[Deck] Ninja Mask, The Path of the Dark Sensei

[cssamerican]

I wanted to build a deck that utilized Dark Confidant, but before I got started I set-up a couple of parameters for myself.  First, I didn't want to build a Fish-style deck like everyone else is trying to do. I didn't feel that it was worth the effort to attempt to come up with something new only to find out that when I am done it isn't very innovative because a hundred other people came up with something very similar. Secondly, I didn't want to take a combo deck and remove a couple of spells for Dark Confidants. The main reason was because most combo decks try to win at neck breaking speeds; therefore, there will be many cases were the addition of Dark Confidant is meaningless or a dead draw. Plus, I just don't find combo decks all that fun to play. Now that my parameters were set-up, I started brainstorming for ideas. The one idea I kept coming back to was adapting the old Ninja Mask skeleton to incorporate Dark Confidants, and adjusting its tools to handle the new threats in today’s meta-game. It also help that I felt pretty comfortable with this archetype since I used to play quite often when it was competitive. So, in an effort to reduce development time I began doing my research.

I started by looking at Kl0wn's original post on Ninja Mask, and I noticed something that I originally wasn't aware of, Kl0wn didn't run Force of Will. He felt that since the deck was hard to hate it was better to know how to play around your opponent rather than to wait for your opponent to do something that you would have to counter. This school of thought is different from most people, and in a later post by Kowal, Force of Will had been added to the deck. This could have been a direct result of Trinisphere entering the format or possibly influenced from Carl's Venguer Masque, but either way it seemed that four Force of Wills became a staple in all future builds of Ninja Mask. Yet, I was intrigued by the idea of building a Vintage deck that didn't contain the pillars or the glue of the format. Without Force of Will I no longer had to maintain a certain level of blue cards in the deck, which gave me a lot of options for different tools that hadn't been feasible before, and it also made sideboarding much easier for the same reasons. The downside is your opponent can just get unbeatable hands now and then, but I haven't experienced as many crushing defeats as I would have original thought. With the deck now complete I can say with confidence that Force of Will isn't needed, apparently the format is somewhat slower than it was a year or two ago.

Now that I had determined that I wasn't going to utilize Force of Will I had to decide what type of disruption I would use. The obvious first choice was Duress, Ninja Mask was already running it in previous version of the deck, so it wasn't much of a leap. However, after testing the card in various match-ups I found that it wasn't as strong on its own as I thought it would be initially. It couldn't protect me from multiple solutions. For example, I Duress an opponent and see he/she has two Swords to Plowshares in hand. I get to remove one of them, but knowing that I am going to walk into another one just wasn't good enough. Duress was a much better tool at stunting combo decks, or bolstering my game versus combo-control decks than it was at helping me ensure the safety of my Dreadnoughts. At this point I decided to try Cabal Therapy. It allowed me to see my opponent's hand, and it could grab multiples of what I feared. The more I tested it the more I wondered why this card isn't used more often. It can grab problematic creatures such as Goblin Welder, and it can generate some devastating plays on its own though its flashback mechanic. The only real drawback is when you have no idea what your opponent is playing and hence no idea what to name. However, these cases will only occur if you feel the need to cast it immediately, which isn't something I normally do unless I have some idea of what my opponent is playing.

Quirion Ranger has been a staple in Ninja Mask as a way to keep Wasteland shenanigans from messing with your Shapeshifter combo, and it did this pretty effectively in the past. It also doubled as a minor mana generator, a small beater, and could untap Dreadnoughts to block after an attack. The problem with this was I really don’t want to be popping lands back to my hand when facing Stax, especially when I am facing recurring wastelands, and I rarely ever need to untap so I can block. So, the question I asked myself was, could something else fill this roll more effectively? And I believe the answer is yes. Pithing Needle does everything I need, it stops wastelands from messing with my combo, and it can be quite useful in games where wastelands are not an issue. It definitely gives the deck some game versus some previous problem decks such as Dragon and Control Slaver, and it kept the count of disruption elements of the deck at eight, which was something that I felt was important.

The last thing I looked into was Brainstorm. With Dark Confidant as my draw engine Brainstorm’s one-shot ability seemed less than stellar to me, so I thought I would capitalize on the fact Dark Confidant doesn't actually draw cards. Therefore, I began to test Chains Mephistopheles in its place. Unfortunately, this really didn't pan out, it sucked versus Stax, and even versus control I usually found myself playing the other two casting cost spells instead of it. Maybe I had back luck with it, but I must say I was thoroughly unimpressed with it in this particular deck. So, my next experiment was with Sensei’s Divining Top. This was much better than Chains Mephistopheles and Brainstorm. It allows me to avoid life loss through my Dark Confidants, and it allows me to dig for the cards I need.  With all the shuffle effects the deck has you are able to see an amazing amount of cards a turn if that is what you need to do.

So, this is what I finally arrived at:
Ninja Mask
By: cssamerican
Lands - 16
        2 Forest
        4 Bayou
        4 Tropical Island
        3 Windswept Heath
        3 Wooded Foothills

Creatures - 18
        4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
        4 Birds of Paradise
        4 Dark Confidant
        1 Phage the Untouchable
        1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
        4 Volrath's Shapeshifter

Enchantments – 4
        4 Survival of the Fittest

Spells – 6
        1 Ancestral Recall
        4 Cabal Therapy
        1 Time Walk

Artifacts – 16
        4 Pithing Needle
        3 Sensei's Divining Top
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Sapphire
        4 Illusionary Mask

Sideboard – 15
SB:  4 Duress
SB:  1 Gigapede
SB:  2 Gilded Drake
SB:  4 Oxidize
SB:  3 Ray of Revelation
SB:  1 Savannah

The deck has eight engine cards, eight outlets for its Dreadnoughts, and eight disruption spells, which makes it very redundant. Because of this and the tightness of the deck, I have chosen not to run any tutors other than Survival of the Fittest. The deck has performed quite well versus various archetypes, including the tier one decks. Though I am not prepared to say it wins enough to make it a best choice to win the next tournament, but rather it is good enough to hold its own. So, if your interested in playing something a little different, and still want a fighting chance to win this might be something you could look into.

There were a few cards I tried out that just missed the cut for me, but they should still be on peoples mind if they pick up this deck.

Withered Wretch: It is the best survivable graveyard hater, plus it has the bonus ability of cleaning up yours as well. I used it quite a bit versus Goblin Welder based decks until I started to use Pithing Needles, but if your metagame was full of decks like Control Slaver I could still see him being somewhat useful.

Psychatog: It is a pretty decent beater, and it cleans your graveyard for free. There are also a few graveyard combat tricks that you can do with him as well, though nothing that really stands out as super useful. If you were modify my list to run Force of Will then it would also have the bonus of being a survivable pitch card as well.

Dimir Doppelganger: Is the latest R&D version of Volrath's Shapeshifter; however, it does need some way to get stuff in the yard, so it isn't a self contained package like its all blue cousin. Still, it isn't screwed up by things hitting the graveyard and it can remove and imprint creatures from your opponent's graveyard if need be. On paper it sounded great to me, but I never really used him when I had him in the deck. It might be a better card when people learn how to play against my deck, so I will just have to wait and see.

I would be happy to hear other peoples comments and suggestions on this archetype.

[BigMac]

I think you thought things over well. The biggest problem i have with this is the manabase and the pithing needles. The pithing needles could be a good sideboard option. Against to many decks this would be a dead card. Only against welder based decks it could have its use. There are to many decks out there that do not use welders, and to use them to shut down fetchlands or wastelands is to narrow i think.

At the moment the best deck using waste effects is staxx. This deck can cripple you early on when you do not have a pithing needle, or get an early tanglewire/smokestack lock. As your deck does nothing against smokestack it is potentially deadly for you. Off course i could be wrong.

The sensei/survival synergy is absolutely something to look closer at.

[cssamerican]

I think you thought things over well. The biggest problem i have with this is the manabase and the pithing needles. The pithing needles could be a good sideboard option. Against to many decks this would be a dead card. Only against welder based decks it could have its use. There are to many decks out there that do not use welders, and to use them to shut down fetchlands or wastelands is to narrow i think.

Opposing Goblin Welders are a serious problem because they can become a one-sided Wrath of God on a stick. This means that I would be facing an uphill battle against any deck that played Goblin Welder. While this might only be an eighth of the field that is still a very large percentage in my mind and worthy of some type of maindeck solution. I think you are also underestimating the negative effect opposing Wastelands present to this deck. Any deck running Wastelands can potentially shut off my Volrath's Shapeshifter, this seems trivial at first until you start playing the deck and realize that half the field is running Wastelands. Stax, Fish, FCG, and Oath are all running them. It has been very effective versus decks using Bazaar of Baghdad (Dragon and UBAStax), which was something the original version of the deck had problems combating. The other thing to remember is this is an aggro-combo deck; therefore, slowing an opponent down, even if by a turn can be a game winning play. So, I don't have a problem naming stuff like Goblin Charbelcher, Chromatic Sphere, Aether Vial or Umezawa's Jitte if I feel that will buy me a turn or two.

At the moment the best deck using waste effects is staxx. This deck can cripple you early on when you do not have a pithing needle, or get an early tanglewire/smokestack lock. As your deck does nothing against smokestack it is potentially deadly for you. Off course i could be wrong.

One reason for running six fetchlands was to increase the odds of being able to grab a basic Forest in the face of recurring Wastelands. Running four Birds of Paradise also combats the Crucible/Strip lock, so you don’t necessarily need Pithing Needles to fight off that Stax lock. This deck combats Smokestacks and Tangle Wire naturally by playing a ton of permanents, and I think that is the best you can really hope for in a maindeck. The sideboard has Oxidizes to help combat Stax in games two and three, but I really do believe this deck has a better than average game versus Stax game one.

[LotusHead]

With 4 Dreadnaughts, 4 Pithing Needles and 3 Sensei's Divining Tops (not to mention 5 restricted mana), a Trinket Mage might be good in this deck.  It would directly fetch Pithing Needles to stop Welders/Wastes/Bazaar/Aether Vial/whatever and could add to your Cabal Therapy flashback options. Perhaps in the Gigapede Slot in the side (still puzzled by that one).  Trinket Mages would also allow for a lucky Engineered Explosives.

[rvs]

I hate to bring this up, but Survival decks are flawed by it's very concept. The reason is that you have no game whatsoever if they stop it.

[LotusHead]

I hate to bring this up, but Survival decks are flawed by it's very concept. The reason is that you have no game whatsoever if they stop it.

Actually, the Sensei's Top and 1 Fetchland can let you see 6 cards, There are 12 "must deal with" spells: 4 Masks, 4 ShapeShifters, 4 Survival of the Fittest.  Odds are, one of these will come up.  The control player can't always have the counterspells ready to go. 

The Top/Confidant is an interesting twist, and I wonder if it makes Green not terribly neccessary.

[Gabethebabe]

I love survival-mask decks so I´ll give you my two eurocents

4 Pithing needle is not necessary in this deck. Relatively low synergy with your game plan. I would certainly add a couple of Quirion RANGERS (not dryads) as they are just amazing. 18 creatures is on the low side.

I have tried Cabal Therapy in these kind of decks and just hated it. Duress does what you need. You don´t like to play Therapy for its flashback cost at all.

Prepare to lose against combo and lose badly. Survival decks had a notoriously bad matchup against combo, now without FoW it will be even worse.

You have no maindeck removal of any kind. You have no answer whatsoever to any kind of permanent. I´d add at least an Uktabi Orangutan. Also you need something against Welder. Maybe they can´t weld out your nought if you don´t have artifacts in your GY, but they sure can weld in Slaver.

No reason not to play Demonic Tutor.

Off-colour moxes don´t work in this deck. You can cut the Pearl, because 20 mana sources (or even 19, the amount I normally ran in Survival-Mask) should really be sufficient.

This deck needs more disruption. An idea could be to run Root Maze maindeck. Your strategy is based on creatures that have summoning sickness, might be a good idea to give their permanents a kind of summoning sickness as well. That means you have to reduce on your fetchies but since you don´t run Brainstorm, it is not such a big loss.

[cssamerican]

With 4 Dreadnaughts, 4 Pithing Needles and 3 Sensei's Divining Tops (not to mention 5 restricted mana), a Trinket Mage might be good in this deck.  It would directly fetch Pithing Needles to stop Welders/Wastes/Bazaar/Aether Vial/whatever and could add to your Cabal Therapy flashback options. Perhaps in the Gigapede Slot in the side (still puzzled by that one).  Trinket Mages would also allow for a lucky Engineered Explosives.

I tried it and wasn't that impressed with it. I think if I were to run a tutor it would be Demonic Tutor simply because it can get anything. Being a creature really isn't much of a bonus in this case. If I have Survival the only card I would tutor for with it would be Pithing Needle, since the deck has four Needles and some search I don’t think that need is going to come up that often. The Gigapede slot in the board was sort of a free slot that I toy with anti-removal cards. At times it had been a Sylvan Safekeeper, but versus UWFish, Gigapede was so much better that I went with it instead. It is easily the most flexible slot in board and could be cut without much loss.

I hate to bring this up, but Survival decks are flawed by it's very concept. The reason is that you have no game whatsoever if they stop it.

This is the very thing that I think the addition of Dark Confidant and Sensei's Divining Top address. After playing this deck the past couple of months I can tell you that in many match-ups Dark Confidant is just as big if not a bigger bomb than Survival itself.

4 Pithing needle is not necessary in this deck. Relatively low synergy with your game plan. I would certainly add a couple of Quirion RANGERS (not dryads) as they are just amazing. 18 creatures is on the low side.

Thanks for the correction; I fixed it in my original post. But I don't understand how you can say that Pithing Needles are unnecessary, yet Quirion Rangers are amazing and should be added. Is it simply because they are creatures and have synergy with Survival? I am not saying you are totally off base here because I know you have played variations of Survival Mask for a very long time, but rather I am trying to understand your logic behind this comment.

I have tried Cabal Therapy in these kind of decks and just hated it. Duress does what you need. You don´t like to play Therapy for its flashback cost at all.

This is true at times, but I don’t mind sacrificing a bird or at confidant if it will totally wreck my opponent's hand and give me a big advantage. And I really don't mind doing it to buy time if I have dreadnought on the board. There are also times in which it is better to bury your Bird or Confidant before you pitch a card in the yard to shift your Shapeshifter. Either way there are upsides and downsides to both cards, I just feel more comfortable with the extra disruption and minor utility that the flashback provides.

Prepare to lose against combo and lose badly. Survival decks had a notoriously bad matchup against combo, now without FoW it will be even worse.

Match-ups versus storm deck like Grimlong aren't pretty pre-board; however, post board I have a lot more disruption for them in the form of Duress. It's still an uphill battle though, but I can live with that because I don’t see those match-ups very often. If I did see them frequently I would probably be looking to play a different deck.

You have no maindeck removal of any kind. You have no answer whatsoever to any kind of permanent. I´d add at least an Uktabi Orangutan. Also you need something against Welder. Maybe they can´t weld out your nought if you don´t have artifacts in your GY, but they sure can weld in Slaver.

At one time I was running a Gilded Drake in the maindeck specifically for Platinum Angel, but I haven't been seeing her as much lately. If that were to change I would probably add it back; however, I don't think anything else is really necessary. Since Pithing Needle can handle things with activated abilities such as Goblin Welder. If you think I am overlooking a specific threat I should be worried about please elaborate.

No reason not to play Demonic Tutor.

To run it I have to cut a threat or a solution, and to use it I would have to spend resources on it. Obviously there will be times where it would be nice to have, but I have found on turn three I rather cast two threats in my hand than tutor for something in my library to cast. The reason for this is two fold. I have lots of threats to cast due to the deck’s redundancy and by casting two threats in a turn it is likely that I can bait a counter with one and resolve the other. If I were to add Demonic Tutor it would probably replace a Top since they sort of serve the same purpose in the deck.

Off-colour moxes don´t work in this deck. You can cut the Pearl, because 20 mana sources (or even 19, the amount I normally ran in Survival-Mask) should really be sufficient.

The Pearl isn't off-color per-se. It is on color when facing Oath and Dragon when I bring in the lone Savannah and the Ray of Revelations. At which point I have 13 ways to get the white mana if need be. But more importantly, this deck can use colorless mana to a much greater extent than previous versions. Pithing Needle and Sensei's Divining Top are completely colorless and the Top has a colorless activation cost.

This deck needs more disruption. An idea could be to run Root Maze maindeck. Your strategy is based on creatures that have summoning sickness, might be a good idea to give their permanents a kind of summoning sickness as well. That means you have to reduce on your fetchies but since you don´t run Brainstorm, it is not such a big loss.

But I do run Sensei's Divining Top in the main, and I do bring in a fetchable white source from the board, so there would be some loss if the fetch count were reduced.

[CF]

I like the strong focus of this deck. I'd probably put in a Trinket Mage for one of the Needles, just so I could find artifacts via Survival, but that's just me. I might have more thoughts on this deck after I take it for a spin.

--
Chris

[carl]

After playing this deck the past couple of months I can tell you that in many match-ups Dark Confidant is just as big if not a bigger bomb than Survival itself.

Did you play it in any tournament? Any report coming?

I am working on a version of Vengeur Masqué with Bob Maher Jr as well.

It looks promising in theory, but I don't think it can beat control (like CS).

So, with combo already a bad matchup, I am wondering how competitive the deck is.

[cssamerican]

Unfortunately I do not live in an area that is conducive to Vintage play. Secondly, my library of cards is pretty pathetic due to the lack of local opponents (no sense in spending money to play myself), so it is not likely I will ever play in a Vintage tournament.

Most of my games are against horrible players in MWS. However, every once in a while I get to play some decent players, and I try to judge my results in those games exclusively.

From my testing I would say your assessment is very good. Control Slaver is the hardest non-combo deck because of the combination of Goblin Welder and the ability to put an artifact in your yard via counter magic. This makes using Dreadnaughts very difficult at times, and is another reason why I think Pithing Needle belongs in the deck. If I were playing to win a tournament (Online of course) I wouldn't play this deck unless I just wanted to have fun, or if my intent was to place high with an unconventional deck. Do I think it can win a lot of match-ups? Sure, but I think there are other decks that can do it with a lot less effort that don't roll over to pure combo. That doesn't mean that people should just totally write it off though, Magic is a game and the last time I checked having fun is part of playing a game.