Every workday throughout the preview season for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Insight is taking a quick look at another deck featuring cards from the upcoming set. One Ninja has been a mainstay of Pauper for its entire existence. Just think what the format will be able to do with a second!
One of staples and strongest cards in the Pauper metagame is . It perfectly slots into tempo and "protect the queen" strategies. Paired with small, evasive creatures that have an enter-the-battlefield effect, even the cost of its ninjutsu ability is an advantage. Bouncing creatures like enables us to use their ability again, which together with the card draw lets us quickly snowball through the game. Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty now gives us , another cheap Ninja that draws a card when it hits a player.
And the ninjutsu cost of a mere one mana is a true game changer. It allows the monoblue player to defend the Hacker right after it enters the battlefield, even on the second turn! Having eight Ninjas for turn two also means one can finally go all out on making that attack happen. In addition to the usual Faeries, and are great too if our goal is to attack unblocked on turn two. I have decided not to include any cantrips and focus on three simple steps: Put Ninja into play. Protect Ninja. Snowball and win.
Without the cantrips, the deck has enough space to include cheap countermagic like , , and . If something goes through our counters, or if the opponent casts a creature big enough to block our Ninjas, we still have as a last resort. Or just deploy more Ninjas, right?
With everything settled this way, it should be easy to win drawing one or two cards more than our opponent per turn. The generally lowered curve helps as well, seeing as we want to discard extraneous lands to the Hacker. I really can't wait to try this out and begin tuning the decklist. I will definitely start with something like the following. Stay in the loop for improvements and follow me on Twitter for updates!
| Monoblue Ninjas, Pauper |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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