In 2010, a quirk of fate allowed both Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant to be played in standard concurrently. This was when Magic 2010 and the Alara Block had not yet rotated out but Rise of the Eldrazi had just been printed. Players had the summer to experiment with a mono-white deck that relies on life gain as a way to keep the players in the game until a sold win condition could be found. Here is Kyle Sanchez's Soul Sisters list from 2010, which he entitled "Get Ahead in Life."
Since M11 released in July 2010, the Soul Sisters deck could also utilize Serra Ascendant, together with Ranger of Eos. With a red-heavy metagame consisting of Goblin Guide and Hellspark Elemental, this deck proved surprisingly resilient. The sideboard allows for greater utility against control matchups, particularly decks which played Jace, the Mind Sculptor. However, October 2010 came around and Soul Warden was no longer standard-legal.
Fast-forward to May 2011. New Phyrexia has just come out and the Soul Sisters deck looks viable once again- only this time, with a combo as discussed in this article.
As with the 2010 version of the deck, this build didn't last long as Serra Ascendant was not reprinted in M12 and Stoneforge Mystic became banned in standard.
However, the deck came back when the Modern format was announced last fall. After playing Birthing Pod, Dragonstorm, Grapeshot Storm and Mono-Black control, I decided to give Soul Sisters a shot. Here is the deck I came up with:
Kitchen Finks is the most expensive card in the deck as it is a staple of a variety of Modern decks. Since I already had a playset of him, I had a hard time excluding the card from the deck. If you can't afford a playset of this guy, Lone Missionary or Shrine of Loyal Legions are good options too. Martyr of Sands makes a third sister for the deck to utilize. She lets you get to 30 life that much faster, forcing your opponent to have removal right away for your Serra Ascendant. The inclusion of only one Ranger of Eos is a personal choice. He's cheaper than the Finks, but in my experience with the deck, you only need one Serra Ascendant in there if you have 30 or more life. Having another Ranger in hand when you've already fetched the pieces feels like a dead draw- there's nothing to do but leave it in your hand.
Paladin en-Vec is a card I'd like to see back in standard. Depending on your metagame, Mirran Crusader might be better, but I've found that Modern is a lot more red-heavy than standard, so the Crusader will just eat a bolt while the Paladin will stop red and black creatures in their tracks. It's basically an anti-Jund card as it can't be targeted with Terminate, Lightning Bolt or Maelstrom Pulse. Liliana of the Veil won't do a lot because by the time the Paladin comes into play, you'll likely have a few other creatures on the board. Using Brave the Elements just makes him that much harder to deal with.
I also played a Soul Sisters variant in a Modern Silver/Black PRE last week and placed fourth. Silver/Black is a tournament which allows only commons and uncommons. I offer this deck here as a way of showing the options that Soul Sisters has at its disposal.
Here I decided to play a deck centered around Armored Ascension. Since I couldn't have a 6/6 flier with lifelink, I decided to make a powerful flying creature through the use of an enchantment. Kor Firewalker is just as good in this format as any, but I found that when facing red deck, the disproportionate life totals were too hard for my opponents to overcome quickly. I personally prefer Midnight Haunting over Lingering Souls because of the word instant. Lingering Souls lets your opponent have one turn to deal with those fliers, while with Haunting, you can cast it EOT and sling an Ascension on one of them during your turn. The goal here isn't to have as many creatures as possible: it's to have at least one creature swing for lots of damage (or have them all get through at once).
I even took a shot at making a Pauper deck using the Soul Sisters theme:
Ivory Giant is the deck's finisher. He's meant to be suspended, not hard-cast. As a creature with 7 CMC, he gets around Spellstutter Sprite most of the time. This deck largely relies on tokens and its interaction with Saltskitter and the three clerics. Both Exile and Reprisal will deal with the bigger creatures in the format, such as Ulamog's Crusher while Holy Day provides for some breathing space against Infect. This is a deck archetype I haven't seen a lot of in Pauper, though I feel it has some possibility given that cards like Pyroclasm haven't been printed as commons. Decks will have to use Rolling Thunder or Seismic Shudder against this deck.
Please note: the videos I've presented here are silent. I've included descriptions to help you understand what I was thinking at the time.
This is a match with my Modern deck. Note the time there: almost 40 minutes. This is how Soul Sister matches generally go: tons of life is gained and all the creatures remain in play. Most builds that I've come across choose not to run Wrath of God or Day of Judgment because they would rather swing for the win. Despite getting my Ajani's Pridemate over 300 power, I couldn't swing out because he didn't have trample and my opponent had creatures of two colors in there, preventing me from using Brave the Elements. Towards the end, I felt close to coming up with a way to win, but time expired.
Here is the deck's best matchup- Red Deck. Red Deck relies on lowering an opponent's life total until it reaches zero. This needs to happen quickly. Red Deck hates lifegain because it means the deck has to work that much harder. In this match, neither of us start out with a terrific opening hand. I choose to protect my Soul's Attendant, figuring I'd need to keep gaining life throughout the game. I get 2x Path to Exile, which isn't great, but it helps me stay around. The more I play Soul Sisters, the more I think that Leyline of Punishment works better than Flames of the Blood Hand. Red Deck probably needs to run something like Sulfur Elemental if it wants to have a chance against life gain as well. At the end of the match, life totals about even. I've got three creatures in play and my opponent concedes while in top deck mode. Turn 7 is a little too long for Red Deck- it has to win earlier than that.
The deck is surprisingly easy to pilot. The goal is to get to 30 life and win from there. It tends to do well against Storm- both Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are ineffective against it, especially if you drop a turn 1 Soul Warden. Dragonstorm stands a much better chance against Soul Sisters, given that it can swing out for lethal on the same turn. The choices you make in building the deck are up to you- and it's very affordable!
