Not going to go in to a whole lot of explanation here, just wanted to share my latest inspired brew with you all. Took inspiration from here. Added black because it seemed like the right thing to do.
Its SoulSisters revamped to be a beatdown deck. Your dudes get really big really fast. Norin the Wary is incredible and you almost always grab him with rangers but he's legendary. Xathrid Necromancer is a test, so far he's been very solid but maybe 1 CMC too much to be viable? Needs more testing. [card]Blood Moon[card] wins games alone and Im nearly never sad to see it; when I am, it makes sideboarding exceptionally easy, which is an oft-overlooked plus.
So yeah. Human-themed, come into play, gain life make huge dudes, blood moon backup plan, insane card advantage, very little disruption. It's tons and tons of fun to play. I'm currently 4-2 with it in 2-mans on MTGO, losing to baublecombo and tron, winning against merfolk, robots, burn, and jund. Going to keep playing and tweaking. What'cha all think?
Spent about half of today testing. This deck is enormously fun. Turn 3 5/5 pridemates, turn 4 8/8s, huge champions, blanking kiki combo by accident. Its seriously the most fun I've had playing magic in months. Made a few tweaks, current list:
Im not sure about Lightning Helix, that's still kind of a flex slot, but it clears paths and triggers Pridemate as a bonus. Also, the deck has a tough time against burn because of its manabase (you have to aggressively mulligan for sister-heavy hands, basically), and it helps there. Sideboard is a bit of a mess, but the thoughtseizes really help with storm, which is otherwise difficult.
Not a whole lot of specifics or requests, as I have my own list of questions I plan on answering over the next few days. Just letting everyone know that it's working and pretty powerful, if slightly inconsistent in its game-plan (a hand full of pridemates is annoying), and to encourage people to pick it up for some fun. I have ~65% winrate in mtgo 1v1s, and went 4-0, 3-1, 3-1 in 8mans so far. This is partly because of 8mans / 1v1s drawing lots of funky decks with weak manabases that bloodmoon autowins, and partly because of 10/10 beaters on turn 5. Weeeeeeee
Hi, this is an interestin version that I want to try.
Here few ideas I thought:
1) Did you try Thraben Doomsayer? It can produce Human tokens and costs 1 mana less than Elspeth.
2) one Archangel of Thune to boost all creatures included sisters? Or is it a winmore?
3) Vault of the Archangel to make also sisters a threat and to boost more Ajani's Pride?
Hi, this is an interestin version that I want to try.
Here few ideas I thought:
1) Did you try Thraben Doomsayer? It can produce Human tokens and costs 1 mana less than Elspeth.
2) one Archangel of Thune to boost all creatures included sisters? Or is it a winmore?
3) Vault of the Archangel to make also sisters a threat and to boost more Ajani's Pride?
Ciao
First off, thanks for the interest. Just went 4-0 in a modern daily (beating jundx2, tron, and merfolk), should be popping up on mtgpulse soon.
1) I haven't tested him, but he's definitely a possibility, probably as a 2-of instead of the Helix. He's just really easy to remove, and I don't like playing dudes that cost more than 2 that are answerable with a single removal spell. Ranger doesnt care about removal, you got your dudes already, and walkers are walkers. That said, he's super synergistic (other than the fact that this deck never hits fateful hour without already having lost), so I'll give him a shot. Could be awesome if he gets going.
2) Too expensive, especially with Confidant. This deck doesn't like having that much mana in general. Winmore I think.
3)Colored mana is a very precious commodity when you have such a low curve and are playing blood moon. As much as I would like to play this, I just can't deal with the colorless tap.
Spent about half of today testing. This deck is enormously fun. Turn 3 5/5 pridemates, turn 4 8/8s, huge champions, blanking kiki combo by accident. Its seriously the most fun I've had playing magic in months. Made a few tweaks, current list:
Im not sure about Lightning Helix, that's still kind of a flex slot, but it clears paths and triggers Pridemate as a bonus. Also, the deck has a tough time against burn because of its manabase (you have to aggressively mulligan for sister-heavy hands, basically), and it helps there. Sideboard is a bit of a mess, but the thoughtseizes really help with storm, which is otherwise difficult.
Not a whole lot of specifics or requests, as I have my own list of questions I plan on answering over the next few days. Just letting everyone know that it's working and pretty powerful, if slightly inconsistent in its game-plan (a hand full of pridemates is annoying), and to encourage people to pick it up for some fun. I have ~65% winrate in mtgo 1v1s, and went 4-0, 3-1, 3-1 in 8mans so far. This is partly because of 8mans / 1v1s drawing lots of funky decks with weak manabases that bloodmoon autowins, and partly because of 10/10 beaters on turn 5. Weeeeeeee
I'm not sure if Blood Moon is still worth running in the 3 color version since you're only left with 4 basics in the deck.
I think Genesis Chamber is still worth running like in the old Norin lists for Ajani and crazy sister and Norin triggers. I've won a ton of games off of just Norin + Chamber since they're so hard to remove.
The thing with Blood Moon is you know when you are going to play it, so you get to fetch your basics / get all set up before dropping it. Some decks (jund, UW, etc) don't have the luxury of fetching basics early because they need access to all their colors, and then moon is gg.
But I do agree that its worth testing something else out in its place.
Genesis chamber is really cool, but its a little iffy for me, because in all the instances its most powerful, I'm already winning. If I have a bouncing Norin and a sister/ajani, I'm already winning. If I have a hand full of dudes to dump, I'm in a good position. Also, every single one of our creatures is chump-blockable, and giving our opponent chumps is kinda annoying. How has your testing with Chamber been?
I also am surprised by 4 Norin. They're legendary, and basically un-removable, so if you have one, you never want to see another. They do nothing on their own, and they're fetchable with Ranger. 4 seems like self-imposed card disadvantage waiting to happen. I'd run MAYBE 2 in a list really reliant on them, but never more.
How has Ajani been for you? His effects are generally considered pretty weak. His + ability is bad for us, because we don't care about the time it buys us because we already have sisters, but it does synergize with one card in our deck (Pridemates). His pump could be incredible with Genesis Chamber, but if you're dropping a dude that costs 4 in modern, he better be game-changing, and Im not sure giving a horde of tokens an anthem effect is broken (if you have a horde of dudes, you're probably already winning).
I've been testing Path instead of Bolt and can't decide which I like better. I generally don't really care about big dudes because ours are bigger (Champion and Pridemate) save possibly wurmcoil, and Bolt is supreme at killing bobs / delvers / early scooze / everything except big dudes. It's also reach, which I've used more than once, in a deck that is otherwise lacking it completely. Then again, being able to deal with wurmcoils and huge goyfs is always good.
The thing with Blood Moon is you know when you are going to play it, so you get to fetch your basics / get all set up before dropping it. Some decks (jund, UW, etc) don't have the luxury of fetching basics early because they need access to all their colors, and then moon is gg.
But I do agree that its worth testing something else out in its place.
Genesis chamber is really cool, but its a little iffy for me, because in all the instances its most powerful, I'm already winning. If I have a bouncing Norin and a sister/ajani, I'm already winning. If I have a hand full of dudes to dump, I'm in a good position. Also, every single one of our creatures is chump-blockable, and giving our opponent chumps is kinda annoying. How has your testing with Chamber been?
I also am surprised by 4 Norin. They're legendary, and basically un-removable, so if you have one, you never want to see another. They do nothing on their own, and they're fetchable with Ranger. 4 seems like self-imposed card disadvantage waiting to happen. I'd run MAYBE 2 in a list really reliant on them, but never more.
How has Ajani been for you? His effects are generally considered pretty weak. His + ability is bad for us, because we don't care about the time it buys us because we already have sisters, but it does synergize with one card in our deck (Pridemates). His pump could be incredible with Genesis Chamber, but if you're dropping a dude that costs 4 in modern, he better be game-changing, and Im not sure giving a horde of tokens an anthem effect is broken (if you have a horde of dudes, you're probably already winning).
I've been testing Path instead of Bolt and can't decide which I like better. I generally don't really care about big dudes because ours are bigger (Champion and Pridemate) save possibly wurmcoil, and Bolt is supreme at killing bobs / delvers / early scooze / everything except big dudes. It's also reach, which I've used more than once, in a deck that is otherwise lacking it completely. Then again, being able to deal with wurmcoils and huge goyfs is always good.
Chambers been really good for me. With the amount of creatures we run, not even counting blinking Norins, it usually benefits us much more than opponents.
The Ajani's there to break up long stalemates and I mean looooong stalemates. Before I had him i played enough stalled games against midrange decks that went on for so long I literally won by drawing the opponent out (didn't have Bob in those games). Ajani's good to fix that and his +1 does work well with Pridemate.
As for the 4 Norins, he is a legendary but it's a card I want to see every game, especially with Chambers. I've won a ton of games off of just Norin + Chambers since they're so hard to remove. Those 2 alone create a nasty engine for just 3 mana that gets that much better with what ever creatures you drop afterwards. People usually side in wipers which kill all the tokens but Norin just evades that and keeps blinking and generating more. Running all 4 is more of a consistency thing and I'd rather play it t2 after a Champion or a sister than late game after having to fetch it.
I think with Path vs Bolt it comes down to if you run Blood Moon or not. You don't want to path something when you have a moon out and let your opponent fetch a basic and Bolt's just easier to cast with a moon out since it's red. Either way though, I always have a few paths in the SB for twin.
Awesome. Just as a note, Id argue that both elspeth and even arguably Sorin are better at breaking stalemates than Ajani, and they're unarguably more powerful when you're behind, so I think I'll stick with those. The rest of your points are good. I'll probably go to 2 Norin and test Chamber in place of moons, and maybe some paths instead of bolts.
Did pretty well in testing yesterday. Chambers is a little slow, and often would end up in stalemates because they chumped until they drew in to removal for my big dudes and then we just stalled. It also straight up won games with Norin. I'd still consider it the flex slot and will keep a close eye on it to see how it plays.
Ran in to some trouble with Scapeshift. With MD moons you can just autowin games sometimes but they play enough maindecked sweepers and they combo before you have a chance to win too often. I don't really know what we can do here other than side in moons and possibly thoughtseizes? Might have to just accept it as a bad matchup.
Did pretty well in testing yesterday. Chambers is a little slow, and often would end up in stalemates because they chumped until they drew in to removal for my big dudes and then we just stalled. It also straight up won games with Norin. I'd still consider it the flex slot and will keep a close eye on it to see how it plays.
Ran in to some trouble with Scapeshift. With MD moons you can just autowin games sometimes but they play enough maindecked sweepers and they combo before you have a chance to win too often. I don't really know what we can do here other than side in moons and possibly thoughtseizes? Might have to just accept it as a bad matchup.
Boros Charm seems like it could help you out against sweepers even though it's tough to really find room and it's hard to leave mana up. I'm looking to find space in the sideboard for it to help against UWR. Proclamation is also a workaround to sweepers but I'm not too big a fan of it.
EDIT: I don't feel like double posting even though it's been two days, but here's what I've been playing.
With two-colors we can afford a land that doesn't tap for colored mana like Kher Keep and play Blood Moon safely, which is the biggest appeal to me. Kher Keep of course helping us grind out games with blockers and lifegain triggers and Blood Moon shutting down a lot of popular decks.
Chandra, Pyromaster is probably the only other thing that sticks out here. Our deck would love to have some sort of card advantage engine and she does the trick. She also can help push through a big Pridemate or Champion in a pinch, although Elspeth tends to do that better. Still, being able to kill X/1's is not to be underestimated.
Legion Loyalist and Hero of Bladehold are also under consideration, but I'm confident in the current list
The Vials help get everything in when Blood Moon is out. I'm thinking of testing Archangel of Thune just because we can curve into it. (Sisters, Confidant, Xathrid, Ranger, Archangel)
In my mono white and Boros builds I run 3 Vials. It keeps mana free for Mentor of the Meek.
I have no idea why that card isn't used in the deck.
Not going to go in to a whole lot of explanation here, just wanted to share my latest inspired brew with you all. Took inspiration from here. Added black because it seemed like the right thing to do.
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Dark Confidant
2 Xathrid Necromancer
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Norin the Wary
Not dudes:
3 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Lands (22):
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
3 Sacred Foundry
3 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
3 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Path to Exile
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Stony Silence
2 Auriok Champion
2 Pillar of Flame
Its SoulSisters revamped to be a beatdown deck. Your dudes get really big really fast. Norin the Wary is incredible and you almost always grab him with rangers but he's legendary. Xathrid Necromancer is a test, so far he's been very solid but maybe 1 CMC too much to be viable? Needs more testing. [card]Blood Moon[card] wins games alone and Im nearly never sad to see it; when I am, it makes sideboarding exceptionally easy, which is an oft-overlooked plus.
So yeah. Human-themed, come into play, gain life make huge dudes, blood moon backup plan, insane card advantage, very little disruption. It's tons and tons of fun to play. I'm currently 4-2 with it in 2-mans on MTGO, losing to baublecombo and tron, winning against merfolk, robots, burn, and jund. Going to keep playing and tweaking. What'cha all think?
Spent about half of today testing. This deck is enormously fun. Turn 3 5/5 pridemates, turn 4 8/8s, huge champions, blanking kiki combo by accident. Its seriously the most fun I've had playing magic in months. Made a few tweaks, current list:
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Dark Confidant
2 Lightning Helix
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Norin the Wary
Not dudes:
3 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Lands (22):
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
3 Sacred Foundry
3 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
3 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Path to Exile
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Stony Silence
3 Thoughtseize
2 Auriok Champion
2 Rest in Peace
Im not sure about Lightning Helix, that's still kind of a flex slot, but it clears paths and triggers Pridemate as a bonus. Also, the deck has a tough time against burn because of its manabase (you have to aggressively mulligan for sister-heavy hands, basically), and it helps there. Sideboard is a bit of a mess, but the thoughtseizes really help with storm, which is otherwise difficult.
Not a whole lot of specifics or requests, as I have my own list of questions I plan on answering over the next few days. Just letting everyone know that it's working and pretty powerful, if slightly inconsistent in its game-plan (a hand full of pridemates is annoying), and to encourage people to pick it up for some fun. I have ~65% winrate in mtgo 1v1s, and went 4-0, 3-1, 3-1 in 8mans so far. This is partly because of 8mans / 1v1s drawing lots of funky decks with weak manabases that bloodmoon autowins, and partly because of 10/10 beaters on turn 5. Weeeeeeee
Here few ideas I thought:
1) Did you try Thraben Doomsayer? It can produce Human tokens and costs 1 mana less than Elspeth.
2) one Archangel of Thune to boost all creatures included sisters? Or is it a winmore?
3) Vault of the Archangel to make also sisters a threat and to boost more Ajani's Pride?
Ciao
First off, thanks for the interest. Just went 4-0 in a modern daily (beating jundx2, tron, and merfolk), should be popping up on mtgpulse soon.
1) I haven't tested him, but he's definitely a possibility, probably as a 2-of instead of the Helix. He's just really easy to remove, and I don't like playing dudes that cost more than 2 that are answerable with a single removal spell. Ranger doesnt care about removal, you got your dudes already, and walkers are walkers. That said, he's super synergistic (other than the fact that this deck never hits fateful hour without already having lost), so I'll give him a shot. Could be awesome if he gets going.
2) Too expensive, especially with Confidant. This deck doesn't like having that much mana in general. Winmore I think.
3)Colored mana is a very precious commodity when you have such a low curve and are playing blood moon. As much as I would like to play this, I just can't deal with the colorless tap.
I'm not sure if Blood Moon is still worth running in the 3 color version since you're only left with 4 basics in the deck.
Here's my list:
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
3 Ranger of Eos
4 Norin the Wary
Spells
4 Genesis Chamber
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
2 Ajani Goldmane
3 Path to Exile
2 Plains
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Marsh Flats
1 Mountain
4 Dark Confidant
2 Blood Crypt
3 Godless Shrine
1 Swamp
3 Stony Silence
1 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
2 Disenchant
4 Thoughtseize
I think Genesis Chamber is still worth running like in the old Norin lists for Ajani and crazy sister and Norin triggers. I've won a ton of games off of just Norin + Chamber since they're so hard to remove.
But I do agree that its worth testing something else out in its place.
Genesis chamber is really cool, but its a little iffy for me, because in all the instances its most powerful, I'm already winning. If I have a bouncing Norin and a sister/ajani, I'm already winning. If I have a hand full of dudes to dump, I'm in a good position. Also, every single one of our creatures is chump-blockable, and giving our opponent chumps is kinda annoying. How has your testing with Chamber been?
I also am surprised by 4 Norin. They're legendary, and basically un-removable, so if you have one, you never want to see another. They do nothing on their own, and they're fetchable with Ranger. 4 seems like self-imposed card disadvantage waiting to happen. I'd run MAYBE 2 in a list really reliant on them, but never more.
How has Ajani been for you? His effects are generally considered pretty weak. His + ability is bad for us, because we don't care about the time it buys us because we already have sisters, but it does synergize with one card in our deck (Pridemates). His pump could be incredible with Genesis Chamber, but if you're dropping a dude that costs 4 in modern, he better be game-changing, and Im not sure giving a horde of tokens an anthem effect is broken (if you have a horde of dudes, you're probably already winning).
I've been testing Path instead of Bolt and can't decide which I like better. I generally don't really care about big dudes because ours are bigger (Champion and Pridemate) save possibly wurmcoil, and Bolt is supreme at killing bobs / delvers / early scooze / everything except big dudes. It's also reach, which I've used more than once, in a deck that is otherwise lacking it completely. Then again, being able to deal with wurmcoils and huge goyfs is always good.
Chambers been really good for me. With the amount of creatures we run, not even counting blinking Norins, it usually benefits us much more than opponents.
The Ajani's there to break up long stalemates and I mean looooong stalemates. Before I had him i played enough stalled games against midrange decks that went on for so long I literally won by drawing the opponent out (didn't have Bob in those games). Ajani's good to fix that and his +1 does work well with Pridemate.
As for the 4 Norins, he is a legendary but it's a card I want to see every game, especially with Chambers. I've won a ton of games off of just Norin + Chambers since they're so hard to remove. Those 2 alone create a nasty engine for just 3 mana that gets that much better with what ever creatures you drop afterwards. People usually side in wipers which kill all the tokens but Norin just evades that and keeps blinking and generating more. Running all 4 is more of a consistency thing and I'd rather play it t2 after a Champion or a sister than late game after having to fetch it.
I think with Path vs Bolt it comes down to if you run Blood Moon or not. You don't want to path something when you have a moon out and let your opponent fetch a basic and Bolt's just easier to cast with a moon out since it's red. Either way though, I always have a few paths in the SB for twin.
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Dark Confidant
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hero of Bladehold
2 Norin the Wary
Not dudes:
3 Genesis Chamber
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Path to Exile
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Lands (22):
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
3 Sacred Foundry
3 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
3 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Path to Exile
1 Proclamation of Rebirth
3 Stony Silence
2 Thoughtseize
2 Auriok Champion
2 Rest in Peace
3 Blood Moon
Did pretty well in testing yesterday. Chambers is a little slow, and often would end up in stalemates because they chumped until they drew in to removal for my big dudes and then we just stalled. It also straight up won games with Norin. I'd still consider it the flex slot and will keep a close eye on it to see how it plays.
Ran in to some trouble with Scapeshift. With MD moons you can just autowin games sometimes but they play enough maindecked sweepers and they combo before you have a chance to win too often. I don't really know what we can do here other than side in moons and possibly thoughtseizes? Might have to just accept it as a bad matchup.
Boros Charm seems like it could help you out against sweepers even though it's tough to really find room and it's hard to leave mana up. I'm looking to find space in the sideboard for it to help against UWR. Proclamation is also a workaround to sweepers but I'm not too big a fan of it.
EDIT: I don't feel like double posting even though it's been two days, but here's what I've been playing.
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
3 Ranger of Eos
3 Norin the Wary
1 Grim Lavamancer
Spells: 6
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pillar of Flame
Enchantments: 3
3 Blood Moon
2 Genesis Chamber
Planeswalkers: 3
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
Lands: 23
6 Plains
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Marsh Flats
1 Kher Keep
2 Mountain
With two-colors we can afford a land that doesn't tap for colored mana like Kher Keep and play Blood Moon safely, which is the biggest appeal to me. Kher Keep of course helping us grind out games with blockers and lifegain triggers and Blood Moon shutting down a lot of popular decks.
Chandra, Pyromaster is probably the only other thing that sticks out here. Our deck would love to have some sort of card advantage engine and she does the trick. She also can help push through a big Pridemate or Champion in a pinch, although Elspeth tends to do that better. Still, being able to kill X/1's is not to be underestimated.
Legion Loyalist and Hero of Bladehold are also under consideration, but I'm confident in the current list
In Lightning Helix, I have +2 Norin.
4x Arid Mesa
1x Blood Crypt
2x Cavern of Souls
3x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Godless Shrine
1x Marsh Flats
5x Plains
3x Sacred Foundry
The Vials help get everything in when Blood Moon is out. I'm thinking of testing Archangel of Thune just because we can curve into it. (Sisters, Confidant, Xathrid, Ranger, Archangel)
In my mono white and Boros builds I run 3 Vials. It keeps mana free for Mentor of the Meek.
I have no idea why that card isn't used in the deck.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R