Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator – Foundations
Date Reviewed: December 18, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.2
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
It’s shocking to think that the first ninja theme decks in Magic appeared more than twenty years ago. That means they’ve had more iterations than you can count, largely involving blue – that’s the color with the second-most ninjas, and perhaps the color with the best support for them (you want to bounce them and make them unblockable). That means that some of the early ninja decks had a tendency to devolve into counterspell decks that happened to have ninjas in them. I remember an unfortunately-named “Blue Snow Aggro” deck from Wizards of the Coast’s website with 14 counterspell variants.
Kaito, however, encourages you to go all the other way and attack as early and often as possible. Repeatedly making a creature unblockable is already close to card advantage in itself, even without getting to loot (cf. Distortion Strike), and when you do get to, it can put you very far ahead. That’s obviously the ability you’ll be hoping to use most; creating a token is definitely helpful in some circumstances, but it leaves Kaito himself even closer to getting removed than he starts. Overall, though, that low starting loyalty is a price I think it’s worth accepting for his low cost and his aggressive bent. He’ll often speed the game up much more than it appears at first glance, and I’m always pleased to see another tool for real blue aggro decks, snow or otherwise.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
ninininininjaaaaaaaaaaa
Jace doing Jace things means that Kaito seems to have found room to be promoted to the Main Blue Planeswalker for now, and Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator has an interesting angle of being a combat-focused planeswalker in blue, historically the worst combat color.
Let’s actually start at the ultimate, since I feel like, uniquely, thig might be Kaito’s main attraction. Spitting out a ninja in response to any spells is quite powerful, thanks to just saying “a player”. While it being -9 seems like it’s not all that plausible, his passive makes it viable: combat damage rewards with loyalty, and a lot of creatures equals a lot of potential loyalty (to where Kaito may be able to proc his ultimate immediately after combat if the game is late enough).
Beyond that, though, Kaito isn’t useless. He makes a Ninja with which you can protect something (or just start trying to rack up loyalty), and his +1 is both looting and a way to usually add more loyalty. All of this adds up to a very self-sufficient and synergistic planeswalker who also can benefit from established boards, and three manan makes him priced to move.
In all, Kaito’s an interesting threat. He’s good at most stages and board states (though rarely a silver bullet if things are dire), and while there might be times where he won’t be the best top deck, I don’t imagine it’ll be all too often that you’ll be displeased to see him show up.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5 (a massive Limited threat because he makes his own army and can push himself out of easy kill range with little effort)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
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