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Pojo's Yu-Gi-Oh Card of the Day

Strike Ninja
Ultra Rare

You can remove this card from play until the End Phase of this turn by removing a DARK monster in your Graveyard from play. You can use this effect during either player's turn. You can only use this effect once per turn.

Type - Warrior / Effect Monster
Card Number - IOC-007

Card Ratings
Traditional: 3.85
Advanced: 4.15

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale 1 being the worst.
3 ... average. 5 is the highest rating.

Date Reviewed - 03.07.05

Coin Flip	Strike Ninja is an awesome monster all around. A DARK Warrior with a good effect is hard to come by in more than one way, and Strike Ninja accomplishes a good deal of stuff. I had a list of the most combo-licious cards at one point, and Strike Ninja was #4. From two-card combos that involve damage in excess of 6000 points to three-card combos that give you two free monsters every turn, he does stuff. Stats aren't rich, really. 1200 was GREAT back in the heyday of Witch, but now it's unsatisfactory at best. Being a Warrior is not exactly a bad thing, although his DARK stats count for little – playing him means you'll be removing DARKs, so he's counter-productive to running Chaos Sorcerer, Dark Necrofear, or Black Luster Soldier. If you just run him for his stats, the question can be raised as to why you don't run Don Zaloog for a much better effect or Zombyra the Dark for much better ATK. Using him with Return from a Different Dimension is just evil. Dimension Fusion, although a card with much merit, is too dangerous considering the saturation of D. D. Warrior Ladies and D. D. Assailants in the environment. The most recent Shonen Jump ran something like 22 out of 24 possible D. D. Warrior Ladies in the top 8, and 14 or so D. D. Assailants out of 24 possible. Using Return from a Different Dimension, however, takes advantage of this fact. And you can take advantage of Strike Ninja's effect in the Battle Phase. Attack with Strike Ninja, then use his effect. Then activate Return from a Different Dimension. At least 3400 damage so far, plus the two DARKs (which should be Tributes, but I'll get to that…) The only problem is that the recent banlist stabs this guy in the heart twice with his own kunai (the knife he's holding). Painful Choice? Gone? Farewell, Strike Ninja. We barely knew ye. Other than that, he is incredibly viable in all formats. He has a sort of intangible field presence, much like Vampire Lord. It's not that he provides direct card or LP advantage, but how keen are they to use Sakuretsu Armor or something of the sort on him or Vampire Lord when it is just card loss in the end? No rating. He shouldn't go anywhere but his own deck. In fact, you can expect a grand total of 4 ratings in this week and next. It's just that good. Only 1 this week. Watch out for Friday!
Tranorix	Strike Ninja Today we’re reviewing Strike Ninja, an Ultra from Invasion of Chaos. Strike Ninja on his own is fairly mediocre, but in the right deck he can be quite deadly. With ATK of 1700, he can hold his own in battle and attack for decent damage; being a DARK Warrior is always a plus, as Warriors have too many support cards to name. His effect can definitely be useful; it’s essentially a variant of Interdimensional Matter Transporter. Get rid of two DARKs in your Graveyard and save Strike Ninja from that Magic Cylinder, Smashing Ground, monster attack or whatever. Remove D.D. Scout Planes and, well, you do the math… You can also use this in decks based around cards like Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension; remove some good DARK monsters, then bring them all back for a rentsy turn of unfathomable pain for your opponent. Fun! Traditional – CCCC: 3/5 Traditional – Dimension Fusion Deck: 4/5 Advanced – CCWC: 3.5/5 Advanced – Dimension Fusion Deck: 4.5/5 OVERALL RATING: 3.8/5
JAELOVE	Strike Ninja Rated For: Strike Ninja Deck I think it’s no surprise to many that I love Strike Ninja. Strike Ninja is unquestionably one of the best monsters in the game, and the idea of Ninjas in general is hot. To those who want to player-hate, or denigrate, or even discriminate against Strike Ninja, I urge you to take a look at a godly website with awesome Yu-Gi-Oh information: Pojo.com. On Pojo.com, there’s a writer by the name of JAELOVE (don’t ask me where he got the ridiculous nickname) who wrote an article about Strike Ninja, linked here http://www.pojo.com/yu-gi-oh/FeaturedWriters/JAE/2005/1-17.shtml. Now that you’re done reading, I’ll review the card. But since I’m rating this for the Strike Ninja deck, I’m basically reviewing the entire archetype. In that case, Strike Ninja gets a 5/5. A BAD Score (For the Strike Ninja Deck): 5/5. FORCE System Suggestions: It is not recommended that you splash this card randomly into any deck with 7-8 darks. It will not truly shine in such circumstances.
Snapper	Strike Ninja Welcome to Adolescent Card Week! This week we’ll be reviewing cards that demand their own Decks and refuse to conform to the standard CC. Today’s card is Strike Ninja, a monster that was designed to evade destruction. Strike Ninja has fairly good stats; 1700 ATK gives him the ability to easily destroy many commonly played monsters as well as defend your Life Points for a considerable amount of time. As a Warrior he gains the ability to be easily searched for as well as gain multiple power boosts. He’s also a “Ninja” giving him access to an ignored Deck-Type with a few unique Spells and Traps. Strike Ninja’s effect is distinctive for a few reasons. First, it’s a Multi-Trigger effect, allowing you to use it at any time and during either player’s turn. Second, the effect itself is very interesting; at the price of removing 2 DARK monsters in your Graveyard from play, Strike Ninja can remove itself form the field until the end of the turn. Now what would you want to use this effect for? An obvious example would be when Strike Ninja is on the receiving end of a card like Mirror Force or the new Lightning Vortex, softening the blow these mass monster removers could have by giving you a monster later in the turn. Snatch Steal is also a good choice to use Strike Ninja’s effect against causing your opponent to lose a card and gaining no new monster. The only real downside to this effect is the cost of removing two DARK monsters from your Graveyard, a cost that you may not always be able to pay and an expensive one when you can. There are some bright sides to the effect; D. D. Scout Plane offers free food for this effect, and gives you some defense at the end of the turn. Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension give you the chance to swarm the field with many potential DARK beatsticks you could have removed for this effect. Soul Absorption would not only gives you 1000 Life Points whenever you use this effect, but it would also make the afore mentioned Dimension Fusion’s cost more bearable (due to the high cost to use). Given the nice effect and the many cards to use it with, Strike Ninja is a neat monster. However, it should only be used in a Deck with primarily DARK monsters. All in all, I think I’ll need to look into an 8th Deck. Advanced (DARK Deck): 4.5/5. You won’t always have DARK monsters in the Graveyard, so use cards that solve this problem. Traditional (DARK Deck): 4.5/5. You won’t always have DARK monsters in the Graveyard, so use cards that solve this problem. Overall (DARK Deck): 4.5/5. Art: 4.5/5. Because Strike Ninja is the best of all the Ninja monsters, he appears on most of the Ninja Spells and Traps. This information will be on Jeopardy some day so…
ExMinion OfDarkness	Strike Ninja Welcome to "Cards that should be the center of a deck" week! This week's cards won't typically be ones you can just throw in a deck and have work -- you need to combine them with other cards to make a really great deck out of it. Strike Ninja is an extremely overlooked monster by most people -- I remember trading mine away easily when I went on my first few foil-pulling runs of Invasion of Chaos. Strike Ninja can dodge a -lot- of effects. Back in Traditional, he could dodge Dark Hole, Raigeki, Chaos Emperor Dragon's effect...in current Advanced, he could get away from Torrential, Smashing Ground, Tribe... This card works best with D. D. Scout Plane and Painful Choice. Painful Choice drops all the DDSPs into the graveyard, Strike Ninja removes them when he uses his effect, they summon themselves to the field next turn, and when they die, they're back in the graveyard for re-use by Strike Ninja. The new Ban list really hurts this deck -- the loss of Painful Choice practically destroys the main combo of the deck with DD Scout Plane, and the fact that BLS is still out there leaves a 3,000 monster to drop out of nowhere and wail on Strike Ninja or the other monsters ont he field. Rating: 3.75/5 Tradtiional (Lots of mass removal here and there's still Painful to bury the DDSPs) 3.5/5 Advanced (Less mass removal, but enough that he's effective) 2.5/5 new Advanced (No Painful and BLS still here make Homer something something...) "Go crazy?" "Don't mind if I do!" random crazy blabbering
dawnyoshi	Today marks my week of chosen cards for the COTD team. This week's theme is, Cards that scream "Build a deck around me!". What better monster to start off with for this week than the underrated, underplayed, all powerful Strike Ninja? =D Strike Ninja has relatively good ATK, with natural statistics that can defeat Blade Knight, a counter-exhausted Breaker the Magical Warrior, Tribe-Infecting Virus...a lot of those popular monsters that will see play in almost every deck with the new Advanced forbidden list. On top of that, Strike Ninja has one of the most versatile effects in the game. At the cost of two dark monsters in your graveyard, Strike Ninja can vanish from the field until the end of the turn. This allows Strike Ninja to attack without fear of an opponent's Mirror Force, Sakuretsu Armor, Mirror Wall, or stick around on the opponent's turn without worries of Snatch Steal of Lightning Vortex. The best part of Strike Ninja is actually his cost, where removing 2 DARK monsters can benefit you in the properly themed deck. D.D Scout Planes are the best combo with Strike Ninja, as it not only fuels his dodge effect, but it allows you to swarm the field and gain strong board pressence. Those summoned Scout Planes can always be sent to the grave again with something like Cannon Soldier, or if it's used as tribute fodder for high level monsters...oh, and high level monsters like Invader of Darkness and Dark Magician of Chaos just scream to be removed in the Strike Ninja deck. It's a powerful combo with the two cards, Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension. One of these activated cards will usually end the game for your opponent in a quick turn. In my opinion, duelists missed their opportunity with this ninja monster. A theme based on him could have easily been shown off as a tier 1 deck type in tournaments, as its effect is so versatile and the removed monsters are so easy to utilize. As for the new forbidden list updates, I fear Strike Ninja took a crippling blow. Perhaps the theme can still be utilized without any serious loss of power, but I've yet to see how well it can survive the loss of cards like Mirage and Painful Choice. In limited, this card is either a rare draft pick if it's just IOC, or it's deadly field advantage when Dark Revalations 2 comes out at the end of the year. Traditional: 2.5/5 Advanced: 4/5 Limited: 2.5/5
sHecKii	Welcome to sHecKii's world...GO Ninja GO! dxP As y'all know, I got this deck from JaeLove and ever since I've made it into a staple of mine. I love running this deck based on the combo of Strike Ninja and having frequent cards like Smashing Ground, Bottomless Trap Hole, Sakuretsu Armor, Ring of Destruction, Tribe Infecting Virus, etc... ALL BE DEAD CARDS IN TOP DECKING MODE! This deck is similar to the magic deck I played at last year's regionals: White/Red Astral Slide. The point of both these decks is to destroy everything, bring out a big creature, and win by protecting it from all sorts of spells/effects (and i don't mean spells like Raigeki spells...spells as cards that are casted) These decks are considered Control Decks. Control Decks are one of the most commonly misunderstood decks. Control Decks WILL take a lot of damage and sometimes even to around 1000 (or 2-3 in Magic the Gathering life). Control Decks WILL stall 'til you force your opponent to waste most of his cards/resources/tricks in his hand/deck/field and win in the later turns. Back to the Ninja though. If you base a deck around this card, it will be dangerous if you can play it right. It has almost no weakness because of all the staple removal your opponent plays. But the card it self, you need some DD Scout Planes and/or play enough Dark monsters so you won't have Ninja as a dead card most of the time. I don't suggest playing Ninja by itself..I believe you should make a deck around it since 1700 ATK Warrior is not that great of stats since DD Assailants are much better by themselves and sometimes Blade Knight too. If you want to make a Ninja deck, remember this: This deck NEEDS to stall into a Painful Choice and/or at least 1 scout plane and a total of 3 darks in the grave to do well...Find ways to stall (basically play control) to achieve complete board position in the later games. In the new ban list...this deck WILL hurt a bit, not THAT much but hurts it for sure. Painful Choice is baned but Graceful Charity is back. Sangan is back (one of the best dark monsters right now right?). Fiber Jar is gone so that means you won't have to worry about flip effect monsters BUT magician of faith and there are MANY ways to counter that. No change of heart so Tribute Monsters that are played in Ninja decks hurt a bit. I'm not sure if i'm going to be running this during the next ban list but shrugs We'll see. Ratings Constructed in a S. Ninja Deck: 5/5 Constructed in a Chaos + Dimension Fusion/RFTDD: 3/5 Constructed in warriors/a deck with couple darks: 2/5 Draft: 4/5
Otaku	Well, this is a good day for me to eat crow. Not Yata, but rather admitting that I grossly underestimated a card. It happens to all reviewers: some of the people who got Strike Ninja right the first time around have underestimated other cards, so it really does happen to most reviewers. So here’s a “corrected” version of my original review. ;) Stats: In terms of stats, Strike Ninja is very good, though not great. Level 4 monsters are only shown up in terms of usefulness by Level 3 monsters, and that is only due to abuse of Level Limit-Area B and Gravity Bind in Stall/Burn decks. Dark monsters have some solid support, but more importantly means that it can be Chaos food. Warriors are probably the best supported Type. An ATK of 1700 is great for most Level 4 effect monsters and good in general, as it will let it beat up most other Level 4 effect Monsters. The DEF could be as high as 1500, but still allow the same benefits of a 1200 (searchable by Witch of the Black Forest). Of course, as you know, that doesn’t matter much for Advanced. A higher DEF might be nice given how common an opponent shifting your Battle Position has become. It is interesting how they match up to this Monster’s origins: it seems much beefier in Dungeon Dice Monsters… but it is also much harder to summon, even taking into account the different game mechanics: in DDM monsters come in four levels and Strike Ninja is a Level 3 there, which would be like a Level 5/6 Monster for the TCG. Effect: Here’s what makes Strike Ninja. He’s incredibly hard to kill in a deck built around him, and many decks offer him the option of being a serious annoyance. Strike Ninja can remove itself from play by until the End Phase of the current turn in exchange for removing two Dark Monsters from your Graveyard. This effect is Spell Speed 2, so it can activate itself in response to most of your opponent’s actions. About the only time you can’t activate it is in response to a Spell Speed 3 effect or during the damage step. The last part matters since removing it when an opponent attacks should trigger a replay, as the number of Monsters on their side of the field has changed (if it could be used during the Damage step, that might not be the case). On its own, this effect is nice as it gives you a solid attacker with decent options to preserve its life span. What makes it a great card with its own deck type are, of course, the combinations you can use with it. Uses and Combinations: First, you can run this in your standard Warrior/Chaos deck. Chaos Sorcerer doesn’t really belong in such a deck, so the only real Chaos Monster is Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning. So that means you will probably at most remove 3 of your Dark Monsters from the Graveyard, so all the “extras” can be used by Strike Ninja. Strike Ninja can be great for decks that want to remove Monsters from the Graveyard for other purposes (like Dimension Fusion or powering up Gren Maju de Eiza). However, to really see Strike Ninja shine, try running it in its own deck, utilizing Warrior and Ninja (well, maybe not Ninja) support, and of course D.D. Scout Plane, a somewhat puny Dark Monster that has an effect that is brilliant when combined with Strike Ninja: when D.D. Scout Plane is removed from play, it Special Summons itself to its owner’s side of the field in ATK position during the End Phase. Simply put, this provides easy re-useable Remove-From-Play fodder for Strike Ninja. You just need to get it to the Graveyard first. Not that I have ever seen it, but given the prevalence of Scapegoat, consider running Big Bang Shot with it: not only is it going to boost your ATK and give you Trample, but if they try to destroy it, you can just remove yourself from play with your own effect in response and thus be able to come back in the End Phase. Okay, so I just like Trample. ;) Ratings Traditional: 3/5-It works okay in Chaos what with all the Monster removal it will face, but there are probably better choices available, and its own deck isn’t as great here. Advanced: 3.75/5-While there is less removal, as a whole a 1700 ATK Level 4 seems more helpful, and maintaining multiple Monsters in play also is more important, plus Strike Ninja’s own deck is much more potent here. Limited: 3.5/5-Its stats make it an okay choice here. Its effect make it a good choice in my opinion, so long as you also pulled a lot of low level Dark Monsters: dodge whatever few nasty cards your opponent has, and then have the option of retaliating either directly through Strike Ninja, or using it as Tribute for some nice big nasty. Summary A card that, as I already confessed, I underestimated. It’s nice to see something that seems to… different doing well in the game, even if it can be used in the over played (and powered) Chaos decks. Now do me a favor and if you like Strike Ninja at all, go buy some Dungeon Dice Monsters stuff. It is a great game that is sadly dead (no new sets, no OP). On the bright side you can find it real cheap if you look for it, and it is a blast to play.