The Oni Assassin deck is next up! I don't think my deck is going to be too different than what many people will play with the end of game card options. It may be plus or minus a few card numbers here and there. What is frustrating is I would like to optimize the gameplay strategy for the deck but I seem to struggle to make it go off more often. If anyone has any suggestions to make my loop work better, I'm all ears. Next, if you would like to see a video of me explaining the deck, check out the video below:
Before I explain the deck, let's run down the deck list.
Main Deck
Anyone familiar with Oni Assassins will see that I'm going with the discard playstyle. I want to get Mountain Deity Oni Blade, Kid Ibuki on the field as much as possible to force the opponent to discard cards. If anyone has any ideas on how to make this occur more consistently, please let me know. Right now, it feels rather hit or miss. Usually I can get it to trigger at least once a turn but if I can get it to trigger 2-3 times a turn, that would be cool but I also understand if I'm reaching for the stars here.
Anyways, onto the card explanations.
Oni Horde is the ideal card to have in the center and stack him up with facedown souls. The issue is there is no consistent way to search him out so you sometimes have to improvise with other Oni Assassins in the center until you draw into him.
Lady Oni, Uji Bridge Princess - Uji Bridge Princess is also free to play but have the option to add a soul facedown before calling her. Other than ambush, her other ability lets you gain a gauge when she enters the field and if she entered the field by ambush, gain another gauge. She's primarily there just for the gauge gain. Sure, you could use her for facedown soul set up (and it's totally fine to do so) but normally, Oni Horde should get the souls.
Fiend of Gaze, Ayo - I made Ayo the buddy only because he's super easy to call and there's no real situation you wouldn't want to call him to the field. Feel free to choose another monster you like. Even Uji Bridge Princess would be fine.
Ayo has ambush and when he enters the field, pick an Oni Assassin on your field, you check the top 3 cards of the deck, put one facedown into the card you chose. The rest go to the bottom of the deck. This skill helps dig out ambush monsters from the deck into the field.
Also, remember that if you have a size 3 ambush monster and Ayo go to the drop at the same time, you can call Ayo first, call Ayo over with the size 3 monster then, trigger Ayo's ability and choose the size 3 monster on the field. I won't go into the details why here but I go into more depth on the Oni Assassins Archetype Archive post.
Red Lady Oni, Kureha - Kureha costs 1 gauge and has ambush and move. Her main skill activates when she enters the field. You can take a card with ambush in the drop zone other than herself and add it to hand. Then, if Kureha entered the fields by ambush, put a card from your hand into the soul of an Oni Assassin on the field. It doesn't have to be the card you grab from the drop either.
Also, just like Ayo above, if Kureha and a size 3 ambush monster go from a facedown soul to the drop at the same time, you can delay activating her effect. You can call Kureha first, then call over her with a size 3 monster then, use her enter-on-field effect to grab a card, put it to hand and put a card facedown into a field card's soul.
Mountain Deity Oni Blade, Kid Ibuki - The main size 3 of the deck. He's quite expensive at 2 gauge and 1 life to call. He innately has ambush and triple attack. His main skill is, when he enters the field, choose an Oni Assassin on the field, check the top 5 cards of your deck, put up to two cards from among them into its soul facedown and put the rest of the cards on the bottom of the deck. Then, if Kid Ibuki entered by ambush, your opponent discards a card from hand.
Kid Ibuki's discard effect is the main purpose of the deck. We want multiple ways to get Kid Ibuki either from deck or drop back into the facedown soul of cards on the field.
His Overkill is the main reason to play this. His Overkill costs 1 gauge when a monster would be destroyed, choose a monster and for the turn, that monster cannot be destroyed at all. If the opponent has a crazy offensive board, you just want to use his Overkill to stop any battle destruction and penetrate damage.
To be honest, this slot in the deck is pretty flexible if you want to not run Shuten Kid Ibuki and want to add different cards.
Dark Arms, Fiery Bloom - Violet Blades - The main weapon of the deck. The equip cost isn't terrible. Just 1 gauge and 1 life. It can attack through center even if there's an Oni Assassin the center. It can't be destroyed or bounced back to hand by the opponent's card effects and the last skill reduces the gauge cost of Oni Assassin monsters by 1 gauge.
This last effect is the key point of the deck. This item is why Uji Bridge Princess is enough gauge to sustain the deck and running Under the Table would be overkill on gauge.
Banquet for the Unrighteous - Banquet has 1 of 2 abilities you can choose from. The first is you can check the top 3 cards of the deck and grab a monster from among them and the rest goes to the drop. This helps with general consistency in the deck and drop zone set up.
The second lets you grab a card from drop and put it into the soul of a monster on your field. Depending on the state of the game, you have many options but ideally, you'll want to put Mountain Deity Kid Ibuki facedown into a Oni Horde's soul.
Ibuki's Encouragement - With Ibuki's Encouragement, you can either drop a soul from a card on the field and if you do, draw a card or, if the card itself is facedown in the soul of a card and sent to the drop, you gain a gauge and draw a card. I tend to use both abilities about 50/50. I'll sometimes even use the first skill on my turn to get Mountain Deity Kid Ibuki out onto the field. This card is just flexible in basically any situation.
House of Assassins, Oni Convoy - A set spell that you can only have one of on the field at a time. It's ability allows you to put a card from hand facedown into the soul of an Oni Assassin on the field and draw a card. This is mainly to help with making the quality of your hand better.
Midnight Bodyguard - An attack null where you can drop a soul card to gain a gauge and a life. Since the deck is closed center, this card can help reduce that threat. Also, if you want to trigger a facedown soul on the left or right or items instead of the center, you can do that by dropping the soul with this card.
Underhanded Means, Shedding Cycle - The best draw spell! At counter speed at any time, you can drop a face down soul from an Oni Assassin to gain 2 life and draw 2 cards. I run 4 because this can also be run on the opponent's turn so this shouldn't really clog up your hand. Also, because it's counter speed, you can counter when a card is played by your opponent. Effectively making Shedding Cycle "unnullifiable" because the max card chain is 2.
Hiding Oni - Another draw spell for the deck. You just drop a soul from a card on the field to gauge 1 and draw 2. Pretty straightforward.
Demon Way, Sakurafubuki - The best spell null in the game! Pay 2 life to nullify a spell. Just a good effect. Keep in mind it's limited to 1 in the deck.
Sideboard
Promise of Rainbow - Mainly for decks that try to mill you to death. Oni Assassin decks can already go through a decent amount of their deck in one turn. The "rest a monster" effect is certainly not a bad option either so if you want more "attack nulls", you can run this card.
Rampaging Evil Demon, Akuro-oh - This is probably the most likely card you can switch out based on personal preferences. This is mainly to swap out Shuten Kid Ibuki out of the deck. I run this if some decks still don't have anti-destruction or, if his burn effect can clinch out the game. His burn effect is not dependent on cards being destroyed either so you can play it just to burn the opponent.
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