Budget Magic: $77 Good in Soul Sisters (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! We had some massive bans in Standard last week, which means our question today is simple: did the bannings save Standard? There are a few ways to figure this out, but one of my favorites is Soul Sisters. If Soul Sisters is good, then Standard must be in a good place, right? So today, we're going to gain some life, grow some Ajani's Pridemates, and hopefully smash our opponent for big chunks of damage with a Soul Sisters deck that costs just $77 to put together! Is Standard saved? Is Soul Sisters good? Let's get to the video and find out!
Budget Magic: Soul Sisters
The Deck
Soul Sisters is a unique archetype. The idea is to play a bunch of cards that gain you life, little by little, most often as creatures enter the battlefield, and then to use this lifegain to power up creatures that grow whenever we gain life. Since we're playing Standard, we don't get access to the namesake Soul Sisters, Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant. But thankfully, we have some Standard-legal versions that get the job done, with Hinterland Sanctifier, Case of the Uneaten Feast, and even Lifecreed Duo gaining us life whenever a creature enters the battlefield under our control. Case has the additional upside of potentially letting us cast the creature from our graveyard in the late game, which is especially helpful against removal-heavy midrange and control decks.
We've also got Authority of the Consuls, which you probably think of as a hate card for Mono-Red Aggro. But it's basically a reverse Soul Sister in our deck, gaining us life whenever our opponent has a creature enter the battlefield. As such, we're not playing it to hate on aggro. In our deck, it's good against basically any creature-heavy deck since every creature our opponent plays will trigger our lifegain payoffs.
As far as payoffs, we have a bunch of creatures that get a +1/+1 counter whenever we gain life, which means that if we can stack up a Soul Sister or two, every creature we have entering the battlefield will be growing our payoffs. Ajani's Pridemate is the classic Soul Sisters beater (and, according to Wizards, the number one most crafted card in the history of Magic Arena, which is pretty hilarious). It's a Grizzly Bears that grows with a +1/+1 counter whenever we gain life. Meanwhile, Essence Channeler is basically an updated version of Ajani's Pridemate, doing the same thing but moving its counters to something else when it dies and potentially gaining flying if we can lose life during our turn (which we can with Fountainport in our mana base). Finally, Aerith Gainsborough and Minwu, White Mage are our new Final Fantasy additions, although both are just one-ofs. Aerith is basically a more expensive Ajani's Pridemate that gains lifelink, but its bigger power is moving its counters to all of our legendary creatures if it dies. The problem is, we have basically no legends in our deck. In fact, the only other legend is the one Minwu, which is essentially a super Ajani's Pridemate that puts a +1/+1 counter on all of our Clerics when we gain life. While both cards are fine, Minwu is a bit too much mana, and Aerith doesn't have that much legendary support, which keeps us to playing just one copy of each.
The most expensive card in our deck is Enduring Innocence. But it's more than worth the $18 for the playset since it is essentially a card-advantage engine that lets us keep up with control and midrange as far as drawing cards. Since most of our creatures start small before growing with +1/+1 counters, it's pretty easy to trigger it every turn. And, we can draw a card during our opponent's turn too in the late game, with the help of Fountainport to make Fish tokens at instant speed. Meanwhile, Exemplar of Light is essentially a four-mana flying Ajani's Pridemate that also draws us a card once each turn when it gets a +1/+1 counter. Sometimes it just dies, which is annoying on a four-drop, although it can take over a game if it sticks on the battlefield, by becoming a massive flying threat!
One of the things I love about the deck is that quite literally every card in the main deck either gains us life or is an Ajani's Pridemate–style payoff, and this includes our removal and protection spells. For removal, we have Sheltered by Ghosts, which not only exiles anything but also helps protect our creature thanks to ward and gives it lifelink. Battle Menu snipes big creatures but can also make a 2/2 Knight as instant speed to trigger our Soul Sisters or just straight up gain us four life. Finally, Restoration Magic really impressed me in this deck. On level one, it's a one-mana way to fizzle a removal spell. But if we have some extra mana, we can tier it to gain some life and trigger all of our payoffs. Plus, with Sunfall rotating, the five-mana "give everything hexproof and indestructible" mode might actually be a game-winning play against a control deck trying to wrath away our board!
The mana base in Soul Sisters is pretty straightforward, although Fountainport deserves a shout-out since it has a bunch of cool synergies in our deck. The main reason we're playing it is to make a Fish token, ideally at instant speed to trigger all of our Soul Sisters, grow our payoffs, and potentially draw with Enduring Innocence. It is also super helpful with Essence Channeler since making a Fish token makes us pay a life, which will then give Essence Channeler flying until end of turn, sometimes letting us close out the game by surprise!
Wrap-Up
So, is Standard saved? Is Soul Sisters good? At least in our small sample size, the answer seems to be yes! We went 5-1 with budget Soul Sisters, and in general, the deck felt pretty solid! With the format slowing down a bit and red decks having less trample, gaining life and growing big creatures once again seem relevant in Standard. While I don't think Soul Sisters will end up tier one or anything like that, it does feel like a solid budget option, and I could see some version of it being a tier-three option, at least!
More importantly, Standard is about 100 times more fun today than it was a week ago, so shout-out to Wizards for actually managing the format and going big with the ban-list update. It's exactly what the doctor ordered. If you've been holding off on getting into Standard, either in paper or on Magic Arena, between the bannings and the impending rotation with the release of Edge of Eternities in a couple of weeks, now's the perfect time!
Anyway, that's all for today! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
