Soul Sisters has long been one of those established, lower-tier decks in Modern that attracts its share of fans and die-hard pilots who take it to battle regardless of the metagame prognosis. The fact that a deck built around lifegain exists in Modern should remove any doubts you had about the format's capacity to support the bizarre and discarded strategies of Magic's storied history. A few weeks ago the archetype took one of the Top 16 slots in the Baltimore Classic. Soul Sisters may look a bit wonky, but once you've had to fight through that fifth or sixth Squadron Hawk recycled via Mistveil Plains, you know the deck is capable of some powerful lines.

While Soul Sisters is a pretty well-known archetype by this point, its rarer cousin/variant, Norin the Wary combo, will certainly be a novel sight to many eyes. In the recent bout of WMCQs, one intrepid player in Chile brought the infamous Dominarian coward to a Top 8 finish with his take on the archetype.

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To start, we see the typical Soul Sisters package of lifegain dorks that give the deck its name (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Auriok Champion). Like in the traditional mono-white version, these are paired with Ajani's Pridemate to make for a two-drop that easily outclasses a fully-fueled Tarmogoyf. The other major payoff for gaining a billion life, however, is suspiciously absent. In place of Serra Ascendant, the red-white version runs a combo-esque package built around Norin the Wary as an additional kill condition.

Let's unpack how this all fits together. Obviously a perpetually blinking Norin will stack up a formidable pile of lifegain triggers, but it's not as if Soul Sisters ever had much difficulty padding its life total before. The more interesting interaction, and what adds a new dimension to this version of the deck, is how it works alongside Genesis Chamber and Purphoros, God of the Forge.

Genesis Chamber has been a darling of Johnnies the world over since, as far as I can tell, the dawn of time itself, and here it finds particularly sharp application. I've seen various attempts to break open the symmetrical effect in different ways, but Norin is by far the most reliable I've witnessed. First of all, assuming whatever creatures the opponent summons require the casting of spells, the first one will always net you a Norin trigger as well. Once you add in combat on both players' turns and casting of your own spells, it's safe to say Norin will likely be triggering every single turn for an additional two free Myr tokens. Build your own Verdant Force, anyone?

Multiples of Genesis Chamber are sure to end games in a hurry, to say nothing of the introduction of Purphoros to the equation. Assuming Norin does his thing every turn, that's a five-turn clock that's effectively unblockable and near impossible to kill (good luck with those spot removal spells---would you like to target Norin or my indestructible creature?) Purphoros will incidentally give the Norin pilot an efficient way to kill pesky planeswalkers like Nahiri, the Harbinger or Liliana of the Veil, and give you another way to leverage your Myr army with the pump ability. Finally, Spirit Bonds provides additional utility and allows your token production to take to the skies.

Human Tribal?

Norin also enables the addition of Champion of the Parish to the strategy, without necessitating a complete rewriting of the creature base. Champion of the Parish is clearly an absurd card in a tribal Human deck, easily outclassing beaters like Wild Nacatl in the average draw. Humans as a deck hasn't made it in Modern (yet), but it's hard to deny the power of Champion specifically. A big part of the Soul Sisters core is already comprised of Humans to begin with (the "sisters" themselves, Ranger of Eos, Serra Ascendant) and once you add in Norin, you can expect the parish to be well and truly championed.

Cavern of Souls makes an appearance too, to fix mana and guarantee your "combo" pieces resolve. Note that a Cavern on Soldier will give you uncounterable Ajani's Pridemates, while still casting two other key business creatures, Ranger of Eos and Champion of the Parish.

That Legion Loyalist (and the Grim Lavamancer from the board) look like sweet tutor targets for Ranger of Eos. Loyalist is a natural solution to the problem of opposing Myr tokens from Genesis Chamber, while Grim Lavamancer is of course excellent at putting the screws to aggro (or the mirror!). These tutor targets do draw more attention to the lack of Serra Ascendant, and my gut feeling is that it belongs in this deck in some number. My thinking at this point is you'll be hard pressed not to hit 30 life just like in the original archetype---and cutting your effective 6/6 flying lifelink seems dubious at best.

The other major concession this list makes compared to traditional Soul Sisters is in the mana base. While the addition of Cavern is nice, there was nothing preventing Soul Sisters from doing that per se. In exchange for the second color, you sacrifice the powerful utility lands like Mistveil Plains, Windbrisk Heights, and Ghost Quarter. The former two serve to provide card advantage and inevitability, respectively, and are perhaps less necessary as Norin Soul Sisters is much better at ending games with damage than the tedious grindfest that is recurring Martyr of Sands and Squadron Hawks infinitely. I suppose there's nothing preventing you from relegating the splash to a smaller role, but it does seem that casting Norin the Wary consistently is pretty important. In any case, you also get access to Lightning Bolt.

Playing the Unplayable

I don't think Norin the Wary combo (or Soul Sisters, for that matter) is likely to tear up the fast-approaching Grand Prix weekend or anything, but this looks like a fun deck to bring to FNM or a local PPTQ. How often do you get the opportunity to sleeve up a full playset of a truly terrible card like Norin the Wary, anyway? When Norin was released he was compared to the likes of One With Nothing and hailed as completely unplayable garbage---yet here he is 10 years later making a name for himself in Modern!