

Hey azja,

Nice deck, no comments yet, I'm just starting to work on a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow deck of my own.

Found your primer and discussion valuable, thought I would follow the deck and likely have some questions/suggestions later as I dive into the build.

Cheers!

azja,

Couple early questions if you don't mind. Let me know if I'm a bother :) My Yuri Deck

Karn's Temporal Sundering hitting an opponent for 6 is good, but wouldn't Capture of Jingzhou be more efficient for CMC1 less? Perhaps its a budgetary/availability consideration?

You have 15 enablers, I read the notes on them, couple questions. What's the critical mass on this, like would 10 be deterimental. When I did a rough pull in had the following questions:

Why is Tormented Soul excluded, is it just as simple as the Force of Will? He still not better than the 2CMC options like Augury Owl?

Kaito Shizuki thoughts? I'm worried that the CMC3 for the -2 is the wrong tempo/timing, but, he does come in, make a unblockable, then phase out to also get the draw next turn. If you don't need the unblockable, it's draw 2 for CMC3, tough to see hitting his ultimate at 7. 3CMC planeswalker are usually good, some I'm tempted to think this one will be too? But I have no play experience on this deck.

I just can't get my head around the flying evasion guys though, Faerie Seer, Spectral Sailor, Wingcrafter, Augury Owl, Sage Owl. They feel "sub-optimal" to me and difficult to include, but as I said what's the critical mass here? I was considering Baleful Strix in the 2CMC drop, just because he replaces himself in hand (which may just be discarded anyway, but looting never that bad anyway), with deathtouch less likely to be blocked by flying/reach, and he can be an effective (deathtouch) defender.

I've roughed in "12" for the timebeing.

Honestly my first thought was this is a turbo-draw to tutor, fish-pact/fish-consul strategy. I was looking at Tatsunari, Toad Rider instead, but I think I like "big splashy spells" more than the aristocrats method. So that got me thinking, what the heck do I win with, is this viable or am I off-base here:

Primary: Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact ASAP / Draw for tutors

Tertiary Maverick 'Turn and Burn': Temporal Trespass, Temporal Mastery, Temporal Manipulation, Capture of Jingzhou with perhaps something like Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip or Dig Through Time as possible damage enablers in addition to the 'turn'.

I skipped Secondary intentionally, is there no room here for a Doomsday? I can think of multiple stacks with varied CMC, E.G. if devotion to blue 3 + Doomsday + Thassa's Oracle (BBBUU) is a win, if you don't have Thassa's Oracle, somethig like Doomsday + Gitaxian Probe/Street Wraith into a Night's Whisper or something could be around CMC7, Gush kinda useless here for a CMC3 (BBB) stack.

Thoughts on that? I see you intentionally don't run the fish, but this seems viable for this deck?

For Scheming Symmetry doesn't the player just pull a counterspell to stop your win, does it really "win on the spot", if you have to pass it feels useless, but with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Opposition Agent it does work. Reliability? I "should"? run it?

Has Mutavault been enough value for a possible swing vs. the downside of the colorless mana? It dodges board wipe and is a ninja, so kinda-of makes sense to me, but I'm on the fence?

Also, would avoiding the enters tapped lands be better? E.G. Drowned Catacomb, Mystic Sanctuary, Sunken Hollow be far better as say City of Brass, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, River of Tears, Etc.?

I do have TOO MANY potential colorless mana Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Caverns, Reliquary Tower, Strip Mine. I feel like Reliquary Tower is a trap and I should remove, where I feel like, what's my strategy vs. a Glacial Chasm or Maze of Ith.

It's still a work in progress, I think I need more Ninjas then I have, still evaluating them one by one, and trying to figure out what each tutor gets me, but first I need to know what my win-con plans are to know what i'm looking for!

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

A Kamigawa card I've been having some success with is March of Swirling Mist. It's both saved my ninja from a wipe and made a temporary path for me through blockers to get the last hit I needed.

Spirits

The reason he's using that owl over an unblockable spirit is likely for the amazing scry 3 effect on the owl. Yuriko benefits from being able to filter the next card so that it can potentially be a big cmc card for dmg against the opponent. Also, Toad Rider isn't Blue/Black... it has green in its CMC :)

Hey @Spirits, sorry for taking so long to get back to you! You asked such detailed questions, so I wanted to make sure I had time to write out detailed answers :D

Karn's Temporal Sundering vs Capture of Jingzhou:

Like you said, just a budget consideration. Yuriko is my pet deck so I don’t use any proxies, but I highly encourage it for others! While the bounce effect of Karn's Temporal Sundering is nice, I’m thinking of replacing it with Time Warp or just cutting it altogether for Treasure Cruise.

Enablers:

Since I don’t have any combos, I’m all in on the Yuriko damage plan. So having an enabler at all times is much more crucial for me, which is why I play 15 of them. Comparing my list to others, it seems 15 is on the higher end, so you could probably get away with cutting a couple. You’re correct about Tormented Soul, it can’t be pitched to Force of Will, as well as the mana base being more blue-heavy. As for the flying enablers, they’re included for redundancy (since there aren’t 15 unblockable 1-drops). It’s pretty rare for every opponent to have a flying/reach blocker, and we don’t really care who we attack, so flying does a pretty good impression of unblockable. Plus, many of them have relevant abilities, especially Faerie Seer’s scry 2 and Wingcrafter which can give Yuriko flying. If you’re mainly trying to win with combo, I wouldn’t play any of the 2 mana enablers except Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. But don’t underestimate Augury Owl in the “winning with big spells” shell!

Kaito Shizuki

I haven’t tried him out yet, so I’m also unsure whether he makes the cut. Normally I wouldn’t consider playing a planeswalker, since we’re not very good at blocking to keep them around for longer than one turn. But with Kaito, we’re guaranteed 2 activations since he phases out eot, so I think he’s worth testing out for sure.

Win-Cons:

I think the wincons you described are all totally viable. Most of the cEDH Yuriko lists win with Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact since it’s only 2 cards and 3-4 mana (and tough to interact with outside of counterspells). Doomsday is significantly weaker than fish-consul, but its also a reasonable win-con. It’s convenient that cards that would go in the doomsday pile such as Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are already good cards for the deck anyway. When I first built this deck, I didn’t include doomsday for power level considerations. Now, I doubt doomsday would be too powerful for my playgroup to handle, but I decided to leave it out since I prefer to win with Yuriko’s ability.

Scheming Symmetry

Scheming symmetry is pretty much my budget replacement for Imperial Seal until we get a reprint. It’s true that you can do some cute plays with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Fallen Shinobi. But most of the time, I save it until someone is below 16 life, choose them to tutor with me, put Draco on top of my library, and eliminate them before they can use the card they grabbed.

Mutavault

I’m a big fan of Mutavault since it allows me to rebuild a turn earlier after a boardwipe, or just to have an extra ninja that usually goes unnoticed by your opponents. Unfortunately, colourless lands are really, really awkward in this deck, so I wouldn’t play more than 1 or 2 at the most.

Drowned Catacomb, etc.

Since I’m currently playing 10 basics, I usually don’t have any problems with Drowned Catacomb and Sunken Hollow entering tapped. As for Mystic Sanctuary, it definitely sucks when you draw it and have to play it as a tapped island. But, imo it makes up for it in the late game when you can grab it with a fetch land and put an expensive spell on top of your library in response to a Yuriko trigger. If you’re including Tainted Pact, or just playing less basics in general, I would definitely cut those lands for City of Brass or River of Tears, like you mentioned.

Colourless Mana

I touched on this a bit in the Mutavault discussion, but you definitely want to stay away from colourless lands as much as possible. Although Ancient Tomb and Gemstone Caverns are really powerful lands in a vacuum, the early mana they provide isn’t worth it imo. I definitely agree with you that Reliquary Tower is a trap. I wouldn’t play it in very many decks in general, especially not in Yuriko. As for Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith, they aren’t played enough in my playgroup for me to need an answer for them. But if they did become more popular, my plan would likely be to cut Mutavault and include Strip Mine/Wasteland instead.

I hope everything I explained made sense and was helpful to ya! Don’t hesitate to ask me more questions!