4x Intruder Alarm this card is astonishingly useful in this deck with so many token producers. This is easily a full set; too bad there isn't another similar card.
4x Imperious Perfect
4x Kazandu Tuskcaller you have 2 different ways to produce tokens with little effort. The former creature needs 1 mana dork to work (such as Llanowar Elves) whereas the latter needs to be powered up once.
3-4x Selesnya Evangel this creature needs one mana dork + another filler to work. Both these 11-12 creatures works the turn after they come into the battlefield.
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Birds of Paradise 8 starters are just enough to begin the match with one of them reliably.
4x Blasting Station can be a good way to finish the opponent without waiting for another turn.
This is already a good -in my opinion- core to work with: we have low-CMC critters and with a combo easy to be assembled.
Militia Bugler is really good here because we don't really want to draw much, but we like to find the missing creature in order to creare as many tokens as possible. Drift of Phantasms can be a good way to tutor the 3-CMC missing part of the combo (including Intruder Alarm).
I had thought about the Famished Paladin last night and it intrigued me. You can ramp well enough with Paradise Mantle For instance:
Turn 1: Sister
Turn 2: Paladin/Mantle
Turn 3: Attach Mantle
2 mana left, drop another sister
still two mana left
drop yet another sister, now you're up to 3 mana available. With 2 soul sisters out you're doubling mana you spend assuming you're getting 1 token for 1 mana
@amicdeep: forgot about the guard, thanks man
@Nameless90: Evangel works well with Emmara. Its 2 tokens for 1 mana and taps. I had an Intruder Elves deck before, it was cool, but never got to actually drop someone to zero. I'm not sure you can convoke through all the untap triggers either. The bugler, great card!
I want soul sisters, spamming out tokens, convoke finishers. I want lots of value cards.
I'm leaning towards 10 siblings-->Emmara/Famished-->Rallier/Guard-->Glare deck
I'm wondering how March can be stronger than Chord.
With Chord, you get a combo piece and win on the spot, or you get a silver bullet and don't lose on the spot. With March, you get tokens and only that. Imho, it should help some sort of broken play, and I'm not sure Sisters can accomplish that.
On the top of my head, I could see the card in Aristocrats. It's a nice way to turn a grindy plan into a more agressive one.
The issue with Intruder Alarm is that it's a bad card outside of a combo (while a card like Retreat to Coralhelm is somewhat useful in Knightfall. All things considered this Zoo deck is still not good enough). Also, there's no good card to tutor for it (although I like Zur the Enchanter...). To be fair, it's quite interesting with Venerated Loxodon and March since we can tap the team, untap it Alarm and attack. But that's very fair and Chord can deliver way more impactful plays.
Throne looks like an Aristocrat's plan, the question is whether Throne can accomplish it better.
Private Mod Note
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
I don't really like Weight of Conscience because if you want to get rid of the opponent's creature you need 2 creatures in the battlefield that shares the same type of the enchanted creature.
It is not that bad here due to the TAP requirement, but I think that Path to Exile is generally a better choice.
P.S. Sky Ussar only works during our upkeep, so it is usable "only" from turn 3 onwards.
I noticed that at second glance. I was salivating at the prospects of tapping chump blockers. Still a solid 2 of.
The Holdout Settlement and survivor's encampment(same thing) are super nice lands to have. I'm using a spliut on 4 of them and a gavony with the a single overgrown tomb. Is that enough black support for the 4 lingering souls i'm employing? Maybe add a godless shrine to the mix? Im at 4 fetches at the moment with 5 shock-lands.
I think I'm using 3 Chords with one archangel of thune, 1 qasali, and 1 rallier as a mini-toolbox scenario. 2 legion landings, 2 hussars, 2 sprout swarm, 2 conclave tribunals. I think that's 13 sources of tapping down emmara or any creature for throne(3 of, it doesn't do much early and chording archangel is a stronger overall lay. Ive generally used it as an oops I win 2nd main). Ill post a more updated list later.
I'm not anywhere near even half way done with intitial lists testing etc. But a white sideboard with chord-able creatures is never a bad thing. I don't even have a sideboard yet lol. Have only tested this revised list twice. 0-2 against dredge/conflagrate( just got peppered by conflagrate, couldnt get hussar's or even souls online) 2-0 against some jank list which just employed a lot of value gruul creatures including dorks, dragons, tireless etc. despite a stormbreath I couldn't answer, the sisters/emmara had my final life total at 21.
This is my take on the list so far. I'm skipping out on Throne of the God-Pharaoh in favor of Smuggler's Copter and Intruder Alarm. For a finisher (if you need a finisher that's not infinite life and infinite tokens) I threw in Altar of the Brood and Craterhoof that can be tutored up with Chord.. 8 mana dorks, 8 sisters, 4 Chord, 4 Sprout Swarm. There's a lot of engine type stuff going on here, a lot of backup plans, and a lot of pressure put on the opponent without even needing to go off, simply because you can go so wide so fast.
I'm about to start playtesting this, but I'm really liking where it's at so far.
The interesting thing about modern is that sometimes, lifegain alone can put you out of reach of some decks. Simply having 8 wardens makes burn an 80% matchup. wardens and lifelink tokens makes aggressive, non-scaling decks like dredge or hollow one much easier to take into the much-favored long game. It's got grind, it's got combo, the one thing it doesn't have really is post-board wipe play. Terminus, Verdict, and Anger of the Gods are all real problems. Post sideboard there are some Gaddock Teegs to deal with verdict and terminus, but those can still be path'd obviously. And Sprout Swarm is an engine that can continue to go off after a board wipe, but it's a slow process.
I've also considered Beck//Call, Impact Tremors, and a more toolbox approach like Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder, Imperious Perfect, and other combo-chordy type stuff.
So Alarm + Copter + Emmara is a zillion tokens, right ? Which leads to a nice Chord target.
In the same vein Stonybrook Schoolmaster works the same way Emmara does, but 3 mana on such a garb creature is garb.
The issue remains the same, we miss a good way to get Alarm fast, and the enablers are rather weak creatures if we don't find a strong synergy elsewhere.
Private Mod Note
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
This is my take on the list so far. I'm skipping out on Throne of the God-Pharaoh in favor of Smuggler's Copter and Intruder Alarm. For a finisher (if you need a finisher that's not infinite life and infinite tokens) I threw in Altar of the Brood and Craterhoof that can be tutored up with Chord.. 8 mana dorks, 8 sisters, 4 Chord, 4 Sprout Swarm. There's a lot of engine type stuff going on here, a lot of backup plans, and a lot of pressure put on the opponent without even needing to go off, simply because you can go so wide so fast.
I'm about to start playtesting this, but I'm really liking where it's at so far.
The interesting thing about modern is that sometimes, lifegain alone can put you out of reach of some decks. Simply having 8 wardens makes burn an 80% matchup. wardens and lifelink tokens makes aggressive, non-scaling decks like dredge or hollow one much easier to take into the much-favored long game. It's got grind, it's got combo, the one thing it doesn't have really is post-board wipe play. Terminus, Verdict, and Anger of the Gods are all real problems. Post sideboard there are some Gaddock Teegs to deal with verdict and terminus, but those can still be path'd obviously. And Sprout Swarm is an engine that can continue to go off after a board wipe, but it's a slow process.
I've also considered Beck//Call, Impact Tremors, and a more toolbox approach like Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder, Imperious Perfect, and other combo-chordy type stuff.
Do you think you have enough spells to give you a way to tap Emmara?
So Alarm + Copter + Emmara is a zillion tokens, right ? Which leads to a nice Chord target.
In the same vein Stonybrook Schoolmaster works the same way Emmara does, but 3 mana on such a garb creature is garb.
The issue remains the same, we miss a good way to get Alarm fast, and the enablers are rather weak creatures if we don't find a strong synergy elsewhere.
These are good points. Drift can be a tutor for Alarm, and I think Emmara is just extra copies of Steward which is nice. We could cut the soul sisters out for those two cards. Adding copter to the mix here is great because copter is just a good card! the card selection and filtering can be huge.
I playtested with 2x Beck//Call and I really think it's worth it... It's not always a combo piece, sometimes it's just a 2 mana draw 2, 3 if you're lucky, and that's really excellent. Sometimes it just lets you finish the game on the spot though. I actually beat Mono G Tron, Izzet Delver, and Jund earlier today, quite happy with the early results.
The best opening with such a deck is to T2 Steward > T3 Alarm, make a zillion tokens.
It's cool that both Emmara (and its tokens) and Steward making a token can crew the Copter for beats in the air.
Besides that, a agame with no Alarm is going to be painful : no interaction, no competitive beatdown plan... Drift is most likely a trap, like all transmute cards but Tolaria West. It's simply too slow in nowadays Magic. I'd rather try to accomplish something with Zur or even Lost Auramancers. Speaking of, what can be done with the latter guy ?
I agree with headmine. Alarm is a great card, and if you go that route Commune with the Gods is an absolute necessity. INB4 having intruder discarded/decayed/astro'd/countered etc... IS exactly why you should be including soul sisters, not dorks in your list. There is no reason to use mana dorks in a deck with I don't know 10ish convoke cards. Christmas-land combo power does not beat resiliency, consistency, and flexibility 2 outta 3 games.
The only reason why I had tried Weight of Conscience is Renegade Rallier. Stuff like Rallier, Sprout Swam, Adanto, LS, Sisters make the deck resilient. Buying time with tokens and lifegain until you slam them with gavony/thune
That rallier can do so many things so long as its a creature, enchantment, artifact or land... *cough Snapcaster without flash
Emmara: run 4, she's fragile. trade with their 2/2
Throne: Im removing Throne from my list but it was there
Sisters: in case you cant draw so many
Legion's Landing: sprout swarm #3/4
fetches/GQ etc.
Steward of Solidarity is only better than Emmara with Intruder Alarm on the field. And that deck will only beat the Mono White Soul sisters by putting a billion tokens on the field the turn you play Alarm or draw into one?
Moreover, I would rather use Glare of Subdual than Intruder Alarm as it actually does something reliably when it hits the field since a big chunk of the deck is tokens and sisters. GoS isn't great for convoke, but it is an excellent way to clear away blockers on their end step so Emmara doesn't necessarily need an enabler... or you could just tap down emmara with it, and now you've got another creature you can glare down.
You have go wide with tokens/glare, or grow with gavony/thune
A must answer or you just get a lot of value
This card is good. Do it on their endstep and gain life and a board. Even in multiples you can just chain it quite easily
This with convoke is dope. Alt wincon to combat damage
Along with the usual suspects Lingering, Gavony, Rallier, etc.
You could even add a soul brother in green lol, call it soul siblings if you want 12 of em
I think this is a cool deck idea and have thought about it but I have no clue where to start lol
Sprouting Renewal
versatile enablers
Sprout Swarm
Legion's Landing/Adanto, the First Fort
a pair of cards that let you build a board without overextending.
Blisterpod I want to test this card soon. You could actually tap its token with convoke, AND sac it for the ramp?
I removed Springleaf Drums from my deck as it just doesn't do all that much.
Archangel of Thune is fun, but people can just path it in response to warden life triggers so u dont get the counters.
How about Chord of Calling or Scatter the Seeds?
Additionally, what a good token producer to play alongside Emmara, I had looked at Selensya Evangel but she slow.
4x Intruder Alarm this card is astonishingly useful in this deck with so many token producers. This is easily a full set; too bad there isn't another similar card.
4x Imperious Perfect
4x Kazandu Tuskcaller you have 2 different ways to produce tokens with little effort. The former creature needs 1 mana dork to work (such as Llanowar Elves) whereas the latter needs to be powered up once.
3-4x Selesnya Evangel this creature needs one mana dork + another filler to work. Both these 11-12 creatures works the turn after they come into the battlefield.
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Birds of Paradise 8 starters are just enough to begin the match with one of them reliably.
4x Blasting Station can be a good way to finish the opponent without waiting for another turn.
This is already a good -in my opinion- core to work with: we have low-CMC critters and with a combo easy to be assembled.
Militia Bugler is really good here because we don't really want to draw much, but we like to find the missing creature in order to creare as many tokens as possible.
Drift of Phantasms can be a good way to tutor the 3-CMC missing part of the combo (including Intruder Alarm).
Turn 1: Sister
Turn 2: Paladin/Mantle
Turn 3: Attach Mantle
2 mana left, drop another sister
still two mana left
drop yet another sister, now you're up to 3 mana available. With 2 soul sisters out you're doubling mana you spend assuming you're getting 1 token for 1 mana
@amicdeep: forgot about the guard, thanks man
@Nameless90: Evangel works well with Emmara. Its 2 tokens for 1 mana and taps. I had an Intruder Elves deck before, it was cool, but never got to actually drop someone to zero. I'm not sure you can convoke through all the untap triggers either. The bugler, great card!
I want soul sisters, spamming out tokens, convoke finishers. I want lots of value cards.
I'm leaning towards 10 siblings-->Emmara/Famished-->Rallier/Guard-->Glare deck
With Chord, you get a combo piece and win on the spot, or you get a silver bullet and don't lose on the spot. With March, you get tokens and only that. Imho, it should help some sort of broken play, and I'm not sure Sisters can accomplish that.
On the top of my head, I could see the card in Aristocrats. It's a nice way to turn a grindy plan into a more agressive one.
The issue with Intruder Alarm is that it's a bad card outside of a combo (while a card like Retreat to Coralhelm is somewhat useful in Knightfall. All things considered this Zoo deck is still not good enough). Also, there's no good card to tutor for it (although I like Zur the Enchanter...). To be fair, it's quite interesting with Venerated Loxodon and March since we can tap the team, untap it Alarm and attack. But that's very fair and Chord can deliver way more impactful plays.
Throne looks like an Aristocrat's plan, the question is whether Throne can accomplish it better.
4 soul warden
4 emmara, soul of the accord
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spike Feeder
2 Legion's Landing
4 Conclave Tribunal
4 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
3 Sprout Swarm
3 Lingering Souls
Typical lands with a ghazi and gavony thrown in(22 lands)
Solid against aggro decks, but pretty bad against control or combo
It did beat an 2-2 against two different eldrazi, gobbo's(2-0), but lost to spirits 0-2. Second game was long
Initial Thoughts: needs ensnaring bridge, or march for grindy games, there's upside here. Tapping Emmara for sprout swarm is chumps for days
You need 22/23 lands to work with with Horizon Canopy to draw more in the late game.
Also, 4 Path to Exile are necessary to remove some key threats the opponent has: this way you now reach (more or less) 60 cards.
What r your thoughts on weight of conscience. It's been okay for me
It is not that bad here due to the TAP requirement, but I think that Path to Exile is generally a better choice.
P.S. Sky Ussar only works during our upkeep, so it is usable "only" from turn 3 onwards.
My 2 cents.
The Holdout Settlement and survivor's encampment(same thing) are super nice lands to have. I'm using a spliut on 4 of them and a gavony with the a single overgrown tomb. Is that enough black support for the 4 lingering souls i'm employing? Maybe add a godless shrine to the mix? Im at 4 fetches at the moment with 5 shock-lands.
I think I'm using 3 Chords with one archangel of thune, 1 qasali, and 1 rallier as a mini-toolbox scenario. 2 legion landings, 2 hussars, 2 sprout swarm, 2 conclave tribunals. I think that's 13 sources of tapping down emmara or any creature for throne(3 of, it doesn't do much early and chording archangel is a stronger overall lay. Ive generally used it as an oops I win 2nd main). Ill post a more updated list later.
I'm not anywhere near even half way done with intitial lists testing etc. But a white sideboard with chord-able creatures is never a bad thing. I don't even have a sideboard yet lol. Have only tested this revised list twice. 0-2 against dredge/conflagrate( just got peppered by conflagrate, couldnt get hussar's or even souls online) 2-0 against some jank list which just employed a lot of value gruul creatures including dorks, dragons, tireless etc. despite a stormbreath I couldn't answer, the sisters/emmara had my final life total at 21.
This is my take on the list so far. I'm skipping out on Throne of the God-Pharaoh in favor of Smuggler's Copter and Intruder Alarm. For a finisher (if you need a finisher that's not infinite life and infinite tokens) I threw in Altar of the Brood and Craterhoof that can be tutored up with Chord.. 8 mana dorks, 8 sisters, 4 Chord, 4 Sprout Swarm. There's a lot of engine type stuff going on here, a lot of backup plans, and a lot of pressure put on the opponent without even needing to go off, simply because you can go so wide so fast.
I'm about to start playtesting this, but I'm really liking where it's at so far.
The interesting thing about modern is that sometimes, lifegain alone can put you out of reach of some decks. Simply having 8 wardens makes burn an 80% matchup. wardens and lifelink tokens makes aggressive, non-scaling decks like dredge or hollow one much easier to take into the much-favored long game. It's got grind, it's got combo, the one thing it doesn't have really is post-board wipe play. Terminus, Verdict, and Anger of the Gods are all real problems. Post sideboard there are some Gaddock Teegs to deal with verdict and terminus, but those can still be path'd obviously. And Sprout Swarm is an engine that can continue to go off after a board wipe, but it's a slow process.
I've also considered Beck//Call, Impact Tremors, and a more toolbox approach like Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder, Imperious Perfect, and other combo-chordy type stuff.
In the same vein Stonybrook Schoolmaster works the same way Emmara does, but 3 mana on such a garb creature is garb.
Besides, a topic already exists here :
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/779451-bant-intruder-alarm-combo
And for the Alarm combo, Steward of Solidarity is better than Emmara to begin with.
The issue remains the same, we miss a good way to get Alarm fast, and the enablers are rather weak creatures if we don't find a strong synergy elsewhere.
Do you think you have enough spells to give you a way to tap Emmara?
These are good points. Drift can be a tutor for Alarm, and I think Emmara is just extra copies of Steward which is nice. We could cut the soul sisters out for those two cards. Adding copter to the mix here is great because copter is just a good card! the card selection and filtering can be huge.
I playtested with 2x Beck//Call and I really think it's worth it... It's not always a combo piece, sometimes it's just a 2 mana draw 2, 3 if you're lucky, and that's really excellent. Sometimes it just lets you finish the game on the spot though. I actually beat Mono G Tron, Izzet Delver, and Jund earlier today, quite happy with the early results.
Copter, Sprout Swarm, Chord, and just plain old attacking felt like plenty for me.
It's cool that both Emmara (and its tokens) and Steward making a token can crew the Copter for beats in the air.
Besides that, a agame with no Alarm is going to be painful : no interaction, no competitive beatdown plan... Drift is most likely a trap, like all transmute cards but Tolaria West. It's simply too slow in nowadays Magic. I'd rather try to accomplish something with Zur or even Lost Auramancers. Speaking of, what can be done with the latter guy ?
A quick search raises ideas :
https://deckstats.net/decks/87739/932458-solemnity-lost-auramancers
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/779915-deck-solemn-aristocrats
With Cartel Aristocrat, we have here a very resilient creature thanks to the tokens we generate. Looks janky as hell though.
The only reason why I had tried Weight of Conscience is Renegade Rallier. Stuff like Rallier, Sprout Swam, Adanto, LS, Sisters make the deck resilient. Buying time with tokens and lifegain until you slam them with gavony/thune
That rallier can do so many things so long as its a creature, enchantment, artifact or land... *cough Snapcaster without flash
Emmara: run 4, she's fragile. trade with their 2/2
Throne: Im removing Throne from my list but it was there
Sisters: in case you cant draw so many
Legion's Landing: sprout swarm #3/4
fetches/GQ etc.
Steward of Solidarity is only better than Emmara with Intruder Alarm on the field. And that deck will only beat the Mono White Soul sisters by putting a billion tokens on the field the turn you play Alarm or draw into one?
Moreover, I would rather use Glare of Subdual than Intruder Alarm as it actually does something reliably when it hits the field since a big chunk of the deck is tokens and sisters. GoS isn't great for convoke, but it is an excellent way to clear away blockers on their end step so Emmara doesn't necessarily need an enabler... or you could just tap down emmara with it, and now you've got another creature you can glare down.
You have go wide with tokens/glare, or grow with gavony/thune
Perhaps:
Cliffhaven Vampire?
Vizkopa Guildmage?
Vraska, Golgari Queen?