Introduction
Norin is not a character that needs an introduction. Hes been around the block, and we all know him by name. To me, Norin is not a deck that's meant to be a joke. It's not a deck that creates chaos, annoys everyone to death nor force concedes. To me, Norin is about just one thing. Synergy. The core of the deck is built around abusing enter the battlefield and leave the battlefield triggers to get the most value out of Norin as we can get. Then we introduce as many ways to get those triggers to go off as possible. Since most of the cards in the deck are similar to other lists present on the site, I shall not flesh out explanations for each and every card choice for the moment.
Gameplan
The basic strategy of the deck is simple. Play Norin. Play one or more engines that abuse an etb/ltb effect. Play one or more token producers to abuse that effect. Win.
The Engines
The Bread - Impact Tremors, Purphoros: These cards trigger damage to all opponents whenever a creature enters the battlefield. In a 4 player game, thats between 9-24 damage a single round just from Norin alone. A token producer like Siege-Gang Commander is an additional 4-8 damage to each opponent just for entering the battlefield. While a great source of damage to our opponents, these engines are not all that flexible since they do not hit creatures.
The Butter - Outpost Siege, Pandemonium, Warstorm Surge: The remainder of the damage engines. These cards do not hit as many targets, but make up for that fact by allowing us to target creatures, taking care of any pesky creatures we might want to if we aren't smacking face. Outpost Siege has an alternative mode that gives us card advantage, if we need to dig for threats and solutions. Pandemonium has a hefty drawback, so we usually reserve that card to be played on the turn we plan to win.
The Meat - Genesis Chamber, Confusion in the Ranks: Genesis Chamber is an engine that generates tokens for the deck. Not only is it excellent on it's own, but when paired with any of the damage engines mentioned above, the game has basically ended. Confusion in the Ranks allows us to gain control of a creature on each turn that a spell is played. While these engines don't necessarily win you the game on the spot, the amount of advantage they generate basically makes it really difficult to lose.
The Salad - Pyrohemia: Pyrohemia turns the deck on it's head and allows the deck to play heavy control rather than aggro. With Pyrohemia and Norin on the field, you can attack or cast a spell to let Norin take a walk and burn the entire board to the ground. At end of turn, Norin returns home and you get to keep Pyrohemia around to do the same again next turn.
Token Producers
Now that we have the engines to abuse Norin's etb/ltb effects, what we want are more bodies so that be can multiply it. To that end, we fill in the deck with some decent token producer for mono-red. Mogg War Marshal: At 2 mana, it provides 3 bodies in total. Thopter Engineer: At 3 mana, it provides 2 bodies, and haste to all artifact creatures. Beetleback Chief: At 4 mana, it provides 3 bodies. Pia and Kiran Nalaar: At 4 mana, it provides 3 bodies and allows us to make artifacts go boom. Krenko, Mob Boss: At 4 mana, it doubles the number of goblins each turn. Snake Basket: Comes down for 4 mana, but requires an additional X to produce X tokens. Expensive to get started, but potentially explosive effects. Siege-Gang Commander: At 5 mana, it provides 4 bodies and allows us to make goblins go boom. Monkey Cage: At 5 mana, initially seems like a non-bo considering it triggers for 1 creature at EoT when Norin returns to the battlefield. That said, if it is used knowing it's limitations, extremely nasty amounts of tokens can be put into play as a result. Synergistic with any "cheat effects" like Kiki, Mimic Vat, Feldon etc. Goblin Marshal: At 6 mana, it provides 5 bodies in total. Chancellor of the Forge: At 7 mana, it doubles the number of creatures with the bonus of hasted goblins being produced. Wurmcoil Engine: At 6 mana, it provides 3 bodies, with the bonus of having lifesteal and deathtouch tacked on. Myr Battlesphere: At 7 mana, it provides 5 bodies. Pentavus: At 7 mana, it provides an engine to repeatedly create both etb and ltb triggers.
Now we have a bunch of token producers to abuse those Norin Engines. That's the core of the deck. I'm not going to touch so much on the rest of the cards tonight.
Alright so i decided to post the thread up before its done because i'm feeling a pang of laziness. I basically just wanted to get the thread out so that i could have a place to post my thoughts on some cards i feel like testing out in the deck and getting thoughts on them.
First off, i recently removed Insurrection and Hellkite Tyrant from the deck. While they were both fantastic cards and win-cons on their own, they were moreso "goodstuff" additions rather than synergistic complements to the deck. Since i'm already using Insurrection in my Rakdos deck, i felt i could remove it from Norin. In it's place i've put the newly printed Impact Tremors which serves as yet another Norin Engine. Can't ever have too many of those.
That leaves me with a spot. Recently i've been contemplating the addition of Karn, Silver Golem into the deck. It's a pretty strong card on it's own right and has some nifty interactions, primarily with Kiki-Jiki and Mimic Vat. I could possibly animate one of my noncreature artifacts with Karn, then copy them with kiki or mimic to churn out additional copies of those artifacts. With Mycosynth Lattice, Karn would be able to animate opponents' lands, basically destroying them at 1 mana a pop. Overall i'm still debating the card and would appreciate some feedback.
If it helps, i'm also considering cards like Snake Basket and Monkey Cage as potential additions that are synergistic with Karn. The criteria that these cards fill are
A] They are permanents which work well with Warp World. (Monkey Cage crazily so)
B] They are a source of non-red creatures which helps against pro-red plays.
C] They are pretty decent token producers, which the deck could always use more of.
They both interact pretty well with Daretti and Goblin Welder. If i put Karn in as well, that would potentially extend to Kiki and Mimic vat as well. Monkey Cage may be a dud when played from hand since it will trigger on Norin at eot. It becomes pretty solid when played in conjuction with another creature say through a kiki trigger or by being cheated into play with warp world or even in response to something like living death.
Hey whats up man I am a huge fan of your work, you make great competitive decks me and my buddy built a few on modo and they work great they have awesome interactions and always seem to come through on a competitive level. Do you build all these in paper? The Norin deck looks sick by the way.
Hey whats up man I am a huge fan of your work, you make great competitive decks me and my buddy built a few on modo and they work great they have awesome interactions and always seem to come through on a competitive level. Do you build all these in paper? The Norin deck looks sick by the way.
Heya, thanks for the compliments!, brought a nice smile to my face. Glad to see that the decks are working out for you. All my builds are indeed in paper, since i do not play the online version (That UI turned me off). Because of that though, my meta tends to consist of a small static pool of decks comprising of people that go to the local game shop and those that use my decks. It'll be great if you happen to be able to share any stories of your games as they happen on MODO, since i imagine the variety of decks there would be a better test for the builds.
Norin was the first deck that i built. It was my first plunge into the world of EDH. The deck was heavily inspired by Gaka's list at the time since i had no idea what i was doing, but slowly shifted away from the chaos/trolly elements that i felt held the deck back. Considering the 200 or so pages of discussion available on his thread, i'd say that my Norin build has the most polish of all the ones i've done.
Anyways, thanks again, and I hope to hear from you in the future mate.
Took a look through the Origins spoilerlist today.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar - Going straight into the deck. It's a decent producer that can be compared to Beetleback Chief. The important thing to note is that it provides flying meatshields, which red is otherwise sorely lacking in unless you go dragons. At the lowest level, it adds to the creature density with 3 bodies for 1 card which i believe the deck can never have enough of. It's a legendary creature which makes it a nonbo with Kiki. At the same time it synergieses with Shaku. We'll see how it performs.
Flameshadow Conjuring - When i first saw the card, i was pretty excited. The more i think about it though, i'm starting to feel that the Kresh deck would be a more appropriate home for this deck since the commander gets to double up on the creature power it gains from saccing the creatures. The card would also prefer creatures which come with "impactful" etb abilities like spot removal whereas the creatures in norin are basically token producers which don't get too crazy with it. I'll be testing this out in Kresh. Depending on it's performance there, i may revisit the idea of trying it in Norin.
Recruiter into Ringleader has won me many many games in the past and i'm pretty sad that they are going out. Ringleader on it's own is a crappy card without Recruiter to fetch the gang in and if i remove just ringleader, the recruiter becomes too clunky to reliably use. Seemed like the perfect excuse to just cut both of them to make more room for experimentation.
Pentavus is interesting, it's the only card I could be tempted to run. What's your experience with it? If you had to choose between Pentavus and Battlesphere, which one would you choose? I realize that Battlesphere does more for 7 mana and is better with Warp World, but if we have access to more than 7 mana, Pentavus can be stronger. Flying tokens could be relevant too.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Battlesphere is the better card hands down. It's not even a question. Battlesphere provides an immediate impact on the boardstate when it comes into play.
Pentavus on it's own is a pretty underwhelming card. At 7 mana, it is really expensive for a 5/5 body. We usually have to wait an entire turn before we get to do anything cool with it. Due to that alone, Pentavus isn't in the same league as Battlesphere. That said, this card can get drowned in synergy when paired with virtually any other card in the deck. Daretti, Feldon and Welder allows us to cheat him into play, giving us enough mana to abuse him the turn he gets into play. Paired with almost any Norin Engine will result in a win just from Pentavus alone, allowing us to stock up on cards in hand incase of boardwipes. Battledriver and In the Web of War is nasty with Pentavus. It dodges most targeted removals. And with just Pentavus, you can stall a board by creating blockers, delcaring block and then sucking them back in over and over.
Overall, the card has powerful synergies with the rest of the deck, but takes awhile to get going unless it's cheated into play.
Have you considered Goblin Warrens? You have the numbers to support it, and it should net a bunch of ETB and LTB effects with each activation.
Also, Warmonger Hellkite, with the army of small creatures you've got, can end players easily while punishing opposing swarm decks if played on the right time.
Have you considered Goblin Warrens? You have the numbers to support it, and it should net a bunch of ETB and LTB effects with each activation.
Also, Warmonger Hellkite, with the army of small creatures you've got, can end players easily while punishing opposing swarm decks if played on the right time.
I'm not a fan of Goblin Warrens. The card does nothing on it's own, requiring us to already have goblins on the field to start playing with. Then it requires mana to use, which could otherwise be used to cast our cards. Finally, goblins are a subtheme of the deck, one that i would eventually like to move away from (when better non-goblin token producers get printed). There isn't going to be enough support for the theme to always have access to goblin token when Warrens is in play.
Warmonger Hellkite is a really weak effect. 2 mana for +1/+0 is not great to begin with and 6 mana for a single 5/5 body is bad. Being a creature also makes the card more fragile in this case. That said, the deck doesn't quite need more mana sinks at the moment, and it already has a superior pump mana sink in Purphoros, God of the Forge. Mana sinks are not effects for which redundancy is useful.
Had Snake Basket make a small appearance today. It was moreso due to a godly hand that churned out a turn 1 Snake Basket, but i see quite alot of potential for the card in this deck. There was a pretty neat interaction with genesis chamber, daretti and the basket. The ability to churn out ungodly amounts of tokens works out really well with any of the damage engines available.
While the cards that were meant to go out were Beetleback Chief and Goblin Chieftain, I do not want to dismantle my Moggcatcher combo yet. For now i'd like to see whether the removal of Rummaging Goblin necessitates the inclusion of some other card draw and whether i need a functional equivalent of Goblin Assassin (even though none exist at this point).
Everyone seems to be upselling Commune with Lava. I'm going to give it a try and see if it lives up to the hype.
Thopter Engineer seems to be a pretty useful card. Producing 2 creatures for 3 mana, one of which has flying, and giving artifact creatures haste, including the thopter that came with it. Considering that i'd like to move the deck deeper into the artifact theme, seems like a reasonable inclusion to push it towards that path.
Goblin Assault seems like a must for strategies involving ETB/LTB effects?
One goblin a turn simply is not impactful enough to justify the card. Add to that the must attack clause that disrupts utility goblins like Goblin Welder puts a nail in it's coffin.
Alright. There hasn't been much going on for Norin over the past year or so. My number of games played with the deck has also slowed as a result. That said, there are still some changes to be made and thoughts to be shared.
First off with regards to the landbase. The cipt lands in the deck simply weren't performing sufficiently to counter the loss of tempo they caused. To that end the following cuts were made:
- Spinerock Knoll
- Myriad Landscape
- Vesuva
And to replace the lands are:
+ Mirrorpool: Mirrorpool is taking the spot of a cipt land to test out it's potential towards any of my decks instead of Norin in particular. I do forsee some synergy with either copying spells (Warp World/Mogg Infestation) or creatures. The activation cost is pretty steep though, so we'll see if it ends up being worth it.
+ Mountain
+ Mountain
The other two slots are just simple Mountains, or Snow covered ones if that's more to your taste. There have been a couple of games where i've pulled out every Mountain from the deck onto the battlefield and hopefully this small change will prevent that from happening as often, if ever. Also on the topic of lands, with the removal of Myraid Landscape, i'm going to be keeping Terrain Generator on the back of my mind during games to see if the card might deserve a try in it's place.
In terms of other cuts:
- Mind's Eye: The synergy with Honor-Worn Shaku is great as always. Apart from that, the card rarely had a huge impact for 5cmc. It is probably one of the weaker card draw sources in the deck and is going out to make way for Magus of the Wheel.
- Mycosynth Lattice: A vestigial card from when Hellkite Tyrant used to part of the deck. Now the sole use would be in conjunction with Vandalblast. I have won multiple games from both the Hellkite Tyrant and Vandalblast with Lattice in play, but it's time to make space for new blood. Who knows, they may eventually make a triumphant return in the future.
+ Magus of the Wheel: Wheel effect on a stick? Say no more.
+ Helm of Possession: Not sure how i've lasted so long without including Helm of Possession to the decklist. All round solid addition to the deck and pretty abusable with sac effects.
Haven't been able to give priority to mtg over the past few months. A mate recently decided to buy a box of Kaladesh which resulted in me discovering Panharmonicon. Basically that was sufficient to reignite my passion and get started on updating my decks to the latest set.
Alright, lets get started.
Changelog:
- Outpost Siege: Siege was a card that i had hopes for as a mini Norin Engine. Most times i draw the card though, i find the Khans option more worthwhile than the meager damage that Dragons puts out before the game ends.
+ Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Taking the spot of Outpost Siege is Chandra. Her first ability is am improved version of Outpost Siege's Khan option. Her second ability gives us some mini accel, amounting to a lesser effect to Koth's at the upside of being usuable each turn. The -3 ability is somewhat costly, but 4 damage is still reasonably useful as spot removal. I'm not sure how often she will be able to use the ultimate so i'm not going to take that into account for now. My main interest in the card comes from the two +1 abilities.
- Chaos Warp: I feel that Chaos Warp shined brightest when it was able to remove problematic commanders by shuffling them into the library. With the rule change, i'm finding that the warp hasn't been giving me as much value as i've been accustomed to the past few years. Therefore this is an opportunity to finally cut down on my number of non-permanents in the deck.
+ Panharmonicon: Ah what to say. It was love at first sight. I don't believe i need to state why this card is amazing. Auto-included.
- Tuktuk Scrapper: No particular reason for this removal. Making space for Smuggler's Copter, but realized that i had already removed Rummaging Goblin earlier to test out Commune with Lava. While i was tempted to remove Commune for the Copter, i havent tested it out sufficiently yet.
+ Smuggler's Copter: To me, this was intended to be an upgrade to Rummaging Goblin. My expectations for this card are as follows. 1)Provide an early game presence. Norin usually lacks an early game presence due to our commander's cowardly nature. The copter has a solid 3/3 body for 2 mana and should deter early game attacks from heading out way. 2)Flying/Evasion. One of the deck's weaknesses lie in it's ability to deal with or block flying weenies. Since the copter has flying it will be able to prevent us from getting attacked by opportunistic fliers. At the same time, having flying gives it sufficient evasion to trigger it's looting effect somewhat consistently. 3) Improved loot effect. Rummager's loot requires us to discard first then draw. Copter on the other hand allows us to draw first then discard, increasing our options and thus card quality.
- Mountain
+ Inventors' Fair: Tutors are extremely rare in momo red. Gaining access to an artifact tutor in an artifact heavy mono-red deck on a land is hard to pass up. Furthermore, the lifegain ability on the land is also oddly relevant as it helps to partially negate the burn from mana crypt.
Cards that might be removed in the near future:
Sculpting Steel: Sculpting steel is so good. It just bugs me that it's a nonbo with Warp World.
Monkey Cage: The opposite problem from Sculpting Steel. The card is so insane on the back of a Warp World. But it's a complete nonbo in normal circumstances where it gets triggered by our measly commander.
Commune With Lava: This thing is just such a huge mana drain when compared to other options like Wheel of Fortune. I'm not sold either way and need more time to evaluate it's usefulness.
Mogg Infestation: I still really like the card. My two issues with it are the fact that it only hits one opponent and the fact that it is a sorcery. Since i'm always looking to reduce my non-permanent count, this on KIV.
Other cards of interest:
Reckless Fireweaver: I'm noting this card down for the possibility that the deck eventually shifts towards more artifact creatures. At that time, this could function is an additional copy of Impact Tremors.
please reconsider cutting chaos warp. it's one of the few effects that can remove enchantments in red/artifacts, i doubled up with a pyroblast just for this effect.
please reconsider cutting chaos warp. it's one of the few effects that can remove enchantments in red/artifacts, i doubled up with a pyroblast just for this effect.
DO you feel like that the amount of Enchantment removal you run is insufficient with just cards like Oblivion Stone and such or are they too broad an effect for your needs? From my experience thus far, it feels like Norin usually has the most threatening enchantments on the board most of the time when compared to other decks. In recent games, the only enchantment that has given me problems would likely be Survival of the Fittest. I'm just not entirely convinced yet that Chaos Warp is going to be worth a slot for those fringe cases, especially since it is a non-permanent.
For Kaladesh changes, I replaced Monkey Cage with Whirlermaker. Cage is a powerful combo card but it very often sits in my hand being completely useless and I feel it's too unreliable. At least Whirlermaker is a reliable mana sink. Could probably change it for an older card that does the same thing better but I don't know which one. I also might consider Hangarback Walker.
I agree with your assessment on monkey cage. I really wish the card worked on Norin due to how cool it is, but it's really just too convoluted to get working with our commander. I'm currently pondering on what to replace it with. If you are looking for mana sinks, Snake Basket, Pentavus and even the pyrohemia are all pretty decent when compared to Whirlermaker.
it sure looks like you have never been against overburden, stasis or an enchantress build with blue in its colors. the only real answer to one of those is chaos warp the instant they are put in play, oblivion stone or karn come online too late and the more you stall the more the problem becomes impossible to solve. remember that, with overburden, the only way for Norin not to come back to the battlefield is either to kill him yourself, since either in exile or back in the command zone Norin's delayed trigger is linked to the card.
this is to justify the addition of pyroblast mainly, but there are enchantments in every color that need to be answered like an early luminarch ascension, or a stray oblivion ring exiling your purphoros, heck, another player's purphoros too, since chaos warp gets around indestructible.
then again, it might be me, but i use burning wish too since my playgroup lets me, and the wishboard card i tutor for most of the time is anarchy exactly because there is usually one white enchantment hurting me. also white creatures and planeswalker get in the collateral damage, but that's a plus, not the reason i look for the card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1 Norin the Wary
Creatures - 26
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Marshal
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Thopter Engineer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Pentavus
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Goblin Welder
1 Feldon of the Third Path
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Moggcatcher
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Smuggler's Copter
1 Duplicant
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Grinning Ignus
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Expedition Map
1 Springleaf Drum
1 Honor-Worn Shaku
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Caged Sun
1 Skullclamp
1 Genesis Chamber
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Mimic Vat
1 Trading Post
1 Panharmonicon
1 Memory Jar
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Monkey Cage
1 Snake Basket
Enchantments - 7
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Impact Tremors
1 Pandemonium
1 Pyrohemia
1 In the Web of War
1 Confusion in the Ranks
1 Warstorm Surge
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Instants and Sorceries - 7
1 Gamble
1 Vandalblast
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Commune with Lava
1 Mogg Infestation
1 Warp World
1 Blasphemous Act
Lands - 34
1 Mirrorpool
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Buried Ruin
1 Kher Keep
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Temple of the False God
1 Deserted Temple
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
24 Mountains
Introduction
Norin is not a character that needs an introduction. Hes been around the block, and we all know him by name. To me, Norin is not a deck that's meant to be a joke. It's not a deck that creates chaos, annoys everyone to death nor force concedes. To me, Norin is about just one thing. Synergy. The core of the deck is built around abusing enter the battlefield and leave the battlefield triggers to get the most value out of Norin as we can get. Then we introduce as many ways to get those triggers to go off as possible. Since most of the cards in the deck are similar to other lists present on the site, I shall not flesh out explanations for each and every card choice for the moment.
Gameplan
The basic strategy of the deck is simple. Play Norin. Play one or more engines that abuse an etb/ltb effect. Play one or more token producers to abuse that effect. Win.
The Engines
The Bread - Impact Tremors, Purphoros: These cards trigger damage to all opponents whenever a creature enters the battlefield. In a 4 player game, thats between 9-24 damage a single round just from Norin alone. A token producer like Siege-Gang Commander is an additional 4-8 damage to each opponent just for entering the battlefield. While a great source of damage to our opponents, these engines are not all that flexible since they do not hit creatures.
The Butter - Outpost Siege, Pandemonium, Warstorm Surge: The remainder of the damage engines. These cards do not hit as many targets, but make up for that fact by allowing us to target creatures, taking care of any pesky creatures we might want to if we aren't smacking face. Outpost Siege has an alternative mode that gives us card advantage, if we need to dig for threats and solutions. Pandemonium has a hefty drawback, so we usually reserve that card to be played on the turn we plan to win.
The Meat - Genesis Chamber, Confusion in the Ranks: Genesis Chamber is an engine that generates tokens for the deck. Not only is it excellent on it's own, but when paired with any of the damage engines mentioned above, the game has basically ended. Confusion in the Ranks allows us to gain control of a creature on each turn that a spell is played. While these engines don't necessarily win you the game on the spot, the amount of advantage they generate basically makes it really difficult to lose.
The Salad - Pyrohemia: Pyrohemia turns the deck on it's head and allows the deck to play heavy control rather than aggro. With Pyrohemia and Norin on the field, you can attack or cast a spell to let Norin take a walk and burn the entire board to the ground. At end of turn, Norin returns home and you get to keep Pyrohemia around to do the same again next turn.
Token Producers
Now that we have the engines to abuse Norin's etb/ltb effects, what we want are more bodies so that be can multiply it. To that end, we fill in the deck with some decent token producer for mono-red.
Mogg War Marshal: At 2 mana, it provides 3 bodies in total.
Thopter Engineer: At 3 mana, it provides 2 bodies, and haste to all artifact creatures.
Beetleback Chief: At 4 mana, it provides 3 bodies.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar: At 4 mana, it provides 3 bodies and allows us to make artifacts go boom.
Krenko, Mob Boss: At 4 mana, it doubles the number of goblins each turn.
Snake Basket: Comes down for 4 mana, but requires an additional X to produce X tokens. Expensive to get started, but potentially explosive effects.
Siege-Gang Commander: At 5 mana, it provides 4 bodies and allows us to make goblins go boom.
Monkey Cage: At 5 mana, initially seems like a non-bo considering it triggers for 1 creature at EoT when Norin returns to the battlefield. That said, if it is used knowing it's limitations, extremely nasty amounts of tokens can be put into play as a result. Synergistic with any "cheat effects" like Kiki, Mimic Vat, Feldon etc.
Goblin Marshal: At 6 mana, it provides 5 bodies in total.
Chancellor of the Forge: At 7 mana, it doubles the number of creatures with the bonus of hasted goblins being produced.
Wurmcoil Engine: At 6 mana, it provides 3 bodies, with the bonus of having lifesteal and deathtouch tacked on.
Myr Battlesphere: At 7 mana, it provides 5 bodies.
Pentavus: At 7 mana, it provides an engine to repeatedly create both etb and ltb triggers.
Now we have a bunch of token producers to abuse those Norin Engines. That's the core of the deck. I'm not going to touch so much on the rest of the cards tonight.
- Insurrection + Impact Tremors
- Hellkite Tyrant + Pia and Kiran Nalaar
- Goblin Recruiter + Monkey Cage
- Goblin Ringleader + Snake Basket
- Goblin Assassin + Thopter Engineer
- Rummaging Goblin + Commune with Lava
- Spinerock Knoll + Mountain
- Myriad Landscape + Mountain
- Vesuva + Mirrorpool
- Mind's Eye + Magus of the Wheel
- Mycosynth Lattice + Helm of Possession
- Tuktuk Scrapper + Smuggler's Copter
- Chaos Warp + Panharmonicon
- Outpost Siege + Chandra, Torch of Defiance
- Mountain + Inventors' Fair
Terrain Generator
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
First off, i recently removed Insurrection and Hellkite Tyrant from the deck. While they were both fantastic cards and win-cons on their own, they were moreso "goodstuff" additions rather than synergistic complements to the deck. Since i'm already using Insurrection in my Rakdos deck, i felt i could remove it from Norin. In it's place i've put the newly printed Impact Tremors which serves as yet another Norin Engine. Can't ever have too many of those.
That leaves me with a spot. Recently i've been contemplating the addition of Karn, Silver Golem into the deck. It's a pretty strong card on it's own right and has some nifty interactions, primarily with Kiki-Jiki and Mimic Vat. I could possibly animate one of my noncreature artifacts with Karn, then copy them with kiki or mimic to churn out additional copies of those artifacts. With Mycosynth Lattice, Karn would be able to animate opponents' lands, basically destroying them at 1 mana a pop. Overall i'm still debating the card and would appreciate some feedback.
If it helps, i'm also considering cards like Snake Basket and Monkey Cage as potential additions that are synergistic with Karn. The criteria that these cards fill are
A] They are permanents which work well with Warp World. (Monkey Cage crazily so)
B] They are a source of non-red creatures which helps against pro-red plays.
C] They are pretty decent token producers, which the deck could always use more of.
They both interact pretty well with Daretti and Goblin Welder. If i put Karn in as well, that would potentially extend to Kiki and Mimic vat as well. Monkey Cage may be a dud when played from hand since it will trigger on Norin at eot. It becomes pretty solid when played in conjuction with another creature say through a kiki trigger or by being cheated into play with warp world or even in response to something like living death.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Heya, thanks for the compliments!, brought a nice smile to my face. Glad to see that the decks are working out for you. All my builds are indeed in paper, since i do not play the online version (That UI turned me off). Because of that though, my meta tends to consist of a small static pool of decks comprising of people that go to the local game shop and those that use my decks. It'll be great if you happen to be able to share any stories of your games as they happen on MODO, since i imagine the variety of decks there would be a better test for the builds.
Norin was the first deck that i built. It was my first plunge into the world of EDH. The deck was heavily inspired by Gaka's list at the time since i had no idea what i was doing, but slowly shifted away from the chaos/trolly elements that i felt held the deck back. Considering the 200 or so pages of discussion available on his thread, i'd say that my Norin build has the most polish of all the ones i've done.
Anyways, thanks again, and I hope to hear from you in the future mate.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Pia and Kiran Nalaar - Going straight into the deck. It's a decent producer that can be compared to Beetleback Chief. The important thing to note is that it provides flying meatshields, which red is otherwise sorely lacking in unless you go dragons. At the lowest level, it adds to the creature density with 3 bodies for 1 card which i believe the deck can never have enough of. It's a legendary creature which makes it a nonbo with Kiki. At the same time it synergieses with Shaku. We'll see how it performs.
Flameshadow Conjuring - When i first saw the card, i was pretty excited. The more i think about it though, i'm starting to feel that the Kresh deck would be a more appropriate home for this deck since the commander gets to double up on the creature power it gains from saccing the creatures. The card would also prefer creatures which come with "impactful" etb abilities like spot removal whereas the creatures in norin are basically token producers which don't get too crazy with it. I'll be testing this out in Kresh. Depending on it's performance there, i may revisit the idea of trying it in Norin.
In other changes, I finally took the plunge i put Snake Basket and Monkey Cage into deck.
The two unlucky losers to get kicked out are:
Goblin Recruiter
Goblin Ringleader
Recruiter into Ringleader has won me many many games in the past and i'm pretty sad that they are going out. Ringleader on it's own is a crappy card without Recruiter to fetch the gang in and if i remove just ringleader, the recruiter becomes too clunky to reliably use. Seemed like the perfect excuse to just cut both of them to make more room for experimentation.
Changelog:
- Hellkite Tyrant + Pia and Kiran Nalaar
- Goblin Recruiter + Monkey Cage
- Goblin Ringleader + Snake Basket
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Pentavus on it's own is a pretty underwhelming card. At 7 mana, it is really expensive for a 5/5 body. We usually have to wait an entire turn before we get to do anything cool with it. Due to that alone, Pentavus isn't in the same league as Battlesphere. That said, this card can get drowned in synergy when paired with virtually any other card in the deck. Daretti, Feldon and Welder allows us to cheat him into play, giving us enough mana to abuse him the turn he gets into play. Paired with almost any Norin Engine will result in a win just from Pentavus alone, allowing us to stock up on cards in hand incase of boardwipes. Battledriver and In the Web of War is nasty with Pentavus. It dodges most targeted removals. And with just Pentavus, you can stall a board by creating blockers, delcaring block and then sucking them back in over and over.
Overall, the card has powerful synergies with the rest of the deck, but takes awhile to get going unless it's cheated into play.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Also, Warmonger Hellkite, with the army of small creatures you've got, can end players easily while punishing opposing swarm decks if played on the right time.
Host, December 2015: A Winter Wonderland? - R1|R2|R3|Top 8|Semifinals|Finals|Poll
Host, CCL April 2014: A Game of Fate - Signup|R1|R2|R3|Top 8|Semifinal|Finals|Poll
Host, CCL December 2012: Spy Games - Signup|R1|R2|R3|Top 8|Semifinals|Finals|Poll
Host, CCL November 2010: The Perfect Crime - Signup|R1|R2|R3|Top 8|Semifinals|Finals|Poll
Host, CCL August 2009: A Commander's Journey: Signups|R1|R2|R3|Top 8|Semifinals|Finals|Poll
I've got tons of art from the web. Want art for a render? PM me! Want to create your own collection? Start here!
I'm not a fan of Goblin Warrens. The card does nothing on it's own, requiring us to already have goblins on the field to start playing with. Then it requires mana to use, which could otherwise be used to cast our cards. Finally, goblins are a subtheme of the deck, one that i would eventually like to move away from (when better non-goblin token producers get printed). There isn't going to be enough support for the theme to always have access to goblin token when Warrens is in play.
Warmonger Hellkite is a really weak effect. 2 mana for +1/+0 is not great to begin with and 6 mana for a single 5/5 body is bad. Being a creature also makes the card more fragile in this case. That said, the deck doesn't quite need more mana sinks at the moment, and it already has a superior pump mana sink in Purphoros, God of the Forge. Mana sinks are not effects for which redundancy is useful.
Had Snake Basket make a small appearance today. It was moreso due to a godly hand that churned out a turn 1 Snake Basket, but i see quite alot of potential for the card in this deck. There was a pretty neat interaction with genesis chamber, daretti and the basket. The ability to churn out ungodly amounts of tokens works out really well with any of the damage engines available.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Changelog:
- Goblin Assassin + Thopter Engineer
- Rummaging Goblin + Commune with Lava
While the cards that were meant to go out were Beetleback Chief and Goblin Chieftain, I do not want to dismantle my Moggcatcher combo yet. For now i'd like to see whether the removal of Rummaging Goblin necessitates the inclusion of some other card draw and whether i need a functional equivalent of Goblin Assassin (even though none exist at this point).
Everyone seems to be upselling Commune with Lava. I'm going to give it a try and see if it lives up to the hype.
Thopter Engineer seems to be a pretty useful card. Producing 2 creatures for 3 mana, one of which has flying, and giving artifact creatures haste, including the thopter that came with it. Considering that i'd like to move the deck deeper into the artifact theme, seems like a reasonable inclusion to push it towards that path.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
One goblin a turn simply is not impactful enough to justify the card. Add to that the must attack clause that disrupts utility goblins like Goblin Welder puts a nail in it's coffin.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
First off with regards to the landbase. The cipt lands in the deck simply weren't performing sufficiently to counter the loss of tempo they caused. To that end the following cuts were made:
- Spinerock Knoll
- Myriad Landscape
- Vesuva
And to replace the lands are:
+ Mirrorpool: Mirrorpool is taking the spot of a cipt land to test out it's potential towards any of my decks instead of Norin in particular. I do forsee some synergy with either copying spells (Warp World/Mogg Infestation) or creatures. The activation cost is pretty steep though, so we'll see if it ends up being worth it.
+ Mountain
+ Mountain
The other two slots are just simple Mountains, or Snow covered ones if that's more to your taste. There have been a couple of games where i've pulled out every Mountain from the deck onto the battlefield and hopefully this small change will prevent that from happening as often, if ever. Also on the topic of lands, with the removal of Myraid Landscape, i'm going to be keeping Terrain Generator on the back of my mind during games to see if the card might deserve a try in it's place.
In terms of other cuts:
- Mind's Eye: The synergy with Honor-Worn Shaku is great as always. Apart from that, the card rarely had a huge impact for 5cmc. It is probably one of the weaker card draw sources in the deck and is going out to make way for Magus of the Wheel.
- Mycosynth Lattice: A vestigial card from when Hellkite Tyrant used to part of the deck. Now the sole use would be in conjunction with Vandalblast. I have won multiple games from both the Hellkite Tyrant and Vandalblast with Lattice in play, but it's time to make space for new blood. Who knows, they may eventually make a triumphant return in the future.
+ Magus of the Wheel: Wheel effect on a stick? Say no more.
+ Helm of Possession: Not sure how i've lasted so long without including Helm of Possession to the decklist. All round solid addition to the deck and pretty abusable with sac effects.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
Alright, lets get started.
Changelog:
- Outpost Siege: Siege was a card that i had hopes for as a mini Norin Engine. Most times i draw the card though, i find the Khans option more worthwhile than the meager damage that Dragons puts out before the game ends.
+ Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Taking the spot of Outpost Siege is Chandra. Her first ability is am improved version of Outpost Siege's Khan option. Her second ability gives us some mini accel, amounting to a lesser effect to Koth's at the upside of being usuable each turn. The -3 ability is somewhat costly, but 4 damage is still reasonably useful as spot removal. I'm not sure how often she will be able to use the ultimate so i'm not going to take that into account for now. My main interest in the card comes from the two +1 abilities.
- Chaos Warp: I feel that Chaos Warp shined brightest when it was able to remove problematic commanders by shuffling them into the library. With the rule change, i'm finding that the warp hasn't been giving me as much value as i've been accustomed to the past few years. Therefore this is an opportunity to finally cut down on my number of non-permanents in the deck.
+ Panharmonicon: Ah what to say. It was love at first sight. I don't believe i need to state why this card is amazing. Auto-included.
- Tuktuk Scrapper: No particular reason for this removal. Making space for Smuggler's Copter, but realized that i had already removed Rummaging Goblin earlier to test out Commune with Lava. While i was tempted to remove Commune for the Copter, i havent tested it out sufficiently yet.
+ Smuggler's Copter: To me, this was intended to be an upgrade to Rummaging Goblin. My expectations for this card are as follows. 1)Provide an early game presence. Norin usually lacks an early game presence due to our commander's cowardly nature. The copter has a solid 3/3 body for 2 mana and should deter early game attacks from heading out way. 2)Flying/Evasion. One of the deck's weaknesses lie in it's ability to deal with or block flying weenies. Since the copter has flying it will be able to prevent us from getting attacked by opportunistic fliers. At the same time, having flying gives it sufficient evasion to trigger it's looting effect somewhat consistently. 3) Improved loot effect. Rummager's loot requires us to discard first then draw. Copter on the other hand allows us to draw first then discard, increasing our options and thus card quality.
- Mountain
+ Inventors' Fair: Tutors are extremely rare in momo red. Gaining access to an artifact tutor in an artifact heavy mono-red deck on a land is hard to pass up. Furthermore, the lifegain ability on the land is also oddly relevant as it helps to partially negate the burn from mana crypt.
Cards that might be removed in the near future:
Sculpting Steel: Sculpting steel is so good. It just bugs me that it's a nonbo with Warp World.
Monkey Cage: The opposite problem from Sculpting Steel. The card is so insane on the back of a Warp World. But it's a complete nonbo in normal circumstances where it gets triggered by our measly commander.
Commune With Lava: This thing is just such a huge mana drain when compared to other options like Wheel of Fortune. I'm not sold either way and need more time to evaluate it's usefulness.
Mogg Infestation: I still really like the card. My two issues with it are the fact that it only hits one opponent and the fact that it is a sorcery. Since i'm always looking to reduce my non-permanent count, this on KIV.
Other cards of interest:
Reckless Fireweaver: I'm noting this card down for the possibility that the deck eventually shifts towards more artifact creatures. At that time, this could function is an additional copy of Impact Tremors.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
DO you feel like that the amount of Enchantment removal you run is insufficient with just cards like Oblivion Stone and such or are they too broad an effect for your needs? From my experience thus far, it feels like Norin usually has the most threatening enchantments on the board most of the time when compared to other decks. In recent games, the only enchantment that has given me problems would likely be Survival of the Fittest. I'm just not entirely convinced yet that Chaos Warp is going to be worth a slot for those fringe cases, especially since it is a non-permanent.
I agree with your assessment on monkey cage. I really wish the card worked on Norin due to how cool it is, but it's really just too convoluted to get working with our commander. I'm currently pondering on what to replace it with. If you are looking for mana sinks, Snake Basket, Pentavus and even the pyrohemia are all pretty decent when compared to Whirlermaker.
Norin the Wary (BRB) R
Blind Seer (Hose Everything) U
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Double Dipping) UBR
Borborygmos Enraged (Crush Mountains, Eat Forests) GR
Kresh the Bloodbraided (Get Wild) GRB
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (Test Your Math) WUR
Toshiro Umezawa (Instant Reanimation) B
Dralnu, Lich Lord (Mill then Will) UB
Rakdos the Defiler (Death at any Cost) BR
Iwamori of the Open Fist (Wheel and Deal) G
Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Balancing Eggs) W
this is to justify the addition of pyroblast mainly, but there are enchantments in every color that need to be answered like an early luminarch ascension, or a stray oblivion ring exiling your purphoros, heck, another player's purphoros too, since chaos warp gets around indestructible.
then again, it might be me, but i use burning wish too since my playgroup lets me, and the wishboard card i tutor for most of the time is anarchy exactly because there is usually one white enchantment hurting me. also white creatures and planeswalker get in the collateral damage, but that's a plus, not the reason i look for the card.