I am curious as well. There's two scapeshift players at my lgs and one tron. I managed to dodge both but I imagine it would be a race against either one. Can you deal lethal before tron gets assembled? Or can you get to 40 life before scapeshift gets 8 lands? I'm sure maindecked blood moon would help against both match ups though.
I would make every basic into a plains. Other than that I'd keep it about how I have it. 4 shocks, 4 fast, 4 fetches, 2 to 4 caverns,(I only run 2) the rest basics. Always fetch your basics. I got a decent size event at my lgs this weekend, I'll post the results of Norin afterwards. I might set my blood moons to main, I only got the 2 though.
So Norin can be competitive. I'm running the same list as last week with some minor changes. Match descriptions will be brief this time as there were several of them.
Out
1 Thalia, guardian of Thraben
3 Path to Exiles(kinda missed them)
In
1 lightning bolt
1 Norin the wary
1 Genesis chamber
1 impact tremors
No changes to side board. (Probably gonna drop a second grafdigger's cage in next time)
Match 1 Scapeshift
Lost game one. He went bonkers and ramped to 7 land turn 4 scapeshifted and then played a mountain. No sisters that match. Won game 2 & 3. Aggroed him game 2 with 2 champions on the play. Game 3 had norin, sister, chamber and impact online by turn 3.
Match 2 Elves 1-0
Lost both games. He exploded turn 3 after I had norin chamber out on the draw. It was too much to deal with with an Ezuri pumping board. Game two went better, bolted one Ezuri but he played another immediately after. Just got out aggroed.
Match 3 W/U turns 1-1
Won both games. He managed a good stall but impact tremors did work with norin and chambers. Go ahead and collonade beat down, I'll just peg you for 2 each turn with a padded life total. Also the only time I've ever named dragons with outpost siege. I love how norin pings both coming and going there.
Match 4 Affinity 2-1
He mulled to 5 first game just to vomit what he had. 2 ornitopers, inkmoth nexus, springleaf drum and pestermite. Had 2 bolts in opening hand. Stopped him cold by turn 2 and got norin tremor online turn three and pulled a win. Game 2 he vomited a much better hand and steamrolled me. Game 3 I mulled to 5 just to get a stony on turn 2 and topdecked blood moon turn 3. Locked him out and did the beats with sister pridemates.
Match 5 junk 3-1
This was a rough one. He packed a lot of removal. I lost several impact tremors in all three games. Blood moon locked him out game 2 and game 3 was nothing but an all out attrition war. Return to the ranks really shined in this match up. Won 2-1.
Match 6 scapeshift (again) 4-1
Sisters and serra ascendant did some work both games. Swept him good, although amusingly enough the first game when he cast scapeshift he wiped my board with it. Don't blame him though he was at 2 life. RtR for the scoop next turn. Straight aggroed him game 2.
Match 7 abzan combo 5-1
Got swept this time. This was the match I really missed my paths during. He redcap comboed me turn 4 first game. Almost had him game two but he finks comboed for infinite life while I had two sisters on board. Even though I had infinite life too it didn't stop a redcap combo 2 turns later. I didn't see any of my hate that game. Also he killed norin with redcap just so he could declare to the whole shop that he did so. Every one cheered, I felt bad, time went on.
Match 8 Jeskai Saheeli 5-2
I didn't even know this was done in modern. Sisters turned off the cat lady combo. Out aggroed her game 1.(yeah girls play magic too apparently, and good magic at that.) Game 2 saw lots of snapcaster shenanigans although they weren't quite enough for my norin shenanigans. Barely edged out a victory with a well timed bolt to stop the combo and a topdecked bolt to push the last bit of damage through. (I was at 2 life, sisters drew a lot of hate game 2) She liked Norin so much she asked for a deck list. At least one person liked Norin.
Match 9 skred red 6-2 (made top 8!)
A great matchup for me. Dude was apparently undefeated so I felt real good sweeping him. He did kill a norin with ratchet bomb though.(I hope he was proud about that)
Match 10 Tron 7-2
This is by far the worst match up I've been in, at least elves and merfolk gave a slight semblance that I could win. This was also not eldrazi tron, just good old fashioned tron... with walking ballista. Game 1 got wrecked real bad, did beats for two turns before karn dropped and started exiling everything. Game 2 dropped turn 3 blood moon and he scooped. Game 3 saw turn 2 chalice on 1 and turn 3 chalice on 2. I scooped as all I could play was 2 blood moons and 2 rangers. I suppose wear/tear count as cmc 3 but only 8 playable cards in the whole deck while he had tron assembled is no bueno.
Overall Norin performs real well. Abzan match ups are iffy, it all depends on the opening hand and topdecks. Tron is bad I've been thinking tron needs some bannings for awhile, mostly just walking ballista.(I have a tron deck but I hate playing it. I'd rather play magic than just piss people off.) Affinity isnt a great matchup either, I know I just got lucky in my games today. But I really think we are well positioned against scapeshift unless they just get a nutters hand. Also we are in good shape against control too, leaks can be a pain when you're on the draw though. I really like this deck and will definately be running it at the scg regionals next month. If you wanna know what I sided for certain match ups just ask.
I mainly run outpost siege as card advantage. Out of all the times I played it I name kahns, I only named dragons against W/U turns because I knew I wasn't gonna get another turn and wanted the extra damage. I like puphuros a lot but I only have 1 atm, which is why I run tremors. Also I notice you're running smugglers copters, how are they running for you? I tested them but thought the were a bit clunky, serra ascendant replaced those. I also agree on the abzan match up with RtR. I usually board in grave hate for the combo deck since it relies so heavily on persist that I board out RtR. But a lot of people run fatal push at my lgs which is why they are mainboarded for me, it's just a meta call.
@binmaa10 Although I like a lot of choices of your main deck, 20 non-creature spells makes me wonder how good is genesis chamber in your list. I still wonder if Bolt is that necessary too. Tell me more about it. And tell me about Impact tremors too
I've actually never tested lightning bezerker. Is it really that good? I've been thinking of picking up a second puphuros and dropping tremors alltogether. Tremors do work and are really only weak against BGx decks that run decays, but freeing up two extra slots..... I dunno I'm pretty torn here. Also I do the same thing with bolt binmaa. I save it for when I actually need it, be it reach, removal, or just a norin safeguard. It just that awesome in this deck! Path is better removal in general and i usually dont mind giving the extra land in my WUx builds but i really dont care for it in norin. The only time I've actually wanted paths is against creature combo decks.
Smuggler's Copter has been great almost every time it's come down. Soul Sisters are terrible aggressive cards and it's nice to be able to apply some pressure with them and Norin. It also does a great job of finding the business cards, which addresses one of my complaints with the RW variant of this deck: it durdles super hard with a lot of starts. I'll be moving up to 3 of these for sure and it's honestly been good enough that I would consider 4.
Norin should be a 4-of, especially with Copters. The deck runs a lot better when he's down and Copter helps with the previous problem of drawing multiples.
Blood Moon MB has been passable but not great. There are a few decks it answers really nicely. There are some decks where it's borderline useless. I don't like that it's one of two cards that can't run off 2 lands in play.
Purphoros is either really good or really bad. He obviously closes games quickly, but 4 lands in play is not a guarantee with 20 in the deck. I like being able to execute the gameplan reasonably well with a single dual and Purph does not fit with that plan. Tremors has actually been working pretty well despite applying less pressure, so I may shift to more of those.
SB could use a couple ways to push through other swarm decks. That may become less relevant with additional copters and I want to keep copious amounts of disruption for unfair decks because the MB doesn't have much game in that area, so it's a lower priority. I also don't want to read too much into a couple tournament results.
I'm planning on shifting to a black splash build, which is what I've run in paper in the past. Cut MB Moons and trim Genesis Chamber to 3 to add a set of Dark Confidant, tweak the lands to add in more white fetches, a Godless Shrine, and at least a couple Cavern of Souls.
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Liliana never lasts long against me. The veil just has me sac tokens and makes them discard as this deck is real good at going hellbent. And if last hope comes out with an impact tremors on board with norin, you just target her with tremors to keep her at three loyalty cuz norin will blink in response to the casting, you will usually lose a sister which kinda sucks though. Next turn bolt her in response to her plus to trigger norin and target again with tremors as norin re-enters, no more Lily! I can't state enough how useful bolts are in this deck, they've saved Norin's ass so many times for me!
I'm also working on a prison style build with Norin. It's got some kinks in it still that I want to work out before I post it. Although I'll give a spoiler, suppression field and harsh mentor makes the three color players groan.
I think a card everyone should play is Thraben inspector. It has synergy with everything (sisters, copter, chamber, humans related cards, purphoros....) and draws a card, which is incredible.
I also think running the full 8 sisters is wrong, they are really bad except against few decks where the lifegain is important. I usually run 4 sisters and 2 auriok champion, at least she is very difficult to kill and blocks shadows and gurmag anglers for days.
Liliana never lasts long against me. The veil just has me sac tokens and makes them discard as this deck is real good at going hellbent. And if last hope comes out with an impact tremors on board with norin, you just target her with tremors to keep her at three loyalty cuz norin will blink in response to the casting, you will usually lose a sister which kinda sucks though. Next turn bolt her in response to her plus to trigger norin and target again with tremors as norin re-enters, no more Lily! I can't state enough how useful bolts are in this deck, they've saved Norin's ass so many times for me!
She's not bad if you're already sitting on a bunch of direct damage, an active Norin, and a Genesis Chamber, but those are scenarios where you're ahead anyways. If she comes down when you're at parity and you can't immediately answer her, she takes over. There's not a whole lot that can be done about that.
I think a card everyone should play is Thraben inspector. It has synergy with everything (sisters, copter, chamber, humans related cards, purphoros....) and draws a card, which is incredible.
I also think running the full 8 sisters is wrong, they are really bad except against few decks where the lifegain is important. I usually run 4 sisters and 2 auriok champion, at least she is very difficult to kill and blocks shadows and gurmag anglers for days.
I typically run a 3/3/3 split of Warden, Attendant, and Champion in my black splash build and shave sisters for sideboarding where they're ineffective. I've had enough games where sitting on Norin and a couple sisters stalls the game out long enough for me to find a threat and kill them, or where they realize that I have inevitability and scoop, to want to go too much lighter on them. I also make more use of the lifegain thanks to Dark Confidant. All that said, I'll try out a couple Inspectors somewhere. Having some extra uses for mana after rushing to topdeck mode would help on a regular basis.
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Giving this thread its first post of 2018, as I’m thinking of tossing Norin Sisters together. The way I see it—and my perspective is very much not steeped in experience, so correct me if I’m wrong—this deck can be built three major ways: 1) Human tribal subtheme; 2) all in on EtB effects; 3) a happy medium between the two with something like Ajani’s Pridemate involved.
With that in mind, I’m leaning toward going all in on the EtBs. Here’s the list I drew up:
Any thoughts on this as a starting point? I love the Spirit Bonds tech mentioned upthread, but one is the most I’d want to see in most games, so I think it’s fine as a one-of. Same goes for Moon: if it catches someone, fine, and if not, there aren’t too many slots committed to it.
I also love Thraben Inspector, but there just doesn’t seem to be room for a playset. Two could be squeezed in (perhaps for a Tremors and a Sister?), but that may be too cute for a jumping-off point in terms of getting reps in with the deck.
Let’s say I shave down to 4 such effects (1 Purphoros, 3 Tremors). My first thought is to add the 8th Soul Sister and the third Copter; my second thought is to try out a pair of Thraben Inspectors. Either way, I’m adding a little more emphasis to the draw/filter aspect of the deck, which does seem necessary.
Even though this probably did not help wiht your deck. This post was something I wanted to write for a long time in order to share the point of view I am having on this deck and I hope that I'll be able to start some discussion with it.
On the contrary, this was quite a useful little writeup. Thanks for sharing. From my inexperienced perspective, the numbers and prioritization of your groupings looks right on.
For now, I’ve settled on the 4th Attendant and a lone Inspector for my two undecided slots. I hope to get some proxied games in relatively soon.
I agree on Impact Tremors... We have so much plays that are more important to set our game up. It's the most important turn to set up something, like norin and sister on turn two, or parish and a sister on turn 2, genesis chamber or play a pridemate after a sister on turn 1.
Guys just because a spell costs 2 mana it does not mean that we automatically need to play it on turn 2....
If you delay on play that card, why not play another better version of it? if you topdeck it late in the game, you won't be there'll be a lot of turns to make it mean something
Results were great considering it was my first time piloting the deck (and also considering the issues I had with the build, which I’ll expand upon later). These were the numbers:
7-3 vs UW Control (no sideboarding)
4-1 vs Vengevine
4-0 vs Skred Red
2-3 vs Mono-U Merfolk
2-3 vs Bant Knightfall
The UW Control matches had me wanting to play a 4th Tremors (as a commenter upthread noted, resolving a T2 Tremors provides a ton of inevitability in such a matchup), but against the faster, more creature-based decks, I quickly realized that Tremors isn’t usually the T2 play we’re looking for. That said, I still like the card a lot, and am happy with the “safe” option of 3 Tremors and 1 Purphoros in my updated version of the deck (below), at least for now, with an eye toward trying out a 2/2 split later.
My biggest issue across the above games was simply not finding enough creatures. Most of my losses (or slow, stumbling wins which would have been losses if my opponent had drawn well early on) were due to having all the right pieces down but not enough creatures to cast. With my above list, having a Norin looping endlessly feels nearly unstoppable, while a progression without Norin is distinctly lacking.
Norin is the namesake card, of course, so that’s to be expected to some degree, but the most significant conclusion from those games remains that the above list is too light on creatures. The first change I made toward a higher creature count was to add more Thraben Inspectors—they have been consistent overperformers. From there, the creatures with Human tribal synergies became too appealing to ignore:
+4 Thraben Inspector
+4 Champion of the Parish
+2 Thalia’s Lieutenant
I’ll be testing those changes soon. Champion of the Parish seems guaranteed to thrive in this setup. Lieutenant I’m less sure of, with his anthem effect more hit-or-miss than it is in most Human builds, but even as Champion 5+6 he may prove valuable, much like Berserker is nice as Norin 5+6. 4 Thraben Inspector has the potential to be a little clunky on land-light progressions, but I think the draws are necessary with Copter relegated to the maybeboard for the moment.
Any thoughts on these changes? It may be a while before I can test again, so discussion would be welcome.
One last thought: for the non-Human builds, have people tried cards like Mogg War Marshal or Goblin Rabblemaster? This is a definite stretch, but is a Goblin sub-theme worth exploring as a fun alternative? Legion Loyalist is still a hell of a card.
@SavageGaulAlso, human tribal theme allow us to avoid counterspells in certain creatures under cavern of souls' protection. 1 Blood Moon Main deck and +1 in the sideboard. Is it really better than any other card?
I tried Rabblemaster and didn't worth it back then. MWM I didn't think about it. But I did think about Squadron Hawk!
@SavageGaulAlso, human tribal theme allow us to avoid counterspells in certain creatures under cavern of souls' protection. 1 Blood Moon Main deck and +1 in the sideboard. Is it really better than any other card?
I tried Rabblemaster and didn't worth it back then. MWM I didn't think about it. But I did think about Squadron Hawk!
Yep, Hawk has always got to be at least in the maybeboard, I’d say. As for Moon, I’m not sure. It hasn’t really impressed me so far, which is strange, because it feels so well-positioned in the format as a whole. Maybe we just can’t afford slots for cards that fail to advance our Plan A as much as other decks can. But how do we handle Tron decks otherwise? Crumble to Dust?
@binmaa10, Traveler is a good call. May well be worth testing! To be clear, my questions about the Goblins pertained to the idea of them in the Norin Sisters shell as a whole, not alongside the Human subtheme.
RW Norin is really hard to build as it is easy. Sometimes, I feel that some redundant cards are somehow overkill and sometimes I miss the right tools. Some matchups are miserable and dedicating in sideboard isn't easy cause I feel that I have a lot of options (and triggers to track) and not a goal. Sometimes I have the wrong side of the deck. I'm just unburdening here. Sorry
^ I’d love to hear some more discussion on how we handle Tron and Valakut. People over the last few pages have been discussing Blood Moon—what numbers, whether to main or side it—and that’s probably the first card that should be in consideration. Beyond that:
- Is Crumble to Dust too slow and/or too hard to reliably cast on curve with 20 lands?
- Is tossing a Ghost Quarter in the side as a hedge against certain land-based strategies worth a slot?
- Can we accommodate Field of Ruin in the maindeck? I play a lot of UW Control, and Field is sometimes the best card in the entire 75. We’re only two colors, and we play plenty of basics, which seems to be a shell that Field slots well into (UWC, GB midrange etc). Still, including a pair or so of Fields would probably mean losing utility lands like Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey, which have been great in my games so far. Speaking of which:
Results after switching to the Human tribal subtheme have been even better than before. T1 Champion really changes the dynamic of the deck. The full playset of Thraben Inspector has been fantastic as well. It replaces itself, goes wide, provides another EtB trigger for all of our nonsense, and cuts down opposing Myr tokens like nobody’s businesses, all for W. I’d encourage people who haven’t tried her out yet to do so.
Hey guys! I wanted to share my recent experience with the deck at FNM. My local game store is holding a three month long tournament with free modern every friday.
R/W Soul Sisters:
Maindeck (60)
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Norin the Wary
3 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Abzan Falconer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Boros Charm
4 Smuggler's Copter
3 Impact Tremors
1 Assemble the Legion
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Inspiring Vantage
1 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
Sideboard (15)
2 Brave the Elements
2 Shattering Spree
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Suppression Field
3 Blood Moon
2 Leyline of Sanctity
I went 5 rounds with a 2-3 record. I have done better with the deck but it has been a while since i played it. My first match was against Ad Naseum and I lost due to a misplay on my part. I tapped my lands wrong when I had the kill and he went off the next turn. My second match was against Through the Breach/Valakut. We both played very good magic but he was able to stabilize and win through Valakut and Emrakul. Third match I "won" because my oppenent dropped an I ended up with a by. Fourth match was against Burn and I won. Favored matchup, was able to keep up the pressure and win game one. Second game I had a Leyline in my opening hand. My Fifth match was against Affinty and my deck just broke. Mulled to 5 both games and could not recover at all.
That was my experince. I am open to suggestions and comments on the deck and will be happy to answer questions about it. Pardon me if my formatting is off. I am not used to posting in fourms
Hey guys! I wanted to share my recent experience with the deck at FNM. My local game store is holding a three month long tournament with free modern every friday.
R/W Soul Sisters:
Maindeck (60)
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Norin the Wary
3 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Abzan Falconer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Boros Charm
4 Smuggler's Copter
3 Impact Tremors
1 Assemble the Legion
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Inspiring Vantage
1 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
Sideboard (15)
2 Brave the Elements
2 Shattering Spree
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Suppression Field
3 Blood Moon
2 Leyline of Sanctity
I went 5 rounds with a 2-3 record. I have done better with the deck but it has been a while since i played it. My first match was against Ad Naseum and I lost due to a misplay on my part. I tapped my lands wrong when I had the kill and he went off the next turn. My second match was against Through the Breach/Valakut. We both played very good magic but he was able to stabilize and win through Valakut and Emrakul. Third match I "won" because my oppenent dropped an I ended up with a by. Fourth match was against Burn and I won. Favored matchup, was able to keep up the pressure and win game one. Second game I had a Leyline in my opening hand. My Fifth match was against Affinty and my deck just broke. Mulled to 5 both games and could not recover at all.
That was my experince. I am open to suggestions and comments on the deck and will be happy to answer questions about it. Pardon me if my formatting is off. I am not used to posting in fourms
It's hard to follow your report with no formatting. I suggest you to apply some, to make it more appealing to be read. Link here.
Btw: I think your list is really trying to do a lot of parallel things.. you want TGT to tax your opp, but you play 18 non creature spells. You want to brew Assemble the Legion with only 20 lands. You have alot of nonbo for Suppression Field in your sideboard. And I noticed you're not playing Genesis Chamber. Is there a real reason for it?
Thank you for pointing out the problems with Suppression Field . I will find a replacement for it.
I haven't felt the need for Genesis Chamber . It is bad against Affinity and looks like it could be bad against Mardu Pyromancer. I don't like giving creature decks like Humans, Merfolk, and Elves chump blockers since my creatures lack trample.
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Out
1 Thalia, guardian of Thraben
3 Path to Exiles(kinda missed them)
In
1 lightning bolt
1 Norin the wary
1 Genesis chamber
1 impact tremors
No changes to side board. (Probably gonna drop a second grafdigger's cage in next time)
Match 1 Scapeshift
Lost game one. He went bonkers and ramped to 7 land turn 4 scapeshifted and then played a mountain. No sisters that match. Won game 2 & 3. Aggroed him game 2 with 2 champions on the play. Game 3 had norin, sister, chamber and impact online by turn 3.
Match 2 Elves 1-0
Lost both games. He exploded turn 3 after I had norin chamber out on the draw. It was too much to deal with with an Ezuri pumping board. Game two went better, bolted one Ezuri but he played another immediately after. Just got out aggroed.
Match 3 W/U turns 1-1
Won both games. He managed a good stall but impact tremors did work with norin and chambers. Go ahead and collonade beat down, I'll just peg you for 2 each turn with a padded life total. Also the only time I've ever named dragons with outpost siege. I love how norin pings both coming and going there.
Match 4 Affinity 2-1
He mulled to 5 first game just to vomit what he had. 2 ornitopers, inkmoth nexus, springleaf drum and pestermite. Had 2 bolts in opening hand. Stopped him cold by turn 2 and got norin tremor online turn three and pulled a win. Game 2 he vomited a much better hand and steamrolled me. Game 3 I mulled to 5 just to get a stony on turn 2 and topdecked blood moon turn 3. Locked him out and did the beats with sister pridemates.
Match 5 junk 3-1
This was a rough one. He packed a lot of removal. I lost several impact tremors in all three games. Blood moon locked him out game 2 and game 3 was nothing but an all out attrition war. Return to the ranks really shined in this match up. Won 2-1.
Match 6 scapeshift (again) 4-1
Sisters and serra ascendant did some work both games. Swept him good, although amusingly enough the first game when he cast scapeshift he wiped my board with it. Don't blame him though he was at 2 life. RtR for the scoop next turn. Straight aggroed him game 2.
Match 7 abzan combo 5-1
Got swept this time. This was the match I really missed my paths during. He redcap comboed me turn 4 first game. Almost had him game two but he finks comboed for infinite life while I had two sisters on board. Even though I had infinite life too it didn't stop a redcap combo 2 turns later. I didn't see any of my hate that game. Also he killed norin with redcap just so he could declare to the whole shop that he did so. Every one cheered, I felt bad, time went on.
Match 8 Jeskai Saheeli 5-2
I didn't even know this was done in modern. Sisters turned off the cat lady combo. Out aggroed her game 1.(yeah girls play magic too apparently, and good magic at that.) Game 2 saw lots of snapcaster shenanigans although they weren't quite enough for my norin shenanigans. Barely edged out a victory with a well timed bolt to stop the combo and a topdecked bolt to push the last bit of damage through. (I was at 2 life, sisters drew a lot of hate game 2) She liked Norin so much she asked for a deck list. At least one person liked Norin.
Match 9 skred red 6-2 (made top 8!)
A great matchup for me. Dude was apparently undefeated so I felt real good sweeping him. He did kill a norin with ratchet bomb though.(I hope he was proud about that)
Match 10 Tron 7-2
This is by far the worst match up I've been in, at least elves and merfolk gave a slight semblance that I could win. This was also not eldrazi tron, just good old fashioned tron... with walking ballista. Game 1 got wrecked real bad, did beats for two turns before karn dropped and started exiling everything. Game 2 dropped turn 3 blood moon and he scooped. Game 3 saw turn 2 chalice on 1 and turn 3 chalice on 2. I scooped as all I could play was 2 blood moons and 2 rangers. I suppose wear/tear count as cmc 3 but only 8 playable cards in the whole deck while he had tron assembled is no bueno.
Overall Norin performs real well. Abzan match ups are iffy, it all depends on the opening hand and topdecks. Tron is bad I've been thinking tron needs some bannings for awhile, mostly just walking ballista.(I have a tron deck but I hate playing it. I'd rather play magic than just piss people off.) Affinity isnt a great matchup either, I know I just got lucky in my games today. But I really think we are well positioned against scapeshift unless they just get a nutters hand. Also we are in good shape against control too, leaks can be a pain when you're on the draw though. I really like this deck and will definately be running it at the scg regionals next month. If you wanna know what I sided for certain match ups just ask.
4 Arid Mesa
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Kher Keep
1 Westvale Abbey
6 Plains
//Creatures (23)
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
3 Norin the Wary
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
2 Auriok Champion
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
4 Genesis Chamber
2 Smuggler's Copter
1 Impact Tremors
3 Blood Moon
2 Rest in Peace
2 Return to the Ranks
2 Stony Silence
2 Wear // Tear
3 Eidolon of Rhetoric
4 Leyline of Sanctity
- Smuggler's Copter has been great almost every time it's come down. Soul Sisters are terrible aggressive cards and it's nice to be able to apply some pressure with them and Norin. It also does a great job of finding the business cards, which addresses one of my complaints with the RW variant of this deck: it durdles super hard with a lot of starts. I'll be moving up to 3 of these for sure and it's honestly been good enough that I would consider 4.
- Norin should be a 4-of, especially with Copters. The deck runs a lot better when he's down and Copter helps with the previous problem of drawing multiples.
- Blood Moon MB has been passable but not great. There are a few decks it answers really nicely. There are some decks where it's borderline useless. I don't like that it's one of two cards that can't run off 2 lands in play.
- Purphoros is either really good or really bad. He obviously closes games quickly, but 4 lands in play is not a guarantee with 20 in the deck. I like being able to execute the gameplan reasonably well with a single dual and Purph does not fit with that plan. Tremors has actually been working pretty well despite applying less pressure, so I may shift to more of those.
- SB could use a couple ways to push through other swarm decks. That may become less relevant with additional copters and I want to keep copious amounts of disruption for unfair decks because the MB doesn't have much game in that area, so it's a lower priority. I also don't want to read too much into a couple tournament results.
- Liliana, the Last Hope is an absolute beating.
I'm planning on shifting to a black splash build, which is what I've run in paper in the past. Cut MB Moons and trim Genesis Chamber to 3 to add a set of Dark Confidant, tweak the lands to add in more white fetches, a Godless Shrine, and at least a couple Cavern of Souls.I also think running the full 8 sisters is wrong, they are really bad except against few decks where the lifegain is important. I usually run 4 sisters and 2 auriok champion, at least she is very difficult to kill and blocks shadows and gurmag anglers for days.
I typically run a 3/3/3 split of Warden, Attendant, and Champion in my black splash build and shave sisters for sideboarding where they're ineffective. I've had enough games where sitting on Norin and a couple sisters stalls the game out long enough for me to find a threat and kill them, or where they realize that I have inevitability and scoop, to want to go too much lighter on them. I also make more use of the lifegain thanks to Dark Confidant. All that said, I'll try out a couple Inspectors somewhere. Having some extra uses for mana after rushing to topdeck mode would help on a regular basis.
With that in mind, I’m leaning toward going all in on the EtBs. Here’s the list I drew up:
4 Inspiring Vantage
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Clifftop Retreat
6 Plains
1 Kher Keep
1 Westvale Abbey
4 Norin the Wary
4 Soul Warden
3 Soul’s Attendant
1 Auriok Champion
2 Lightning Berserker
2 Smuggler’s Copter
2 Ranger of Eos
4 Impact Tremors
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Spirit Bonds
1 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Boros Charm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest In Peace
2 Wear//Tear
1 Blood Moon
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Electrickery
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Return to the Ranks
Any thoughts on this as a starting point? I love the Spirit Bonds tech mentioned upthread, but one is the most I’d want to see in most games, so I think it’s fine as a one-of. Same goes for Moon: if it catches someone, fine, and if not, there aren’t too many slots committed to it.
I also love Thraben Inspector, but there just doesn’t seem to be room for a playset. Two could be squeezed in (perhaps for a Tremors and a Sister?), but that may be too cute for a jumping-off point in terms of getting reps in with the deck.
Let’s say I shave down to 4 such effects (1 Purphoros, 3 Tremors). My first thought is to add the 8th Soul Sister and the third Copter; my second thought is to try out a pair of Thraben Inspectors. Either way, I’m adding a little more emphasis to the draw/filter aspect of the deck, which does seem necessary.
On the contrary, this was quite a useful little writeup. Thanks for sharing. From my inexperienced perspective, the numbers and prioritization of your groupings looks right on.
For now, I’ve settled on the 4th Attendant and a lone Inspector for my two undecided slots. I hope to get some proxied games in relatively soon.
Results were great considering it was my first time piloting the deck (and also considering the issues I had with the build, which I’ll expand upon later). These were the numbers:
7-3 vs UW Control (no sideboarding)
4-1 vs Vengevine
4-0 vs Skred Red
2-3 vs Mono-U Merfolk
2-3 vs Bant Knightfall
The UW Control matches had me wanting to play a 4th Tremors (as a commenter upthread noted, resolving a T2 Tremors provides a ton of inevitability in such a matchup), but against the faster, more creature-based decks, I quickly realized that Tremors isn’t usually the T2 play we’re looking for. That said, I still like the card a lot, and am happy with the “safe” option of 3 Tremors and 1 Purphoros in my updated version of the deck (below), at least for now, with an eye toward trying out a 2/2 split later.
My biggest issue across the above games was simply not finding enough creatures. Most of my losses (or slow, stumbling wins which would have been losses if my opponent had drawn well early on) were due to having all the right pieces down but not enough creatures to cast. With my above list, having a Norin looping endlessly feels nearly unstoppable, while a progression without Norin is distinctly lacking.
Norin is the namesake card, of course, so that’s to be expected to some degree, but the most significant conclusion from those games remains that the above list is too light on creatures. The first change I made toward a higher creature count was to add more Thraben Inspectors—they have been consistent overperformers. From there, the creatures with Human tribal synergies became too appealing to ignore:
-2 Boros Charm
-1 Spirit Bonds
-1 Blood Moon
-1 Purphoros
-1 Impact Tremors
-1 Soul Warden
-2 Smuggler’s Copter
-1 Path to Exile
+4 Thraben Inspector
+4 Champion of the Parish
+2 Thalia’s Lieutenant
I’ll be testing those changes soon. Champion of the Parish seems guaranteed to thrive in this setup. Lieutenant I’m less sure of, with his anthem effect more hit-or-miss than it is in most Human builds, but even as Champion 5+6 he may prove valuable, much like Berserker is nice as Norin 5+6. 4 Thraben Inspector has the potential to be a little clunky on land-light progressions, but I think the draws are necessary with Copter relegated to the maybeboard for the moment.
Any thoughts on these changes? It may be a while before I can test again, so discussion would be welcome.
One last thought: for the non-Human builds, have people tried cards like Mogg War Marshal or Goblin Rabblemaster? This is a definite stretch, but is a Goblin sub-theme worth exploring as a fun alternative? Legion Loyalist is still a hell of a card.
I tried Rabblemaster and didn't worth it back then. MWM I didn't think about it. But I did think about Squadron Hawk!
Yep, Hawk has always got to be at least in the maybeboard, I’d say. As for Moon, I’m not sure. It hasn’t really impressed me so far, which is strange, because it feels so well-positioned in the format as a whole. Maybe we just can’t afford slots for cards that fail to advance our Plan A as much as other decks can. But how do we handle Tron decks otherwise? Crumble to Dust?
@binmaa10, Traveler is a good call. May well be worth testing! To be clear, my questions about the Goblins pertained to the idea of them in the Norin Sisters shell as a whole, not alongside the Human subtheme.
- Is Crumble to Dust too slow and/or too hard to reliably cast on curve with 20 lands?
- Is tossing a Ghost Quarter in the side as a hedge against certain land-based strategies worth a slot?
- Can we accommodate Field of Ruin in the maindeck? I play a lot of UW Control, and Field is sometimes the best card in the entire 75. We’re only two colors, and we play plenty of basics, which seems to be a shell that Field slots well into (UWC, GB midrange etc). Still, including a pair or so of Fields would probably mean losing utility lands like Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey, which have been great in my games so far. Speaking of which:
Results after switching to the Human tribal subtheme have been even better than before. T1 Champion really changes the dynamic of the deck. The full playset of Thraben Inspector has been fantastic as well. It replaces itself, goes wide, provides another EtB trigger for all of our nonsense, and cuts down opposing Myr tokens like nobody’s businesses, all for W. I’d encourage people who haven’t tried her out yet to do so.
R/W Soul Sisters:
Maindeck (60)
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Norin the Wary
3 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Abzan Falconer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Boros Charm
4 Smuggler's Copter
3 Impact Tremors
1 Assemble the Legion
4 Arid Mesa
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Inspiring Vantage
1 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
Sideboard (15)
2 Brave the Elements
2 Shattering Spree
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Suppression Field
3 Blood Moon
2 Leyline of Sanctity
I went 5 rounds with a 2-3 record. I have done better with the deck but it has been a while since i played it. My first match was against Ad Naseum and I lost due to a misplay on my part. I tapped my lands wrong when I had the kill and he went off the next turn. My second match was against Through the Breach/Valakut. We both played very good magic but he was able to stabilize and win through Valakut and Emrakul. Third match I "won" because my oppenent dropped an I ended up with a by. Fourth match was against Burn and I won. Favored matchup, was able to keep up the pressure and win game one. Second game I had a Leyline in my opening hand. My Fifth match was against Affinty and my deck just broke. Mulled to 5 both games and could not recover at all.
That was my experince. I am open to suggestions and comments on the deck and will be happy to answer questions about it. Pardon me if my formatting is off. I am not used to posting in fourms
Btw: I think your list is really trying to do a lot of parallel things.. you want TGT to tax your opp, but you play 18 non creature spells. You want to brew Assemble the Legion with only 20 lands. You have a lot of nonbo for Suppression Field in your sideboard. And I noticed you're not playing Genesis Chamber. Is there a real reason for it?
I haven't had any problems with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben being in my main board. She helps with the storm and combo match ups.
Assemble the Legion was a place holder until I could get Purphoros, God of the Forge
Thank you for pointing out the problems with Suppression Field . I will find a replacement for it.
I haven't felt the need for Genesis Chamber . It is bad against Affinity and looks like it could be bad against Mardu Pyromancer. I don't like giving creature decks like Humans, Merfolk, and Elves chump blockers since my creatures lack trample.