A mechanic to explore in Norin is crew.
Norin is very good at paying for the cost.
I think most potential has Smuggler's Copter and I'm certainly going to try that.
What do you guys think?
Smuggler's Copter seems like it might be good and I would definitely be interested to hear any results you have. After copter the only playable vehicle is Renegade Freighter, but I don't think that'll be worth playing. 5/4 tramplers for 3 are nice, but it doesn't have the evasion or utility of copter and still dies to all of the same cards.
Also, took this build to a small 3 round modern event at my LGS
Forgot to bring pen and paper with me so I don't have the most accurate information
0-0, Round 1 vs Grishoalbrand
I win the roll and keep a decent 7 with something like a Thoughtseize, 2 Bobs, a Path, and 3 lands, while my opponent mulls to 6. I turn 1 thoughtseize, seeing land, land, goryo's, serum visions, simian spirit guide, faithless looting. I take goryo's, proceed to play both bobs and proceed to get in the 2/1 beats. All he finds over the course of the game is a worldspine worm that I take with a second thoughtseize. On the final turn I take 5 damage off of bob to drop me to 4 but bobs and bolts get there. 1-0
SB:
Out 3 Blood Moon, 4 Lightning Bolt
In 2 Grafdigger's Cage, 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Rest in Peace, 1 Mark of Assylum
I keep a hand of 3 land, Norin, Chamber, Chamber, Soul Warden, go Norin, Chamber, Chamber, and he dies pretty quickly to a stream of myr even killing 14 myr with a combination of echoing truth and anger of the gods. Result 2-0
1-0, Round 2 vs BW Eldrazi and Taxes
I win the roll and keep my starting 7 of Champion, Lieutenant, Bolt, Blood Moon, Marsh Flats, Bloodstained Mire, Blood Crypt. My opponent keeps 7 as well. I play Champion, he plays a caves of Koilos, I draw a path and play a Lieutenant, he plays a plains and brain maggot's me, seeing Bolt, Blood Moon, Path, Land and takes the Bolt. I play a turn 3 blood moon and he does basically nothing until I kill him. 1-0
SB (honestly no idea why I sideboarded like this):
Out 1 path, 2 thoughtseize
In 2 wear // tear, 1 pithing needle
I keep something along the lines of Champion, Lieutenant, Bolt, Thoughtseize, Norin, Land, Land. He plays a turn 1 burrenton forge-tender, so my bolt is basically useless at this point. My first two plays are Champion followed by Lieutenant, and he plays a TKS on turn 3, taking a bob I'd drawn. I play Norin and then thoughtseize him next turn and have a choice between path or eldrazi displacer. I take displacer and pass turn so that my champion will become a 5/5. He attacks and I choose not to chump with my 3/3 lietuenant. Next turn I draw something irrelevant, and attack with champion. He blocks with forge tender and then resotration angels to save it. On his turn he paths lieutenant and hits me for 7 to drop me to 6. I don't find an answer to the resto in my next 2 turns and we go to game 3. 1-1
SB:
Out 2 bolt
In 1 path, 1 spellskite (should've just been another needle)
Don't remember much about this game. He has a turn 1 aether vial, but I have a turn 3 blood moon, norin, and so much gas that I had champions and lieutenants clogging my hand. 2-1
2-0, Round 3 vs Living End
Game 1 I keep an iffy hand of Norin, Thoughtseize, Path, Path, Land, Land, Land. It's good against creature decks and it has Norin so I have a ton of relevant threats. Turn 1 I thoughtseize, see a living end, violent outburst, and some other stuff and I proceed to draw Land, Land, Genesis Chamber, Land, Thoughtseize, Genesis Chamber, Land, Thalia's Lieutenant, and at that point I'm just dead to living end. I was actually fairly close to stabilizing after the living end, but my chump blocking dreams were ruined by a kessig wolf run with 7 other lands. 0-1
Out 2 Lightning Bolt, 2 Thoughtseize
In 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Mark of Assylum
I mulligan to 6, keep a 1-lander of plains, champion, lieutenant, bob, and some other stuff that I don't remember, keeping a sacred foundry on top. I play turn 1 champion, turn 2 lieutenant, and my opponent plays a turn 2 anger of the gods off a simian spirit guide. I draw a land for bob and play him next turn, but it's too late and I die when he plays a living end on turn 5 with around 10 creatures in his graveyard. 0-2
Overall 2-1. Would've liked to go 3-0, but overall I'm happy with my results. Living End is a hard matchup and I had bad draws game 1 and he had the nuts game 2, not a whole lot to be done about that.
I dunno, 5/4 for 3 is pretty good and could help in the more aggressive builds. One of the major weaknesses of vehicles is that they can be left "stranded" if there are no creatures, but since Norin is so dodgy, it works really really well. When I was playing Return to the Ranks I was surprised at how often Norin's extra Convoke value mattered. I wouldn't be surprised to see a deck play 8x vehicles.
Have any of you looked at the budget stakesisters on Goldfish? I think is has a lot if potential to get norin sisters on the map. Burn at the stake has the immediate threat to make us go from 0 to lethal. I think there is a competitive build somewhere.
I've been seeing a ton of success in my meta (rather creature heavy) with 3x Thalia's lieutenant and a single copy of hanweir militia captain. I still use purphoros and I'm wondering if we figured out if impact tremors is better? I'm also not a fan of abzan falconer.
I was looking at that list intently, I was happy to see something different piece through the top 8 "same old same old"
much to my surprise though, I feel its running much of what you normally run in the standard shell of Norin decks. Which doesn't give me clear indicators to why it did so well when so many have tried and failed to Top 8 in the past.
I don't like the standard norin list, but I understand who does. My point is that I need to be fast against tier 1 decks like infect, affinity and dredge. an human-based list works way better for me, since my threats doesn't need chamber and/or purports to end games. I need them to win grindy games, but not to win most of the games. Ajani, caller of the pride is a card in my radar right now. Gives evasion, grows sisters if needed and in a sisters deck, it can be ridiculous good. Still don't know for sure
when it comes to trying something different with the deck I was thinking of cutting the ranger of eos and splashing green for collected company. has anyone dabbled with trying that before?
Idk. It's true that our card advantage is board presence, but with 4~8removals, 4 genesis chamber, 2~4 4cmccards, CoCo itself and a couple of bad top decks (norin when you already have one or sisters when you need to pressure) is a lot of non targets to CoCo. So I guess it'd be bad in those situations I mentioned. Green may be good with cryptolith rite and Westvale Abbey, imo
Idk. It's true that our card advantage is board presence, but with 4~8removals, 4 genesis chamber, 2~4 4cmccards, CoCo itself and a couple of bad top decks (norin when you already have one or sisters when you need to pressure) is a lot of non targets to CoCo. So I guess it'd be bad in those situations I mentioned. Green may be good with cryptolith rite and Westvale Abbey, imo
with green you also get noble hierarch which is nice. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but I played the other decks with ranger of eos and I often found that what I was tutoring for was the answer I needed on turn 4, but I didn't have a 5th mana source for playing my silver bullet he tutored. Atleast with Collected company I was putting cards on the field. additionally being and instant is a huge as I don't have to tap out on turn 4 to play my tutor, I can hold up mana for path to exile or others just encase.
Coco is definitely interesting to play with. You can get some pretty insane plays like Coco into double Ajani with 2x Sisters on the board for surprise 6/6s. It also helps you find the pieces you're looking for, or deals 4 damage after Purphoros is down.
The issue is that you will sometimes put Purphoros, Genesis Chamber, or removal on the bottom of your library when you need them.
It's a tough balance but I think it's worth trying out, especially if you have Hierarchs to ramp it out. Green also gives access to fun stuff like Champion of Lambholt which can be absolutely insane with Norin/Genesis Chamber combo.
About the SCG top 8, I think the main deck Auriok and Return to the Ranks probably helped a lot. Solid call. But let's be honest, there was definitely some luck involved with dodging Tron and Infect. ;p
Coco is definitely interesting to play with. You can get some pretty insane plays like Coco into double Ajani with 2x Sisters on the board for surprise 6/6s. It also helps you find the pieces you're looking for, or deals 4 damage after Purphoros is down.
The issue is that you will sometimes put Purphoros, Genesis Chamber, or removal on the bottom of your library when you need them.
It's a tough balance but I think it's worth trying out, especially if you have Hierarchs to ramp it out. Green also gives access to fun stuff like Champion of Lambholt which can be absolutely insane with Norin/Genesis Chamber combo.
About the SCG top 8, I think the main deck Auriok and Return to the Ranks probably helped a lot. Solid call. But let's be honest, there was definitely some luck involved with dodging Tron and Infect. ;p
We're talking about 14~20 nonland cards in standard lists that will go to the bottom. CoCo Decks play at most 10 nonland cards. I can't give you the numbers, but you're doubling the number of non hitting cards and you'll mostly put 2 sisters with a 4CMC spell. Noble Hierarch is fine to ramp, but not good with its exalted trigger.
About SCG top 8 is really nice dodging tron, infect, affinity and valakut decks
I see that Pridmate climb to bigger power, but does it always outstrip the Leiutenants growth when comboing with Norn, the wary?
I kind of like the lieutenant over pridemate just because I don't need to have a soul sister on the field for him to grow.
Coco is definitely interesting to play with. You can get some pretty insane plays like Coco into double Ajani with 2x Sisters on the board for surprise 6/6s. It also helps you find the pieces you're looking for, or deals 4 damage after Purphoros is down.
The issue is that you will sometimes put Purphoros, Genesis Chamber, or removal on the bottom of your library when you need them.
It's a tough balance but I think it's worth trying out, especially if you have Hierarchs to ramp it out. Green also gives access to fun stuff like Champion of Lambholt which can be absolutely insane with Norin/Genesis Chamber combo.
About the SCG top 8, I think the main deck Auriok and Return to the Ranks probably helped a lot. Solid call. But let's be honest, there was definitely some luck involved with dodging Tron and Infect. ;p
About SCG top 8 is really nice dodging tron, infect, affinity and valakut decks
I'm happy with lieutenant. And since he is our 5th to 8th and grows the team, I'd rather put my effort on him than a big pridemate that is chump'd by the tokens I give to my opponent. Another thing is lone missionary. Is it good? have anyone tested it?
@dos_rouge valakut decks uses removal package and anger of the gods in main deck. also, 4 valakut in play is impossible to overcome and we don't have much sideboard options
I'm happy with lieutenant. And since he is our 5th to 8th and grows the team, I'd rather put my effort on him than a big pridemate that is chump'd by the tokens I give to my opponent. Another thing is lone missionary. Is it good? have anyone tested it?
@dos_rouge valakut decks uses removal package and anger of the gods in main deck. also, 4 valakut in play is impossible to overcome and we don't have much sideboard options
in my latest testing I played return the ranks 2 and sometimes 3 thalia's lieutenants were revived and the enter the battlefield triggers grew me a sizable force!
the same happens with pridemate, but i kind of liked the result of being able to go wide, over growing a single big guy.
Someone mentioned Panharmonicon earlier. That seems pretty good in a Genesis Chamber/Tremors deck, perhaps in a thopter creation style Sisters. Seems bonkers with Thalia's Lieutenant. Any reasons we aren't using it? Edit: Also seems STELLAR in Stake Sisters, no?
I'm playing this deck recently with a good amount of success. I think the best version is human based with the following "core" cards :
-4 norin
-4 champion of the parish
-4 thraben inspector
-4 thalia's lieutenant
-4 genesis chamber
The human base is just very efficient and allows you to have very explosive starts, a feature any deck in modern should have. Even the innocuous looking thraben inspector is fantastic, because he synergizes with every other card in the deck and replaces itself.
Other cards i think you should absolutely play are some number of purphoros, ranger of eos, and life gaining creatures. I actually like 3 ranger of eos, 2 purphoros, 3-4 auriok champion (because with thraben inspector there is no shortage of one drops, and basically she is just a better card than normal soul sisters) and one/two soul warden because sometimes you just need to tutor them with ranger of eos.
The rest of the deck is flex choices : you can play more humans like both thalias, you can play maindeck blood moon with an adjusted manabase, you can play removal. Unfortunately as of now i think removal is too important in modern, so i have 4 bolt and 4 path to exile maindeck.
This is how my list looks overall:
-4 Norin
-4 Champion of the parish
-4 Thraben inspector
-2 Soul warden
-1 Legion loyalist
the manabase could be different but i want to play some blood moons in sideboard so i need a couple windswept heats to reliably get at least one plains
I've been considering picking up this deck. I think with the printing of Fatal Push that we must move away from the growable creatures and focus on going wide.
This build is designed to abuse the fact that we will very likely have more creatures than our opponent. Glorious Anthem is obvious. Purphoros triggers are obvious, but don't forget about his team wide firebreathing. Spectral Procession reduces our dependence on Genesis Chamber and increases our ability to bounce back from sweepers.
Smuggler's Copter seems like it might be good and I would definitely be interested to hear any results you have. After copter the only playable vehicle is Renegade Freighter, but I don't think that'll be worth playing. 5/4 tramplers for 3 are nice, but it doesn't have the evasion or utility of copter and still dies to all of the same cards.
Also, took this build to a small 3 round modern event at my LGS
2 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Marsh Flats
3 Arid Mesa
2 Bloodstained Mire
Creatures
4 Norin the Wary
2 Soul's Attendant
2 Soul Warden
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Dark Confidant
2 Abzan Falconer
4 Genesis Chamber
3 Blood Moon
Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
1 Spellskite
2 Auriok Champion
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Electrickery
2 Rest in Peace
2 Mark of Asylum
2 Wear // Tear
Forgot to bring pen and paper with me so I don't have the most accurate information
0-0, Round 1 vs Grishoalbrand
I win the roll and keep a decent 7 with something like a Thoughtseize, 2 Bobs, a Path, and 3 lands, while my opponent mulls to 6. I turn 1 thoughtseize, seeing land, land, goryo's, serum visions, simian spirit guide, faithless looting. I take goryo's, proceed to play both bobs and proceed to get in the 2/1 beats. All he finds over the course of the game is a worldspine worm that I take with a second thoughtseize. On the final turn I take 5 damage off of bob to drop me to 4 but bobs and bolts get there. 1-0
SB:
Out 3 Blood Moon, 4 Lightning Bolt
In 2 Grafdigger's Cage, 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Rest in Peace, 1 Mark of Assylum
I keep a hand of 3 land, Norin, Chamber, Chamber, Soul Warden, go Norin, Chamber, Chamber, and he dies pretty quickly to a stream of myr even killing 14 myr with a combination of echoing truth and anger of the gods. Result 2-0
1-0, Round 2 vs BW Eldrazi and Taxes
I win the roll and keep my starting 7 of Champion, Lieutenant, Bolt, Blood Moon, Marsh Flats, Bloodstained Mire, Blood Crypt. My opponent keeps 7 as well. I play Champion, he plays a caves of Koilos, I draw a path and play a Lieutenant, he plays a plains and brain maggot's me, seeing Bolt, Blood Moon, Path, Land and takes the Bolt. I play a turn 3 blood moon and he does basically nothing until I kill him. 1-0
SB (honestly no idea why I sideboarded like this):
Out 1 path, 2 thoughtseize
In 2 wear // tear, 1 pithing needle
I keep something along the lines of Champion, Lieutenant, Bolt, Thoughtseize, Norin, Land, Land. He plays a turn 1 burrenton forge-tender, so my bolt is basically useless at this point. My first two plays are Champion followed by Lieutenant, and he plays a TKS on turn 3, taking a bob I'd drawn. I play Norin and then thoughtseize him next turn and have a choice between path or eldrazi displacer. I take displacer and pass turn so that my champion will become a 5/5. He attacks and I choose not to chump with my 3/3 lietuenant. Next turn I draw something irrelevant, and attack with champion. He blocks with forge tender and then resotration angels to save it. On his turn he paths lieutenant and hits me for 7 to drop me to 6. I don't find an answer to the resto in my next 2 turns and we go to game 3. 1-1
SB:
Out 2 bolt
In 1 path, 1 spellskite (should've just been another needle)
Don't remember much about this game. He has a turn 1 aether vial, but I have a turn 3 blood moon, norin, and so much gas that I had champions and lieutenants clogging my hand. 2-1
2-0, Round 3 vs Living End
Game 1 I keep an iffy hand of Norin, Thoughtseize, Path, Path, Land, Land, Land. It's good against creature decks and it has Norin so I have a ton of relevant threats. Turn 1 I thoughtseize, see a living end, violent outburst, and some other stuff and I proceed to draw Land, Land, Genesis Chamber, Land, Thoughtseize, Genesis Chamber, Land, Thalia's Lieutenant, and at that point I'm just dead to living end. I was actually fairly close to stabilizing after the living end, but my chump blocking dreams were ruined by a kessig wolf run with 7 other lands. 0-1
Out 2 Lightning Bolt, 2 Thoughtseize
In 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Mark of Assylum
I mulligan to 6, keep a 1-lander of plains, champion, lieutenant, bob, and some other stuff that I don't remember, keeping a sacred foundry on top. I play turn 1 champion, turn 2 lieutenant, and my opponent plays a turn 2 anger of the gods off a simian spirit guide. I draw a land for bob and play him next turn, but it's too late and I die when he plays a living end on turn 5 with around 10 creatures in his graveyard. 0-2
Overall 2-1. Would've liked to go 3-0, but overall I'm happy with my results. Living End is a hard matchup and I had bad draws game 1 and he had the nuts game 2, not a whole lot to be done about that.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-94-15-tix-modern-stake-sisters
I want to make a green red norin deck with cryptolith rite and helix pinnacle.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=109317
4 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
1 Windswept Heath
2 Flooded Strand
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Norin the Wary
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Genesis Chamber
2 Auriok Champion
3 Ranger of Eos
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
2 Return to the Ranks
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
2 Wear//Tear
2 Electrickery
2 Rest in Peace
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Stony Silence
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Mark of Asylum
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Blood Moon
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
much to my surprise though, I feel its running much of what you normally run in the standard shell of Norin decks. Which doesn't give me clear indicators to why it did so well when so many have tried and failed to Top 8 in the past.
with green you also get noble hierarch which is nice. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but I played the other decks with ranger of eos and I often found that what I was tutoring for was the answer I needed on turn 4, but I didn't have a 5th mana source for playing my silver bullet he tutored. Atleast with Collected company I was putting cards on the field. additionally being and instant is a huge as I don't have to tap out on turn 4 to play my tutor, I can hold up mana for path to exile or others just encase.
The issue is that you will sometimes put Purphoros, Genesis Chamber, or removal on the bottom of your library when you need them.
It's a tough balance but I think it's worth trying out, especially if you have Hierarchs to ramp it out. Green also gives access to fun stuff like Champion of Lambholt which can be absolutely insane with Norin/Genesis Chamber combo.
About the SCG top 8, I think the main deck Auriok and Return to the Ranks probably helped a lot. Solid call. But let's be honest, there was definitely some luck involved with dodging Tron and Infect. ;p
We're talking about 14~20 nonland cards in standard lists that will go to the bottom. CoCo Decks play at most 10 nonland cards. I can't give you the numbers, but you're doubling the number of non hitting cards and you'll mostly put 2 sisters with a 4CMC spell. Noble Hierarch is fine to ramp, but not good with its exalted trigger.
About SCG top 8 is really nice dodging tron, infect, affinity and valakut decks
How does Thalia's Lieutenant compare to Ajani's Pridemate?
I see that Pridmate climb to bigger power, but does it always outstrip the Leiutenants growth when comboing with Norn, the wary?
I kind of like the lieutenant over pridemate just because I don't need to have a soul sister on the field for him to grow.
I thought valakut was a decent match up?
@dos_rouge valakut decks uses removal package and anger of the gods in main deck. also, 4 valakut in play is impossible to overcome and we don't have much sideboard options
in my latest testing I played return the ranks 2 and sometimes 3 thalia's lieutenants were revived and the enter the battlefield triggers grew me a sizable force!
the same happens with pridemate, but i kind of liked the result of being able to go wide, over growing a single big guy.
Also, I'm testing Squadrwon Hawk to fight fair decks. That's why I gave up on Champion of the Parish for now.
EDIT:Sorry, Champion is too good to not use. I'm back to it and changed the deck to run Smuggler's Copter
EDIT 2: Kaladesh provided so much too good tools that it's getting hard to decide what build to work with. Here is one of my ealier lists:
4 champion of the parish
3 smuggler's copter
3 ajani's pridemate
(Tricks)
1 key to the city
1 Pia Nalaar
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Genesis Chamber
3 Norin the Wary
4 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
(Removals)
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 Blood Moon
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
2 Wear // Tear
1 Electrickery
3 Sudden Shock
EDIT 3:
New list
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 smuggler's copter
3 Genesis Chamber
Creatures
2 Thopter Engineer
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Hangarback Walker
2 Pia Nalaar
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Outpost Siege
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
Lands
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Westvale Abbey
2 Cavern of souls
4 Arid Mesa
2 Flooded Strand
4 Plains
1 Slayers' Stronghold
2 Inspiring Vantage
3 Blood Moon
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
2 Wear // Tear
1 Electrickery
3 Sudden Shock
-4 norin
-4 champion of the parish
-4 thraben inspector
-4 thalia's lieutenant
-4 genesis chamber
The human base is just very efficient and allows you to have very explosive starts, a feature any deck in modern should have. Even the innocuous looking thraben inspector is fantastic, because he synergizes with every other card in the deck and replaces itself.
Other cards i think you should absolutely play are some number of purphoros, ranger of eos, and life gaining creatures. I actually like 3 ranger of eos, 2 purphoros, 3-4 auriok champion (because with thraben inspector there is no shortage of one drops, and basically she is just a better card than normal soul sisters) and one/two soul warden because sometimes you just need to tutor them with ranger of eos.
The rest of the deck is flex choices : you can play more humans like both thalias, you can play maindeck blood moon with an adjusted manabase, you can play removal. Unfortunately as of now i think removal is too important in modern, so i have 4 bolt and 4 path to exile maindeck.
This is how my list looks overall:
-4 Norin
-4 Champion of the parish
-4 Thraben inspector
-2 Soul warden
-1 Legion loyalist
-4 genesis chamber
-4 thalia's lieutenant
-3 auriok champion
-3 ranger of eos
-2 purphoros
-4 bolt
-4 path
-4 arid mesa
-4 inspiring vantage
-4 cavern of souls
-2 windswept heath
-3 sacred foundry
-2 plains
-2 mountain
the manabase could be different but i want to play some blood moons in sideboard so i need a couple windswept heats to reliably get at least one plains
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Norin
2 Serra Ascendant
4 Squadron Hawk
2 Ranger of Eos
4 Spectral Procession
2 Glorious Anthem
2 Purphoros
3 Path to Exile
22 land
This build is designed to abuse the fact that we will very likely have more creatures than our opponent. Glorious Anthem is obvious. Purphoros triggers are obvious, but don't forget about his team wide firebreathing. Spectral Procession reduces our dependence on Genesis Chamber and increases our ability to bounce back from sweepers.
Legacy: Strawberry Shortcake, Aggro Loam, DnT+b
Modern: Devoted Karn
Vintage: Survival