Hey,

Every so often you'll see a rogue deck do well in tournaments. Conley Woods did it a few weeks ago with a deck he calls "The Bant Wagon". From that point forward, Stoneforge Mystic has had a steady increase in popularity across the board as an equipment tutor on a slim 1/2 body.

Will Ornithopter ever reach $7.00?  A guy can dream right?

Without further ado, here's a deck piloted by Antonio Castellini to 7th Place at San Juan PTQ. Source is DeckCheck.

**Important note:  At the time of writeup, the deck posted was missing two cards.  I put Stoneforge Mystics in their place, but after the deck was corrected, they became Venser, Shaper Savant.  In short, replace all Stoneforge Mystics in the list for download with Venser.

Lands

1 Adarkar Wastes
4 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Glacial Fortress

Creatures
3 Mistblade Shinobi
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Ornithopter
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Zephyr Sprite
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Sower of Temptation

Spells
3 Echoing Truth
2 Familiar's Ruse
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Favor of the Mighty
1 Relic of Progenitus

Sideboard
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Roil Elemental
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Negate
1 Favor of the Mighty
3 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus

Try this deck out--DOWNLOAD the deck file for Magic Workstation

Ninjas and Fae. The one card splashed for that makes this deck stand out is:
Think about it.  The mightiest creature seeing play is the 20/20 BLACK Marit Lage token courtesy of Dark Depths/Vampire Hexmage decks.  All tokens have a CMC of 0-mana, meaning that any flying creature can block the token indefinitely AND be immune to removal, assuming that there isn't a Vampire Hexmage in play.  Also, an important ruling:

If there's a tie for highest converted mana cost, all of those creatures have protection from all colors.This effect is checked continuously. If a new creature enters the battlefield with the highest converted mana cost, it gains protection from all colors and the previous highest loses it.

That means that if an Ornithopter and a Lage token are the only creatures in play, then both creatures have the protection.

Considering that most of Extended is either token-based or cheap creature based, this is a good call.  The only thing I can think of that doesn't fall into the above categories is Hypergenesis (and you have counterspells for that).

Pairing this with fliers is awesome.  Pairing this with fliers and overcosted ninjas who can ninjutsu is even better.

Besides that, here are the reasons I see for some of the card choices:

• Mistblade Shinobi - Bounces a creature.  If you can get a t1 flier, you can go ninjutsu this out turn 2 to bounce their t1 play.  Works great if they go for a t1 Noble Hierarch.  Also good with Favor of the Mighty; push through unblocked to bounce a creature to their hands.
• Ninja of the Deep Hours - Good card draw with Favor out.
• Spellstutter Sprite - Great counterspell/creature when paired with faeries; even better when reusable courtesy of ninjutsu.
• Echoing Truth - General bounce + stops swarms of thopter tokens.
• Roil Elemental - Reusable creature theft.  For once, it's high casting cost is a benefit.

The deck manages to combine a team of proven contenders (Spellstutter Sprite, Umezawa's Jitte) and a team of nonames(Roil Elemental, Favor of the Mighty) into one powerful deck.  Here is what I see as good and bad in this deck:

Good:

•  Answers popular Extended decks such as Thepths, Zoo, and Scapeshift.
• Has a large number of creatures with flying for evasion.
• Relatively cheap.

Bad:

• Deck is pretty "meh" without Favor of the Mighty.
• Weenies don't have that much power without the Jitte.
• Slow to win--could cause opponent to come back in the game.

I want to hear from you.  Do you think this deck is a 1-hit wonder?  Or do you think this deck has potential?  Drop a comment off in the box below!

Till next time,
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