Masterful Ninja MTG Card
Key Takeaways
- Masterful Ninja offers card advantage through its reusable nature, enhancing strategic flexibility in gameplay.
- While elusive, the card can pose deck-building challenges due to specific mana needs and higher cost.
- It remains relevant in various metas, providing surprise tactics and combo potential for decks.
Text of card
Haste Reveal Masterful Ninja from your hand: Masterful Ninja is on the battlefield and in your hand until end of turn. : Masterful Ninja gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Masterful Ninja provides a unique toolset that enables players to create deceptive plays, keeping your hand well-stocked as it can repeatedly return to your hand and be cast again. This feature helps keep your options open and resources plentiful, which is essential for outmaneuvering opponents in strategic matches.
Resource Acceleration: Though not directly providing mana or acceleration in the traditional sense, the stealthy nature of Masterful Ninja allows you to bypass the need for additional resources by presenting a threat that’s difficult to account for. This offers an implicit form of acceleration by reducing the resources required to maintain a board presence.
Instant Speed: With the ability to be “cast” from your hand without spending mana via its unique ability, Masterful Ninja can be a game-changer. Having the capacity to surprise block an attacker or to appear on the battlefield during the end step before your turn grants a considerable tactical advantage, enabling actions that can alter the course of the game at critical moments without tapping out your mana.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: To unleash a Masterful Ninja’s abilities, you often need to discard another card. This can deplete your hand, leaving you with fewer options as the game progresses.
Specific Mana Cost: Mastering the way of the ninja requires a precise combination of mana, including typically at least one black mana. This can make it challenging for decks without a heavy black mana base to cast Masterful Ninja effectively.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a steeper mana curve, deploying a Masterful Ninja onto the battlefield might come at the expense of other strategic plays or the casting of multiple spells in a turn.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Masterful Ninja boasts a unique ability to be both a hidden surprise and a consistent threat. It can fit seamlessly into various deck strategies that value evasion and surprise tactics, always keeping your opponent guessing.
Combo Potential: With its haste and the capacity to enter the battlefield directly from your hand, this card opens up possibilities for combos with cards that capitalize on creatures entering the battlefield or dealing combat damage.
Meta-Relevance: As the game evolves, Masterful Ninja maintains its relevance by being able to adapt to various meta environments. Its strength lies in its ability to disrupt opponent’s plays by posing an unpredictable threat that can quickly shift the tide of a match.
How to beat
The Masterful Ninja card presents a unique set of challenges on the battlefield. Its stealth abilities allow it to slip past defenses, catching opponents off guard. To effectively counter this elusive adversary, it’s vital to have a strategy that includes spells or abilities that can reveal or target creatures regardless of their stealth. Having access to instant-speed removals or board wipes can mitigate the surprise advantage that Masterful Ninja brings to the table.
Utilizing effects that prevent creatures from attacking or block can also serve as a deterrent to the Ninja’s offensive capabilities. Players should consider including such defensive spells in their deck to neutralize the threat. Additionally, cards with the “can’t be blocked” mechanic need a specific answer since they bypass traditional defense lines. Efficient creature control paired with vigilant deck monitoring can tip the scales back in your favor when facing a Masterful Ninja.
Ultimately, success against Masterful Ninja hinges on preparedness and quick response. Keeping a diverse array of countermeasures ready will ensure that the element of surprise is firmly in your hand, reducing the effectiveness of your opponent’s stealthy strategies and allowing you to maintain control of the game’s pace and direction.
Cards like Masterful Ninja
The allure of Masterful Ninja in the world of Magic: The Gathering lies in its elusive nature, sharing the battlefield with other renowned stealthy creatures. Standing eye to eye with Phantom Ninja, both embody the essence of unblockability. However, Masterful Ninja has a unique trick up its sleeve—its ability to be virtually on the battlefield the moment you reveal it from your hand, catching opponents off guard in a way Phantom Ninja simply cannot.
Muchs like Silent-Blade Oni, Masterful Ninja operates under the cover of surprise, yet the Oni’s ability to cast cards from the opponent’s hand can be game-defining. Meanwhile, Masterful Ninja’s power and toughness are dynamically tied to your hand size, making it an unpredictable force, as adaptable as it is stealthy. And then there’s Ninja of the Deep Hours, a card that shares the surprise attack factor, albeit granting card advantage instead of fluctuating power.
Overall, in the realm of ninja-themed cards, Masterful Ninja stands out by allowing for instantaneous combat trickery and a formidable presence based on the player’s hand size, offering a blend of versatility and unpredictability that resonates with players looking for a strategic edge in their MTG decks.
Cards similar to Masterful Ninja by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Masterful Ninja MTG card by a specific set like Unstable and The List (Unfinity Foil Edition), there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Masterful Ninja and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See Magic products
Printings
The Masterful Ninja Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2017-12-08 and 2022-10-07. Illustrated by Matt Gaser.
| # | Release | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2017-12-08 | Unstable | UST | 60 | 2015 | normal | silver | Matt Gaser | |
| 2 | 2022-10-07 | The List (Unfinity Foil Edition) | ULST | 22 | 2015 | normal | silver | Matt Gaser |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Masterful Ninja card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2018-01-19 | If Masterful Ninja is destroyed or discarded, it goes to your graveyard. It will no longer be on the battlefield or in your hand. |
| 2018-01-19 | If you try to move Masterful Ninja from the battlefield to your hand or vice versa, and it’s in both zones, it will just stay in both zones. For example, if Masterful Ninja is in both zones, casting Unsummon targeting it won’t do anything. |
| 2018-01-19 | It’s right there. |
| 2018-01-19 | Look closer. |
| 2018-01-19 | Masterful Ninja’s first activated ability doesn’t cause any enters-the-battlefield abilities to trigger. When the turn ends and Masterful Ninja stops being both on the battlefield and in your hand, this won’t cause any dies or leaves-the-battlefield abilities to trigger. If Masterful Ninja enters or leaves the battlefield some other way, those abilities work as normal. |
| 2018-01-19 | No, that’s a table. |
