Commander Deck Guide: Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima

We've covered the God of War family before, but now is the time to cover another commander from the PlayStation Secret Lair: Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima!

Our main list today leans a lot on Jin and his ability (particularly the one that gives evasion to our creatures) and plays lots of Ninjutsu. It also has ways to copy the commander and useful equipment to help you win many games.

Our alternative list is a classic Voltron deck. After all, a creature that gives himself evasion or double strike deserves an entire deck to shine.

Without further ado, let's meet our commander!

Jin Sakai is the main character in the Ghost of Tsushima game franchise. He is also an ex-samurai, and more popularly known as Ghost. Because he was taught to master his emotions, he is rather calm, reserved, and quite humble.

Maybe for that reason, Jin Sakai is also a generous MTG commander.

In this version, Jin is an Esper legendary creature and has abilities that trigger in combat.

The first one draws an extra card for us when Jin deals combat damage to a player. As for the second, it triggers when a creature we control attacks and gives it double strike or prevents it from being blocked until the end of the turn.

Please note that, to trigger this second ability, we must attack a player with a single creature. If we attack a player with more than one creature, none of them will be able to get Sakai's buff.

As we promised in our introduction, this list plays spells that copy our commander so that we can trigger his abilities multiple times per combat. It also plays relevant creatures with Ninjutsu and several buffs.

Let's start with one of the most important mechanics in this deck: creating Jin clones!

Copying Creatures

Imagine how awesome it would be to have an army of Jin Sakais in play, all of them giving evasion and double strike to many of our creatures. With this setup, we'll deal more damage to our opponents and draw more cards.

This deck plays the following support cards:

Out of these, we can highlight Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, Sakashima the Impostor, Spark Double, Irenicus's Vile Duplication, Chameleon, Master of Disguise, and Impostor Syndrome. All of them go around the "legendary rule" even without support from other cards.

By the way, Impostor Syndrome is a very valuable enchantment because it turns our board into an unstoppable snowball of triggered abilities and multiple Jins in very little time. Cards like Cephalid Facetaker, Silent Hallcreeper, and Quantum Misalignment are also relevant and will help us copy other interesting support creatures, like Delney, Streetwise Lookout.

Protection

Your opponents will want to remove Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima from play as soon as possible. So, besides counters, like Arcane Denial and Fierce Guardianship, this list also includes some important protection. With them, our board and our commander will survive any removal our opponents throw at us.

With this deck, the idea is to be more aggressive, so a Propaganda could save our life points from explosive enemy attacks, particularly when we don't have enough blockers.

We won't rely on flying to deal damage, but Winged Boots's Ward 4 is still great with Jin, as is Skrelv, Defector Mite's color protection.

Removals

This list also plays removals so that we can deal with problematic enemy creatures or if we just need to play our cards a little more close to the heart.

Let's see them:

Just like Orochi Soul-Reaver and Rev, Tithe Extractor, Grim Hireling will create treasures when we deal combat damage to our opponents. It also makes them even more useful because it lets us sacrifice them to give a creature -X/-X until the end of the turn. Isn't this a great way to deal with indestructible creatures?

Buffs

Buffs that grow our creatures or give them extra effects are also a part of this list.

Vorpal Sword is part of a select group of cards that are sure to make anyone annoyed, alongside Virtus the Veiled, Unstoppable Slasher, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, and Summon: Primal Odin.

Archpriest of Shadows's Backup 1 grows a target creature by +1/+1, but it also reanimates a creature from our graveyard when we deal combat damage to an opponent.

Regardless of which creature we attach Buster Sword to, it'll create a lot of value by drawing cards and letting us cast a spell from our hand for free.

Card Draw

Speaking of card draw, we must go over some of our best ways to do that with this list.

Jin will draw cards for us when he deals damage, but we'll need to draw even more cards so that we can get ahead.

Waterbender Ascension has just come out, but it has conquered a spot in many decks. Besides drawing cards, its activated ability also makes sure our opponents can't block one of our creatures.

As we must attack different players with at least one creature in each combat phase, Tymna the Weaver was a perfect fit. She'll constantly draw cards for us. As for Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel, he'll reward us for putting chorus counters on him by letting us cast spells we discard with him for free if he has four or more of these counters.

Alternative List

If you enjoy simple decks, with less combat tricks and secrets, we highly recommend this Voltron list.

With it, your goal is to grow Jin and take advantage of the evasion he gives himself to win the game through commander damage.

Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima is scary, definitely fits his "strong commander" persona, and doesn't need red to access good Voltron cards.

On the other side, Esper allows us to play excellent Ninjutsu cards (that we can cast when our creatures aren't blocked), the support we need to copy cards, and many white removals, as well as protection for any threat.

Jin lets us be creative, and is a great option if you enjoy unique decks that are also quite powerful.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!