With a recent flurry of Nationals going on all over the world, we have seen a big outbreak of Standard decks as all of the designers come out of the woodwork trying to “Solve Standard”. One of my favorite decks coming out of this period is one “Soul Sisters”, designed by renowned deck designer, Conley Woods (also the designer of the breakout deck Magical Christmas Land at Worlds). I’ve always been a fan of Conley’s decks, as he tends to show up with something that when you first glance at, you can’t help but think that he just threw some random cards sitting around on his kitchen table together and shuffled them up, and yet somehow is winning with them. Then again, that’s the kind of decks that I love to play.

The first time I heard of Soul Sisters was actually not from any high level tournaments, but a couple of weeks ago when I was taking a walk with two of my friends, talking about visiting each other in college, our local playgroups, and just some random Magic chat. One of them turned to me and said: “So Josh, there is this annoying new White Weenie deck that one of the guys is playing, it uses a bunch of life gain and Ajani's Pridmate gets really big. Any suggestions on how to beat it?” Thinking that this was just some random scrub who found a tricky little synergy, I shrugged and suggested a few cards off the top of my head, and put it out of my mind. It wasn't until a week or two later that I pulled up the results from Nationals and saw this:



I’m not going to lie, even now, my first thought when I see this deck is: “Wow, this is just like that really shitty White deck that everyone (myself included) has built at one time or another in their lives!” Cards like Survival Cache, Soul Warden, and Brave the Elements are all cards that we’ve for so long considered either fodder, Limited combat tricks, or just generally “cute” cards. Put them all together in this deck, however, and somehow we see a very powerful Aggro-deck that likes to beat face in.

There are two main beatsticks in the list: Serra’s Ascendant and Ajani's Pridemate. The Ascendant can be turned on as early as turn three, and Conley has been wandering around all week calling Ajani's Pridemate the “White Tarmogoyf”, reportedly frequently getting him up to at least a 7/7. Looking down through the rest of the list, we can see the complete set of eight “Soul Sisters” (Four Soul Wardens and four Soul’s Attendant), which combined with the Attendants makes TWELVE one drops that will pump up a Turn Two Ajani's Pridemate. (Important Note here: When the Pridemate comes into play with a Soul Warden in play, the life gain trigger will not happen until after the Pridemate has come into play, meaning that it will effectively trigger itself.)




Up next on the creature list is Ranger of Eos, the Ranger is what really gives the deck some gas. The fact that you can tutor up both the engine (The Soul Sisters) as well as one of the win conditions: Serra Ascendant. This just gives you incredible utility, providing you of just a non-stop stream of gas.

The last creature in the deck, Kor Firewalker, seems to be mostly a metagame call, as it is relevant against just about every deck in the format, with the exception of: UW Control, Mono White, or the remains of Polymorph that pop up every now and again.

Moving off of the creatures in the deck, let’s take a look at the other spells. The first to come to my attention is probably the simplest: Oblivion Ring, this two of (with two more in the board) is the general “catch-all” of the deck. With a format that is packed with Planeswalkers, Artifacts, and random enchantments that annoyingly tend to double spells. While the deck doesn't seem to care all that much, it still needs a few answers to call upon in a pinch. Next up on the list is the four Survival Cache. This is almost always going to be gain four life, draw two cards. While that’s not overtly sexy, it is something that just keeps the deck running, as well as giving a nice boost to any Pridemates that are on the field. It’s not amazing, but it’s going to
give the deck a few more inches of card advantage, which in this archetype is always something to strive for.

Next on the list are two cards that virtually serve the same purpose. Both Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Brave the Elements are both cards designed to get in a finishing blow at the opponent. Elspeth is used to just jump huge Pridemates, while the Brave the Elements serves as allowing a team wide Alpha Strike. Both work slightly differently, as well as both having an additional purpose outside of the kill.

All in all, this deck is really just an amazing piece of deck design. While seemingly just a pile of random cards, it really just came out of nowhere to be far more powerful than anyone assumed. That being said, however, I’d get the deck put together pretty soon if you are looking to play it in something more serious. While the deck will remain powerful, the hate will be quite potent, and will be arriving in the metagame soon.

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Well, that’s it for this week, I’ll be back next week with a review of the
upcoming Elspeth vs Tezzeret duel deck and see which of the two Planeswalkers will prove itself the dominating force! Until then!

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Publisher Note: Another very competitive White deck that gains a bunch of life eh? It sort of reminds me of how Snow White came about. A deck that came out of nowhere that gained life to make you overextend so that it could take advantage. Back then it just wittled away at your life. Today it makes a big fat guy and throws him over your defense.

What do you guys think? Can this build or something similar overcome the meta-hate that that is inevitably coming? Let's talk about it in the forums. -- Chris

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September 2010 Design Challenge
Join our newest feature on EoV/TGE and see how you stack up against our other readers in a MTG Card Design contest. Contest deadline is September 12th, so make sure you take your time, but don't be late!

You can find the contest rules and submission forum here.

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