MTG Salvation

I can't be the only one who's dissatisfied with Ajani's Pridemate. Like, it's great and all, high synergy, etc etc, but I can't help wanting more out of it. Most of the time it's just a 2-mana "please feed spot removal," and if not then it's getting chumped to death. I'm considering cutting it for Hawks, but I don't know how well they'd fit in my current build. I also want a second Mirran Crusader, which I'd probably cut a Pridemate for as my deck currently stands.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar has been a great (i.e. better) Honor of the Pure, but I don't know if I like the curve of running two of him over the three Honors.

Deck as it currently stands:


Additionally, I should post my primary build because I think it's adorable, has card advantage thanks to (potentially) recurrable Wall of Omens, and casting an Archangel of Thune with an entourage makes me happy.

Non-conventional Monumental Sisters nonsense

for your first deck. i think you are not running enough creatures for soul sisters to actually do well. not having any ranger of eos seems to be bad. id consider taking out the oblivion ring too. main board worship is great, i still have that main board and its a free game one at times. ive been playing soul sisters for quite awhile and been tweaking my list every month lol.

for your monumental sisters, it looks pretty sweet, lots of creatures, and interactions to save your own creatures with whitemane lion. same from before, i dont like oblivion ring in this deck just for the fact it slows us down more than anything. maybe turning that ring into a 4th honor of the pure.

The pridemate gets huge and needs an answer for. Some decks can not deal with a large creature that pridemate becomes. It is important to sequence the pridemate with a sister, if there are no sisters or lifegaining multipliers then the pridemate never grows. If I can not grow a pridemate I will let it sit in my hand until I draw sister support.

suggest +2 Ranger of Eos, -1 Brave the Elements, -1 oblivion ring.
you might consider Elspeth, knight-errant which has been very good to finish games with.
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monument sisters looks very good.

I wasn't running Ranger just bc it felt like a Serra build creature, but I might try that. I do like Elspeth, Knight-Errant, she seems like a great finisher that would help little kitty Pridemate get around some really stupid blockers. Oblivion Ring was just a partial holdover from the Monument list, so I'm okay with cutting it from the traditional list. Aven Mindcensor as potential side board tech?

I play the Monument build as my preferred build just because it does so much, has so much syngergy and power, and makes up for a lot of the weaknesses traditional Sisters suffer from. Card advantage? Wall of Omens, check. Wraths? Kor Skyfisher + Oketra's Monument, check and check. Annoying spot removal? Whitemane Lion, check, and sometimes comes attached with a 1/1 vig Warrior? Even better. Oh, and big Sister Archangel of Thune can come down as early as turn 4. The Monument engine just does so much for the deck, and the best part is the deck can still win without it, which most Monument decks struggle with. Westvale Abbey has also been amazing. In a pinch it's kept me alive with its token gen, and if it flips it just cements games (outside of the stray Path). In this list, I won't leave home without a main deck O-ring. It's my only game 1 answer to artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers, and it doesn't slow the deck down enough to outweigh the safety net it provides (especially since it's just a one-of). The only changes I'm considering are maybe going down an Honor of the Pure for another Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and trying to find room for a Grand Abolisher for control matchups, but otherwise I'm really happy with where the deck's at.

amicdeep

Im on my way out the door right now so I can not answer but check some of primer pages a few back. These cards were discussed and used a bit.

Marty and Hawks are a bit of a different build and have there own primer. Its fine to talk about here but you get more answers from those guys about that build.

Hero, Ive tested and call trash, just does not do enough.

Ghost quarter important for Tron and other land decks, I SB 1 MB 3.

Good Luck.

@amicdeep
See my post a few above yours for my Monumental Sisters list with Monument's support package spelled out. I will sing the praises of Oketra's Monument in Sisters for years to come. It helps the deck recover from wraths easily and fairly consistently, effectively turns all your lands into token producers, and lets you run Wall of Omens for card advantage as well. I've not been disappointed with it. The only concession is that there's only so fast the deck can go, and if you have Monument you're taking turn 3 off to get set up. That being said, you're in a great position to outgrind, outvalue, and overrun your opponent after that. The nice thing about Monument is you can win games just with Monument token puke, and some games you don't ever get your engine set up and you just win with the traditional Sisters game plan.

Legion's Landing I'm still playing with the numbers, but it's been good to me so far. I'm running 3 main right now. Crested Sunmare is decent, but Archangel is just so much more powerful if you're going for a direct comparison. Honestly, I'd consider maybe going a 2-1 split between Archangel/Sunmare to test, but my allegiance lies with Big Sister of Thune. A little more dependable by herself, higher evasion, and built in lifegain triggering. She's worth the investment, but Sunmare is a passable budget substitute. (Still try to reserve enough budget for at least one Archangel, if you can.)

Dusk, you'll only want one side.

The Flagstones of Trokair + Ghost Quarter synergy isn't completely essential to the game plan, and if you're going budget, at least in paper you can technically go down the Flagstones, but the GQs are a must. (Online Flagstones are laughably disproportionately cheaper than paper, so this is moot for Modo.) The Flagstones are primarily a convenient way to convert your GQs to white mana for Spectral or, if your opp isn't familiar with how Flagstones works, let you leave your GQ untapped for camouflaged white mana for Path or Bravery. Flagstones' niche application of countering Ponza strats.

Shambling and Kambal would seem to push the deck more towards BW tokens (Shambling especially), though BW Sisters has been toyed with. I'd say Ethersworn Canonist or Leyline of Sanctity are better sb tech against Storm, Grand Abolisher for control. Eidolon of Rhetoric and Aegis of the Gods for budget considerations.

Auriok Champion you run 4 of those babes main, period. Cut lands, cut Wardens/Attendants, cut Paths, cut your sleeves and playmat if you have to so they'll fit, they're indispensable. Seriously, don't leave home without a playset in the main. You can "budget swap" for Suture Priests if you're really pressed for money, but the Champions are very, VERY worth the extra dollars.

I haven't played Kytheon, but Legion's Landing is similar enough I think the flip mechanic is comparable. Flipping him can be awkward if you don't have creatures you're willing to sacrifice (and potentially weaken your boardstate) just to flip him. As a budget substitute for "real" Gideons or Elspeths, maybe passable. But definitely a high profile target for later upgrades.

I only played commander so far so I would like your input about some cards I was thinking about.

Dust Elemental: Since this deck has so many low CMC creature, this card could easily be played with a limited downside. It could also be used to get some ETB fuel if you run out of cards and to protect your creatures.

Cloudstone Curio: It's not as handy as the Dust Elemental can be but for 3 CMC, you get a pretty strong ETB engine.

For those going for the B/W version

Wall of Blood: Since this deck will most likely give you an early life lead, it could be used with a Rite of Consumption or a Essence Harvest for an early win condition. I could also be used with a Murder Investigation or a Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim to limit your life lost or to turn it into a huge life gain.

Wall of Limbs: Could be used as a backup for Ajani's Pridemate and it has a built-in Rite of Consumption.

Dust elemental sounds nice but if you get stuck on creatures, what will you bounce? You do not want to bounce your spirits. Bounce as protection could hurt if you have to bounce a Pridemate or if in response to the cast they nuke one of the 3 creatures while the ability is on the stack forcing you to bounce the elemental.


The Walls are cute but the life lead we gain is not that huge most of the time. We use the life gained as a shield to last longer in the game and to develop our board. Rites of consumption back up plan to win could be good but its is a combo piece that requires too many other deck slots. If we have a big creature than we just smash face with them. Our big guys get big fast or we play out a longer game and pick them to death.

Combo'ng off of aetherflux reservoir and cloudstone curio with sisters in play might just be easier.

Dust Elemental has to be built around pretty heavily. You want to be wasting meaningless creatures like tokens. I'd considered it for my Monumental Sisters list, and I might derp around with it a little, but I think there's stronger things to play. Like Archangel of Thune. And Elemental is just a higher costed safety button than Whitemane Lion. The biggest drawback is it has to bounce 3 creatures (or up to 3 if you don't have that many). So if you only have 1 or 2, you're virtually wrathing yourself when you cast it. So you'd have to have at least 3 creatures, maybe 4 or 5 for spot removal safety netting, to make Dust work. It's a wonderful sinking feeling when you've just gotten to the point you could play it, and then your opponent Bolts a Sister in response to Dust cast and now your board is empty.

Oketra's Monument + Whitemane Lion is just a better combo engine than Cloudstone Curio because it leaves a body behind, gains you double the life than Cloudstone without forcing you to bounce your Sisters, and reduces your creatures' casting cost. Aetherflux Reservoir still combos nicely, sounds crazy, actually, but I don't know if I'd play it over a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or go down an Archangel. My gut says Reservoir is, like Felidar Sovereign was, a win-more card. You have to have a lot already going for you for the Reservoir to work, you're not going to combo off hard enough to kill with it usually, and if you're got your engine and lifegain set up your opponent's usually to scoop time without the Aetherflux insult to injury. I think it's definitely a deck-building decision of which finisher you like best, but from experience I'd say something like Archangel of Thune is more likely to be an "I win because I'm casting this."

Okay, now I'm curious. So numbers time.

In terms of how your turns play out this is your optimal line of attack with Aetherfllux:
T1: Land + Sister
T2: Realistically, Land + Honor of the Pure, Wall of Omens, or a Sister + leaving Path up
Christmas Land, two or three more Sisters (preferably Auriok Champion)
T3: Land + Oketra's Monument
T4: Land + Aetherflux Reservoir

Case 1
T5: Assuming one Sister has surived thus far and you have a Whitemane Lion/Kor Skyfisher in hand, 3 white sources, and you start comboing at 20 life, then the Whitemane tree looks like this:
Lion Cast 1: Net 3--Gain 1 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Cast 2: Net 4--Gain 2 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Cast 3: Net 5--Gain 3 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Life total at EoT: 32

Case 2
T5: Assuming two Sisters have survived and all other preceding conditions,
Cast 1: Net 5--Gain 1 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Cast 2: Net 6--Gain 2 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Cast 3: Net 7--Gain 3 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Life total at EoT: 38

Case 3
T5: Assuming one Sister, four white sources, and all other preceding conditions,
Cast 1: Net 3--Gain 1 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Cast 2: Net 4--Gain 2 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Cast 3: Net 5--Gain 3 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Cast 4: Net 6--Gain 4 from Reservoir, 2 from Sister
Life total at EoT: 38

Case 4
T5: Assuming two Sisters, four white sources, and all other preceding conditions,
Cast 1: Net 5--Gain 1 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Cast 2: Net 6--Gain 2 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Cast 3: Net 7--Gain 3 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Cast 4: Net 8--Gain 4 from Reservoir, 4 from Sisters
Life total at EoT: 46

Those are the four most likely scenarios you'll have with Reservoir, and all of that is assuming your opponent either has no spot removal or hand disruption, or has already used it and you're still able to set up and you draw well and have the Monument engine. I didn't assume any life gained off Sister triggers because usually, if the opponent has creatures, we're taking the damage to set up and save Sisters than blocking, so they can usually mitigate the incidental lifegain prior to combo. But best realistic case would be Case 4, which if we have any extra life is the closest we can get to killing our opponent with Reservoir.

Your math sounds good.

I could not improve the math. I only play the Flux in commander, Cloudstone curio has too many restrictions on it to combo off efficiently (no artifacts, other permanent). The lion and skyfisher are built in better bouncers.

My soul sister deck rarely gets over 40 life. I looked at Flux heavily when it was spoiled, and determined it was not for this deck type.

Soul Elfs where you could potentially get a lot more mana to bounce cast.



T1 land,Heritage Druid
T2 land, Dwynen's Elite, Cloudstone curio
T3 land tap 3 elves cast Aetherflux Reservoir, cast Essence Warden(+1 life Flux)
T4 I think this goes infinite. Tap 3 elfs for mana, Cast elf (+1 sister +1 Flux =2 life)bounce Heritage Druid, cast Heritage Druid (+1 sister +2 flux= 3 Life ) bounce Dwynen's Elite recast Dwynen's Elite ( +2 sister +3 flux= 5 life) tap 3 elves cast bounce Heritage elf; replay Heritage Druid bounce.

You get infinite life and Token Elves.

I'm sure that there are other ways to trick into this.

You could skip The Flux and just infinite elves turn 3.

This is the build I'm going to finally take up to FNM this next week. The only difference is I'm currently missing the two Rest in Peace are Dryad Militant for a couple more weeks. The last SB slot is still blank but I'm not too worried because I'll get a better idea after I see some of my local meta. I got the idea of the humans subtheme from a SCG article a while back. Using pain lands as a budget for Marsh Flats and copter for Dark Confidant. Overall I like the look of the deck on paper but I can't wait to get some actual games in and test it out. I'll report back next weekend. Any feedback is welcome.

Looks good, maybe wrath of god or settle the wreckage for the 15th SB slot?

Settle The Wreckage gets less good now that decks want to run more basics for Field of Ruin

@WickedApp
That's a really fragile and hard to assemble combo. The essence is a 3-card combo (Heritage Druid, Dwynen's Elite, and Cloudstone Curio) that can't go infinite until you have another, preferably cheap elf to cast. So a virtual 4-card combo as its core. And that's not including the Essence Warden or Aetherflux Reservoir side of the equation. The Vizier package works really well because it's a 2-card combo that's a little easier to set up, and even then it's still sitting much more firmly entrenched in the Elves camp than Sisters. I really like Essence Warden a lot, but she tends to drag in the rabble with her.

@DerM4GK
I'm glad you like the deck. I do too, she's been good to me. As far as those cards go, Oath of Gideon is a weaker Spectral Procession that makes you more reliant on Gideon, and the only upside is it lets you ult him as soon as he hits and still (theoretically) stick around. I've started testing running 2 Gideons, and even with the extra copy I still don't see him that often. If they were flying tokens I'd say go for it, but the fact that they're stuck on the ground makes them an even worse substitute for Spectral spirits. Soul Sisters needs its flyers. With Kitchen Finks, I don't think it really does enough in either this or other Sister builds. Yes, it's lifegain and combos well with Sisters in play, but there's already so much lifegain in the deck that sinking 3 mana into a creature you might be able to keep persisting forever with an Archangel in play is just a suboptimal route. A much better 3-drop creature would be Mirran Crusader, because in certain matchups if you resolve it you just win. And with BBE potentially bringing Jund back to prominence, it'd take them Bolting it to get rid of it (since Terminate and Dreadbore are both black). Especially since Dreadbore's probably going to see more play from the Jace hate train. If you're working with a budget (or need a breather after buying a playset of Flagstones in paper), Mirran can slot into Gideon's spot nicely. Or you could play around with the sideboard and find a spot that fits your playstyle. For example, I run 3 Leylines because the deck plays like a combo deck and not only does Leyline shut off targeted discard, it can cement a Worship lock with Auriok Champion or [/card]Kor Firewalker[/card] since they can't target you to sac a creature. But some people are comfortable with just 2, so you could swap there. Obviously no sideboard is static, I just designed mine for a blind meta (since I play online with the deck and take it to GPs). Cards not in the side that could be are Pithing Needle/Sorcerous Spyglass for Jace/Planeswalker hate primarily, Grand Abolisher for Control, Celestial Flare instead of Blessed Alliance for Bogles/Emrakul/Infect since I rarely use any mode than the sacrifice mode on Alliance, and Solemnity as a last resort if Infect is heavy in your meta. Solemnity gets brought in against this deck because it shuts off Archangel of Thune, so I would be very careful playing it, but it also is a one-card lock against Infect, which Sisters are absurdly weak to.

@RedLoa
I would advise against running actual Wrath of God because Sisters shrivel up and die to wraths. Settle the Wreckage is a decent one-sided wrath, but I'd suggest Dusk//Dawn as a really, really good one-sided wrath for your sideboard. I'd suggest running it over even your Immortal Servitude because the only thing its aftermath doesn't hit is Archangel. And I doubt the game's going to go long enough for you to Servitude back Archangels. But I can understand straight returning to the battlefield over returning to hand. Also, since you're running BW, have you considered Bitterblossom? Fairly good synergy with Sisters, free fodder for Ayli, helps recover boardstate post-wraths.

Dusk also has the benefit of being very unlikely to hit your tokens. If you don't have a Pridemate in play, it's completely one-sided and virtually maindeck-able. I'd also be interested in the Bitterblossom play, but where to cut is difficult. My gut says the Freebooter, but that actually seems very good against combo decks, which are our mortal enemies.

It's an awesome looking list and I'm excited to see how you do with it. My big thought would be how necessary are 23 lands with 3 Landings, as I've been able to cheat down to as low as 21 with them, which would open up two more slots.

I saw a deck similar to this on Twitch last night. It seemed like it was pretty effective. I'm putting it down from memory, so I might not have the total list. But the blending of Tokens with Soul Sisters seems new. It gains life, but not as massively as Martyr and it spends life too with cards like Bob , Bitterblossom, and Thoughtseize.

@GreenSkyDragon
Yes, it is forcing it a bit. The elf shell plays all these cards naturally so the added combo is just another win condition. But you are right, Jank is still Jank.

In your Monument sisters deck have you ever considered/played rhonas's monument?

Don't get me wrong, I love spice and jank. Insert Meme Deck. I just think it's better suited to Elves than Sisters.
Rhonas's Monument doesn't do enough in a mono-white deck. If I were running a GW Monumental Sisters list, it'd probably be a one-of. But Archangel of Thune is a sort of permanent Rhonas effect on a "monument" that can attack and gains you life. Not bestowing trample is almost always irrelevant because you go wide enough with enough creatures there just aren't any good blocks for your opponent, and then suddenly your swarm of angry 1/1's are all Pridemates and they're dead. But if I went GW, I'd probably (sadly) go down an Archangel for Buttercup (read "Sigarda, Host of Herons"). Her plus a main deck Worship sounds highly amusing.

@DerM4GK
I've been testing Field of Ruin out in some different decks recently, and I'd definitely play it over GQ unless and until you have Flagstones. Field is effectively the GQ+Flagstones package in a single land, but the biggest drawback to it is not hitting basics. So if your opp Utopia Sprawl's a Forest you kinda just cry, and shutting them off colors is harder if they've got correct basics. And you're never keeping Tron off T3 tron unless you're on the play and not playing much. That being said, those are minor drawbacks (Tron just kind of sucks for Sisters whether we keep them off T3 tron or not) and Field is a great budget option that can actually stick around for a while. You could even fudge a little and run an extra GQ or two over some Plains.

Hi,
I have a peculiar local metagame around where I live and a traditional Soul Sisters deck can't do much against the decks I see often
So I tweaked up a bit the vanilla version of SS and I ended up with this



My local metagame is mainly:
Affinity, 8 rack, RGramp (Green titan into nexus + kessig), Infect, Eldrazi Tron, Living End, Scapeshift

Due to the omnipresence of Black and Green creatures and Fatal Push being a thing, I decided to remove some of the slower creatures Serra Ascendant and Ranger of Eos to smash in Black & Green hate cards like Auriok Champion and Mirran Crusader
In addition to that I added 2 Worship in order to survive OtK wombo combos or to steal a win out of nowhere

I still lose to Infect tho. I have two Blessed Alliance in the side but my opponent knows how to play around

Any idea to strengthen the deck a bit more?

Looks like Reid Duke (i'm assuming) is going to roll with Soul Sisters in tonight Modern Team Superleague.





Interesting that he's only going with with 1 Honor of the Pure.