Ninja, Anyone?

I was looking through my collection trying to find one of my Monster Reborns to add to the Xyz Symphony Starter Deck I picked up, when I noticed something: I have a LOT of Ninja cards. So that got me thinking... Could I make a Ninja deck that works? Ninja are all considerably weak, what with the only Ninja I own with a respectable set of stats being Senior Silver Ninja with 2300 ATK... So it would be difficult to keep the Ninja on the field. Negation and Speed would be KEY!

So thinking even more about it, I came up with an idea for a deck where you wouldn't need to worry about all the Ninja being weak, as your opponent would have trouble getting a monster into Attack Position, let alone actually completing an attack.

For those of you who want to skip the card discussion, I have the recipe at the bottom of the post.

Remember a Spell card called "Stumbling"?

Stumbling is a Continuous Spell that says: "Any monster that is Normal Summoned, Flip Summoned, or Special Summoned is changed to Defense Position."

Basically, this means, unless you can switch your monster to Attack Position with a card effect, you can't attack for a turn. This applies to BOTH players.

Now think about this card:

Earthquake... Kinda like Stumbling, only not a Continuous Spell. It reads: "Change all face-up monsters to Defense Position."

I'd like to point to a key word here: "face-up".Here are two cards that instantly came to mind for me when reading Stumbling and Earthquake:

White Ninja is a FLIP Effect monster that says: "FLIP: Target 1 Defense Position monster on the field; destroy that target."

You have to be careful because his effect activates immediately (no choice), so if your opponent has no monsters in Defense Position, you have to destroy one of your Defense Position monsters (if you have any).

Now, I know Dream Clown isn't a Ninja, but this is definitely a useful card to have with this kind of deck, as his effect says: "When this card is changed from Attack Position to Defense Position, destroy 1 monster on your opponent's side of the field."

This is simple. With Stumbling active, throw down a Dream Clown; He'll be automatically be changed to Defense mode, and then he'll do his thing.

You can Set White Ninja and then activate Stumbling. When you opponent summons a monster, it'll be switched to Defense mode. On your turn, Flip White Ninja. 

As long as you can counter any Spells or Traps that can negate and/or destroy Stumbling or Earthquake, you should be able to control your opponent's field long enough to bring out the Xyz monsters. I made it a point to add Spell/Trap negation cards such as Dark Bribe, Seven Tools of the Bandit, Solemn Judgement, as well as a Starlight Road, so I can possibly sneak a Stardust Dragon out. Mystical Space Typhoon and Dust Tornado may not Negate anything, but they can get rid of face-down backrow cards or any annoying Continuous Spells/Traps your opponent has active.

Now, as far as the other Ninja go... The Armor Ninja are all great. At least one of each is necessary for this deck.

Air Armor Ninja: "When this card is Summoned: you can target 1 face-up "Ninja" monster you control; reduce its level by 1."

Earth's effect reads: "If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand)."

Flame Armor Ninja is basically Air Armor Ninja, except instead of reducing, he increases a face-up Ninja's level.

"When this card is Summoned: you can target 1 face-up "Ninja" monster you control; increase its level by 1."

Aqua's effect says: "When your opponent's monster declares a direct attack, if you have another "Ninja" monster in your Graveyard: You can banish this card from your Graveyard to target the attacking monster; negate that attack."

These are all necessary because, depending on which Ninja Xyz monster you're gonna go into, you'll need to use Air, Earth, and Fire in conjunction.

The two Ninja Xyz monsters are:

Blade Armor Ninja was talked about in my previous post. She's by FAR my favorite Xyz monster. 

Her summoning requirements and effect are: "2 level 4 Warrior-Type monsters - Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to target 1 face-up "Ninja" monster you control; this turn, that monster can attack twice during each Battle Phase."

What you'd do here is Summon Air Armor Ninja, reduce Earth's level by 1, and go into Blade.

She's good to use when setting up for Game (Win.), or just to deal a massive amount of damage (more than half of their Life Points with her effect alone).

Number 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja is pretty cool. He's one of those that you can bring out to knock heads with his 2400 attack points OR protect you other Ninja. His effect reads:

"2 level 5 monsters - Once per turn, during either player's turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; this turn, all face-up "Ninja" monsters you control cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects."

His effect is VERY useful, since, with Stumbling active, it'll take a turn for him to attack. So you'll need his effect to protect himself, Blade Armor Ninja, or other Ninja.

Other support includes Marauding Captain, who not only let's you Special summon any other level 4 or lower monster from your hand when he's Normal Summoned, but ALSO, if you can get two of them out, you have created an attack lock, since all monsters in this deck are Warrior-Types. So the only way your opponent can destroy your monsters would be via card effects, and, well... There are quite a few negation cards. 

Two great Ninja Support monsters are Masked Ninja Ebisu and Upstart Golden Ninja. Ebisu is pretty much a Ninja form of Giant Trunade (Sends all Spells/Traps to their owners' hands.) Giant Trunade is currently Forbidden. Though Ebisu's effect only bounces cards up to the number of Ninja you control to your opponent's hand.

Upstart Golden Ninja is your searcher. This means he is an absolute staple in this deck. Without him, this deck wouldn't run very well at all.

Upstart works great since there are a LOT of Traps in this deck. You don't need to worry about Stumbling getting in the way of this, as he summons them in Defense mode or face-down Defense mode by default. 

The 'Big Guy' of the deck, in a way, is Senior Silver Ninja.

His effect reads: "When this card is flipped face-up: You can Special Summon any number of "Ninja" monsters, except "Senior Silver Ninja", from your hand and/or Graveyard in face-down Defense Position. There can only be 1 face-up "Senior Silver Ninja" on the field."

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get him on the field in this deck except via Tribute Summon or Special Summon via Call of the Haunted. However, you can easily flip him with Book of Moon or Wind-Up Zenmaister.

Do note that Wind-Up Zenmaister will flip Senior Silver Ninja up in the End-Phase.

In Traditional duels ONLY, you can use Tsukuyomi the same way you use Book of Moon.

This card is FORBIDDEN in the Advanced Format.

The Last card that will receive any discussion is Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo. He can search ANY "Ninja" monster, including Senior Silver Ninja. However, this is the only one of his effects that will be used, since there are no "Ninjitsu Art" cards in this particular build. 

Here is the Decklist:

The Main Deck contains 42 cards.

21 Monsters:

3x Upstart Golden Ninja

1x Masked Ninja Ebisu

2x Air Armor Ninja

1x Aqua Armor Ninja

2x Earth Armor Ninja

2x Flame Armor Ninja

1x Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo

1x White Ninja

1x Crimson Ninja

1x Armed Ninja

1x Senior Silver Ninja

2x Dream Clown

2x Marauding Captain

9 Spells:

1x Reinforcement of the Army

2x Warrior Returning Alive

1x Book of Moon

3x Stumbling

2x Earthquake

12 Traps:

1x Waboku 

1x Kunai with Chain

1x Call of the Haunted

1x Mirror of Oaths

1x Sakuretsu Armor

1x Threatening Roar

1x Defense Draw

1x Dust Tornado

1x Dark Bribe

1x Trap Hole

1x Solemn Judgement

1x Starlight Road

Extra Deck: 15

3x Blade Armor Ninja

3x Number 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja

3x Wind-Up Zenmaister

3x Number 39: Utopia

1x Number C39: Utopia Ray

1x Steelswarm Roach

1x Stardust Dragon

Side Deck: 8

1x Monster Reborn

1x  Mystical Space Typhoon

1x Mirror Force

1x Call of the Haunted

1x Solemn Warning

1x Gravity Axe - Grarl

1x Burden of the Mighty

1x Level Limit Area B

That's it. It's not super competitive to me... But it's a cool deck, I think. Tested it on Dueling Network. Won a few matches.

Deck 1: HERO Xyz! (HERO 2012)

For the first deck here, I think I'll post a fun one, as I'm a huge fan of fun and easy-to-play decks. The HERO archetype has always had this aspect, thus I have always been a HERO player. This deck will focus mainly around Elemental HEROes, while integrating the Omni-HEROes and Masked HEROes, as well as some powerful Xyz attackers.

First of all, if you're a HERO player, you've probably heard of the Bubble Beat deck, with Bubbleman, Stratos, and Neos Alius, and a crap-load of Spells and Traps, yeah? Well, this deck is similar, but there are a few more options with it. I wanted to design a similar deck, but not worry about not drawing monsters on my first draw. So rather than only having 7 monsters, and 33 Spells and Traps, I kept the Monster to Spell/Trap ratio as equal as I could. So here's the list:

By the way, if you wonder what any of these monsters' effects are, and they're not referenced below the list, look them up on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia site HERE.

The Main Deck contains 42 cards;

21 Monsters:
1x E-HERO Stratos
3x E-HERO Bubbleman
2x E-HERO Sparkman
2x E-HERO Clayman
2x E-HERO Prisma
1x E-HERO Wildheart
1x E-HERO Heat
1x E-HERO Lady Heat
1x E-HERO Ocean
1x E-HERO Neos Alius
1x E-HERO Flash
1x E-HERO Burstinatrix
1x E-HERO Avian
1x E-HERO Neos
1x E-HERO Bladedge 
1x Armored Bee

14 Spells:
3x Miracle Fusion
2x Mask Change
1x Super Polymerization
1x Reinforcement of the Army (R.o.t.A.)
1x E - Emergency Call (E-Call)
1x Monster Reborn
1x Smashing Ground
1x Dark Hole
1x Heavy Storm
1x Galaxy Wave
1x Fusion Gate

7 Traps:
3x Compulsory Evacuation Device
1x Solemn Warning
1x Mirror Force
1x Hero Signal
1x Hero Barrier

15 Extra Deck:
1x Masked HERO Vapor
1x Masked HERO Dian
1x Masked HERO Acid
1x E-HERO Nova Master
1x E-HERO Great Tornado
1x E-HERO Gaia
3x E-HERO Absolute Zero
3x E-HERO The Shining
2x Blade Armor Ninja
1x Number 39: Utopia

15 Side Deck:
2x Parallel World Fusion
1x Burial From a Different Dimension
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Polymerization
1x Swords of Revealing Light
1x Book of Moon
2x Xyz Energy
1x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Solemn Warning
1x Solemn Judgement
1x Seven Tools of the Bandit
1x E-HERO Woodsman


As you can see, this isn't the most competitive deck out there, but it is still pretty good. It can be annoying to your opponent when they summon a monster and you bounce it back to their hand via Compulsory Evac., or when you use it as Fusion material for an Omni HERO by flipping Super Poly. Or when they fill their field up with monsters and you drop a Dark Hole, then a Heavy Storm, and then attack head-on with a big monster like Bladedge, Neos, Great Tornado, or a Miracle-fused E-HERO The Shining.

Running 3 Bubbleman has also proven to be good, since you can actually set up to summon him with his effect easier and more often than you'd think. The benefits of this is that you can go for some Rank 4 Xyz plays with ease, just like you would in the Bubble Beat deck. Notice how, with the exception of Neos, Bladedge, Burstinatrix, and Avian, all the monsters are level 4. Burstinatrix, and Avian can also be replaced very easily. I just have them in there because Burstinatrix is my personal favorite, and Avian is another Wind monster for Great Tornado. Those reasons and the fact that, since they're quite weak, they make good dummy cards to draw out opponents monsters early-game so I can take advantage with Super Poly.

Armored Bee is actually more useful than I'd given him credit for at first. Why? Well, because his effect cuts an opponent's monster's attack points in half, and with Armored Bee having 1600 ATK, unless the opponent's monster is 3300+, he can take it out by attacking. So he's really good for taking out things like Blue-Eyes, Dark Armed Dragon, B.L.S. etc...

The main Extra Deck cards here are definitely E-HERO The Shining, Absolute Zero, and Blade Armor Ninja. The Shining is great because if he's summoned by means of Miracle Fusion or Fusion Gate, he has 3200 attack at least, plus 300 for every other banished E-HERO. Absolute Zero is all but a time bomb, as when he leaves the field, he nukes your opponent's monster zone, rendering them open for an attack. This is a great thing because you can abuse the hell out of Fusion Gate here. Summon Absolute Zero, then use Fusion Gate to summon a Shining (preferably while you have several other banished E-HEROes) using Absolute Zero and some light monster in your hand or on the field, and boom. There goes your opponent's monsters, and they're open for an attack. PLUS, for even more damage, you can go with my favorite thing to do:

Blade Armor Ninja is a Rank 4 Xyz monster who's effect allows you to detach one of her Xyz materials to allow her to attack twice in one battle phase. This should be pretty self explanatory. Blow up your opponent's field with the Absolute Zero and Shining combo while you have 2 Blade Armor Ninja present on the field (this is easy to do, and I have done this many times). The two Ninja attacking twice is 8800 points of damage right there. A lot of times though, I only need to use one Ninja, as by the time I set up for her, my opponent has already taken quite a bit of damage.

Other notable cards are E-HERO Nova Master and his draw power perk, Masked HERO Dian and her ability to special summon a HERO when she destroys a monster by battle, Masked HERO Acid and his Spell/Trap-nuking effect, Galaxy Wave, since this is an Xyz-based deck, and, of course Number 39: Utopia, who has almost become a staple.

This side deck is just kinda based on what this deck could use, but just simply doesn't have room for.

Like I said, this isn't the most competitive deck, but it is very fun, and I'm sure with your own twist on it, you could make it quite competitive!