Remember the story from above? The one where I have two morphs and my opponent plays for the kill instead of leaving two blockers back? If your opponent knows you have good Ninjutsu creatures (or is at least paranoid about the worst case scenario when he has you dead on the next attack), don’t expect him to ever be in the position to "guess wrong." There will be no guessing: everybody’s getting blocked. So how are you going to get Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni in?
1. Have more creatures than the other guy. The classic swarm strategy will help you get your Ninjutsu on and your Ninjas’ prehensile feet colliding with the opponent’s jaw Hi-Yah style. In one sense, little guys will many times get blocked in ugly combat situations, but if you play your cards right with Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, you will likely have the two best troopers in play when combat ends.
2. Clear a path, any path. Probably the scariest monster to ever force its way through any mage’s defenses was a 1/3 Snake who didn’t actually deal any damage unless its controller was overflowing with eight or more cards in hand. Ophidian’s masters made sure it connected using everything from Boomerang to Man-o’-War to Floodgate. A lot of the time, the blue mage was dropping cards to get Ophie in, but the snake itself would make up all the card advantage in the world, given time. Think of Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni the same way. As long as you are burning a path, this scary Rat Ninja will be recouping the card advantage. Remember: Dead enemies equal new friends with this one, so aim for the best creatures first.
3. Play creatures that no one wants to block. The most dramatic example I can think of is Battle-Mad Ronin. No Human Samurai or creature of any other race and class has spurred so much debate in Limited circles as this red two-drop. Both decried as unplayable and lauded as a great curve creature, there is one thing that everyone seems to believe: you really don’t want to block it. Or attack into it. The thing about Battle-Mad Ronin is that when you play it, it changes the tempo of the game. If you drop it on turn two, it is very unlikely the opponent sends into it with either turn two or turn three drops. You want to save four damage? Put Battle-Mad Ronin in front of Humble Budoka, or pre-empt Ronin Houndmaster; I guarantee you no one brings on turn three.
Following, Battle-Mad Ronin is basically a free point of damage every turn for the next three or four turns. No one wants to potentially trade a "real" 3/3 with this clunky creature, so after a short tour of duty on defense, he tends to hit. If people are unwilling to block a guy like Battle-Mad Ronin, what are the chances they can prevent you from Hi-Yah’ing Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni straight into the Red Zone?
引用元
HI-YAH Posted in Feature on January 19, 2005
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/hi-yah-2005-01-19
《鬼の下僕、墨目/Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni》の活用方法、特にどうやって攻撃を通すか？という点が語られています。相手よりもクリーチャーを並べる、アドバンテージを消費してでもブロッカーを排除する、ブロックしたくないクリーチャーをプレイする、の３つが候補です。
最後のパターンでは侍である《戦に狂える浪人/Battle-Mad Ronin》が挙げられています。ブロックされると、武士道によりわずか２マナで3/3というサイズになるクリーチャーです。しかし、元が1/1なので通しても痛手にはならず、単体ではスルーされて終わります。そこで、ブロックされにくいことが忍術と相性が良くなるという訳です。特にこのクリーチャーの場合、攻撃強制があるのでコンバットトリックや忍者のような保険があるから攻撃している、という読みが成立しません。
同じブロックで、侍（武士道）と忍者（忍術）という２つの異なる職業（メカニズム）がシナジーを形成するのは面白く、ブロックのメカニズムの理想形の１つと言えるでしょう。
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