Silver-Fur Master

Ninjutsu never quite escaped a friction built into its own math: activation is expensive because you pay it on top of the attack step, and the returned attacker is tempo you have already spent. Every prior ninja lord priced the payoff without touching the cost of admission. This one works both sides. Cutting one generic from every ninjutsu activation you own turns the mechanic from a cute trick into a repeatable engine: pull back an unblocked attacker, spend less mana, and chain ninjas across a single combat step without falling behind on board. The anthem is the other half of the equation, and note how carefully it reaches: it buffs Ninja and Rogue, stapling the deception subtheme onto the ninjutsu shell rather than gating the bonus behind a single creature type. That widened net is why the card sits at the center of the strategy rather than filling a slot, because it pays off the unblocked-attacker plan (small evasive Rogues sneak in, then hand off to a ninja) the mechanic wants to run anyway. As a 2/2 for two, the body is deliberately unremarkable; this creature is not here to attack, it is here to make every other attack cheaper and every other body bigger. It is the piece that treats ninjutsu as a strategy with a mana curve rather than a one-off surprise.