It's hard to not get excited during spoiler season. If you're a brewer, it's almost impossible not to see a ton of potential decks in new cards, and especially new Legendary creatures. Sometimes it's an upgrade to an already existing deck. Sometimes it's a powerful new Commander pushing us to do something broken. Sometimes it's a pet card; we know it's not the "best" but it's just what we wanted, and we can't wait to throw it together.

I've been thinking about my Five Tips for New Deck-builders, and thought it might be fun to do a few decks using those deck-building strategies. When I saw this early spoiler from the upcoming return to Kamigawa, I knew he'd be a great way to do just that. Let's get started!

We have a 2/4 Human Ninja for , which is fine. But it's those abilities we're going to work with, and those abilities which make him oh-so-exciting. Anytime we activate a Ninjutsu ability, we look at the top three, put one in our hand, and put the rest on the bottom. That's excellent card draw and filtering. And every creature in our hand has Ninjutsu. So we're not limited to only Ninjas! We can sneak in anything we can think of! This sounds like a lot of fun, but let's start with Tip #1, and truly where almost every deck should begin: the lands.

We will run 40 lands. At the beginning, we don't know what the breakdown will look like, because we don't know how much Blue vs. how much Black we'll have, and what our color requirements will be, which can affect how many non-color-producing lands we want to run. So I simply set aside 40 slots and don't touch them. We'll come back to how we landed where we did after we've built the deck.

Next up is mana acceleration and card draw. Tip #2 states we can get a baseline of acceleration based on the cost of our Commander. 3 mana or less, we run eight pieces. Four or five, we run nine, and six or more, we run ten. We have a three-mana Commander, so we'll run eight.

With a three-mana Commander, though, we're in an interesting spot. With the absurd Mana Crypt or luck with lands and a Sol Ring, it's possible, but we need another creature for our Commander to work anyway. Instead, we're going to hope for the following line of play: turn one, land, one-mana creature. turn two, land, mana rock. turn three, tapped land, Commander. turn four, land, Ninjutsu! This means we want mana rocks which cost two, not three, so no Darksteel Ingot or Coalition Relic. Instead, we have the two Signets, plus Charcoal and Sky Diamond, Fellwar Stone, Guardian Idol and Ebony Fly (both of which can turn into creatures in the event we can use that to Ninjutsu something later), and Thought Vessel, which nicely gives us no hand size, which could be helpful. Note this also means we want a good amount of lands which come into play untapped; that will matter later.

Tip #2 also says we want between 10 - 12 pieces of card draw. We run 10 if we have regular access to draw, and 12 if we need to run more one-shot spells. Blue nicely gives us several ways to draw cards repeatedly over time (in addition to our Commander who hopefully will draw us a lot), so that seemed like a good place to start. We normally can't use Equipment which give us a card when the creature deals combat damage, because we'll often return the creature before it does damage! We do get the wonderful Bident of Thassa, though, which draws no matter who does the damage and gives us a backup plan to clear someone's board of blockers. Reconnaissance Mission does the same thing without the second ability, Deepfathom Skulker staples the ability to a creature, and Rogue Class gives us access to our opponents' cards, which is close to as good and probably more fun. Since our Commander draws cards and we have a few solid ways of getting repeatable draw, I added six more one-shot spells which both draw two cards (minimum) and do so at Instant speed; no reason to spend our mana before we have to. Mysteries of the Deep is probably worth doing with the Landfall, though, rather than waiting - the card is worth more than saving the mana.

We want to be able to interact with the board, too. Tip #3 suggests a few ways to do this, and sometimes we're going to be limited by our color selection. We should be good at bouncing most things and killing creatures, but we probably will struggle to deal with opposing Artifacts and Enchantments. That's okay! We'll run a couple of board wipes (Life's Finale and Decree of Pain) and a few removal spells. Since we can, let's Exile opposing creatures, so Baleful Mastery, Deadly Rollick, and Reality Shift find their way in. We could run more counters, but I'm a fan of the well-placed counter to put fear into your opponents every time they play against you, so Wash Away is here (it's shocking how often you'll cast this for Blue). Finally, Drown in the Loch straddles the line as a counter and a kill spell; options are always good.

This leaves us 36 slots to deal with Tip #4: Build to your Commander. Here's the plan:

Play a cheap, unblockable creature.

Attack with that creature. It goes unblocked (shocker!).

Ninjutsu in something huge that has no business entering the Battlefield for 4 mana.

We want one of the cheap creatures in our first few turns, so we're going to dedicate ten slots to them. Changeling Outcast, Gudul Lurker, Tormented Soul, Dimir Infiltrator, and the granddaddy of them all, Invisible Stalker, all work here. There aren't enough at 1 mana, so we do have a few at two, but we should see one of them early often enough to make this work.

We also want to be able to reliably get down threat after threat, so we need even more big guys; we're going to devote 22 slots to this. Choose whatever you want for these, just make sure they're big and affect the board, either with an Enters-the-Battlefield effect or a Combat Damage effect (since they'll always be unblocked on their first hit). A few highlights include: Archon of Cruelty (they lose stuff, we gain stuff. Seems good); Fallen Shinobi (we get their stuff, and for cheaper than the card says!); Inspired Sphinx (more cards are good. And it's a mana sink if we wind up with more than we know what to do with); Mindleech Mass (more of their stuff!); Overseer of the Damned (kill their stuff!); Rune-Scarred Demon (how about what we want, huh?); and my personal favorite, Agent of Treachery (we keep it even if the Agent leaves the Battlefield!). The Primordials and the Titans both seemed good, and Denizen of the Deep will bounce back all our other stuff... allowing us to Ninjutsu it all again, all while hitting for 11. There is an argument for Eldrazi, but they tend to care about being cast; if that's your thing, though, go for it. This is the place to put your favorite big dudes and show the table who you are. Have fun!

The final four cards play with the fact the majority of our creatures want to come into play more than once. We can start with Conjurer's Closet and Deadeye Navigator, both of which let us blink our creatures for more ETB fun. Think about how awesome it would be to have Agent of Treachery Soulbound to a Deadeye Navigator! We've also got Portal of Sanctuary and Crystal Shard, which let us return our creatures to our hand to be Ninjutsu'd again; this can be quite effective with that 11/11, but both methods work for Myr Battlesphere to make more Myr or Scion of Darkness to keep stealing cool stuff.

For lands, the first thing I did was look at my mana breakdown. We have a near even split of Blue and Black mana symbols. As we mentioned before, we want plenty of lands which come in untapped. There are also a few effects worth having; extra card draw (Castle Locthwain), lands which can turn into creatures for more Ninjutsu fun (Creeping Tar Pit), and getting our stuff back in case someone steals our Commander (Homeward Path).

Satoru Umezawa | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Satoru Umezawa

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Aether Figment
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Archon of Cruelty
• 1 Chancellor of the Spires
• 1 Changeling Outcast
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Deepfathom Skulker
• 1 Denizen of the Deep
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Dimir Infiltrator
• 1 Fallen Shinobi
• 1 Flitterstep Eidolon
• 1 Frost Titan
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Gudul Lurker
• 1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
• 1 Inspired Sphinx
• 1 Invisible Stalker
• 1 Mindleech Mass
• 1 Mist-Cloaked Herald
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Overseer of the Damned
• 1 Phyrexian Ingester
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Scion of Darkness
• 1 Sepulchral Primordial
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1 Silent-Blade Oni
• 1 Slither Blade
• 1 Tormented Soul
• 1 Triton Shorestalker
• 1 Vilis, Broker of Blood

• Instants (11)
• 1 Artificer's Epiphany
• 1 Baleful Mastery
• 1 Behold the Multiverse
• 1 Crushing Disappointment
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Drown in the Loch
• 1 Glimmer of Genius
• 1 Mysteries of the Deep
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Succumb to Temptation
• 1 Wash Away

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Life's Finale

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Reconnaissance Mission
• 1 Rogue Class

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Crystal Shard
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Ebony Fly
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Guardian Idol
• 1 Portal of Sanctuary
• 1 Sky Diamond
• 1 Thought Vessel

• Lands (40)
• 5 Island
• 5 Swamp
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Bad River
• 1 Blighted Cataract
• 1 Blighted Fen
• 1 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Creeping Tar Pit
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Faerie Conclave
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Haunted Fengraf
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Memorial to Folly
• 1 Memorial to Genius
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sanctum of Eternity
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Sunken Ruins
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

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As decks go, this isn't really expensive, but it's certainly not budget, coming in around $300 at the time of this writing. That said, it could go down a lot by changing a few cards. Sheoldred, Whispering One is a pet card of mine; she's also a bit spendy and could be lots of other things. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni and Archon of Cruelty are similar and could be other things. Deadly Rollick is really, really good, but Hero's Downfall or Vraska's Contempt might be cheaper or more available. Any of the dual lands can be replaced with basics, starting with an Island and alternating to Swamp. (There is slightly more Blue needed, so may as well lean into it.) The unblockable dudes are all reasonably cheap, and that's the real engine; the rest of it is just what you've got and what you want to run.

It's possible a bit of protection might be worth it. Neurok Stealthsuit could be great, because it can be attached at instant speed for , so if the creature we just Ninjutu'd in to play gets targeted, we can protect it. It also allows us to protect our Commander from early hate, which could be a problem. Remember you can use a Portal to return our Commander to our hand! Additionally, Inundate would probably be a good sweeper, if another became necessary, and Deepchannel Mentor might be a good add if you find your big dudes aren't getting through once they're down.

One might argue the deck doesn't need this much ramp. (One might also argue it doesn't need this much land, but those people are wrong, so we're not going to engage.) It's true: if things go well, we'll never need more than four or five mana in a turn. The thing is, things go wrong. Plans fall apart. Someone keeps killing your Commander or steals it or whatever. The nice thing is, with all this mana we'll be able to hard cast our big spells and win the old-fashioned way. We'll have mana to hold up a kill spell, a card draw spell, and do all the things we want to do with a turn. This deck won't win every game it plays, but it'll compete every time it's shuffled up.

What do you want to do with Satoru? What would you do with this deck? What are your pet big dudes? Anyone want to fight about the 40 lands thing, 'cause I will!

Thanks for reading.