Ninjutsu/Meta

CCG Information
A new mechanic first released during Code of Bushido, ninjutsu was designed to provide the Scorpion Clan a military solution and theme that they could run with. While ninjutsu may eventually be printed on personalities outside of the Scorpions, it is unlikely that any other clan would use the mechanic as much as the Clan of Secrets.

From the Lotus Edition Rulebook:
 * Personalities with the Ninjutsu trait are treated specially at certain times while face-down. While face-down in play or in a Province, a Ninjutsu Personality is a Personality with 2F, 3C, an Honor Requirement of “–”, a Gold Cost of 4, a Personal Honor of 0, and the Ninja trait. Such a Personality in play may attach Items, Spells, and Followers regardless of restrictions on those cards and may attach Spells without being a Shugenja. You may freely look at the faces of these face-down Personalities while you control them.




 * In addition, all players may take the following actions:
 * Open: Any number of times per turn, pay the Ninjutsu value of a facedown Ninjutsu Personality you control: Turn the Personality face-up.
 * Reaction: Any number of times per turn, after an action targets a facedown Ninjutsu Personality you control, pay his Ninjutsu value: Turn the Personality face-up. If he is now an illegal target for the action, negate its effects on him.

Decktypes
It can be safely assumed that a deck making full use of the ninjutsu trait would be running it out of the Shiro no Soshi (SnS) Stronghold, since that is the only Stronghold printed so far that allows the player to bring out ninjutsu personalities face down. With a printed force-boost on the box and the low gold cost of the face-down ninjas, it allowed the Scorpion players to attack fast and early, with the threat of a potentially fatal reaction hiding under the faced-down personality.

Some players have attempted to run a political-military SnS build, where courtiers are played as a form of Limited-phase control while the ninjas are sent to the front-line to do battle and destroy provinces. This decktype is currently not as popular as a blitz SnS, for it takes a very delicate touch to properly balance the number of military and courtier actions for the deck to function reasonably well in either realm.