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Mattedesa's Deck Garage
Samurais!
June 7, 2007

ok i've been playing for a short time and have some decent cards.
however i would like to possibly add another color to my deck as i am currently using all whites and it takes forever and a day to get my really good cards out. any advise on what second color would most benifit this deck would be most appreciated. I need to be able to play my better cards sooner and would like a color that will allow me to play my best cards quicker and make them less vulnerable to abilities.

Lands

26 Plains

Creatures

4 Kitsune Blademaster
3 Devoted Retainer
3 Konda's Hatamoto
1 Bushi Tenderfoot
1 Takeno, Samurai General
1 Angel of Retribution
1 Blinding Angel
2 Angel of Mercy
4 Ward Sliver
2 Samurai Enforcers
1 Konda, Lord of Eiganjo

Artifacts, Enchantments

3 Indominable Will
2 Renewed Faith
4 Pacifisms
2 Serra's Embrace
1 Chastise
1 Sacred Nectar
1 Arrest


Samurais! Now that's a card type I haven't seen played much. I did buy one of the Samurai precons back when it was new, though I can't say I had much luck with it, and I quickly took it apart to work on other projects. But just because the precon I bought didn't work well doesn't mean we can't put together something that does work well!

So, your first question is if you should add a second color. A quick search of Gatherer shows that Red has the mose Samurai behind white.
Black has the next most, and green boasts a whopping one Samurai, while blue is totally shut out. But before we look to add stuff to your deck, let's determine exactly what it is your deck needs, and then determine if one of these other colors can meet those needs.

From what you mentioned, your main concern is getting your best cards out sooner. There are two parts to this: drawing the card, and having the means to play the card. White is not particularly good at either of those. Black, on the other hand, is the color of tutors, and can probably help there. 1 point for black. For getting the mana to play your cards, black doesn't have a lot of good options, and most of red's are one turn solutions that I don't think will be worth the spot in your deck. My suggestion is to use a Ravnica block signet with white and red or black.

Secondly, you wanted your creatures to be less vulnerable to effects.
White is really going to be the best here (other than green, but it's not really an option here), and I'll get to how to do that in a moment. But still, that doesn't help us determine which color to add.

So now, let's look at which color has more solid Samurai. You didn't mention a budget limit, but most people writing in want to keep it pretty low, so I'm going to try to keep my suggestions to mostly commons and uncommons. Red has a few good rare Samurais, but most commons and uncommons are just overcosted which would not help your deck. Black's Samurai are a little better at common and uncommon, so I think that makes our decision.

But one more thing before we go wild throwing in all the black samurai. Let's look at your choice of white cards. Bushi Tenderfoot is too hard to flip, and it's nothing more than a vanilla 1/1 otherwise, so let's take it out. Devoted Retainer just isn't going to be relevant enough, so let's drop him in favor of the strictly superior Hand of Honor. Konda's Hatamoto isn't going to get it's bonus until late in the game when it's unlikely to matter much, so it can go as well. And you're probably not going to like this, but your choices of Angels leave something to be desired. None are bad creatures, but for the mana you are spending, we can come up with better options. Serra Angel, Angel of Despair, Serra Avenger, or Akroma, Angel of Wrath would be my top choices for you if you can come up with any of those.
But for the sake of this article, we'll leave in the angels you have.
I don't understand Ward Sliver at all in this deck.

-1 Bushi Tenderfoot
-4 Ward Sliver
-3 Devoted Retainer
-3 Konda's Hatamoto
+3 Hand of Honor

And for your white non-creature spells, I think we can do better on almost all of those. Pacifism is fine, but the rest of the non-creatures are just taking up space. Life gain spells may buy you a turn, but you just spent your turn playing them, so you're really not coming out ahead. You'd do better to have more creatures to threaten your opponent, or at least scare them into not attacking. But, if we can neutralize a creature AND gain life, that would be worth it. Enter Faith's Fetters.

-3 Indominable Will
-2 Renewed Faith
-2 Serra's Embrace
-1 Chastise
-1 Sacred Nectar
-1 Arrest
+3 Faith's Fetters

Now, to add in black. Hand of Cruelty is a must here. 2/2 for 2 is an absolute staple. Early defense can be helped with Kuro's Taken, since he can regenerate.

+3 Kuro's Taken
+3 Hand of Cruelty

The best versatile tutor card you can get that's not a rare is Diabolic Tutor. Add in a couple of those (at 4 mana a piece, you don't need more than a couple) and 4 Orzhov Signets for mana help.

+2 Diabolic Tutor
+4 Orzhov Signet

For your problem of creatures being vulnerable to abilities, I recommend Otherworldly Journey. Your creature disappears before their ability can hit it, and it comes back next turn bigger and badder! You can also use it in a pinch to take out one of their creatures for a turn.

+3 Otherworldly Journey

I'm going to suggest one more card, even though it's a rare, because it's a perfect fit for your deck, and that is Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho. It makes one of your creatures huge, and makes him hard to get rid of! But only 1 of these since they are rare and legendary. This would make a good Tutor target!

+1 Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho

Finally, for your land base. It's nice to see someone running more than 20 lands! But in your case, I think 26 is a little too much. A good base point is 22, especially since you have those signets to help you. Godless Shrines or Caves of Koilos would be very helpful if you can get them, but otherwise, let's go with about 12 Plains and 10 Swamps, since you have fewer black cards, but many need double black.

-14 Plains
+10 Swamp

I think I counted this all out right, and that should put us down at 60 cards from a starting 63. If you make these changes, your deck would look something like this:

Lands

12 Plains
10 Swamps

Creatures

4 Kitsune Blademaster
3 Hand of Honor
1 Takeno, Samurai General
1 Angel of Retribution
1 Blinding Angel
2 Angel of Mercy
2 Samurai Enforcers
1 Konda, Lord of Eiganjo
3 Kuro's Taken
3 Hand of Cruelty

Artifacts, Enchantments

4 Pacifisms
3 Otherworldly Journey
3 Faith's Fetters
2 Diabolic Tutor
4 Orzhov Signet
1 Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho


And just for fun, here are a couple rares that would work well if you can get your hands on them:

Kentaro, the Smiling Cat: Now that your deck is two colors, this would solve a lot of your mana color problems, and a 2/1 for 2 is never a bad deal.

Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo: Great at taking damage for the team and then preventing it altogether!

Thanks again for writing. It was fun thinking about and looking up ideas for a deck type I haven't worked a lot with. I wish you all the best in your quest to take over the world with Samurai!