Pure Ninja

TL;DR: The primary game plan is to get Meizen on the field to disrupt your opponent and maintain your board presence. The Ninjitsu Arts are to help cover other areas while you stabilize against your opponent. Then, when there is an opening, you swarm the board with Ninja and attack directly over their monsters for game! Other priority Ninja you want to summon are Hanzo, Tobari, Kagero, and Jio. Below is an in-depth breakdown of everything, but you can skip to the bottom to check out the decklist. The large picture at the end with a bunch of random cards is just a bunch of different stuff I experimented with in different Ninja builds. If you have any questions, comments, or critiques please leave me a comment and I'll try to get back with you!

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With all the new support, the Ninja archetype finally has an identity. They are tricky and hard to lock down once they get a foothold, allowing you to control the battlefield until your opportunity to strike. Once you've found an opening, use the amazing flexibility of the Ninja to overwhelm your opponent with numbers and powerful effects and before they know it you'll be able to assassinate them even through their wall of defense.

I'll be going through each card and give a general gameplan when using it.

•  Jio, the Weighted Ninja: This Ninja is one of your premium forms of disruption in the Ninja archetype. Primarily, you'll be using him for his summon effect which will flip up to 2 monsters of your choice face-down. Any opponent monsters that are flipped face-down by this effect cannot change their position. This is great to stop link plays and force your opponent to tribute, ritual, or fusion summon to remove them from the board. There are times when you will want to leave the face-down monsters on your opponent's board to deny them the space and resources.
  
  
• Twilight Ninja Getsuga, the Shogun: Usually, you want to set up this Ninja during the end of your opponent's turn or have him in hand/GY on your follow-up turns. His effect to summon any 2 Ninja from the GY is huge. And it is ANY Ninja! You can get back your fusions or Saizo as well. This Ninja's main purpose is to help revitalize your board and to provide a 3k defense body to block with.
  
  
• Twilight Ninja Jogen: One of the 2 pendulum Ninja in the deck. You will mostly use this Ninja as a scale, but there are very niche opportunities to get him on board to be useful. The judgment is case-by-case, but the flexibility is greatly appreciated. His effect to have piercing on all of your Ninja is more useful than you might think. Sometimes you have to clear out key targets that you've flipped face-down and being able to get in some chip damage can go a long way.
  
  
• Ninja Grandmaster Hanzo: This is THE Ninja. Your bread and butter. Hanzo is always great to see. On Normal Summon he can get you a Ninjitsu Art to help set up your follow-up. On Special Summon he gets you a Ninja in hand to further your resources. An easy combo is to Special Summon Hanzo and add Baku to hand, which will immediately put Baku on the field. This will already give you 2 Ninja to summon Meizen or Saizo from the Extra Deck. You ALWAYS want to prioritize using Hanzo for his resource gain in any way you can. Just keep in mind that if you Special Summon him using Meizen, then he will miss timing and not search.
  
  
• Kagero, the Cannon Ninja: This Ninja is incredible. In my opinion, she is your primary defender. Finding a way to get her on the field or in the GY will take you a long way. When she is summoned or flipped face-up she will set a Ninja from your hand or GY face-down. While she is in the GY, if a Ninja or ANY face-down monster is targeted on your side of the field, she can bounce it out and set herself face-down in its place. Finding ways to utilize her on the opponent's turn will usually let you defend easily against their board while setting you up with resources for the next turn.
  
  
• Upstart Golden Ninja: This Ninja is a nice to have, but not really needed in the grand scheme of things. If you can resolve his effect, then you can combo off with your Ninja. The best combo is to summon Hanzo then grab Baku to get the trap you discarded back, if it was a Ninjitsu Art. This will put 3 Ninja on board already! If you have one other Ninja in hand that can be summoned you can set up Saizo + Meizen, which is a deceptively formidable board.
  
  
• Baku, the Beast Ninja: This little guy is a resource boon. If you add Baku from deck to hand, then he can immediately summon himself to the field. THEN, if you special summon him in any way you can add a Ninja OR Ninjitsu Art back to your hand! Finding ways to special summon this guy will set up for your Extra Deck plays while recovering your resources. Not only that but, like Hanzo and Kagero, he has a decent attack stat! Combine him with the Iron Digger equip spell and he can reach 2k attack! Unfortunately, drawing him is very poor.
  
  
• Karakuri Ninja model 339, "Sazank": A very unusual include for the deck, but hear me out. I got this idea from a video so I can't take credit. But this Ninja is sneaky. Like extra sneaky. You find a way to get him face-down on your field and your opponent HAS to spend resources to remove it. You flip up Sazank and it is non-targeting removal. Amazing! It's face-down and gets attacked in the Battle Phase? That counts as being flipped face-up and you get to remove an opponent's monster from the field!
  
  
• Green Ninja: Another sneaky guy! You will mostly use him for his second effect. When he is sent from the field or hand to the GY, you can flip any monster on the field face-down or face-up depending on what its current position is. Having him as a face-down defender during the Battle Phase can buy you some time. But the main use for him is to either discard with Notebook or as fusion material on the opponent's turn with Tobari.
  
  
• Mitsu, the Insect Ninja: Just like all the other new Ninja cards, Mitsu is a blessing to have. She is a priority to have set up on the board with another Ninja that is face-down. Being able to stop ANY effect that is activated, not just monsters on the field, is so nice for Ninja. Not only that but she allows you to activate other face-down Ninja effects if they have them. Not much to say here other than prioritize using her when setting up your field.
  
  
• Twilight Ninja Kagen: Another pendulum scale Ninja. You will never summon this guy, ever. His pendulum effect is too good. Being able to give any one of your Ninja +1k attack during battle helps with beating over larger threats that are too strong to leave on the board. Or, he can give you additional reach when attacking directly for lethal damage. Meizen with Iron Digger attached and Kagen effect puts him at 4k attack! His downside of only being able to pendulum summon Ninja monsters doesn't matter obviously.
  
  
• Tobari, the Sky Ninja: This is a Ninja you want to put into play as soon as possible, whether it is in your hand, on the field, or in the GY. He can discard himself to let you Special Summon any Ninja from your hand. When he is Special Summoned to the field he becomes immune to battle and card effect destruction. And while on the opponent's turn he can quick effect fusion with Ninja in hand or field. Everything about this guy is amazing. Just him alone can stall out an entire turn as he walls out the opponent's Battle Phase. Also keep in mind, the Ninja fusion can use face-down cards as material too! So Tobari can save any Ninja on your field from targeted effects during the opponent's turn.
  
  
• Instant Fusion: This is such a flexible option for Ninja it is crazy. Being able to pay 1k LP to get Yaguramaru in play gives so many options. You can use it to get a quick banish off. Or you can just use him as a body for a fusion or link summon. But the main purpose is to get him in play and in the GY to be used later.
  
  
• Armor Ninjitsu Art of Alchemy: While not always the most useful, it can come in handy when needing to make backrow space or just needing to draw 2 cards. Be careful when activating this though as it will remove every single face-up Ninjitsu Art. I would recommend always having at least one of these in the deck during deck building.
  
  
• Monster Reborn: A nice to have card. I can see it being cut for something else. But it is nice to have a way to bring back any Ninja in GY for plays. Also being able to revive an opponent's strong monster to use is nice. Plus if you have Iron Digger, you can attach it to the revived monster to make it a Ninja!
  
  
• Book of Moon: I think this needs to be a 3 of in this deck. It is an amazing disruption. It is amazing for setting up Fallen Leaves. It is even amazing for resetting some of your Ninja effects. The card is so flexible and has no restrictions on usage. It's just overall amazing.
  
  
• Ninjitsu Art Notebook of Mystery: This Ninjitsu Art may seem quite restrictive at first, but the longer a match goes on the more value this card gets. It also has quite an unusual wording for its effect but it pretty much lets you set any 1 Ninja and any 1 Ninjitsu Art card on the field, however you can only get 1 from the deck and 1 from the GY. Despite the restrictions, it is great for recovering your cards and value. It also has a bonus effect where if it is destroyed while set on your field you can Book of Moon a monster on the field, so setting 2 of these is not a bad idea in some cases.
  
  
• Ninjitsu Art Notebook: A very basic card, but can do so much for you. For discarding a Ninja you can get any Ninjitsu Art from your deck. The most basic combo is to get Art of Alchemy to draw 2. But you can also get your field spell to try and recover the discarded Ninja. Or you can get any of your Ninjitsu Art traps to help set up your board. You can even grab the Iron Digger to get a quick boost/pop on the field. A funny thing about this card is it is a soft once per turn, so if you have more than one in your hand or it gets returned to your hand from the field you can just activate another one and use it again.
  
  
• Ninjitsu Art Tool - Iron Digger: Just like the other new Ninjitsu Arts, this card is amazing for value plays. It gives the equipped monster +500 attack. It has an active effect to banish a Ninja from your GY to target and destroy ANY card on the field. Then if this card is sent from the field to the GY, you can get one of your banished Ninja back to your hand or Special Summon it face-down to your field. AND ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT! Any monster this card is equipped to become a Ninja. This means you can equip it to an opponent's monster to make them a Ninja target for your Ninjitsu Art traps, or if you summon an opponent's monster to your field you can make it a Ninja to gain any benefits from your Ninja cards, or you can even just equip this to an opponent's monster and then use the effect to destroy that monster to send it and this card to the GY to get back your banished Ninja. It is such a cool design and I hope we get more awesome Ninjitsu Art Tool cards in the future.
  
  
• Hidden Village of Ninjitsu Arts: Our field spell is quite resourceful. The main function is to recover Ninja or Ninjitsu Art cards from the GY. But the added bonus of being able to protect face-up Ninja and Ninjitsu Art cards from destruction is what makes this field spell so reliable. If possible I always recommend trying to set this up immediately.
  
  
• Infinite Impermanence: Our deck doesn't really play handtraps. Drawing too many handtraps can really make it hard to start our plays going first and even when going second sometimes since we rely on seeing multiple Ninja and/or Ninjitsu Art cards to get going. But Imperm is such a flexible card that it fits right in so well. Setting it while going first can help your disruption plays. Having it while going second can help to play through your opponent's board. The Ninja don't need much on the board to become a threat since Meizen can allow direct attacks over the opponent's monsters.
  
  
• Armor Ninjitsu Art of Rust Mist: You may look at this card and be scratching your head, but you need to understand the value this card brings. As long as you have a Ninja face-up on the field, ANY monster your opponent Special Summons will have their attack cut in half. PERMANENTLY! This card can single handedly allow you to break boards on a follow-up turn sometimes. Cutting 3k+ attack boss monsters down to the under 2k attack range will make it easier to defend against and easier to attack over. Effectively, an opponent has to summon a 5k attack monster to match Meizen in attack while Rust Mist is active. I think this card is super slept on and has single handedly won me quite a few games. On top of that, because this card activates on every Special Summon your opponent might even get baited into spending their negates to try and stop this card.
  
  
• Ninjitsu Art of Duplication: Another unusual pick I know, but again the value this brings is crazy. This Ninjitsu Art requires a Ninja tribute. Then you can Special Summon any amount of Ninja from your deck that have a combined level of the Ninja you tributed. And the cards summoned DO NOT have to be unique from each other. The most common usage for this is to get a Tobari on the board face-up so you can quick effect fusion during the opponent's turn. After that you can use your remaining summons to grab whatever you want. You get even more value off this when using a higher leveled Ninja. Activating this card in response to targeted removal or disruption is such a boon in advantage and value it is insane. Of course, do keep in mind that when this card is removed from the field, any remaining Ninja summoned from this card are also removed.
  
  
• Ninjitsu Art of Dancing Leaves: Another insane Ninjitsu Art. This one needs a Ninja or face-down monster as tribute. Notice, face-down monster. This can include your opponent's monsters as well. If you find a way to flip them face-down, this card can effectively remove it and give you advantage. When this card is activated you can Special Summon ANY Ninja from your deck. ANY! On top of that, while this card remains face-up you can activate it to return any face-up Ninjitsu Art (except the field spell and equip spell) on the field back to your hand! A common thing with Ninjitsu Arts is that they take up space after they have run their usefulness. While Art of Alchemy can let you draw by destroying them, this Ninjitsu Art lets you recover them to be used again! Of course, you do have to remember that any Ninja summoned from this card will be removed once this card is removed from the field.
  
  
• Meizen, the Battle Ninja: THE QUINTESSENTIAL NINJA! He is priority number 1. You need to have him active as often as possible. This guy is absolutely insane. Once per turn, whenever your opponent activates ANY card or effect, you can Special Summon ANY Ninja from your deck! On top of that, while you have a face-down monster he can't be attacked! On top of that, he has a decent attack stat of 2500 (effectively 5k to opponent's monsters if you have Rust Mist active)! On top of that, he has a passive effect that ALL NINJA CAN ATTACK DIRECTLY! You can assassinate games by just attacking over their frontline. Like I mentioned above, if you have an opponent's monster on your field and equip them with Iron Digger, it too can attack directly! Also as I mentioned before, Meizen + Iron Digger + Kagen makes Meizen a 4k attack Ninja! This guy brings the entire Ninja archetype together and propels it into action. And it makes sense that the War General of the Ninja is the most adept on the battlefield. I love it!
  
  
• Yaguramaru, the Armored Ninja: Another banger of a Ninja. Getting this guy in play and/or in the GY is a massive boon. When this Ninja is Special Summoned or flipped face-up, you can banish a Ninja or Ninjitsu Art card from your hand, field, or GY to target and banish any card on the field. Finding ways to reset him and reuse him is very rewarding. Plus he has a decent attack and defense stat of 2k.
  
  
• Blade Armor Ninja: A more obscure Ninja, but can definitely come in handy. While needing 2 level 4 Warrior-types to XYZ Summon him, he can help go for OTKs or clearing boards. His effect allows you to detach a material then choose a Ninja you control to attack twice that turn. Targeting Meizen gives you 5k direct damage.
  
  
• Ninja Grandmaster Saizo: This guy is not to be slept on. While he is on the field, if he is pointing to any monster(s), he can't be targeted and can't be attacked. But the main reason to use Saizo is, once per turn, he can directly set a Ninjitsu Art from the deck to the field. Combining him with Meizen can make for a deceptively strong board that the opponent has to spend quite a few resources to get through. Or they just draw that one card that outs everything :P
  
  
• XYZ Monsters: These can be whatever you are most comfortable with. I chose Time Thief Redoer, Abyss Dweller, and Bagooska. I like Time Thief in being just a recurring monster that keeps stealing cards and provides value/disruption, Abyss Dweller to help combat GY based decks, and Bagooska if I ever need to stall out for a turn or two. Obviously, these cards are secondary and you should focus on your Extra Deck Ninjas first. But the options are there and you could replace any of these with whatever you wanted.
  
  
• Link Monsters: Similar to the XYZ Monsters, the Link Monsters can be whatever you want really. I like having the 3 Knightmare monsters for additional targeted removal, Cross-Sheep is for extending your value if you have the opportunity to do so, and Underworld Goddess is for getting rid of hard to remove monsters.

So the overall gameplan with Ninja is to get Meizen on board mainly. It sounds simple, but the flexibility is very deceptive. If you're able to play through and stabilize against your opponent's strongest board, then you will eventually outvalue them. The hardest fight for Ninja is within the first 2 - 3 turns in my opinion. I usually find that once I'm through that, I can stabilize and overwhelm my opponent. Also keep in mind, this deck is not easy to play. There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of micro combos that add up and set things in motion. Honestly, kinda like playing Chess. I know it is a cheesy analogy to make, but hear me out. What you do in the first couple turns when it comes to setting up your field and the GY can make all the difference down the line. Because of the way Ninja work, there are so many options all the time. What Ninja do I want to summon from the deck? Why? Will I need it later or now? What about Ninjitsu Arts? Do I not care about their board state and want Rust Mist? Or do I want Dancing Leaves to snipe a card? It depends on match-up, board state, and resources available. And to be honest, I've never really had to side in anything when playing against a large variety of decks. Generally, Ninja have all the tools needed to fight against everything!

Now in terms of siding. The Side Deck can be whatever you want, I've just given my example based on the current meta decks. The cards that I feel can be switched out when siding are:

• 1x Upstart Golden Ninja, 1x Ninjitsu Art of Alchemy, 1x Ninjitsu Art Notebook: These 3 can be switched out as they are the lowest impact cards in the deck.
  
  
• 1x Ninjitsu Art of Alchemy, 2x Ninjitsu Art Notebook: While these 3 cards can provide value, they can be changed for something more impactful like Forbidden Droplet or Evenly Matched. I'll be referring to these as the "low impact Spells" from here on and generally are the first 3 cards you should consider switching out when siding in.
  
  
• 3x Book of Moon: I love having Book of Moon in the deck. But if you feel that the opponent doesn't really care about any monsters being flipped face-down, these 3 cards are good to side out without hurting your deck consistency.
  
  
• 3x Infinite Impermanence: Same as Book of Moon, I love having this in the deck. But if you feel the opponent's deck doesn't care about this card at all, siding it out is a good option.

Now I want to go over the side deck briefly, just giving my thoughts on the choices.

• Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode: An obvious board breaker. I can also see this being paired with Lava Golem or being replaced by it. This can help going second and I would recommend switching out Spells to include these to not hurt the consistency of your Ninja monsters. However, Upstart Golden Ninja, Sazank, and Green Ninja can be replaced if you need 3 monsters to get rid of.
  
  
• Senior Silver Ninja: This is an alternative to Getsuga. Effectively, he is a different way to recover resources that could be better depending on the matchup. Against the Ishizu cards, Senior Silver can't be stopped if you have more than 2 Ninja in your GY whereas Getsuga can. If you are going to include Senior Silver Ninja, then he should only be replacing Getsuga to avoid bricking and to maintain the deck consistency since they are both high level Ninja that are mainly for recovering resources.
  
  
• Reinforcement of the Army: An extender that can come in handy based on the matchup. You can replace a Ninjitsu Art Notebook or Ninjitsu Art Dancing Leaves. I can even see replacing the Instant Fusion, but I feel they both do the same thing as an extender and would like to have both rather than one over the other.
  
  
• Forbidden Droplet: I mentioned above, but replacing 3x Book of Moon with this is a solid idea if your opponent doesn't care about face-down monsters. Or you can replace the low impact Spells. Forbidden Droplet is just a nice option to have since Ninja don't really have a problem with discarding any cards.
• Silent Graveyard: This is an alternative to Abyss Dweller if you have trouble getting it on the field. I would replace the low impact Spells with these to maintain the power of the deck while having the ability to counter GY based decks.
  
  
• Evenly Matched: A must have in the Side Deck in my opinion. Honestly, it doesn't really matter what you replace with this if you need it, cause without it you won't be playing the game anyway.
• Appointer of the Red Lotus: This last slot can be whatever honestly, but this card seemed kinda cool to include. On top of the insane value Ninja can create for you, having a hand disruption on top of everything else can be devastating against some decks. I would recommend switching out Art of Alchemy for this or Upstart Golden Ninja if you ever want to side it in.
  
  
• Sol and Luna: This card isn't featured in the Side Deck, but I'm probably going to replace Red Lotus with it. I've come to like this card quite a lot, but only as a 1 of. The Spell allows you to target one monster you control and one monster your opponent controls, then change them both to either face-up or face-down Defense Position, the opposite of what it was when targeted. The problem with the card though is it REQUIRES both targets to activate, meaning it is way less flexible than Book of Moon. However, once the Spell is played and monsters have been targeted, it will still go through even if any of those monsters leave the field. Replacing a Ninjitsu Art Notebook with Sol and Luna might be the way to go for the Main Deck, but for now I'm relegating it to the Side Deck.
  
  
• Upstart Goblin, Called by the Grave: These 2 cards I have also considered placing into the Side Deck or even Main Deck. Again, there is flexibility all over with this Main Deck and Side Deck. Obviously Upstart is just a nice draw 1 and Called by the Grave is just an amazing card in general.

So I've gone through so much, but because of how flexible this deck is I've done so much experimenting with so many things. I'm going to include a picture below of all the cards I've experimented with and considered for the deck. Maybe it might inspire some ideas of your own! Honestly, if you build it right I think any of these cards could be useful. I mean my previous guide is about a combo version of Ninja that uses a wide variety of cards, which I might have to update at some point since I was less experienced with Ninja then. Anyway, thank you so much for trying this deck out. It is so cool and I love it and hope you do too! Feel free to leave me any questions and I'll try to get back to you.