I forgot Jotun Grunt was Modern legal. I love him as a way to fight off Snap and Goyf in Legacy, but he doesn't seem to mesh well with our core strategy, I think. Much better in Modern D&T
That could be hilarious with Squadron Hawk Shenanigans but I worry that on turn 2 there won't be enough cards in the yard to pay his upkeep regularly meaning he does little or nothing before fueling the yard himself. On the flipside he does work very well with things like Ranger of Eos to search up your dead sisters, martyrs, and ascendants meaning you could potentially never run out of gas. Especially if you never cast your last Squawk. He seems outrageous in things like Pod decks providng endless fuel and a decent body to boot.
I may try testing them though if I can find a couple copies on MTGO.
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How's the switch to W/R working out for anyone? Lightning Helix is a great card to have access to for this deck... not so sure about Fling, but it's possible. I kind of like the idea of replacing the Ajani's Pridemates for something else instead of Flinging them, but what do I know. Does anyone run Auriok Champion? Not really a replacement for Pridemate, but I've always liked the protection on it and want a deck that fits it in, but I haven't figured that out yet either.
Been playing around with R/W Norin Sisters a lot lately, and had better results. I found Martyr of Sands a little bit too inconsistent, and the lack of removal other than Path made us really vulnerable to combo decks. I came up with this after awhile:
The biggest problem I found with this deck was that a lot of the time I felt like I wanted to draw a Ranger of Eos or Serra Ascendant, and while Squadron Hawks were great gas, they wouldn't really win me a game that had already stabilized. Blood Moon had a similar problem in that (at least in my local meta) pretty much everyone splashes enough red that it isn't a problem. When Affinity makes up literally half of my local meta, the maindeck Blood Moons just weren't worth it, and it only really wins the game in a few matchups (UWr control and Scapeshift mostly, and they'll just sideboard echoing truths or some other bounce).
So I changed it up to be more like this, which has been a lot more successful in my playtesting.
So, basically I added Auriok Champions, more Serra Ascendants, another Ranger of Eos, another Cavern of Souls, and moved the Blood Moons to the side. I took Worship out of the sideboard, and Squadron Hawks/Blood Moons from the main to make room for the new cards.
Auriok Champion + Norin the Wary can get pretty annoying for most people, because most removal in this format is either black or red, and they both dodge Pyroclasm, Whipflare, and Anger of the Gods. It's almost unremovable, and so many people are running red (even Affinity runs 3-4 Galvanic Blasts) that they make value.
My deck is slightly different than the normal Norin the Wary lists for a number of reasons. One, I took out Mentor of the Meek. Not many people agree with that immediately, but in testing I found he was a dead card (literally dead) more often than he could make a huge difference. He'd get bolted or path'd or countered, and he didn't affect board state that much. Two, I only run two Purphoros because I think three is a little overkill. Three, I run four Norin the Wary instead of three, because I think that they pretty much always positively affect the board state, and if you stack the triggers well enough, you can do some silly things with multiple Norins. Four, and probably the biggest difference, is I cut Genesis Chamber completely. I found that Genesis Chamber was HORRIBLE against Affinity, because while you'd be gaining 12-15 life per turn, they would get infinite chump blockers and artifact count. Plus, without reliable trample (Legion Loyalist barely counts), the giant Ajani's Pridemates were more of a novelty than anything else.
Testing Results w/ changes (mostly on cockatrice, some paper):
2-0 vs Kiki Pod (Sisters stop Deceiver Exarch, and I have enough removal/sideboard hate to win G2 pretty easily)
2-1 vs UR Twin (Sisters and Path stop Exarch, Bolt stops Pestermite, but they sideboard pretty well against us with Anger of the Gods)
2-0 vs Tarmotwin (A good matchup in general. Lots of sideboard hate, too.)
1-2 vs Ad Nauseam (Regular Soul Sisters has a better matchup because Martyr of Sands can get out of range of Lightning Storm)
2-1 vs Melira Pod (Good sideboard against Pod)
2-0 vs Shamans (It's a fun budget deck to play against, but they have too many creatures that are beneficial to you, plus removal can stop most of their synergy)
2-1 vs Affinity (Game 1 sucks, and game 2 is just dead if you don't draw into sideboard hate. On top of that, you need to hope they don't draw Torpor Orb.)
Testing Results before changes:
1-1-1, 2-0, 2-1 vs UR Twin
1-2, 0-2, 2-1 vs Tarmotwin
2-1, 0-2, 1-2 vs Affinity
2-0 vs Scapeshift (easy to get out of range of the 6 land combo, and you can win before they go off generally)
2-0 vs Bloom Titan/Amulet of Vigor (you have 2-3 turns to build your board state for free)
2-1 vs Goblins (lots of creatures are pretty beneficial)
1-2, 0-2, 2-1, 2-0 vs Storm (really depends on the player and if the deck is fully complete with all fetches)
2-0 vs BG Rock (Lili can suck, but generally enough removal and sideboard options to win)
0-2, 0-2, 0-2, 1-2 vs BUG Infect (Just... not a good matchup)
So, thoughts? I'm thinking about maybe trying out Archetype of Aggression (my Pridemates and Champion of the Parish get huge enough that I think it's relevant). I also kind of considered going for RWb to run Bob and Thoughtseize (for more combo disruption). The mana base would be pretty difficult to build, though, and I'm worried it might not be reliable enough, so I haven't started playing around with it.
The revised version looks a lot better to me, of course I haven't tested either one yet. In your original, it seemed sorely lacking the 4-each of Serra Ascendant and Ranger of Eos, plus I didn't care for Blood Moon in the main. The addition of Auriok Champion is appealing to me, because I love the card and have been trying hard to fit it into a deck. With the new creature list, 2x Cavern of Souls seems good, I suppose you could set it to Human or Soldier and get work out of it (Human gets you Norin and Auriok Champ, Soldier gets you Ajani's Pridemate, either one gets you Champion & Ranger, which is important.)
Is Auriok a better two-drop than Ajani's Pridemate in this list, especially since you're also running Champion of the Parish & Norin? What a great combo that is, by the way! I would maybe take out a Soul Warden and put in an extra Auriok Champion. But that's just because some players in my meta have caught on to my Soul Sisters obsession and are playing Rain of Gore lately, so the option to forego the lifegain has come in handy. In other metas I'm sure it hardly ever comes up. For me, the protection from black & red has been huge. What about Lightning Helix somewhere in there? It's hard to argue with Lightning Bolt, but the effect could be a difference maker when you're relying so much on lifegain to grow Pridemate or Ascendant to push through for a win. I haven't tried out any of these ideas, so I could be off on it in a major way, but just throwing it out there to see what your thoughts are.
The revised version looks a lot better to me, of course I haven't tested either one yet. In your original, it seemed sorely lacking the 4-each of Serra Ascendant and Ranger of Eos, plus I didn't care for Blood Moon in the main. The addition of Auriok Champion is appealing to me, because I love the card and have been trying hard to fit it into a deck. With the new creature list, 2x Cavern of Souls seems good, I suppose you could set it to Human or Soldier and get work out of it (Human gets you Norin and Auriok Champ, Soldier gets you Ajani's Pridemate, either one gets you Champion & Ranger, which is important.)
Is Auriok a better two-drop than Ajani's Pridemate in this list, especially since you're also running Champion of the Parish & Norin? What a great combo that is, by the way! I would maybe take out a Soul Warden and put in an extra Auriok Champion. But that's just because some players in my meta have caught on to my Soul Sisters obsession and are playing Rain of Gore lately, so the option to forego the lifegain has come in handy. In other metas I'm sure it hardly ever comes up. For me, the protection from black & red has been huge. What about Lightning Helix somewhere in there? It's hard to argue with Lightning Bolt, but the effect could be a difference maker when you're relying so much on lifegain to grow Pridemate or Ascendant to push through for a win. I haven't tried out any of these ideas, so I could be off on it in a major way, but just throwing it out there to see what your thoughts are.
I'm glad you like it. I tested Lightning Helix, but it's too slow. The lifegain is pretty trivial, and I was only really using it in the same way I'd use a bolt. I'd honestly rather have Dismember or something than Lightning Helix 9 times out of 10. It's not a bad card in any way, but generally I want my mana, and I would hate to leave open 2 mana instead of 1 at EoT. Auriok Champion is great, but Pridemate is just such a good threat, especially with Norin pumping him effectively twice per turn (since he works on your opponents' turn, too). I would definitely say Auriok Champion is worth it, but not necessarily better than Pridemate. Champion of the Parish is surprisingly good, even when you just throw a couple Sisters down. He's similar to a Goyf if you open right. T1 Champion, T2 Sister/Norin will bring him to 4/4 at End of Turn, 6/6 minimum by end of T3. A lot of people don't expect him, either, so he'll quickly get out of bolt range and become super annoying.
Also, I woke up way too early today so I decided to actually theorycraft what a RWb Soul Sisters list would look like, and came up with this:
I have played literally zero games with it, but in the tappedout playtest it feels pretty silly. I can't imagine how awesome Bitterblossom + Norin + Purphoros would be. Only one Serra Ascendant because I feel like the chance of getting to 30 life is very diminished now.
Okay so it looks like my last post didn't take so I'm going to do a cliffnotes version.
If I were going to splash red the only two cards I would add are Lightning Helix and Slayer's Stronghold. I'm not sure what I would take out. Ranger of Eos and Ajani's Pridemate are often the most underwhelming.
The predicament I keep finding myself in is that I would like to add some amount of inevitability/reach/resiliancy to the deck. I find that I often fail or lose steam in the long game and it would be nice to have something to shore that up. Ranger of Eos is supposed to give us that ability but I find that once my lifegain engine has been dismantled then I don't have a good option to grab. Marty + Ascendant is lack luster because I don't have enough cards in hand to make Martyr worthwhile. Ascendant + Sister doesn't really help because that doesn't provide enough life gain either unless I start pulling token makers. Sister + Sister is really bad without a grip full of token producers of Squawks.
Here's the options that have come to mind: Ajani Goldmane: He escapes Abrupt Decay, provides an anthem, grows our life total for defense/offense late, creates a creature if he sticks around long enough. his ultimate is terrible honestly but he works well with tokens, Squawks, Pridemates, and even Serra. 4cmc seems like a lot though. Ajani, Caller of the Pride: Builds a threat out of any creature we happen to have, grants evasion, creates an army if he sticks around long enough but his abilities don't really do much to help that out. His cmc is good though. He's probably to low impact if you can't ever get to his ultimate. Elspeth Knight Errant: Makes an army, creates a threat, wins the game. Having 2 +1s does help. The buff is one of the better ones even if it isn't permanent. Elspeth Tirel: Gains us life (potentially reactivating Serra), makes an army, potentially wins the game. I like it because the +1 is prety close to a Martyr, the -1 is Spectral Procession. The ultimate kind of stinks for us but we do play some tokens and Elspeth makes more.
For Splashes: Ajani Vengeant: Controls the board, provides reach, wins the game Sorin, Lord of Innistrad: Creatures an army, makes an anthem, wins the game
At best I'm looking at these as a 1 maybe 2-of. I like the stabilization they can provide. I'll be honest, I really like Sorin's Abilities. Lifelinkers and indestructible anthems sound good to me. All of the other options seem to boil down to two basic points. Do you want life or do you want threats? Each walker produces some combination of buffs, tokens, or life. Only Sorin offers all three, well except Goldmane but his ult is kinda crappy.
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Looks awesome. My only comment is that 3 Ranger of Eos might be a little much. You've cut 8 of the 1CMC cards from the core build, thereby meaning all you can ever fetch is more sisters. That's not bad, but Ranger is what he is in the original build because he can go get both pieces of the Martyr/Serra combo, which he can't do here. Plus, flipping him to confidant could hurt, even with the prospect of more life gain for Norin.
Ajani Goldmane: costs 4 and is only good if we have creatures out. If we don't have creature we probably aren't close to 30 life and an active ascendant. Ajani, Caller of the Pride: again, only good if we have creatures out. Elspeth, Knight-Errant: probably the best choice. either makes a threat/chump blocker or makes any existing creature into a threat. Has arguably best ultimate. Elspeth Tirel: 5 mana is too expensive. -2 is good, +2 is only good if we have a lot of creatures
No experience with the splashes, but Sorin is really only good if you are already playing lots of creatures and Vengeant is probably going to be a 4 mana Lightning Helix. He's great if you can protect him.
Planeswalkers tend to be your best answer for the control matchup, they are powerful resilient threats that have to be answered. The best choice is almost always Knight-Errant. On a empty board (which is what most control matches wind up becoming) she makes a threat. On a board with creatures she gives a nice boost. The fact that you need to double bolt her to kill her makes her a very nice 1 or 2 of.
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that similar to my list, only difference is our choice of other spells. i'm running 4 lightning helix 4 orzhov charm and 2 boros charm for creature utility. i don't run dark confidants though for the card draw. i'm running tezzeret's gambit so i can proliferate the counters on pridemate and champion. (of planeswalker if i was running any)
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Ajani Goldmane: costs 4 and is only good if we have creatures out. If we don't have creature we probably aren't close to 30 life and an active ascendant. Ajani, Caller of the Pride: again, only good if we have creatures out. Elspeth, Knight-Errant: probably the best choice. either makes a threat/chump blocker or makes any existing creature into a threat. Has arguably best ultimate. Elspeth Tirel: 5 mana is too expensive. -2 is good, +2 is only good if we have a lot of creatures
No experience with the splashes, but Sorin is really only good if you are already playing lots of creatures and Vengeant is probably going to be a 4 mana Lightning Helix. He's great if you can protect him.
Planeswalkers tend to be your best answer for the control matchup, they are powerful resilient threats that have to be answered. The best choice is almost always Knight-Errant. On a empty board (which is what most control matches wind up becoming) she makes a threat. On a board with creatures she gives a nice boost. The fact that you need to double bolt her to kill her makes her a very nice 1 or 2 of.
I think if this deck were to run planeswalkers, the best choice would be Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Ajani, Caller of the Pride. Both fix one of the main problems of our big dudes - no evasion. Ajani is cheaper, and his -3 is much better with a huge Pridemate or Champion than Elspeth's evasion-granting ability is, but Elspeth is much better in general, as she is good on an empty board and good on a full board while Ajani is rather limited on an empty board. Also, her ability to grant evasion can be used once a turn, unlike Ajani's. I'm not sure either should make the deck as more than a 1-of, though. I'd also be interested to see what Ajani Steadfast can do, as he is good with either strategy this deck uses to win - token swarm with Honor of the Pure, or lots of lifegain with big dudes - but ultimately I don't think he'll deserve a spot.
i'm running tezzeret's gambit so i can proliferate the counters on pridemate and champion. (of planeswalker if i was running any)
The main problem with Pridemate and Champion is that they don't have evasion or protection. They get big enough on their own. Tezzeret's Gambit probably isn't worth it just for that, though I could certainly see a list designed more around planeswalkers and even something like Luminarch Ascension that makes better use of it.
Yeah, I think the Proliferate is super unnecessary, and if you're looking for the card draw, Survival Cache is better for us. Mentor of the Meek is solid, too.
At that point it might as well be a Bitterblossom that reduces you mana by 1 each turn instead of life. I don't think that Spirit Bonds is awesome in this deck but I do see how it could do work. Being able to save a Pridemate or Ascendant from an Abrupt Decay or similar could be very useful. We even have other ways of making Spirits too so that helps I guess. If it were to slot in I don't know what you would remove for it. Squadron Hawks or Spectral Procession is all I can think of.
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i've been trying to find something that can play back up to norin the wary for the deck and stumbled across pack rat. its not expensive like other options and can grow into a large beat down. sucks that you might be throwing away top decks away to grow it, but it will make everything trigger like norin does, except for champion.
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i've been trying to find something that can play back up to norin the wary for the deck and stumbled across pack rat. its not expensive like other options and can grow into a large beat down. sucks that you might be throwing away top decks away to grow it, but it will make everything trigger like norin does, except for champion.
They changed the legendary rules so you Metamorph no longer acts as a removal spell for legendary permanents. Other than that I can't imagine what use it would have had. Paying 3 mana and 2 life to copy an Ascendant or a Pridemate doesn't seem good. I guess you could copy a Honor of the Pure but for 3 mana you can just run Spear of Heliod and save your self the shock.
As far as Leonin Relic-warder goes, I guess it would be okay if there was tons of Tron and Affinity in your meta.
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I said this earlier in the thread, but Metamorph/Relic Warder is a pretty easy to disrupt combo that hurts our Martyr activation. The pieces are fine on their own, but the deck is pretty tight for things that don't do much outside of comboing with each other (Though Relic-Warder is a fine Oblivion Ring in some match ups when we need to disrupt their plan.)
Secondly, it represents a fundamental mistake a lot of people make when evaluating cards for this deck. The goal is never to gain infinite life, but to gain enough incremental life to make our Ascendants and Pridemates threats and to keep us out of range of some of the damage-based decks in the format.
The combo activates Pridemates at each increment (so you have inf/inf mates after the combo...). As said, the Relic-Warder can also be used as disruption and the Metamorph is a solid card on its own as well (aside from the fact that you'll never have U mana to spend on it.) My deck (which I used to play in extended, now in the process of deciding what to do to it for Modern) also used some of sword of a & b items, a trample equip, a lifesteal equip, and 4xStoneforge Mystic as well.
I also used Suture Priest, but I can see where this is meh and will probably switch them out for the martyrs (which I don't have yet).
EDIT: just saw that sf mystic is banned in Modern :cries:
i like the idea of using leonin relic-warder just for disruption along, sucks if someone resolves a wurmcoil engine burning it down isn't the best of things. also there are some enchantment decks out there or annoying enchantments in general.
is it worth while to pack silence to protect the combo? or better to use black for thoughtseize to pave a safe path to combo?
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i tried the deck last night and went 2-2 losing to UWR control and tron
looking back on it I somewhat wish i'd sideboarded blood moon but since my deck is a 3 color hybrid moon doesn't play nice with my mana base.
other than blood moon, what is best to run in the sideboard against those match ups?
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I may try testing them though if I can find a couple copies on MTGO.
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2x Arid Mesa
1x Cavern of Souls
4x Clifftop Retreat
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Mountain
5x Plains
4x Sacred Foundry
CREATURES
4x Ajani's Pridemate
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Norin the Wary
2x Purphoros, God of the Forge
3x Ranger of Eos
1x Serra Ascendant
4x Soul Warden
4x Soul's Attendant
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
2x Blood Moon
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Suppression Field
2x Wear / Tear
2x Worship
The biggest problem I found with this deck was that a lot of the time I felt like I wanted to draw a Ranger of Eos or Serra Ascendant, and while Squadron Hawks were great gas, they wouldn't really win me a game that had already stabilized. Blood Moon had a similar problem in that (at least in my local meta) pretty much everyone splashes enough red that it isn't a problem. When Affinity makes up literally half of my local meta, the maindeck Blood Moons just weren't worth it, and it only really wins the game in a few matchups (UWr control and Scapeshift mostly, and they'll just sideboard echoing truths or some other bounce).
So I changed it up to be more like this, which has been a lot more successful in my playtesting.
2x Arid Mesa
2x Cavern of Souls
4x Clifftop Retreat
2x Mountain
6x Plains
4x Sacred Foundry
CREATURES
4x Ajani's Pridemate
2x Auriok Champion
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Norin the Wary
2x Purphoros, God of the Forge
4x Ranger of Eos
4x Soul Warden
4x Soul's Attendant
OTHER SPELLS
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
2x Blood Moon
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Suppression Field
2x Wear / Tear
So, basically I added Auriok Champions, more Serra Ascendants, another Ranger of Eos, another Cavern of Souls, and moved the Blood Moons to the side. I took Worship out of the sideboard, and Squadron Hawks/Blood Moons from the main to make room for the new cards.
Auriok Champion + Norin the Wary can get pretty annoying for most people, because most removal in this format is either black or red, and they both dodge Pyroclasm, Whipflare, and Anger of the Gods. It's almost unremovable, and so many people are running red (even Affinity runs 3-4 Galvanic Blasts) that they make value.
My deck is slightly different than the normal Norin the Wary lists for a number of reasons. One, I took out Mentor of the Meek. Not many people agree with that immediately, but in testing I found he was a dead card (literally dead) more often than he could make a huge difference. He'd get bolted or path'd or countered, and he didn't affect board state that much. Two, I only run two Purphoros because I think three is a little overkill. Three, I run four Norin the Wary instead of three, because I think that they pretty much always positively affect the board state, and if you stack the triggers well enough, you can do some silly things with multiple Norins. Four, and probably the biggest difference, is I cut Genesis Chamber completely. I found that Genesis Chamber was HORRIBLE against Affinity, because while you'd be gaining 12-15 life per turn, they would get infinite chump blockers and artifact count. Plus, without reliable trample (Legion Loyalist barely counts), the giant Ajani's Pridemates were more of a novelty than anything else.
Testing Results w/ changes (mostly on cockatrice, some paper):
2-0 vs Kiki Pod (Sisters stop Deceiver Exarch, and I have enough removal/sideboard hate to win G2 pretty easily)
2-1 vs UR Twin (Sisters and Path stop Exarch, Bolt stops Pestermite, but they sideboard pretty well against us with Anger of the Gods)
2-0 vs Tarmotwin (A good matchup in general. Lots of sideboard hate, too.)
1-2 vs Ad Nauseam (Regular Soul Sisters has a better matchup because Martyr of Sands can get out of range of Lightning Storm)
2-1 vs Melira Pod (Good sideboard against Pod)
2-0 vs Shamans (It's a fun budget deck to play against, but they have too many creatures that are beneficial to you, plus removal can stop most of their synergy)
2-1 vs Affinity (Game 1 sucks, and game 2 is just dead if you don't draw into sideboard hate. On top of that, you need to hope they don't draw Torpor Orb.)
Testing Results before changes:
1-1-1, 2-0, 2-1 vs UR Twin
1-2, 0-2, 2-1 vs Tarmotwin
2-1, 0-2, 1-2 vs Affinity
2-0 vs Scapeshift (easy to get out of range of the 6 land combo, and you can win before they go off generally)
2-0 vs Bloom Titan/Amulet of Vigor (you have 2-3 turns to build your board state for free)
2-1 vs Goblins (lots of creatures are pretty beneficial)
1-2, 0-2, 2-1, 2-0 vs Storm (really depends on the player and if the deck is fully complete with all fetches)
2-0 vs BG Rock (Lili can suck, but generally enough removal and sideboard options to win)
0-2, 0-2, 0-2, 1-2 vs BUG Infect (Just... not a good matchup)
So, thoughts? I'm thinking about maybe trying out Archetype of Aggression (my Pridemates and Champion of the Parish get huge enough that I think it's relevant). I also kind of considered going for RWb to run Bob and Thoughtseize (for more combo disruption). The mana base would be pretty difficult to build, though, and I'm worried it might not be reliable enough, so I haven't started playing around with it.
URStorm
URBDelver
RWNorin Sisters
BWTokens
Is Auriok a better two-drop than Ajani's Pridemate in this list, especially since you're also running Champion of the Parish & Norin? What a great combo that is, by the way! I would maybe take out a Soul Warden and put in an extra Auriok Champion. But that's just because some players in my meta have caught on to my Soul Sisters obsession and are playing Rain of Gore lately, so the option to forego the lifegain has come in handy. In other metas I'm sure it hardly ever comes up. For me, the protection from black & red has been huge. What about Lightning Helix somewhere in there? It's hard to argue with Lightning Bolt, but the effect could be a difference maker when you're relying so much on lifegain to grow Pridemate or Ascendant to push through for a win. I haven't tried out any of these ideas, so I could be off on it in a major way, but just throwing it out there to see what your thoughts are.
I'm glad you like it. I tested Lightning Helix, but it's too slow. The lifegain is pretty trivial, and I was only really using it in the same way I'd use a bolt. I'd honestly rather have Dismember or something than Lightning Helix 9 times out of 10. It's not a bad card in any way, but generally I want my mana, and I would hate to leave open 2 mana instead of 1 at EoT. Auriok Champion is great, but Pridemate is just such a good threat, especially with Norin pumping him effectively twice per turn (since he works on your opponents' turn, too). I would definitely say Auriok Champion is worth it, but not necessarily better than Pridemate. Champion of the Parish is surprisingly good, even when you just throw a couple Sisters down. He's similar to a Goyf if you open right. T1 Champion, T2 Sister/Norin will bring him to 4/4 at End of Turn, 6/6 minimum by end of T3. A lot of people don't expect him, either, so he'll quickly get out of bolt range and become super annoying.
Also, I woke up way too early today so I decided to actually theorycraft what a RWb Soul Sisters list would look like, and came up with this:
2x Arid Mesa
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Godless Shrine
2x Marsh Flats
1x Mountain
3x Plains
4x Sacred Foundry
2x Swamp
CREATURES
3x Ajani's Pridemate
4x Champion of the Parish
3x Dark Confidant
4x Norin the Wary
2x Purphoros, God of the Forge
3x Ranger of Eos
1x Serra Ascendant
4x Soul Warden
3x Soul's Attendant
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
2x Thoughtseize
3x Bitterblossom
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Rest in Peace
2x Shatterstorm
2x Stony Silence
2x Suppression Field
2x Wear / Tear
Here it is on tappedout if anyone wants to playtest: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/08-07-14-what-have-i-done/
I have played literally zero games with it, but in the tappedout playtest it feels pretty silly. I can't imagine how awesome Bitterblossom + Norin + Purphoros would be. Only one Serra Ascendant because I feel like the chance of getting to 30 life is very diminished now.
URStorm
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If I were going to splash red the only two cards I would add are Lightning Helix and Slayer's Stronghold. I'm not sure what I would take out. Ranger of Eos and Ajani's Pridemate are often the most underwhelming.
The predicament I keep finding myself in is that I would like to add some amount of inevitability/reach/resiliancy to the deck. I find that I often fail or lose steam in the long game and it would be nice to have something to shore that up. Ranger of Eos is supposed to give us that ability but I find that once my lifegain engine has been dismantled then I don't have a good option to grab. Marty + Ascendant is lack luster because I don't have enough cards in hand to make Martyr worthwhile. Ascendant + Sister doesn't really help because that doesn't provide enough life gain either unless I start pulling token makers. Sister + Sister is really bad without a grip full of token producers of Squawks.
Here's the options that have come to mind:
Ajani Goldmane: He escapes Abrupt Decay, provides an anthem, grows our life total for defense/offense late, creates a creature if he sticks around long enough. his ultimate is terrible honestly but he works well with tokens, Squawks, Pridemates, and even Serra. 4cmc seems like a lot though.
Ajani, Caller of the Pride: Builds a threat out of any creature we happen to have, grants evasion, creates an army if he sticks around long enough but his abilities don't really do much to help that out. His cmc is good though. He's probably to low impact if you can't ever get to his ultimate.
Elspeth Knight Errant: Makes an army, creates a threat, wins the game. Having 2 +1s does help. The buff is one of the better ones even if it isn't permanent.
Elspeth Tirel: Gains us life (potentially reactivating Serra), makes an army, potentially wins the game. I like it because the +1 is prety close to a Martyr, the -1 is Spectral Procession. The ultimate kind of stinks for us but we do play some tokens and Elspeth makes more.
For Splashes:
Ajani Vengeant: Controls the board, provides reach, wins the game
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad: Creatures an army, makes an anthem, wins the game
At best I'm looking at these as a 1 maybe 2-of. I like the stabilization they can provide. I'll be honest, I really like Sorin's Abilities. Lifelinkers and indestructible anthems sound good to me. All of the other options seem to boil down to two basic points. Do you want life or do you want threats? Each walker produces some combination of buffs, tokens, or life. Only Sorin offers all three, well except Goldmane but his ult is kinda crappy.
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Ajani, Caller of the Pride: again, only good if we have creatures out.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant: probably the best choice. either makes a threat/chump blocker or makes any existing creature into a threat. Has arguably best ultimate.
Elspeth Tirel: 5 mana is too expensive. -2 is good, +2 is only good if we have a lot of creatures
No experience with the splashes, but Sorin is really only good if you are already playing lots of creatures and Vengeant is probably going to be a 4 mana Lightning Helix. He's great if you can protect him.
Planeswalkers tend to be your best answer for the control matchup, they are powerful resilient threats that have to be answered. The best choice is almost always Knight-Errant. On a empty board (which is what most control matches wind up becoming) she makes a threat. On a board with creatures she gives a nice boost. The fact that you need to double bolt her to kill her makes her a very nice 1 or 2 of.
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I think if this deck were to run planeswalkers, the best choice would be Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Ajani, Caller of the Pride. Both fix one of the main problems of our big dudes - no evasion. Ajani is cheaper, and his -3 is much better with a huge Pridemate or Champion than Elspeth's evasion-granting ability is, but Elspeth is much better in general, as she is good on an empty board and good on a full board while Ajani is rather limited on an empty board. Also, her ability to grant evasion can be used once a turn, unlike Ajani's. I'm not sure either should make the deck as more than a 1-of, though. I'd also be interested to see what Ajani Steadfast can do, as he is good with either strategy this deck uses to win - token swarm with Honor of the Pure, or lots of lifegain with big dudes - but ultimately I don't think he'll deserve a spot.
The main problem with Pridemate and Champion is that they don't have evasion or protection. They get big enough on their own. Tezzeret's Gambit probably isn't worth it just for that, though I could certainly see a list designed more around planeswalkers and even something like Luminarch Ascension that makes better use of it.
Standard: UUMono Blue DevotionUU
Modern:
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Decks: "Name one! I probably got it built In one of these boxes."
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Vintage will rise again! Buy a Mox today!
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[I]Some call it dig through time, when really your digging through CRAP!
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Is this no good?
Scry! (rollover popups)
Modern: W Soul Sisters (WIP), GW Melira Pod (WIP)
Current EDH:
G Ezuri's Renegade Elves (thread)
BGW Ghave's Legion (thread)
WUB Sharuum, Artifact Savant
Try Glitterfang or Archwing Dragon.
They changed the legendary rules so you Metamorph no longer acts as a removal spell for legendary permanents. Other than that I can't imagine what use it would have had. Paying 3 mana and 2 life to copy an Ascendant or a Pridemate doesn't seem good. I guess you could copy a Honor of the Pure but for 3 mana you can just run Spear of Heliod and save your self the shock.
As far as Leonin Relic-warder goes, I guess it would be okay if there was tons of Tron and Affinity in your meta.
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Secondly, it represents a fundamental mistake a lot of people make when evaluating cards for this deck. The goal is never to gain infinite life, but to gain enough incremental life to make our Ascendants and Pridemates threats and to keep us out of range of some of the damage-based decks in the format.
I also used Suture Priest, but I can see where this is meh and will probably switch them out for the martyrs (which I don't have yet).
EDIT: just saw that sf mystic is banned in Modern :cries:
Scry! (rollover popups)
Modern: W Soul Sisters (WIP), GW Melira Pod (WIP)
Current EDH:
G Ezuri's Renegade Elves (thread)
BGW Ghave's Legion (thread)
WUB Sharuum, Artifact Savant
is it worth while to pack silence to protect the combo? or better to use black for thoughtseize to pave a safe path to combo?
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i tried the deck last night and went 2-2 losing to UWR control and tron
my main sideboard plan was thalia, guardian of thraben and artifact hate for both match ups. UWR i brought in faith's shield to ward off burn)
looking back on it I somewhat wish i'd sideboarded blood moon but since my deck is a 3 color hybrid moon doesn't play nice with my mana base.
other than blood moon, what is best to run in the sideboard against those match ups?
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Decks: "Name one! I probably got it built In one of these boxes."
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Vintage will rise again! Buy a Mox today!
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[I]Some call it dig through time, when really your digging through CRAP!
Merfolk! showing magic players what a shower is since Lorwyn!