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Writing this primer has been an experience, one in perseverance and patience; it’s helped me understand how card choice, sequencing, theming and deck building can come together in so many ways to make an enjoyable Magic experience. I mean that the deck can play two very different strategies, sometimes more, though the base two are: Soul Sisters and Human Tribal, all in one color and with sixty cards.

I’ve written primers on Soul Sisters before, indeed it is my “pet” deck. It does everything I’ve ever wanted to in Magic. It gains life, plays creatures that grow, plays fair, and it is an underdog. Sisters was a standard deck that jumped formats into Extended then Modern and has gained all kinds of cards since its debut in 2011 at the hands of Mr. Woods. The deck can play like an Aggro deck, White Weenie, a combo deck, Norin’s Sisters, Control, Sisters of Saint Traft, and now even Tribal with the addition of Thalia's Lieutenant we can pay this version, Tribal.

This will be my first time writing a primer on a Tribal archetype, and I’m ecstatic. The first deck I won a tournament with was an Elf deck in Odyssey – Onslaught type 2, Standard, and played very similarly to this list. Thank you Wellwisher and Decree of Savagery. Things can get really out of control when cards work well together, we all remember coming into Magic and fearing the Slivers decks, and while not as overwhelming this is not terribly different. The best part? Most “sisters” are humans so you can play both deck types at the same time.

Auriok Champion is really good against the Death's Shadow decks running around, also great against Burn, Abzan, and just sizes up well against Fatal Push. Of course in combination with our sweet sisters: Soul's Attendant and Soul Warden we can expect to keep our life totals relatively high against other creature decks, and hopefully “turn on” card: Sera Ascendant and flip Lone Rider   to gain a large advantage or close the game out quickly. The formula of picking out these Sisters cards and not some like, let’s say, Ajani's Pridemate or Selfless Spirit is a pretty simple we just want to ask a few questions, though getting one wrong doesn’t mean that the card is a bad fit or won’t work, it just means I didn’t think it was optimal. Here are my questions: Is the card’s creature type “ human ”? Is the card’s converted mana cost three (3) or less? Does the card gain us life? Does the card become better when we gain life?

The bread to our butter, the meat to our potatoes, it’s all about the human creature type with the advent of Thalia's Lieutenant, this card really can push a lot of disadvantageous board states our way with his enter the battle field trigger (ETB), not to mention he can become a serious threat in his own right by just playing the rest of our cards. Let’s talk about the synchronization of turn one Champion of the Parish into a turn two Thalia’s Lieutenant can get out of hand very quickly. Another interesting addition to our human package is Hanweir Militia Captain  , I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched my opponents bolt the wrong human, or stop me in my upkeep to read the card again, if you’ve played it you know that once flipped Westvale Cult Leader   plays so perfectly into everything we want that if left unchecked even for a turn or two she can run away with the game.

We have some utility slots in our Human side of the deck, Mikaeus, the Lunarch is an anthem effect that pairs well with Abzan Falconer to grant us evasion and finish our games. To help diversify our threat package and mess up our oppoent’s plan to interact with us is lowly and unsuspecting Kytheon, Hero of Akros  . Like the deck Kytheon can behave differently at different junctures in the game. For instance, the card can be early pressure, can blank or just die to removal, flip into a planeswalker with some really relevant abilities, and can even be brought back with friends later.

This is where the strength of our deck lies, make no mistake about it. While the rest of the deck plays fair and has a hard time winning many games on its own our non-creature cards offer us our main sources of card advantage in the deck. Gather the Townsfolk grants us multiple triggers on each side of the deck, sometimes up to five (5), grants us chump blockers, an ability to go wider, and sometimes two-for-one our card slots. Ghost Quarter can keep our opponents off of powerful man-lands, on extremely rare occasions we can knock someone off a color, and against Tron it’s our best hope of keeping them off of their powerful payoff cards. We need spot removal that answers just about everything and luckily with Path to Exile we can do that. The real crown jewel of the deck is in the card Return to the Ranks, which acts much in the same way for our deck as Proclamation of Rebirth does in the deck Martyr Proc. In our more aggro and ETB based list it is usually does more than turn our one-for-ones into two-for-ones, it really gives us control on how we want to play the rest of our game. There are many times where Return to the Ranks offers us choice to which side of the graveyard we want to play, Sisters or Humans, maybe even both? I’ve never had a deck that can change gears like this before, and Return to the Ranks is a great example of making our weaknesses turn into our strengths. Sometimes you draws don’t come together in the order you’d like, we play really small creatures and don’t mind seeing them come back, and sometimes we just need a few choice triggers to push us over the top.

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Casual

91% Competitive

Date added 7 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 2 Mythic Rares

19 - 7 Rares

13 - 3 Uncommons

10 - 3 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 1.55
Tokens Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW
Folders Modern, possible deck ideas, Modern decks
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