Norin the Wary: Hide in Exile, Win in Style

Norin the Wary is a one-mana Commander whose entire strategy revolves around running away whenever anything happens.

Fortunately, every time he returns to the fray, you can use other cards to turn his cowardice into damage, tokens, and an impressive amount of value.

Add in a few damage multipliers, explosive token generators, and Chaos cards that make the battlefield practically impossible to navigate, and you've got yourself a remarkably cohesive Mono-Red burn deck that looks harmless right up until it runs away with the game.

Let's get into how this Norin the Wary deck works and why running away may be the smartest path to victory.

What is Norin the Wary: Running Away With the Game?

Norin the Wary: Running Away With the Game is a Mono-Red Commander deck that turns Creatures entering the battlefield into a steady stream of damage before finishing the table with one explosive burst.

There is plenty of madness involved, sure, but underneath it all is a very real method.

Norin the Wary: Running Away With the Game | Commander | Christopher Lai

• Commander (1)
• 1 Norin the Wary

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Agate Instigator
• 1 Chandra's Incinerator
• 1 General Kreat, the Boltbringer
• 1 Gimli of the Glittering Caves
• 1 Goblin Engineer
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Irreverent Gremlin
• 1 Molten Gatekeeper
• 1 Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Raphael, Tough Turtle
• 1 Rose Room Treasurer
• 1 Shocking Sharpshooter
• 1 Slash, Reptile Rampager
• 1 Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1 Terror of the Peaks
• 1 Tokka & Rahzar, Unsupervised
• 1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1 Weftstalker Ardent
• 1 Witty Roastmaster

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

• Instants (6)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Redirect Lightning
• 1 Untimely Malfunction
• 1 Valakut Awakening

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Indomitable Creativity
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Scrambleverse
• 1 Song of Totentanz
• 1 Tempt with Vengeance
• 1 Thieves' Auction
• 1 Warp World

• Enchantments (12)
• 1 Confusion in the Ranks
• 1 Fiery Emancipation
• 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
• 1 Grip of Chaos
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Planar Chaos
• 1 Pyrohemia
• 1 Smoke
• 1 Stolen Strategy
• 1 Tempered in Solitude
• 1 Vicious Shadows
• 1 Visions of Phyrexia

• Artifacts (20)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Blinkmoth Urn
• 1 Crawlspace
• 1 Genesis Chamber
• 1 Inspiring Statuary
• 1 Liquimetal Torque
• 1 Lithoform Engine
• 1 Meekstone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Omen Machine
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 The Immortal Sun
• 1 Throne of Eldraine
• 1 Tome of Legends
• 1 Trading Post

• Lands (33)
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Den of the Bugbear
• 1 Dwarven Mine
• 1 Edoras, Capital of Rohan
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Mines of Moria
• 1 Mirrex
• 11 Mountain
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 1 Springjack Pasture
• 1 Tarnished Citadel
• 1 The Mycosynth Gardens
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Urza's Saga
• 1 Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge
• 1 War Room

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From Cowardice Comes a Spark

For , Norin the Wary is a 2/1 Legendary Human Warrior who get Exiled whenever any player casts a spell or attacks with a Creature. He then returns at the beginning of the next end step, meaning he can potentially leave and reenter the battlefield on every turn around the table.

Norin's Triggered Ability may not sound especially useful on its own, but this deck turns each return into damage through cards like Impact Tremors, Purphoros, Witty Roastmaster, Molten Gatekeeper, and Agate Instigator.

And since someone is almost always casting a spell or attacking in a four-player Commander game, Norin becomes a free, repeatable ETB Trigger after just his initial one-mana investment.

The deck also doesn't rely entirely on Norin to keep the damage flowing.

Tempt with Vengeance and Song of Totentanz can flood the battlefield with Creatures all at once. At the same time, Genesis Chamber and token-producing Lands like Kher Keep and Mirrex provide a steadier stream of bodies and ping damage throughout the game.

Norin may be the spark that keeps everything moving, but this deck is still perfectly capable of burning down the entire table after he runs away.

Turning ETBs Into Damage

Impact Tremors is the clearest example of what this deck wants to do: turn every Creature entering under your control into damage.

One damage may not sound like much in Commander, but Norin can trigger it repeatedly without ever costing you another card.

General Kreat, the Boltbringer, Raphael, Tough Turtle, and Shocking Sharpshooter provide more copies of the same effect, while Slash, Reptile Rampager bumps each trigger up to two damage.

Better yet, all these cards trigger separately. If Norin returns while you control General Kreat, the Boltbringer, Raphael, and Slash, each opponent takes four damage. And if he does this once per turn, the harmless little coward can deal 16 damage to the table over a single rotation.

Turning Damage into Lethal Damage

Consistently turning every Creature that ETBs into four, six, or twelve damage is how this deck typically starts closing games.

• Torbran, Thane of Red Fell adds two damage whenever another Red source you control deals damage.
• Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might bumps up smaller instances of Red noncombat damage to match its power of four.
• Solphim, Mayhem Dominus doubles all noncombat damage dealt by your sources.
• Fiery Emancipation triples all damage dealt by all your sources.

One interaction is worth keeping in mind, though. If multiple replacement effects modify damage dealt to an opponent, that opponent gets to choose the order in which they apply.

So, with Torbran and Solphim, for example, your opponent can double one damage to two first, then add Torbran's extra two for a total of four instead of six.

Still, four damage from every Creature is hardly a comforting outcome.

Genesis Chamber, The Secret Commander

Norin may be the one sitting in the Command Zone, but Genesis Chamber is often the card that truly takes over the game.

Whenever Norin returns to the battlefield, Genesis Chamber creates a 1/1 Myr token. This means that just one quick trip through Exile gives your pingers one trigger for Norin and another for the Myr, effectively doubling the number of ETB triggers each return generates.

From there, the deck's Artifact package can quickly send things spiraling out of control.

Panharmonicon causes Genesis Chamber to trigger an additional time, while Sculpting Steel and Mirage Mirror can become extra copies of the Chamber and produce even more Myr.

All those little Myr are useful for far more than triggering your pingers, too.

They can block incoming attackers, draw cards with Skullclamp, generate mana through Ashnod's Altar, and power Ghirapur Aether Grid for even more damage.

And yes, Genesis Chamber gives your opponents Myr as well, but this deck is far better equipped to use them.

They get a few blockers while you get blockers, cards, mana, damage, and an engine that becomes more overwhelming with every trip Norin takes.

Winning Through the Chaos

Norin's repeated ETB Triggers may be the deck's main plan, but Confusion in the Ranks, Warp World, and Vicious Shadows give you several far more chaotic, and frankly much more entertaining, ways to close out a game.

Confusion in the Ranks feels almost tailor-made for Norin. Whenever he returns to the battlefield, you can exchange him for an opponent's Creature. Then, the next time someone casts a spell or attacks, Norin exiles himself from their battlefield before returning under your control and stealing something else.

Genesis Chamber makes this interaction even more threatening by giving you Myr that can be traded for opposing Creatures or Artifacts.

Just avoid playing Confusion too early, or the rest of the table may stop casting anything useful until they find an answer.

Once everyone has developed a board, however, Norin can start dismantling it one cowardly exchange at a time.

Warp World takes a less subtle approach.

Since this deck can produce so many tokens and inexpensive permanents, you can often shuffle far more cards into your library than your opponents.

Afterward, revealing Creature-based pingers like Purphoros, Witty Roastmaster, or Molten Gatekeeper alongside several other Creatures can often create enough ETB Triggers to end the game on the spot.

Keep in mind that Enchantment-based pingers like Impact Tremors enter after the Creatures. Fortunately, though, the deck runs enough Creature-based versions of the effect to make a favorable Warp World genuinely lethal.

Of course, an unfavorable one may hand an opponent the best board they have seen in their entire Magic career. That is less than ideal, but entirely within the spirit of the card.

Finally, Vicious Shadows lets you turn your token army into damage even as it dies.

Ashnod's Altar can sacrifice those tokens for mana, while Blasphemous Act and Pyrohemia can clear the battlefield and trigger Vicious Shadows for every Creature lost. It also makes opposing board wipes especially dangerous for your opponents.

Someone may think they are responsibly clearing away your token engine, only to discover that every dying token is now dealing a not-so-small amount of damage based on the cards in their hand.

And all of this is really what the deck's Chaos package is all about.

The goal is not merely to make the battlefield hard to navigate, but to do so while everyone else is taking damage.

Conclusion

Norin the Wary may be one of the least courageous Legendary Creatures in Magic, but he makes for an impressively persistent Commander.

Between its ETB pingers, damage multipliers, and token payoffs, this deck has far more direction than its Commander would ever admit. And even when the straightforward burn plan isn't enough, its Chaos package offers several unconventional ways to steal the game.

The battlefield may occasionally become difficult to follow, but if everyone else is losing life, the deck is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Because while Norin may run from every fight, you can trust that he'll somehow always find a way to run away with the game.