5/1/2023 0 Comments Wizard with lots of snakes![]() It's really hard for me to separate the "spider" part of this card from some other elements I really love about good multiplayer cards, particularly "cockroach" (persistent, replicable effects). How about Blasting Station, or Mana Echoes? What about Unstable Shapeshifter? What about Ravenous Rats or Man-o'-War? Why not Fog Elemental? Keep digging – the possibilities for easy, quick combos are very high with this card! ( Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker kinda ruined that card for me.) The obvious (and dull) example is Auriok Champion but you can be more creative than that! And yes, Intruder Alarm is fairly pedantic at this point, too. What's clever about the Mistblade Shinobi is the chance to blend your bounce strategy with whatever you're bouncing back to your hand as your ninjas come out. You'll just let that 4 damage through, right? Remember Mindslicer? Who wants to block that, am I right? I mean, if you're a defender and you've got a Hill Giant that could get in the way, you won't block if you're holding two really good cards. Multiplayer discard decks are getting more and more interesting. If you go down this path, bear in mind that Zombie Boa is a snake, too! One gets through and presto, you can kill that pesky Wellwisher that never does anything but tap for stupid amounts of life. ![]() So you attack with increased chances of outnumbering and/or intimidating blockers. In addition, it's easy to make lots of them with Orochi Hatchery or Orochi Eggwatcher and green is a color that can threaten pump. I haven't even started with the snakes, my friend.) The Kamigawa block snakes have that lovely disincentive for creatures to engage them. The question is, how will you ensure that at least one attacker can slip through the defenses and give the Throat Slitter a chance to deal combat damage? Killing a creature is always good, right? A "4" generally means the spider element is pretty obvious in the card, and you just have to work a bit to make it shine. Consider Words of War (or the others in that family of "Words" enchantments). Very few opponents will slap their foreheads when they let an attacker through, only to see a 2-power creature hit them so you can draw a card. It's fantastic in limited, and it's going to get some consideration in constructed tournament decks. Ninja of the Deep Hours is an excellent card. Here's where folks who don't understand what I'm trying to do today will flip out. Attacking you without keeping plenty of defenders back will become very scary for many people, if they know you could replay a ninja from the safety of your hand. Note at this point the ninjas are less like spiders, and more like rattlesnakes (my terminology for "don't mess with me" cards). If it doesn't look like they're going to hit (e.g., Wing Shards), you can slip one or more back to your hand. The Walker is nicer as a "safety valve" for your ninjas in mid-attack. But if you go to the trouble of whipping creatures in and out of your hand at instant speed, you might expect something more spectacular. The peeking at opponent's hand is barely worth mention here. This may come in handy with some strategies, particularly breakneck aggression. For a mere, you can save any attacking creature you like. Where Skullsnatcher can help even more is in its cheap ninjutsu cost. And of course, the Skullsnatcher can prevent a Patriarch's Bidding or Exhume later in the turn from turning into a disaster. What I might look for is the opportunity to flip a Nezumi Graverobber a bit earlier than an opponent with three (creature) cards in graveyard may expect. Probably the least impressive ninja in any format, the Skullsnatcher still has its role in certain decks. A low spider rating doesn't mean I don't like the card! It just means that it's less spider-y. The "spider" rating is on a scale from 0 to 8 with 2 being average, for reasons that are completely arbitrary but allow easier digestion for those of you familiar with the Hall. Certainly, strategies that work with one may easily work with another I just like the chance to space out the discussion for readers one card at a time. We'll take both into consideration as we discuss ninja cards. But ninjas have forced me to broaden what spiders can do, for two reasons: I normally think of card advantage when I think of good multiplayer "spider" cards (e.g., Spinal Embrace). In brief, spider cards are useful in multiplayer because they bait opponents to gain you some sort of unexpected advantage. Surprise! It's A Spiderįor a more full discussion of what I mean by "spider" cards, see my archives, particularly the Hall of Fame articles from last autumn. Anthony continues ninja week, and reports on Magic Onlineįor those of you into Magic Online but not ninjas, feel free to skip to the second part of this article.įor the first half of this article, we'll be discussing the ninja of Betrayers and how they stack up in multiplayer formats.
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