Maryr.Proc has more raw power than Soul Sisters does but it is far less consistent. Personal choice if you want to build into it.
For your given meta, you probably want to have Celestial Flares in your sideboard. This is for Infect, Exalted, Polymorph, and Hexproof match ups. Most of those decks attack with a single creature and Flare gets around any targeting restriction.
For Storm you should probably pick up a Leyline of Sanctity or 2 and maybe Ethersworn Canonist, they also work against Ad Nauseum. (Just a note on Ad Nauseum, Lightning Storm has an activated ability)
While I am a big fan of Aven Mindcensor, looking at your meta he's really only good against Melira Pod for which you already have Suppression Field, Rest in Peace, and Stony Silence.
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1: you should probably move those 2 paths over to the mainboard, having only 2 pieces of spot removal in the main board is pretty risky unless your meta is almost entirely creatureless combo decks.
2: Against Control lists you want a hard to remove win condition. The two I know people use are Chalice of Life/Chalice of Death, Hero of Bladehold, and Elspeth, Knight-Errant . Most of my game 1 wins against Control have been simply having a huge threat density and playing a single threat each turn just eating up all of their counters and removal. Any creature + enough Honor effects becomes a must answer threat to them, the hard part is getting them to stick.
Honestly, I would use Brave the Elements over Burrenton Forge-Tender. Brave is harder to play around, it can be countered much easier than Forge-Tender but if it isn't expected, they won't have countermagic up. Yes, its not a creature so it won't trigger the sisters or be able to swing in for damage, but it also lets you go ahead and alpha strike on a clustered board.
While I personally am not a big fan of the card, it is very effective and many Soul Sisters players have it in their sideboard.
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The only decks you can play without knowledge of the meta are streamlined combo decks like Storm, every other deck you must have some idea of what decks you may come across.
2/3 games in a match are played postboard, you have to know what to sideboard with and as a white deck we have access to the best sideboard cards in the game.
As for the weakest care in the deck, it would be Ajani's Pridemate, essentially Pridemate fills the same role as Tarmogoyf. There are 2 major differences between the two:
1: Pridemate can get bigger than Goyf
2: Pridemate dies to burn much, much easier than Goyf.
Like Goyf, all Pridemate is is a cheap beater. It has no evasion and can be easily chump blocked, but it is a cost efficient beater and most games will be a 3/3 or 4/4 for 2 mana.
Ascendant is good even without martyr because it can get you closer to 30+ life but also because it can grow your Pridemate. If I have the choice between playing a Sister or an Ascendant on turn 1, I'm more likely going to play Serra. She'll almost always gain me the same amount of life as a Sister would between turns 1 & 2 and is much more likely to pull removal out of my opponent's hand. Also there's always the chance of topdecking into martyr and making Ascendant into a 6/6.
She also gains you life through Torpor Orb and in grindy games will often already be a 6/6 for 1.
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Do you have a lot of aggro in your meta? We already have a good matchup vs aggro decks so unless you really have a lot in your meta, I wouldn't advocate it.
Yes it can also be played against Twin decks to prevent them from attacking for infinite. Suppression Field does the exact same thing and costs 1 less to play.
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On the subject of UR Delver, the most powerful cards they have against Soul Sisters are the Grim Lavamancers and Young Pyromancers. Do not be fooled by the life you get to gain off of Young Pyromancer, those tokens can block for days. You either need a flier or some Honor effects to deal with them. If they don't have some way to capitalize on the stall, you should be able to get a way around it after a few turns.
I'm honestly surprised to see 0 Anger of the Gods or similar effects in LSV's list. Electrolyze somewhat works but its not nearly as effective. When I last played against a UR Delver I got hit by an Ignite Disorder that card in particular was not something I expected. I still won, but it was a surprise especially because it was a card I had never seen before. Given the current meta I'm really shocked to not see a single mass wipe effect, even something like Engineered Explosives would fit (especially with the singleton Breeding Pool for Ancient Grudge Flashback).
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The banning of Deathrite Shaman did absolutely nothing to affect this deck. Unlike Martyr Proc, Soul Sisters does not rely on grave recursion in the slightest. What the banning of Deathrite meant to Soul Sisters was less 3+ color decks and a decline in Jund and Rock decks, both of which were about even match ups depending on the builds.
For Soul Sisters I've come to the personal conclusion that Aggro = Favorable, Midrange = Even, Control = Unfavorable, Combo = Most Unfavorable.
Sisters does best when the format consists of mostly aggro and midrange decks. Right now the format is mostly Combo or Affinity so its not a good meta for the deck. While Affinity IS an aggro deck, it is much faster than any other aggro deck, has more explosive starts, and runs Inkmoth Nexus which is a card Soul Sisters has to answer. Its hard to combat game 1 as they are harder to slow down than any other aggro deck.
As a White deck we have access to the best sideboard cards in Modern which makes postboard games against Combo good if we can get the hate cards to stick.
Control is a match up I'm still trying to figure out...especially because a good 1/5 of my local store's meta consists of UWR Control.
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Its fun card, but I feel its fits better in BW Tokens than in Soul Sisters.
Its a sorcery which makes me less likely to play it and because you need to attack to use it it must be cast main phase 1. For 3 mana you get 3 tokens without flying and would have to had attacked with 3 creatures. If I'm attacking with three creatures I want to be flipping my Hideaway.
I'd be willing to test it, but for now I'm going with no.
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I use 21 lands in my list. The number of GQs and Tecs you should run is largely meta dependant. I play in a meta with several Tron and Affinity decks, I rely on my GQs to keep my opponents off of Tron and get rid of Eye of Ugin and against Affinity I use it to deal with Inkmoths. The more your meta is dependant on having specific lands out the better these utility lands will be.
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Theres really only 3 ways to beat Boggles
1: Hope to dodge it
2: Mass Enchantment hate which is useless in most other matches. Examples include Patrician's Scorn, Paraselene, and Tempest of Light
3: Runed Halo naming whatever they suit up but then they just get a giant blocker. Spirit tokens can often fly over that but many lists do run Spider Umbra
You can run spot enchantment removal like Sundering Growth and destroy their best enhancements but they often have enough redundancy to make the spot removal pointless.
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Cage is a good hate card and it stops most grave based decks. It does not however stop Living End, shrink Goyfs, or prevent counters from being put on Pyromancer's Ascension. I do like Cage. I've been trying to find room for it in my sideboard for a while, but there isn't much Pod in my local meta so RIP works better.
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Pod is winnable games 2 & 3 but you must get out multiple hatecards as they can pod or chord for Qasali Pridemage and/or Harmonic Sliver. You can stop combo with RIP and Suppression Field. Stop Pod with stony silence and searches I n general with mindcensor. There are many ways to combat it but they attack from multiple angles and can break out of the hate.
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According to TCG Player the list I specifically am running has a Low/Mid/High of $202/$272/$419
My original list I built for about $180. I already had some of the cards but around 80% I bought through TCG Player.
In the time since I have built my list I have spent about another $20 on the deck in trades and singles.
Also Serra Ascendants have gone up in price as has Aven Mindcensor, Ranger of Eos, and Auriok Champions.
You could probably build the list for around $200.
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Combo is really difficult. Aggro is favorable. Midrange is even. Control is hard.
Twin is probably the only Combo deck we have a favorable game 1 against. If they don't have enough removal game 1 we can just deck them out, something I almost achieved at GP Richmond.
Pod is an outright horrible match up and is near impossible to win. They can combo off consistently or just out value us and win with beats. Even without going infinite they are still a legitimately powerful midrange deck.
I originally wrote out a brief 2-3 sentence rundown of most of Soul Sister's match ups but I think I'll save that for later.
If 4thDimensionalBubble is reading this a Matchup analysis should probably be added to the primer. Eventually.
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For your given meta, you probably want to have Celestial Flares in your sideboard. This is for Infect, Exalted, Polymorph, and Hexproof match ups. Most of those decks attack with a single creature and Flare gets around any targeting restriction.
For Storm you should probably pick up a Leyline of Sanctity or 2 and maybe Ethersworn Canonist, they also work against Ad Nauseum. (Just a note on Ad Nauseum, Lightning Storm has an activated ability)
While I am a big fan of Aven Mindcensor, looking at your meta he's really only good against Melira Pod for which you already have Suppression Field, Rest in Peace, and Stony Silence.
-Anonymous
2: Against Control lists you want a hard to remove win condition. The two I know people use are Chalice of Life/Chalice of Death, Hero of Bladehold, and Elspeth, Knight-Errant . Most of my game 1 wins against Control have been simply having a huge threat density and playing a single threat each turn just eating up all of their counters and removal. Any creature + enough Honor effects becomes a must answer threat to them, the hard part is getting them to stick.
-Anonymous
While I personally am not a big fan of the card, it is very effective and many Soul Sisters players have it in their sideboard.
-Anonymous
2/3 games in a match are played postboard, you have to know what to sideboard with and as a white deck we have access to the best sideboard cards in the game.
As for the weakest care in the deck, it would be Ajani's Pridemate, essentially Pridemate fills the same role as Tarmogoyf. There are 2 major differences between the two:
1: Pridemate can get bigger than Goyf
2: Pridemate dies to burn much, much easier than Goyf.
Like Goyf, all Pridemate is is a cheap beater. It has no evasion and can be easily chump blocked, but it is a cost efficient beater and most games will be a 3/3 or 4/4 for 2 mana.
Ascendant is good even without martyr because it can get you closer to 30+ life but also because it can grow your Pridemate. If I have the choice between playing a Sister or an Ascendant on turn 1, I'm more likely going to play Serra. She'll almost always gain me the same amount of life as a Sister would between turns 1 & 2 and is much more likely to pull removal out of my opponent's hand. Also there's always the chance of topdecking into martyr and making Ascendant into a 6/6.
She also gains you life through Torpor Orb and in grindy games will often already be a 6/6 for 1.
-Anonymous
If you really need an extra card against aggro then feel free to play it.
-Anonymous
Yes it can also be played against Twin decks to prevent them from attacking for infinite. Suppression Field does the exact same thing and costs 1 less to play.
-Anonymous
I'm honestly surprised to see 0 Anger of the Gods or similar effects in LSV's list. Electrolyze somewhat works but its not nearly as effective. When I last played against a UR Delver I got hit by an Ignite Disorder that card in particular was not something I expected. I still won, but it was a surprise especially because it was a card I had never seen before. Given the current meta I'm really shocked to not see a single mass wipe effect, even something like Engineered Explosives would fit (especially with the singleton Breeding Pool for Ancient Grudge Flashback).
-Anonymous
For Soul Sisters I've come to the personal conclusion that Aggro = Favorable, Midrange = Even, Control = Unfavorable, Combo = Most Unfavorable.
Sisters does best when the format consists of mostly aggro and midrange decks. Right now the format is mostly Combo or Affinity so its not a good meta for the deck. While Affinity IS an aggro deck, it is much faster than any other aggro deck, has more explosive starts, and runs Inkmoth Nexus which is a card Soul Sisters has to answer. Its hard to combat game 1 as they are harder to slow down than any other aggro deck.
As a White deck we have access to the best sideboard cards in Modern which makes postboard games against Combo good if we can get the hate cards to stick.
Control is a match up I'm still trying to figure out...especially because a good 1/5 of my local store's meta consists of UWR Control.
-Anonymous
Its a sorcery which makes me less likely to play it and because you need to attack to use it it must be cast main phase 1. For 3 mana you get 3 tokens without flying and would have to had attacked with 3 creatures. If I'm attacking with three creatures I want to be flipping my Hideaway.
I'd be willing to test it, but for now I'm going with no.
-Anonymous
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Cavern of Souls
15 Plains
I use 21 lands in my list. The number of GQs and Tecs you should run is largely meta dependant. I play in a meta with several Tron and Affinity decks, I rely on my GQs to keep my opponents off of Tron and get rid of Eye of Ugin and against Affinity I use it to deal with Inkmoths. The more your meta is dependant on having specific lands out the better these utility lands will be.
-Anonymous
1: Hope to dodge it
2: Mass Enchantment hate which is useless in most other matches. Examples include Patrician's Scorn, Paraselene, and Tempest of Light
3: Runed Halo naming whatever they suit up but then they just get a giant blocker. Spirit tokens can often fly over that but many lists do run Spider Umbra
You can run spot enchantment removal like Sundering Growth and destroy their best enhancements but they often have enough redundancy to make the spot removal pointless.
-Anonymous
-Anonymous
-Anonymous
My original list I built for about $180. I already had some of the cards but around 80% I bought through TCG Player.
In the time since I have built my list I have spent about another $20 on the deck in trades and singles.
Also Serra Ascendants have gone up in price as has Aven Mindcensor, Ranger of Eos, and Auriok Champions.
You could probably build the list for around $200.
-Anonymous
Twin is probably the only Combo deck we have a favorable game 1 against. If they don't have enough removal game 1 we can just deck them out, something I almost achieved at GP Richmond.
Pod is an outright horrible match up and is near impossible to win. They can combo off consistently or just out value us and win with beats. Even without going infinite they are still a legitimately powerful midrange deck.
I originally wrote out a brief 2-3 sentence rundown of most of Soul Sister's match ups but I think I'll save that for later.
If 4thDimensionalBubble is reading this a Matchup analysis should probably be added to the primer. Eventually.
-Anonymous