Table of Contents – Ultimate Guide to Kamigawa Neon Dynasty Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 1 - Top Commons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 2 - Top Uncommons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 3 - Guide to Combat Tricks and Removal Cards by Colour
Chapter 4 – Guide to Vehicles
Chapter 5 – 5 Limited Deck Archetypes
Welcome all to the Ultimate Guide to Kamigawa Neon Dynasty Limited and Prerelease. In this last chapter, I’m going to be talking about five of the Limited Deck Archetypes for Neon Dynasty Limited. When I look at the card pool of a full set it can be a little bit daunting to try and figure out which cards will work well together. Neon Dynasty has a ton of cool synergies that lead to some cool deck archetypes.
Most deck archetypes are about finding the right balance of cards to make it work. You need to balance having card types that work with the archetype with cards that reward you for using that deck archetype. A deck with twenty enchantments and no rewards for having enchantments might not work. If you have ten creatures that reward you for having artifacts but with no artifacts on the battlefield, then you’re in trouble.
Here is a look at five of the Limited Deck Archetypes for Neon Dynasty Limited and some of the cards you’ll be looking for when building those archetypes.
White/Green – Selesnya Sagas
This is the deck I’m excited to build but at the same time, I’m unsure of its power level. There are so many synergies to build upon that it could just work. Many times when you are building a deck of mostly enchantments you don’t have enough creatures. With eleven double-faced Sagas in Green or White, you'll get some creatures, you just have to wait a few turns before they transform. Three of those Sagas are common and four of them are uncommon so you should see a fair number in your Limited pools. The goal with Sagas is to win the game thanks to their incremental value gained over several turns. Each chapter by themselves is underwhelming, but if you get through enough you'll start to gain more resources to use in your game.
Each colour has some interesting cards to help with Saga decks. Norika Yamazaki, the Poet can recast your Sagas to gain more value from them. Generous Visitor allows you to grow your creatures with +1/+1 counters for each enchantment spell you cast. One of the best cards to get though is the powerful Satsuki, the Living Lore. It allows you to speed up your Sagas allowing them to transform into creatures quicker. Also when it dies you can bounce a Saga or return one from your graveyard.
White/Black – Orzhov Artifacts Plus Enchantments
This Orzhov deck is the deck that could be the most synergistic deck archetype in the set. Many of the cards seen above for this deck archetype skyrocket in value when you have both an enchantment and an artifact on the battlefield. The good news is that there are plenty of each in the set to help you achieve that goal. White has six artifacts and fourteen enchantments for you to cast, including the wonderfully impressive Spirited Companion, while Black has nine artifacts and eight enchantments. There is also one multicolour enchantment and twenty-five colourless artifacts. It shouldn’t be an issue trying to get one of each on the battlefield.
In White, you can create a free 2/2 Samurai while also destroying a permanent with Banishing Slash. In Black, you can reanimate a creature or Vehicle and give it two +1/+1 counters with Okiba Salvage. Each synergistic spell just gets better when you have an artifact or enchantment.
Red/Green – Gruul Modified
This is an interesting deck archetype that rewards you for something that you were going to be doing anyways, modifying a creature. Modifying a creature happens in one of three ways. First off is when you have an equipment attached to a creature like Eater of Virtue. Next is attaching an Aura to one of your creatures like Akki War Paint. Lastly is when you put counters on your creatures like with Storyweave. Once you have modified creatures you can start to gain advantages from your spells.
In Red, you can create 1/1 Spirit tokens when a nontoken modified creature dies with Akki Ember-Keeper. In Green, you can enter the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter if you have a modified creature with Heir of the Ancient Fang. The goal of this deck is to balance having powerful creatures, finding ways to modify them, and having cards that reward you for having modified creatures. If you can find the right balance then you should have a successful deck full of powerful creatures modified to be larger than those of your opponent.
Blue/Red – Izzet Artifacts
This is a deck archetype that can work thanks to the numerous artifacts in the set. Red comes in with thirteen total artifacts including some nice equipment creatures like Lizard Blades. Blue also has thirteen artifacts including the mana producing Moonsnare Prototype. This doesn’t even include the twenty-five colourless artifacts in the set. Once you have a ton of artifacts, you sprinkle in some spells that take advantage of you having these wonderful artifacts on the battlefield. This includes turning those artifacts into powerful creatures with Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh or turning those artifacts into stat bonuses with Scrapyard Steelbreaker. This deck will allow you to play a ton of colourless artifacts including plenty of Vehicles.
Blue/Black – Dimir Ninjas
This deck is one that looks like it would be the most straightforward deck, but I believe it to be the most complicated. The goal of this deck is to deal combat damage to a player with your Ninjas. Easy, right? To achieve this you need to start with cheap creatures that can allow you to attack unblocked so you can Ninjitsu one of your Ninjas onto the battlefield.
For Blue, you can achieve this with the 1/1 flying creature Thousand-Faced Shadow. There are plenty of Ninjas to put in your deck with their being six Black, five Blue, and one multicolour. If you don’t have enough Ninjas you can always use Saturo Umezawa to give all your creature cards in your hand Ninjitsu.
One of the keys to this deck will be balancing when to cast spells for their full casting cost or when to Ninjitsu them onto the battlefield. If you are returning a creature to your hand that you can’t cast again in the same turn you have to think if that will improve your battlefield position in the game. Returning unblocked creatures could leave you with no blockers for a counterattack. Ninjas want to attack so keep this in mind when playing this deck archetype.
Now that you know five of the best Deck Archetypes for Limited you can navigate limited events a little easier. Thanks again for reading Chapter 5 of the Ultimate Guide to Kamigawa Neon Dynasty Limited and Prerelease. This completes the guide for this set, and I really appreciate you joining me for the ride. If you’ve missed any of the other chapters for this guide, click below to check them out.
Table of Contents – Ultimate Guide to Kamigawa Neon Dynasty Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 1 - Top Commons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 2 - Top Uncommons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 3 - Guide to Combat Tricks and Removal Cards by Colour
Chapter 4 – Guide to Vehicles
Chapter 5 – 5 Limited Deck Archetypes
