Always good to see Knights tribal post up good results, it does look real and I don't see any point in fabricating it, anyway do we have a link to verify it?
In a UB list, switching the Ninjas out for Faeries such as Scion of Oona, Mistbind Clique etc might be an interesting way to surprise the opponent, that being said I don't think it really does changes our poor matchups. Say if we are up against an aggro deck with large creatures, or a combo deck or even burn, changing our creatures to Faeries or infect does not improve our matchup. Unless we don't have anything for the sideboard otherwise it seems better just to put in the hate or counter stuffs.
It looks like Wizards feels that Modern is healthy enough so they are trying to make existing players continue to buy/play standard cards and sets rather than let this standard players evolve into modern players permanently.
What are your thoughts on Ravenous Rats. It has a nice EtB effect, but I never had much luck with it. It's the one card that makes me think, maybe I'd like to try transforming a black Ninja deck into something like 8 Rack for game two. Maybe Ninja into UB Faerie control?
I read through the thread and saw this question, so might as well just chip in with my experience in playing Ravenous Rats, IMO, other than using Familiar's Ruse or a BR Ninja Rats deck which carries cheap burn and removals, there are few opportunities to re-use Ravenous Rats ability. It is usually underwhelming and feels like a "opponent discard a irrelevant card, put a 1/1 creature in play". When I played it in my Mono Black Rats Ninjas, I had Typhoid Rats, Swarmyard together with it, so I could swing recklessly and re-use the ability if the rat goes unblocked, but in a UB deck I don't think the manabase permits us to play much of Swarmyard.
If you want the rats, you better make sure you can keep the board empty. You need to reuse them - just casting them and then chumpblocking is a bad plan. How realistic is that? I can't judge (again, I have little experience with UB).
Yup, using the ability once is not considered worthwhile and UB is usually unable to keep the board empty. My UR Ninjas does a better job, or BR with the burn spells.
If you could splash R, Faithless Looting is really amazing for Darth Knights, it can help to fuel the hand, dig for lands, drop knights into graveyard. It offers so much more than Sign in Blood - it even cost less (although it requires red) and can be flashbacked at a decent cost.
Wingcrafter is my favorite enabler for ninjas, mechanic wise.
I will qote myself from not too distant past:
Wingcrafter doesn't fly on its own, plus it is a blowout waiting to happen. Consider the optimum use case for the card: You attack with a Ninja who flies by being paired with the crafter, they have no air blocker, but they have a ground blocker (otherwise the crafter wouldn't be necessary). They zap crafter and their goyf eats ninja. Bam, 2-for-1.
yup, pretty much , that's why I still prefer to use flyers or unblockable creatures as my choice of enablers, the situationality of Windcrafter and Soulbond mechanic put us at risk of a 2 for 1 and also bring up consistency issues.
I have already dropped Kinsbaile Cavalier by now, he is amazing when you have a board full of knights, but with cheap removals rampant in the format that situation almost never appear anymore.
Well I've changed my original mono-white list around and wanted to hear any suggestions that you all have about it. There are some cards that I'm kinda on the fence about that people have suggested.
I see that you are not sure about Leonin Arbiter, personally I would just go all 4x Mother of Runes instead of splitting them in 2, Leonin Arbiter is not a bad card, but it simply doesn't do enough in a Knights deck compared to what it does in Hatebears especially in Modern when it is amazing with Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile. Here in legacy no one even plays Ghost Quarter and PtE to begin with. I noticed you have 3 PtE in the decklist, why not just go 4x Swords to Plowshares and 2x PtE combination since you might not have the Arbiter/PtE synergy anymore if you leave Arbiter out.
I also don't think 16 lands is enough, even with Mox Diamond and Aether Vial around. You need to pitch lands to Mox Diamond which would reduce your chances of drawing more lands. If you still wishes to have Mox Diamond and run low on lands, you should play a full set of Knight of the White Orchid, also, 21 creatures for Vial is not an optimal number, if possible, more creatures would be better, there seems to be too many spells and not enough creatures to use Aether Vial effectively.
I really like Necromancer's Stockpile as a way to discard Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. Not only can we start the Haakon engine going, we can also get a creature out of it. There's very good synergy with Haakon, Zombies and Knights here. Haakon as a Zombie Knight is really made for it !
Seeing there is so many hand discard, persecution and Smallpox which could be used on creatures, perhaps 3 PtE would be sufficient. You also need more lands than 20, maybe 22, because trying to cast Haakon and his knights are mana intensive and also taking into accounts Smallpox effects on our lands also.
i believe it'll be quite sometime before ninjas have "real success" but that should never discourage you from building something you'd enjoy especially something as cool as ninjas. has anyone tried like a Uwb esper fae ninja build? like the only things im thinking of doing with white would be sideboard stuff path to exile moorland haunt has anyone tried that land? i feel like thats perfect getting more uses out of your creatures. with black for discard and more ninjas. honestly would it kill to finally get the pirates vs ninja plane
yeah I like that Moorland Haunt provide us a steady stream of Ninja enablers, gives me a chance to shout "Ninjutsu" for every ninja I draw .
I would certainty add a couple of this into my deck if I splash W.
I was hugely disappointed with Hypnotic Siren. I had her in my deck as a one-of since Journey came out and I have yet to cast it in the Bestow mode. Against most decks, by the time I get to 7 mana I am usually either already winning or I'm dead. And against control decks, you can't generally sink 7 mana as sorcery speed to Control Magic their Snapcaster Mage. Not to mention that having it that late either means topdecking it or bouncing it, which is fairly rare. TLDR, the Siren was just a Flying Men for me.
One a different note, were a reasons why Sword of Fire and Ice is the Sword that is included (when a Sword is to be included) discussed in this thread? Because I don't think SoFaI is necessarily the best one.
Blue - Not terribly relevant. Protects from bouncing and Electrolyze. Destroys Merfolk, but there aren't many other blue creatures you would want protection from (outside of maybe Celestial Colonnade).
Black - Amazing - Protects from most of hard removal in the format (note that the Sword itself dies to Abrupt Decay). There aren't too many creatures you want to attack through/block (with notable exception of Batterskull germ).
Red - Sort of redudant - all the swords already add +2/+2 which works as a great padding against red burn, so the protection on top of that isn't relevant (outside of 1/1s, which our deck plays). There aren't too many red creatures you would want protection against (where the P/T bonus wouldn't do the job).
Green - Nice - Protects from the BG removal and more importantly the green creatures, especially Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and Kitchen Finks. How useful this is for the deck depends on how much removal you play.
So now let's consider the abilities:
Sword of Light and Shadow - WB - Repeatable lifegain can wreck aggro's day and help us race "fair" game plans of Pod and Twin decks (note that our deck generally has no other way to get out of burn range, should our life total become too low). The second ability is generally superior to card draw, because you select the card you get and most creatures will generally be better than the average card you draw, barring any top of the deck manipulation. You may want to consider trading away your dudes more aggressively, if you have this in your deck. The protections this sword offers are the most relevant and I believe it is superior to SoFaI for us.
Sword of Fire and Ice - UR - Shocking something is great (but won't kill anything half the time, so it only serves to accelerate the clock) and getting a card is nice too, but the protections are probably the weakest pair. This sword can get easily chump-blocked until the opponent finds removal, against which the sword offers little protection (while UR decks cry in the corner and attempt to combo off/race us). However, this sword has the most of the "if I connect, I win" oomph to it.
Sword of Body and Mind - UG - Summoning a bear token is nice, but it can offset the travesty that is the second ability, which helps the opponent more than you.
Sword of Feast and Famine - BG - Untapping everything for interaction on opponent's turn is great and partially offsets inherent weakness of the Sword - they are expensive to get going. The discard ability seldom gets anything too good, but it is still card advantage in fairly pure form. The protections are fairly nice. I actually quite like the sword for ninjas, but it is not.
Sword of War and Peace - WR - This helps racing and that's about it, doesn't affect the board in a meaningful way. At least doesn't help the opponent.
Good analysis !
It's a close fight between Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow to be honest, but I think in the decks we see around you are pretty right to say SoLS is the most effective sword at the moment for Modern Ninjas, the protection colors and the lifegain is very relevant in many matchups and between SoFI and SoLS, the latter does a better job against deck working on a clock or racing. I realize SoFI is too slow to race against opponents while SoLS is able to pull us out of range on more than a few occasions.
Why aren't people playing Triton Shorestalker? Its U for a 1/1 that can't be blocked that can block itself. I feel like its a very forgotten card in this thread, which is a surprise since the card is still standard playable.
I read through the thread and saw this question, so might as well just chip in with my experience in playing Ravenous Rats, IMO, other than using Familiar's Ruse or a BR Ninja Rats deck which carries cheap burn and removals, there are few opportunities to re-use Ravenous Rats ability. It is usually underwhelming and feels like a "opponent discard a irrelevant card, put a 1/1 creature in play". When I played it in my Mono Black Rats Ninjas, I had Typhoid Rats, Swarmyard together with it, so I could swing recklessly and re-use the ability if the rat goes unblocked, but in a UB deck I don't think the manabase permits us to play much of Swarmyard.
Yup, using the ability once is not considered worthwhile and UB is usually unable to keep the board empty. My UR Ninjas does a better job, or BR with the burn spells.
yup, pretty much
I added deck tags for you
I see that you are not sure about Leonin Arbiter, personally I would just go all 4x Mother of Runes instead of splitting them in 2, Leonin Arbiter is not a bad card, but it simply doesn't do enough in a Knights deck compared to what it does in Hatebears especially in Modern when it is amazing with Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile. Here in legacy no one even plays Ghost Quarter and PtE to begin with. I noticed you have 3 PtE in the decklist, why not just go 4x Swords to Plowshares and 2x PtE combination since you might not have the Arbiter/PtE synergy anymore if you leave Arbiter out.
I also don't think 16 lands is enough, even with Mox Diamond and Aether Vial around. You need to pitch lands to Mox Diamond which would reduce your chances of drawing more lands. If you still wishes to have Mox Diamond and run low on lands, you should play a full set of Knight of the White Orchid, also, 21 creatures for Vial is not an optimal number, if possible, more creatures would be better, there seems to be too many spells and not enough creatures to use Aether Vial effectively.
How about 1x Knight of Obligation and maybe 2x Darkblast to replace 1x Sun Titan and 1x Path to Exile?
Seeing there is so many hand discard, persecution and Smallpox which could be used on creatures, perhaps 3 PtE would be sufficient. You also need more lands than 20, maybe 22, because trying to cast Haakon and his knights are mana intensive and also taking into accounts Smallpox effects on our lands also.
If budget permits you can try Liliana of the Veil, Mutavault and Dark Confidant too.
yeah I like that Moorland Haunt provide us a steady stream of Ninja enablers, gives me a chance to shout "Ninjutsu" for every ninja I draw
I would certainty add a couple of this into my deck if I splash W.
I haven't tried Hypnotic Siren myself, 7 mana is probably around turn 9-10 or even later? Odds are very low to be able to cast in Bestow Mode so if the likes of Judge's Familiar and Zephyr Sprite are also underwhelming then Hypnotic Siren is always worth a look. There's Triton Shorestalker as well.
Good analysis
It's a close fight between Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow to be honest, but I think in the decks we see around you are pretty right to say SoLS is the most effective sword at the moment for Modern Ninjas, the protection colors and the lifegain is very relevant in many matchups and between SoFI and SoLS, the latter does a better job against deck working on a clock or racing. I realize SoFI is too slow to race against opponents while SoLS is able to pull us out of range on more than a few occasions.
Triton Shorestalker is even better than Tormented Soul because it could block, it is also better in affinity matchups since it can evade Ornithopter and Vault Skirge which could stop my usual flying enablers.