[Primer] Norin the Wary - Heads I win, Tails you lose.

[Gaka]

Heads... I win. Tails... You lose! Norin the Wary Primer!
This is the God of Fairplay shoving Norin's head up your ass - Hourglass

Surging Chaos: It's official: Norin is a DB general

Why Norin?
What makes Norin better than his competition in the form of Godo or Kiki?

Firstly, playstyles.

Godo's playstyle is extremely easy to predict. Play Godo. Clear the board of lands. Win. That's just boring.

Kiki battles similarly to Norin. He casts stuff with good ETB abilities, and then pretends to be riku and doubles up. That's actually pretty cool - but it doesnt leave room for much fun. I dont want to drop big stuff, copy it, and be on my way. I want to STEAL stuff. However, since Norin also LOVES his ETB... we run him!

Secondly, CMC.

You can't play Godo or Kiki turn 1. Norin is almost always out turn 1. Feel the fear baby.

On turn 2, with a god hand, you might be able to cast Godo or Kiki. We're already playing Norin engines or disruption!

Therefore - Norin is better. Dont question the logic.

What else?
Norin is for you if:
You're breathing.

Norin is not for you if:
You're not breathing.



Oxygen inflow - check. Lets do this thing!


Deck History
A deck as epic as Norin can only start with a story of pure boredom and hatred.

My playgroup had gotten REALLY annoyed at me for comboing out or locking out the board all the time with my Hanna deck, and werent too happy with Numot Mass LD either. Rafiq Voltron was a step in the right direction, but I got incredibly bored with the linear strategy. Turn 1. Dork. Turn 2. Dork. Turn 3. Rafiq, swing with Dork. Turn 4, swing with rafiq. Pump spell. GG.

Jibsea: your deck might look fun to play
Jibsea: but i think i'd rather play against zur and get
stomped

Boring!

So, one of them asked me, rather jokingly, to make a Norin the Wary deck. I accepted at first, intending to make a deck with no connection to the general. Just lots of Disruption and Chaos. Null Rod was a favorite at the time. I put together a list without ever looking up any cards that Norin might be good with, then took it in the next day.

Of course, no one liked Destructive Force into Wildfire. They definitely didn't like Mycosynth Lattice into Null Rod. The deck had no early game, only stupid stuff late game. In the middle of one of these games, I topdecked a Confusion in the Ranks, because it was funny - then played it. After reading it, I flipped Norin, and started to pass the turn....

Then I started laughing.

Give me your Jenara! EOT... Give me that 10/10!

Living the dream. Norin could actually be useful! ..and then I topdecked Pandemonium.

My perception of Norin changed in an instant. He was... AWESOME. After the day was done, I went to a card database and began trawling... soon I had a rudimentary list that had more of a Norin focus, but was not yet up to the standards of today.

It still ran Mass LD. It liked Null Rod. I hadn't thought of Goblin Welder yet.

With time, came changes. I added an artifact package with Godo. It was ditched. I added a token package, with stuff like Siege-Gang Commander added. I was still a fan of coin flipping, so of course i couldn't resist Chance Encounter as a way of winning. A coinflip theme was added.

One of the best coinflip cards i could find was Goblin Assassin. This 5cmc beauty could either wreck the board... or do nothing at all. What could be better? (Logic is undeniable) With Assassin in hand, i grabbed tutors for it, Goblin Matron and the hugely expensive Imperial Recruiter to go with it.

So now i had goblin tutors. I realized, after looking at more of them, that goblins were a great toolbox! I found and added more and more of them. And thus, it has evolved. From mass LD to coinflips to goblins. Norin has evolved like the dinosau- ... no, that's a bad example, they all died out. ...Norin evolved like the Dodo! Dodos are definitely still around. We call them "chickens" ... just like Norin!

...Enough Yapping! I want a decklist! What makes Norin so awesome?!

Norin Deck Wins

God - 1 1 Norin the Wary His Domain - 34 1 Arid Mesa 1 Bloodstained Mire 1 Buried Ruin 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Darksteel Citadel 1 Great Furnace 1 Haunted Fengraf 1 Kher Keep 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Scrying Sheets 20 Snow-Covered Mountain 1 Strip Mine 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle 1 Wasteland 1 Wooded Foothills His Magical Powers - 9 1 Aftershock 1 Faithless Looting 1 Gamble 1 Mogg Infestation 1 Reforge the Soul 1 Ruination 1 Shattering Spree 1 Warp World 1 Wheel of Fortune His Minions - 24 1 Beetleback Chief 1 Duplicant 1 Goblin Assassin 1 Goblin Matron 1 Goblin Recruiter 1 Goblin Settler 1 Goblin Welder 1 Imperial Recruiter 1 Iron Myr 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Magus of the Moon 1 Manic Vandal 1 Mindclaw Shaman 1 Mogg War Marshal 1 Moggcatcher 1 Outrage Shaman 1 Rummaging Goblin 1 Siege-Gang Commander 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob 1 Stingscourger 1 Tuktuk Scrapper 1 Viashino Racketeer 1 Zealous Conscripts

Ooh, Shiny - 20 1 Caged Sun 1 Cloudstone Curio 1 Conjurer's Closet 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Gauntlet of Might 1 Genesis Chamber 1 Helm of Possession 1 Honor-Worn Shaku 1 Mana Crypt 1 Memory Jar 1 Mind Stone 1 Mind's Eye 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Sculpting Steel 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Skullclamp 1 Sol Ring 1 Springleaf Drum 1 Teferi's Puzzle Box 1 Trading Post The Mailman - 1 1 Chandra Ablaze Wrath of God - 4 1 Chaos Warp 1 Fork 1 Reiterate 1 Reverberate Bucket of Fun - 7 1 Blood Moon 1 Confusion in the Ranks 1 Grip of Chaos 1 Pandemonium 1 Planar Chaos 1 Stranglehold 1 Warstorm Surge

Q & A

Q: How the hell do you win?
A: Uh.. winning?

Q: Is this deck good?
A: Yes, it's quite powerful.

Q: Does Norin actually do anything?
A: Occasionally.

Q: What hurts your deck?
A: Torpor Orb. Humility. Stifle effects. All of them suck!

Q: What are your strongest matchups?
A: The more colors you use, the better the matchup gets. The less basics you use, the better the matchup gets.

Q: I thought Chandra Ablaze sucked - why are you running her?
A: She is a complete beast in this deck, Jace has nothing! My favorite thing to do is use the -2 to screw with everyone's hands and refill mine.

Q: Why run Norin over any other red general?
A: Who asked you? (hint, read above)

Q: Aren't you running a couple lands too few?
A: Not at all, I have cheap artifact acceleration to go with them, so it's like running 40+ lands!

Q: What do you do if someone attacks you from the beginning?
A: Panic.

Q: Does Norin ever die?
A: Would you honestly spend valuable time trying to kill him? If you said yes, you don't belong here.

Q: What do you do if Norin dies?
A: Panic.

Q: How do you play the deck?
A: In Soviet Russia, deck plays you!

Q: What card do you want printed the most for this deck?
A: Unconditional artifact tutor. Please! I could even settle for a red Enlightened Tutor.

Q: What will you do if you dont get one?
A: Panic.

Q: Is the deck fun?
A: Uh.... for me

Q: What's your favorite card in the deck?
A: Goblin Welder. So much one red can do...

Q: Advice for any new Norin players?
A: DON'T PANIC!

Q: Seriously? Anything else?
A: RTFC. Or Norin will find you.






Card Selection

Mana

The most important aspect of any deck is mana. More specifically, mana balancing.

A deck capable of ramping to 15 mana on turn four but with nothing to spend it on is a deck that will probably lose most of its matches. A deck that can't get to four mana on turn four is also a deck that will probably lose. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. Straight aggro like Lyzolda or Isamaru do not need to ever reach four mana.

In accordance with the simple rule of one mana per turn gained and at least one spell per turn, I settled on a relatively low number of lands and acceleration. As red is the weakest color in terms of pure power, I need to get the most bang for my buck with my draws - also adding to the slightly lower mana count. This also means my mana need to do something more than just enable plays.

Starting with the lands:

Maluleca: It's like a red machine gun! With bullets of
awesome!

Fetchlands (Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire/Scalding Tarn/Wooded Foothills) are the most expensive part of the mana base, but are the most important. A lot of mono-colored decks are just fine not running fetches, either out of price issues or simply because they do not feel they are necessary. Clearly, they have not seen my style of play.

Smart play or not - I utilize fetchlands as "cheating" mechanisms. If I have a moon effect out, they are just normal mountains, and nothing is lost. If I have a valakut out, fetches turn into bolts whenever I need them. Alone, fetches enable a "do I need mana next draw or not?" playstyle. If I want to draw a land next, I will not crack the fetch. If I want business, I crack. Statistically, this is an insignificant plan, as the % chance of drawing or not drawing a land is tiny, assuming perfect randomization (something that logically can't exist) ... but I do it anyway, because I can.

Clearly, fetchlands are more than just a land drop to my twisted mind. This IS a Norin deck, after all.

Snow-Covered Mountains are the workhorse of the mana base. Being mountains, they enable the powerful Valakut burn engine. Being snow, they enable Scrying Sheets as a draw engine. Should it be prudent, they also enable Rimescale Dragon and Skred!

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle gives the deck late game reach like few others can do. Once the magical number is hit, your land drops turn into bolts, and fetches turn into instant speed, nigh untargetable removal.

Cavern of Souls is probably one of the most overpowered lands printed in recent memory. The ability to erase the threat of counterspells on your creatures is fantastic - because pretty much all of the creatures in this deck are capable of winning on their own, or at least be annoying enough to help it along. Name "Goblin" for success, "Chuck Norris" if you think humans are the way to go. Or you can just give the finger to blue mages, I don't much care.

Adding to the pile of utility lands, Kher Keep functions as one of the best engines in the deck. With skullclamp, it turns into a draw engine. With Confusion in the Ranks, suddenly you can steal whatever you want at instant speed!

Buried Ruin, artifact recursion! This gem does more than just tap for mana - it brings back some of the many artifacts that serve to annoy everyone. Crucible of Worlds dead? No problem!

Haunted Fengraf is a Dark Ascension addition. It provides one of the only ways to actually recur creatures in this deck, and rather handily at that. While it does have a random clause, it really doesn't matter. Anything recurrable is plenty fine by me.

Darksteel Citadel and Great Furnace are two other tricky lands. Their sole purpose - turn Confusion in the Ranks into an artifact stealing engine, too. Did i mention they tap for mana? They do that too. See how useful they are.

I need not explain Strip Mine and Wasteland. For those clueless bastards who don't know what they do - go outside and take a sledgehammer to something. That's what they do.

Mana-artifacts

You thought that was all the mana Norin ran? Think again!

The best place to start for acceleration is the obvious place: Sol Ring. One mana. Two in return. Duh.

What could possibly be better than that? How about two mana for zero? Mana Crypt, which doubled as a Chance Encounter enabler for so long, now is just quick mana to be abused whenever. Rarely does the damage mean anything in a game of EDH, unless you go 20 turns in... in which case I wonder if you know what a "Win Condition" is...

More cheap, generic and obvious mana - Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Might, Mind Stone, and Iron Myr. Caged Sun and Gauntlet of Might should be pretty obvious, doubling your mana and making your guys bigger is a huge boon to this deck, as it allows us to keep up with some of the green-based lists. On the other hand, Iron Myr is nothing but a two mana dork. Why does it make the cut? Well, it's great to trade off of Confusion in the Ranks, pings opponents with a burn enchantment out, and of course can be skullclamped. Iron Myr also owns the distinction of being the only mana source that is tutor-able in the deck.

Moving on to the less-obvious acceleration choices now. Honor-Worn Shaku and Springleaf Drum are two very odd cards for EDH. One of them is useless without a creature, and one has a very strange clause to increase the mana production. Thankfully, Norin the Wary provides the answers! With Norin, Honor-Worn Shaku turns into mana every turn, benefiting something like Mind's Eye. On your turn - it is two mana, making it one of the better cost -> return pieces. Springleaf Drum, as seen in affinity, is great for turning tokens or free dudes into free mana - which is the same policy used here. With this in mind, I give both of these the label of Norin Engine!

Non-Mana Artifacts

With a Goblin Welder in the deck - you know artifacts are a goodly theme for the rest of it. Red needs advantage, right?

Oh Myr God. They're coming! - Last words of Arcum Dagsson

Beginning with a powerful Norin Engine - Cloudstone Curio is a card that is really quite odd. Red doesn't generally care about reusing cards. They just want to blow everything up and move on. However, being able to use something like Stingscourger or Imperial Recruiter every turn makes Cloudstone Curio the best long-term engine in the deck. Be warned - players like to kill this card. Bad memories, I'd assume.

Genesis Chamber - This is never a bad topdeck. Genesis Chamber makes things happen for Norin. Turn one Norin -> Turn two chamber in a four player game can quickly turn to 15 power, and a dead player. While being a great source of tokens (blockers), chamber runs almost scarily well with Confusion in the Ranks or Skullclamp.

While you're literally crapping out dudes with Genesis Chamber, why not use them to steal stuff forever? Helm of Possession turns stealing into an art form. Nice Jin-Gitaxis you've got there. Mind if i borrow it? Note - you can sacrifice Norin to this! It's not like he doesn't anything useful. Get back in your room, Norin.

Far more fun than stealing stuff is making sure it was yours to begin with. Sculpting Steel doubles up on all of your powerful artifacts and makes your opponent wish they hadn't dropped Blightsteel Colossus just yet.

Annoying, yes? We've got worse in store! This is a deck that likes to blink stuff. A lot. In fact, Norin holds the world record for number of times blinked in a second. 42, because that's the number that matters. So, how are we going to help Norin practice blinking? A mirror would work, but I think we could do better. How about a closet for that mirror? Conjurer's Closet blinks things at the end of your turn, which means you can get some serious mileage out of that solemn simulacrum, or that zealous conscripts. Out of goblins? No problem! Blink a tutor, or blink that siege-gang. All in all, this is quite possibly the best artifact in the deck!

Better than annoying - Red also needs draw. For this, Norin gets to play with two incredibly broken cards. Memory Jar and Skullclamp - I choose you! Memory Jar is a crazy draw engine alongside Goblin Welder, and enables a tertiary win con of just milling everyone to death. It has been done. Skullclamp combos well with too many things to list - so i'll just leave you with a "SkullclampIsBrokenUseItOrLose" and a "YouCanClampNorin" just for fun.

But what can draw and is annoying at the same time? It can't be anything other than Teferi's Puzzle Box. With a side bonus of stopping Top Deck Tutors - the box also really annoys everyone. This instantly makes it a good card. Don't forget the draw for the turn comes first.

Another joyous little artifact we've got is Crucible of Worlds. Hopefully it's fairly obvious that this card is good, because if it's not, I'm going to tell you why it is anyways. Why? Because this is a primer, and I get to tell you stuff. Anyways, Crucible has a very unique and powerful ability in recurring lands. This means that Strip Mine you've got sitting there? It's free to dig away at an opponent's mana base. That fetchland? It's getting even more value out of it. If that weren't enough, It goes great with Buried Ruin and Haunted Fengraf, giving you a recursion engine of your own, albeit an expensive one. Crucible lets you maximize the lands you have and the filter to find them. An excellent card, but beware giving it to your opponents, as it can be just as deadly in the hands of another.

Now, of course we like recursion. Who doesn't? Well, we also like card draw. And token generation. And life gain. All in one. Trading Post is a small engine that does big things, like... say.... turn a token into a Genesis Chamber. It's no bazaar, but good Norin is it bizarre.

Last, but certainly not least - mandatory Grave Hate. Relic of Progenitus is one of the best graveyard hate pieces to come out, and it doubles as a draw when you need it. Don't forget to use it every turn.

Creatures

The color red has the most bizarre set of creatures to ever walk the planes. You have your Manticores (evolution's little joke) and your Elementals. Barbarians and Dragons, the occasional Spirit or Beast. Maybe even a Phoenix here or there. Added to that, red does have it's strange little gremlins. Great flavor text, horrible friends - Goblins are red's primary tool for breaking things. So it makes sense when the first creatures you turn to in Norin for doing just that are goblins.

Who better to begin the swarm of goblins than the immortal himself - Squee, Goblin Nabob. For the small sum of three mana, you get an infinite blocker, skullclamp fodder, or whatever other nefarious purpose you can think of. It's the gift that keeps on giving, even if you'd rather shoot yourself than get it.

Since gifts are always *cough* nice, making more gifts is clearly a good thing. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker enjoys long walks on the beach, smashing mirrors, and tormenting small children. When Kiki hits the board, bad stuff happens very quickly. Usually in your favor.

To ensure that bad stuff continues to happen, it's nice to have a clear board.

And you thought red had no recursion? Think again...

Aiding in this are the removal options in Goblin Assassin, Outrage Shaman, Siege-Gang Commander, and Stingscourger. Out of these, the best is undoubtedly Goblin Assassin. With just casting him, bad stuff happens. Copying him with Kiki increases the chances of Bad Things. But wait... there is more...

We've established that Goblin Assassin is awesome. So how can we abuse this further? Why token generators, of course! Mogg War Marshal, Siege-Gang Commander, and Beetleback Chief are capable of doing silly things with the assassin. Each guarantees up to three coin flips! The board will be wiped, make no mistake. This isn't their only use, of course. All three of these do entertaining things with some of Norin's favorite enchantments - but that's for a different section.

Rounding out the package of annoyances known as goblins are two alternate removal toys. Goblin Settler, destroyer of lands. Tuktuk Scrapper, destroyer of artifacts. As one shot-effects, they are wonderful. As copies off of Kiki, they are horribly scary lockdown machines.

Did I say we were out of goblins? I may have missed the best of the lot, and the best creature ever printed for red. Goblin Welder is so good, vintage decks use him! (Though considering they use Slash Panther too, it isn't saying much)

There are dozens of tricks that the Welder can pull off. Most notable is the use of Memory Jar, Solemn Simulacrum, and Duplicant. You can use it to take out "indestructible" things too. Just remember that Genesis Chamber makes artifacts waiting to be abused...

Speaking of artifacts - two of the best creature/artifacts in EDH also reside in this deck. As Goblin Welder is also part of the 100, it makes sense that these two would be easily abused with him. And they are. As stated, Solemn Simulacrum and Duplicant live to be abused. One ramps, one removes. Being artifacts, they also interface extremely well with Confusion in the Ranks. It's so much fun to steal stuff, did i mention that?

...which is exactly what Zealous Conscripts lives for! Adding to the tricks Norin is capable of, this little beasty steals a permanent until end of turn and untaps it. This means stealing planeswalkers, fatties, enchantments, lands, whatever. As a small, almost inconsequential side-note... it goes infinite with Kiki-Jiki. As I said, it's nearly irrelevant. Infinite combos. Pfff.

Sometimes, though, simply stealing something or wiping the board isn't enough. It's important to occasionally keep these plays from happening in the first place. Responsible for this is the always amusing Magus of the Moon. It turns expensive mana bases into fodder for laughter, as folks with too much money and little sense get their $2000 manabase destroyed by a $2 rare. If you're running red, Magus is a must.

And of course, the creatures get filter as well. The recent years have been kind to this deck, and it just wouldn't work without a bit of ugly. Viashino Racketeer and Rummaging Goblin give you the power to filter like a boss... and adds another way to abuse the Immortal Squee; Bringer of Doom, Eater of Cheese.

To be honest, filter's kind of boring. It's way more fun to get tricky and do some nasty things to your opponents using their own cards. Why else would Confusion in the Ranks be so good? So of course it follows that eventually wizards would understand the true power of Norin and print something that helps him do just that - Mindclaw Shaman. The Shaman basically reads "giggle at target player, cast his own damn spell, and win the game" which seems good, yeah? Bonus points for using him with Kiki-Jiki in response to something to force the blue mage to counter something you don't like with his own damn card. Suck on that, Azami!

The other non-goblin trickster is Manic Vandal. Boring, but effective. Essentially, this serves as a secondary Tuktuk Scrapper, because artifacts always need to die. 'nuff said.

However, no creature package is complete without ways to cheat them out of your library. Red is by far the most limited in regard to tutors, but the ones we do have are scarily efficient. Topping the list (and the most expensive card in here by a long-shot) is Imperial Recruiter. A $200 rare from P3K, it gets any creature in my deck sans the manticore, or gets a tutor to get out the others. A great first target for Imperial Recruiter is, as always, Kiki. Re-useable tutor every turn? Insert Evil Laughter Here. Coming up next is the goblin tutor, Goblin Matron. Having the card go directly to your hand is a bonus hard to discount. And of course, it's hard to go wrong with the old-school tutor for one of the most broken decks in its time. Goblin Recruiter sets up your next turn perfectly, provided you want to draw a goblin.

Rounding out the tutors is Moggcatcher, something that, once active, turns the game around. For 3 mana, you can instantly get a toolbox goblin and use it for whatever nefarious purpose you might have come up with. Nice general, in response to equipping I play Stingscourger from my deck. Yes, I have Teferi's Puzzle Box out.

Planeswalkers

Norin runs one planeswalker. Chandra Ablaze, Chandra has the unfortunate title of "Worst Planeswalker" due to her cost and the lack of abilities. This is, however, the best format possible for her. A slow format, where bomby spells are the name of the game. Her -2 is the most commonly used and perhaps the best of her abilities - hand disruption on what is technically a stick? Yeah.

Ability by ability:

Chandra

+1: Usually used once a game, if at all unless I have a squee in hand. There is something rewarding about throwing a screaming goblin at a Dark Confidant. What is overkill?

-2: The most used ability. As until Norin actually draws into a draw engine (sad, isn't it?) the hand is mostly empty, this is a great way to refill the hand and disrupt everyone else at the same time. Nothing screams joyous day like making your opponent pitch their carefully sculpted hand and then passing the turn. Or casting Wheel of Fortune, and THEN doing this. Or purchasing stock in a security company. Lots of it.

-7: Every time this is activated, Norin wins. It is an Ultimate, after all.

Enchantments

At last, the core of Norin's strength. These are how Norin wins, and how the game turns into the crazy bundle of fun known as EDH.

To begin, a card that gives 5c nightmares. Blood Moon is the best disruption available to red versus a large, large portion of decks. That's a nice Hermit Druid deck there, I think i'll completely eradicate any chance you have of winning. Also comes on a stick!

Pheno: I really don't want to play Magic: the
Wacky Bull****

Further disrupting opponents, Planar Chaos randomly counters bombs and answers from other players. With the flip of a coin, games can be won or lost, usually in your favor.

Because you cannot have a true chaos deck without it, Grip of Chaos gives us MORE disruption to spot answers. Was that Fireball aimed at me? My bad. Just be careful with this and any of the next three powerhouses.

Norin, it seems, likes to blink. He doesn't do much else. So of course it makes sense that this ability would need to be abused. It doesn't get much more entertaining than good ole Pandemonium or Warstorm Surge. Whenever Norin (or another creature) enters, bam! And because it's that more amusing, with Genesis Chamber out, you get to add another bit of damage to the stack. Eventually, the board will be clear, and someone will start slowly dying. Feel the burn baby.

But there remains one more Norin Enchantment. One that strikes fear in the heart of opponents. One that makes little kids cry when they hear it's name spoken. Confusion in the Ranks is by far the best card ever printed for Chaos and Norin. It reads: At the end of every turn, steal the best creature on the field. If that creature is an eldrazi or an iona, laugh at target player. If that creature is Blue, proceed to inform your opponent that Blue Sucks, and Red is Awesome.

One of the more important aspects of EDH is the ability to search your library for an answer. Now, we can't have that. There is little more entertaining than to play Strangehold and watch nearly every deck in existence suffer. This is, of course, the whole point. That infinite turn blue deck? Gone. Toolbox.dec? Gone. Green ramp? I hope you can topdeck. It's a good way to drastically slow down your opponents until you can lay down one of the best ways for red to win.


Instants

What's a chaos deck without a little chaos? All four of these turn losing positions into winning ones, or just do something a little silly. Disclaimer: this is the same thing.

One of the more obvious and most recently printed instants is Chaos Warp. This is red's tuck, and by FAR the best removal spell red has access too. While it does have a chance of backfiring, odds are whatever you removed in the first place is much worse.

Now, if red is known for anything, it is for stealing. Stealing creatures, artifacts, lands.. now.. spells! Fork, Reverberate, and Reiterate all function as hybrid counters/bomb/timewalk/annoyance. For the low cost of (or ) you can be the first to Genesis Wave, or instead of dying to a massive Exsanguinate, be the one to win. The possibilities are endless. Go red!

Oh, as another small, unimportant side-note: Reiterate goes infinite with Warp World. yet another useless interaction, because who wants to do that?

Sorceries

The biggest and most splashiest spells can be found here. Sorceries are where red's power lies - be it land destruction or mass disruption.

However, there are some smaller suspects in this group. Among them, one of the rarest things in magic - a red tutor. Gamble is a tutor with a random discard, meaning it can sometimes fail. But for one mana, I'll be okay with a little randomization. Just to keep things interesting.

"Warp World" - Short for "Rage Quit"

Another tiny tot is one of the best removal spells available to red, Aftershock. Though it costs four mana, it's one of the few things available to red that actually destroys a creature, which can be incredibly important.

Since card advantage is so rare in red, it's good to be able to get x for 1s. One of the best (though for artifacts only) is Shattering Spree. This one-shot wonder can completely erase the field of artifacts, except yours, of course. If you're afraid of countermagic, you can target the same thing multiple times. Just to be safe.

So these are the small timers. It's time to unveil the biggest spells we've got.

Starting with... Warp World! For 8 mana, WW completely changes the game around. For spell-heavy decks, this is a deathblow. For everyone else, profit. Pure profit. Warp World does excellently late game after you've had the chance to generate lots of tokens, and can give you a win out of what was previously a dead board.

For all the cards shown so far, none of them have swept the board. Sweepers are a huge part of EDH, as board positions can get pretty crazy. However, Norin runs exactly one; Mogg Infestation. Unlike most sweepers, Mogg Infestation is one that can be excellently cast on yourself. With a horde of tokens and a Pandemonium out, MI can one-shot someone. Don't forget even more applications with Confusion in the Ranks.

One aspect that red has been missing for years is the ability to filter through your deck. Every other color has efficient ways of doing this, with the exception of red. Red had three. Now, I don't think Orcish Librarian is exactly what we're looking for, and Control of the Court/Goblin Lore can backfire spectacularly. If you know of some others, bugger off. Now, with the printing of Dark Ascension, red finally started getting so called "looting" effects. To start, there were two: Shattered Perception and Faithless Looting. Since Shattered Perception relies on your hand to actually be full (good luck with that) it was ignored, and its cheaper counterpart looked at more closely. ...I can say with firm resolution that Faithless Looting is the best one-drop Red has ever gotten since Lightning Bolt. Ignore the Goblin Welder. So we have filter. Don't forget to pitch squee to it for a further bonus to drawing.

Last, but most certainly not least - our mass LD. 99% of magic players HATE Mass LD. 85% of this statistic was made up on the spot, and a further 104% of this sentence makes no sense. So, with the establishment that Gaka is a liar, and Mass LD is bad - Ruination! Wizards wanted "nonbasic" to be a drawback, just remember that. Ruination performs best in a "developed" meta - one where expensive mana bases (duals) run rampant.

And of course, the wheels. If you haven't played with them, you haven't lived. Of the three decent ones, Norin plays two- Reforge the Soul and Wheel of Fortune. Both do the same thing - everyone ditches their hand and draws a new set! Obviously among the most powerful spells in magic.

So that's all the cards in the deck. Now, how the hell do I play this pile of broken?

Playing the Deck

Pre-Game, Early Game

The Mulligan is arguably the most difficult part of Magic, after sideboard construction. It takes practice and intuition to look at a hand and judge it. Good hands lead to victory, so mulling away chaff is essential to pregame sculpting.

Let's look at a random sample hand:

Wooded Foothills
Strip Mine
Caged Sun
Snow-Covered Mountain
Snow-Covered Mountain
Mogg Infestation
Springleaf Drum


Off the bat, it's clear we have too much mana in hand. Effectively, six cards are mana sources, with one sweeper. A terrible hand in anything but the slowest games, though potentially better with decent topdecks.

I will mull away two mountains and Caged Sun.
Getting:

Mind's Eye
Arid Mesa


Now we've got a draw engine. This instantly turns the mana heavy hand into something befitting control. With the Infestation, we can keep certain decks at bay (like reanimator) and with Mind's Eye we can draw quickly into whatever we need. While you could argue that Mind's Eye was going to be drawn anyways... with what psychic power did you know it was next? There are situations where you can mathematically predict the chance of drawing a card (Say keeping a no-land hand with 4 one drops with an 80% chance of drawing some form of mana might be worth it) but in reality, greed is bad. Don't do it.

I see what you did there

In practice - the best hand for Norin involves three things:

A Norin Engine
Disruption
Acceleration

The first enables victory, or at least attempts to control the board until it is slow and securely yours. These engines will be discussed later.

Secondly, disruption ensures that no one ramps ahead and wins early. Decks like Niv-Mizzet like to drop mana facts and wheel into a fresh set of them. An early Manic Vandal slows this down, and gives the other players time to beat on the firey dragon while you slowly manifest your own form of CA.

A sample start:

Mind Stone
Cavern of Souls
Snow-Covered Mountain
Bloodstained Mire
Confusion in the Ranks
Blood Moon
Goblin Matron


Quite honestly, a great hand. We've got the key components to a successful match with Norin - Disruption, Acceleration, and a Norin Engine. Our early turns will be filled with crippling disruption and enough acceleration to gain a critical edge, followed by the best Norin Engine printed.

Let's take this hand to turn 5 and see what happens.

Turn 1, (Draw - Moggcatcher) Snow-Covered Mountain, Norin the Wary.
Turn 2, (Draw - Great Furnace) Bloodstained Mire (crack for mountain) , Mind Stone.
Turn 3, (Draw - Snow-Covered Mountain) Cavern of Souls naming Goblin, Blood Moon.
Turn 4, (Draw - Beetleback Chief) Snow-Covered Mountain, Confusion in the Ranks (Steal best enchantment) EOT steal best creature
Turn 5, (Draw - Scalding Tarn) Great Furnace (Stealing best artifact if Blood Moon was destroyed), Beetleback Chief (Stealing the board) EOT (Steal back Beetleback Chief)

From there, the game is already over. You have control of the board, and from there you can do pretty much whatever you want.


Everything below this line is outdated:

Mods - Images hosted by magiccards.info!
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Changes

Spoiler:

April 6, 2011:

Spoiler:

+Warp World
+Wake of Destruction
+Skred
+Goblin Marshall
+Goblin Settler
+Mogg War Marshall
+Stingscourger
+Tuktuk Scrapper
+Cloudstone Curio
+Darksteel Ingot
+Gilded Lotus
+Relic of Progenitus
+Siege-Gang Commander

-Chance Encounter
-Reiterate
-Anarchist
-Godo, Bandit Warlord
-Hoard-Smelter Dragon
-Manic Vandal
-Crucible of Worlds
-Font of Mythos
-Howling Mine
-Mox Diamond
-Tormod's Crypt
-Sword of Fire and Ice
-Sword of Light and Shadow

April 29, 2011:

Spoiler:

+ Caged Sun
+ Everflowing Chalice
+ Kher Keep

- Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- Gilded Lotus
- Risky Move

May 5, 2011:

Spoiler:

+ Flametongue Kavu
+ Sensei's Divining Top

- Rimescale Dragon
- In the Web of War

May 12, 2011:

Spoiler:

+ Snow-Covered Mountain
+ Icefall
+ Outrage Shaman
+ Moggcatcher
+ Manic Vandal
+ Springleaf Drum
+ Mind's Eye
+ Honor-Worn Shaku

- Hellion Eruption
- Smash
- Shattering Pulse
- Skred
- Flametongue Kavu
- Darksteel Ingot
- Everflowing Chalice
- Gauntlet of Power

July 16, 2011:

Spoiler:

+ Chaos Warp
+ Stranglehold
+ Warstorm Surge
+ Gilded Lotus

- Impulsive Maneuvers
- Hoarding Dragon
- Krark's Thumb
- Mox Opal

August 23, 2011:

Spoiler:

Primer being added bit by bit!
Done:
Introduction
Decklist

August 30, 2011:

Spoiler:

Added:
mana/artifact explanation
creatures/planeswalkers

- Mouth of Ronom
+ Buried Ruin

September 08, 2011:

Spoiler:

Finished card selection section

Febuary 20, 2012:

Spoiler:

+ Haunted Fengraf
+ Faithless Looting
+ Goblin Recruiter
+ Invader Parasite
+ Iron Myr
+ Anvil of Bogardan

- Icefall
- Incendiary Command
- Wake of Destruction
- Goblin Assault
- Everflowing Chalice
- Gilded Lotus

May 25, 2012:

Spoiler:

+ Conjurer's Closet
+ Crucible of Worlds
+ Mad Prophet
+ Zealous Conscripts
+ Reiterate
+ Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded
+ Reforge the Soul
+ Cavern of Souls

- Tangle Wire
- Conquering Manticore
- Invader Parasite
- Vicious Shadows
- Wild Ricochet
- Word of Seizing
- Wheel of Fate
- Vesuva

June 08, 2012:

Spoiler:

+ Beetleback Chief

- Goblin Marshal

July 10, 2012:

Spoiler:

+ Mindclaw Shaman
+ Rummaging Goblin

- Anvil of Bogardan
- Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded

October 10th, 2012:

Spoiler:

+ Viashino Racketeer

- Mad Prophet

January 4th, 2013:

Spoiler:

+ Trading Post

- Insurrection

[BlackLeadAlchemist]

The deck looks fun, but the question and answer section is just hilarious

[mnk]

the deck's just hillarious! especially at cockatrice

keep up tweaking

[d0su]

Having now seen this deck in action and read the subsequent Q&A section, I have a new respect for Norin. Any general that can make Electropotence anything other than garbage gets a nod from me!

[Telekinesis]

I was definitely impressed. I'm going to have nightmares about Planar Chaos tonight...

Have you thought about Goblin Assault? It's another source of creatures.

[Gaka]

Actually - i havent. It's a good idea, works well with pandemonium too.

[AzureShadow]

Gaka, you're a man after my own heart. You've inspired me to make some kind of R/U/x chaos deck now, with all this coinflip madness.

[herbert west]

I love it, but where's the Fiery Gambit?

[Heroic Overlord]

I kid you not, Herb, I was going to suggest just that card. Fantastic and fun, and game winning is you can pull all three off, half the time. Favorite card, that Fiery Gambit.

[Gaka]

Oh, that was what it was called. I couldn't remember for the life of me.

I will find room!

[kalkris]

Artifact lands to steal with Confusion in the Ranks has always been a fun strategy too.

~Lil Kalki

[GFireflyE]

Not sure if this is along the lines of what you're looking for, but with pandemonium out, playing a Mogg Infestation against yourself would be very interesting indeed. Also Voracious Dragon to drive the stake home.

[Gaka]

Mogg Infestation is an absolutely fantastic find! Room shall be found for that.

Devour effects might be a good idea. Instead of coinflip chaos, focusing on the token aspect might be stronger.

[Gaka]

Updated with a few changes.

Notably - disruption with Smoke, recursion with Anarchist, and a small tutor-box with Imperial Recruiter

Made some tough cuts, i'm sad to see them go:

Confusion in the Ranks
Warp World
Electropotence

Two traditional chaos cards - but warp world has only done something useful a few times, usually it just ends up hurting me - and confusion in the ranks backfires too much now that i'm actually running toolbox effects.
One traditional norin card - but the deck revolves more around tokens than just norin atm, and i tap out a lot. sorry norin.

[rhythmguy]

Somebody with a Norin deck just spanked us in a 4 player...

He had Genesis Chamber out, which generated massive tokens... then he played Confusion in the Ranks. Traded each new token each turn for the best creature or artifact on the battlefield... pretty beastly, fast deck.