Gideon package is better than Sorin package Just an opinion folks.
I run a 3-2-1 pack of Trials, AoZ, Jura
with 4 LotV
I run 2 Phyrexian Arena/2 Night's Whisper/2 Revitalize
and no LS
That's about as far as my deck differs. Burn can be a problematic matchup but you just replace the TS with Brutality and Leylines. Burning Gideon's is awkward but they cant kill the jura
It's nice to see the Glare having some success. I want to use that card, I really do. But token life gain is already a rather positive matchup against creature based decks. Why dedicate even more slots to creatures? Throne is a bomb, but less useful in a glare deck no?
Do you guys have a list to post with glare and/or throne?
I had put in a few Genesis Chamber. I haven't been disappointed with it.
Just went from like 12 to 46 life from a genesis chamber followed by a return to ranks. Jund scooped. 2-1. They just can't deal with Auriok very well. They do have an answer for LS, just not many.
The Sky Hussar IS AWESOME. Draw when you need it. Extras means cast one with settlement/encampment to untap everyone!
2-0 Burn
G1: He almost got me the first game thanks to no sisters. Had a weird hand, and finally got to play wardens and emmara a couple turns later. He got close but no cigar
G2: He was blown out bad
2-0 Jund Shadow
G1: He made me discard a lot of tech: Genesis Chamber, Chord, and Ranks. A LILItLH gave me some trouble but eventually he didnt have an answer for a growing auriok and archangel
G2: He got a couple of my wardens with discard push etc. Return to the Ranks sealed the deal. With 4 wardens out a beefed up Shadow couldn't race me.
2-0 Eldrazi
He didn't pack much removal, he couldnt get eldrazi temples I guess. Not in either game. Kind of lucky, but the full power of 2 wardens, 1 emmara, 1 thune was on display in both games. Putting 4 +1/+1 emblems before blockers without even casting a spell is no joke. Lingering Souls would make that 8 emblems, or even 12. What makes the creature matchup so juicy, they cast I gain life, and get emblems.
1-2 Tron
G1: He had a bad shuffle
G2: Natural Tron with no help, gg
G3: He got through 2 trophies on the same land, still assembled Tron and won.
0-2 UW Control
not surprised here, need to actually made a sideboard Choke and Boseiju will be inclusions
I never liked the Ajani Pridemate/Serra monowhite version. It's great, but sticking lifegain into an aggro? type of deck? Mise as well play Zoo. Creature removal is prevalent. Can't tell you how many times I played against sisters, and either path'd it, or just chumped for days.
I enjoy brewing different decks. This will probably never be a tier 1 deck that gives people nightmares, but its fun so far and hopefully can get better. Convoke is a Sisters mechanic. It's a mechanic for any creature that's just gonna sit there and look pretty, as well as tokens. There's no reason not to look in white and green to create a board and maintain/recur/refill it.
Purphoros and NML could be terrific!
The only thing about NML is you basically need an enabler, like one of those tap lands, and a handful more.
I'm in Abzan right now(Assassin's Trophy/Lingering Souls). Ultimately I think Purporos is really really really good. It might be better than Archangel as a finisher. But it also might require a drastically different approach.
I'm not really attacking or blocking with sisters until Archangel hits the board. Archangel is an I'm going to hit you with 5 5/5's and 2 of them are lifelinkers.
Attacking or Tapping Emmara creates permanent anthem effects for X sisters on field with thune… Nvm the counters you got from casting/chording thune
Return to the Ranks also comes with convoke. You really only need 2 sisters to rip the game apart against any creature based deck.
Green has great ideboard options against blue control decks, and white covers pretty much everything else.
There's quite a few cards that create lifelinkers: emmara, legion's landing, dawn of hope, march of the multitudes
There's also bitterblossom in black, though I've found that to be a meh card. It's more a tool for wraths.
dawn okay, its just a terrible 2 drop. They could have had it as pay 1 and it would have been fine. The others ones are all solid cards.
why use mana dorks in a chord deck, when your chord target wants instances of lifegain?
I simply can't get behind mana dorks. It makes zero sense to rush dorks into an archangel that doesn't put 2+ counters on everything u control. Could make a version with legion's landing which is a great card. I'm just generally not attacking early enough for it to be relevant. Chord's for archangel on turn 4 end step happen sometimes. Slow yes, but having an army of 3/3's 5/5's whatever to attack with is christmasland power.
Abzan also has access to goodies like astro, in case it needs to deal with some kind of combo or planeswalker.
I'm not even including glare because this deck generally wrecks any creature based deck.
I haven't solved blood moon yet, but chording for a qasali or something would certainly do the trick. Need's more green creatures then though. Auriok is better than Essence when you already have 8 sisters.
You can easily chord on turn 3 for x=2 or 3. Sometimes you might even get a chord for x=4. Sisters->Emmara-> Chord Archangel is no joke.
Changed Essence Warden to Auriok Champion and its been a good move thus far. That pro red/black really makes a difference.
I'm all for intruder alarm, but that is optimal in elves. Because they use nettle, heritage, chord, dorks, impervious. Infinites tokens is nice, but alarm will never be consistent and you'll still have to wait a turn to attack, even in christmasland. Elves generally use 8 dorks.
Voice seems like a pretty darn good card here that I should mainboard.
Maybe selfless Spirit should be in here somewhere. While return to the ranks is a good post board wipe plan, it still is blanked by Anger of the Gods, the spirit is a good answer to anger that can be tutored out at instant speed with Chord of calling.
Thanks, I put one in. Im still keeping 2 returns in targeted removal is more common
Struggled against Jund mightily. Thought I could never get a path or atro for scooze. He just hit every cleric in on sight, and both return's still weren't enough. hussar just sat there in my hand
A. All 12 1 drop siblings. Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Essence Warden
-The reason for this is I'm trying to stack life gain triggers, not lifegain.
B. 2 Sky Hussar/ 2 Chord
- I don't want to run 4 chords, you can get a lot of dead hands that way
- Between 8 white sisters and emmara, you can often upkeep hussar "white tap" on 3.
C. 2 Return to the Ranks/ 2 Archangel of Thune
- The engine of the deck is the 12 sisters and 4 emmara's creating lifegain triggers.
- If they wipe you on turn 3, you can often just ranks on 4 to get 2 creatures back. ++++ return has convoke so you can drop another sister on board before hand and use it for mana.
- All you really need is a couple sisters on board for archangel. Furthermore, attacking with emmara will trigger sisters/thune for additional counters before damage or blockers are declared. 2 sisters and 1 emmara on a thune makes 4 +1/+1 counters on every creature you have: If you convoke thune on their end step, you haven't even spent mana yet for combat.
D. I have a copy of Cliffhaven Vampire in the deck. It is nice to have a backup plan that isn't centered on combat damage.
Still a bit of a rough draft.
Had two games with this iteration both against creature based decks, so I should be 4-0. Izzet Arclight, and an ally deck. Both superb matchups for this kind of deck.
You could probably make a case for chord and march as Wins with all 12 siblings. If you're chording for thune with say 2 sisters you can gain 10 life and 5 lifelinkers with march. That's 10 instances of life gain! So yes. Cliffhaven, though untested. That's 10 life DRAIN and 5 lifelinkers for 8 mana with convoke... On their end step. You can't chord march, but you can chord the vampire. March itself has convoke. Casting vamp, chording vamp, and convoking march are all turn 4 plays
Give the new Vraska GQ a try. She's quite good. She's not an OMG Jace or LotV. Worst case scenario she's a bad decay that eats a bolt which is STILL 2 for 1. Best case scenario? They're top decking and she's sitting near ult with repeatable decays at your disposal. It's not like BUG can't abuse whatever permanent you sac with recursion or graveyard schinanigans. I wouldn't ball out with 4, but 2 is a good number here. Like it or not all the best stuff in bug is graveyard orientated. Save the counter spells for the Gy hate.
If you're on the replay astro/decay with snap train. Sac a snap and do it again or just outright -3 her. They will run out of threats fast.
If you're on the flayer train she can help turn him on or kill stuff in the way.
You could simply run grim flayer/snap with Jace, LtLH, Vraska GQ with azcanta and whatever disruption package you want and put up good results. That about half the deck with 8 creatures 8 walks and a pair of az.
What I like most about bramblesnap is it can create some misplays/attacks from opponent. It's quite an interesting creature in extraordinary circumstances.
How has that card worked without alarm on field. Seems to me it's pretty important to establish 3 creatures on board without dumping your hand
No LS? That's two untapped triggers twice! Tokens are real valuable, don't dump them!
I support different iterations of convoking and life gain. But I think it's a huge mistake to go Evo over chord. Simply convoking a bramble on their end step on turn 3 can a winning play. Additionally, I think 2 or 3 alarms allows more than 1 way to win.
Maybe I'm just more of a grinder, I don't know
I haven't had time to update/test the abzan version but you've convinced me to expand to 4 colors for some alarms and snap
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
Gideon package is better than Sorin package Just an opinion folks.
I run a 3-2-1 pack of Trials, AoZ, Jura
with 4 LotV
I run 2 Phyrexian Arena/2 Night's Whisper/2 Revitalize
and no LS
That's about as far as my deck differs. Burn can be a problematic matchup but you just replace the TS with Brutality and Leylines. Burning Gideon's is awkward but they cant kill the jura
Do you guys have a list to post with glare and/or throne?
I had put in a few Genesis Chamber. I haven't been disappointed with it.
Just went from like 12 to 46 life from a genesis chamber followed by a return to ranks. Jund scooped. 2-1. They just can't deal with Auriok very well. They do have an answer for LS, just not many.
The Sky Hussar IS AWESOME. Draw when you need it. Extras means cast one with settlement/encampment to untap everyone!
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Auriok Champion
4 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
2 Archangel of Thune
2 Sky Hussar
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Lingering Souls
3 Assassin's Tropy
2 Path to Exile
2 Chord of Calling
4 Windswept Heath
4 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Holdout Settlement
2 Survivors' Encampment
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gavony Township
3 Razorverge Thicket
3 Plains
1 Forest
2-0 Burn
G1: He almost got me the first game thanks to no sisters. Had a weird hand, and finally got to play wardens and emmara a couple turns later. He got close but no cigar
G2: He was blown out bad
2-0 Jund Shadow
G1: He made me discard a lot of tech: Genesis Chamber, Chord, and Ranks. A LILItLH gave me some trouble but eventually he didnt have an answer for a growing auriok and archangel
G2: He got a couple of my wardens with discard push etc. Return to the Ranks sealed the deal. With 4 wardens out a beefed up Shadow couldn't race me.
2-0 Eldrazi
He didn't pack much removal, he couldnt get eldrazi temples I guess. Not in either game. Kind of lucky, but the full power of 2 wardens, 1 emmara, 1 thune was on display in both games. Putting 4 +1/+1 emblems before blockers without even casting a spell is no joke. Lingering Souls would make that 8 emblems, or even 12. What makes the creature matchup so juicy, they cast I gain life, and get emblems.
1-2 Tron
G1: He had a bad shuffle
G2: Natural Tron with no help, gg
G3: He got through 2 trophies on the same land, still assembled Tron and won.
0-2 UW Control
not surprised here, need to actually made a sideboard Choke and Boseiju will be inclusions
I enjoy brewing different decks. This will probably never be a tier 1 deck that gives people nightmares, but its fun so far and hopefully can get better. Convoke is a Sisters mechanic. It's a mechanic for any creature that's just gonna sit there and look pretty, as well as tokens. There's no reason not to look in white and green to create a board and maintain/recur/refill it.
Purphoros and NML could be terrific!
The only thing about NML is you basically need an enabler, like one of those tap lands, and a handful more.
I'm in Abzan right now(Assassin's Trophy/Lingering Souls). Ultimately I think Purporos is really really really good. It might be better than Archangel as a finisher. But it also might require a drastically different approach.
I'm not really attacking or blocking with sisters until Archangel hits the board. Archangel is an I'm going to hit you with 5 5/5's and 2 of them are lifelinkers.
Attacking or Tapping Emmara creates permanent anthem effects for X sisters on field with thune… Nvm the counters you got from casting/chording thune
Return to the Ranks also comes with convoke. You really only need 2 sisters to rip the game apart against any creature based deck.
Green has great ideboard options against blue control decks, and white covers pretty much everything else.
There's quite a few cards that create lifelinkers: emmara, legion's landing, dawn of hope, march of the multitudes
There's also bitterblossom in black, though I've found that to be a meh card. It's more a tool for wraths.
dawn okay, its just a terrible 2 drop. They could have had it as pay 1 and it would have been fine. The others ones are all solid cards.
I simply can't get behind mana dorks. It makes zero sense to rush dorks into an archangel that doesn't put 2+ counters on everything u control. Could make a version with legion's landing which is a great card. I'm just generally not attacking early enough for it to be relevant. Chord's for archangel on turn 4 end step happen sometimes. Slow yes, but having an army of 3/3's 5/5's whatever to attack with is christmasland power.
Abzan also has access to goodies like astro, in case it needs to deal with some kind of combo or planeswalker.
I'm not even including glare because this deck generally wrecks any creature based deck.
I haven't solved blood moon yet, but chording for a qasali or something would certainly do the trick. Need's more green creatures then though. Auriok is better than Essence when you already have 8 sisters.
You can easily chord on turn 3 for x=2 or 3. Sometimes you might even get a chord for x=4. Sisters->Emmara-> Chord Archangel is no joke.
Changed Essence Warden to Auriok Champion and its been a good move thus far. That pro red/black really makes a difference.
I'm all for intruder alarm, but that is optimal in elves. Because they use nettle, heritage, chord, dorks, impervious. Infinites tokens is nice, but alarm will never be consistent and you'll still have to wait a turn to attack, even in christmasland. Elves generally use 8 dorks.
Voice seems like a pretty darn good card here that I should mainboard.
Thanks, I put one in. Im still keeping 2 returns in targeted removal is more common
A. All 12 1 drop siblings. Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Essence Warden
-The reason for this is I'm trying to stack life gain triggers, not lifegain.
B. 2 Sky Hussar/ 2 Chord
- I don't want to run 4 chords, you can get a lot of dead hands that way
- Between 8 white sisters and emmara, you can often upkeep hussar "white tap" on 3.
C. 2 Return to the Ranks/ 2 Archangel of Thune
- The engine of the deck is the 12 sisters and 4 emmara's creating lifegain triggers.
- If they wipe you on turn 3, you can often just ranks on 4 to get 2 creatures back. ++++ return has convoke so you can drop another sister on board before hand and use it for mana.
- All you really need is a couple sisters on board for archangel. Furthermore, attacking with emmara will trigger sisters/thune for additional counters before damage or blockers are declared. 2 sisters and 1 emmara on a thune makes 4 +1/+1 counters on every creature you have: If you convoke thune on their end step, you haven't even spent mana yet for combat.
D. I have a copy of Cliffhaven Vampire in the deck. It is nice to have a backup plan that isn't centered on combat damage.
So, where am I at?
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Essence Warden
4 Emmara, Soul of the Accord
3 Sky Hussar
2 Archangel of Thune
1 Cliffhaven Vampire
4 Lingering Souls
2 Return to the Ranks
Instant(9)
3 Assassin's Trophy
3 Path to Exile
2 Chord of Calling
1 Sprout Swarm
Lands(23)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Holdout Settlement
2 Survivors' Encampment
3 Plains
1 Forest
1 Horizon Canopy
Still a bit of a rough draft.
Had two games with this iteration both against creature based decks, so I should be 4-0. Izzet Arclight, and an ally deck. Both superb matchups for this kind of deck.
I'm quickly finding out how much return to ranks is needed. I get wiped and can't get my life gain triggers for thune/cliffhaven
I'm not sure intruder or glare is necessary.
You could probably make a case for chord and march as Wins with all 12 siblings. If you're chording for thune with say 2 sisters you can gain 10 life and 5 lifelinkers with march. That's 10 instances of life gain! So yes. Cliffhaven, though untested. That's 10 life DRAIN and 5 lifelinkers for 8 mana with convoke... On their end step. You can't chord march, but you can chord the vampire. March itself has convoke. Casting vamp, chording vamp, and convoking march are all turn 4 plays
If you're on the replay astro/decay with snap train. Sac a snap and do it again or just outright -3 her. They will run out of threats fast.
If you're on the flayer train she can help turn him on or kill stuff in the way.
You could simply run grim flayer/snap with Jace, LtLH, Vraska GQ with azcanta and whatever disruption package you want and put up good results. That about half the deck with 8 creatures 8 walks and a pair of az.
How has that card worked without alarm on field. Seems to me it's pretty important to establish 3 creatures on board without dumping your hand
No LS? That's two untapped triggers twice! Tokens are real valuable, don't dump them!
I support different iterations of convoking and life gain. But I think it's a huge mistake to go Evo over chord. Simply convoking a bramble on their end step on turn 3 can a winning play. Additionally, I think 2 or 3 alarms allows more than 1 way to win.
Maybe I'm just more of a grinder, I don't know
I haven't had time to update/test the abzan version but you've convinced me to expand to 4 colors for some alarms and snap
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?