Ninja of the Deep Hours
The teaching card for ninjutsu, and the one that explains why the mechanic exists at all. The trick is in the sequencing: you swing with a creature the opponent chooses not to block, then before damage, bounce that attacker and drop this in its place, already tapped and attacking. The defender committed to taking damage from one body and now eats it from another, with a card draw stapled on top. That sleight of hand reframes evasion entirely: you do not need an unblockable creature, just an unblocked one, which any cheap attacker the opponent shrugs off can become for a turn. The 2/2 body matters less than the swap it enables, since returning the same hexproof-free dork to hand keeps a proven evasive attacker ready to redeploy while the Ninja stays on the battlefield to draw cards. Compared to a vanilla looter, the friction is real: it costs a creature to deploy, it has to connect to draw, and it folds to instant-speed removal in the window between declaring attackers and dealing damage. But that is the bargain ninjutsu makes everywhere it appears, and this is the cleanest expression of the bargain: a draw-on-damage body cheap enough to reuse and forgiving enough that the engine keeps running even when the opponent learns to respect it.

Rules text
Format Status
More formatsFewer formats
Other printings
- Secret Lair Drop#1912
- Foundations Jumpstart#108
- Jumpstart: Historic Horizons#223
- The List#C18-95
- Commander 2018#95
- Planechase Anthology#21
- Commander 2015#99
- Planechase 2012#21











