Okay, so today I want to share my new baby with you.

As some of you might know... probably not... I'm a seasoned Grixis/4c Control player from back in the time when Treasure Cruise still was a thing.
To be honest, even way back when Tempo Faries still was a thing. I often play the stock lists only for some weeks, before they bore me and I try to twist and bend them to my liking.
As happened with Grixis control now. I mean I realy enjoy it that the deck that I care and love gets some time in the spotlight and many people pick it up and have fun,
but... The more people play it, the more people have a sideboard against it.

Anyway I browsed through reddit and found this post from a guy that made 2nd place at a 6 Round + Top8 Tournament with UB Ninjas.
As he stated in the post alot of his card choices were made to be more "themed" than beeing optimal, but the core concept got me intrigued.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow was a card that I was excited by right after it's release. Her effect in itself is quite powerfull and her casting costs even when not brought in by ninjutsu is not that restraining.


So aftersome initial pondering and going 2-1-1 and 4-0 at our local legacy league this is what I came up with for now:


//Creature
4 Baleful Strix
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
1 Spellstutter Sprite

//Instant
4 Brainstorm
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Lightning Bolt

//Planeswalker
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Sorcery
1 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
2 Preordain

//Land
2 Island
1 Mutavault
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire

//Sideboard

1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Bitterblossom
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pyroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Reanimate
2 Marsh Casualties


Cardchoices

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow & Ninja of the Deep Hours
Quite obviously, these are the cards that drive this deck. Both are excelent at generating card advantage against decks with a low creaturecount.
Their respective bodies are not impressive but still okay, especially yuriko with 1/3 can be a good roadblock against decks like D'nT.

Baleful Strix
Cardadvantage, difficult to block and a great blocker in itself. Strix is the best at enabling ninjutsu and adds even more value when recast.

Snapcaster Mage
I don't think I have to say much about the overall quality of this card, so I won't. But the main appeal it adds to this deck is the flash body.
Casting Snappy on Turn 2 even without flashing back anyhing, enables attacking on turn 3 and putting a ninja into play.
This is especially usefull when leaving up a reactive Removal or Counterspell.

Spellstutter Sprite
Another flash body, but adding evasion. I would love to play more but I don't know if this Fary adds alot to the deck.
In a UB version with Maindeck Bitterblossom and some more mutavaults I would definetly play 3-4 of these.

Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, Diabolic Edict, Kolaghan's Command
The removal suit of the deck. The Main Appeal of beeing Grixis is adding Bolt for reach and K.Command for cardadvantage and artifact removal.
Push does hit more targets then Bolt does and edict is needed especially against Lands and Sneak&Show.

Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain
I don't know if this is correct but even though Ponder lets you see more cards, it allways feels like if you need one of them keeping two duds feels miserable.
Especially in long grindy games or games where you are searching for a specific card, which is not winning the game but rather putting you at a significant advantage,
not having to keep 2 empty cards just to get this one card feels a little better. But this could also be totally wrong.

Liliana, the last Hope, Jace, the Mind Sculptor
I'm actually pondering with cutting Jace from the list, because you don't want to tap out, but on the other side he is such a beast when getting on the board unanswered.
Liliana on the other hand is just great in decks like this. Clearing the board with her + to get in attacks with our ninjas feels great.
And Returning our value creatures with the - ability is just insane at some points in the game. Needless to say, her ultimate wins games.

Landbase
I copied a Landbase I normaly use for Grixis control and added a Mutavault as another Ninja,
but to be honest I think it is to cute and I would rather play another Mana producing Land, maybe a Mountain if Assassin's Trophy realy lives up to it's hype.

Sideboard
Its adjusted to our local meta so I don't want to get into detail here but Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast are the second reason to go Grixis over straight UB.


Okay, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the read and I will try to keep you up to date with the deck as I will tune and adjust it over time.
I was actually planing to build the deck on MTGO and make a stream about it but sadly Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow is not available on MTGO until at least december.
So for now it's mostly paper testing. If you have any feedback just put it in the thread and maybe you will give this deck a chance yourself. It's realy fun and I hope to bring the list to MTGtop8 fame ;)