[Deck] U/G Enchantress

[benthetenor]

Over the last few weeks, Chris Andersen has been putting up good results in the SCG circuit with a "new" version of Enchantress that drops a lot of the prison elements of the G/W Enchantress decks (Solitare) and focuses instead on using Words of Wind and the multiple draw triggers from having multiple Enchantress effects in play to return the opponent's entire board to his or her hand while also generating mana and/or board presence with Cloud of Faeries. From there, winning is academic, as your opponent will never have another permanent on the board and you're free to kill him however you see fit. If you're confused as to exactly how that works (there's a lot of variation when it comes to exactly what cards you need) you can watch Chris take down Maverick in a match at SCG Indianapolis (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-indy-lgc-rnd-5-chris-anderson-vs-thomas-herzog-6412509). And here is one of his most recent lists, for reference:

U/G Enchantress (Chris Andersen, Top 16 SCG St. Louis)
Lands:
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
7 Forest
2 Island

Creatures:
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Eternal Witness

Spells:
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Seal of Removal
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Words of Wind
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Living Wish

SB:
3 Force of Will
2 Chill
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Krosan Grip
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Dueling Ground
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Gaddock Teeg

Here, Chris' most common route to victory once he's established the lock is to Living Wish for Emrakul, which certainly gets the job done. While Chris has done a lot to make the deck public, he's not the inventor. For the younger players, UG Enchantress was a fairly popular choice in old Extended, right around the time of Onslaught. Some of the cards were different, but the plan was exactly the same. Here's a list (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=2825) from Gabriel Nassif's run at the Masters that year. The earliest example of UG Enchantress in modern Legacy comes from Andrew Cuneo (Gainsay on MTGO), who has been playing this version of Enchantress for quite a while, most recently to a 5th place finish in the Legacy MOCS (http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/magiconlinetourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/4213076). Posting a list here would be fairly redundant, so I'll merely talk about some of the differences. Andrew's list plays with a Chrome Mox over a Dryad Arbor, and he uses a Mindbreak Trap instead of Living Wish. The sideboard is built with the MTGO metagame in mind, but some of the hits include more Mindbreak Traps (fast combo is rampant online, with Force of Will costing 3-4 times as much as any dual land) and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which is particularly cute with Words of Wind. Andrew's plan is to simply beat the opponent to death with 1/1s and 2/1s with Mindbreak Trap backup every turn, rather than add any cards that don't directly contribute to setting up or executing the combo, which results in a deck that's almost completely fizzle-proof. As I said earlier though, the actual kill condition is academic, as having your entire board bounced back to your hand every single turn is sufficiently disheartening to earn you a concession.

I don't personally have enough experience with the deck to talk about things like matchups, so I'll leave that the Chrandersen and others. But basically, this is a turn 3-4 combo deck that plays some of the strongest enchantments ever printed. You get a lot of utility out of Green Sun's Zenith, which acts as backup Argothian Enchantresss, as well as letting you tutor for Eternal Witness and sideboard bullets, and in Chris' list, also serving as a 1-mana accelerant by getting Dryad Arbor. Elephant Grass is a strong way to buy time against aggro decks in general (and is particularly brutal against Dredge decks) and which can also buy you time against a deck like Belcher that might try to cast a large Empty the Warrens. You have a lot of game against control decks with perhaps the strongest draw engine of any deck in the format, and Eternal Witness to recur any cards that might get countered. Carpet of Flowers is an extremely powerful spell against any deck with Islands, as it will pretty much completely nullify Daze and Spell Pierce. Seal of Removal pulls double duty in buying you time against creature decks and in acting as Eternal Witness #3-6, as well as giving you a cheap way to replay Cloud of Faeries. The biggest weakness is combo, as with other versions of Enchantress, but in theory you have so much sideboard space that you can do pretty much anything you want.

I'll leave it to others with more experience to talk in depth about those experiences, and am particularly curious about how you've lost in the past and/or what matchups are overly difficult. Theory only gets you so far! In particular, it would be great to hear from Chrandersen or anyone else who's been playing this deck competitively.

[TraxDaMax]

Seal of Removal is also good against show and tell'd Emrakul's from opponents.

edit: And I don't want to be mean but I think Maverick is exactly the deck you want to face when playing UG Enchantress :)
So that movie isn't that interesting. Like even Canonist can be stopped with Seal of Removal, or Seal of Prim if the Maverick player would have it in his board.

What I am curious about are Tempo and Combo match-ups. My guess is we really want Elephant Grass for Tempo, and a quick win vs combo.

[r3dd09]

This is the next deck that I'm building. I'll be playtesting it quite a bit. Until my next order gets it, it'll be proxied and going against main represented decks in the meta, along side decks I think will be a tough matchup for it.

[kiblast]

I wonder how sideboarding Force of Will works when you have 10 md blue cards. :eyebrow: Unless the guy is planning to pitch Force on Force, I think it's a complete waste of SB space, since you are never going to make it with a grand total of 13 (!) blue cards. General consensus is around 16 to 18. And anyway I would never go below 18.
Also, no Brainstorm?

[benthetenor]

Brainstorm is pretty much completely unnecessary since you have the extreme redundancy of playing with 12 or 13 virtual Enchantresses, and once you get a few of those down, every card you play will draw you 2-4 cards, making Brainstorm pretty poor. The only times it would be even remotely useful would be in the early game, but you can't afford to spend mana doing nothing, when you'd rather be casting accelerants or Enchantresses.

I personally agree with you on Force of Will, and in my own list I've just got a full set of Mindbreak Traps between sideboard and main since fast combo is probably your worst matchup and Mindbreak Trap is a pretty easy add. It's also what Cuneo was running with, and I don't see a huge reason to diverge from that. Maybe Chrandersen can give us his thoughts as to why he chose to go that route.

I agree that Maverick is a pretty easy matchup, that was just a video that had a full match, so I figured that would be the best one for anyone who was confused on the mechanics of the deck. I've seen the deck dismantle RUG too, since they're pretty uniquely setup to be completely bogged down with an Elephant Grass in play, and most of their counterspells don't even exist anymore if you can get a Carpet of Flowers down.

[kiblast]

Brainstorm is pretty much completely unnecessary since you have the extreme redundancy of playing with 12 or 13 virtual Enchantresses, and once you get a few of those down, every card you play will draw you 2-4 cards, making Brainstorm pretty poor. The only times it would be even remotely useful would be in the early game, but you can't afford to spend mana doing nothing, when you'd rather be casting accelerants or Enchantresses.


OK, but the thing is that you play 20 lands and on average you'll see 2 lands per opening hand. Of course if the deck doesn't miss landrops in the first 3 turns, if nobody counters your stuff, if nobody is playing discard, if you always see a GSZ/ Enchantress/ Presence by turn 3, if nobody tries to attack your manabase through Stifle / Wasteland, Brainstorm is poor. In every other case (which will occur 95% of the times, because you are not goldfishing and those things described above WILL happen very often), Brainstorm helps you in every possible scenario.



I personally agree with you on Force of Will, and in my own list I've just got a full set of Mindbreak Traps between sideboard and main since fast combo is probably your worst matchup and Mindbreak Trap is a pretty easy add. It's also what Cuneo was running with, and I don't see a huge reason to diverge from that. Maybe Chrandersen can give us his thoughts as to why he chose to go that route.


Yeah Trap makes more sense even though is not really the best choice versus Show and Tell. Flusterstorm?

[Freggle]

OK, but the thing is that you play 20 lands and on average you'll see 2 lands per opening hand. Of course if the deck doesn't miss landrops in the first 3 turns, if nobody counters your stuff, if nobody is playing discard, if you always see a GSZ/ Enchantress/ Presence by turn 3, if nobody tries to attack your manabase through Stifle / Wasteland, Brainstorm is poor. In every other case (which will occur 95% of the times, because you are not goldfishing and those things described above WILL happen very often), Brainstorm helps you in every possible scenario.


If it is card selection you are looking for Mirri's Guile > Brainstorm in enchantress. It is of my opinion that the deck would be overall more resilient / consistent with the addition of 3-4.

Brainstorm in the early turns promote poor land management, or fetching into fragile non-basics. Basic land is what this deck wants and lots of it. You should not drop multiple growth effects on a non-basic due to the Wasteland factor.

Guile only gets better in the later game because of the decks ability to drop multiple enchantress effects, whereas Brainstom expires far-far too soon.

[kiblast]

If it is card selection you are looking for Mirri's Guile > Brainstorm in enchantress. .

Yeah! If you don't want to play BS at least Mirri's Guile provides some manipulation, gives you hints on the timing of your fetchlands... and it's an enchantment. Sylvan Library could be nice as well but it costs 2.

[andrebonotto]

This seems to be an interesting Enchantress variant.

I would pretty much appreciate if a Primer could be written on the beggining of this Thread, so that I could understand better how to design/play this version. :)

(I did watch the video on the link, but I still think that a Primer would be very instructive).

[TraxDaMax]

After goldfishing, I think we do want Mirri's Guile. Not sure how many, I'm thinking 2.


edit: reasoning is I end up setting up totally nothing a lot of times, from hands that seem to be totally broken.
And with 7 fetch, it almost feels they were originally in the deck.

[benthetenor]

I mean, you guys can play whatever cards you want. I've been playing the deck a lot and haven't experienced any consistency issues at all. I've also been thinking about your ideas for a few days, and I'm not sure it makes sense to me. If it didn't cost anything to add in Brainstorm or Mirri's Guile, then that would be fine, but I can't really see either of those cards as being better than any of the cards that are currently in the list. What would you cut? If you're hands are ranging from broken to not so broken, just mulligan the not so broken hands. It doesn't make any sense to me to dilute the powerful spells in the deck with cards that don't do anything that you need to do (at least not in my experience) and/or are dead draws when you're going off.

For reference, an average opening hand would contain 3-4 lands/accelerants, 2 Enchantress effects and 1 or 2 other Enchantments. That's just going off of a pretty basic statistical distribution given the number of cards of each type in the deck. When your goal is to 1. play Enchantresses and 2. play enchantments, I feel like Brainstorm is getting greedy since you're already practically guaranteed to see and Enchantress effect in your opening hand (especially since you should pretty much snap-mulligan any hand without one), and statistically speaking, are very likely to see another one within just a few draw steps. There seems to be very little reason to dilute the deck with non-enchantments, particularly when those non-enchantments are blue spells that you want to cast early in the game in a deck that is predominantly green. That's a bad idea for all of the reasons that Freggle brings up. Also, if you're playing against a deck that's trying to get value out of Wasteland and Stifle, you're winning by a lot.

As for Mirri's guile, I don't think it's going to do what you want it to do. Without an Enchantress down, it's card disadvantage and doesn't do anything to help you on the turn you cast it, and I can't really figure out what you'd take out. The most likely candidate for getting cut from the main deck would be Carpet of Flowers, but that's exactly the card you want in the matchup where you're looking for a Brainstorm-like effect (to find Enchantresses to grind out counterspells). Having Carpet of Flowers blanks Daze and Spell Pierce which means that you're looking at Force of Will and maybe Counterspell if it's a particularly counterspell-dense deck, but in either case, expecting them to have more than 2 of those spells in any given hand is pretty unreasonable, at which point simply going through enough draw steps to be able to cast two or three Enchantresses on one big turn is going to win you that game, particularly if you've got Carpet of Flowers in play to help you. To me, it just seems like you're wanting to trade a powerful enchantment like Carpet of Flowers for a weak one. Pretty much any other enchantment you'd want to cut would be counter productive since you'd just be cutting important cards for cards that give you the chance to draw important cards, which seems like an even better way to lose to counterspells.

But this is all speculation on my part; what would you cut?

[Chrandersen]

benthetenor is right. brainstorm and mirri's guile are not needed. The deck is consistent enough already, and the main is very tight. The only cards you can realistically cut are the living wish, the carpets, the seal of primordium, and one of the elephant grasses, maaaaybe two. I think the utility on all those cards is just better than added card selection. you draw so many cards anyway, that card selection is usually the least of your worries.

If I build up the motivation I might write an article on starcity about the deck. I hate writing though, so it may be a while : (

Things i'm considering are In the eye of Chaos over force of will, and garruk wildspeaker over living wish. I'm pretty sure ItEoC is better than force, but i have no idea on the garruk.

[TraxDaMax]

I mean, you guys can play whatever cards you want. I've been playing the deck a lot and haven't experienced any consistency issues at all. I've also been thinking about your ideas for a few days, and I'm not sure it makes sense to me. If it didn't cost anything to add in Brainstorm or Mirri's Guile, then that would be fine, but I can't really see either of those cards as being better than any of the cards that are currently in the list. What would you cut? If you're hands are ranging from broken to not so broken, just mulligan the not so broken hands. It doesn't make any sense to me to dilute the powerful spells in the deck with cards that don't do anything that you need to do (at least not in my experience) and/or are dead draws when you're going off.

For reference, an average opening hand would contain 3-4 lands/accelerants, 2 Enchantress effects and 1 or 2 other Enchantments. That's just going off of a pretty basic statistical distribution given the number of cards of each type in the deck. When your goal is to 1. play Enchantresses and 2. play enchantments, I feel like Brainstorm is getting greedy since you're already practically guaranteed to see and Enchantress effect in your opening hand (especially since you should pretty much snap-mulligan any hand without one), and statistically speaking, are very likely to see another one within just a few draw steps. There seems to be very little reason to dilute the deck with non-enchantments, particularly when those non-enchantments are blue spells that you want to cast early in the game in a deck that is predominantly green. That's a bad idea for all of the reasons that Freggle brings up.

As for Mirri's guile, I don't think it's going to do what you want it to do. Without an Enchantress down, it's card disadvantage and doesn't do anything to help you on the turn you cast it, and I can't really figure out what you'd take out. The most likely candidate for getting cut from the main deck would be Carpet of Flowers, but that's exactly the card you want in the matchup where you're looking for a Brainstorm-like effect (to find Enchantresses to grind out counterspells). Having Carpet of Flowers blanks Daze and Spell Pierce which means that you're looking at Force of Will and maybe Counterspell if it's a particularly counterspell-dense deck, but in either case, expecting them to have more than 2 of those spells in any given hand is pretty unreasonable, at which point simply going through enough draw steps to be able to cast two or three Enchantresses on one big turn is going to win you that game, particularly if you've got Carpet of Flowers in play to help you. To me, it just seems like you're wanting to trade a powerful enchantment like Carpet of Flowers for a weak one. Pretty much any other enchantment you'd want to cut would be counter productive since you'd just be cutting important cards for cards that give you the chance to draw important cards, which seems like an even better way to lose to counterspells.

But this is all speculation on my part; what would you cut?

Carpet of Flowers was where I'd fit in the 2 Mirri's Guile.
Now played a couple games today and didn't encounter any trouble(with the original list). But I have opened with hands consisting of:

tropical island, forest, fetch, Arg.Enchantress, wild growth, cloud of faeries, Enchantress Press.

To me that seems like a hand that you keep, but the problem lays when you don't draw any enchantments. And thats what happened to me with this hand. I drew another cloud of faeries, an eternal witness and a couple of lands. Normally with so many enchantments this should barely occur, but it just seems to happen from time to time. Or sometimes just not having a real sink to put our 7+ mana into can often be a bummer.
I think in the matchups where CoF is good, its is really good. Otherwise it could have better been a card setting up your combo.
I need to test it still though, and I'm probably underestimating the amount of blue decks we are supposed to encouter.

[benthetenor]

benthetenor is right. brainstorm and mirri's guile are not needed. The deck is consistent enough already, and the main is very tight. The only cards you can realistically cut are the living wish, the carpets, the seal of primordium, and one of the elephant grasses, maaaaybe two. I think the utility on all those cards is just better than added card selection. you draw so many cards anyway, that card selection is usually the least of your worries.

If I build up the motivation I might write an article on starcity about the deck. I hate writing though, so it may be a while : (

Things i'm considering are In the eye of Chaos over force of will, and garruk wildspeaker over living wish. I'm pretty sure ItEoC is better than force, but i have no idea on the garruk.

Agree 100% on In the Eye of Chaos. That card is ridiculous, and this deck is probably better set up to get it down when it matters against combo than any other deck that's ever played it before. Garruk is definitely interesting, since it's pretty much invincible once you have control of the game and is useful mid-combo. It definitely has more utility than a main deck Mindbreak Trap.

[Chrandersen]

it's not entirely intuitive, but garruk makes infinite beast tokens when you go off.

-1 garruk, make a beast, bounce garruk with WoW, recast, -1 etc etc.

[tw0as]

If u replace Living Wish with Garruk Wildspeaker, dont u have to change your sideboard to adapt to the lack of the wish ?


The deck is awesome, i will be playing this next weekend in a big tournament we got near my city =)

[Freggle]

What would you cut?

I'd have to ask some questions first:

What is the second copy of Eternal Witness for? ...in case 1 is countered / dealt with?

With all of this built in ramp could you shave a land? ...Mirri's Guile should find it's replacement.

What stops you from combo-ing early so much so that Elephant Grass is needed?

After having those questions answered I feel I could recommend better cuts. I know I wouldn't cut Seal because I wouldn't want to roll over to a Pithing Needle.

@In the Eye of Chaos - What are you looking to stop? Most combo decks run at sorcery speed so this will not affect them too much. ...if it's control your likely better with the on color City of Solitude.

@Garruk Wildspeaker - I can see why you would want the land untaps, but it's 4CMC and not an enchantment so I question if it's right. If I were in the market for an alt win condition I'd try Helix Pinnacle since you are looking to go infinite anyway., It This way you have 1 attacking win condition and one not. Additionally, it is a single :g: enchantment with shroud even when you are not ready to go off.

[yell]

One might end up generating infinite mana. Sending all permanents back to my enemies hand should be enough to win the game with faerie beat-down. I don't see any reason for garruk.
After this being done, there are only 2 things which still bother me:

1) Terminus
2) Burn with CMC = 1 that ends up killing you faster than your beatdown

The first one can be played around (keep 1 or 2 enchantress in your hand). The second one should only be a small enough fraction of decks and can be dealt with energy field in SB ( i hope).

Is pitching needle that common, that we need primordal seal? I also consider words of wilding/war in SB. I won't think of them as alternative winning condition, but rather a way to avoid meddling mage, needle, extractions, counters etc...

I have been playing a version of this deck since long time. Resetting the enemies board was not uncommon in round 4, but this is also in aggro-range. Of course everyone read the article http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24728-Creativity-Isnt-Dead.html with the belcher-matchup example, which clearly demonstrates why elephant grass is important. Which cards would provide further speed to cut the grass?

Often I did not wait for an infinite mana combo, but just returned as many permanents to my opponents hand as possible. Especially under this aspect i wondered why nobodoy ever mentioned exploration? Speeds up and with words of wind one can drop infinitely lands per turn.

[benthetenor]

One might end up generating infinite mana. Sending all permanents back to my enemies hand should be enough to win the game with faerie beat-down. I don't see any reason for garruk.
After this being done, there are only 2 things which still bother me:

1) Terminus
2) Burn with CMC = 1 that ends up killing you faster than your beatdown

The first one can be played around (keep 1 or 2 enchantress in your hand). The second one should only be a small enough fraction of decks and can be dealt with energy field in SB ( i hope).

Is pitching needle that common, that we need primordal seal? I also consider words of wilding/war in SB. I won't think of them as alternative winning condition, but rather a way to avoid meddling mage, needle, extractions, counters etc...

I have been playing a version of this deck since long time. Resetting the enemies board was not uncommon in round 4, but this is also in aggro-range. Of course everyone read the article http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24728-Creativity-Isnt-Dead.html with the belcher-matchup example, which clearly demonstrates why elephant grass is important. Which cards would provide further speed to cut the grass?

Often I did not wait for an infinite mana combo, but just returned as many permanents to my opponents hand as possible. Especially under this aspect i wondered why nobodoy ever mentioned exploration? Speeds up and with words of wind one can drop infinitely lands per turn.

All good points. I like Chill out of the sideboard (and to a lesser extent, In the Eye of Chaos) to deal with burn, though it is such a small part of the metagame that you could probably safely just say "I lose to burn" if you need the sideboard space and shore up other matchups. It does seem like just having access to Chill and In the Eye of Chaos would help slow them down by a pretty wide margin. I've also tried Exploration in the Carpet of Flowers spot, since both do more or less the same thing, but I found the explosiveness of Carpet of Flowers to be more useful than the (generally) slower, incremental advantage of Exploration. It is nice to be able to play all of your lands once you're going off, but it's not really something that needs to happen. As for Seal of Primordium, I like having outs. It's probably unnecessary since there really aren't all that many cards that people maindeck that need to be addressed with Seal of Primordium, but you never know what you're going to see in Legacy. It is definitely a card that you need somewhere in your 75, but if you feel it's not pulling it's weight game one then it is definitely a candidate for getting moved to the sideboard exclusively. Either way, you should have access to at least two, probably at least three (game one or post-sideboard) because it's likely that if you're going to need it, you're going to need it before you can start comboing off, so only having one is kind of random.


What is the second copy of Eternal Witness for? ...in case 1 is countered / dealt with?

Mostly it's so that you can burn one early for value and not have to worry about it getting killed in case you need to get something back later. It also turns GSZ into a Regrowth effect if you've already used a Witness, which is practically the same thing.


With all of this built in ramp could you shave a land? ...Mirri's Guile should find it's replacement.

The land count is a little flexible, as I've played with -1 Dryad Arbor, +1 Seal of Primordium (same list as Cuneo, at one point) quite a bit and didn't feel badly about it. I do like the added utility of Dryad Arbor though, so it's in there almost strictly to add utility to GSZ, but there's no reason why you couldn't cut a Forest or a green Fetchland. That being said, mana stability is really outstanding in this deck, and is one of it's strong points, which comes almost directly from playing with so many basic lands. If you're looking at it in terms of 20th land vs. Mirri's Guile, the 20th land still does way more to affect the board the turn you draw it, and usually the following turns, unless you've already got several Enchantresses down, in which case it's pretty much irrelevant because you're already winning.


What stops you from combo-ing early so much so that Elephant Grass is needed?

Try to think of it this way: Elephant Grass is often a green Ancestral Recall that also stops creatures from being an issue. Something like Mirri's Guile in the same situation is often an Ancestral Recall that...does nothing. Early game, Elephant Grass buys you an incredible amount of time, whereas Mirri's Guile doesn't affect the board or draw you any cards. In this deck, if it's not affecting the board, it's pretty much unplayable. Card selection is completely unnecessary in a deck that is in danger of drawing every single card in the deck by turn 4.


@In the Eye of Chaos - What are you looking to stop? Most combo decks run at sorcery speed so this will not affect them too much. ...if it's control your likely better with the on color City of Solitude.

It has splash damage against control decks and against Burn, but mostly it's in there to fight any sort of ritual-based combo, which is most of them. It slows them down in the same way that Elephant Grass slows down aggro, which in this deck is enough to just straight up beat them. It also doesn't affect you at all, meaning that it's like playing with a super Thalia that only hurts the opponent. The biggest hole in the sideboard, which is not unsubstantial, is against Show and Tell decks. Oblivion Ring is probably one of the best answers which also has utility against everything else, but it's probably not the best game plan is to just have Oblivion Ring in your hand when they go for Show and Tell. I haven't tested enough yet though, maybe it's fine.


@Garruk Wildspeaker - I can see why you would want the land untaps, but it's 4CMC and not an enchantment so I question if it's right. If I were in the market for an alt win condition I'd try Helix Pinnacle since you are looking to go infinite anyway., It This way you have 1 attacking win condition and one not. Additionally, it is a single enchantment with shroud even when you are not ready to go off.

Not a bad point and I usually don't run a dedicated win condition, simply because it's not needed. I'd guess that the reason why Chris Andersen does is based on the constraints of a tournament environment, which means it cuts down on the amount of time it takes to win if a stubborn opponent will not concede, which could conceivably bone you if you went to turns. If that is your reasoning for having an alternate win condition, then it would probably be a mistake to use something that can't also be used to further your gameplan and advance your combo, which Garruk and/or Living Wish can do. Something like Helix Pinnacle can only be used to win the game, or to draw cards in concert with Enchantresses, but if you're already drawing cards with Enchantresses, you're not losing. As I said though, if you're unconcerned with that, it's absolutely fine to just play something else in that spot.

[Viridia]

I've been playing around with a list on MTGO, and it plays really well. I've splashed black for 3 Abrupt Decay in the sideboard, mainly because i allready had a Bayou and had exactly enough tix to make the deck w/o white :)

My list atm:
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
7 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs

2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Words of Wind
2 Eternal Witness
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Green Sun's Zenith


Sideboard:
3 Chill
4 Spell Pierce
2 Compost
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Carpet of Flowers
3 Abrupt Decay


My sideboard isn't very good, i wanted something to battle Combo better, but Spell Pierce just isn't very good in this deck, In the Eye of Chaos is worth a try.
I haven't found myself wanting a solid killcon other then when i was bored of clicking Words of Wind and Cloud of Faeries 100 times a turn, because an opponent wouldn't concede ;) Didn't have any issues with winning in time tho.

Mirri's Guile might be a nice addition, but i also think it isn't really needed, Exploration doesn't do enough either.
I've been very very happy with the 1 Seal of Primordium mainboard and i probably want another one in the side, replacing Abrupt Decay. Also wondering if there are any Enchantments worth playing in Black, or if i should really get a Savannah and the white stuff :)

[TraxDaMax]

Edit: Nevermind. Misread the text...

My brain wanted to read "Sorceries and Instants", but the text on In the Eye of Chaos reads "Interupts and Instants".
Which makes it much worse then a plain Thorn of Amethyst or Thalia in my opinion. Thoughts?

Sorry in advance, reading cards on my phone isn't always practical.

[Freggle]

@ Elephant Grass

...read the article http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24728-Creativity-Isnt-Dead.html with the belcher-matchup example, which clearly demonstrates why elephant grass is important.



Try to think of it this way: Elephant Grass is often a green Ancestral Recall that also stops creatures from being an issue. Something like Mirri's Guile in the same situation is often an Ancestral Recall that...does nothing. Early game, Elephant Grass buys you an incredible amount of time, whereas Mirri's Guile doesn't affect the board or draw you any cards. In this deck, if it's not affecting the board, it's pretty much unplayable. Card selection is completely unnecessary in a deck that is in danger of drawing every single card in the deck by turn 4.

Outside of Empty the Warrens and dredge zombie tokens what creatures kill you by turn 4? ...all I can think of is a turn 2 Phyrexian Dreadnought that was stifled. ...that is if they were on the play, and it could still swing through an Elephant Grass.

Is Elephant Grass more of a sideboard card?

@ In the Eye of Chaos

It has splash damage against control decks and against Burn, but mostly it's in there to fight any sort of ritual-based combo, which is most of them. It slows them down in the same way that Elephant Grass slows down aggro, which in this deck is enough to just straight up beat them. It also doesn't affect you at all, meaning that it's like playing with a super Thalia that only hurts the opponent. The biggest hole in the sideboard, which is not unsubstantial, is against Show and Tell decks. Oblivion Ring is probably one of the best answers which also has utility against everything else, but it's probably not the best game plan is to just have Oblivion Ring in your hand when they go for Show and Tell. I haven't tested enough yet though, maybe it's fine.

It is true per each Ritual effect you can slow ritual decks down a turn. However, in the same vein ritual decks can make you discard it at least equally as consistent as you can play it. The games when you do drop a ItEoC you slow your development down a turn in an effort to slow the ritual deck down a turn possibly 2. Because at that point they would have already had the opportunity to have used their Gitaxian Probe(s) and Brainstorm to sculpt their hand if they did not have the discard. Depending how many rituals vs. LED's they have it may not affect them at all.

A better all around card for this MU would be Leyline of Sanctity as it makes the combo deck work harder or play into Elephant Grass. It can be high variance, but I don't think it is much more high variance than ItEoC would be in most situations. It also is far better vs. burn than ItEoC. Contol... In the Eye of Chaos wins, but again it is likely better as City of Solitude at that point so it stops Counterbalance and all other counter effects till dealt with.

If you want to use Oblivion Ring to fight Show and Tell Mirri's Guile only makes that plan more consistent.

@Mirri's Guile
I used to think Mirri's Guile was a durdle card that didn't affect the game / board the turn it came down, and on-and-on, but I was wrong. It is very good at turning the games that do not go your way up front as it allows you to present the right answer at the right time.

Now i'm not a Words of Wind enchantress expert nor an enchantress expert by any means (building and playing with friends for decades playing competitively for the better part of this year), but I can safely say the versions I have built with Mirri's Guile[cards] vs. the ones I built without it the ones with, the ones with it are just feel overall more resilient to the meta as it allows me to dial up the right line, and wish less.

If you can really fairly consistently draw your entire deck by turn 4 then it is likely Elephant Grass is better as Mirri's Guile so you can vastly increase the chance of success by turn 5 and win rather than stall and allow your opponents to draw answers as you pay for Grass.

@ [Cards]Seal of Primordium
It also deals with Chalice of the Void another common way this deck can be hated out.

[Chrandersen]

cutting more than one grass is insane. rug delver and goblins will crush you without it.

seems like you guys are cutting cards just for the sake of changing something. Stop. Dont make a change until you have a problem with a card. The main deck just so happens to be very very good. If you must change something look to the sideboard.

Chill and Force arent pulling their weight. This gives you 5 slots to figure something out. I want something to help against combo, but i dont like trap at all, and sometimes you dont have a blue card to force. Maybe flusterstorm, maybe Into the Eye, maybe something else. I think high tide is the most important combo matchup right now, its putting up the best results. What are cards that high tide legitimately has a problem with?

I think i want to cut chills for meekstone to help against rug delver. Chill isnt good against goblins really, and Burn is just terrible for you anyway, and not very popular at all. Delver is a close matchup that I wouldnt have any problem devoting slots to considering its popularity.

[benthetenor]

@ Elephant Grass

Outside of Empty the Warrens and dredge zombie tokens what creatures kill you by turn 4? ...all I can think of is a turn 2 Phyrexian Dreadnought that was stifled. ...that is if they were on the play, and it could still swing through an Elephant Grass.

Is Elephant Grass more of a sideboard card?

@ In the Eye of Chaos

It is true per each Ritual effect you can slow ritual decks down a turn. However, in the same vein ritual decks can make you discard it at least equally as consistent as you can play it. The games when you do drop a ItEoC you slow your development down a turn in an effort to slow the ritual deck down a turn possibly 2. Because at that point they would have already had the opportunity to have used their Gitaxian Probe(s) and Brainstorm to sculpt their hand if they did not have the discard. Depending how many rituals vs. LED's they have it may not affect them at all.

A better all around card for this MU would be Leyline of Sanctity as it makes the combo deck work harder or play into Elephant Grass. It can be high variance, but I don't think it is much more high variance than ItEoC would be in most situations. It also is far better vs. burn than ItEoC. Contol... In the Eye of Chaos wins, but again it is likely better as City of Solitude at that point so it stops Counterbalance and all other counter effects till dealt with.

If you want to use Oblivion Ring to fight Show and Tell Mirri's Guile only makes that plan more consistent.

@Mirri's Guile
I used to think Mirri's Guile was a durdle card that didn't affect the game / board the turn it came down, and on-and-on, but I was wrong. It is very good at turning the games that do not go your way up front as it allows you to present the right answer at the right time.

Now i'm not a Words of Wind enchantress expert nor an enchantress expert by any means (building and playing with friends for decades playing competitively for the better part of this year), but I can safely say the versions I have built with Mirri's Guile[cards] vs. the ones I built without it the ones with, the ones with it are just feel overall more resilient to the meta as it allows me to dial up the right line, and wish less.

If you can really fairly consistently draw your entire deck by turn 4 then it is likely Elephant Grass is better as Mirri's Guile so you can vastly increase the chance of success by turn 5 and win rather than stall and allow your opponents to draw answers as you pay for Grass.

@ [Cards]Seal of Primordium
It also deals with Chalice of the Void another common way this deck can be hated out.

You're not going to win consistently turn 4 against a deck with counterspells or any other form of disruption, like Merfolk or RUG. Daze and Spell Pierce are very good at pushing the game past the first few turns. But having Elephant Grass in your deck allows you to slow down a little bit and play around Daze and Spell Pierce so that you don't just walk right into them. In every deck that uses creatures, the plan to beat a combo deck is to get down as many creatures as you can as quickly as you can to give the combo player as few turns as possible. Simply having an Elephant Grass in play means that they can only attack with one, maybe two a turn. Having two in play means that they probably cannot attack anymore. The number of turns (and more importantly, land drops) it buys you is ridiculous. You usually only need it to buy you one or two extra turns, which it is certainly capable of doing. Without Elephant Grass, the deck would be a little bit too slow to beat even an average aggro draw.

For Ritual-based combo, they have to cast rituals to go off, which means that they have to deal with In the Eye of Chaos in order to even start going off. Rituals are much more stable than LED or Lotus Petal, and getting mana out of LED is a bit tricky. If they can't cast Rituals, they are in a lot of trouble. If we were playing with something like Leyline of Sanctity, then they could do everything but kill us, which makes it much more likely that they could find the Chain of Vapor and beat us. Simply casting a large Ad Nauseum is a play that's not restricted by Leyline of Sanctity, which is probably their best path to finding the Chain of Vapor. When they have to find the Chain of Vapor first, they're much more constrained. That being said, it's entirely possible that a Sphere of Resistance effect is the correct one to deal with any sort of combo matchup, but having In the Eye of Chaos also gives you live cards to bring in against Force of Will decks and against Burn, as well as being a completely asymmetrical effect in our deck. Where a Thorn of Amethyst would slow us down as much as it slows him down (we're better able to deal with it, but it still adds to our spells as much as to his), In the Eye of Chaos only hurts him.

Put another way, for ANT, there are only three paths to victory. In order of increasing difficulty, they are: Ad Nauseum (which will cost 10 under ItEoC), Past in Flames (which requires you to use Rituals, rather than LED) and Ill-Gotten Gains. IGG can be more or less unaffected, but that's also draw dependent. With ItEoC, you force them to either have an answer, or to go down the most difficult path to victory, which still isn't a guarantee that they won't have an answer. If you're also playing some number of Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap, they're in a lot of trouble. Saying that it can just be discarded is true of any answer that isn't Leyline of Sanctity, though if you've ever played as a combo player against Leyline of Sanctity, you know that it doesn't actually do anything against you because of the way that your deck operates.

I'm not going to say (and haven't said) that Mirri's Guile is a bad card, just that it's not doing anything that the deck needs. Against a pure control deck that's going to give you lots of turns to sculpt your hand, Mirri's Guile is better than Elephant Grass, for the same reason that anything is better than Elephant Grass in that matchup. But the only one of those in the format is U/W Miracles, and you're not going to beat RUG or Merfolk or Goblins or Dredge or Zoo without Elephant Grass. I guess it's a metagame card in that sense, but I have no idea what metagame you're playing in that doesn't have any creatures.

[benthetenor]

cutting more than one grass is insane. rug delver and goblins will crush you without it.

seems like you guys are cutting cards just for the sake of changing something. Stop. Dont make a change until you have a problem with a card. The main deck just so happens to be very very good. If you must change something look to the sideboard.

Chill and Force arent pulling their weight. This gives you 5 slots to figure something out. I want something to help against combo, but i dont like trap at all, and sometimes you dont have a blue card to force. Maybe flusterstorm, maybe Into the Eye, maybe something else. I think high tide is the most important combo matchup right now, its putting up the best results. What are cards that high tide legitimately has a problem with?

I think i want to cut chills for meekstone to help against rug delver. Chill isnt good against goblins really, and Burn is just terrible for you anyway, and not very popular at all. Delver is a close matchup that I wouldnt have any problem devoting slots to considering its popularity.

Right now my board has 2 ItEoC and 2 Flusterstorm with a third one main (in place of Living Wish/Mindbreak Trap/whatever), as I think that those are the strongest answers we have to combo, and since Flusterstorm is probably the only card that does anything of worth against all of the different combo decks. I could easily see getting all 4 in there somehow, if you have the space.

[planeswalkerzen]

I like the idea of In The Eye of Chaos. It's pretty much good against every storm, high tide or belcher deck since most of their rituals are instants anyway. It also makes Force of Will do nothing for your opponent, and daze much worse. I do think its much better then Mindbreak Trap and Leyline of Sanctity as neither of them are actually good against counterspells.

[kortero]

Hi,

Has anyone considered Mana Blooms maindeck instead of the 2 Carpet of Flowers. In my limited testing I've found them pretty good. Compared to Carpets, they're never "completely dead" and the Blooms also help wash mana when going off which can be critical at times. I've also found the recastability being useful before fully going off as you don't always resolve 3 Enchantresses and chain cheap Enchantments the way the deck is supposed to :)

To rephrase, how important are the MD Carpets against the blue decks? Is it worth having few possibly dead cards (apart from being enchantment) in the deck to gain edge against blue based decks?

Br,
kortero

[ForlornEgoist]

Hi,

Has anyone considered Mana Blooms maindeck instead of the 2 Carpet of Flowers?....

The problem with Mana Bloom is that it really provides very little actual acceleration. Had the card read "Remove ANY number of counters," rather than "One per turn," I might be a bigger supporter. Frankly, one mana/turn can barely be called acceleration for our deck, and while the recycling of Bloom might seem advantageous, the fact is that at best it devours a portion of your mana that turn to POSSIBLY provide acceleration later, and at worst it becomes essentially a junk G enchantment you use to CA. You need to consider that at best its only providing meager mana each turn while contrariwise possibly drawing resources away from other cards like Grass/Confinement, or just general spells. Not to mention that if you're running Solitare or UGw then Confinement prevents it from returning to hand.

The benefit of Carpet of Flowers is that it requires no additional investment on our parts and even if we assume the opponent decides for some nonsensical reason to stop laying lands or they get mana-screwed, Carpet provides at bare minimum 3-5 mana.

Sure, one could argue that the recycling of Bloom is beneficial, however our deck struggles against blue not for lack of enchantments, but because we can't resolve an Enchantress. Recycling isn't all that necessary, especially when you could just as easy run a Mirri's Guile to fix your draws.

Forlorn Egoist

[benthetenor]

I've read Mana Bloom probably 50 times because for some reason people keep suggesting it, and I just don't get it. So I keep re-reading it to see if there's something I'm missing, but I don't think there is. I think the card is probably just not very good. If we wanted another 1-mana accelerant, Exploration would be much, much better.

Carpet of Flowers is really pretty great. You don't need all that much explosive mana if the opposing deck isn't playing blue, since you're not going to have to fight through Daze and Spell Pierce and your Elephant Grasses are going to be really good in those matchups, so the fact that it is dead against non-blue decks is somewhat irrelevant. But regardless, I'm not sure that investing a lot of mana on a critical turn (in the early game) is worth basically having one extra land in play for X turns. There's a card that does that better, and it's called Exploration. It's even cheaper!

[kortero]

I've read Mana Bloom probably 50 times because for some reason people keep suggesting it, and I just don't get it. So I keep re-reading it to see if there's something I'm missing, but I don't think there is. I think the card is probably just not very good. If we wanted another 1-mana accelerant, Exploration would be much, much better.

Carpet of Flowers is really pretty great. You don't need all that much explosive mana if the opposing deck isn't playing blue, since you're not going to have to fight through Daze and Spell Pierce and your Elephant Grasses are going to be really good in those matchups, so the fact that it is dead against non-blue decks is somewhat irrelevant. But regardless, I'm not sure that investing a lot of mana on a critical turn (in the early game) is worth basically having one extra land in play for X turns. There's a card that does that better, and it's called Exploration. It's even cheaper!

Thanks for you answers benthetenor & Forlorn Egoist. I'll keep the Carpets in and try to get more actual games played with the deck.
Fun fact: I had this deck built in 2003 in the old extended and it's finally nice to see a proper legacy version of the deck. Just waiting for the unbanning of Frantic Search.. ;)

Br,
kortero

[tw0as]

I'm gonna be playing UG Ench this weekend in a big tournament we got here in my city with duals and other staples as prizes. I took the SCG list and put the ItEoC and MBT in the sideboard replacing FOWs and Chill. I was thinking too, if we replace living wish maindeck we should change the wish targets in sb too right? I dont see myself taking away Gaddock Tegg or the Sliver, but Verduran and Emrakul kinda fall down of my sideboarding strategy if i cut the wish. My question is: ¿Wich changes would u do to the sideboard if u cut the wish?

[Chrandersen]

i wouldnt play mindbreak trap fwiw. Its pretty bad against storm because they will just duress it away before you can use it. also it doesnt do anything against show and tell. Only actually useful matchup is against belcher.

[Spawnk]

I was having a conversation with my friend and we both agree that emrakul is better main board than living with for him since living wish can just get countered.

[Chrandersen]

living wish has a lot of utility that md emrakul can't compete with. Getting a harmonic sliver, scavenging ooze, verduran enchantress etc. MD emrakul is actually useless unless you have already won more or less. The only real reason emrakul is needed at all is so that wins dont turn into draws because youve comboed in game 3 during extra turns and cant actually finish off the game.

[r3dd09]

Living wish gets countered, play E.Wit and get it back.

[TraxDaMax]

i wouldnt play mindbreak Agrtrap fwiw. Its pretty bad against storm because they will just duress it away before you can use it. also it doesnt do anything against show and tell. Only actually useful matchup is against belcher.

Agree, for the most part. But the good thing about MBT is if turn2-3 you get it back with witness, you can also cast it that turn.
Am I mistaken about ItEoC and Flusterstorm being a nonmbo?
Some brainstorming... what about Spellstutter Sprite, and Divert?

[r3dd09]

I was goldfishing this deck while a good buddy walks in and he starts talking about if he were to play legacy, he'd run tranquility in the side just for enchantress.
I told him that's understandable, but he's most likely not going to be able to play it against this build. He laughs and says why. I quickly whip out words of wind and he just walks away.

This deck is awesome, just wish my shipment would be here in time for the GPT :/

[benthetenor]

In the Eye of Chaos and Flusterstorm sure don't make each other better (for the most part), but it's much better than if the Flusterstorms were Force of Wills or Mindbreak Traps. Paying 2 isn't such a big deal, and I think you do need some other sort of thing to combat their discard and/or Chants. I do agree 100% with Chranderson, that the only matchup where Mindbreak Trap is superior to anything else is Belcher. It just doesn't do very much against anything else in the field, and Belcher clearly isn't something you expect to see more than, say, once in a big tournament

If you think they're a heavy discard version of the combo decks, or of any deck, I'm also running a Compost which helps you recover from quick discard, in addition to being a great card against Dredge. Against combo it can help draw you into Flusterstorms, and against Dredge it ensures that if they start going off, you will beat them unless they win that turn. Having played against a lot of Dredge, most of the time they will half go off, dredging 6-10 cards on one turn, then go off the rest of the way the next turn. If just a few of those cards are black, it gives you a lot of draws to find Elephant Grass, if you don't already have it. It wouldn't be better than, say, another Tormod's Crypt or some other form of Dredge hate, but its utility in other black matchups earns it a spot.

[TraxDaMax]

In the Eye of Chaos and Flusterstorm sure don't make each other better (for the most part), but it's much better than if the Flusterstorms were Force of Wills or Mindbreak Traps. Paying 2 isn't such a big deal, and I think you do need some other sort of thing to combat

Ok,

I wasn't sure if you had to pay 2, or pay for each copy. I wasn't sure if the copies actually looked at what was paid for being played although I figured you'd have to only pay 2, but I didn't want to be pointed out the other case if I were in a tournament. 2 isn't that big of a deal. Thanks for clearifying.

And what do you guys think of Spellstutter or Divert? Spellstutter seems it could be abused with Seal of Removal and Cloud of Faeries and can't be Duress'ed, and Divert seems like you can mess up some Storm player's first turns of the game.


edit: the 100 mark reached 8-)

[SirTylerGalt]

I wasn't sure if you had to pay 2, or pay for each copy. I wasn't sure if the copies actually looked at what was paid for being played although I figured you'd have to only pay 2, but I didn't want to be pointed out the other case if I were in a tournament. 2 isn't that big of a deal.

The storm copies of Flusterstorm also have a CMC of 1. But their CMC is irrelevant, because storm copies aren't "cast", the copies are just put on the stack. In The Eye Of Chaos triggers when a spell is cast, so it does not trigger for storm copies.

It's similar to Shattering Spree versus Chalice of the Void.

[Darklingske]

Hey guys,

I've started playing UG-enchantress since Ichorid is a pretty bad deck to play in this meta. But I'm having troubles to go infinite. A I missing something? Could someone clarify this for me? With a boardstate of:

Forest with Growth + Sprawl (U), forest, forest, island + Growth, 3 Enchantress effects, WoW, Seal of removal & Cloud otB. In hand: Seal, Cloud, GSZ, Grass. How can we get infinite?

Thanks in advance!

[somethingdotdotdot]

So I've never played this deck before, but based on the game state and your hand, I came up with this:

Forest 1 and Island: GGGUU
Play elephant grass: GGUU
3 Triggers Left
Return cloud: GUU
2 Triggers Left
Return elephant: GU
1 Trigger Left
Draw a Card
Play cloud: 0

Net Effect: draw 1 card.

Since this doesn't cost you a single mana, you can just draw your whole deck. One of those cards will be another growth effect. Attach that to the currently enchanted forest/island. Then you will be generating an extra mana per iteration and can go infinite.

[JanoschEausH]

Yup, im playing this deck at the moment. When you have 2 Lands which make 5 mana together, a Words of Wind in play, at least 2 Enchantress's effects, a Cloud of Fearies in play or hand and 2 CMC-1 Enchantments (nonblue preferable, or you need your 2 Lands to make 2 Blue and 3 Green), one on the board and one in your hand, you can go infinite.

somethingdotdotdot explained it already. I try to do it in other words: Lets assume you have all the requirements met and the Cloud of Faeries is on the battlefield. You tap all your Lands (5 mana in pool), then you play your 1CMC-Enchantment (4 mana in pool - 3 Green and 1 blue), 2 Draw-Triggers on the Stack (from your Enchantresses). Now you replace both triggers with Words of Wind. Bounce the Cloud of Faries and another CMC-1 Enchantment in play (you can't bounce the one you initiated the draw with, because it is on the stack and hasn't resolved yet). Mana left: 1 Blue and 1 Green. Now play the Cloud of Faeries and untap your Lands. Rinse and repeat. This cycle consumes exactly 5 mana, so when your have 2 Lands which make 6 or more mana alltogether, you can make infinite mana for the rest of the turn. You opponent has to bounce 2 Permanents on each cycle, so you can bounce all the opponents permanents with it.
If you have more than 2 Enchantress's Effects you can draw your whole deck while comboing.

You win with 1/1's and 2/2's beating your opponent to death. If you can make infinite mana AND draw your whole deck you can also Living Wish for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, timewalk, and win faster. Be sure to replace your natural draw each turn with Words of Wind, when you have no cards in your library left!

EDIT: Also, notice that you can bounce additional Enchantress's Effects, even when they have shroud, to reach the desired amount of Enchantress Effects in play (for example to save them from mass removal, which you expect your opponent to play next turn...)

[Darklingske]

Allright, thanks guys! Now it is clear to me. Let's goldfish a bit more and get familiar with the deck and the combo :smile:

[benthetenor]

Also, when you have no cards in your library, you can cast the 4 Green Sun's Zenith in your hand and fail to find so that you will always have 4 cards in your library.

[Darklingske]

That little trick I knew from playing Elves! before. But it is something a lot of people forget.

[TraxDaMax]

I'm gonna be playing UG Ench this weekend in a big tournament we got here in my city with duals and other staples as prizes. I took the SCG list and put the ItEoC and MBT in the sideboard replacing FOWs and Chill. I was thinking too, if we replace living wish maindeck we should change the wish targets in sb too right? I dont see myself taking away Gaddock Tegg or the Sliver, but Verduran and Emrakul kinda fall down of my sideboarding strategy if i cut the wish. My question is: ¿Wich changes would u do to the sideboard if u cut the wish?
Curious to the results.

[tw0as]

Well , here i come with my report on the tournament. 62 people i guess and 6 rounds to test the deck. My maindeck was the same 60 as Chrandersen but instead of Dryad Arbor i put Chrome Mox

Round 1 vs Burn

A bad matchup. G1 he mana screws on 1 mountain. I keep my 7 initials and combo in turn 4. G2 he starts very agro, i mulled to 5, i stabilize with Elephant Grass in 4 life, hes in topdeck mode and i need 1 turn to combo (i lack the untapped lands to do it this turn), he topdecks a firblast x_x. G3 i mulled to 4 and kept a very good 4 (fetch growth grass and argothian). He plays t1 raze on my enchanted land ... t2 he cast goblin guide and start the beatdown ... goblin guide reveals no land in 3 turns and i scoop ...

Round 2 vs Dredge

G1 he won the dice roll and combo off t0. G2 he combo off t1, i play elephant grass and start to estabilize the board looking for answers, next turn he drag till the last card of his library. That was Flayer of the Hatebound ... double dread return (flayer + golgari) and i'm dead.

Round 3 vs Belcher

G1 turn 0 combo. G2 i mulled to 3 to keep land, grass, mbt ... he start the combo, cast belcher i show mbt, he exiles the monkey and play red elemental blast ... the next turn he topdecks a LED u.u

Round 4 vs Esper Stoneblade

G1 he starts very agro with t2 SFM into batterskull. I play grass , enchantress, start to draw but started drawing lands ... GZA ... and faeries ... no enchantments. He won. G2 i combo in t6 after some FOWs and G3 he plays really slow and grab the tie on time ... i called a judge but the answer is "even if he plays fast u got not enough time" u.u

Round 5 vs Sam Black Zombie List (dont know the real name of the deck)

Not much to tell ... its a very easy matchup ... Elephant Grass and the enchantments destroyers do everything.

Round 6 vs Goblins

The same as above ... elephant grass gives us all the time we want.


2 - 3 - 1 Final.


Overall i must say that i wasnt having my best day (personal troubles attacked trough my cellphone all day long), but the bad luck did her part... the 3 matchs i lost i only kept the initial 7 once, then it was 1 mull to 6, 3 mull to 5, 1 mull to 4 and 1 mull to 3 ... the deck works really well when it want to xD

On decklists, i think Chrandersen maindeck is the most solid one ... Mindbreak Trap its not MB material i think , and the Mox its a cute thing , but not superior to the ability of ramp trough GSZ, so Cuneo's maindeck its not superior to chandersen's (in my opinion). Sideboard its another thing, its more a meta call ...

Sry the vague report but i'm kinda new in this Report thing , and as i said before , i had my mind in other place the day of the tournament.

[Darklingske]

Maybe you mulled too fast? What hands do you think are not keepable? I generally mull only if I don't have a basic forest and no growth effect. And I consider GSZ on T1 as a growth effect since it advances my boardstate. And not to forget that sometimes doing that play makes your opponent guess that you're on Maverick.

[wasteoftime]

Just recently picked this deck up and I was wondering if Energy Field + Wheel of Sun Moon would be a good addition to MB/SB?

[yell]

Just recently picked this deck up and I was wondering if Energy Field + Wheel of Sun Moon would be a good addition to MB/SB?

Wheel of Sun and Moon might be a good sideboard card replacing tormods crypt ( it was included in gainsays decklist) in particular if you dont run living wish. Otherwise you lose access to scavening ooze.
I would say, that you might play energy field if you espect some burn in your meta.
But in general energy field (or the combo of these two cards) helps vs creature/aggro decks, which are generally already the best matchup you can hope for. Even if you feel like adding more creature hate, you would have to play of wheel of sun and moon first (land destruction, fetching etc), which means turn 2. In turn 3 you can put down energy field, which might be to late anyway. Besides that, you delay your enchantress by at least 1 turn. I would add the safer options of propaganda or engineered plague (with 1 bayou MB). The later would also deal with the uncommon (?) alluren combo decks.

[benthetenor]

Just a quick update to let you guys know what I've been doing with this deck.

It didn't end up looking like much, because I spent some time testing out 3 Exploration and an extra Forest in the maindeck slots for Carpet of Flowers, Seal of Primordium and Mindbreak Trap/Living Wish/whatever. The theory came when I re-watched some video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGnvjeGfSj8) of Bob Maher and Gabriel Nassif in the old Extended back in 2003. Bob was playing Tinker and Nassif was playing Enchantress. What struck me was, even though this was a fairly poor matchup for Nassif, having Exploration in the deck really helped get you some additional acceleration that would be live both in your good matchups (anyone with Islands) and your poorer ones (Burn, Pox, Show and Tell). Not as explosive, but still good enough. And it kind of worked. In testing though, it didn't appreciably speed up the deck's fundamental turn. It was 4-5 with Carpet of Flowers and a Seal of Primordium, and it was still 4-5 with Exploration. The difference of course comes when you're playing against a deck that plays a lot of Islands, where Carpet of Flowers either makes you a turn faster, or else it negates Daze and Spell Pierce. In some matchups, High Tide in particular, that's just something that Exploration can't do and that we need done. And even though it was just one more land and made no impact on the number of Enchantments in the deck, I wasn't crazy about the way that having Exploration in the deck made the deck play. It would get you to two Mana before making a land drop on turn 2 pretty much every game, but you would almost never get to 4 Mana on turn 3, which meant it didn't really do any meaningful acceleration. Maybe I needed a 22nd land like Nassif's deck, but then I can't believe that there's a huge difference between 21 and 22 lands in making Exploration an effective card.

What it did lead me to test is moving the third Carpet of Flowers to the main deck and putting the Seal of Primordium in the sideboard. I'm not sure that there are any artifacts and/or enchantments that we care about game one, which means that it might just be better to be as fast as possible the first game and board accordingly for games 2 and 3. It's a very slight change that honestly probably is wrong, just given the fact that you draw your whole deck if you win, meaning that having access to Seal is probably just correct, but it's in testing. A lot of the work I've put in has been in the sideboard, and I'm excited to probably take this deck to GP Denver.

What would be interesting is if Chrandersen (or anyone) could give us some sort of a matchup rundown. Just basically, what's good, what's bad, what's even. I know what I've experienced with my testing but it would be interesting to hear some other views. I'm not really interested in what would be good or bad in theory, but rather with what testing has shown to be good or bad.

[StoneColdEffy]

So I recently acquired the cards for this deck after seeing Gainsay's list from MOCS. Will be flying to Sydney for a big Legacy event during January so hopefully I can get enough practice by then to consider playing this deck. Anyway this is my list (very generic):
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Eternal Witness

4 Elephant Grass
4 Utopia's Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Seal of Removal
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Words of Wind
1 Seal of Primordium

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Living Wish

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Dryard Arbor
1 Savannah
7 Forest
2 Island

Sideboard:
4 Flusterstorm
2 Meekstone
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Thoughts? I think in sideboard maybe I want a 5th Combo-Hate spell (maybe MBT or In the Eye of Chaos). I also cut Verduran Enchantress/Jace but I'm not sure if that's correct. I do like Sphere of Safety more then Dueling Grounds and I do think Flusterstorm is the best combo-hate.

[benthetenor]

If you're running Living Wish, you should absolutely be playing with a Verduran Enchantress in the sideboard. Otherwise, you lose most of the utility of having a Living Wish and it would probably be better served as something else.

[StoneColdEffy]

If you're running Living Wish, you should absolutely be playing with a Verduran Enchantress in the sideboard. Otherwise, you lose most of the utility of having a Living Wish and it would probably be better served as something else.Hmmm, what should I cut from my sideboard?

[benthetenor]

I mean, there are endless ways to build a sideboard, but you could probably trim a Seal of Primordium. It does seem that if you have a Seal of Primordium main, you probably don't also need 2 in the SB, along with Krosan Grip and Harmonic Sliver.

[r3dd09]

tw0as - why did you cut arbor for mox?

[tw0as]

tw0as - why did you cut arbor for mox?

Primarily raw potential ... having it on the opening hand gives you amazing posibilities, i recognize de ability of "fetching" arbor trough GSZ but the card is weaker "per se". And the second reason is because being a 0 cost permanent gives you the chance to have 3 enchantress effects to trigger with words of winds, wich accelerates the entire combo, and the turns that follows u can just use your draw phase to trigger WoW returning mox and keep beating with your 1/1 faerie (if your opponent doesnt concede).

[TraxDaMax]

Took UG Enchantress with to a 33 man tournament yesterday, and had a lot of bad luck :)
Ended up going 1-5, the 1 being a bye. Worst ending in a really long time :D
Anyways, I lost every die roll in the 5 rounds I played which didn't help me much either.

Round 1: against UG Enchantress 1-2
Yep, I get paired round one against somebody playing the same deck. Not sure if he is on these forums, but we were facing each other round one and I drew very poorly in game 1 and 3.

Round 2: Belcher 0-2
Game 1 I can't off off quick enough, and he just goes off turn 3-4
Game 2 he goes off turn 1 after probing and seeing no Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap.

Round 3: Mono green elves w/o heritage druid 0-2
Even without the druids, she still manages to combo out turn 3 twice. I played elves for a long time, and telling by her draws must say she had some pretty nutty hands there.. Especially without Heritage Druid.

Round 4: U/R Delver 0-2
game 1: Every turn burn and a duo of Lavamancers see to it that I die.
game 2: Turn 1 delver that flips turn 3 + burn repeat game 1.

Round 5: Bye
I go get myself a Duvel (awesome beer) and watch somebody throw a game away in League of Legends downstairs. Hilarious.

Round 6: U/G/b Madness 1-2
game 1 I have to work too hard to avoid death from 4/3 hasty plants.
game 2 Elephant grass stalls me enough time to combo out, but I must say this wasn't easy.
game 3: I have to try and combo out before an army of Putrid Imp, duo Vengies, and a rootwalla come banging me to zero, and I brick. My Elephant Grass gets Krosan Grip'ed and I shake hands.


I gotta say, I had very weird draws, had to mull a lot, and not being able to start didn't help me much this tournament. Also, against these kind of decks I don't think our deck is well positioned. I didn't see Miracles, I didn't see Maverick, I didn't see Stoneblade.
I'm not sure, maybe I was just very unlucky, but I won't be taking this to my next tournament I'm afraid. Feels way to random in my opinion.

[Darklingske]

Took UG Enchantress with to a 33 man tournament yesterday, and had a lot of bad luck :)
Round 1: against UG Enchantress 1-2
Yep, I get paired round one against somebody playing the same deck. Not sure if he is on these forums, but we were facing each other round one and I drew very poorly in game 1 and 3.

Jup, I"m on this forum too. :smile:

Same tournament as Trax. I ended up 3-3. Basic list with 2 ItEoC along with 3 Abrupt Decay in the side.
R1: Mirror 2-1
R2: Elves! 0-2 A very bad MU and I couldn't do much. He combo'ed on T3 both games.
R3: standstill concotion 2-0 He doesn't know the deck (neither his nor mine) and I combo easily T5 & T6.
R4: Burn 0-2 Yihaaa, another combodeck to face. G2 I have WoW in my opener and start bouncing his singleton land every turn. Unfortunatly he has a burnspells galore and I die in a pretty fast way.
R5: Belcher 1-2 Double the fun again! G1 he combos T1 but miscounts and never gets back in the game. G2 he combos T2 into belcher. G3 combo T1. Belcher, what do you do against it...
R6: Junk 2-0 Decks with a normal gameplan don't give this deck much of a problem.

As long as we don't find a good answer against combo I don't think this deck can perform on the top levels in our meta. But it is a blast to play and I will continue to play it!

[TraxDaMax]

Jup, I"m on this forum too. :smile:

Same tournament as Trax. I ended up 3-3. Basic list with 2 ItEoC along with 3 Abrupt Decay in the side.
R1: Mirror 2-1
R2: Elves! 0-2 A very bad MU and I couldn't do much. He combo'ed on T3 both games.
R3: standstill concotion 2-0 He doesn't know the deck (neither his nor mine) and I combo easily T5 & T6.
R4: Burn 0-2 Yihaaa, another combodeck to face. G2 I have WoW in my opener and start bouncing his singleton land every turn. Unfortunatly he has a burnspells galore and I die in a pretty fast way.
R5: Belcher 1-2 Double the fun again! G1 he combos T1 but miscounts and never gets back in the game. G2 he combos T2 into belcher. G3 combo T1. Belcher, what do you do against it...
R6: Junk 2-0 Decks with a normal gameplan don't give this deck much of a problem.

As long as we don't find a good answer against combo I don't think this deck can perform on the top levels in our meta. But it is a blast to play and I will continue to play it!


Aha, hello again :)
Well, I will surely play the deck again because it sure is fun, but my teammates and I are convinced the deck is way better in the american meta.
So for next week's Belgian Legacy Cup I won't be running too many enchantments :)

[manugl84]

[QUOTE=Darklingske;688947]R4: Burn 0-2 Yihaaa, another combodeck to face. G2 I have WoW in my opener and start bouncing his singleton land every turn. Unfortunatly he has a burnspells galore and I die in a pretty fast way.
QUOTE]

If burn is so difficult, could we try the energy field/wheel of sun and moon soft lock? It looks like the chills in the SB are not enough.

I have a dumb question: which is the purpose of the lone maindeck Mindbreak trap in some builds? I don´t understand it:confused:

[TraxDaMax]

[QUOTE=Darklingske;688947]R4: Burn 0-2 Yihaaa, another combodeck to face. G2 I have WoW in my opener and start bouncing his singleton land every turn. Unfortunatly he has a burnspells galore and I die in a pretty fast way.
QUOTE]

If burn is so difficult, could we try the energy field/wheel of sun and moon soft lock? It looks like the chills in the SB are not enough.

I have a dumb question: which is the purpose of the lone maindeck Mindbreak trap in some builds? I don´t understand it:confused:

I don't run it either, but I think it is to protect Living Wish or Words of Wind when going off. Can't think of anything else.

[wasteoftime]

Since it seems combo is quite annoying for this deck, is there any cards we could cut from SB/MB to add in more combo hate? 4 MBT just doesn't seem to do it.

[JanoschEausH]

[QUOTE=Darklingske;688947]R4: Burn 0-2 Yihaaa, another combodeck to face. G2 I have WoW in my opener and start bouncing his singleton land every turn. Unfortunatly he has a burnspells galore and I die in a pretty fast way.
QUOTE]

If burn is so difficult, could we try the energy field/wheel of sun and moon soft lock? It looks like the chills in the SB are not enough.

I have a dumb question: which is the purpose of the lone maindeck Mindbreak trap in some builds? I don´t understand it:confused:

The lone Mindbreak Trap makes a hard lock, when you bounced all your opponents permanents. Some decks like burn can just replay a land and burn you for 3. When you have Mindbreak Trap in Hand and Eternal Wittness in play you can effectively remove all your opponents spells they will cast from the game. Some people forget that you can hardcast traps, too.....

[benthetenor]

That's definitely a lot of bad matchups, but I think you're right; if you can't get more than 2 wins in 5 rounds, then it might not be the deck for you.

I will say, there are a lot of tools you could be running in the sideboards if you're struggling against some decks. Cuneo didn't get to 5th place on just his wits, the MTGO metagame is completely saturated with burn decks and various combos since Force of Wills are so expensive and thus not really around to keep decks like Belcher in check. If you're losing to decks that are common on MTGO, I'd suggest starting with Cuneo's sideboard (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48758) and going from there. I don't particularly like Living Wish myself, mostly because it cuts into SB space and makes you play weak cards like Scavenging Ooze and Verduran Enchantress and Emrakul. I do think that Burn has a very rough time beating something like Energy Field, which is something Cuneo ran. It would be pretty greedy to try and board into a full-on combo, like Wheel of Sun and Moon or Rest in Peace. But we're talking about having access to three different colors, and artifacts, with which to solve your bad matchups. The cards are definitely out there.

[yell]

How about Arcane Labratory (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25562) as a SB option against any combo decks? It shuts down High Tide and makes Show and Tell decks manageable.
If we have some enchantress in play we still draw plenty of cards and once we get words of wind, we can bounce arcane labs back and combo to win.

[benthetenor]

How about Arcane Labratory (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25562) as a SB option against any combo decks? It shuts down High Tide and makes Show and Tell decks manageable.
If we have some enchantress in play we still draw plenty of cards and once we get words of wind, we can bounce arcane labs back and combo to win.

That's not a great answer just because it makes you take a million turns before you can combo off. It also means that you can only play one spell a turn, where they can play two since they're going to have instants and you only have enchantments. If you're looking for something to screw over High Tide, In the Eye of Chaos is going to slow them down by at least a turn, maybe a few, since a lot of the key cards for them (High Tide, Cunning Wish, Turnabout, bounce spells, Blue Sun's Zenith) are instants. If you can land an In the Eye of Chaos, then GSZ for a Gaddock Teeg later, all while holding a Flusterstorm, they're in a lot of trouble. If you're really really worried about High Tide, Pithing Needle on Candelabra also buys you a lot of time, and is a fine card in a lot of matchups.

I think everyone needs to test a little more. A lot of matchups look really bad in theory, but once you start playing them, you'll find that you can board in a pretty stifling convergence of hate for any given deck to the point where they just can't beat you before you beat them. It's really not about boarding in that one card that a combo deck can't possibly beat, more about playing a series of soft-lock pieces that they can deal with, but not quicker than you can assemble the combo and leave them with one land ever and facing down a board stacked with hate.

[ZeroCool]

So having been patrolling this thread for a while and playing the deck myself, I have a few questions and ideas of my own I would like to put forth.
Firstly:
What Artifacts/Enchantments are we super worried about that we need that much removal in the sideboard? Or even the seal in the main. (I personally have cut it in favor of Helix Pinnacle as an alternate win, just curious from the main list). I like the carpet of flowers because the format is very blue, and its a one mana enchantment, when seal is good its fine, but other than that its a 2 mana enchantment that becomes harmonize for half the cost.

For the Dueling Grounds in the SB: I have found it to be good when I get it, but not always necessary even when I bring it in, it tends to just be more of a 5th Elephant grass basically. Just curious as to why this has stuck around in the SB as well.

Second:
I would like to offer forth the sideboard I have been working on for a little while, it is a bit skewed for my small local meta, but as I am planning on attending GP Denver, I have been trying to broaden it a little bit, so any critiques would be appreciated, as well as just offering up my insight onto the subject.

My SB:
2x Chill
1x Dueling Grounds
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Harmonic Sliver
3x In the Eye of Chaos
1x Krosan Grip
3x Mindbreak Trap
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Verduran Enchantress

[benthetenor]

That's an interesting sideboard. It does seem a little extreme to me to have 3 of both Mindbreak Trap and In the Eye of Chaos. If you're not having any issues with creature decks, then feel free to play or not play whichever cards you need to in the deck/sideboard. I don't personally think that a dedicated win condition is at all necessary, given that it doesn't do anything for you unless you've already won the game; in that slot, I'd just play the third Carpet of Flowers if you don't think that you need a Seal of Primordium main.

Personally, I've found Energy Field to be a card that a whole set of decks just can't beat if you play correctly. Goblins, Elves, Merfolk, Burn, any decks that don't or can't board in dedicated Disenchant effects are going to have a whole host of problems with that card, as long as you don't play out non-basics (if they have Wasteland) or creatures that can get killed (if they have burn or Jitte). I think that the creature matchups should be pretty solidly in our favor, but it's a one-card answer to at least those three or four decks in the format, which is probably worth looking at.

This deck is a clinic in deck construction. Every single slot is perfectly chosen, and the sideboard is no less important. If you're not squeezing every last bit of utility out of every slot in the deck, you will be punished at some point. Even if you don't think you'll need it, if there are dead cards in any matchups, you should have cards that you can bring in so you don't get stuck with a Carpet of Flowers against Elves or an Elephant Grass against UW Miracles. It's just as important to not overboard, but there it is.

As far as what Seal of Primordium targets that we're worried about, just about the only one I can think of that will actually stop you is Pithing Needle, though I suppose Nevermore is also a card. There are lots of things that can slow you down, like Ethersworn Canonist or Chalice of the Void or Sphere of Resistance, all of which you should have some kind of answer to. There is technically at least one deck that plays Pithing Needle main (the new 12-post variants) so it might be necessary to have a Seal of Primordium main, though the odds of facing off against a 12-post deck, and having them hit correctly with their Pithing Needle, and then not being able to beat them 2 of 3, is awfully long odds to be frank. It's probably still correct, though there's a chance that you'd get more utility over the span of a tournament with the 3rd Carpet of Flowers, for instance. You can always bring it in for games 2 and 3. I'd chalk that spot up to preference, like I said, though it's probably just not correct to have a dedicated kill card in the main, if not anywhere in the 75.

[GtF]

Theoretically you could find your living wish and wish for harmonic sliver to deal with a maindeck Pithing Needle. However I had one game where I actually wanted to have Seal of Primordium to sacrifice to itself. I'd drawn a lot with enchantress effects and had a lot of mana but no more enchantments, but I had drawn an eternal witness that could recur seal of primordium and continue to go off. Granted this is a very corner case.

What do people think of Mystic Remora as a card to board in against decks with a lot of disruption, and/or storm and high tide or any other deck that plays a lot of noncreature spells? It can draw you to your force of wills and basically acts as protection against their counterspells on your enchantress effects.


That's an interesting sideboard. It does seem a little extreme to me to have 3 of both Mindbreak Trap and In the Eye of Chaos. If you're not having any issues with creature decks, then feel free to play or not play whichever cards you need to in the deck/sideboard. I don't personally think that a dedicated win condition is at all necessary, given that it doesn't do anything for you unless you've already won the game; in that slot, I'd just play the third Carpet of Flowers if you don't think that you need a Seal of Primordium main.

Personally, I've found Energy Field to be a card that a whole set of decks just can't beat if you play correctly. Goblins, Elves, Merfolk, Burn, any decks that don't or can't board in dedicated Disenchant effects are going to have a whole host of problems with that card, as long as you don't play out non-basics (if they have Wasteland) or creatures that can get killed (if they have burn or Jitte). I think that the creature matchups should be pretty solidly in our favor, but it's a one-card answer to at least those three or four decks in the format, which is probably worth looking at.

This deck is a clinic in deck construction. Every single slot is perfectly chosen, and the sideboard is no less important. If you're not squeezing every last bit of utility out of every slot in the deck, you will be punished at some point. Even if you don't think you'll need it, if there are dead cards in any matchups, you should have cards that you can bring in so you don't get stuck with a Carpet of Flowers against Elves or an Elephant Grass against UW Miracles. It's just as important to not overboard, but there it is.

As far as what Seal of Primordium targets that we're worried about, just about the only one I can think of that will actually stop you is Pithing Needle, though I suppose Nevermore is also a card. There are lots of things that can slow you down, like Ethersworn Canonist or Chalice of the Void or Sphere of Resistance, all of which you should have some kind of answer to. There is technically at least one deck that plays Pithing Needle main (the new 12-post variants) so it might be necessary to have a Seal of Primordium main, though the odds of facing off against a 12-post deck, and having them hit correctly with their Pithing Needle, and then not being able to beat them 2 of 3, is awfully long odds to be frank. It's probably still correct, though there's a chance that you'd get more utility over the span of a tournament with the 3rd Carpet of Flowers, for instance. You can always bring it in for games 2 and 3. I'd chalk that spot up to preference, like I said, though it's probably just not correct to have a dedicated kill card in the main, if not anywhere in the 75.

[forestfold]

If you want a specific card against mono-color decks (burn, high tide, elves, etc.) mana maze is good against most of them. I've had it in my sideboard for a month now as an elf hoser, and we occasionally have a high tide player as well. It's basically a nightmare for them. I am playing bant right now, which means a single sterling grove makes it twice as good, and two of them makes me unbeatable unless they can wish for reverent silence, or have sided it in. I prefer the original engine, but I like this alternative take on enchantress and have been keeping an eye on it since it started.

[Darklingske]

If you want a specific card against mono-color decks (burn, high tide, elves, etc.) mana maze is good against most of them.

But it screws us too, no? I have not tested the card, but to me it looks like an Arcane laboratory-card, as in: screws my opponent, but also myself. As far as your list goes: can we see the list? I'm curious about it!

[benthetenor]

Theoretically you could find your living wish and wish for harmonic sliver to deal with a maindeck Pithing Needle. However I had one game where I actually wanted to have Seal of Primordium to sacrifice to itself. I'd drawn a lot with enchantress effects and had a lot of mana but no more enchantments, but I had drawn an eternal witness that could recur seal of primordium and continue to go off. Granted this is a very corner case.

What do people think of Mystic Remora as a card to board in against decks with a lot of disruption, and/or storm and high tide or any other deck that plays a lot of noncreature spells? It can draw you to your force of wills and basically acts as protection against their counterspells on your enchantress effects.

Mystic Remora is interesting, and one of my very favorite cards. Against a lot of decks, it could very easily function like Compost in the Dredge matchup, where you land it and then they can't really do anything unless they want to draw you into your actual hate cards. It's definitely something worth considering.

As for that corner case, Seal of Removal functions in the same way with Eternal Witness, basically turning those two cards into a Jayemdae Tome for every enchantress that you have in play, that you can use infinitely (with infinite mana, of course). It's way more likely that you'd run into a Seal of Removal before a Seal of Primordium, though I suppose that it could happen.

On Mana Maze, I haven't tested it, but my gut tells me that it would screw us only slightly less than them. It's not very often that you would want to, or be able to, go green spell, blue spell, green spell, blue spell....given that the deck is almost 3:1 green spells to blue spells. And against something like High Tide, they would deal with it the same way that they would deal with an Arcane Laboratory or similar effect, by going Merchant Scroll for bounce one turn, bounce EOT and then go off. Incidentally, it would also make Flusterstorm unable to protect whatever blue bounce they have aimed at it. I guess it has game against Elves, but there are definitely cards that Elves can't beat that don't seriously disrupt your own ability to go off.

[StoneColdEffy]

Hey guys so will be playing at a free local Win-A-Goyf tournament at the LGS tomorrow (we don't get any big legacy events in NZ). This is my list:
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Eternal Witness

4 Elephant Grass
4 Utopia's Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Seal of Removal
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Words of Wind
1 Seal of Primordium

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Living Wish

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Dryard Arbor
1 Savannah
7 Forest
2 Island

Sideboard:
4 Flusterstorm
2 Meekstone
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Krosan Grip
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

I want to try make one more space in SB for combo, but not sure what to cut and also not sure what hate card to play (MBT, ItEoC or FOW). Maybe I can cut the Dueling Grounds now that I play Meekstone? But I feel like I still want it for decks like Goblins. Also I was thinking maybe even an Angel of Despair in SB for Show and Tell but that's probably bad.

[benthetenor]

Hey guys so will be playing at a free local Win-A-Goyf tournament at the LGS tomorrow (we don't get any big legacy events in NZ). This is my list:
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Eternal Witness

4 Elephant Grass
4 Utopia's Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Seal of Removal
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Words of Wind
1 Seal of Primordium

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Living Wish

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Dryard Arbor
1 Savannah
7 Forest
2 Island

Sideboard:
4 Flusterstorm
2 Meekstone
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Krosan Grip
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

I want to try make one more space in SB for combo, but not sure what to cut and also not sure what hate card to play (MBT, ItEoC or FOW). Maybe I can cut the Dueling Grounds now that I play Meekstone? But I feel like I still want it for decks like Goblins. Also I was thinking maybe even an Angel of Despair in SB for Show and Tell but that's probably bad.

I'm not sure how useful my SB will be to someone running Living Wish (as I've said, I'm not), but here's my current sideboard that's getting tested:

1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Compost
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mystic Remora
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Krosan Grip
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Energy Field
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Oblivion Ring

As of right now, I'm running 3 Carpet of Flowers and 0 Seal of Primordium main, along with 1 Flusterstorm. If I decide to go with a Seal of Primordium main, I'll just swap it out for the 3rd Carpet of Flowers. I'm testing Mystic Remora, which is currently in the place of 1 Mindbreak Trap, but it should be just as good in the combo matchups and also has uses in most other matchups. Also, Kitchen Finks is theoretically the sauce against Burn, while also being quite good against decks like Goblins and Zoo. The fact that you can Green Sun's Zenith for it is awesome, and once you go off, you can gain infinite life, which will put the game out of reach for any deck that you bring it in against. But that's just icing; the main reason for it is to gain 4 life and trade for 2 creatures (or burn spells), essentially putting you way, way ahead in a few matchups that were previously coinflips.

[Philipp2293]

Ben, since you're in Bant colours now, could you share your current list?

Thanks in advance!

[benthetenor]

Ben, since you're in Bant colours now, could you share your current list?

Thanks in advance!

It's exactly the same as Effy's, just -1 Seal of Primordium, -1 Living Wish for +1 Carpet of Flowers and +1 Flusterstorm.

[benthetenor]

I posted something on Elves about this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo&p=690416&viewfull=1#post690416), but I think we may want to look into whether or not Dryad Arbor is correct. I ran the probabilities, and they were way, way closer than I thought they would be. I know that earlier iterations of Cuneo's Enchantress build ran Dryad Arbor, and then he decided to cut it, preferring Chrome Mox as an additional accelerant. Just curious as to everyone else's thoughts.

[r3dd09]

I posted something on Elves about this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo&p=690416&viewfull=1#post690416), but I think we may want to look into whether or not Dryad Arbor is correct. I ran the probabilities, and they were way, way closer than I thought they would be. I know that earlier iterations of Cuneo's Enchantress build ran Dryad Arbor, and then he decided to cut it, preferring Chrome Mox as an additional accelerant. Just curious as to everyone else's thoughts.

I kind of actually like the chrome mox move. I'll test in out the next few days.

[Darklingske]

I played a tournament yesterday with UG-enchantress and it didn't went well. I ended 1-2-3. Quick report:
R1 0-2 Painter
G1 he drops a lot of artifacts (3 artifact land, 1 Mox opal, 1 SDT) and I think that I'm facing some strange build of affinity so I drop a bit of acceleration, enchantress and Grass. T3 he suddenly drops Painter + Grindstone and goes to town. On to G2! I side in my emrakul to trump his grindstone (he didn't see Emmie G1 and didn't notice the Living wish). But allas, T2 I draw the big fattie and he comboes T3.
R2 1-1 Nic-Fit
G1 takes a long time on both sides. Eventually he lands a Deed and deeds away my board. He casted 3 Cabal Therapy this game! No fun! G2 is a grindy one in wich I manage to combo just as Time is called.
R3 2-0 UW-miracles
G1 & 2 are pretty fast over as he stumbles on land and I draw all the goodies needed for a quick combo.
R4 1-1-1 Stoneblade
G1 takes 25 minutes but I can eventually combo through his discard and counters. For G2 he sides no less then 11!!!!! cards. Needless to say that I lose this one. T1 duress wich takes an enchantress, followed with after my draw extract on enchantress. T2 Thoughtseize Presence. T3 SFM for Jitte. T4 thoughtseize. T5 Snapcaster flashback extract and that was it...G3 we start off just as Time is called and neither of us can finish the match.
R5 0-2 BUG
G1 I'm stuck on 2 land and get run over by Goyfs and Delver (thanks to his Mastery). G2 is the opposite of G1. I draw 5 land in a row and die to a Goyf and a Delver.
R6 1-1-1 UR-Burn
G1 I start the combo, but he burns me out with double Lavamancer, Price of Progress (I had 1 Tropical in play) and Fireblast. G2 is mine as I land T2 Chill, T3 Chill and he gets stuck on 3 land. G3 we're in T4 as time is called. He can't race me (2 grasses) and I'm still at a healthy 16 (thanks double ItEoC).

It was a nice tournament but I'm feeling this deck has some problems. First off, I had several games where I drew to many lands. Okay, this can happen. But GSZ for Arbor T1 only to see it being plowed or terminussed doesn't make you feel good. And that happened more then you can think. So, I'm going to cut the dryad and play a Mox instead. Testing will continue!

[LurkingMatt]

I kind of actually like the chrome mox move. I'll test in out the next few days.

It more or less depends on your meta and that's all there is too say.
While the Chrome Mox is a more "reliant" accelerant, it eats up that card.
In late game or combo, it isn't as dead a card since you can imprint and continue.

Arbor can be handled more easily but adds more net worth to those Zenith.
Still you can drop it via Zenith for excess mana when not comboing out,
enchant it if it is your only Forest (and yes I know it is a bad choice) or beat face.

Overall I would say there is less hate for mox (though some ppl. will counter
it (especially early on)) but you run the chance of removal.

I would suggest to cut 2 Green Sun's Zenith during the initial testing
to see if these slots's mid to late game redundancy can be used for other options when
you test w/o that Arbor.
Also it would open up the deck to a variety of sideboard options I was considering but
never implemented.
Specifically hosers like Grafdigger's Cage or Wheel of Sun and Moon.

Looking forward to your findings.

Regards,
Matt

[benthetenor]

I would suggest not ever cutting any number of Green Sun's Zenith ever. The strength of the deck over other builds of Enchantress, the thing that makes it two or three turns faster, is access to 12 Enchantresses. That will always be the primary purpose of Green Sun's Zenith is to find more and more Argothian Enchantresses. The deck doesn't run a full 4 Green Sun's Zenith because it has Dryad Arbor, it was merely suggested that you run Dryad Arbor because the deck is already playing with Green Sun's Zenith.

[Pich]

I like this list i made.

1 Dryad Arbor
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
7 Forest
3 Eternal Witness
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Words of Wind
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Temporal Fissure
4 Green Sun's Zenith
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Deep Analysis
SB: 2 Compost
SB: 2 Chill
SB: 3 Envelop
SB: 2 Seal of Primordium

[benthetenor]

Any explanation at all of your choices would be good. For starters, you've got 61 cards, and I don't really see what's added to the deck by putting in Temporal Fissure when the deck's purpose is already to bounce your opponent's entire board in a way that doesn't target and is difficult for counterspells to stop.

I do like some of the things in your sideboard, though. Not sure what Envelop is for specifically that Flusterstorm wouldn't just be better at (and more versatile, to boot), but I like the idea of Deep Analysis coming in against decks with counterspells to give you more ways to overload them. That was a trick from 2003 Extended UG Enchantress that worked pretty well.

[Pich]

I'm playing 60 cards. You maybe miscounted.

Myself am not very sure of the Temporal Fissure, but i had the Idea to play 1 after getting my Words of Wind extirpated. Sometimes you draw it randomly, and you go turn 3 Growth, 1 Drop, Cloud of Faeries, Temporal Fissure your board which buys you enough time to win the game no matter what.

I'm playing Envelop because it's simply better at countering Show and Tell. SNT decks are playing different forms of acceleration, mostly Lotus Petals and Ancient Tombs, which lets them pay for soft counters most of the time. It's also better at countering Glimpse of Nature and Green Sun's Zenith against Elves, which is a deck that can produces ridiculous amounts of mana with Priest of Titania and Gaea's cradle shenanigans. I don't mind it being narrow, because it does what i want it to do. It counters Glimpse of Nature, Green Sun's Zenith, Show and Tell, Doomsday, Infernal tutor, Burning Wish, Hymn to Tourachs and Thoughtseize. But maybe you are right, Flusterstorm hits more cards after all. It may depend of the metagame.

And yeah, i think Carpet of Flowers + Deep Analysis in SB crushes all the blue decks, seriously, i think that in this deck, DA is better than Jace TMS.. It gives you the juice you need to go off.

[benthetenor]

I did miscount, sorry about that.

Probably the biggest reason why I'd prefer something like Flusterstorm over Envelop is because it can't really be countered. If the combo deck we're up against is trying to go off as fast as possible, then they'll usually try to go off at the bare minimum of mana with a Force of Will or Daze in hand, which has a chance to stop Envelop, whereas Flusterstorm doesn't care as much. The versatility is a good reason, but it is true that that slot in the sideboard is almost entirely just to stop combo, so the narrowness of Envelop doesn't bother me all that much either. I think in the more traditional combo matchups like ANT and Belcher and High Tide, Flusterstorm is better, whereas against Show and Tell, Envelop is better. Elves is probably a wash, but my plan for beating them is to play more Moat effects to keep them from ever attacking me. I like Flusterstorm more in matchups like Burn or maybe some decks that would bring in discard (BUG and Stoneblade come to mind) since it can also slow their development or snag some counterspells in addition to protecting us from their discard, but overall that slot is for Combo so it makes sense to use the best anti-combo card you can find. Envelop is definitely a good choice.

Do you find a lot of need for a third Eternal Witness? The only real reason I've seen a need for a second is so that you've got enough ammo against enemy counterspells, but I often find them gumming up my hand in the midgame.

[LurkingMatt]

I would suggest not ever cutting any number of Green Sun's Zenith ever. The strength of the deck over other builds of Enchantress, the thing that makes it two or three turns faster, is access to 12 Enchantresses. That will always be the primary purpose of Green Sun's Zenith is to find more and more Argothian Enchantresses. The deck doesn't run a full 4 Green Sun's Zenith because it has Dryad Arbor, it was merely suggested that you run Dryad Arbor because the deck is already playing with Green Sun's Zenith.

First of, I had to run errants and enough tests to be certain.

Also, while it may be too late: Merry Christmas.

Back on topic.

After your suggestions and some considerations, I gave the current list multiple test runs vs various decks (live and on cockatrice):
Goal: Decide upon my personal number of Zeniths and Arbor vs Chrome Mox.
Also wanted to find out if I enjoyed Living Wish enough to warrant it.

Findings:
Results showed that I never wanted four Zeniths when not supplemented by Arbor.
While I enjoyed Arbor immensely I came to realize that it - by itself - is not nearly good enough
to warrant two slots in my list. So I dropped to 2 Zeniths for further testing.
Zeniths usually cloughed up my hand since I never really wanted early witnesses unless I was
up against heavy discard/ counter suite but was looking for enchantments/ solutions.
Also I had no real problem deploying 2+ Enchantress Effects except vs heavy denial.
So I noted it is a good (and valid) anti blue tech.

Chrome Mox vs Arbor seems to be a simple choice between "early accel vs in combo accel".
I simply like Arbor atm more. Reason behind this is the simple fact that I can
throw it under the bus... ehh.... in front of tarmo if needed vs more mana.
Still Mox is probably the right choice in an unknown meta although or because it can be countered/
would have to be hated in another way.

Next was Living Wish (and its consequences to my sideboard).
I have to admit that I didn't really like it at first - until I stumbled into several games where
I had to find out the hard way that a fifth Enchantress/ another WinCon can be really nice.

Will get back once I have more results for you, Ben.

Works well so far. Yes this are 76 cards.

//Basics (11)
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Living Wish
2 Green Sun's Zenith

// Supplemental Engine/ Enabler (12)
2 Eternal Witness
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Seal of Removal


//Mana + Accel (9)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Dryad Arbor

//Toolbox/ Engine (7)
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Elephant Grass
2 Mystic Remora

//Control Component/ Prison Element (2)
2 Words of Wind
2 Mindbreak Trap

//Mana Base (19)
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
7 Forest
2 Island


//Sideboard
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 Verduran Enchantress

SB: 2 Seal of Primordium
SB: 2 Energy Field
SB: 1 Sphere of Safety

SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 4 Flusterstorm


On a sidenote:
I am aware that Witness + Snap is old tech.
Still, did any of you test if it is valid/ can be deployed in a Tempo or Control heavy meta?
Otherwise I will have to run tests myself.

Although Flusterstorm has a much stronger application in Counterwars,
the wider application of Spell Pierce might warrant testing in this case.
Since those Flusterstorms are really good for me atm, I wouldn't change them though.
Ideas? Suggestions?

Further testing of Wheel of Sun and Moon, Energy Field, Compost, Mana Haze, Root Maze
seem all valid. I especially like Compost while Wheel of Sun and Moon -
even with the inclusion of Energy Field was underachieving.

Anyone else having additional Enchantments to add that might come in handy?

Thanks for your feedback,
Matt

[benthetenor]

Playing with Living Wish definitely softens the blow of not playing with 4 Green Sun's Zenith. With only 2 of them, you've still got access to 11 Enchantresses if you want them, albeit one of which costs 5 mana through a Living Wish. But the point is, that's not much different than the 12 that I have access to or the 13 that you could potentially get in Chris Andersen's list. There are a few other benefits to playing with Green Sun's Zenith, though. The biggest one being that it gives you a maximum number of chances to play your SB bullets like Gaddock Teeg and Harmonic Sliver. There's a pretty big difference if you're facing off against TES between having 5 Gaddock Teegs and only 3. Similarly, Green Sun's Zenith is your most consistent way to break up a Counterbalance lock, since you can set the GSZ as high as you want and still just get Harmonic Sliver to kill it. It's another instance of the inefficiency of Living Wish hurting your actual sideboard. Your 75 cards is the deck that you play with, and both your sideboard and main deck have to work together seamlessly. With Living Wish, you're giving up some efficiency in games 2 and 3 for the ability to use your sideboard in game 1. If you trim Green Sun's Zenith, you're giving up efficiency in all three games.

That being said, the deck will absolutely function with less than 12 Enchantresses. in Extended, they had 8 and used them and the deck was still great. Earlier versions of Cuneo's list (before he moved on to GSZ) used 2 Verduran Enchantress and 2 Preordain, and it certainly still functioned. But Green Sun's Zenith is an extremely elegant solution to getting the maximum number of Enchantresses into the deck without having to play any of the "bad" ones, which also grants you the utility of being able to run green bullet creatures. The entire function of the deck is to get an Enchantress in play and then to go from there. I'm not sure why you would ever want to cut the thing that the deck is built to do because it's too efficient at doing it.

[LurkingMatt]

But Green Sun's Zenith is an extremely elegant solution to getting the maximum number of Enchantresses into the deck without having to play any of the "bad" ones, which also grants you the utility of being able to run green bullet creatures. The entire function of the deck is to get an Enchantress in play and then to go from there. I'm not sure why you would ever want to cut the thing that the deck is built to do because it's too efficient at doing it.

I do understand your emphasis on maximum number of enchantresses "but":
1. GWr plays a max of 10 effects (spatula at least) and I tried both versions and - for my own liking - concluded
after more then 20 games with 4 and 20 games with 2 GSZ that I don't want more.
2. I usually won't consider boarding any of those SB solutions in. Never. Period.
IF I would - which I don't - I agree with you on playing GSZ as a 4 of is a must.
Even then I would suggest Sigarda / Empyrial testing.

I do use the Living Wish as a simple redundancy if I might say so.

No Enchantress so far? Go get one. Need a Disenchant -> 'ere we go. Decking incoming or Beatstick needed?
Same goes for Teeg.

Vs Storm / Combo I simply board into more MBCs and Flusterstorms.
Between those two and the possibility to resolve a Teeg if all things DO look grim, I am fine so far.

That being said, I will try to get to bigger tournaments and our local weekly starting January to get
a few results and a better feel outside our Testing Group.

Regards,
Matt

[benthetenor]

I do want to say thanks first of all for having a good discussion with me! I can definitely see your side, just not sure I agree personally. For me, the only time when I have Green Sun's Zeniths in hand that don't have a purpose, I'm mid-way through the turn when I'm winning the game, so it's pretty irrelevant.

For your deck, even with only 2 GSZ, I would absolutely board in guys like Gaddock Teeg or Harmonic Sliver if you're in a position where you need it. Mostly because that way, you give yourself 3 ways to draw that particular card, as opposed to having it in the sideboard and relying on your singleton Living Wish to get you there. If you really, really, really need to get a Gaddock Teeg in play, having it main will give you three times the chances to draw it, and it won't cost 4 mana. Also, being able to rely on Green Sun's Zenith to fetch me important silver bullets lets me diversify my sideboard a lot. It means I don't have to devote 6 slots in an already tight board (especially with Living Wish) to one set of matchups, no matter how bad those matchups are. I for instance only need to have 2 Flusterstorms (1 main), 1 In the Eye of Chaos, and the Gaddock Teeg for my spells specifically against storm combo. It lets me play more flexible cards that give me more reach against more decks and lets me board in multiple powerful cards in pretty much every imaginable matchup. The biggest strike against Living Wish (and any wish, really) is that it bastardizes your sideboard, which really hampers your ability to do anything with it in games 2 and 3. As you said, you don't even board in the cards that you want in matchups that you want them in because you want to keep them there for Living Wish purposes. That seems like a far less efficient plan than having an actual sideboard, in the long run.

[LurkingMatt]

@Ben

I do want to say thanks first of all for having a good discussion with me! I can definitely see your side, just not sure I agree personally. For me, the only time when I have Green Sun's Zeniths in hand that don't have a purpose, I'm mid-way through the turn when I'm winning the game, so it's pretty irrelevant.
Thanks for your professional tone and your well thought arguments, too.
I can't remember a time when I have been so vivid about a deck since I restarted magic and found myself looking
at Reanimator (which ofc dulled by time but is still exciting nevertheless). This has been - at least by part - your
achievement since you try to stay on topic, unbiased (*cough*) and respond in kind and kindly.


For your deck, even with only 2 GSZ, I would absolutely board in guys like Gaddock Teeg or Harmonic Sliver if you're in a position where you need it. Mostly because that way, you give yourself 3 ways to draw that particular card, as opposed to having it in the sideboard and relying on your singleton Living Wish to get you there. If you really, really, really need to get a Gaddock Teeg in play, having it main will give you three times the chances to draw it, and it won't cost 4 mana.

My thought process for better understanding and to get a wider discussion base:
Generally speaking - and if this would be a 4 GSZ build I would agree with you - you are right.

Still in my - as I must admit limited(~160 - 200 serious games) - experience I found it favourable
to deploy only those cards "specifically" needed for the matchup.
Since I found out that I like a hard lock (which drew me to enchantress per se
(and since IMO it's the most beautiful deck atm)) I deploy two Mindbreak Traps maindeck.

When fighting vs blue.dec I usually board into even more counters - as I tend to do vs Stack Combo/ Control.
Thus e.g. no Carpets for me (although they where incredible in testing). Instead I went more open minded and
chose Mystic Remora since it is more flexible.

Now why would I like Living Wish when I adore deploying control components instead of simply racing them?
Simple. Extirpate, Slaughter Games, Surgical Extraction ruin your day more often then not.

Since I cannot hope to counter all of them (8 counters vs sometimes 12+), I have three options that are valid:

1. Ignore them.
To reach that goal I would have to deploy various spells with similiar effects - which I cant.
Alternatively I would need a way to win the game that has no key cards - which I don't.

2. Play around them.
Would be a possibility since I can deploy some really vicious strategies.
Enter Wheel of Sun and Moon/ Rest in Peace.
Now I tried those - and since I can't tutor them up they are a bit slow for my liking since I
would like to avoid playing them as 4 of.

3. Create more redundancies.
While seemingly hard, this can be reached by things I learned while playing those various forms of
High Tide I enjoyed.
One of those is methods is to deploy either a minimal Wishboard(max 4 Wishtargets) or a compelling
Wishboard (max 4 not wish targets).
The other one - before you care to ask - is simply to try to play smart(er) then your opponent - which
not always works.

Leaving me with three options I tested all of them in about 20 matches each(let's at this point simply thank my
friends Chris and Alex for their patience).
I found the ability to simply board out a Cloud of Faeries simply too compelling to
not consider it (same goes with Witness on rare occasions (Nic Fit /w Red comes to mind)).

Now why not boarding those targets into the deck at opportune times?
Well sometimes I do. When I can take out the Wish for example since I do not or want no additional targets.
Teeg for example comes in vs SnT but not really most other decks (well maybe Miracles, I have to finalize my boarding plans to them). I already hate out most other decks so nothx. Still these decks can be real hard cases
so I need a good way to send them packing.


Also, being able to rely on Green Sun's Zenith to fetch me important silver bullets lets me diversify my sideboard a lot. It means I don't have to devote 6 slots in an already tight board (especially with Living Wish) to one set of matchups, no matter how bad those matchups are.

I understand the reluctance and have too agree that it limits your options but you are talking about the eternal case
of "the meta game". :)
Still, your own argument beats your own train of thoughts if you follow it to it's logical conclusion:
Since you want to GSZ your Silver Bullets you open yourself up to even tutoring those Bullets (or parts you boarded out) you
considered not necessary. Thus a Living Wish would be a wise (though slow) addition in those g2/ g3. ;)
If your Silver Bullets aren't creatures though.... you can't GSZ them. Thus no Wish. Thus less flexibility to your GSZ, which makes
it ... less likeable.


I for instance only need to have 2 Flusterstorms (1 main), 1 In the Eye of Chaos, and the Gaddock Teeg for my spells specifically against storm combo. It lets me play more flexible cards that give me more reach against more decks and lets me board in multiple powerful cards in pretty much every imaginable matchup. The biggest strike against Living Wish (and any wish, really) is that it bastardizes your sideboard, which really hampers your ability to do anything with it in games 2 and 3. As you said, you don't even board in the cards that you want in matchups that you want them in because you want to keep them there for Living Wish purposes. That seems like a far less efficient plan than having an actual sideboard, in the long run.

Also I might want to point out a simple yet often not thought of fact:
Living Wish simply lets you consider creature options which can also be GSZ.ed.
So - simply put - you "could" look for sorcery speed solutions (after all, creatures are deployed at that speed) ;)
which can and could be overlapping with enchantments.

Since I run a minimal wishboard (as opposed to a dedicated one) I have to chose the fights and utility I want to
carry.

After clearing all of this up (and ignoring personal preferences and play paradigms) let's looks on choice:

Pro Wish:
1. Diversification
2. Reacts better to rogue.dec and can handle crippling blows better
3. More flexible
4. Can tutor up a solution

Contra Wish:
1. Needs dedicated slots to work
2. Can be less efficient Post Board
3. Loses sideboard slot for dedicated matchups
4. Loses speed since more mana is needed

Dedicated Wishboard vs minimal Wishboard:
A dedicated wish board can be - and usually is - considered when redundancy or utility is needed.
Since we are running a deck based upon enchantments which also deploys 10+ creatures and lands
Living Wish is our "in color" wish.
Now let's consider a dedicated wish board for discussion's sake for an instance.
Faeries, Bog, Tabernacle, Maze, Chasm, more Enchantresses, Counter dudes.... another WinCon... looks enticing.

Until one realised - as all of us did who not only net decked - that we are deploying enchantments
to win the game, which puts us in a unique position. So no dedicated board then.

So we have to look at minimal boards.
Those would open up the possibility to either:
1. Increase the count of engines since we can place "bad alternatives" in our sideboard to get them
if we do not get the "real one".
2. Get those few cards that you would like vs decks you can count on appearing in any tournament
but are not really "that relevant" in the meta.
3. Deploying an alternative Winning Condition

Now I can only speak for myself but I chose

//Spare Engine
1 Verduran Enchantress //never picked in G1, but boarded in in various G2,G3

//Good but not overwhelming "options"
1 Gaddock Teeg //usually stays here
1 Harmonic Sliver //usually stays here unless my opponent is Affinity, MUD or Painter

//Alternative WinCon
1 Emrakul, The AEons Torn //come usually in G2,G3 for a Cloud of Faeries, still looking for an alternative that uses the degenerate amount of mana we CAN create


All of this is not really satisfying since we do not really get a conclusive answer if we should
or should not run that wish.

Which leaves us between a rock and a hard place:
Running Wish or don't.

Personally I am running it as a one of since I want to have the
options for G1 (him not giving up/ being in a precarious spot vs
various other fast combo decks).
Also it is nice to being able to board out that Cloud and having them
not all extracted.

Would I/ Did I consider dropping Wish?
You bet I have.
Simply deploying 1-2 SB solutions (and being not reliant on them being critter)
and maybe(!) one MD Emrakul looked very enticing.

Then I checked on those cards I considered my staples and the very tight maindeck
(thanks again for developing it to this point @Gainsay).

I simply lost nothing if I deployed that singular wish.

It even opened up more options for me, like:
Cutting these 2 Zeniths since I can now in G2
(assuming I board out an Argothian for extirpate protection and
board that Verduran in since I figure they will most likely drop some Critter hate):
Wish an Enchantress (1) +
Zenith an Enchantress (2) +
Draw an Enchantress (3+1) +
Draw a Presence (4)
= 11 @ avg mana of (33/ 11 =) 3

compared to

Zenith an Enchantress (4) +
Draw an Enchantress (4) +
Draw a Presence (4)
= 12 @ avg mana of (32 / 12 =) 2.666

(dropping the chance of getting an Enchantress Effect to ~83% by T3 if I am not mistaken)

and would have protection for the price of -1 Effect enabler.

Where do I (!) go from here?

At the moment I don't know.

I am waiting for my Playset of Composts to arrive to see them
in action. Extensive testing vs NicFit, Stoneblade and BUG indicate they
are perfectly fitted into my meta.

This would leave myself with the problem of considering graveyard hate.
Since I really enjoy the vision of deploying Grafdigger's Cage
although it is detrimental since I would lose GSZ, I would still have
- Wish
- Witness.

Now why would that looney bin even consider this?
Simple. I have been far too often on the receiving end of that card
since my current tournament deck of choice is Reanimator.
Also I have seen what this card DOES to Mav, NicFit and Tiago.dec.

This has been one (but not the prevailent) reason to "at least" test
less GSZ.s (the most imminent one was the very tight list).

So unless there is a faster T1 solution that is as redundant as "the Cage"
I am stuck with it in the "wrong meta".

Until then I will deploy that Wish since (assuming my build of 8 Effects, 2 GSZ, 1 Wish):
Wish (1) +
Draw an Enchantress (4) +
Draw a Presence (4) =
9

vs

Draw an Enchantress (4) +
Draw a Presence (4) =
8

As you might notice, my percentages to draw into an Enchantress Effect
drops "only" by ~6% (6.8% if I am not mistaken) but utterly devastates
those other decks by limiting their resources immensely.

Something I would not consider when running 4 GSZ.

Resumee
The use of that "one wish" is one of the reasons I am currently running
only two Zeniths.

So it seems that I divert from the most current builds by "still"
deploying a hard lock which alongside Mystic Remora
and reduced GSZ count give me some really nice options.
(Bouncing in his turn can be huge!)

Reveturning to options:
No opinion on the alternative mana engine Witness + Snap for added redundancy?

I don't actually have the space currently to deploy it myself but still it is/ would be
a good one since the will target those Words and the Clouds g2 with abandon.

[benthetenor]

I think it seems to be coming down to preference and perceived metagame.

I do think that Surgical Extraction may be one of the most important sideboard cards to deal with, so I appreciate your breaking down of the ways to beat it. I have watched the deck fold to Surgical Extraction in the past, so it may be something that needs dealing with. For me, your argument to move a Cloud of Faeries to the board to wish for in games 2 and 3 was perhaps the most compelling argument for Living Wish, and one I hadn't considered. That in and of itself may be a good enough reason to run Living Wish, though I'd much prefer to take the time to find a good answer to Surgical Extraction first, so that's what I'm going to spend some time thinking about in the days leading up to GP Denver. The best I could come up with in the past has been Ground Seal, which isn't bad, though it shuts off Eternal Witness which is a pretty steep price. It also has splash hate against Reanimator and Dredge, though that's definitely pretty minor.

It's not even clear to me, though, that Surgical Extraction is the card that most people will want to bring in against us. In order for it to work, we have to cast something and have it countered and surgical-ed, or have them discard and then surgical. Then they'd probably have to do that two games in a row. It's not something that won't happen, just not sure if it's worth giving up sideboard space to combat, particularly when effectively combating it could take a lot of space. Living Wish is a low opportunity cost answer to it, though. But not having Cloud of Faeries isn't the end of the world, it just means that you bounce 3-4 permanents a turn, rather than all of them. You're still going to get to the point where they have no permanents, it will just take a little longer. Maybe it's cavilear of me to just write off Surgical Extraction, maybe not. It just seems like an awful lot would have to go right for your opponent for it to be the right move, particularly if they have better sideboard cards against you like Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize.

I also think that you underestimate the ability of the deck to react to the entire format. What I love about this deck's sideboard is that, since you reliably draw lots and lots of cards, you can put in 1 and 2 ofs to combat decks and see them virtually every game, particularly when at least some of those cards are creatures that you can GSZ for. For me, this has given me a robust sideboard that has a plan to bring in at least three cards in every conceivable matchup, which I feel is important because even in the good matchups like Maverick and Stoneblade, if the opponent's deck is getting better and yours is not, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in games that you need to be able to win reliably. And having a diverse sideboard also means that you can pick the two or three cards that are most devastating to your opponent and avoid over-sideboarding to keep the deck functional. This is important because even the "bad" enchantments (like a Carpet of Flowers in the Maverick matchup, for instance) still function as Ancestral Recall and are in that sense often just better than a sideboard card that might not do anything that you absolutely need done.

For the Snap idea, not a bad one, but it gains the drawback of turning their mostly dead Swords to Plowshares into disruption. Back in the day, they played 4 Frantic Search and 2 Cloud of Faeries, which suggests that the optimal number of untap effects is more than 4, so Snap isn't a bad idea, just not sure if it's 100% necessary. It would certainly speed up the deck, but at the cost of stability, which might not be something you want to do when the main selling point of this deck is it's extreme stability. I am also not wild about the idea of adding in more non-enchantments, but that's a lesser concern.

Wish I had more time to expound, I think you did a great job illustrating your points and I thank you again for talking through them! You may have sold me on Living Wish, though like I said, I really, really like my SB the way it is and am not sure if I'm willing to change it just to combat Surgical Extraction, though that is absolutely a weak spot in my list that you've managed to shore up a little bit.

[LurkingMatt]

I think it seems to be coming down to preference and perceived metagame.
Agreed


I do think that Surgical Extraction may be one of the most important sideboard cards to deal with, so I appreciate your breaking down of the ways to beat it. I have watched the deck fold to Surgical Extraction in the past, so it may be something that needs dealing with. For me, your argument to move a Cloud of Faeries to the board to wish for in games 2 and 3 was perhaps the most compelling argument for Living Wish, and one I hadn't considered. That in and of itself may be a good enough reason to run Living Wish, though I'd much prefer to take the time to find a good answer to Surgical Extraction first, so that's what I'm going to spend some time thinking about in the days leading up to GP Denver.

First of all, the only (!) answer(s) I could find to Surgical have been current "staples" which are quiet
narrow in their application: Counters, Wheel and Rest in Peace.
While being good vs various decks and also creating nice interactions I found RIP to be undesirable and Wheel was
way to slow. I could win of other options while setting myself up via Wheel / E.Field (as example) so it was not
really a solution (still one of the few cases where I handed those Witnesses to the SB).

Ground Seal while being nice could be deployed - especially in a BUG meta and is actually a call I considered myself.
Due to itself cantripping you also gain momentum which in itself is nice.

Added in my "to be tested" list. Thanks.


The best I could come up with in the past has been Ground Seal, which isn't bad, though it shuts off Eternal Witness which is a pretty steep price. It also has splash hate against Reanimator and Dredge, though that's definitely pretty minor.

-2 Witnesses, +2 Ground Seal would be the move. Wish opens up the chance to get one if needed.
Without Wish you would derive yourself of a slow but steady card draw engine.


It's not even clear to me, though, that Surgical Extraction is the card that most people will want to bring in against us. In order for it to work, we have to cast something and have it countered and surgical-ed, or have them discard and then surgical.

You are thinking too small.

Let's consider your typical Tempo deck(RUG / BUG).
All they would consider is: Removing things like Bolts/ Stifles or Snares and add two to four more spells better suited
to get to us. That would/ could be Rough/Tumble, more counters(better vs us) and 2-4 Surgicals.

A good RUG player will consider it because:
Once he has seen your engine he will realise that those Seals of Removal are slowing him down while being very
good for us. Also he will consider the fact that we can't protect all of our critters/ mana accel from his attacks
which makes them targets (not to mention your own counters).

BUG is even worse:
Once they realize they can Deed us w/o repercussions while hitting us with discard you are in a world of pain.
How to prolong it and guarantee our annihilation? Enter Surgical.

That's the reason I tried (and liked it in "my" current meta) Compost.
While it is no answer, it deprives the other player of the tempo he is gaining from discard.
Now if I had the space for two wheels or Replenishes in my sideboard..... ;)

now consider typical Miracle, Mav or Stomeblade lists.
Of course they bring in more counters (if they have them) but they will also consider removing valuables from
your graveyard - especially if you had to "Emrakul 'em". ^^


Then they'd probably have to do that two games in a row. It's not something that won't happen, just not sure if it's worth giving up sideboard space to combat, particularly when effectively combating it could take a lot of space. Living Wish is a low opportunity cost answer to it, though. But not having Cloud of Faeries isn't the end of the world, it just means that you bounce 3-4 permanents a turn, rather than all of them. You're still going to get to the point where they have no permanents, it will just take a little longer. Maybe it's cavilear of me to just write off Surgical Extraction, maybe not. It just seems like an awful lot would have to go right for your opponent for it to be the right move, particularly if they have better sideboard cards against you like Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize.

Actually I agree that Living Wish isn't the strongest card in the deck.

Also I agree that they might have "better solutions" in their sideboard. But the surely realize that those Extractions
- if applied right - can slow us down to a point where they simply beat us to pulp while we try to figure out what went wrong. Trust me on this one since we have a well versed and dedicated Nic Fit player in our Playgroup who
once in a while simply beats in your face with RUG just "because he can". I learned a lot in those MUs.



I also think that you underestimate the ability of the deck to react to the entire format. What I love about this deck's sideboard is that, since you reliably draw lots and lots of cards, you can put in 1 and 2 ofs to combat decks and see them virtually every game, particularly when at least some of those cards are creatures that you can GSZ for. For me, this has given me a robust sideboard that has a plan to bring in at least three cards in every conceivable matchup, which I feel is important because even in the good matchups like Maverick and Stoneblade, if the opponent's deck is getting better and yours is not, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in games that you need to be able to win reliably. And having a diverse sideboard also means that you can pick the two or three cards that are most devastating to your opponent and avoid over-sideboarding to keep the deck functional. This is important because even the "bad" enchantments (like a Carpet of Flowers in the Maverick matchup, for instance) still function as Ancestral Recall and are in that sense often just better than a sideboard card that might not do anything that you absolutely need done.

I really do not think I underestimate the deck. I like(d) Enchantress already when it was young
(I myself played all the bad versions back the day (anyone remembering Attunement or
Rabbit Wombat, Pursuit of Knowledge/ Auratog?) and while being away from MtG from
Ravnica til Scars I always had an eye out for the game. This deck (in one configuration or the other) can
beat most decks in a "fair" fight. After all there isn't a hoser not designed as enchantment.... :D

That's why I like it and enjoyed the fact that this version gained a bit of prominence.


For the Snap idea, not a bad one, but it gains the drawback of turning their mostly dead Swords to Plowshares into disruption. Back in the day, they played 4 Frantic Search and 2 Cloud of Faeries, which suggests that the optimal number of untap effects is more than 4, so Snap isn't a bad idea, just not sure if it's 100% necessary. It would certainly speed up the deck, but at the cost of stability, which might not be something you want to do when the main selling point of this deck is it's extreme stability. I am also not wild about the idea of adding in more non-enchantments, but that's a lesser concern.

Thanks for the feedback.
As I recall we used to deploy those Snaps with the Witness. This would generate a secondary engine primarily
intended as backup engine to go infinte on mana on sorcery speed thus creating / being able to use more
mana intensive solutions (I think I recall being able to Stroke an opponent into oblivion without academy or
Tide was one of the funnier move those days... ). It would also add utility vs Hatebears though.
But since we already have that covered I considered it redundant but notable.


Wish I had more time to expound, I think you did a great job illustrating your points and I thank you again for talking through them! You may have sold me on Living Wish, though like I said, I really, really like my SB the way it is and am not sure if I'm willing to change it just to combat Surgical Extraction, though that is absolutely a weak spot in my list that you've managed to shore up a little bit.

Well you do not really have to change your sideboard much to be honest.

If you already deploy things like Teeg, Sliver/ QPM and a secondary win con (Emrakul, Empyrial, Sigarda, that Changeling Giant Spatula deployed) you are set. You might want to consider a singular Tabernacle, Maze, Karakas or Serra's Sanctum. I tried them and didn't like them but you "could" try them.

The only noteworthy entries where Tabernacle and Maze which shut down Gobs + Dredge but I already have
solutions to them so.... ^^

Wheel while being the slowest answer to Extraction is actually the strongest since he has to Grip/ Decay it
to get to you.

Since we are already open to their hate (no Sterling Grove) I cut them after trials for two Tempo Cards:
Mystic Remora,
Compost.

I cannot stress the fun it was to play one or the other vs Tempo when they had to have a lucky opening hand.
While Remora seems to be a bit clunky (it actually is) it is also good vs almost any other deck out there since
they all play spells. And while it doesn't seem like much it it also a nice protection suite vs removal when WoW
is out.
Compost was - at first - a strange addition a friend suggested since we searched for a way around discard (or
the hand disruption it conveys). My initial solution, Leyline of Sanctity, didn't hold up to expectations.
When we found compost, both of us laughed at first but soon realized during testing that it is really good vs
a lot of decks if you also deploy a more counter heavy list.
Why? I think you already figured that one out, didn't you? I really love cabal storm nowadays when they don't
combo before T2 ^^.

Currently I am searching for two maindeck slots to "seriously" test Exploration due to the fact
that it also enables T2 Enchantress and strengthens your manabase in combo making fizzling a non issue.

Sadly I don't seem to see the space.

Might consider sleeping a few more days over it and picking it up once more after that.

On a sidenote: I didn't like how "In the Eye of Chaos" played out.
When deployed at CMC 3 isn't it too slow?
I will wait on actual feedback before considering to aquire some.

Mana Maze has been better for me since I usually can try to play around it and it also
works strongly vs other counters and combos (Elf, Cabal Storm).
Still you have to remember that a versed player can screw you by playing a Brainstorm
to stop you from countering/ deploying that one critical spell. Also I hate to not being
able to counter friggin Delvers!

Regards,
Matt

P.S. : Need to test those Ground Seals. They are way slower then Cage and don't turn off nearly as much
but they are cantripping Enchantments wrecking a soft(er) MU as nicely as Wheel. Thanks again.

[Parax]

Might be stupid, but you said you were looking for a new win con. But once you get the infinite loop going, can't you just drop a helix pennicle and win that way?

[LurkingMatt]

Might be stupid, but you said you were looking for a new win con. But once you get the infinite loop going, can't you just drop a helix pennicle and win that way?

Not a new óne, an additional one.

Preferably not an enchantment since they will board hate.

Sorry, should have been more clear about that.

Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Hi all,
I'm a Enchantress player and I found U/G Enchantress very interesting.
I'm building this list:

Lands:
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
7 Forest

Creatures:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries

Spells:
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Cloudstone Curio
1 Back to Basics
2 Abundant Growth
2 Words of Wind
3 Mirri's Guile
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Brain Freeze

Sideboard:
4 Seal of Primordium
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Surgical Extraction

I'm using Cloudstone Curio to make more combo and to have more winning solutions:

- Cloudstone + 2 Faeries = infinite mana (can do it T2)
- Cloudstone + 1 Faeries + 1 Arghotian = infinite spells with only 2 enchanted lands (so kill with Brain freeze)
- Cloudstone + 2 Abundant Growth = to draw for G
- Cloudstone + any enchantment = Get back an Elephant Grass to reset its upkeep
... there are many combinaisons and work perfectly with Words of wind (Cloudstone enable us to get back an enchantment for free instead of have a second drawer and pay 1)

I'm using Garruk Wildspeaker like a big faerie or another winning solution.

What do you think about it ?

[LurkingMatt]

Hi all,
I'm a Enchantress player and I found U/G Enchantress very interesting.

First of all,

nice to see you here.

Second: Which kind of Enchantress do you also play?
This might help to understand your lines of thought.


I'm building this list:

Lands:
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
7 Forest

Creatures:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries

Spells:
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Cloudstone Curio
1 Back to Basics
2 Abundant Growth
2 Words of Wind
3 Mirri's Guile
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Brain Freeze

Sideboard:
4 Seal of Primordium
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Surgical Extraction

Will come back to it with Typos function. Still don't really like it.



I'm using Cloudstone Curio to make more combo and to have more winning solutions:

- Cloudstone + 2 Faeries = infinite mana (can do it T2)
- Cloudstone + 1 Faeries + 1 Arghotian = infinite spells with only 2 enchanted lands (so kill with Brain freeze)
- Cloudstone + 2 Abundant Growth = to draw for G
- Cloudstone + any enchantment = Get back an Elephant Grass to reset its upkeep
... there are many combinations and work perfectly with Words of Wind (Cloudstone enable us to get back an enchantment for free instead of have a second drawer and pay 1)

First of all, nice thoughts on Cloudstone Curio.
While not being really new as an engine (Elves! :smile: ) It can be used for added benefit.

I assume you are talking about
Cloudstone, Faerie + at least one land enchanted with Sprawl/ Growth?

But of course you are generating infinite stormcount.

Please be so kind and enlightened me how you go infinte and win
unless you have a 8 Card hand like

Starting hand:
Tropical Island, Forest, Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Cloud of Faeries, Cloud of Faeries, Cloudstone Curio.
Drawn Spell: WinCon/ Growth

T1 Forest, Sprawl(U), Go.
T2 Draw WinCon or Fail.
Trop, Tap for G, cast on Forest.
Tap Forest for GGU.
Cast Faeries#1. Entap Trop, Forest.
Tapping Trop + Forest for GGUx, Casting Cloudstone Curio
Cast Faeries#2. Trigger Curio: Bounce Faeries#1. Entap Lands

Assuming Draw is Abundant Growth:
Repeat cycle 2 times to generate 2 Mana, Drop Abundant, bounce a Sprawl, Recast Sprawl to bounce Abundant.

Probablities of both lines of play:
Statistically speaking: slim to none (less then 3%).

If you can provide insight, I really look forward to you reply.

Until then please note that the probablilities for a hand like that are so low, that a mere mentioning is...

simply not worth it (unless you mention the unlikeliness,too).

My main problem with the inclusion is the fact that space in this deck is at a premium due to
the tight list. Still, it is viable and also only a minor investment.

Also the win condition changes as you might have noticed.
While the GU Enchantress Engine is intended as a hard lock
(Draw Engine + Words of Wind) and
(Recursion + Mindbread Trap)
you are aiming for added interaction and opening yourelf up to alternative wins.

While personally I do not really see it as necessity, additional defense mechanism can/
could be created for midgame with Alchimist's Refuge if you plan to.


I'm using Garruk Wildspeaker like a big faerie or another winning solution.

What do you think about it ?

I really do not like Wildspeaker in this deck.

Both are not enchantments and thus have to have high impact to be included.

I can understand your reasoning for his inclusion (even more mana) you are already deluting your main line(s) of play.
He is generally "more win". If you want additional win condition(s) you might want to stay either on Curio or go for Wildspeaker.

Thoughts on your deck list/ what do I really enjoy from your ideas

Though the Curio can and probably will be "more win" most of the time, the idea could mean
accel to the combo plan.

While not really being new to me, Cloudstone Curio could not only work, it could incorporate
nicely into the interactions of this deck, speeding it up by one turn.

Due to the tight list and the current engine, I will have to give it a few goldfishs to see if I would like it included in any list
(which I don't see at this moment). Since I have been wrong more then once I will at least test the idea with a more
streamlined list.

Until then it is simply an idea for which I don't really have the space in my list since Ground Seal is a much better
slow down then Curio an accelerant.

I am looking forward to your results with Curio.

Pros:
1. Can "only" be stifled so no Needle, Revoker.
2. Can help while recurring w/o Winds.
3. Infinte mana/ storm is possible on a fast clock.
4. Opens up further possibilities.

Cons:
1. It will be hated by nearly all the same spells.
2. Abrupt Decay is a reality in this meta and also it will be hated by almost the same cards.
3. Usually it is simply "more win" unless you are willing to go by "Plan B".
4. One sided bounce not protected.
5. Delutes the game plan.
6. "Not needed"


Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Thanks you for your reply.



Second: Which kind of Enchantress do you also play?
This might help to understand your lines of thought.

I played G/W Enchantress then G/W/U Enchantress with Helm/Energy Field/Rest in peace combo.



I assume you are talking about
Cloudstone, Faerie + at least one land enchanted with Sprawl/ Growth?

But of course you are generating infinite stormcount.

Yes, of course with at least one land enchanted.



Please be so kind and enlightened me how you go infinte and win
unless you have a 8 Card hand like

Starting hand:
Tropical Island, Forest, Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Cloud of Faeries, Cloud of Faeries, Cloudstone Curio.
Drawn Spell: WinCon/ Growth

T1 Forest, Sprawl(U), Go.
T2 Draw WinCon or Fail.
Trop, Tap for G, cast on Forest.
Tap Forest for GGU.
Cast Faeries#1. Entap Trop, Forest.
Tapping Trop + Forest for GGUx, Casting Cloudstone Curio
Cast Faeries#2. Trigger Curio: Bounce Faeries#1. Entap Lands

Assuming Draw is Abundant Growth:
Repeat cycle 2 times to generate 2 Mana, Drop Abundant, bounce a Sprawl, Recast Sprawl to bounce Abundant.

Probablities of both lines of play:
Statistically speaking: slim to none (less then 3%).

It's the best way to win T2.
I know the probability is very low (but not nil).
It's not for the win T2 that I add Cloudstone, but to improve (for me) the speed of this deck.



Also the win condition changes as you might have noticed.
While the GU Enchantress Engine is intended as a hard lock
(Draw Engine + Words of Wind) and
(Recursion + Mindbread Trap)

Sorry but I don't understand (Recursion + MindBreak Trap), what is this lock ?



you are aiming for added interaction and opening yourelf up to alternative wins.

Not necessary an alternative win (it's a bonus), but more interactions with all cards in the deck and a complement to Words of Wind.



While personally I do not really see it as necessity, additional defense mechanism can/
could be created for midgame with Alchimist's Refuge if you plan to.

I don't see the utility of Alchimist's Refuge in this deck.



I really do not like Wildspeaker in this deck.

Both are not enchantments and thus have to have high impact to be included.

I can understand your reasoning for his inclusion (even more mana) you are already deluting your main line(s) of play.
He is generally "more win". If you want additional win condition(s) you might want to stay either on Curio or go for Wildspeaker.

Obviously Candelabra of Tawnos is better than Garruk but its price...
Wildspeaker is mainly to replace a faeries (what do you do if opponent play Surgical on faeries? Or manages them with any removal? ...).



Though the Curio can and probably will be "more win" most of the time, the idea could mean
accel to the combo plan.

While not really being new to me, Cloudstone Curio could not only work, it could incorporate
nicely into the interactions of this deck, speeding it up by one turn.

Accel to the combo plan is the first goal of Curio and offer us an alternative if Words of wind is managed by opponent or not yet draw.



Until then it is simply an idea for which I don't really have the space in my list since Ground Seal is a much better
slow down then Curio an accelerant.

Don't need to replace Ground Seal by Curio, there is surely a way to play both.



I am looking forward to your results with Curio.

No problem!



Pros:
1. Can "only" be stifled so no Needle, Revoker.
2. Can help while recurring w/o Winds.
3. Infinte mana/ storm is possible on a fast clock.
4. Opens up further possibilities.

Cons:
1. It will be hated by nearly all the same spells.
2. Abrupt Decay is a reality in this meta and also it will be hated by almost the same cards.
3. Usually it is simply "more win" unless you are willing to go by "Plan B".
4. One sided bounce not protected.
5. Delutes the game plan.
6. "Not needed"

The Cons point 2 is identical as the point 1 and Cons points 1,2 and 4 are available for Words of Wind (so more Pros than Cons :P).
Curio will be hated by all the same spells ok but I prefer have 4 cards that can be destroyed instead of 2.


I use Curio and Garruk because I find that current list with only Faeris+Word of winds is too breakable and can be too slow depending of the game.
Curio work with all enchantments(reset Grass upkeep, keep an enchant in hand to draw, move enchanted land to gain more mana...) in addition to work with creatures (infinite manas, infinite spells, or if you want infinite hp with Essence Warden or Kitchen Finks,Eternal Witness work too...).
I think that multiply the combinaisons allow us to be less breakable.

I changed my list in testing:
MD
- 1 mirri's guile
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Back to basics
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
+ 1 Dryad Arbor
+ 3 GSZ
+ 1 Tundra
To have quickly an argothian.

SB
- 4 Seal of primordium
- 4 leyline of sanctity
- 3 Surgical Extraction
+ 4 Rest in Peace
+ 3 Mana Maze
+ 1 Vexing Shusher
+ 1 Harmonic Sliver
+ 2 Replenish

[LurkingMatt]

Thanks you for your reply.


I played G/W Enchantress then G/W/U Enchantress with Helm/Energy Field/Rest in peace combo.


Yes, of course with at least one land enchanted.


It's the best way to win T2.
I know the probability is very low (but not nil).
It's not for the win T2 that I add Cloudstone, but to improve (for me) the speed of this deck.

It is the only way to win T2 to be precise. And since you have to play a bad card to make it
work or have to draw a win con....
I only told you that you should include this data into your information, nothing else. ;)


Sorry but I don't understand (Recursion + MindBreak Trap), what is this lock ?

Since your can bounce your Recursion (Eternal Witness) with Words you can retrieve MBC infinitely.
So he is able to drop a land, cast a spell (hard countered) and then you can recure it ad vinitum.


Not necessary an alternative win (it's a bonus), but more interactions with all cards in the deck and a complement to Words of Wind.

I don't see the utility of Alchimist's Refuge in this deck.

Without being impolite but you should really at least consider abilities before saying something like that.
You aim for interaction.
In MIDGAME (like I said) Refuge "could" be protection since you can bounce anything you own with the
help of curio when your opponent targets it. Also you could bounce his remaining / new permanents EoT.

Like I also said before: "Not really needed imho." Too cute atm.


Obviously Candelabra of Tawnos is better than Garruk but its price...
Wildspeaker is mainly to replace a faeries (what do you do if opponent play Surgical on faeries? Or manages them with any removal? ...).

You did read my post and realized I named my tech vs Surgical?
Also you should have at least checked the last few posts where another tech
was suggested and discussed with Ben.

Also ... naming Candelabra in this deck... To cite yourself freely:


I don't see the utility of Candelabra of Tawnos in this deck.


Accel to the combo plan is the first goal of Curio and offer us an alternative if Words of wind is managed by opponent or not yet draw.

Don't need to replace Ground Seal by Curio, there is surely a way to play both.

Like I already said(or indirectly suggested), that would be a reason to deploy it:
To get more interaction and utilize your own CiP-Effects even more.

Since my own list is too tight (and I always have to fight through BUG/ RUG) I can't
test it effectively.

If you want to suggest changes to my list, I can surely PM it to you or
you go back one page.
Changes:
Remora in the sideboard, Ground Seal in it's place. + 1 Confinement as placeholder in SB.

So I will wait for your results.



The Cons point 2 is identical as the point 1 and Cons points 1,2 and 4 are available for Words of Wind (so more Pros than Cons :P).
Curio will be hated by all the same spells ok but I prefer have 4 cards that can be destroyed instead of 2.

First of, I only pointed out Pros and Cons and never compared Curio to Words which would be a bit unfair for Curio.
Second Pro #1 and Pro #2 are definetly different and not identical.

I do understand your opinion and mostly agree but like I said:
"Interesting but probably too redundant MD (thus G1). This could very much work but you will have to tighten your decklist."




I use Curio and Garruk because I find that current list with only Faeris+Word of winds is too breakable and can be too slow depending of the game.

So far I didn't find it too slow. Vs Storm you already deploy as Combo/ Control and don't tryto outrace them, Tempo is "on schedule"
and you also slow them down to dictate the tempo
.
Also Curio + Garruk don't interact well/ at all, why I suggested playing either one or the other.


Curio work with all enchantments(reset Grass upkeep, keep an enchant in hand to draw, move enchanted land to gain more mana...) in addition to work with creatures (infinite manas, infinite spells, or if you want infinite hp with Essence Warden or Kitchen Finks,Eternal Witness work too...).
I think that multiply the combinaisons allow us to be less breakable.

I am well aware that Curio works well when unhindered.

Since you seem to have all the answers please give me a simple one:

What do you do vs Blue.dec (say.... BUG Control) which decides not to lay on it's side and die to your angry stares?


I changed my list in testing:
MD
- 1 mirri's guile
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Back to basics
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
+ 1 Dryad Arbor
+ 3 GSZ
+ 1 Tundra
To have quickly an argothian.

SB
- 4 Seal of primordium
- 4 leyline of sanctity
- 3 Surgical Extraction
+ 4 Rest in Peace
+ 3 Mana Maze
+ 1 Vexing Shusher
+ 1 Harmonic Sliver
+ 2 Replenish

Cutting Witness is crippling the deck or - to be precise -
turns this deck into another Bant version. You clearly don't
understand some of the interactions of this deck.

Also having no counters maindeck is not really wise imho
since you are dead to storm G1. Without confinement the
weather can get very could very fast.

To sum my last reply up:
Your genereal idea sounds interesting - if you intend to try Curio, go ahead.
[BIIf[/B] you intend to pursue this thought (which I encourage)
I would suggest dropping MD Garruk though since he has no
real interaction with the remaining deck that makes him better
then a currently used card. He is a valid sideboard choice though.

The findings could be interesting and I am looking to hear from you. :smile:


Please try to remember a simple rule:
"To replace a card, the replacement has to be better then the old one!"

Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Since your can bounce your Recursion (Eternal Witness) with Words you can retrieve MBC infinitely.
So he is able to drop a land, cast a spell (hard countered) and then you can recure it ad vinitum.

Ok! But have you already win with Recursion+MindBreak ? It seems to be expensive (:4::g::g::u::u: at each turn), no?




Without being impolite but you should really at least consider abilities before saying something like that.

Sorry, I didn't see that protection. Thanks you!




Also ... naming Candelabra in this deck...

It's only to find another solution in additionnal of faeries. Faeries are the best, but I'm afraid only x4 in a combo deck is not enough.



Since my own list is too tight (and I always have to fight through BUG/ RUG) I can't
test it effectively.

I understand, I will continue to test Curio and report here each tournament.




First of, I only pointed out Pros and Cons and never compared Curio to Words which would be a bit unfair for Curio.
Second Pro #1 and Pro #2 are definetly different and not identical.

I'm talking about Cons#1 and Cons#2 but it's not important.



Also Curio + Garruk don't interact well/ at all, why I suggested playing either one or the other.

I will meditate about Garruk.



Cutting Witness is crippling the deck or - to be precise -
turns this deck into another Bant version. You clearly don't
understand some of the interactions of this deck.

I will try without Witness and I will see if I made a mistake :smile:.



Also having no counters maindeck is not really wise imho
since you are dead to storm G1. Without confinement the
weather can get very could very fast.

I can play Brain Freeze during opponent storm to kill him :tongue::tongue::tongue:.
For this moment, I hope to not meet Storm or win G2 and G3 :cool:.

Thanks you!

[LurkingMatt]

Like I promised, my feedback to your card selections:



Dihensoeur's Deck (edited according to his last post)


Lands:
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
6 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tundra

Creatures:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries

Spells:
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Cloudstone Curio
2 Abundant Growth
2 Words of Wind
2 Mirri's Guile
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Brain Freeze



Sideboard:

4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Rest in Peace
3 Mana Maze
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Harmonic Sliver
2 Replenish



Generally speaking I don't like it. Too many cute techs which also delegate this
deck from combo/ control to combo.

Lands:
I assume you threw those Fetchlands in you have/ had on hand.
Under this assumption, it looks valid except for that Serra's Sanctum.
Since you can do squat without Enchantments and you are already on 18 lands,
you should strongly consider that choice. I'd go -1 Sanctum, +1 Forest.

Creatures:
Standard except no Witnesses.
I would suggest adding at least one/ better both of them.
They are really good at retrieving anything you might need.
Also they add value to your Zeniths and play nice with G1 discard.

Spells:
First of all, I wouldn't ever play Abundant Growth.
If you look for a cantrip, get one that has a better function then simply
mana fixing (which you already did with the inclusion of more duals).
Also I don't like those additional WinCons.
Assuming your plan works you should have Beatdown, Emrakul, Brain Freeze
and Garruk. A bit too excessive for my taste.
No Living Wish means you won't be able to board out any
Faeries which can be deadly if you are hit by Discard + Extirpate.
3 Zeniths is between Ben and mine number.

Sideboard:
This is usually designed towards a specific meta and not much can be said generally speaking.
Your meta seems to be heavily geared towards monocolored decks and GY-Hate.

Still I am missing Sphere of Safety and more anti-blue tech.
Since you plan on not running any MD counters (thus nearly autolosing vs storm) I would
suggest changing those Traps vs Flusterstorm or the very least Spell Pierce.

Also no Seal of Primordium MD and SB?

I guess those Replenish are intended as anti-discard tech? Why not an enchantment which also
accels you? I would suggest Compost? At least this one wouldn't be hit by said discard
if deployed in time.


Considering all of the criticism above I would change the deck into:

//Combo
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

2 Cloudstone Curio
2 Words of Wind
4 Cloud of Faeries

//Ramp
2 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth

//Other Suite
1 Living Wish
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Eternal Witness
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Sylvan Library
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal

//Lands
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
5 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor


Sideboard:
4 Flusterstorm
2 Rest in Peace
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Mana Maze
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Compost
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Brainfreeze


You might have noticed I didn't have space to include Sphere of Safety or Emrakul, The AEons Torn.

This is due to the fact that I wanted to be able to abuse your Curio idea to generate more CiP Trigger and more storm.
If I would have to include them, I would cut the Brainfreeze and one RiP for one of each.

Generally speaking I would suggest to you to streamline your deck either
- to support Words of Wind or
- add more redundancy to the mana generation.

Once those changes work, you can try to solve the other "problem" you perceive.


Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

Ok! But have you already win with Recursion+MindBreak ? It seems to be expensive (:4::g::g::u::u: at each turn), no?

As a matter of fact it is quiet easy to pay that amount of mana around T5.


Sorry, I didn't see that protection. Thanks you!

No harm done. Like I said it is mostly cute like Words of Wind and Mystic Remora.
Bouncing on their turn can be nice but is mostly cute (still I like it).


It's only to find another solution in additional of faeries. Faeries are the best, but I'm afraid only x4 in a combo deck is not enough.

If you want additional options you might also want to consider Snap. Though I can attest that those Cloud of Faeries
are really good and enough in G1 they are sort of exposed in G2. Snap can also bounce your Eternal Witness and -
considering you have two lands producing GGU or more for infinite mana/ infinite storm.
Still I really like your idea of Cloudstone Curio since the interaction is really nice and actually better/ cheaper.


I understand, I will continue to test Curio and report here each tournament.

Thanks alot. I am really looking forward to it.


I'm talking about Cons#1 and Cons#2 but it's not important.

Oops. Sorry here. Yes those points are really overlapping.
Abrupt Decay has - for a reason I don't really understand gotten
my full attention so I always consider it.


I will meditate about Garruk.


I will try without Witness and I will see if I made a mistake :smile:.


I can play Brain Freeze during opponent storm to kill him :tongue::tongue::tongue:.
For this moment, I hope to not meet Storm or win G2 and G3 :cool:.

Thanks you!

You can even try to naturally draw into that brain freeze via Compost or Mystic Remora.

I myself really enjoyed the face of my last ANT-opponent when he had to find out the hard ways that Enchantress
doesn't simply roll over to him without a fight. I lost 1-2 due to a miscalculation and wrong fetch. It opened up a
window of opportunity he took and actually managed to go off through Compost, Mystic Remora
and Mana Maze. *sigh*

Shit happens.

I thank you for your nice ideas and am looking forward to hearing your suggestions what to cut for Cloudstone Curio.

For your reference my current list:

//Basics (11)
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Living Wish
2 Green Sun's Zenith

// Supplemental Engine/ Enabler (12)
2 Eternal Witness
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Seal of Removal


//Mana + Accel (9)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Dryad Arbor

//Toolbox/ Engine (7)
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Elephant Grass
2 Ground Seal

//Control Component/ Prison Element (2)
2 Words of Wind
2 Mindbreak Trap

//Mana Base (19)
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
7 Forest
2 Island


//Sideboard
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Harmonic Sliver

2 Mystic Remora
2 Compost
2 Mana Maze
1 Sphere of Safety

2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Flusterstorm

As you can see the deck is geared towards a combo/ BUG meta which I currently encounter
on a weekly basis. Most current change(s):
- Moving Mystic Remora to sideboard since Ground Seal shuts down Deathrite Shaman.
- Removing Exploration since it was simply cute.

Maindeck Enchants and Dryad Arbor vs Chrome Mox depend on expected meta at this moment.

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

Short tournament report of our local weekly legacy.

To summarize: Went 2-2 but never had the feeling victory was out of reach.
Never met BUG but had run ins with BUr, Reanimator and Gate.

The long version:
MtG Salvation Blog Link (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/blog.php?b=8186)

Regards,
Matt

[benthetenor]

Back from the GP. Definitely didn't go the way wanted it to, almost entirely based on my own play mistakes. I messed up the first round which got me a draw when I was absolutely going to win (drew 4 cards with only 3 Enchantresses, giving me a game loss in game 2), and that put me in the draw bracket all tournament. Beat Miracle Blade (though ended in a draw, as mentioned), Junk and Bant, then lost to Merfolk (almost won game 1, then mulled to oblivion game 2), Elves (can't win, at least not with my current list) and Esperblade when I was frustrated and not playing well. My mulligan decisions need some work, along with a few (though not many that I caught) play decisions. I will say this; be careful when you're winning with this deck, as it's pretty easy to accidentally draw too many cards. I had to be on my guard the rest of the tournament, and it wasn't a mistake I wanted to make again. Here's what I played, for reference:

Lands:
6 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah

Creatures:
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Verduran Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Eternal Witness

Spells:
1 Flusterstorm
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Carpet of Flowers
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Words of Wind
3 Enchantress's Presence
4 Green Sun's Zenith

SB:
2 Flusterstorm
2 Deep Analysis
1 Chill
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Back to Basics
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Compost
1 Krosan Grip
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Kitchen Finks


Just some quick notes. I went with the Enchantress split that I did so that a Surgical Extraction on Argothian Enchantress or an Engineered Plague on Humans wouldn't completely destroy my ability to function. Other than that, the main is pretty standard. For the sideboard, I tried a few different things out. Back to Basics is absolutely insane in this metagame, but I'm not really convinced that it's what we want to be doing, since we don't really care how much mana they have. Though in theory, B2B + Elephant Grass is a lock against something like RUG or BUG or Jund or anyone who doesn't have any basics. Dueling Grounds was okay, though I think there has to be a better fifth Elephant Grass out there...maybe just Propaganda or Ghostly Prison? I jammed some test games against ANT (my friend got 42nd playing ANT at the tournament) but clearly didn't see it, though In the Eye of Chaos just completely destroyed his ability to function in a timely manner, so I think it's good. The absolute best card in my sideboard all day long was Deep Analysis, and it wasn't even close. It's not flashy by any means, but it completely turned around games where I got hammered with discard early or got my first enchantress or two countered. In general, the decks that are doing those things to you are not bad matchups, but you need some way to recover from a lot of discard or timely counterspells, as those are the only way that those kinds of decks are going to beat you.

What I do want to test is more Compost in the board, along with Chrome Mox over some number of lands. I'd be very interested to see how often a turn 1 Enchantress happens. It felt like the deck was just a slight bit too slow sometimes, and getting down an enchantress before they can interact with you is probably just really important. Turn 1 Thoughtseize slows us down by a lot, so being able to get the Enchantress out there extra early is probably important. Along those lines, I'd also like to go back and test 2 Exploration and 1 land in place of the Carpet of Flowers, since the format isn't nearly as blue as it was even a month ago. It still crushed against blue decks, but even those decks are more geared towards Counterspell than Spell Pierce or Daze. As for Verduran Enchantress over the 4th Enchantress's Presence, I don't think it helped or hurt. It makes us a little more vulnerable to Wrath effects, a little less vulnerable to Disenchants, slightly less efficient just in the sense that Presence cantrips with other Enchantress effects on the board, but also more resilient to stuff that's bad for us. I didn't see a Surgical Extraction all day, so it's possible that I was correct when I assumed that most people won't bring them in, though I didn't face off against RUG which usually has a set. I don't really see a good reason to not just run it that way, though maybe there's merit to just trying to fit both cards into the deck.

One thing that was cool was I beat Counter Top game 1 by just tricking my opponent into putting Top on top, then casting Words of Wind, then making him slowly pick up all of his lands. Just crushed him. I guess what I mean to say is, I'm not really worried about Counterbalance + Top anymore...I also decided that this deck needs to be playing against good decks, so winning the first round is tech. It has a rough time against a lot, but I think it crushes BUG, and should have plenty of game against Jund, so it should still be pretty well positioned in the metagame if we can solve the Elves issue.

[Dihensoeur]

Thanks you for your feedback. My deck is still changing and you help me to improve it!



If you want additional options you might also want to consider Snap. Though I can attest that those Cloud of Faeries
are really good and enough in G1 they are sort of exposed in G2. Snap can also bounce your Eternal Witness and -
considering you have two lands producing GGU or more for infinite mana/ infinite storm.
Still I really like your idea of Cloudstone Curio since the interaction is really nice and actually better/ cheaper.

Good idea Snap + Eternal Witness to get infinite mana/storm!
In your deck, you have Ground Seal (I think I will add it too) even it's not compatible with Eternal Witness (Have you met problems in your tests?).

I have some doubts about Mana maze.It allow to play at least one spell by turn, so Elves can play and attack or get Harmonic Sliver with GSZ and storm like ANT can alternate artifact/blue spell/black spell (and red spell).
Is It really effective?

What do you think about Defense of the Heart in sideboard for Aggro deck?

[Joe Eigo]

Just some quick notes. I went with the Enchantress split that I did so that a Surgical Extraction on Argothian Enchantress or an Engineered Plague on Humans wouldn't completely destroy my ability to function. Other than that, the main is pretty standard. For the sideboard, I tried a few different things out. Back to Basics is absolutely insane in this metagame, but I'm not really convinced that it's what we want to be doing, since we don't really care how much mana they have. Though in theory, B2B + Elephant Grass is a lock against something like RUG or BUG or Jund or anyone who doesn't have any basics. Dueling Grounds was okay, though I think there has to be a better fifth Elephant Grass out there...maybe just Propaganda or Ghostly Prison? I jammed some test games against ANT (my friend got 42nd playing ANT at the tournament) but clearly didn't see it, though In the Eye of Chaos just completely destroyed his ability to function in a timely manner, so I think it's good. The absolute best card in my sideboard all day long was Deep Analysis, and it wasn't even close. It's not flashy by any means, but it completely turned around games where I got hammered with discard early or got my first enchantress or two countered. In general, the decks that are doing those things to you are not bad matchups, but you need some way to recover from a lot of discard or timely counterspells, as those are the only way that those kinds of decks are going to beat you.

What I do want to test is more Compost in the board, along with Chrome Mox over some number of lands. I'd be very interested to see how often a turn 1 Enchantress happens. It felt like the deck was just a slight bit too slow sometimes, and getting down an enchantress before they can interact with you is probably just really important. Turn 1 Thoughtseize slows us down by a lot, so being able to get the Enchantress out there extra early is probably important. Along those lines, I'd also like to go back and test 2 Exploration and 1 land in place of the Carpet of Flowers, since the format isn't nearly as blue as it was even a month ago. It still crushed against blue decks, but even those decks are more geared towards Counterspell than Spell Pierce or Daze. As for Verduran Enchantress over the 4th Enchantress's Presence, I don't think it helped or hurt. It makes us a little more vulnerable to Wrath effects, a little less vulnerable to Disenchants, slightly less efficient just in the sense that Presence cantrips with other Enchantress effects on the board, but also more resilient to stuff that's bad for us. I didn't see a Surgical Extraction all day, so it's possible that I was correct when I assumed that most people won't bring them in, though I didn't face off against RUG which usually has a set. I don't really see a good reason to not just run it that way, though maybe there's merit to just trying to fit both cards into the deck.

One thing that was cool was I beat Counter Top game 1 by just tricking my opponent into putting Top on top, then casting Words of Wind, then making him slowly pick up all of his lands. Just crushed him. I guess what I mean to say is, I'm not really worried about Counterbalance + Top anymore...I also decided that this deck needs to be playing against good decks, so winning the first round is tech. It has a rough time against a lot, but I think it crushes BUG, and should have plenty of game against Jund, so it should still be pretty well positioned in the metagame if we can solve the Elves issue.

Nice thoughts, similar to my own. I already dropped the Carpet's for 3-4 Exploration's too. They are way more consistent since you just rely on the amount of your own lands and not the amount of islands you opp has. Still not convinced about them, because it's nearly dead without any extra land's. Considering Chrome Mox i really have no opinion yet.

What i didn't like on many lists i saw on the net were the amount of cards in the deck, which don't do anything relevant to the deck's game plan. In the beginning i joined the train with 2 Witness', 2 Words of Wind, 1 Living Wish but really got angry sometimes because you don't want any of these cards in you 7 opener. I understand the logic to play these card's, but would really try to reduce the count to a minimum.

BTW I noticed you just kill with Cloud of Faeries and Witnesse's once you bounced everything right ? Or do i miss something ... ? :-) Did that work out for you or was it annoying/costed games to not be able to end the match right there ?

Another question i'm asking myself is why everyone wants to play that single Seal of Primordium. What is that needed against in the first game ? BUG ? RUG ? Combo ? I think in these most important matchup it's a dead card. Against most Aggro we should just win without it or there's something wrong with the deck...

A card i'm also not sure about is that single Arbor. While it may accelerate sometimes it's also a neet Wasteland target and hell slow if played as a regular land. I don't want to lose to Wasteland with approx. 10 Basics in the deck.... :-/

I also don't like that 2 Island's and 2 Trop's combination in most decklists i saw. I guess that much blue islands are not necessary with 7 Fetche's and 4 Utopia Sprawl imo. A 1/1 split should be fine.
The only card that really has to come out "fast" is possibly Seal of Removal (dependent on the matchup). Cloud of Faeries and Words get relevant first when going off.

Well just my cents of thoughts...

[benthetenor]

Nice thoughts, similar to my own. I already dropped the Carpet's for 3-4 Exploration's too. They are way more consistent since you just rely on the amount of your own lands and not the amount of islands you opp has. Still not convinced about them, because it's nearly dead without any extra land's. Considering Chrome Mox i really have no opinion yet.

I tried Exploration a while ago and didn't find it to be better or worse than Carpet of Flowers. They're not really even similar cards though, as Carpet of Flowers is almost entirely about beating Spell Pierce and Daze, whereas Exploration is just about accelerating out every turn. It can definitely be explosive, though if you're going to be playing Exploration, I think you want to play at least 21 lands, which is another downside to that card.


What i didn't like on many lists i saw on the net were the amount of cards in the deck, which don't do anything relevant to the deck's game plan. In the beginning i joined the train with 2 Witness', 2 Words of Wind, 1 Living Wish but really got angry sometimes because you don't want any of these cards in you 7 opener. I understand the logic to play these card's, but would really try to reduce the count to a minimum.

The more you play, the more you'll see the utility of having those cards in the opening hand. Eternal Witness is the least useful, though even he is really important for overpowering counterspells. He can even be used to ensure that you hit your land drop, while at the same time clogging up the ground against aggro decks.


BTW I noticed you just kill with Cloud of Faeries and Witnesse's once you bounced everything right ? Or do i miss something ... ? :-) Did that work out for you or was it annoying/costed games to not be able to end the match right there ?

Nope. I don't really see any situations where simply explaining to your opponent what it is that you're going to do isn't sufficient for them to concede. Particularly when you legit are going to win and there's nothing they can do about it. So for them, the choice becomes, make you kill them in time, or concede and have some sort of a shot at games 2 and 3. But failing that, the cases where you need an "actual" win condition are extremely rare, as the deck can also beat for 9 a turn when you get all of your guys down. That's only one more turn than casting out an Emrakul, so if you get to turns, the chances of you needing to kill them in 2 turns instead of 3 are going to be pretty rare.


Another question i'm asking myself is why everyone wants to play that single Seal of Primordium. What is that needed against in the first game ? BUG ? RUG ? Combo ? I think in these most important matchup it's a dead card. Against most Aggro we should just win without it or there's something wrong with the deck...

A card i'm also not sure about is that single Arbor. While it may accelerate sometimes it's also a neet Wasteland target and hell slow if played as a regular land. I don't want to lose to Wasteland with approx. 10 Basics in the deck.... :-/

I also don't like that 2 Island's and 2 Trop's combination in most decklists i saw. I guess that much blue islands are not necessary with 7 Fetche's and 4 Utopia Sprawl imo. A 1/1 split should be fine.
The only card that really has to come out "fast" is possibly Seal of Removal (dependent on the matchup). Cloud of Faeries and Words get relevant first when going off.

Well just my cents of thoughts...

I talked about Seal of Primordium earlier, too. The only card you absolutely have to beat before you can go off is Pithing Needle, which is extremely rare game one. That being said, Seal of Primordium is a cheap enchantment that gives you lots of utility for a single deck spot. There's not really anything I'd rather play in that spot, which is why it has stuck around. It gives you edges against MUD decks and Counterbalance decks and pretty much every deck that might have something you want to kill. What would you replace it with? Anything that's not an enchantment would be a mistake.

About the lands, Dryad Arbor is pretty bad when you draw it. I'm testing Chrome Mox now and Dryad Arbor isn't there anymore. I miss the ability to GSZ for accelerants, but so far it's rarely come up because you don't usually need it. The marginal benefit of adding in 4 more accelerants is probably not worth the cost of drawing Dryad Arbor. Now, if I were playing with Exploration instead, I'd be more inclined to run Dryad Arbor, since his downside is largely negated by just playing an extra land. As far as the Island comments, have you actually played with the deck, or are you just spitballing? I haven't had any issues at all with getting the mana that I want, with fetching out enough basics, with anything at all. I think the manabase is perfect, and I'm not sure what it is that you're trying to accomplish by changing it, particularly if it's going to make you lose cards that you need to fuel the engine, like Seal of Removal.

[LurkingMatt]

Thanks you for your feedback. My deck is still changing and you help me to improve it!


Good idea Snap + Eternal Witness to get infinite mana/storm!
In your deck, you have Ground Seal (I think I will add it too) even it's not compatible with Eternal Witness (Have you met problems in your tests?).

Actually none so far.

Since Witness usually comes down in my combo turn, I already bounced those Seals if necessary.
Still I had one game of awkwardness where I would have liked to get something. Still played out as intended just w/o recursion.


I have some doubts about Mana maze.It allow to play at least one spell by turn,
so Elves can play and attack or get Harmonic Sliver with GSZ and storm like ANT can alternate
artifact/blue spell/black spell (and red spell).
Is It really effective?

What do you think about Defense of the Heart in sideboard for Aggro deck?

I played vs ANT and Mana Maze really screwed him over to be honest.
The fact that he had to alternate between spells and/ or drop Artifacts alongside the mana calculation
really messed him up.

It is actually really good vs Elves! and the Gate + intended as "Anti-Counter" suite to be honest.
Still I should be able to cut it for Curios in G2.

Nice idea. Will try.

Defense of the Heart... well if(!) you want to deploy it, we could simply cut things like
Living Wish for Emrakul.
We could board it vs Mav, Stoneblade, Gobs, BUG, RUG, Elves (and yes I am aware of the fact that BUG
and RUG usually do not deploy 3+ attackers). Elves would get one more turn to go of which can be... bad.

Just remembered a thing: Someone already used that tech with Forbidden Orchard to net
those critter numbers to the opponent. A solid secondary WinCon this way.

Sounds good.

Definetly worth a try.

Regards,
Matt

[Alexeezay]

Mana Maze sucks because they can Burning Wish/tutor for a bounce spell and still combo through easily.
As you accelerate with Sprawl/Growth/Arbor the 1st turn anyway, you can run 3-drop hate such as In the The Eye of Chaos or Rule of Law. (next to Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm, Gaddock Teeg etc)

[LurkingMatt]

Back from the GP. Definitely didn't go the way wanted it to, almost entirely based on my own play mistakes. I messed up the first round which got me a draw when I was absolutely going to win (drew 4 cards with only 3 Enchantresses, giving me a game loss in game 2), and that put me in the draw bracket all tournament. Beat Miracle Blade (though ended in a draw, as mentioned), Junk and Bant, then lost to Merfolk (almost won game 1, then mulled to oblivion game 2), Elves (can't win, at least not with my current list) and Esperblade when I was frustrated and not playing well. My mulligan decisions need some work, along with a few (though not many that I caught) play decisions.

Welcome back, Ben.

I was already wondering where you had been. ;)

More/ more detailed info would be appreciated.

Especially boarding plans for avoiding stupid mistakes like
my boarding out Ground Seal vs Gate could
be a nice addition.

I slaughtered most of the engine in that game. ^^

Also a "real Primer" is imho slowly needed.

If you want help, holler.


I will say this; be careful when you're winning with this deck, as it's pretty easy to accidentally draw too many cards. I had to be on my guard the rest of the tournament, and it wasn't a mistake I wanted to make again. Here's what I played, for reference:

Lands:
6 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah

Creatures:
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Verduran Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Eternal Witness

Spells:
1 Flusterstorm
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Carpet of Flowers
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Words of Wind
3 Enchantress's Presence
4 Green Sun's Zenith

SB:
2 Flusterstorm
2 Deep Analysis
1 Chill
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Back to Basics
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Compost
1 Krosan Grip
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Kitchen Finks


Just some quick notes. I went with the Enchantress split that I did so that a Surgical Extraction on Argothian Enchantress or an Engineered Plague on Humans wouldn't completely destroy my ability to function. Other than that, the main is pretty standard.

A few questions:

1. Was decking really that much of a problem?
I had those problems only two times so far.
You mentioned a mistake/ self deck...
If it isn't too hurtful, could you exaggerate for our
learning experience?
2. Did you have any problems with that Verduran?
If you encountered no relevant hate, Your split looks nice.
Still I think a 4/4/0 split would be better.
Several older articles mentioned them being happy not to worry
about Verduran Enchantress in the old extended decks.
And yes I saw your reply a bit down and still keep ask.
3. How was your one counter faring in those MUs?
4. Assuming your 75, that means we would have three open md slots?
Nice.


For the sideboard, I tried a few different things out. Back to Basics is absolutely insane in this metagame,
but I'm not really convinced that it's what we want to be doing, since we don't really care how much mana they have.

Though in theory, B2B + Elephant Grass is a lock against something like RUG or BUG or Jund or anyone who doesn't have any basics.
Dueling Grounds was okay, though I think there has to be a better fifth Elephant Grass out there...maybe just Propaganda or Ghostly Prison?

Concerning B2B: Tried and dropped it like a hot potatoe.
While your suggestion(s) about Ground Seal was a really nice addition since it safed my but vs Extracting effects,
I concur with your assumption about B2B. It slowed me down like ... well... since this isn't my native language, let'S just say I
was as sluggish as 747 trying to evade a Stinger Missile.

Sphere of Safety - it safed my but and made boarding -4 Elephant Grass vs ANT/ T.E.S. a real option.
Otherwise your best bet would be Propaganda or Energy Field I guess.


I jammed some test games against ANT (my friend got 42nd playing ANT at the tournament) but clearly didn't see it,
though In the Eye of Chaos just completely destroyed his ability to function in a timely manner, so I think it's good.
The absolute best card in my sideboard all day long was Deep Analysis, and it wasn't even close.
It's not flashy by any means, but it completely turned around games where I got hammered with discard early or got my first enchantress or two countered.
In general, the decks that are doing those things to you are not bad matchups, but you need some way to recover from a lot of discard or timely counterspells,
as those are the only way that those kinds of decks are going to beat you.

Did you consider Mystic Remora?

If yes, I will check those Deep Analysiss *check, jupp still got the playset*.


What I do want to test is more Compost in the board, along with Chrome Mox over some number of lands. I'd be very interested to see how often a turn 1 Enchantress happens. It felt like the deck was just a slight bit too slow sometimes, and getting down an enchantress before they can interact with you is probably just really important. Turn 1 Thoughtseize slows us down by a lot, so being able to get the Enchantress out there extra early is probably important. Along those lines, I'd also like to go back and test 2 Exploration and 1 land in place of the Carpet of Flowers, since the format isn't nearly as blue as it was even a month ago. It still crushed against blue decks, but even those decks are more geared towards Counterspell than Spell Pierce or Daze. As for Verduran Enchantress over the 4th Enchantress's Presence, I don't think it helped or hurt. It makes us a little more vulnerable to Wrath effects, a little less vulnerable to Disenchants, slightly less efficient just in the sense that Presence cantrips with other Enchantress effects on the board, but also more resilient to stuff that's bad for us. I didn't see a Surgical Extraction all day, so it's possible that I was correct when I assumed that most people won't bring them in, though I didn't face off against RUG which usually has a set. I don't really see a good reason to not just run it that way, though maybe there's merit to just trying to fit both cards into the deck.

I tried a Growth, Sprawl/ Exploration split of 3/3/2 while testing but since I had to burrow those Explorations I went back to 4/4/0.
It added a bit more accel but no possibility of T1 Enchantress drop (still had several games where I went of 1 turn faster due to it).
I am running 19 lands currently for reference.
Also it opens up nice interaction while comboing out to drop more lands.


One thing that was cool was I beat Counter Top game 1 by just tricking my opponent into putting Top on top, then casting Words of Wind, then making him slowly pick up all of his lands. Just crushed him. I guess what I mean to say is, I'm not really worried about Counterbalance + Top anymore...I also decided that this deck needs to be playing against good decks, so winning the first round is tech. It has a rough time against a lot, but I think it crushes BUG, and should have plenty of game against Jund, so it should still be pretty well positioned in the metagame if we can solve the Elves issue.

GZ to your Jedi Mind Trick *g*

Elves is a deck I have extensive experience with.
It simply falter to Mana Maze when you slow them down.

Newer lists run those DRS MD, so they might have decays in SB and except those no removal vs us.
Also those list like their SB Cabal Therapy a lot so Compost is even
better as a sideboard tech if you find something to cut for it.

Vs them it is essential to have those additional counters to evade at least Glimpse comboing
in my experience.

[LurkingMatt]

Mana Maze sucks because they can Burning Wish/tutor for a bounce spell and still combo through easily.
As you accelerate with Sprawl/Growth/Arbor the 1st turn anyway, you can run 3-drop hate such as In the The Eye of Chaos or Rule of Law. (next to Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm, Gaddock Teeg etc)

You are aware of their current tech?

Eye of Nowhere sees almost no play.

Most rely completely on their Abrupt Decays, while
some use max 2 Chain of Vapor.

But I agree that it is the weakest tech vs Cabal Storm.
Still it was better then nothing. ^^

Regards,
Matt

[benthetenor]

It wasn't a problem with decking, I got a game-loss from the judges for drawing too many cards. It was the first and only time that I've done that in more than two months of playing the deck, and I can't believe I did it, but it just reinforced to me how important it is to pay attention to your triggers. It was a mistake that cost me a game and put me in the draw bracket since we only had 8 minutes left in the round.

Verduran was fine, didn't notice any issues. I think the ability to GSZ for an Enchantress after they've already Surgical-ed an Argothian or have an Engineered Plague down is pretty important, but the truth is that both of those issues are pretty few and far between. It would probably actually just be better to run more Seal of Primordium and/or Ground Seal to solve those individual cards than run the split, since I did get my team wrathed on more than one occasion. I still usually won those games, so maybe it's not an issue, but I don't think I saw Verduran Enchantress more than once or twice in the 6 rounds that I played. As I said, I didn't see any of the cards that I was worried about, though I did see a Zealous Persecution and a Golgari Charm, which is super awesome against us. Verduran Enchantress dodges those guy too, though not as well as Enchantress's Presence.

I didn't have any issues with the counterspells, as usual. The combo deck I faced was immune to Flusterstorm, so it's probably more correct to just be playing Mindbreak Trap, though that means that In the Eye of Chaos sucks again, and it was a real beating when I played against ANT. I didn't find that Back to Basics slowed me down at all, since it's pretty standard for me to just fetch basics unless there's a really good reason to have a Tropical Island. I'd almost say that the Tropical Islands are unnecessary, though it is nice against decks that can't hit you with Wasteland to not have to worry about the mana. But with RUG going away, pretty much everyone is cheating on their basics, which makes Back to Basics extremely strong and doesn't hurt us at all. My friend was playing some Blood Moon in his sb for Omni-show, and he got 6-7 free wins just by dropping that card down. It's a good time to be hating on non-basic lands.

As for the last slot, I'm going to test out Island Sanctuary. I tried Sphere of Safety but found it way too slow to get into play, so I tried Dueling Grounds, but it really was pretty lackluster. But Island Sanctuary beats everything except for Merfolk and Show and Tell, and isn't fragile like Energy Field. It doesn't do anything the turn it comes down, which is kind of rough, though. Propaganda is nice, and Ghostly Prison can't be red-blasted. But with Chrome Moxes (which are so far speeding things up by as much as a turn, which is awesome), it's possible that we don't need whatever card is going in that slot.

I was going to run 2 Mystic Remora in the board over Deep Analysis, but in the end I felt like it was a lot of hoops to jump through, as opposed to Deep Analysis which is great against a lot of things. Just the fact that Mystic Remora is a bad topdeck, whereas Deep Analysis is fantastic, pushed it over the top. It's also more or less immune to discard, which is exactly what I want in that slot. I'm debating playing a third one, it was that good.

[LurkingMatt]

It wasn't a problem with decking, I got a game-loss from the judges for drawing too many cards. It was the first and only time that I've done that in more than two months of playing the deck, and I can't believe I did it, but it just reinforced to me how important it is to pay attention to your triggers. It was a mistake that cost me a game and put me in the draw bracket since we only had 8 minutes left in the round.

Dude that sux.

Why you would receive a loss (since those are open triggers) is understandable on REL2 but still you opponent should have gotten a warning at least too.
Still thanks for the info.

Reminds me of my warning after deck check because my divider was a card i HAD played and which was really bad on my first competitive tournament. -.-
At least it could be reconstructed in my case what, why and how it had happened and I lucked out.


Verduran was fine, didn't notice any issues. I think the ability to GSZ for an Enchantress after they've already Surgical-ed an Argothian or have an Engineered Plague down is pretty important, but the truth is that both of those issues are pretty few and far between. It would probably actually just be better to run more Seal of Primordium and/or Ground Seal to solve those individual cards than run the split, since I did get my team wrathed on more than one occasion. I still usually won those games, so maybe it's not an issue, but I don't think I saw Verduran Enchantress more than once or twice in the 6 rounds that I played. As I said, I didn't see any of the cards that I was worried about, though I did see a Zealous Persecution and a Golgari Charm, which is super awesome against us. Verduran Enchantress dodges those guy too, though not as well as Enchantress's Presence.

I didn't have any issues with the counterspells, as usual. The combo deck I faced was immune to Flusterstorm, so it's probably more correct to just be playing Mindbreak Trap, though that means that In the Eye of Chaos sucks again, and it was a real beating when I played against ANT. I didn't find that Back to Basics slowed me down at all, since it's pretty standard for me to just fetch basics unless there's a really good reason to have a Tropical Island. I'd almost say that the Tropical Islands are unnecessary, though it is nice against decks that can't hit you with Wasteland to not have to worry about the mana. But with RUG going away, pretty much everyone is cheating on their basics, which makes Back to Basics extremely strong and doesn't hurt us at all. My friend was playing some Blood Moon in his sb for Omni-show, and he got 6-7 free wins just by dropping that card down. It's a good time to be hating on non-basic lands.

OK, first of all, thanks a lot for those detailed information.
Really nice synopsis of your experience.

Re Flusterstorm: I have to admit that I faced similiar problems while testing but found them a stronger anti cabal storm/ Tide card so I encorporated them in my SB and they are good vs Storm and blue.dec so far.

Re Lands: After jumping through the hoop I have found myself fetching no duals unless I have to. Meaning I grab them simply of the shelf if I get my Verdants/Windswepts and need blue, so as a one or two of they are good.
Now that might have happened more often in those test games then not so I will keep more detailed record and try them once more I guess. Since I need more space I will probably cut my wishtargets for them thus removing
Living Wish.


As for the last slot, I'm going to test out Island Sanctuary. I tried Sphere of Safety but found it way too slow to get into play, so I tried Dueling Grounds, but it really was pretty lackluster. But Island Sanctuary beats everything except for Merfolk and Show and Tell, and isn't fragile like Energy Field. It doesn't do anything the turn it comes down, which is kind of rough, though. Propaganda is nice, and Ghostly Prison can't be red-blasted. But with Chrome Moxes (which are so far speeding things up by as much as a turn, which is awesome), it's possible that we don't need whatever card is going in that slot.

Of course Propaganda can be blown up by REB or Pyro but - if you do not want to deploy Moat or Sphere it is your best bet
while avoiding card disadvantage.


I was going to run 2 Mystic Remora in the board over Deep Analysis, but in the end I felt like it was a lot of hoops to jump through, as opposed to Deep Analysis which is great against a lot of things. Just the fact that Mystic Remora is a bad topdeck, whereas Deep Analysis is fantastic, pushed it over the top. It's also more or less immune to discard, which is exactly what I want in that slot. I'm debating playing a third one, it was that good.

Well Remora nets me at least one card via Enchantress whereas Analysis is a mana sink (at least that was my thought).
Also you usually get that one card vs blue.dec that might win you the counterwar if they resolve something of relevance.

It is incredible vs any type of card drawing combo (Elves w/o NO + Cabal Storm included) because if they try
to combo with it lying around it nets tons of cards (in combination with Compost I drew ~12 cards just from
them hopping through the mana maze hoops).

Still you suggest Analysis is en par with that power level due to the total of D4/ being AT LEAST a D2 when discarded?
Will test it for myself. Thanks for the suggestion.

Regarding GY hate I found your suggestion of Ground Seal to be interesting and good.
While not really denying me my grave (Seal of Primordium MD + WoW Bounce) it protected it
rather well and also cantripped. So far the best GY I deployed except Cage.

I think I will move it to the SB though since it was a bit slow while testing vs Reanimator
(but did enough vs Dredge in 3 games to be valid) unless expecting lots of BUG.
Though nice it might not be the solution we should look into. On the other hand the only
other solutions I tested so far have been Tormod's Crypt (duh),
Relic (some speed problems, maybe a prob since we are mostly tap out),
RiP (sucked),
Wheel (similiar probs),
Cage (and while it was bad to have no zenith it cost the other deck the game(s) + it's good vs Elves).
Still it screws us - especially if we diversify into Verduran or deploy SB Targets like Teeg or Harmonic.

On the other hand Seal protects us from those Extractions, slows down BUG...

Serious suggestions welcome. Please no more "Cage sux, Seals good" arguments.

Also how much hate do we run when we are expecting GY manipulation?
2@ CMC2 was mostly too slow vs reanimator in testing (he reanimated T2 all those times) - probability to have one or more in your opening hand ~23%
3 seemed fine. Still I always saw at least 1 hate til round 3 so it was ok.ish... - probability to have one or more in your opening hand ~31%
4 seems excessive unless it can pull double duties. - probability to have one or more in your opening hand ~40%

Note that I added the draw probabilities just to show you how I figured out which number of GY I like.

Seems all we currently have to do is stabilize MD, generate one to two sideboards (or various
interactive options) and we can move to discussion the weather and new techs.

Nice!

Regards,
Matt

[Joe Eigo]

Thanks four your respons benthetenor. Didn't play the deck in any tournament yet, since i'm just actually obtain the cards and getting familiar with the deck. I'm also no magic online app fan. Hopefully will get first impressions in a tournament in short.


I talked about Seal of Primordium earlier, too. The only card you absolutely have to beat before you can go off is Pithing Needle, which is extremely rare game one. That being said, Seal of Primordium is a cheap enchantment that gives you lots of utility for a single deck spot. There's not really anything I'd rather play in that spot, which is why it has stuck around. It gives you edges against MUD decks and Counterbalance decks and pretty much every deck that might have something you want to kill. What would you replace it with? Anything that's not an enchantment would be a mistake.

If Needle is rare in your meta why not ignore it ? As for a replacement you could consider Detention Sphere or Oblivion Ring, since it should rarely be a dead card. But maybe it's too clunky don't know.



As far as the Island comments, have you actually played with the deck, or are you just spitballing? I haven't had any issues at all with getting the mana that I want, with fetching out enough basics, with anything at all. I think the manabase is perfect, and I'm not sure what it is that you're trying to accomplish by changing it, particularly if it's going to make you lose cards that you need to fuel the engine, like Seal of Removal.

I'm not joking. :-) Imagine a starting hand that exists of Island, Island, Tropical, Utopia Sprawl, GSZ, Seal or Removal, Wild Gowth. You would take the risk of running into Wasteland if enchanting the Trop on first turn to enable GSZ on 2nd. Without the Tropical you would be in additional pressure to topdeck a green source from the top really fast (i guess it's a mulli anyway..). When you play more Basic Forest's you minimize chances to let this happen. If you can afford to drop some Island's/Trop's without walking in trouble to have no blue sources when needed i think we should think about if this could work. Don't you ...? That's all i wanted to say really.

[LurkingMatt]

Thanks four your respons benthetenor. Didn't play the deck in any tournament yet, since i'm just actually obtain the cards and getting familiar with the deck. I'm also no magic online app fan. Hopefully will get first impressions in a tournament in short.

If Needle is rare in your meta why not ignore it ? As for a replacement you could consider Detention Sphere or Oblivion Ring, since it should rarely be a dead card. But maybe it's too clunky don't know.



I'm not joking. :-) Imagine a starting hand that exists of Island, Island, Tropical, Utopia Sprawl, GSZ, Seal or Removal, Wild Gowth. You would take the risk of running into Wasteland if enchanting the Trop on first turn to enable GSZ on 2nd. Without the Tropical you would be in additional pressure to topdeck a green source from the top really fast (i guess it's a mulli anyway..). When you play more Basic Forest's you minimize chances to let this happen. If you can afford to drop some Island's/Trop's without walking in trouble to have no blue sources when needed i think we should think about if this could work. Don't you ...? That's all i wanted to say really.

Well at least we now have an example what you are talking about.

As a matter of fact that hand would be a mulligan vs an unknown opponent G1 or RUG/ BUG.
Reason: You would almost surely run into a counter when trying to fetch the engine.

Assuming you kept that hand, you are playing either lose (not wise with this deck) or are in
a good mood. Once more let's say you are in good mood (you just won G1 and time is limited for example).

You know your opponent is not RUG/BUG but deploys Wasteland (Mav, Gate, Gob).
T1: Your "normal" play would be Island, Seal, go.
T2: Play 1(safe, no pressure): Draw whatever (GSZ?, Seal of Primordium?), Drop 2nd Island.
Play 2(REAL pressure, not perceived): Draw whatever, Drop Trop, Enchant Trop., go
T3: Play 1: Draw, Drop Trop, GSZ for Argothian Bitchy Bitch from Card draw Heaven, go.
Play 2: Draw, (hopefully a 1 mana enchant), Drop Island, GSZ for Argothian Bitchy Bitch from Card draw Heaven, cast an enchantment for refill.

Note that the probability of drawing a counter at this time equals to 29% (two Counters) or 17%(one Counter).

All of these moves already show that the abovementioned hand is - as you already said - very lose.

Why would we keep that hand?

Also you should realise that we don't really care for many nonbasics since we talk about using Back to Basics ffs!

@Ben: Di (sorry for the Abbreviation) had something in that GWU thread he mentioned you might want to consider:
Equipoise was a thing he brought up that might be what you are looking for instead of that Island Sanctuary.

Good vs Control and Special Critters I guess.

Regards,
Matt

[Joe Eigo]

As a matter of fact that hand would be a mulligan vs an unknown opponent G1 or RUG/ BUG.
Reason: You would almost surely run into a counter when trying to fetch the engine.


Understandable argument. Did you often lose in history to not having a 2nd enchantress effect preboard in hand ?

Maybe the example hand wasn't perfect regarding other influences like opponent having cs or whatever.

So do a Hand out of it with, which you would normally keep in any situation and exchange all forests of that hand with either tropo or island and maybe you get why my suggestion was to think about the land distribution.

But if you see it as perfect and never had any problems regarding the mana base as it is (i took that base from the opening post as a reference which has 2 Tropical Island, 1 Savannah, 1 Dryad Arbor, 7 Forest, 2 Island, 7 Fetch) it's really not worth the discussion i suppose...Sorry. :-)

[benthetenor]

Nothing's not worth a discussion (and certainly, nothing is perfect), but I just haven't ever had any issues with the mana base that didn't turn out to actually be mulligan issues. If in your example the Utopia Sprawl was a Wild Growth, then that hand becomes more playable. Or if one of the Islands was any fetchland, it's probably a keeper. The odds of drawing exactly your two Islands and not much else are not very good. Could it happen? Sure, but then again, anything could happen. There's a possibility that the deck only needs a single Island, but until I have any issues with it, I'm not going to worry too much. It's usually pretty early (turn 2, turn 3 at the latest) that I fetch out an Island anyway, so I haven't really felt like there needs to be fewer Islands in the deck.

As for only one Enchantress in the opening hand, it's not where you want to be, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's an auto-mulligan. If you're in the dark, it could very well be fine, and the odds of drawing a 2 Enchantress hand in a mulligan are probably not better than winning with the one that you have. Depending on what kind of Enchantress it is, I'd play around as many soft counters as you can afford to, and try to use the other cards in your hand to draw out counters, if you can. But if it's a deck with lots of pressure, it's not likely that they're going to have a ton of hard counters, so you should be able to bait with something like an Elephant Grass or even just use the Seal of Removal to Time Walk them and give yourself more chances to draw more cards. With only one Enchantress in your hand, you're likely to see a second one within a few turns. Probably the biggest draw of this deck is that it generates so much mana so rapidly that you can easily play a game completely negating Daze and Spell Pierce without really slowing yourself down too much. Carpet of Flowers only increases that ability.

Re: Equipose:

The only issues I have with Island Sanctuary are that it is 1) useless the turn it is cast and 2) white. If those are all things that can be played around, then it's pretty much a perfect card for me. Equipose doesn't solve any of those issues, unfortunately, and it costs more. Not that that's a big strike, but I don't see either of those cards being better than, say, a Ghostly Prison, in a practical setting.

[Dihensoeur]

Some funny ideas:
- Spiritual Focus (Liliana's effect)
- Leyline of Lifeforce
- Leyline of Vitality
- Counterbalance in MD/SB

[LurkingMatt]

Understandable argument. Did you often lose in history to not having a 2nd enchantress effect preboard in hand ?

Maybe the example hand wasn't perfect regarding other influences like opponent having cs or whatever.

So do a Hand out of it with, which you would normally keep in any situation and exchange all forests of that hand with either tropo or island and maybe you get why my suggestion was to think about the land distribution.

But if you see it as perfect and never had any problems regarding the mana base as it is (i took that base from the opening post as a reference which has 2 Tropical Island, 1 Savannah, 1 Dryad Arbor, 7 Forest, 2 Island, 7 Fetch) it's really not worth the discussion i suppose...Sorry. :-)

Sorry for the wall of text beforehand.


Regarding second Enchantress preboard
Having a second enchantress effects really smoothes things over, especially if you have it fast -
but it is not really necessary from my experience.
I lost only a few matches (mostly to BW Blade, BUG Tempo) due to them getting my enchantress and
not getting into the game anymore.

This is one of the main arguments Ben and myself got into about two pages back:
Since Ben actually advocates a 4 Zenith build (which can - as a matter of fact help avoiding decking yourself if
you anticipate the notion) while I run a 2 Zenith build thus reducing the "enchantress effects" by two we have
about 5-7% differences of having the second possible preboard effect.
Yes, it is good to be draw as many cards possible as fast as possible but since we "only" use it for those
Argothians, Dryad Arbor and Witnesses I really do like the options those two slots offer vs increased draw probabilities.

Since we are now considering incorporating at least one Chrome Mox these Zeniths are
still very good but I like to consider those alternative(s).

I (and most probably Ben already did this) will check the Zenith numbers once there is a consensus of what
the number of moxes will be.

Regarding Mana base
There is nothing like a "perfect manabase" unless you are in a void imho.
If you have the "perfect base" you always will be wastelanded.
If you have a "differenciated base" you will get mana screwed.

So all of us should strive for well rounded - thus finding the right mix.

Actually I find the current mana base to be well rounded but
1. You could - if you intend to completely run G/U - switch the mana base to basics except one dual.
I have tried this "basics only base" in one of my play testings and only found minimal problems due to
wrong fetches atm. Still it had it' awkward moments.
By deploying at least one dual (shock or nonshock) you enable the one pick you surely will need.
Of course you would run two if you intend of deploying W, R ....
you are getting the picture probably faster then I did. ;-)
2. Gainsay already tried it (and Ben and others suggested it): Running Chrome Mox
This card - if played intelligently(resolves? -> response -> imprint) will almost always only provide one
color. Sure we get card disadvantage but since we run Enchantress we can cope.
All of this makes "wasteland arguments" less of an issue.
3. This deck alongside it's sisters is one of those decks where you simply can establish a "budget" core and
start to enhance and substitute less effective cards to make it stronger over time.
This is due to the fact that
a) the draw engine is really strong (although slow (as in "slow combo"))
b) your main goal pre combo is to slow your opponent or disrupt his game plan.
c) this deck is highly synergetic.

Now why do I mention all of this?

Well actually to make my point perfectly clear (which your argument only has marginally touched)
and to formulate it thus straightening out my own thoughts. Thanks for the opportunity btw. :-P

Yes, this deck will most likely be a niche deck for most of it's life (unless a future expansion give us a bomb)
but it is - as a matter of fact a dark knight.

It (and it's sisters) can beat any deck in the field and has done so in the past very efficiently.

Since this deck "normally" deploys no lock we are more interactive then other enchantress decks around.

All of this leaves the player with a high powered deck that is capable of
1. interactive games, thus increasing the game experience for both players
2. good and bad matchups but no bye games to other decks
3. beating unfair decks as easily as fair decks.
4. advancing into new meta and adapting to new strategies with each new expansion

I have only found three decks so far that can claim these qualities:
Reanimator,
Enchantress(GW(x), GU(x))
and Elves (don't care if we talk Elfball, Foodchain or Beatdown).

All other decks have/ deploy strategies that might be nice to play, be highly entertaining for
one of the two parties involved but lack either the adaptability or the interactivity.

Please note that this is only a personal opinion and I really like to crush my opponent
with decks like TES or Tide if I decide to deploy them but their lack of interactivity can really
spoil the fun. The same goes to enchantress.lock but that's why I decided to support Ben and
others to make the most of this deck while also playing GW(x) once in a while.

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

>>Snipp<<

Re: Equipose:

The only issues I have with Island Sanctuary are that it is 1) useless the turn it is cast and 2) white. If those are all things that can be played around, then it's pretty much a perfect card for me. Equipose doesn't solve any of those issues, unfortunately, and it costs more. Not that that's a big strike, but I don't see either of those cards being better than, say, a Ghostly Prison, in a practical setting.

Well actually you could run Confinement in the SB if you really like what Sanctuary does since it does it better.

Equipoise has the benefit of handling various hate alongside those lines thus I found it a valid suggestion.


Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

Funny they are at least :-)


Some funny ideas:
- Spiritual Focus (Liliana's effect)
Please check Compost ;-)
Funny/ Nice idea for GW(x) though.



- Leyline of Lifeforce
Would have to be a four of to be efficient and most of us
already run counter (at least in SB)



- Leyline of Vitality
You really enjoy your infinty games, hm? ^^



- Counterbalance in MD/SB
Counterbalance is not really good since we draw too many cards too fast.

[benthetenor]

Well actually you could run Confinement in the SB if you really like what Sanctuary does since it does it better.

Equipoise has the benefit of handling various hate alongside those lines thus I found it a valid suggestion.


Regards,
Matt

...now why the hell didn't I think of that?

I find the sideboard to be constantly shifting, but my current plan (which likely will change tomorrow...) is to ignore Burn since it's a pretty uncommon matchup in the format and focus on everything else:

3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Compost
2 Deep Analysis
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kitchen Finks

...with 1 Flusterstorm (or more probably Mindbreak Trap) and 2 Carpet of Flowers in the main deck. I find what this lets me do is lay down a Compost against something like ANT or Dredge or Reanimator and then use the card advantage to draw into Mindbreak Traps and/or Tormod's Crypt. Also, having 2 Compost and 2 Deep Analysis helps a lot in matchups that try to beat us with discard which is, I think, the most prevalent strategy right now. It's possible that a Solitary Confinement could come in for the 4th Mindbreak Trap, since they are both effective in a lot of combo matchups, though what I like most about this is that it is equally effective against almost all combo decks (not Show and Tell, but we can't have everything), which means that random decks like Belcher and Elves can actually be combatted through the sideboard, whereas Flusterstorm was lackluster to downright useless against some of those decks. The main benefit I've found to Mindbreak Trap is that it's more in line with how the deck plays out. You want to be able to use all of your mana every turn, so keeping back an Island for Flusterstorm slows you down almost as much as Flusterstorming one of their spells slows them down, making it not a great plan. But with Mindbreak Trap, you don't need to leave mana open, and with Composts in play, you don't even need to have it in hand against decks that are likely to make you discard them anyway.

A Solitary Confinement would help a lot against Burn and pretty much every creature deck. I guess it's just a question of whether or not it's correct to rely on a splash color to help in those matchups (as of right now, the only white cards are Gaddock Teeg and Harmonic Sliver, which can be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith), which is clearly not as great as keeping it in-color. But the on-color answers have been somewhat lacking, so maybe it's correct? It's also not great to drop a Solitary Confinement unless you're able to support it, which would mean that you are already winning, but I haven't played with it very much so maybe it's not a big deal. But this is as opposed to something like Island Sanctuary, where you could just not skip your draw step if you need to further your gameplan and can take some damage. Doesn't do anything against a Lightning Bolt, though.

[Dihensoeur]

Counterbalance is not really good since we draw too many cards too fast.
Can you explain me please? I don't understand why draw cards can be not good for Counterbalance.

[LurkingMatt]

...now why the hell didn't I think of that?

I find the sideboard to be constantly shifting, but my current plan (which likely will change tomorrow...) is to ignore Burn since it's a pretty uncommon matchup in the format and focus on everything else:

3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Compost
2 Deep Analysis
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kitchen Finks

...with 1 Flusterstorm (or more probably Mindbreak Trap) and 2 Carpet of Flowers in the main deck.

Since you yourself stated the effectiveness of Witness I would suggest Trap


I find what this lets me do is lay down a Compost against something like ANT or Dredge or Reanimator and then use the card advantage to draw into Mindbreak Traps and/or Tormod's Crypt. Also, having 2 Compost and 2 Deep Analysis helps a lot in matchups that try to beat us with discard which is, I think, the most prevalent strategy right now. It's possible that a Solitary Confinement could come in for the 4th Mindbreak Trap, since they are both effective in a lot of combo matchups, though what I like most about this is that it is equally effective against almost all combo decks (not Show and Tell, but we can't have everything), which means that random decks like Belcher and Elves can actually be combatted through the sideboard, whereas Flusterstorm was lackluster to downright useless against some of those decks.

I am not quiet sure - had Elves the other day. G1, he comboes T4 and would have had enough mana for lethal the turn after, I combo.
G2 he ran into Sphere with 9 enchants out. Let's just say he didn't like it.
Belcher is more of a problem and the reason why I dropped Flusterstorm atm and try Spell Pierce since I can hit
Belcher with it. After all I can stall his fraggin tokens til kingdom comes.



The main benefit I've found to Mindbreak Trap is that it's more in line with how the deck plays out. You want to be able to use all of your mana every turn, so keeping back an Island for Flusterstorm slows you down almost as much as Flusterstorming one of their spells slows them down, making it not a great plan. But with Mindbreak Trap, you don't need to leave mana open, and with Composts in play, you don't even need to have it in hand against decks that are likely to make you discard them anyway.

A Solitary Confinement would help a lot against Burn and pretty much every creature deck. I guess it's just a question of whether or not it's correct to rely on a splash color to help in those matchups (as of right now, the only white cards are Gaddock Teeg and Harmonic Sliver, which can be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith), which is clearly not as great as keeping it in-color. But the on-color answers have been somewhat lacking, so maybe it's correct? It's also not great to drop a Solitary Confinement unless you're able to support it, which would mean that you are already winning, but I haven't played with it very much so maybe it's not a big deal. But this is as opposed to something like Island Sanctuary, where you could just not skip your draw step if you need to further your gameplan and can take some damage. Doesn't do anything against a Lightning Bolt, though.

Couldn't find an in color solution so far.

If I come across one, I'll let you know.

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

Can you explain me please? I don't understand why draw cards can be not good for Counterbalance.

Easy.

Counterbalance relies on the fact that you can "at least" predict what CMC is on top of your cards.

If you draw too many cards too quickly and do not deploy Top, you cannot say what CMC is on top
of your lib. Which is bad, since we want to counter threats at specific casting cost ranges.

Even assuming you have that spell on top of your library, you will have dug 2-6 cards deeper the next
turn.

And no, Top wouldn't be an option for this deck while Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library
can and have been considered. Still they don't solve that problem of knowing which CMC is on top after D... 5?

Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Easy.

Counterbalance relies on the fact that you can "at least" predict what CMC is on top of your cards.

If you draw too many cards too quickly and do not deploy Top, you cannot say what CMC is on top
of your lib. Which is bad, since we want to counter threats at specific casting cost ranges.

Even assuming you have that spell on top of your library, you will have dug 2-6 cards deeper the next
turn.

And no, Top wouldn't be an option for this deck while Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library
can and have been considered. Still they don't solve that problem of knowing which CMC is on top after D... 5?

Regards,
Matt

Thanks you :smile: !

Why don't play Replenish ? I think it's better than compost (compost will often arrive too late), can be useful VS counterspell/discard/Abrupt Decay and allow us to have 3,4 Ground Seal MD without private us to get back enchantments. Moreover, if we return ground seal/abundant growth, we draw!
Add one MD and one SB is a good idea no?


Another suggestion:
Some Pithing Needle in SB to fight planeswalker/Rishadan/Top/... ?

[LurkingMatt]

Thanks you :smile: !

Why don't play Replenish ? I think it's better than compost (compost will often arrive too late), can be useful VS counterspell/discard/Abrupt Decay and allow us to have 3,4 Ground Seal MD without private us to get back enchantments. Moreover, if we return ground seal/abundant growth, we draw!
Add one MD and one SB is a good idea no?


Another suggestion:
Some Pithing Needle in SB to fight planeswalker/Rishadan/Top/... ?

Because we do not really need Replenish.

This thread is meant for GU Enchantress thus including GU(x).

Assuming this we would only splash white if necessary.
Also Witness is a secondary win con, can be bounced via Words, thus can be played again
getting MBC enabling a hard lock.

Pithing Needle is an option though I don't know if I would consider it atm.
Haven't had many run ins with DnT or Gobs so far that tried to out control me.
They mostly tried to Thalia me.

Re Compost I suggest you try it.
Especially if you run Flusterstorm in the side and at least 2 MBCs you will quickly realize
how hard storm has to work to beat it. Also it is good vs BUG (Let them destroy it.
One less combo target destroyed.) and generally discard.

Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Because we do not really need Replenish.

This thread is meant for GU Enchantress thus including GU(x).

Assuming this we would only splash white if necessary.
Also Witness is a secondary win con, can be bounced via Words, thus can be played again
getting MBC enabling a hard lock.

Ok, it was just a suggestion in order to play Ground Seal MD (because it's not compatible with Eternal Witness and grave hate MD can be useful).



Pithing Needle is an option though I don't know if I would consider it atm.
Haven't had many run ins with DnT or Gobs so far that tried to out control me.
They mostly tried to Thalia me.

Pithing Needle is not only useful vs DnT or Gobs but vs all decks (planeswalkers,Top,Deathrite Shaman,Qasali,Belcher,Fetch....).
I don't found Thalia very dangerous for GU Enchantress and you?



Re Compost I suggest you try it.
Especially if you run Flusterstorm in the side and at least 2 MBCs you will quickly realize
how hard storm has to work to beat it. Also it is good vs BUG (Let them destroy it.
One less combo target destroyed.) and generally discard.

Ok, I will test it.

Another suggestion:
Shardless Agent: Most cards cost 1 or 2 so can be cast by Cascade:
-Avoid to draw lands and so accelerate the engine
-Cascade allow us to draw by Enchantress
-Shardless Agent can be bounced and recast
...
What do you think about it?

[LurkingMatt]

Ok, it was just a suggestion in order to play Ground Seal MD (because it's not compatible with Eternal Witness and grave hate MD can be useful).


Pithing Needle is not only useful vs DnT or Gobs but vs all decks (planeswalkers,Top,Deathrite Shaman,Qasali,Belcher,Fetch....).
I don't found Thalia very dangerous for GU Enchantress and you?

Once more, the reason why I am currently switching two Ground Seals back from SB to MD and reverse
is DRS. It simply turns him off. Completely. Also it cantrips.

Does it require planning? Yes it does.
Is it good? Current meta? I would think so.
Does it turn your hardlock of? Yes it does thus requiring planning.
Why do I switch it around then? Well I don't really know. It "feels" slow vs Reanimator for example.
Playing on Europe, I have to anticipate more combo on one hand, GY decks on the other one.
So I am deciding what I like more or if I simply revert to MD Carpets. ;)

Thalia is a real "pain in the ass" if I can't spare a Seal for her, otherwise she only slows us down
a turn, max. 2 I'd say.

I never said Needle is bad, I just wanted to point out it's weakness to the fact that it is no
enchantment and also cannot be zenithed up.


Ok, I will test it.

Another suggestion:
Shardless Agent: Most cards cost 1 or 2 so can be cast by Cascade:
-Avoid to draw lands and so accelerate the engine
-Cascade allow us to draw by Enchantress
-Shardless Agent can be bounced and recast
...
What do you think about it?

Agent - like Curio is a card you will have to try out.

What changes would you suggest to play it?
How many?
Also: is it really better then casting two spells with a max CMC (maindeck) of
2 (thus ranging in between 2-4 mana) and cutting something for it?

You already mentioned his bouncyness but would I have more reach with a bounced
enchantment like the badly suited (imho) Abundant Growth and Mana Bloom ?

Now if enchantress would be BU we wouldn't be discussing Strix but we are
GU after all so we will have to consider the effieciently of the Agent since he "only" beats
as a 2/2 . ;)

Regards,
Matt

[Dihensoeur]

Agent - like Curio is a card you will have to try out.

What changes would you suggest to play it?
How many?

I suggest only one MD. I will report Agent/Curio tests.



Also: is it really better then casting two spells with a max CMC (maindeck) of
2 (thus ranging in between 2-4 mana) and cutting something for it?

It's different. Casting 2 spells means you have them in hand or draw the second when you cast the first (with luck to not draw land).
With agent, you avoid to draw land and so you dig more efficiently.



You already mentioned his bouncyness but would I have more reach with a bounced
enchantment like the badly suited (imho) Abundant Growth and Mana Bloom ?

I think Mana Bloom is too slow to be useful (and not avoid to draw land).
Agent allow to dig and to cast another spell for free even if agent is countered. And I think it's easier to bounce agent than an Abundant Growth, but I will test it.

For information :Top UG Enchantress : 3/12 players (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9946&iddeck=72493)
- Adding Fertile Ground : it can be good (only x1 or x2 max but not x4!)
- Adding Snap : Need test and free slots.

[LurkingMatt]

I suggest only one MD. I will report Agent/Curio tests.


It's different. Casting 2 spells means you have them in hand or draw the second when you cast the first (with luck to not draw land).
With agent, you avoid to draw land and so you dig more efficiently.


I think Mana Bloom is too slow to be useful (and not avoid to draw land).
Agent allow to dig and to cast another spell for free even if agent is countered. And I think it's easier to bounce agent than an Abundant Growth, but I will test it.

Well if you consider Snaps I will agree that bouncing a creature is easier.
Also your points for Shardless is valid. Seems you only need to find a space for him.

Good luck on your tests!


For information :Top UG Enchantress : 3/12 players (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9946&iddeck=72493)
- Adding Fertile Ground : it can be good (only x1 or x2 max but not x4!)
- Adding Snap : Need test and free slots.

Thanks! A very unusual lists that can try to kill by stroking.

Can't really say how fast this makes this deck before testrunning it a few
times in goldfish mode. Will get back if this accels in avg by 1-2 turns.

Otherwise I do not know what to think of that lists.
Looks a bit weird to me.
No open protection suites, no recursion....
I'll run it and see where that takes me.

Regards,
Matt

[Alexeezay]

Hey, I just found this list on tc decks: http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9946&iddeck=72493
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

4 Cloud of Faeries

4 Snap
1 Stroke of Genius
2 Enlightened Tutor

1 Exploration
1 Propaganda
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Sterling Grove
2 Words of Wind
3 Abundant Growth
3 Equilibrium
3 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Fertile Ground

1 Island
1 Plains
7 Forest
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath

Seems pretty strange but might be worth exploring? I think it really needs Eternal Witness somewhere with Equilibrium in there & 4th utopia sprawl. Also the manabase is weird.

[benthetenor]

I've been holding off on commenting on that list without testing it, but I've also decided I just don't have much of an interest in testing that list. There are a lot of things about it that just seem incorrect. There's no reason whatsoever to have any number of Fertile Ground before the 4th Utopia Sprawl. Enlightened Tutor is cute but almost certainly win-more, since if your deck is functioning as it should, you will draw your entire deck anyway, and if it's not, then taking the card disadvantage of Enlightened Tutor is only going to put you further behind. With 0 Elephant Grass and 0 Seal of Removal, you are completely reliant on a single Solitary Confinement to slow down aggro decks, which means you have to either be faster than them (doesn't seem like the case here) or else just lose to some of their more broken draws. I really don't understand that one, as Elephant Grass is probably the best card in the deck. Snap is like Seal of Removal, but without the possibility of drawing you any cards, and without Eternal Witness, wasting a Snap on an opponent's creature is probably just wrong. The mana is also...ambitious. Having a basic plains is, I suppose, a necessity, but with only one land to fetch it out, you're never going to see it if you need it. There's a lot of mana fixing, but overall it feels like someone just took a standard list and switched out cards that are good for different cards, just to be different. More than that, it seems like this list moved away from the engine combo deck that it was to a more 2-3 card combo in an Enchantress shell. That seems just strictly worse unless the new version is faster, which it doesn't look to be. Even if it is, the reason why you're playing Enchantress combo is stability and inevitability and power in the face of discard and/or counterspells. If you want speed, play ANT or Belcher or even Elves; they all do speed much better.

[LurkingMatt]

I've been holding off on commenting on that list without testing it, but I've also decided I just don't have much of an interest in testing that list. There are a lot of things about it that just seem incorrect. There's no reason whatsoever to have any number of Fertile Ground before the 4th Utopia Sprawl. Enlightened Tutor is cute but almost certainly win-more, since if your deck is functioning as it should, you will draw your entire deck anyway, and if it's not, then taking the card disadvantage of Enlightened Tutor is only going to put you further behind. With 0 Elephant Grass and 0 Seal of Removal, you are completely reliant on a single Solitary Confinement to slow down aggro decks, which means you have to either be faster than them (doesn't seem like the case here) or else just lose to some of their more broken draws. I really don't understand that one, as Elephant Grass is probably the best card in the deck. Snap is like Seal of Removal, but without the possibility of drawing you any cards, and without Eternal Witness, wasting a Snap on an opponent's creature is probably just wrong. The mana is also...ambitious. Having a basic plains is, I suppose, a necessity, but with only one land to fetch it out, you're never going to see it if you need it. There's a lot of mana fixing, but overall it feels like someone just took a standard list and switched out cards that are good for different cards, just to be different. More than that, it seems like this list moved away from the engine combo deck that it was to a more 2-3 card combo in an Enchantress shell. That seems just strictly worse unless the new version is faster, which it doesn't look to be. Even if it is, the reason why you're playing Enchantress combo is stability and inevitability and power in the face of discard and/or counterspells. If you want speed, play ANT or Belcher or even Elves; they all do speed much better.

I ran that list finally about ten times to get a feel for it.

Likes: Stroke MD is really interesting, Abundant Growth an intersting color fixer and cantrip.

Hates: almost anything is an accelerant. While this makes the any card useful and those Clouds ferocious I agree with Ben.

Still the Tutors make it possible to defend yourself via Confinement...

Regards,
Matt

[GoldenCid]

Hi everybody "new" to the deck...I got some key cards for building the UG enchantress and i facing my first steps with it. As it's expectable i have a few quetions:

-I ran GWr version. UG seems to be a different deck with a similar base, does it provides any advantage or these version are not comparable?

-Which is the criteria for siding in FoW and Jace TMS? I think fow is for combo.....

-What do you use Verduran Enchantress for?

-Why some prefer Carpet of flower over mirri's guile? I think guile is awesome.

Ok, sorry for asking so much if somebody could answer me i'd be grateful!

GC.

[benthetenor]

Hi everybody "new" to the deck...I got some key cards for building the UG enchantress and i facing my first steps with it. As it's expectable i have a few quetions:

-I ran GWr version. UG seems to be a different deck with a similar base, does it provides any advantage or these version are not comparable?

-Which is the criteria for siding in FoW and Jace TMS? I think fow is for combo.....

-What do you use Verduran Enchantress for?

-Why some prefer Carpet of flower over mirri's guile? I think guile is awesome.

Ok, sorry for asking so much if somebody could answer me i'd be grateful!

GC.

For anyone asking questions, I really does pay to read the thread to see if they've been asked before. All but the first question has been more or less addressed already. It's only 7 pages at this point, that's not really all that much to read.

As for your questions:

- The way that this deck locks out the opponent is fundamentally different from the way that a GW, prison-based Enchantress list works. Some of it is preference, but this list is much more dedicated to making and stealing tempo from the opponent, since once the game is inevitably locked up by turn 5 or 6, there is no reason to have a Solitary Confinement or a Sterling Grove in play. Cards like Elephant Grass and Seal of Removal go from soft lock to hard lock once the opponent has 0 permanents. But it is in general a bit faster and significantly less difficult to get the lock going in this deck, and once you have it, it is nearly impossible to lose it. I would count those as advantages, though the other, more traditional Enchantress players that I've talked to tend to rankle when I say that, but it's been more or less true in my experience. If that explanation makes you uncomfortable, then just call it "preference."

- I think Force of Will is really, really bad in this deck. It's a great card and the deck is more than capable of making up the lost card advantage, but even when you side in a full 4 Force of Will and counting those, there are only 12 blue cards in the entire deck. Don't play Force of Will. Though, obviously, it is there for combo. JMS gives you something to board in against control decks, since there are a lot of cards that aren't great, and you need another few threats to help you battle through counterspells. I personally use and like Deep Analysis in that slot, since it's much more difficult to counter and gets you your card advantage up front.

- So that Living Wish isn't completely one-dimensional, and to swap out for an Argothian Enchantress games 2 and 3 if you expect Surgical Extraction.

- Those are two completely different cards. There was a lengthy discussion about Mirri's Guile's place in this deck, but the short version is, when you're drawing 3 cards with every Enchantment that you play, card selection is pretty much completely useless. And if you've never played with Carpet of Flowers against someone trying to get you with Daze and Spell Pierce, it's pretty awesome, too.

[GoldenCid]

Thx you so much for answering!

Reading your post the main corcern that comes to my mind is the 1 off cards in the deck. One of them is living wish. If you use it for searching an enchantress or a "solution" cards you simply lost the emmy win cond which i consider better than beating your opo with witness and faes. Another one is seal of primordium MD. We have no other way to hit it than the enchantress engine. This makes me feel unconfortable sine we dont own any tutor. Ok, maybe my mind still keeps the GW version.

GC

[benthetenor]

If you play the deck, you will find all of your concerns to be unnecessary. I don't even play with a Living Wish. There is absolutely no reason why you should need to ever cast Emrakul, since when you win, your opponent is left with a maximum of 2 permanents (barring moxes and stuff like that) for the rest of the game, which will not be in play on your turn. The entire draw of the deck is the fact that you don't have to do something inefficient like running an Emrakul, though some people do play one in the sideboard so that they don't get draws instead of losses in extra turns. I assure you though, it's pretty much unnecessary. Emrakul is certainly the coolest, but it doesn't matter if you win your game with 2/1s and 1/1s or a 15/15. You still get just as many points in a tournament for winning one way as for the other. The benefit is, your 2/1s and 1/1s actually advance your game-plan, rather than just sitting around doing nothing until you've already won. But the entire point is, if you didn't run an Enchantress and other toolbox creatures in the sideboard, then Living Wish would be a wasted slot, too. Literally the only reason why it's acceptable is because it can become an Enchantress.

As for the Seal of Primordium as a one-of, there just aren't very many things that you need to kill that won't just get bounced in the process of winning the game. It's in there basically because there was a free slot and it does have some utility, as well as being an out if someone has a Pithing Needle in play. But you're not going to need it until you've basically already won the game, as you will be able to have your deck in your hand by the time that Pithing Needle (or I suppose something like Nevermore) is relevant. And I can guarantee that you will never need a tutor in your deck. You draw every card you could ever want by turn 4 or 5. Why would you waste time on a tutor?

[r3dd09]

just bought my german Argothians, looks like i'm building the deck, finally.

[Dihensoeur]

My last list:

Lands:

1 Island
1 Serra's Sanctum
2 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
7 Forest

Kills:

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Words of Wind
1 Tendrils of Agony

Accelerating:

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Abundant Growth
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Gaea's Touch
3 Cloudstone Curio

Control/others:

1 Eternal Witness
1 City of Solitude
1 Sylvan Library
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal

Sideboard in building...

What's new?
- Gaea's Touch: This card is very powerful in this deck. It make UG Enchantress more explosive! It's a "free" enchantment (because you can sac it to have :g::g:) and allow to put an extra land. You can easily have 15mana around turn5.
- Tendrils of Agony: It's very easy to cast it with 7-8spells (don't need more because opponents have mostly 16-18hp) with CloudStone. The :b: mana is simple with the moving of utopia and abundant growth.
- Sylvan Library: To have more cards in hand (by sac some hp) to start combo more quickly.

From a friend in a tournament (2nd on around 20 players) with a similar deck (with 2 words of wind and 2 cloudstone) :
- He found Cloudstone better than Words of wind (1/8 round won with Words and 7/8 rounds won with CloudStone+Tendrils), so he will cut a word for an additional cloudstone.
- He found Gaea's Touch very useful (before tournament, he tested it with one slot and he discovered its power, so he added more Gaea's touch for tournament).

I suggest you to try Gaea's touch.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

[Guest2511]

Dihensoeur, How do you feel Tendrils compares to Brain Freeze?

Also, my tests with Cloudstone Curio have been very positive. However, I found Emrakul to be useless in most builds. When are the rest of you using him/When is he most useful?

[Dihensoeur]

Dihensoeur, How do you feel Tendrils compares to Brain Freeze?

To kill with Brain Freeze, you need to cast around 20spells (and your opponent can have Emrakul). With Tendrils, only 7-8 spells is enough (Fetchs from opponent...).



Also, my tests with Cloudstone Curio have been very positive.
:) with Curio, we can draw lot of cards without Argothian/Presence (with Abundant Growth).



However, I found Emrakul to be useless in most builds. When are the rest of you using him/When is he most useful?

Why Emrakul is useless? You don't need to cast many spells in a turn to cast it.
By example, a simple Serra's Sanctum with a faeries is enough.
Emrakul is an alternative kill. What do you suggest instead of it?

[Guest2511]

To kill with Brain Freeze, you need to cast around 20spells (and your opponent can have Emrakul). With Tendrils, only 7-8 spells is enough (Fetchs from opponent...).


:) with Curio, we can draw lot of cards without Argothian/Presence (with Abundant Growth).


Why Emrakul is useless? You don't need to cast many spells in a turn to cast it.
By example, a simple Serra's Sanctum with a faeries is enough.
Emrakul is an alternative kill. What do you suggest instead of it?

When using Curio, most of kills happened through generating infinite mana, drawing the whole deck and using Brain Freeze, that's why I'm not exactly sure about Tendrils/Emrakul. However, I wasn't trying it with Sanctum (and I was using Living Wish) and did not test Tendrils yet. I'll test more.

Also, when I have two Gaea's Touch in play, can I play three forests in a turn or only two?

[Dihensoeur]

When using Curio, most of kills happened through generating infinite mana, drawing the whole deck and using Brain Freeze

Don't need to have infinite mana (but lot of manas) to kill with Tendrils.



Also, when I have two Gaea's Touch in play, can I play three forests in a turn or only two?

One Gaea's Touch allows an extra forest, so 2 Gaea's Touch allow 2 extra forests.
You can play one Gaea, then play an extra forest, return Gaea in hand, then play Gaea again, and so, play another extra forest :cool:.

[GoldenCid]

What's new?
- Gaea's Touch: This card is very powerful in this deck. It make UG Enchantress more explosive! It's a "free" enchantment (because you can sac it to have :g::g:) and allow to put an extra land. You can easily have 15mana around turn5.
- Tendrils of Agony: It's very easy to cast it with 7-8spells (don't need more because opponents have mostly 16-18hp) with CloudStone. The :b: mana is simple with the moving of utopia and abundant growth.
- Sylvan Library: To have more cards in hand (by sac some hp) to start combo more quickly.


I think that Cadaverous Bloom sounds good for adding BB consitently. Moreover i thik that there's a version of the deck that has a BG mana base if you like.


GC.

[LurkingMatt]

My last list:

Lands:

1 Island
1 Serra's Sanctum
2 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
7 Forest

Kills:

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Words of Wind
1 Tendrils of Agony

Accelerating:

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Abundant Growth
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Gaea's Touch
3 Cloudstone Curio

Control/others:

1 Eternal Witness
1 City of Solitude
1 Sylvan Library
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal

Sideboard in building...

What's new?
- Gaea's Touch: This card is very powerful in this deck. It make UG Enchantress more explosive! It's a "free" enchantment (because you can sac it to have :g::g:) and allow to put an extra land. You can easily have 15mana around turn5.
- Tendrils of Agony: It's very easy to cast it with 7-8spells (don't need more because opponents have mostly 16-18hp) with CloudStone. The :b: mana is simple with the moving of utopia and abundant growth.
- Sylvan Library: To have more cards in hand (by sac some hp) to start combo more quickly.

From a friend in a tournament (2nd on around 20 players) with a similar deck (with 2 words of wind and 2 cloudstone) :
- He found Cloudstone better than Words of wind (1/8 round won with Words and 7/8 rounds won with CloudStone+Tendrils), so he will cut a word for an additional cloudstone.
- He found Gaea's Touch very useful (before tournament, he tested it with one slot and he discovered its power, so he added more Gaea's touch for tournament).

I suggest you to try Gaea's touch.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

Sorry for my late reply. Life is a bitch ('nuf said).

Regarding testing/ tournament:
Nice to see that you kept your word and tested curio and also got a
friend to run it. :smile:

Do you have more information about the tournament (Match Ups
and summaries maybe) from either you or your friend or both?
After all this should have been four maybe five rounds of swiss so
you should have some data for us.

Which place did you make(just to keep records)?

Interesting list to see.
You are aware of the fact that any storm deck including Belcher
is a no go with that decklist?
Yes, you do have Grass but you have to draw into it or have
which is a 1 in 15 chance assuming we do not calculate in the
need for an enchantress effect and at least one land (better
two or an accelerant).
Also that doesn't account for other WinCons.
Blue.dec seems to be a problem too?
One City doesn't really solve the problem, especially if you
cannot protect it.

I like that Library though.

Still some interesting tech to be seen.

Regarding Cloudstone Curio:

Seems to work as well as intended.
Also you incorporated the Abundant Growth which together
played out nicely - especially considering that you now don't
need the graveyard like the Eternal Witness +
Seal of Removal engine.

It is more mana intense then the Eternal Witness and
Snap engine but works nicely and with the rest of the
deck and draws you cards.

Still you should consider running Words of Wind as a
two of (maybe cutting Emrakul?).
First of all it simply makes you immune to attrition of you lib while
Emmy makes use of the graveyard - again.
Second it alleviates the board state - bouncing everything the other
player has to his hand - which curio does not.
Thrid it adds more value to cards like Exploration or Gaea's Touch.
Once I have a bit of more data from that tourney I will consider testing
[cards]Cloudstone Curio[cards] myself in paper, I guess.

Until then, Cockatrice will have to suffice for Curio.

Regarding Gaea's Touch:

I already run/ ran it in :gw: Enchantress since I was short on Exploration.
While it is not self-replacing, it allows you to
- drop more lands (ANY lands) into play at T1(!)
- doesn't really slow you down mid combo
- is a jucy bounce target

Now which one is "better"? I really do not know.
Both have their uses and I can see both being
played in the same slot although Touch should
theoretically be better in a "less non-basic" build
unless the changed the Oracle wording and I am
not aware of that.

Regarding Abundant Growth + Tendrils of Agony:

Nice idea as a finisher.
While that Growth is also a cantrip it fixes your mana
if needed and makes secondary win cons like Tendrils
or Grapeshot feasible.

The simple question you should ask is: Do you need it?
If you rely on Curio I guess "Yes" is the answer.
When you can simply change the board state within
one turn from "all set" to "non existant" it is "No".

Synopsis:

You have incorporated a few nice ideas in your maindeck.

While I like to disagree with a few choices you made
(especially cutting more then two Green Sun's Zenith,
it is feasible and suited to your play style it seems.

Since deck slots are really tight in this list I would
suggest moving one of the comboes to the sideboard.

Reasoning:
You can simply board into the other one in g2 if you
won g1 or "use the better one" if you lost g1.

I can't say more unless you are set on your sideboard staples
and meta calls.

I would strongly suggest adding four Flusterstorms
as staple when you intend to deploy that list.

Also if you play on the continent, you should consider
two Compost as staples since at least in
Germany Jund and the BG shell are running rampant.

I will try Gaea's Touch as a MD slot for testing
by doing the "Exploration-Split" (3 Growth, 3 Sprawls,
2 Explorations) and seeing what it will bring.

Also I would suggest the following changing in your next iteration:
MD:
- 1 Wild Growth, +1 Abundant Growth
- 1 Utopia Sprawl, +1 Words of Wind
- 2 Gaea's Touch, + 2 Green Sun's Zeniths (can be any utility though)
- 1 Emrakul, The AEons Torn, +1 Seal of Primordium
- 1 Cloudstone Curio, +1 Mindbreak Traps (can be any utility though)
(thus you can play "only" those 4 Flusterstorm vs Storm in your SB and you have a fighting chance G1 vs Storm/ Belcher)

Also I would strongly consider the Sanctum.
Since there is no use of the excessive mana it can produce, wouldn't be Savannah be more suitable?

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

When using Curio, most of kills happened through generating infinite mana, drawing the whole deck and using Brain Freeze, that's why I'm not exactly sure about Tendrils/Emrakul. However, I wasn't trying it with Sanctum (and I was using Living Wish) and did not test Tendrils yet. I'll test more.

Also, when I have two Gaea's Touch in play, can I play three forests in a turn or only two?

Like it was said, you can drop three BASIC Forests.

Also, if you bounce it afterwards and cast it again you can deploy Forest #4, Forest #5...
you get the picture...

That's why Exploration is always consider in MD and often boarded out
in G2, G3 to make space for specific answers.

Regards,
Matt

[benthetenor]

What does your list do better than a more standard list? You add in 5 cards that are narrow (in the sense that they only do something if you're already winning) and aren't even Enchantments, at the cost of 4 Enchantresses and one of the cards that is vital to the deck, Words of Wind. It looks like you severely weaken yourself against anyone who has any number of counterspells, and you've added in cards that don't even cycle themselves when they're bad. Gaea's Touch is a strong card, but Exploration effects are strongest on turn 1, which means even if you're replacing it, you're not getting as much value as if you just kept in in play from the first turn. Playing Serra's Sanctum makes you lean unnecessarily on a card that is vulnerable to Wasteland and that is an auto-mulligan if it's the only land in your opening 7, and what's more, your deck is already designed to generate an absurd amount of mana without exposing yourself to any of those drawbacks.

I'm really just curious as to why you think your deck is better than the established deck.

[waytowinatwar]

So I recently fell in love with this deck, and I was thinking that maybe I should report my progress with it here biweekly or so, because I plan to take it, biweekly or so, to a local legacy tournament.

I'm not sure how good it is yet. I play it well I think, but far from perfectly. There are still sequencing issues that I'm not sure about (e.g. the balance between how much resources/time should be spent in order to make sure that enchantress effects can power through soft counters versus how much should be kept until after an enchantress effect has landed).

Deck:
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Living Wish
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
2 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Windswept Heath
2 Words of Wisdom
Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Mystic Remora
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Verduran Enchantress


Anyway so I played in a GPT today; 17 players most of which are very well-versed in Legacy.

Round 1 against Maverick (very skilled pilot) 2- 0

Game 1

He manages to be aggressive and disruptive via 2 noble hierarchs, thalia and a knight even though he stumbles on land, but I land enchantress effects t2 and t3 (I believe) and even though my stuff cost extra I eventually won without too much problems

Game 2

He destroys my first two enchantress effects (grip + pridemage), but I had more. Lands a revoker on words of wind which I ignore until he scoops because I have so much mana, and so many cards that I can do whatever I want


Brief Analysis: This was easy, boarded out two carpet of flowers for krosan and harmonic

Round 2 versus Jund (less skilled pilot) 1-1-1

Game 1

I don't remember that much, he didn't draw lilliana. He had a confidant and deathrite which I ignored

Game 2

He draws lilliana and kills two argothians with it, sets engineered plague on druids to kill a third. His confidants nearly kills him, but he manages to kill me at one life. I have a sneaking suspicion that I misplayed somewhere but don't remember.

Game 3

He kills some stuff with explosives on 2. We didn't have time to finish but we were both nearly empty when we ran out of time so I'm thinking that he would have got me.

Brief Analysis: This is very tough. BLack is very tough, discard, plague, decay, lilliana. I boarded in 3 remora for two carpets and a seal of primordium, thinking that the remoras would offset his discard, permanent destruction. Didn't draw them though. I'm thinking that you really need something more dramtaic though, like replenish or some other big effect to take advantage of them not having counters. Suggestions?

Round 3 Esper (skilled pilot) 1-2

Game 1

Wins easy, he tries to kill me with a batterskull but we both know that that is not going to work.

Game 2

Thoughtseize into Stoneforge into sword of feast and famine into seal of removal into stoneforge into equip into harmonic sliver into jace into enchantress into fateseal into no enchantments into a library of 5 lands (jace's ultimate)


Game 3 he amasses an army of utility creatures (clique, snapcaster, mystic) I draw enchantresses but not enough enchantments to go off. Close though.

BA: Boarded into remoras and harmonic and teeg (cut grass I think). drew remoras but they were underwhelming. NOt sure how to feel about this matchup, about even I think, game 1 is pretty easy.

Round 4 RUG (skilled pilot) 2-1

Game 1

Win easy, don't remember the details. None of his cards are very relevant. A pair of tarmogoyfs try to kill me I ignore them, maybe bounce one

Game 2

Very close, starts to go off but am a mana or two short of doing something that stops his mongeese. Also, rough tumble along the way.


Game 3

t1 delver which flips t2. I slowplay enchantresses to get around soft counters It pays off. He boards in red elemental blasts which are annoying but ultimately irrelevant

BA: Fairly easy matchup, your ramp makes their counters mostly irrelevant. board in a carpet and 2 remora against two witness (clunky ) and seal of primordium


Round 5 Food Chain 0-2 (ok pilot)

two mulligans to six draw quite poorly (not enough enchantress effects) manages to get a lot of mana one game though (two carpets) living wish for emrakul can cast it next turn but he kills me exactly before then.

Ba: shouldn't be too rough


General Analysis:

I hate dryad arbour and will replace it with chrome mox. Reasons for hate: he sucks up (preboard) redundant removal and wastelands which would otherwise be dead. Drawing it is really bad, does nothing midcombo, tricks you to keep loose hands (where you need to gsz into it). It looks really nice that gsz becomes ramp, but you're almost never in a situation where you want to do that.

Most things that kill argothians are sorcery speed, roughtumble, perish, plague, lilliana, explosives. This makes me think that you should play argothans fairly cautiosly and try to get a few triggers off them before passing the turn. Also it is sometimes right to play cloud of faeries for no increase in mana just to have something that sucks up an edict (such as lilliana). Anyway must go to bed, this is rough but it was this or nothing.

[benthetenor]

I like a lot of the points you have to make, and I agree for the most part with your assessment of the matchups. I'm really, really pulling for Maverick to make a comeback so we can have another matchup that is strictly a bye, but I think that the format is still in a place where this deck can be good. I'm planning on going to SCG KC in a few weeks, and if my metagame analysis is correct, I expect it to be relatively full of fair decks, which is why I'm probably going to play this deck.

I agree 100% on the Dryad Arbor, in both the sentiment and in the reasons as to why you've found it to be bad. I've been testing with 3 Chrome Mox in place of a few lands/Dryad Arbor, and it's been great. It allows for a turn 1 Enchantress (or Compost post-board against discard) which is huge, and generally just speeds things up by a full turn. It's in place of lands so it does nothing to hurt the enchantment balance, and it's awesome to draw mid-combo turn, unlike a land. The card disadvantage is insanely easily overcome with this deck, making it pretty much perfect. Once again, it's a card that Cuneo played that I'd largely dismissed at the time, but testing has borne it out to be awesome.

It's cool that you got a nice evenly distributed set of matchups, and I think you did pretty well. Esperblade (and any U/x control deck) is generally a good matchup, but I do find that you need something to get you over the top post-board. I have had 2 Deep Analysis in my sideboard for a long time and it's singlehandedly won me many, many games against that deck, as well as being a solid addition to UW Miracles and a decent card against something like Jund or Pox. If they try to counter or make you discard it you still gain tons of card advantage, so while it's not flashy, I think it's the perfect card to gain some slight CA which will help you take over the matchup.

For Jund, Replenish isn't a bad idea. They will absolutely have Wastelands which means that you're likely going to have to use a Utopia Sprawl on white, but that's not really a big deal at all. It's also not going to get your Argothian Enchantresses back, which kind of sucks, but it will give you lots of CA on it's own so it might not be that bad. I think if Jund (or discard in general) is something you fear, you could always go with Leyline of Sanctity which would blank like 12 cards that they'd have and can't be Abrupt Decay-ed. It would clearly be a lot better in a G/W Enchantress deck or just one playing with Serra's Sanctum so that you could reasonably cast it, but it's a card that does a massive amount of work in that matchup for us, so if you fear it, there's a good answer. Theoretically it should be a pretty even matchup since they should have lots of problems with Elephant Grass and Seal of Removal is a good way to mess up their mana curve by hitting a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman or a Dark Confidant, at which point you should be able to out-card them. I'd bring in more Disenchant effects if you expect Engineered Plague, which is a fair card for them. Compost can also do a lot of work, and Deep Analysis can be good though the life loss might be a liability in some games, so it's not at it's best in this matchup. Pithing Needle (if you play it) can also deal with Liliana, which is the one card that gives them any amount of inevitability. I have also considered dropping down a Cloud of Faeries in this matchup just to eat removal and/or a Liliana activation, and I think that's a fine play. You're going to beat them eventually, assuming you can keep Liliana away, so it's just about surviving until you can stick a few card advantage cards, then taking over the game from there.

[waytowinatwar]

I like a lot of the points you have to make, and I agree for the most part with your assessment of the matchups. I'm really, really pulling for Maverick to make a comeback so we can have another matchup that is strictly a bye, but I think that the format is still in a place where this deck can be good. I'm planning on going to SCG KC in a few weeks, and if my metagame analysis is correct, I expect it to be relatively full of fair decks, which is why I'm probably going to play this deck.

I agree 100% on the Dryad Arbor, in both the sentiment and in the reasons as to why you've found it to be bad. I've been testing with 3 Chrome Mox in place of a few lands/Dryad Arbor, and it's been great. It allows for a turn 1 Enchantress (or Compost post-board against discard) which is huge, and generally just speeds things up by a full turn. It's in place of lands so it does nothing to hurt the enchantment balance, and it's awesome to draw mid-combo turn, unlike a land. The card disadvantage is insanely easily overcome with this deck, making it pretty much perfect. Once again, it's a card that Cuneo played that I'd largely dismissed at the time, but testing has borne it out to be awesome.

It's cool that you got a nice evenly distributed set of matchups, and I think you did pretty well. Esperblade (and any U/x control deck) is generally a good matchup, but I do find that you need something to get you over the top post-board. I have had 2 Deep Analysis in my sideboard for a long time and it's singlehandedly won me many, many games against that deck, as well as being a solid addition to UW Miracles and a decent card against something like Jund or Pox. If they try to counter or make you discard it you still gain tons of card advantage, so while it's not flashy, I think it's the perfect card to gain some slight CA which will help you take over the matchup.

For Jund, Replenish isn't a bad idea. They will absolutely have Wastelands which means that you're likely going to have to use a Utopia Sprawl on white, but that's not really a big deal at all. It's also not going to get your Argothian Enchantresses back, which kind of sucks, but it will give you lots of CA on it's own so it might not be that bad. I think if Jund (or discard in general) is something you fear, you could always go with Leyline of Sanctity which would blank like 12 cards that they'd have and can't be Abrupt Decay-ed. It would clearly be a lot better in a G/W Enchantress deck or just one playing with Serra's Sanctum so that you could reasonably cast it, but it's a card that does a massive amount of work in that matchup for us, so if you fear it, there's a good answer. Theoretically it should be a pretty even matchup since they should have lots of problems with Elephant Grass and Seal of Removal is a good way to mess up their mana curve by hitting a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman or a Dark Confidant, at which point you should be able to out-card them. I'd bring in more Disenchant effects if you expect Engineered Plague, which is a fair card for them. Compost can also do a lot of work, and Deep Analysis can be good though the life loss might be a liability in some games, so it's not at it's best in this matchup. Pithing Needle (if you play it) can also deal with Liliana, which is the one card that gives them any amount of inevitability. I have also considered dropping down a Cloud of Faeries in this matchup just to eat removal and/or a Liliana activation, and I think that's a fine play. You're going to beat them eventually, assuming you can keep Liliana away, so it's just about surviving until you can stick a few card advantage cards, then taking over the game from there.

Thank you for your comments, I agree with everything more or less. Also before I forget, Thank you for a very good opening post, and for your careful discussion throughout. I think that this has ensured the civil tone in the thread and I wouldn't be posting here if it hadn't been for you.

Deep Analysis is exactly what I want to be doing against Esper.

I'm afraid of playing too many moxes, since even if they replace lands and thereby do not change the original enchantment to other cards proportion you are very likely to imprint enchantments on them and thereby miss triggers, they are also poor topdecks when you are not going off (worse than lands, including dryad arbour). T1 argothian is no joke though. I'll probably try two and cut a tropical and the arbour for them.

Leyline has a number of nice features. Against jund, as you say, it blanks lilliana, and discard, it's an enchantment, it cannot be destroyed by abrupt decay. Dodging discard is pretty huge because it means that you can safely slow roll enchantress effects until you can play them and get a few triggers before passing the turn. It's very hard to cast though, even if you have a sprawl and can set it to white (But I think that this actually hampers your ability to go off somewhat, normally I try to have at most two blue sources among the two lands I dedicate to growths/sprawls, If i have an island, this means that all growths and sprawls are placed on a single forest and all sprawls except one are set to green) you need to fetch your savannah in a matchup where you really don't want to do this. They are also bad in multiples against jund because either they are redundant, or they can remove them via maelstom pulse. You can of course slowroll but this is also pretty bad (i.e it might enable them to destroy the one in play and then use some/all their backed up discard before passing the turn, you might have missed enchantress triggers, and savannah is most likely dead by now.

Not sure about what the upshot is here. Leyline is also nice against ANT, and ok against dredge and savannah is safe against both. The reasons against leyline in the ant matchup are somewhat complicated. I am inclined to use remora+mindbreak trap against ANT, and if you were to substitute a few traps for leylines then drawing them when they are going off and you are drawing cards off remora is actually a blank whereas trap wouldn't have been.

Best at this point I think to go over exact sideboarding plans since sideboarding is a balancing act. I thought for a few hours about these below before the tournament and might as well post them. For convenience, here is my sideboard again.

1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Gaddock Teeg X
1 Harmonic Sliver X
1 Krosan Grip X
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Mystic Remora (2 deep analysis)
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Verduran Enchantress

An X means that I feel that the card is non-negotiable. Cards in parantheses are changes I'm currently inclined to make (partly due to comments in this thread).

Surgical and the traps are especially nice since they are turned on immediately after being returned with witness without any mana investment, also, you can mostly develop your board while holding them. I don't really like sb carpet that much, they can be played around somewhat (and all good players do) and I feel that I board them against MU that are pretty good anyway. I'm not sure how to think about leyline yet, replacing carpet with singleton might actually be the way to go (you do want to maximize the prob of getting it in your opening hand, but you seldom want more than one and there might not be enough room for it, just replacing traps with leylines makes things quite easy for the ANT player = just find your chain of vapour at some point during comboing).

ANT
-
1 seal of prim
4 grass
3 seal of removal
+
1 teeg
3 remora
4 traps

DREDGE
-
2 carpet
1 seal of prim
1 living wish

+
1 teeg
2 surgical
1 mystic remora

MIRACLES
-
4 grass
1 wish
2 seal of removal

+
teeg
grip
sliver
3 remora
carpet

JUND
-
2 carpet
seal of prim

+
3 remora -- one of these should have been a sliver for engineered plague

RUG
-
seal of prim
2 witness

+
carpet
2 remora

BUG
-
seal of prim
living wish
2 witness

+
carpet
3 remora

BURN
-
2 carpet
2 witness

+
harmonic -- against pillar/vortex
3 remora

GOBLINS
-
2 carpet
+
grip -- better than carpet
sliver

Elves
-
2 carpet
2 witness
+
4 trap

SNEAK AND SHOW
-
living wish
2 eternal witness
2 elephant grass

+
emrakul
sliver
krosan
teeg
carpet

MAVERICK
-
2 carpets

+
sliver
grip

[benthetenor]

My current SB looks like this:

2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Compost
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Deep Analysis
1 Pithing Needle

With 1 Mindbreak Trap in the main, in place of your 1 Living Wish.

As I've said throughout, I'm not a huge fan of Living Wish, mostly because it doesn't give you anything you need and it makes you waste at least 3 extra slots in your 75 that you wouldn't otherwise need. The only plus I can find to it is that it's good against a Surgical Extraction, but that's a pretty minor point as people bringing in Surgical Extraction against us isn't a great plan for them, even if it works sometimes. But that would be an argument for keeping one in the sideboard if that's something you fear. I do like Surgical Extraction for us, as it's something you can cantrip into (with either Mystic Remora or Compost) and still cast on their turn, which is a weakness of Tormod's Crypt. Crypt is a little better against Dredge and Reanimator, whereas SE is an actual card that you can bring in against almost any combo deck if you need the slots. I'll chalk that one up to preference, though I was strongly considering going to 1 Tormod's Crypt and 1 Surgical Extraction a few days ago, instead deciding that I wanted that slot to be as high-impact as possible, rather than flexible. It should be noted that against a storm combo deck Compost can act like Mystic Remora to draw you into Mindbreak Traps, only without the need for an upkeep cost. I do like Mystic Remora, I just found it to be lacking in Legacy where every single deck doesn't begin with 1 Black Lotus, 1 Mox Sapphire, 1 Mox Jet....

Kitchen Finks is a strong card to bring in against any deck with Lightning Bolts, and will cause all sorts of havoc against Jund which will buy you the time you need to beat them. And Pithing Needle is a hedge against stuff like Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives, both of which will wreck us if you're not prepared for it. That is the one slot that I'm least happy with, though it has so many applications that I've been very happy with it every game that I've drawn it.

It should be noted that my SB plan is definitely weaker than yours against combo, but the plan is to not play this deck in a field where combo is prevalent because the natural strength of this deck is absolutely not competing in a combo-centric metagame. I'd rather use the SB to shore up every other matchup, to ensure that I maintain my edge games two and three in all of the fair matchups, and then play the deck against a field that is mostly tapping Tropical Islands for Noble Hierarchs and Counterspells as I think that gives you the best chance to win with it. I do think that your sideboard will give you a better chance against combo decks, but that's just naturally a soft matchup that no amount of sideboarding is going to turn positive. I do think that having Mindbreak Trap + Tormod's Crypt/Elephant Grass gives you a lot of game against the fastest combo decks in the format and the ones that might try to go Empty the Warrens, and Elephant Grass + Seal of Removal from the main-deck gives you a pretty good game against Show and Tell variants, particularly if they're playing Omniscience, as that gives your Seal of Primordium a chance to be relevant.

[waytowinatwar]

Played in a small tournament (6 ppl), came in second with 2-1.

Changed the deck slightly, mostly in line with benthetenor's suggestions. I cut living wish and thus made room for 3 more sideboard cards (since mind break trap moved maindeck): compost, kitchen finks, and another remora.


4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 chrome mox
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Mindbreak trap
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
1 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Windswept Heath
2 Words of Wisdom
Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 compost
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Mystic Remora
2 Surgical Extraction
1. kitchen finks
2 deep analysis

Round 1 against death and taxes (skilled pilot) 2-1

This is like maverick but with rishadan port. G1 was easy, lost g2 to port into vial into thalia on the play. Won g3 through mangara vial canonist and revoker. God it's a powerful deck.
Port , flicker wisp and mangar messes with your enchanted lands so one has to play this more carefully than usual.

Round 2 against RUGb cascade (skilled pilot) 0-2
Didn't draw enough enchantress effects. He forces the first 3 g1! Sideboards sliver, carpet ,remora against witness, removal, Trap should have sided carpet + 2 analysis. Remora is shit against non-ant. Loses g2 to not drawing enough enchantress effects, had to play sliver to destroy a carpet in order to chump. embarrassing.

Round 3 zombardment (poor pilot). 2-0
Elephant grass.

General: love chrome mox. Don't like Mindbreak trap main. Kitchen finks instead? Does the same thing when comboing basically, but more relevant before that? Hate remora. But I did notice that it works well with words of wind before comboing since you can respond to your opponent trying to destroy something by bouncing it via the remora trigger and the wow replacement.

[benthetenor]

Just tested a few games (sideboarded and otherwise) mostly against Jund and found it to be on the poor side of even (maybe 40/60 or so), which means to me if you expect Jund, and I certainly don't not expect it, then we need a better sideboard plan. What I found in my testing, with the sideboard that I just posted, was that the games would go very, very long, and you would lose to cards like Liliana and their SB cards like Chains of Mephistopheles and Engineered Plague. What I'm going to test from here on out is the nuclear answer of Leyline of Sanctity. This is mostly because I found Compost to be largely ineffective, mostly because it was the first thing to get hit with Duress/Thoughtseize and so never actually hit the board, which was kind of what I was finding when it was just a 1-of (only then the problem was just that I was never able to draw it). Kitchen Finks did exactly what I wanted it to do, gumming up the board and gaining some amounts of life, but there's also the fact that if I have Leyline of Sanctity in my sideboard, that should just about do it for the Burn and U/R Delver matchups, making Kitchen Finks largely redundant. But the theory here is that if they can't hit us with their discard and/or kill our Enchantresses with Liliana, we don't really need to stall the game or worry about much because we're just more powerful when 10-14 cards in their deck are now effectively dead.

In this matchup, especially if you expect Chains, board in as much Enchantment hate as you can find. Chains is really, really bad for us and we can't go off or even get set up to go off with it in play. I went up to 2 Seal of Primordium and a Harmonic Sliver, and probably should have brought in the Krosan Grip, too. Point being, I think that this is a matchup that we will continue to see, even if it will be attenuated by the high presence of combo in the metagame, so it's not one that can just be ignored. I'm also considering adding in a Ground Seal instead of the second Tormod's Crypt for two reasons: 1) against Dredge, Ground Seal + Elephant Grass is a complete lock, so it's just as effective as Tormod's Crypt in that matchup, and 2) Ground Seal seriously affects everyone's favorite 1-drop, Deathrite Shaman, as well as hitting cards like Snapcaster Mage and enemy Surgical Extractions and still being a solid card against any deck with a reanimation theme. The fact that it cycles all on it's own is just great, and it lets me bring it in just to combat Deathrite Shaman pretty guilt-free. Not that the Shaman is a big deal against us, but even just cutting them off from using their Birds of Paradise will subtly hinder their ability to fight us.

So, to recap, my experimental sideboard from this point is:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Deep Analysis
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Ground Seal/Wheel of Sun and Moon/Compost/Tormod's Crypt/Pithing Needle/flex spot

[waytowinatwar]

So I played another small tournament. 6 ppl, four rounds. Same exact 75. Went 3-1 and got tied for first place. Most rounds I had time to play multiple extra sideboard games.

R1 Warewolf Stompy (dragon Stompy with the red warewolves) 2-1 (5-1)
R2 Jund 0-2 (0-6)
R3 Monoblack 2-0(6-0)
R4 Death and Taxes 2-0

Nothing much to report. Stompy is not too bad. Chalice for 1 hurts but you still get your triggers and can dig for answers. Elephant grass is very good against monoblack.

Jund is a miserable, miserable matchup. His list was close to (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25836_Making-Plans-For-SCGDC.html)

I agree that something needs to be done here and maybe 4 leylines is the way to go. I still have my reservations (expressed above) but will try it out. Present boarding is clearly not working. I don't think we need to worry about chains of m though. Jund players in general will not have them. They might have plagues though so krosan and or sliver are still needed.

What is the board plan though -trap -2 carpet - 4 seal of removal for leylines, ground seal and krosan and sliver? Might work.

Some general comments. Maindeck trap sucks. Precombo it does nothing against anything other than careless Ant players. I think kitchen finks is a good replacement. I can hardly imagine a matchup where infinite life is worse than one hard counter per turn. The former might actually be preferable against ant. And finks does a lot pre combo.

I don't like ground seal. I like that it shuts off shamans for no card investment but 1) I don't think this in itself warrants a sb slot, 2) they are not that great against dredge, like a surgical you have to play on dread return, and if they board rays which they want against grass anyway all bets are off, 3) they don't shut off shallow grave and surgical on grisel is probably stronger 4) we don't care that much about shamen, esp not with leylines.

The extra prim seal in board is probably not needed. Between gsz into sliver and seal of removal and witness to replay seal/sliver/krosan we have a lot already.

The sb carpet is underwhelming as well. They are not amazing in multiples. They have their moments though so ill hang on to it for now. It's currently the first thing that will be cut though.

Here is what I suggest:

4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Chrome mox
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
1 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Windswept Heath
2 Words of Wisdom

Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deep analysis
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction

[benthetenor]

Those are all good points. I think you're right about Kitchen Finks doing more than Mindbreak Trap, except that there are some corner cases where I'd personally prefer a Mindbreak Trap. One is against control, where you can get into a situation where they think the right play is to just counter all of your Words of Wind and you've got too many Enchantress effects, making you deck yourself by having to cast Words of Wind too many times. That's never actually happened, to be fair, though it's not impossible. A single Mindbreak Trap would let you draw out counterspells by recurring it multiple times without drawing cards, which is pretty strong. But it is absolutely true that more often than not you'd rather it were a Kitchen Finks than a Mindbreak Trap. The one-of in the maindeck is very random game one, and the primary reason to be playing it is to win game 1 against Burn, which Kitchen Finks does better. In most cases infinite life is just better, though there will be a small percentage of game 1's, like against Belcher and Elves, where you're really going to kick yourself for having a Kitchen Finks, but then it does let you pre-board against Jund and Burn and Goblins and RUG and any number of other aggro matchups.

I'd say it's probably close enough to chalk it up to preference, though I will be testing the Finks main to see if I like it any better.

[waytowinatwar]

New tournament: 20 people 2-1-1, tied for 7th place.

Same 75 except for changing harmonic into a quasali pridemage. Cat is clearly better than sliver in almost every way; cheaper to cast and gsz, better body, have better control over if and when something should be destroyed (you can play him and have him around to respond to a mother of runes activation for instance). It is in principle possible to needle/revoker cat but not sliver, but this is a negligible drawback since needle/revoker have more pressing targets in seal of removal and words of wind.


Round 1 against UR delver (ok pilot) 1- 1 - 1

Game 1

Mull to five since I can't find lands. He beats me down with delver and shoots me with lavamancer. I land a prescence, and through tricky use of carpet (draw mana main phase 1, bounce, shift main phase, more mana) I get enough mana to bounce all his stuff. Will go infinite next turn. At one life though. Passes. He drops a goblin guide. KIlls me.

Game 2

Easy, don't remember anything.

Game 3

Bounces everything on the third round after time, I'm at infinite life. Only have creatures whose power sums to 11 though. He's at sixteen. Draw.

Would have been nice if I had an instant win in the deck or just an emrakul. Someone suggested Braingeyser. That's not too bad. One could replace one sb deep analysis for this and pre combo it will work like a slightly weaker deep analysis (against esper for instance). I realize that deep analysis targets, and that you could in theory win with that instead. You'd have to have infinite mana or so and use witness to get it back to recast it. However, letting your opponent draw two cards at the time makes their force of wills, mindbreak traps, and surgicals (which they will draw at some point if they have them) relevant. So braingeyser is better from this perspective. Double blue is not great, but the alternative is stroke of genius and its one mana extra and I think that is too much (even though instant speed is worth something).


Round 2 against UR delver with stifles, dreadnought and vision charm (to save dreadnaught from abrupt decay)(good pilot) 2-0

Pretty fast games, quite an easy matchup. A very strong play from my opponent happened in g2 where he vision charms me during my upkeep to turn my forests into mountains. This kills three utopia sprawls and almost shuts me off green. I have a carpet though which gives me green (not as much as usual though since his tropicals are now mountains) which gives me wildgrowths for my islands, which my faeries untap, and maybe I bounce my carpet and replay it and bounce some other stuff as well but I can't remember since I have so many cards and so much mana and I do whatever I like and god I love this deck.


Round 3 Maverick. 1-2! (good pilot)

Win game 1 through thalia and revoker (naming seal of removal). Takes awhile though and for irrelevant social reasons I'm feeling a bit stressed.

Game 2 I only have one land in hand (forest), and I keep anyway. I'm on the draw but I know that this is wrong. I get two chances to draw any land to not lag behind and I have argothian and seal of removal (and two cloud of faeries) but I definitely should not do this. Because if I miss I will certainly die. Low probability of catastrophic event= don't do it. But I keep the hand and miss my second landdrop. I hit land t3, but at this point my opponent already has thalia and canonist in play and probably more and they are not fucking around.

Game 3 I almost stabilize, even though he has thalia, canonist, mother, some disruptive bird creature, and revoker. We go to time. He kills me on t5 through an intricate sequence of plays involving multiple mother activations to gain unblockabiliity, some exalted triggers, and paying four mana to get through the elephant grass.

I lost to the loose keep g2 but I also missed bouncing an early mom from him g3 which would have bought me time and maybe made a difference. I sometime think about replacing krosan with seal of primordium in the sb. But its really good against mothers so I should definitely keep it. Thalia is a pain but manageble. Canonist is unbearable.


Round 4 Goblins 2-0 (good pilot)

Very easy, almost nothing he does is relevant. He doesn't draw his ports, and no sideboard cards g2 (not sure if he had anything relevant though).

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my performance. Feel for the first time like I could have 4-0ed the event (if things only had been slightly different).

Benthetenor: Are you going to SCG KC? Would be nice to get a tournament report from that.

[benthetenor]

I'll definitely be at SCG KC and almost certainly playing this deck. I'll try to make a report, though I'm not sure how detailed it will be.

I'm a little shocked that you lost any number of games to Maverick, since in my experience that's one of the absolute best decks to play against, but I can see how you did and I guess it happens. I wonder if you might be pressing a bit too much, since on paper those are all fairly positive matchups (maybe not UR Delver, but the point is that they're all fair decks). But again, stuff happens. The fact that you went to time in half of your matchups also suggests that you might need to focus a little on operations, or watch your opponents for slow play (or both).

A general rule of thumb for me is to not keep hands without any accelerants, simply because the speed differences between games where you start out with a Wild Growth and the ones where you don't go from turn 4-5 out to turn 6-7, which is only good against the slowest decks in the format. I'd even (loosely) keep a hand without any enchantresses if I have multiple accelerants, since the odds of drawing an enchantress of some kind in the first few draws are very, very good. But if I have one weakness in my game (and I certainly have many), it's mulliganing decisions. Sometimes I'm too aggressive, sometimes I'm not aggressive enough, and at least once per tournament (sometimes per match) I'll have a hand that my friends will say was an awful keep. But I think if you mull to a good hand, you can very, very quickly overcome card disadvantage that comes from mulliganing, and as redundant as this deck is, it's hard to mulligan to oblivion. But sorry, the point of this paragraph was your mulligan decision against Maverick. If you didn't have at least 3 mana sources (from a mix of lands and Wild Growth effects), I would have insta-shipped it.

Pridemage is interesting. Not sure I would call it strictly better, since Harmonic Sliver can be bounced with your Seal of Removals to machine-gun down a lot of artifacts/enchantments in the mirror match or against a MUD deck. You can kind of do that with Eternal Witness and Qasali Pridemage, but it takes way more mana. As for the cost difference, I'm not sure how many times you're going to GSZ for 2 then pass with a Pridemage on the board since that opens you up to getting blown out by a removal spell. Seems more likely that you'll always GSZ when you have the extra mana up so that that doesn't happen, at which point the differences between the two cards just come down to the body size, which is more or less irrelevant. The fact that Harmonic Sliver can't be Pithing Needled is also not something to take lightly, as there do exist some decks that will have a full playset of Pithing Needle and will be looking for extra targets. That's definitely a small point, but you'd hate to be staring down a board with Pithing Needles on Seal of Primordium, Qasali Pridemage and Words of Wind and be drawing to your one-of Krosan Grip, when you could just as easily be playing Harmonic Sliver and increase your number of outs five-fold. Still, for all of that, the two creatures are pretty close and I think if you like Pridemage, you should run with it.

[waytowinatwar]

I forgot to mention that we're playing 40 minute rounds. So that's part of the explanation of the draws. I should be able to speed up though. But i'm not sure I'm going to be fast enough so that I will never need a braingeyser or something like it that to win straight away. It's too bad spike feeder is so much worse than finks because otherwise it could also double as instant win (as long as one of your faeries/witnesses/sliver/teeg doesn't have summoning sickness).

Regarding speed though, there are a lot of things (I feel) that I need to work out beforehand in order to do it correctly on the spot. For instance, I realized last night, after careful calculation that if you have x lands, two enchant land (one of which must be a wildgrowth if you have one or more islands), one enchantress effect and a words of wind then you can bounce x permanents and draw a card even if you have nothing else. This is a common enough situation and a superpowerful thing to do (which actually costs you 2x) especially since yo can do it (barring disruption) every turn from now on. And yet I couldn't figure out on the spot how to do it during the tournament. Do you have any examples like this?

Interesting points about mulligans. I guess g2 and g3 are highly opponent dependent (compare ant/dredge with esper with goblins). G1 without information is tricky (i guess it should really be a function of expected meta and opponent relative heuristics). I tend to focus more on making sure I have enchantress effects than acceleration (it is a wonderful thing about the deck that it typically has both!). In fact I think my rule of thumb has been mulling hands with out enchantress effects since the games I loose (or so I have thought) are the ones where I just do nothing. But it is true that both the ones I didn't win involved not being fast enough to go off. One thing about acceleration though is that if you have enchantresses you draw accelerants which start to matter more or less immediately so drawing your first accelerant on t4 is likely to give you a faster game than drawing your first enchantress on t4. It is tricky though and I need more data/think more about it. I've started taking photos of my opening hands as a basis for generalization.

Good points about the interaction between seal of removal and sliver. Although this situation doesn't turn up that much in practice (since you often need to use seals on opponents creatures, and neither MUD nor the mirror are DTB) having the possibility is a powerful thing. No dtb plays four needles so I don't think this is an issue, also since cat is sb your opponents more often than not don't know about cat before she strikes. Also cat is much better at killing jaces (on her own or via exalted trigger on a witness for instance)

Good luck in SCG KC! Make us proud! Or at this point (considering the activity in the thread) me.

[anonymos]

Greetings from a dedicated Solitaire player!

I watch here for ideas for myself and am really digging this build. I'm looking at playing it for MTGO because paper cards and I aren't seeing eye to eye right now. I know that in the other ehchantress deck, the sliver has been better for me online.

My question is how do you guys feel about matchups with Griselbrand and Emrakul?

[Freggle]

Greetings from a dedicated Solitaire player!

I watch here for ideas for myself and am really digging this build. I'm looking at playing it for MTGO because paper cards and I aren't seeing eye to eye right now. I know that in the other ehchantress deck, the sliver has been better for me online.

My question is how do you guys feel about matchups with Griselbrand and Emrakul?

The best cards Enchantress can run to handle those two IMHO in UG are Pithing Needle and Seal of Removal respectively.

[slaughtercult]

i'm currently testing the following list

4 argothian enchantress
4 cloud of faeries
1 emrakul, the aeons torn

4 enchantress's presence
4 gaea's touch
4 wild growth
4 utopia sprawl
4 seal of removal
4 elephant grass
2 green sun's zenith
1 mirri's guile
1 treachery
2 words of wind

3 misty rainforest
2 windswept heath
2 tropical island
1 savannah
2 serra's sanctum
2 tropical island
1 island
8 forest

i've been happy with it so far. things i wanna do are adding a maindeck karakas, most likely in place of a sanctum. i didn't like the living wish build, so i maindecked emrakul instead. treachery is a sweet piece of tech i found playing alot of EDH, it helps in the show and tell matches a bit and helps untap alot of lands at once to ramp faster.

any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated. i felt leaving white mana in the main would give me versatility in sideboard choices.

[benthetenor]

Greetings from a dedicated Solitaire player!

I watch here for ideas for myself and am really digging this build. I'm looking at playing it for MTGO because paper cards and I aren't seeing eye to eye right now. I know that in the other ehchantress deck, the sliver has been better for me online.

My question is how do you guys feel about matchups with Griselbrand and Emrakul?

Those matchups are surprisingly decent. You can (and will) still get blown out with an early Show and Tell before you have a chance to find an out, but the 4 maindeck Seal of Removal does a lot to disrupt their monsters , and Elephant Grass keeps Griselbrand from attacking, which can occasionally just be enough to beat them. There are a number of cards you can board in if you're losing to Sneak and Show decks consistently, as Pithing Needle and Oblivion Ring are both strong cards to Show and Tell in. If they're playing Omniscience then Seal of Removal alone isn't enough, but there's a lot of enchantment hate that you can bring in to be prepared for game 2 and 3. Like playing against any combo deck it's not a great matchup, but it's not terrible either. Reanimator is actually a little bit better since Seal of Removal always 2-for-1s them instead of just 1-for-1, and that deck leans much more heavily on Grislebrand, making Elephant Grass great. And you can bring in graveyard hate.

@Slaughtercult - I won't beat a dead horse, but I will comment: It seems to me like you're running a version that is less efficient than the standard build. What are your reasons for running Emrakul at all? Or less than 12 Enchantresses? Treachery is interesting I guess, but I haven't found a need for something that costs 5 in the deck. Also, I don't think it works the way you think it does when it comes to Show and Tell; it won't end up enchanting an enemy's creature off of Show and Tell because the creature won't be in play to target when your half of Show and Tell resolves, and it won't untap lands if you don't cast it.

If you're going to run fewer fetchlands, which is how you got to Serra's Sanctum, there's no reason to run less than 4 Misty Rainforests, and doing so is almost certainly wrong since Misty Rainforest can get any color in your deck, whereas a generic green fetchland (like Windswept Heath) can't fetch out a basic Island. I'm not sure what white cards you're wanting to bring in from the sideboard that will justify opening yourself up to Wasteland or mulling hands with just a Serra's Sanctum in every game you play, but in my experience you don't need all that many white cards. If I could somehow guarantee that I'd never draw Gaddock Teeg or Harmonic Sliver, I wouldn't even play a Savannah.

@waytowinatwar - One thing I find myself doing often is the slow combo, which comes up when I have a Words of Wind and an enchantress in play, and two 1-mana enchantments in hand (or one in play and one in hand). With that setup, for every 2 mana you can pay, you can bounce one permanent, which is sometimes enough to keep your opponent stuck, or else to set them back two turns each turn. I think that's a parallel situation to what you were talking about, and it's definitely important to know how to do that since it's a play you have access to pretty much any time when you have a Words of Wind early in the game. But I often find myself entering turn 3 able to pay 6-8 mana, meaning I can bounce 3-4 permanents a turn for the rest of the game while I continue to build my board-position, which is often enough to just beat them if they're trying to grind you out. If you want to win with this deck, you have to know how all of your cards interact, and that's one of the strongest interactions that people don't seem to understand, which leads them to treat Words of Wind as an all-or-nothing card, but it is absolutely a powerful card for disrupting an opponent, even when you can't just insta-bounce their entire board.

[benthetenor]

I ended up going 4-4 at SCG Kansas City which is extremely disappointing as I started off 4-1 and then failed to cash. Just one more win and I would have gotten there, but I saw enough mistakes in a key match that I lost that I don't know that I can really blame the deck. It was a fun tournament in spite of that (and the ridiculous amount of snow) But here's a report.

For reference, here's the list:

4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
6 Forest
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks

3 Chrome Mox
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Seal of Removal
4 Elephant Grass
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Words of Wind
4 Green Sun's Zenith

SB:
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Krosan Grip
1 Harmonic Sliver
2 Deep Analysis
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity

For this tournament I was testing the main-deck Kitchen Finks instead of Mindbreak Trap, and the Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard, as well as 3 Chrome Mox instead of an equal number of lands. I almost audibled into ANT the night before since a weird confluence of factors that probably won't happen again ended up with me having access to all of the cards I needed (including 4 Lion's Eye Diamond and the duals and Polluted Deltas), but I reasoned that people would pack a lot of hate for Storm since it just won the last open, and while I think that deck is extremely strong I knew myself enough to know that having not tested it at all I wouldn't be comfortable piloting it through the hate. I am by my nature a Storm-based combo player, so I would have probably done okay, but I also felt that if everyone was playing a fair deck with a lot of anti-storm hate then I'd just crush that field with Enchantress anyway.


Rd 1 - Punishing Jund
The guy starts off by telling me he's hungover from the night before, and I make a mental note of it. Beat him game 1 at a healthy life total and without many complications, as I think he had a pretty slow start and I didn't. Game 2 I brought in the Leyline of Sanctity and had one in the opening 7. He laughs a little and shows me 3 discard spells in his opener. The rest of the game is academic. 1-0, 2-0


Rd 2 - Esper Miracles with Geist (!!!)
There was a lot going on in this guy's list. He's from around here (I'm assuming, he had a Source play-mat) so I suppose he might have posted something at some point about his list. In either case I definitely wasn't expecting to see Geist of Saint Graft and Counterbalance in the same list, and would go so far as to say that it's probably just wrong since those two cards pull a deck in opposite directions. But then, he beat me, so I guess it was right. Game 1 he got a Counterbalance + Top going before I could do much of anything. I tried to grind him out but reached a point where I was locked out, so I scooped. Game 2 he plays a very quick Geist but I managed to just straight up raced him with 2 Cloud of Faeries and an Eternal Witness combined with a few Seal of Removals to bounce his Angel tokens. Game 3 he again dropped an early Counterbalance + Top, and then followed that up with another Geist. Can't beat that kind of pressure. 1-1, 3-2


Rd 3 - U/W/R Landstill
Wasn't expecting something like this to show up, but it went about the way that you would expect. Game 1 I resolve an Enchantress or two then run him out of Counterspells (and they were many) and take over the game. He says something about being upset that he didn't counter the Words of Wind when he had the chance, though to be honest he lost as soon as he let the first Enchantress resolve. Game 2 we trade spells a little bit, and at one point he Force of Wills my Deep Analysis. I just kind of laugh and say "Ok." He plays a Stoneforge Mystic for Sword of Fire and Ice and then Mystics in a Batterskull, then the SOFI the next turn. He equips both and bashes my face, but pretty soon I have the Seal of Primordium + Eternal Witness to stop that nonsense. I win at 1 life. 2-1, 5-2


Rd 4 - Merfolk with Chalices
Super nice guy. He starts with Island -> Aether Vial, and I say to myself "Merfolk". Then he plays a Chalice of the Void for 1 (I'd already gotten down a few Wild Growths) and I say "hmm...." I land an Enchantress and win with on infinite life. Game 2, he has three counterspells and just counters everything that's relevant while presenting a clock, which is exactly what Merfolk does when it's functioning well. Game 3 I get down to 4 life before stabilizing and eventually gaining infinite life. He wants me to actually beat him, as we are close to turns, and I oblige. Again, super nice guy, came up to me after a few other rounds and said he was rooting for me! 3-1, 7-3


Rd 5 - Punishing Jund
Played against a guy that I was sitting next to in round 2, and I noticed back then that he was both 1) playing Jund and 2) a complainer, so I made a mental note of those things. Game 1 I get all the way down to 4 life before establishing control and locking him out. I don't think he played very much discard in that game which is probably how I got there, but Kitchen Finks shone here to give me the life so that I didn't just get burned out. I ended the game with infinite life and him with no board. He said he wanted to make me beat him. I asked him if he could beat infinite life. He said he would deck me. I pointed to Words of Wind. He said "oh" and scooped them up. Game 2 I mulled to Leyline of Sanctity (though the hands I mulled weren't great anyway) and began the game with it in play. Again we have a grindy game that ends with me stabilizing at 5 life and him with no board. He may have actually sideboarded out discard since I didn't see him holding any dead cards at all, which is an interesting choice, but Leyline still kept him from burning me out or hitting me with a Nihil Spellbomb. He complained a lot more, but I tried to be nice to him and I think it cheered him up. 4-1, 9-3


Rd 6 - Belcher
Sat down at my first every feature match (not covered, unfortunately, but oh well) and got promptly Gitaxian Probed, which I took to be a bad sign. He made 14 goblins on turn 1. I had the Elephant Grass, but he had Burning Wish -> Reverent Silence, and that was that. Game 2 I boarded in Leyline of Sanctity and Mindbreak Trap and Gaddock Teeg, taking out Seal of Removal and Carpet of Flowers and Kitchen Finks and I think 1 Cloud of Faeries. Started game 2 with Leyline in play and he had a Belcher hand so I was in good shape. Drew a Mindbreak Trap that I didn't want to have to show him, but he tried to go Burning Wish -> Reverent Silence again and I had to. I got down an Elephant Grass a few turns later and beat him to death with a pair of Faeries. Game 3 was the turning point of the tournament. After seeing Mindbreak Trap, he re-sideboarded and said "Guess I have to play around Mindbreak Trap", so I assumed he went back for Xantid Swarms. I bring back in 3 Seal of Removal for some Enchantresses and a second Cloud of Faeries. I kept a hand of Misty Rainforest, Chrome Mox, Gaddock Teeg, Enchantress, Words of Wind, Cloud of Faeries, Green Sun's Zenith. I thought for a good long minute about shipping it (which I still think was a close call) and ended up keeping on the logic that if he went turn 1 Xantid Swarm, I'd go turn 1 Gaddock Teeg which he'd have to answer if he wanted to combo out. Instead he just made 10 Goblins on turn 1 and I was stuck there staring at my lack of Mindbreak Traps. Frowns. I play Gaddock Teeg anyway, block a Goblin, then play a Cloud of Faeries and an Enchantress. I block the next two, go to 2, and play an Enchantress's Presence to draw a card, but fail to find an Elephant Grass and lose. 4-2, 10-5

After playing this matchup, I think it is a lot closer than I'd assumed. After boarding, I end up with 7 cards (MBT and Leyline) to beat a Belcher and 7 cards (MBT and Elephant Grass) to beat Empty the Warrens. I was a bit bummed to have lost on a hand that I probably should have mulliganed, and extra bummed to draw a matchup against Belcher, though I guess it's unavoidable. He showed me the cards he brought in, which included both Xantid Swarm and REB (which for some reason I hadn't considered), which told me that my logic was fine, though in retrospect if he didn't have Xantid Swarm in the opener (or didn't Probe me at the start of that turn to see I didn't have a MBT), he still had like a 75% chance of just beating me on the first turn. If I had drawn an Elephant Grass, I still win that game and match. My friends who were watching said that he drew very well, but also that they would have mulliganed there, so I guess it's a toss up.


Rd 7 - Natural Order Elves
I win game 1 on the back of a whole slew of Elephant Grass. He didn't have any of the three ways to get me (Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith or Glimpse of Nature) and so his plan of "play a bunch of guys and attack" didn't get a lot of traction, which is I suppose something that happens. Sided in Mindbreak Trap and Gaddock Teeg for Carpet of Flowers and Kitchen Finks and a Cloud of Faeries. Games two and three I mulligan to 5 cards just to find a playable hand, but I never see any actual hate cards and he just beats me. I think that this is a matchup that needs a little work, though he was, as far as I can tell, literally the only Elves player in the room so I had a good shot of just dodging him all day, but that's just not what happened. I asked him if he feared Gaddock Teeg after the match, and he said it was pretty worth it, but that his deck has so many avenues of winning that it's tough to beat. 4-3, 11-7


Rd. 8 - Pox
The good thing about Legacy is that there's a lot of decks that are at least somewhat valid. The bad thing about Legacy is that if you lose a round or two, you're much, much more likely to see the ridiculous decks. As it stands, my last shot at winning any money came through a Pox player that seemed to really enjoy doing as little as possible. He leads off with turn 1 Swamp -> Cursed Scroll, and I am pretty happy, but then he manages to Sinkhole a land I'd enchanted (which is bad) and then play a Liliana to kill my Enchantress (which is bad) and then play a Nether Void to lock us both out of the game for a while. I turbo dig through my library to find the lone Seal of Primordium (DING!) to keep Cursed Scroll from just killing me and play out a Kitchen Finks to somewhat stabilize but he eventually beats me with a Mishra's Factory after dealing with the Finks. Game 2 I bring in Leyline of Sanctity and enchantment removal and mull to a playable hand without either, whereas he starts off with a Leyline of the Void of his own, and he beats me again. We get into a gamestate where he has two Nether Voids in play (which is extremely illegal but I didn't realize it until a friend reminded me about how Enchant Worlds work after the match) and he ultimates Liliana twice, at which point I fetch through my library to find a land and realize that I've got just two left in my deck, with 3 in play, and I tell him as much and scoop. I would have paid the $50 just to not have to play that match. Gross. 4-4, 11-9.


So I finish in 69th place, just 5 out of the money (which means I definitely should have offered the split in the last round). I didn't end up facing any of the big 3 from the pre-Jund metagame (Stoneblade, RUG and Show and Tell) which was disappointing, though perhaps I would have if I had beaten Belcher. This is the third tournament in a row that I brought Enchantress to where I got knocked out by runner-runner combo decks, which is more than a little frustrating, though I think it's a testament to the strength of this deck that it's only going to get beaten by other combo decks. What I absolutely need to do is test more against combo so I can know how to reliably beat it, as it's knocked me out of the tournament consistently. I felt I was playing well, and in my grindy matchups I saw a lot of opportunities to give away percentage points which convinced me that this is actually not an easy deck to pilot. Leyline of Sanctity completely turns the Jund matchup around, since it functions as a 16 (or more)-for-1 and they have literally no way (in a standard Jund sideboard) to deal with it. It also has use against Storm-based combo decks, though I will need to test it to see if it's more than just a speed bump against something like ANT. I would not play in the current metagame without a solid plan against Jund, and I am very pleased that I decided to try Leyline out for this tournament. On a personal level, I think I played better than I have in several tournaments, and I made more correct mulliganing decisions than poor ones, which is my white whale. In the end, there's nothing more frustrating than starting out 4-1 and then failing to cash, so I'm naturally not happy about that, but I think my deck choice was solid and I think with a little more luck (mostly in pairings) and a bit better play (in mulliganing in Rd. 6) I could have made it to the top 8. Though facing a Top 8 of Reanimator and Storm and Elves could have been a little rough...

I do think that if there's one thing this tournament taught me, it's the value in having a list that is as flexible as possible. I liked the Kitchen Finks main since it gave me stuff to do against aggro decks game 1, though I do think that either it or Mindbreak Trap are both good for that spot. I was glad at multiple points throughout the tournament to have the 1-of Seal of Primordium in the main because there were a lot of situations that it helped in and at least one where I needed it. Legacy is, and probably always will be, extremely diverse and you have to be able to beat the chaff if you want a shot at beating the top decks. Winning the first round goes a long way towards having a good tournament since it means you're less likely to see stuff like Burn and all-in combo like Belcher, particularly as you continue to win. All in all, I think the deck is still extremely solid in the metagame. If people ever stop playing all sorts of combo, this deck will go from "good choice" to "excellent choice".

[waytowinatwar]

Nice report! Funny, informative and easy to read. thanks for taking the time to write it. Beating two junds is very nice. It would be nice to know more exactly for each match how you boarded. I currently have trouble deciding what to take out in some match ups. I'll see if I can post my current board plans in a few days.

I don't think the sb seal of primordium is needed btw. Do you? I go for a second gy hate spell. However, a case might be made for detention sphere. It is useful against zombie tokens (dredge) goblin tokens (belcher) show and tell, sneak attack, jace, liliana etc. Glad you liked the md finks, I love it.

[benthetenor]

The second Seal of Primordium was gold all day long. It does what you need it to do when you really need to do that thing, and it cycles when you draw it when there's not a pressing need for it. If there's one Disenchant effect that might get shaved it would be Krosan Grip, but I'd like to have as many solid ways to answer a Counterbalance as possible, and in the matchups where you need to deal with an artifact or enchantment, you really, really need to draw it so having a full 4 (plus GSZ for the Sliver) isn't a bad thing. I don't think I need another graveyard hate card since my matchups with graveyard decks are already pretty positive.

As for Detention Sphere, I'd never play it over Oblivion Ring since the one matchup where you really really want it (Show and Tell) is also a matchup that is highly likely to have REB/Pyroblast out of the sideboard, and I'd prefer not to bring in a card that gets nuked by an otherwise dead card of theirs. The fact that it gets tokens is nice, but Elephant Grass already does that job. Yes, it would have been nice to have in the pivotal game against Belcher, but there's pretty much no way I'd bring in Detention Sphere against Belcher or any non-Show and Tell combo deck anyway. If I needed a card specifically to deal with plainswalkers I'd just run Pithing Needle since it's more versatile, but then the only plainswalker that interacts with us in a meaningful way is Liliana which is answered with Leyline of Sanctity.

As for sideboarding, I covered the matchups where I sideboarded in lots and lots of cards, the rest of them just involved cutting the dead cards and then hedging 1-2 copies of other cards as space was needed.

[Guest2511]

benthetenor,

How do you feel about the Chrome Moxes instead of lands? What made you take dryad arbor out of your decklist?

[benthetenor]

Chrome Moxes were great. I had two or three turn 1 Enchantresses throughout the day which is really a pretty incredible way to start a game. There may be some merit to cutting one for a land, as there were a few situations where I drew one and it would have saved me some CA in the grindy matchups, but that would also pretty drastically decrease the probability of having one and an Argothian Enchantress in the opening hand, which is the whole reason to run them in the first place. I do think 3 is better than 4, but then I haven't ever tested 4, so maybe I need to.

Dryad Arbor sucks. Really pretty badly. It is true that you always want the ability to get a turn 1 accelerant, but the number of situations where having a non-basic Forest that draws Lighting Bolts is a liability is much higher than the times that having Dryad Arbor in play is a positive. The deck is already more or less immune to Wasteland, so what you're doing with Dryad Arbor is accelerating, yes, but also giving your opponent's dead cards a use. You can't ever enchant Dryad Arbor with any Wild Growth effects because it's just too much of a risk, and then the games that you don't go GSZ for 0 on turn 1, you are absolutely going to just draw it because you draw your entire deck, at which point it's a very, very bad Forest. Without playing Dryad Arbor you lose the ability to do fetchland tricks, it's true, but this isn't like Elves where you have Quirion Ranger to bounce it and fog the opponent infinitely. You'll blow out your bad opponents by ninja-ing in a Dryad Arbor to block their Dark Confidant, but then that same opponent will just beat you because you traded a land drop for a creature of theirs and that's not really what you want to be doing. Or else in the other games of the match you'll lose because you have a forest that you need that will draw a Wasteland. It's just much better in my opinion to mulligan the hand that doesn't have an accelerant if you're in a match where you need to be fast than it is to give their dead cards targets.

I cut Dryad Arbor when I started playing Chrome Mox, and I haven't looked back. Chrome Mox is a much better accelerant because when you draw it mid-combo, it comes right down and helps you if you were a little mana light. There are no decks better suited to offset the card disadvantage inherent in Chrome Mox than this one. Now, I did have a Chrome Mox get hit by Abrupt Decay in this tournament which kind of sucked, but I think that if they're hitting that with Abrupt Decay, they're not hitting an Enchantress's Presence, which would be worse.

[waytowinatwar]

New Tournament: 24 people, 3-0-1, tied for 2nd place.

This time around I made efforts to remember my mulliganing decisions so that I could evaluate these after the tournament. (And get feedback on them) Same (now fairly stable) 75:

4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Chrome mox
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
1 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Windswept Heath
2 Words of Wisdom

Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deep analysis
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction

Round 1 against Goblins (amazing pilot, goblin maestro) 2-1

Game 1
Opening hand (on the play):
7: Misty, Wild G, Faerie, Savannah, GSZ, Wow, Sprawl: Keep!

Amazing hand even though I know my opponent is probably playing goblins. Fetch-forest-sprawl. He plays lackey. Savannah, faerie, gsz for argothian, wild g, draw elephant grass.

Game 2 (-2 carpet of flowers, + krosan + cat)
Oh (otd):
7: Forest, Argo, Faerie, Prescence, Wow, seal of removal, krosan: Ship
6: Forest, Tropical, 2 elephant grass, wow, chrome mox: Reluctant keep

I keep him at bay behind the grass but a lackey occasionally pushes through. I get an argothian I think and start drawing some cards, he gets vials, and suddenly has goblin sharpshooter, kiki-jiki, siege gang, prospecter and deals 16. Nothing really I could have done, except maybe have shipped back my mull to six, but I don't think this would have been correct.

Game 3
Oh(otp)
7: Misty, heath, mox, argothian, cat, wow, grass: Keep!
t1 argothian, imprinting cat on mox, He plays mountain, says go. I win at 18.


Round 2 against Pox (inexperienced player) 2-1

Game 1
oh (otp)
7: only one land don't remember the rest
6: Argothian, faerie, 4 land: Keep

If he doesn't have t1 discard I can land a t2 argothian with edict protection. I do but he has two innocent blood. He destroys stuff, forces me to discard but doesn't really do much else (classic pox). I draw some land, find a prescence and I win from there

Game 2 (-2 carpet, - 4 grass, -2 seal of removal + 4 leyline, cat, krosan, + 2 analysis
oh (otd)
7: leyline, tropical, sprawl, growth, argothian, cat, wow: reluctant keep

He sinkholes my first two lands, and small pox the third, I don't draw any more and he kills me with two mishras

Game 3
oh (otp)
7: prescence, 2 argothian, faerie, windswept, misty, savannah: keep!

Short of a dark ritual from him i will land an argothian t2 i reason. I do. She dies. I land a prescence. which sticks. I start drawing cards.


Round 3 against Death and Taxes (inexperienced player) 2-0

See previous reports. Win at 1 life both games. Not close.

Round 4 against Maverick (skilled player) 1-1-1

Game 1
oh(otd)
7: precscence, 2 lands, sprawl, 3 something

Land t2 prescence. It sticks. He assembles some stuff. It is not enough.

Game 2 (-2 carpet,+cat,+krosan)
Oh(otp)
7: chrome mox, faerie, sprawl, elephant grass, wow, 2 lands: keep

I don't draw any enchantress effects, stall with grass. He's Mother into thalia into two knights. I quite firmly believe that I shouldn't keep hands like these. No enchantress no keep.

Game 3
Oh(otd)
7: mox, misty, argothian, heath, seal of rem, wow: keep!

Game starts of amazingly, and i think i can start locking him down early. But i draw a lot of guys, faerie, finks, witness, i then get the idea that i should kill him without locking him down (how quaint). But i don't really commit to this plan until it is too late. We time out When he's at 4 no creatures out, I have faerie, fink, and witness, and two argothian. 1 more turn and he'd be dead. 40 min rounds! A good experience though, since it involved some practice with attacking - which is easy to forget since 1) it often won't matter too much 2) your creatures power are overshadowed by their utility, 3) if carpets are live you want to put it off as long as possible. Sliver over cat might have made a difference this game actually since I had a choice between canonist and revoker on navy seals, killed revoker and proceeded to bounce the canonist a couple of times. Would have been better to kill revoker bounce sliver and kill canonist (next turn).

Very happy with deck/performance. I'll try to be a little more systematic next report. See if I can come up with some rules for mulligan decisions for common matchups.

[waytowinatwar]

New Tournament: 23 people, 3-1 tied for 2nd place.

Same 75 as before but replaced cat with sliver and one deep analysis with braingeyser.

Round 1 against Random assortment of bg rtr deck (beginner) 2-0

Game 1 onthedraw
7: Island, 2 gsz, prescence, faerie, grass,removal
6: Forest*2, heath, sprawl,prescence, faeries

We don't interact and he has no clock.

Game 2 (-2 carpet of flowers, + krosan + sliver)

7: Savannah, sprawl, gsz*2, faerie, primordium, witness

We don't interact and he has no clock.


Round 2 against Rug (good player) 2-0

Game 1 otp
7: Island, Heath, gsz, prescence*2, faerie, removal

I have him on food chain, which I think is very difficult, but it turns out that he's playing rug which is a great matchup. A t2 mongoose starts applying some pressure and he dazes and pierces some mana acceleration. I land a prescence, starts drawing, find grass, stabilize with finks.

Game 2 (-1witness, +1 carpet)
7: tropical, forest, misty, faerie*2, witness, wow
6: Heath, sprawl*2, argothian, gsz,wow

I ship my opener since I don't have any enchantreses. My 6 is good unless he passes t1 with stifle mana. He ponders. But daze my first sprawl. Second one sticks, i draw another land, play a daze proof argothian, he draws a few counters, but I 2 for 1 them with my argothian. He doesn't have any pressure and can't keep that up forever.

Round 3 against Rug (ok pilot) 2 - 0

Game 1 otd

7: forest, sprawl, wild growth, mox, argothian, prescence*2

Wow! He t1 mongoose. I go forest into mox imprint growth, tap mox to play sprawl on forest into argothian. This way I can t2 prescence. I don't get to cantrip sprawl but I think this is clearly a stronger line of play. Argothian sticks. He's never really in it.

Game 2 (-1witness, +1 carpet)

7 forest*2, savanah, growth, argothian, grass, removal.

Oh deck! Stop it with the amazing hands! I can more or less bait force with grass and play around everything else. He's never in it.

Round 4 against Tes (good pilot) 0-2 (0 - 3 really)

Game 1 otd
7: forest, sprawl, growth, argothian, gsz, removal, witness

I know he is on tes and that I'm more or less doomed g1. I get three turns, which is generous, but not enough.

Game 2 (- finks, primordium, 2 carpet, 4 removal, 1 faerie, + 4 leyline, 3 traps, sliver, 1teeg)

7: forest, misty, savannah, sprawl, argothian, gsz*2

I ship this since it doesn't have any immediate interaction with him. It does have t2 teeg but I don't realize this. It might be correct to ship either way.

6: forest*2, island, sprawl, argothian, trap.

Good hand . Unclear if I should play sprawl t1. I do though. He goes probe, volcanic, petal, dark ritual which I trap. I reason that he is unlikely to have another black sorce. But If I allow ritual he could duress into ritual into game over. He stops and passes. I go argothian. He plays duress and forces me to discard whatever I drew. I top deck a gsz into teag. I start beating down, but don't draw that many enchantments. He wishes for grapeshot. I get one more turn draw a leyline I can't cast. Passes. He rituals twice grapeshot teag, 2 leds, tutor for ad naeseum at 13 no mana floating. It works.

I might have misplayed when I set the sprawl t1 on blue. Otherwise I don't think I made any mistakes. Not sure if board is optimal though. If he can ad naeseum at some point he wins regardless if I have leylines in play (since he is likely to find chain of vapor). Tes is harder than ant since they can wish for answers and have a goblin angle which makes it harder to sideboard out stuff (grass is still useful). I'm thinking that chalice (which by default will be set to zero) might be better than trap. Leylines are clunky but good against discard based disruption and edicts so I don't want to remove any of those.

Replace traps with chalice:

Cons:
It is not live before your t1

Pros:
Like teeg he more or less has to deal with it to win.
There are ways to avoid trap which doesn't work with chalice (silence, discard,xantid)
It's better against elves

Perhaps two chalice and one trap is the way to go, to create uncertainty about how to board/play against me.

I'm not sure about exactly how to board even if it is granted that i make the aforementioned switch. Someone suggested that all artifact removal should be in the board.

Suggestion:

Tes:
- finks, primordium, 2 carpet, 4 removal
+ 4 leyline, 2 chalice, trap, teeg

Ant:
- finks, primordium, 2 carpet, 4 grass, 2 removal
+ 4 leyline, 2 chalice, trap, 2 surgical, teeg

Elves
- finks, primordium, 2 carpet
+ 2 chalice, trap, sliver

Apart from these considerations I'm very happy with the deck/my performance.

[Freggle]

Perhaps two chalice and one trap is the way to go, to create uncertainty about how to board/play against me.


What ever came of the In the Eye of Chaos tech?

[waytowinatwar]

What ever came of the In the Eye of Chaos tech?

1 At the soonest it comes online t2 by which time you might be dead
2 it dies to Abrupt Decay (for no extra cost)
3 another weapon against tes/ANT at your disposal is teeg/ Gsz for teeg which is also a t2 play. This means if you are playing iteoc that you might have to choose t2 which to play. Chalice/trap doesn't compete with teeg in this way.


Also, but less importantly, it does very little against elves.

It has a lot going for it though, enchantment, easy to cast, no drawback for you, Cool Legends Card

[benthetenor]

In the Eye of Chaos is very, very strong against ANT in particular, but yes, it basically does nothing in the faster combo matchups. Not necessarily because of speed, but mostly because those decks are so fast that you're unlikely to even get one turn. ItEoC is great, but you will need to play at least two of them if you are planning on having them against the combo matchup, and against the decks that they are best against, we have plenty to bring in already.

For the combo matchup, why did you board in any sort of enchantment removal? I can't think of a single thing that they could bring in against you that would be relevant. I'd also keep in Kitchen Finks in pretty much all combo matchups since it ensures that once you win, you actually win (have infinite life) instead of giving them the chance to cast a Duress or two to take your Mindbreak Traps and then getting you from there.

I haven't really ever played against TES, but my plan against ANT is -4 Elephant Grass, -2 Eternal Witness, -2 Carpet of Flowers, -1 Seal of Primordium for +4 Leyline of Sanctity, +3 Mindbreak Trap, +1 Gaddock Teeg, +1 Tormod's Crypt. Eternal Witness is really pretty bad against combo decks unless they have counterspells, and their discard is going to be negated if you get a Leyline in play so you don't have to worry about rebuying any cards that you lose. It may be correct to leave in one Eternal Witness as a safety valve, but it hasn't ever come up.

Chalice of the Void is not bad, but the odds of you getting it down turn 1 are pretty low. If you're on the draw, you might just lose with it in your hand, and even on the play, they're going to have a chance to Duress it away. I really think the only way that this deck will be able to beat combo in a consistent manner is to just not play against it, meaning that there is a definitely metagame that it is weaker to and one that it is stronger to, but every deck has that. It seems like combo numbers have been dropping fairly consistently over the last few weeks, so things just get better and better. I do think that you give up too much of an edge to the decks that you're good against if you put 12 cards in the sideboard to combat combo, and if you wanted a hard-combo killer, you'd want Arcane Laboratory, but things aren't so drastic that you'd want to go with a card that would hurt you at least 50% as much as it hurts them. Gaddock Teeg is usually enough to beat them, and Tormod's Crypt shuts off half of their kill. Leyline forces them to go Ad Nauseam, and Mindbreak Trap mostly just sits in your hand and gets Duressed away, though it will beat an unprepared opponent, and if you can assemble Leyline + Mindbreak Trap you're probably 95% to win. That's why I don't think it's right to focus anything else on the combo matchup, because you're already bringing in 8-9 cards that are useful in other matchups.

[Freggle]

Chalice of the Void is not bad

We are having a similar discussion in the RIP / Helm (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24692-Developmental-Enchantress-with-Rest-In-Peace-Helm) thread in the N&D area. Are we all on the same page thinking the 1st chalice would be set at 0 to shut off artifact mana? ...then move up the line from there?

I'll be testing it shortly. I just don't run into a lot of combo in the Testing area of MTGO.

Also, In that thread I'm having success in shaving down Elephant Grass for Mirri's Guile since this is a combo deck and the right cards are important. Has that been tested at all here? Elephant Grass is so good at what it does when it come in from the board I feel very comfortable taking games 2 & 3 if you happen to miss 1 (which is not a given.)

[waytowinatwar]

We are having a similar discussion in the RIP / Helm (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24692-Developmental-Enchantress-with-Rest-In-Peace-Helm) thread in the N&D area. Are we all on the same page thinking the 1st chalice would be set at 0 to shut off artifact mana? ...then move up the line from there?

Yes, but chalice for 1 is very bad for us.


I'll be testing it shortly. I just don't run into a lot of combo in the Testing area of MTGO.

Also, In that thread I'm having success in shaving down Elephant Grass for Mirri's Guile since this is a combo deck and the right cards are important. Has that been tested at all here? Elephant Grass is so good at what it does when it come in from the board I feel very comfortable taking games 2 & 3 if you happen to miss 1 (which is not a given.)

Grass is too powerful imo to cut. If your meta is filled with decks where grass is not great maybe the deck is the wrong choice. I'm not really sure about the combo classification, it has a combo finish but it runs on a powerful redundant card advantage engine which is not really served by guile. Sylvan Library if anything. But it's not very compelling to me.

[waytowinatwar]

In the Eye of Chaos is very, very strong against ANT in particular, but yes, it basically does nothing in the faster combo matchups. Not necessarily because of speed, but mostly because those decks are so fast that you're unlikely to even get one turn. ItEoC is great, but you will need to play at least two of them if you are planning on having them against the combo matchup, and against the decks that they are best against, we have plenty to bring in already.


I guess the idea would be to replace traps with them. But as I said, they are too slow and interact poorly with the gsz for teeg alternative. With trap you can gsz t2 and have trap backup (if you draw both). With chalice you can drop it t1 and gsz t2. With iteoc you have to choose and if they've drawn just a single copy of chain or decay the game is over.


In
For the combo matchup, why did you board in any sort of enchantment removal? I can't think of a single thing that they could bring in against you that would be relevant.


That was a mistake. See my refined plans at the end of the post.


In
I'd also keep in Kitchen Finks in pretty much all combo matchups since it ensures that once you win, you actually win (have infinite life) instead of giving them the chance to cast a Duress or two to take your Mindbreak Traps and then getting you from there.


I don't think you are thinking this through. Once you win you will have 4 leylines in play and three mindbreak traps in hand (and mana to hard cast all of them). There is nothing they can do. And finks add very little pre combo.


In
I haven't really ever played against TES, but my plan against ANT is -4 Elephant Grass, -2 Eternal Witness, -2 Carpet of Flowers, -1 Seal of Primordium for +4 Leyline of Sanctity, +3 Mindbreak Trap, +1 Gaddock Teeg, +1 Tormod's Crypt. Eternal Witness is really pretty bad against combo decks unless they have counterspells, and their discard is going to be negated if you get a Leyline in play so you don't have to worry about rebuying any cards that you lose. It may be correct to leave in one Eternal Witness as a safety valve, but it hasn't ever come up.


I disagree. You can't sideboard based on the assumption that you will always have a leyline in play. Witnesses gets traps back when the combo player forces you to discard them. It makes gsz get traps. At the very least, they are better than finks.


In
Chalice of the Void is not bad, but the odds of you getting it down turn 1 are pretty low. If you're on the draw, you might just lose with it in your hand, and even on the play, they're going to have a chance to Duress it away.



You set it on 0 so if you're on the play they can't force you to discard it. So the difference between trap and chalice mostly come up when they are on the play. Sometimes they will win t1 without discard. Then trap is better. But if they win t1 with discard neither trap nor chalice makes a difference. So what percentage of games does ant and tes win otp t1 without discard? Keep in mind that most pilots will not just go for it in the dark t1 (not knowing what you have) so their hand has to contain a probe which further lowers the probability. In addition you will sometime have a leyline. How probable is it that they can win through that t1? I think it is low enough to switch to chalice.


In
I do think that you give up too much of an edge to the decks that you're good against if you put 12 cards in the sideboard to combat combo,


I'm not arguing for this.


In
Gaddock Teeg is usually enough to beat them, and Tormod's Crypt shuts off half of their kill. Leyline forces them to go Ad Nauseam, and Mindbreak Trap mostly just sits in your hand and gets Duressed away, though it will beat an unprepared opponent, and if you can assemble Leyline + Mindbreak Trap you're probably 95% to win.



Actually, against tes leyline+trap is not that safe. Since they have silences. So they can silence and then ad naeseum for a solution to leyline or empty the warrens. So here I think chalices are better.

[benthetenor]

@Freggle - Removing Elephant Grass in a G/W Enchantress deck is not a big deal since your primary lock (Solitary Confinement) already does a better job at stopping creatures. In this deck, I would play six or seven Elephant Grass if I could because we don't have any other cards that do what Elephant Grass does, and they're stifling in multiples. The only time it's not in the deck is against decks that don't have any creatures at all. Mirri's Guile has already been asked and answered.

@Waytowinatwar - As I said, I have no experience playing against TES, just ANT. Against ANT, they're pretty much just stone dead to Leyline + MBT, since it means that they have to draw their two-of Chain of Vapor before we start resetting their board or can get out a Gaddock Teeg, which will mean they need both of them, then they need to bounce everything relevant, then they need to Duress away the MBT, then they need to go off. That's a whole lot of hoops to jump through. Again, TES may be completely different, I haven't tested against it. If I'm saying something that you're not trying to argue for, then assume that I'm not talking to you.

On Eternal Witness/Kitchen Finks, you're absolutely right. Eternal Witness has more utility than Kitchen Finks for sure, but I don't think I'd keep in both. I was thinking of when I played one Mindbreak Trap main and not having an actual lock against ANT once I'd already gone off since they could just play a Duress and a bunch of fast mana and get me. The situation is vastly different postboard, and I should have realized that. It does seem to me that they're not very likely to Duress away something that we need to win, like a Words of Wind, vs a bit of disruption, like a Mindbreak Trap, which turns Eternal Witness into a 3-mana Mindbreak Trap that they know is in your hand, and thus not very exciting against a combo deck, but it certainly does have more utility than Kitchen Finks. I would say that they're unlikely to use enough discard to make us lose straight up if we don't have Eternal Witness main, which is the main reason why I don't mind just scrapping them altogether, but there is merit to having one.

As for TES vs ANT, I've been playing storm since it was a thing and ANT is a far superior deck, both in terms of consistency and ease of play. What that means is that TES is still an "established deck" whereas ANT has been a "deck to beat" over the last few months. I would not slant my board or board plan to beat TES at the expense of ANT, as you are probably three to four times more likely to see ANT than TES, particularly as you get to the later rounds. I would go so far as to say that I won't even worry about any version of combo since there's not much I can do to appreciably increase the percentages without sacrificing my already good matchups. If I run into double combo decks and can't beat them with the 9 cards already in my sideboard, then I just have to tip my cap to them. It's for that reason why I don't really like Chalice of the Void, and can't see fit to put in In the Eye of Chaos or Arcane Laboratory. In the metagame where this deck will win, combo barely exists.

[waytowinatwar]

New tournament 18 people, 2-2 (1 bye)

R1 Bye

R2 Oops no land 0-2 (former national champion)

G1 otd

7 island, savanah, sprawl, argothian * 2, prescence, grass.

I get four turns and almost make it with my exceptional hand.

G2 (-4 grass, -1 primordium, -2 carpet, -1 fearie, 1 witness, -1 finks + 4 leylines, + 2 surgical, + trap, + 2 chalice + teeg)

7 forest, Heath, island, growth, gsz, wow, leyline

t0 leyline and t2 teeg seems strong. His opening hand is 2 pacts of negation, 3 spirit guides, 1 cantor, 1 vampire, he draws mana.

R3 Bant with geists 0-2 (ok pilot)

G1 otp

7 forest*3, misty, prescence, seal of removal, wow: ship

I know he is playing Bant and i feel that this hand is not fast enough. I now think this was a mistake. Navy seal buys me some time and I might be able to bait a force with wow and safely resolve a prescence on t4 (if I haven't drawn any acceleration before then). At best he has Geist t2, which kills me on its own on his t5. But this is unlikely, he might have t2 knight or t3 geist/ knight but this means I have at least until t6to win.

6 growth*3, faerie, witness, grass:ship
5 forest, 2 argothian, gsz, removal: reluctant keep

He goes t1 bird, I draw and play a growth, he plays a land, passes, cliques me in my draw (which is an islan) takes my removal. Next turn he plays a geist and I can't stabilize fast enough. Not sure what would have happened with my opening seven. Bounce bird, play wow, get prescence taken by a t4 clique?

G2 (not sure how to board + 1 carpet + 1 sliver, -1 witness, - 1 primordium, might have been better just t board the carpet for the witness)

7 island, forest, savannah, wow*2, witness, sliver: ship

Does nothing

6 Heath, carpet, argothian, prescence, faerie, wow

Promising, but not enough mana. I mange to resolve and use carpet, and is in the game, but doesn't get enough protection from creatures and he has multiple knights. I punt on the old wasteland my own land after blockers trick, but it is unlikely that chumping would have made a difference.


This should be an ok matchup I think but I didn't have any experience with it.

R4 Burn 2 - 0

R1 otd

7 tropical, island, sprawl, mox, gsz, primordium, finks.

I know he is playing burn so the t2 finks sells me the keep. (Good hand regardless). Draw mox for a t1 finks. It's not close.

R2 (-2 carpet, - 2 witness, - 2 removal, + 4 leylines, + sliver, + krosan)

7 Island, sprawl*2, mox, argothian, grass, removal.

Solid hand, t1 enchantress, and I start drawing, I remember to set sprawl for white once I hit forests and then draw leyline. Not close.

All in all a poor performance. I should probably have won against bant. Any thoughts on the mulligan decisions/sideboarding?

[claudio.r]

Is there any place i can find more videos of this deck ? I've already seen the Chris Andersen match and i'm interested in watching more of this deck.

[waytowinatwar]

Is there any place i can find more videos of this deck ? I've already seen the Chris Andersen match and i'm interested in watching more of this deck.

One Of My games was recently recorded. I'll post a link when it's online.

[waytowinatwar]

One Of My games was recently recorded. I'll post a link when it's online.

And its up: http://www.youtube.com/mtgvideo

[Dihensoeur]

Hi all,

@waytowinatwar: becareful, you forgot to draw at 12min in game1. But GG (^_^).

Have you already think to splash black and play some discard cards like duress or cabal ?

[benthetenor]

You make a few odd plays. Not "wrong" necessarily, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. Game 1, you run your first Green Sun's Zenith right into Daze when there's no real reason to. You use your Seal of Removal on Delver of Secrets when you're at 21 life, instead of using it to protect your eventual guys from burn. You start cycling through your deck with a fetchland in play, rather than using the fetchland to thin your deck of lands. You play your Carpet of Flowers triggers oddly, waiting to trigger them until second main rather than getting mana with them right away, which doesn't really matter but it's less efficient and can hurt you in the long run. You return a Wild Growth with Words of Wind off of the draw triggers from the same Wild Growth, which is illegal. And just in general, you're playing slowly and inefficiently; you have 2 Cloud of Faeries in hand but only play one before you start using WOW triggers to pick stuff up, which results in returning a Chrome Mox and a couple of Wild Growths. That turn, you could have ended with your entire deck on the board but didn't, which could have prolonged things if he had some more burn spells.

Game 2, you run your Cloud of Faeries right out there for no reason when you have multiple Seal of Removal in your hand and all the time in the world, which ends up with them getting hit by Surgical Extraction and making it way more difficult to win. You play your third Seal of Removal and your Carpet of Flowers instead of finding a second Enchantress with your GSZ, which makes sense if you're playing around Spell Pierce but if you weren't willing to play around the lowly Daze in game 1, that seems unlikely. Later you use that GSZ for a Kitchen Finks which is fine, but probably not better than just getting an Enchantress earlier and drawing at least two extra cards, which could have turned into Elephant Grass or more Green Sun's Zenith or anything else, but with a much better board position. You also had triple Seal of Removal so you had turns you could have spent building up board position rather than going for the quick defensive Kitchen Finks. And you seem to just throw cards away by imprinting stuff on Chrome Mox and then bouncing Chrome Mox with Words of Wind, which is probably just not right.

I mean, you won, so it doesn't really matter, but you would have won outright instead of being in danger of getting burned out game 2 had he had the cards or played differently. If that's your current pace of play, I suggest you practice a lot more because you're going to draw in pretty much every round at that speed. And you could have played a lot differently and completely minimized any chance of losing at all, rather than scraping by with a 1-0 victory. You just seemed very unsure of yourself which is another thing that more practice would remedy.

[waytowinatwar]

I played a new tournament a while ago but i haven't had the time to post it. But since I played another tournament today that i wanted to write about i thought id post this first even though this report will feature less mulligan decisions and other details and I post it mostly for my last game against goblins.

8 people, 3-1, won on tiebreakers (40 min rounds)

After a brief period of disenchantment I'm back to loving the deck. I've gone back on a few card changes I've made earlier and am now rocking

4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Chrome mox
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
1 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Windswept Heath
2 Words of Wisdom

Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Deep analysis
1 Braingeyser
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction





R1 Tes 2-1

It is really gsz that makes the difference in this mu since it gives you 12-14 relevant cards after sideboarding rather than 8-10. I've tested considerably against this player and I'm now 9-12 overall. Not as bad as one would think.

R2 Death and Taxes 2 - 0

See above. I'm 5-0 in matches against this deck. Board the artifact hate (for the carpets) and make sure you destroy their vials.

R3 junk 2-1 (- 2 carpet, witness, prim, rem + 4 leyline, + sliver)

This is for most intents and purposes like facing jund and I sideboard accordingly. Landing a leyline is everything.


R4 goblins 1 - 2

G1 otd (unknown deck)

7: misty, Heath, savannah, faerie, witness, removal*2

Not sure about this one. No ench but seal of removal will buy me time, fearie+witness allows me to dig. I keep.

I draw argothian t2, he starts slow with a prospector which I bounce(probably wrong). He's never really in it.

G2 (-2 carpet, + sliver, grip)

7 tropical, forest*2, prescence, faerie, wow, removal

No acceleration, and only u off nonbasic. I think it would have been alright to keep but t1 lackey, t2 wasteland would have destroyed me. Ship.

6 misty, forest*2, sprawl, gsz, finks

Solid mana, acceleration and ench. Keep. He plays t1 lackey, which connects once to put a lord into play which cheats additional goblins into play. His t3 krenko is too much.


G3

7 Forest mox, faerie*2, finks, witness, grip

No ench, no blue land, a little light on mana. No rem/grass. Ship.

6 forest, heath*2, sprawl, arg*2

Don't play sprawl t1 in order to cantrip it later. I'm landing arg t2 and t3 regardless I'm thinking. He has lackey t1 again though and I never get seals or grass and is overrun. Was the 7 a better hand? It's better against lackey/vial, and isn't goblins too slow for us without them? Even without ench on the draw.


Ps. Benthetenor: thank you for your precise comments about my games. I'll be sure to review them in detail later.

[waytowinatwar]

New tournament 32 people, 4-1-2(the two draws were intentional), tied for 3rd

Exact same 75 as last tournament.



R1 Loam/chains/punishing fire/burning wish/ lingering souls rbgw 1-0

G1
My opponent is 30 (!) min late and is awarded a game loss for tardiness.

G2
7 island, heath, growth, argothian*2, presence, faerie. Keep.

Op begins with land go, I draw sprawl, play heath into forest into sprawl, chooses blue(should have been green, this stalls me for a turn later on). Op plays land, chalice for 1. I play island, argothian, pass, (should have been faerie into arg to protect from lilliana), he cycles lands, I go faerie, land, arg, presence. He goes chains (of Mephistopheles). :( Over a few turns i gradually start to assemble my janky creatures, finks, witness, 2 faeries, on 10 he burning wishes for pyroclasm. I'm suddenly on defence when he starts flashing back lingering souls. He is not very focused though and time is eventually called. In his final round he is about two turns from killing me.



R2 punishing maverick (no thalias) 2-0

G1 otd
7 forest*3, misty, growth, sprawl, presence. Keep
His first four turns are mother, ooze, knight, waste himself to attack for 8. My first three are forest into sprawl, arg into growth, prescence into sprawl. I lock the the game down on t4.

G2 (-2 carpet, + grip, sliver)
7 forest*2, island, misty, sprawl, primordium, grass. Not an obvious keep, but when I loose to maverick it is mostly due to canonist which is answered by sliver. And grass buys me a lot of time. Keep

It turns out that his draw is quite poor. He incorrectly at one point chooses not to destroy a prescence to focus on grass. This was largely inconsequential though.


R3 Merfolk 2-0

G1 otd
7 misty, sprawl, arg, witness, removal, faeries*2 light on mana, but I have everything else. Keep.

He goes t1 curse catcher, t2 land still. This is fine by me since I stall on mana despite cycling faeries. Once i draw mana and he is on 7 cards again I break standstill. Elephant grass and removal resolves and he is one turn from killing me when I bounce all his permanents.

G2 (- prim, witness, + carpet, sliver)
7 forest, misty, sprawl, growth, presence, removal, grass. Perfect! Keep.

He cantrips Merfolk t2 and t3 but miss his third land drop. I win fairly easily with forest into growth, t2 removal, t3 prescence with daze mana into sprawl, t4 grass.



R4 and R5 ID

Quarter finals Omniscience/ enter the infinite / emrakul win pre board 2-1

All three games were tight and interesting.

G1 otd
7 misty*2, mox, arg, gsz, prim, finks. While finks does nothing, hitting my one off prim is super relevant. Keep.

He plays island go. I draw a seal of removal. What to do? I play mox into arg (to cantrip my seals t2) he goes tomb, snt into omniscience ( I land prim), into emrakul, I kill omni, he takes a turn, attacks I sac everything. I go land removal. He brainstorms and finds a fow.

Had I gone t1 seal, I could have snt the other seal, kill omni and bounce emrakul without taking damage and sacing my stuff. Not sure if this was the right play though. Thoughts?

G2 (- 4 grass, 4 removal, 1 fink+ 2 surgical, carpet, sliver, grip, 3 traps, teag)
7 only one land
6 forest, carpet, arg, presence, gsz, sliver. Land light but I reason he won't fow carpet, which means t2 arg. I also have sliver which is super relevant. Keep.

He does fow carpet but I draw a land so I can play arg but he also fows that as well. Another land yields me t3 teag. His t3 is snt into omniscience, I have sliver but he has wish for trick bind. But this means he can't wish for bounce for teag and cannot eti, and his emrakul s have been boarded out. I go off three turns later)

G3
Misty, mox, carpet, gsz, faerie*2, wow. I'm hoping to resolve a t2 gsz into teag here and have excellent mana. Keep.

He plays t2 vault, and I get my teag, his t3 is a third island, and cantrips and a top which yields snt into dreamhalls, but no follow up, I've drawn a prescence and can play it and wow thanks to carpet. They resolve i pass. he draws, plays a land pass.i draw sprawl into growth into arg. Next turn I will be able to bounce everything. Pass. He blanks. Bounce everything.



Semi finals infect 1-2(olle råde)

G1 otd
7 Trop, savannah, forest, presence, faerie, removal, wow keep

He is quite slow and removal and grass and witness for removal buys me enough time to go off.

G2 (- carpet, - finks+ grip and sliver, should I have boarded traps?)
7 no lands
6 1 land
5 misty, sprawl, arg, presence, grass. ok for a 5 cards I reason

He goes land hierarch. I draw removal, play land sprawl which he dazes. He replays his land and an unblockable infect guy. I draw land. I play the removal but keep the grass. He goes land might of old krosa. I fear vines so I let it resolve. He attacks, berserk, I try to bounce, vines! Grass would have kept him at bay for a few turns. But it would have been difficult for me to develop under it. Maybe I should have bounced straightaway? This would have given me one extra turn. Grass maybe on more. Probably nothing I could have done here really.

G3
7 Forest, sprawl *2, growth, arg*2, presence. No interaction, but I felt that it is fast enough even if I don't draw the second land. I go growt t1 and 2 sprawls t2, arg and prim t3. He kills me with a blighted agent on his t3. Should have mulliganed after removal and /or grass.

Fun tournament! I think the infect matchup is better than this lets on. Perhaps skip sliver and one more carpet for 2 traps when boarding. In order to kill with a single strike with vines backup for removal he needs to play three spells (as he did g2).

[waytowinatwar]

Hi all,

@waytowinatwar: becareful, you forgot to draw at 12min in game1. But GG (^_^).

Have you already think to splash black and play some discard cards like duress or cabal ?

Thank you. You are right, this was a mistake. Thanks for pointing it out.

Regarding discard: this is not something you want to do in this deck since you have so much redundency in the deck with respect to enchantress effects already and discard doesn't really contribute much. Non enchantments that doesn't cycle or let's you draw off of other enchantments should be avoided. We are not even playing brainstorms!

[benthetenor]

Just so you know, the moderators don't tend to like it when people double and triple post. I know that you have more and new information with each post, but that's just kind of a general rule around here; it would be better to merge all of your thoughts into one big post than to spread them out over several days. I am very interested in hearing your reasoning for your lines of play in the video that you posted!

[Jonny Goldmane]

You play your Carpet of Flowers triggers oddly, waiting to trigger them until second main rather than getting mana with them right away, which doesn't really matter but it's less efficient and can hurt you in the long run.

On the turn you play carpet of flowers, if you played it in yout first main phase, you can only use on the second main phase. Carpet of Flowers says:

"At the beginning of each of your main phases, if you haven't added mana to your mana pool with this ability this turn, you may add up to X mana of any one color to your mana pool, where X is the number of Islands target opponent controls."

Carpets of Flowers checks to see if you used at the beginning of your main phase.

[benthetenor]

...pretty sure I wasn't telling him to cheat. If you're going to comment on my commentary of a taped match, please at least watch said match so that you know what I'm talking about. I don't think that's too much to ask.

There is no reason to wait on your Carpet of Flowers triggers. Aside from just generally being cleaner and giving you access to all of your mana at all times, Carpet of Flowers can't fight Daze and Spell Pierce if it hasn't triggered. Add to that the fact that if you can bounce and replay your Carpet of Flowers in the first main (like, say, with the mana from your Carpet of Flowers trigger...), then you can trigger it again in the second main giving you double the mana. That's how you turn that innocuous little enchantment into an explosive mana factory. There's a reason why people will go so far as to Force of Will it.

[waytowinatwar]

You make a few odd plays. Not "wrong" necessarily, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning.

Thank you for your detailed comments, I really appreciate them. Here's, finally, my responses.

GAME 1


Game 1, you run your first Green Sun's Zenith right into Daze when there's no real reason to.

My opening hand was: forest*2, mox, presence, gsz, witness, finks, my first draw is removal, my second is gsz. So T2 I have only three mana, no blue unless i remove my only blue spell with mox, and considerable redundency concerning enchantress effects (2+ witness)At this point playing around daze entails passing the turn doing nothing, and if I don't draw a land next turn I might have to do nothing next turn as well in order to play around daze. Two other considerations : Finks is too valuable in the matchup to lead with (given enchantress redundency), and if he uses daze this hampers his development somewhat too. So at this point I have every reason to play gsz into daze (I lead with gsz for obvious reasons). I then draw lands for the next two rounds and don't have to play into daze anymore.



You use your Seal of Removal on Delver of Secrets when you're at 21 life, instead of using it to protect your eventual guys from burn.

I tend to see life as one of my most precious resources in this matchup. My current life total doesn't really matter; at each stage I try to loose as little life as possible (everything else being equal of course). If he later wants to burn a faerie before I can bounce it he's more than welcome to since that's 3 life I don't loose and if I have been careful with my life total up until that point I should be fine anyway.



You start cycling through your deck with a fetchland in play, rather than using the fetchland to thin your deck of lands.

Deck thinning is a marginal benefit. Postponing fetching so that your mana matches the cards you draw is a much more substantial benefit. I could have gone for a tropical to get both benefits but fetching non-basics against delver is bad. I could have postponed playing a land to possibly save a life but then I would have had less mana for possible soft counters.



You play your Carpet of Flowers triggers oddly, waiting to trigger them until second main rather than getting mana with them right away, which doesn't really matter but it's less efficient and can hurt you in the long run.

This is not something I do generally really (although this is certainly the impression one gets from the video) The benefit of activating them directly in your first mainphase can be substantial (e.g. You want to bounce your carpet, replay it and then activate it again, or you want to start bouncing your opponents stuff and he might end up with few islands in his second main). So I probably should have activated it on my first main phase on t6 g1 but didn't. The same is true g2.



You return a Wild Growth with Words of Wind off of the draw triggers from the same Wild Growth, which is illegal.

You are right, this was a mistake. Completely inconsequential though since I had other wild growths on my other land. I'm of course aware that this cannot be done sine the wild growth being cast is on the stack and is not at that point a permanent that can be returned with words of wind.



And just in general, you're playing slowly and inefficiently; you have 2 Cloud of Faeries in hand but only play one before you start using WOW triggers to pick stuff up, which results in returning a Chrome Mox and a couple of Wild Growths. That turn, you could have ended with your entire deck on the board but didn't, which could havprolonged things if he had some more burn spells.

My three turn clock could have been a two turn clock, this is true. He's completely at my mercy nonetheless though.


GAME 2:
My opening hand here is misty, savanah, sprawl, argothian, faerie, removal*2, T1 I draw forest
T2 I draw faerie



Game 2, you run your Cloud of Faeries right out there for no reason

It allows me to cantrip both seals t2 instead of just one, and the faerie will keep the delver away if he remains unflipped which saves me life(see above) Some delver players sideboard rough/tumble so it's not like I can be sure that the argothian will stay around. The play also avoids double daze on enc even though this is an unlikely turn of events.



when you have multiple Seal of Removal in your hand and all the time in the world, which ends up with them getting hit by Surgical Extraction and making it way more difficult to win.

You can't use unexpected outcomes to argue that something is a misplay.



You play your third Seal of Removal and your Carpet of Flowers instead of finding a second Enchantress with your GSZ, which makes sense if you're playing around Spell Pierce but if you weren't willing to play around the lowly Daze in game 1, that seems unlikely.

Of course I'm playing around spell pierce (see above for the reasoning concerning g1).



Later you use that GSZ for a Kitchen Finks which is fine, but probably not better than just getting an Enchantress earlier and drawing at least two extra cards, which could have turned into Elephant Grass or more Green Sun's Zenith or anything else, but with a much better board position. You also had triple Seal of Removal so you had turns you could have spent building up board position rather than going for the quick defensive Kitchen Finks.

I have another enchantress in hand which I play after the gsz. Getting a third is excessive. You have to realize that finks gives you something like 9 life or so, at least two mana and quite possibly one to two cards. (Unless he is extracted :()



And you seem to just throw cards away by imprinting stuff on Chrome Mox and then bouncing Chrome Mox with Words of Wind, which is probably just not right.

I disagree. When you have an excess of cards bouncing chrome moxes is a reasonable way to pay for wow replacements. Also at this point in the game my opponent has no outs, and I have stopped caring.



I mean, you won, so it doesn't really matter, but you would have won outright instead of being in danger of getting burned out game 2 had he had the cards or played differently.

Not sure of what you are referring to here. When I bounce the mox my op is dead on time.



If that's your current pace of play, I suggest you practice a lot more because you're going to draw in pretty much every round at that speed.

It's on the slow side, but let's not exagerate. You have to remember that we are playing 40 min rounds and that this is the reason g2 times out.I think my pace is comparable to e.g. Chris Anderson's who took 35 min in his taped game (and made imho graver errors (e.g. g1. at 4.05 he doesn't bounce mother )). I dont have anything else to compare to. Perhaps you could have played this game faster with even fewer errors. Since I've never seen any of your matches I guess I'll have to take your word for it.



And you could have played a lot differently and completely minimized any chance of losing at all, rather than scraping by with a 1-0 victory.

I'm afraid I don't really see this. By my count my only errors involved carpet triggers. I generally played very safe. If I hadn't gotten the finks g2 for instance my op might well have burned me out. Now he was unable to. When a game is locked up I don't put very much energy into optimizing plays and if one really wants to find faults with my plays I guess one can look there but otherwise you haven't really pointed anything out that I feel I should have done differently.

Nonetheless I'm grateful for you taking the time to volunteer detailed comments in an attempt to help me improve my game. Thanks.

[benthetenor]

My commentary on your slow/inefficient play has nothing do with the turn you've won, having a two turn clock rather than a three turn clock. My point is if you can't actually finish two games against a fast deck in 40 minutes, it's very unlikely that you'd be able to win a match 2-1 in 50 minutes. Had you been playing in a 50 minute match, it seems at least somewhat likely that your opponent could draw a number of Lightning Bolts and end game two before time expired, meaning that it is possible, due to your choices, that that match could have gone from win to draw. Against a slow deck it's fine to go slowly and cautiously and grind them out because they often don't have a way to surprise you and suddenly win, but decks with burn require that you play quickly enough that you can win a third game if necessary. If your pace of play is such that an average game (win or loss) is at or above, say, 14 minutes, then there are going to be many rounds that will become draws, rather than wins, simply because the opponent won one game and you ran out of time to beat him. It is precisely because this deck doesn't win quickly that you have to be as efficient as possible. As it stands, my average game hovers right around 12 minutes, meaning I have time to sideboard and still win two of three games if necessary. This is partially due to my speed with the deck, and partially because I get my opponent to concede fairly quickly by burying him with my board position. When you're staring down a board of 40 permanents and you have none, it's a pretty automatic decision to pick up your cards and try again.

I do think that your statement about Kitchen Finks says a lot about the way that you value that card. It's a great card, for sure. I sure thought so when I came up with it. But it's by no means a card that can't afford to be wasted. If my opponent uses a counterspell on a Kitchen Finks, I high-five myself in my head. If he then hits it with Surgical Extraction, I probably straight up high five him. And, as you said, you had Eternal Witness which means you could have picked up your Kitchen Finks next turn, played it the turn after, and bought yourself about 5 turns and all sorts of value as he struggles to deal with your chump blockers. In the mean time, if you draw a single land, your GSZ are out of Daze range and you've forced him into a bad position by using all of his tempo to get pretty much nowhere. But in my mind, Kitchen Finks is a nice card to have, but nowhere near as important as an Enchantress. If he wastes time and spells countering Kitchen Finks, you've pretty much won the game, at least with that hand. And, to the point, all this is irrelevant as you drew a third land with your second draw step, which means you could have easily waited a turn and played around the Daze that he very likely had.

The Seal of Removal on the Delver at 21 life is not correct. I will accept that you are generally cautious with your life total, and that is a good general position to take, but you can't have been more than two turns from locking up the game and in no danger of getting burned out. Pretty much the only way you could have lost that game was if he was able to burn your Cloud of Faeries to somehow stall you long enough for his creatures to get you. It would have been very, very tough for him, but you played into his outs. I win most of my games at a very low life total (as evidenced by my tournament reports), and it is precisely because of the way that I play that trying to race me is a bad proposition, since I will use that time you give me not disrupting me to build a board position that cannot be overcome.

As for the fetchland response, I'm not sure I follow. Once you start digging through your deck, you don't want to draw lands if you can help it. If you use your fetchland, that's a concrete step you take to ensure that you will have a lower likelyhood of drawing lands. It seems like a no-brainer. And while the deck thinning is small, in a deck where you draw every card, the deck thinning will absolutely matter. I have never had a problem getting the color of mana that I need, as this deck is only two colors and has tons of fetchlands and dual lands and even Utopia Sprawls and Chrome Moxes. A point that I didn't bring up because it didn't end up mattering is that you seemed to waaaaay overvalue access to blue mana in the way that you used your fetches and Utopia Sprawls. This deck should ideally play like a mono-green deck until you're just about to win the game, so I almost never fetch an Island before turn 3 or 4, and that's only if I haven't already hit a Utopia Sprawl. The reason for that is that almost every spell that matters to setup is green, so by fetching anything that can't make green mana, you are hampering your development. I almost never fetch out a Tropical Island as there is no good that can come of it, and pretty much the only reason it is in the deck is because I have to have some number of non-Misty Rainforest fetchlands and need to have access to blue mana at every potential point in the game, no matter the cost. If I could run 7 Misty Rainforest, I would run 0 Tropical Island.

I agree that you can't make choices based upon unlikely outcomes, but the fact remains you made a decision for that game and used your Cloud of Faeries to net a single mana, and because of that decision, you lost access to your Cloud of Faeries for the rest of the game. You had the means to protect your creatures and you chose a much riskier, much more aggressive play, and got punished for it, knowing full well that he had access to burn spells and had at least the potential to bring in Surgical Extraction (as most Delver decks have done at at least one point in the past). If you don't use your Cloud of Faeries, you still get to cantrip one of your Seal of Removals, and then you don't destroy your chances of drawing another Enchantress before you burn your second enchantment on merely cantripping. I would argue that if you're that worried about keeping a flipped Delver away, Seal of Removal is a much better choice than chump blocking with Cloud of Faeries, so that doesn't seem like good logic. I don't think that double cantripping on turn 2 is very good anyway, not when there's a good chance you'll draw more Enchantresses before you have to play your second Seal of Removal.

And I suppose I'll have to be hyper specific to clear up confusion. Game 2, entering into your turn 4. Your board is Island, Forest (Utopia Sprawl on Blue), Tropical Island, 3 Seal of Removal and Argothian Enchantress. Your hand is Chrome Mox, Savannah, Green Sun's Zenith, and you Draw a Carpet of Flowers. If you want to play around Spell Pierce that turn, simply make your land drop and GSZ for 2, which will leave you with two untapped mana. Then, if he doesn't counter that, you can cast your Carpet of Flowers and get two draw triggers. If he counters that, you still get your draws and can continue to go off. If not, you have all the mana in the world. Instead, you chose to play the Carpet of Flowers first and drew an Argothian Enchantress, which means you were out of enchantments and had to use your GSZ for a Kitchen Finks. We'll never know what the top card was, but there's at least some chance that it could have been another enchantment, which would have put you way ahead. It's small plays like this where you clearly didn't even consider playing your GSZ first that basically cost you an entire turn when you could have further developed your board position. If he has Rough/Tumble there, then you lose two Argothian Enchantress, but you've also drawn at least two cards there, as well as him losing his Goblin Guide and Grim Lavamancer (and potentially his unflipped Delver of Secrets). Which is the reason why U/R Delver doesn't bother with Rough/Tumble in the first place....

Lastly, and this is perhaps the most important point, there is no such thing as an excessive number of Enchantresses, and even if there were, that number absolutely is not three. With every Enchantress you play, the odds of you fizzling go down exponentially, and every enchantment you draw becomes way less profitable to counter. The only way you beat counterspells and removal (especially super removal like Rough/Tumble) is by drawing as many cards as you can and running your opponent out of cards. And, all that aside, the way that you win quickly is by getting down as many Enchantresses as quickly as you can. The only games that I've won on turn 4 have all involved getting down three Enchantresses by turn 3, and the quicker you win, the less likely it is that you will lose to random stuff. My point is precisely that you'd earmarked that GSZ for a Kitchen Finks from about turn 2 onward (no other line of plays make sense) which is playing not to lose rather than playing to win. What's more, if you had played how I'd suggested, it would have been impossible for your opponent to touch any of your creatures, much less hit them with Surgical Extraction. That's a game that you should have won easily but instead were forced to time out on. I mean, the guy brought in Surgical Extraction! That card shouldn't even be relevant if you're playing correctly. If you had run GSZ after GSZ out there, he would have run out of counterspells before you ran out of Enchantresses, and your Kitchen Finks would still be safe in your deck to gain infinite life when he had no board and no way of using Surgical Extraction on it. It's far more likely that he has Lighting Bolt than Rough/Tumble, so it doesn't make sense to play around a 2-of SB card, particularly since you weren't playing against RUG Delver.

You can play however you like, and if you truly don't agree with my reasoning, that's just fine. I will ask you to at least consider all that I've said, if for no other reason than that I'm generally more quick and efficient with my lines of play than you are. You tank on plays that are automatic for me, and you end up thinking yourself out of making the right play. You don't have to play like me, but the quicker your games go, the easier your tournaments will be. There is absolutely no reason to ever be inefficient with this deck other than laziness, and if you allow yourself to be lazy when the game is already won, you will find laziness creeping into close games and at inopportune moments. This deck excels at winning tight games because no deck can out-grind this one, and no deck has the tools to stall the game like this one does. The trick is knowing when to change gears, and once you've got that down, there isn't a fair deck in the format that can beat this one.

[waytowinatwar]

Thanks, thanks a lot. Even though I've already had some success with the deck, I feel that I understand it better now. I won a tournament last week with it, and I will be playing the deck a lot over the weekend, so I will most likely post again fairly soon.

[benthetenor]

Glad I could help! I'm 95% going to be playing this deck at SCG St. Louis Sunday so I should have more to report, though I'll be going out of town directly after so it might be a little delayed. But I'm super excited, I think the metagame is shifting pretty decisively away from fast combo and more towards Force of Will, which should make this deck an excellent choice.

[Dihensoeur]

Hi all,

I finished 3th/28 with Top8 and win a Taïga with this list:

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Serra's Sanctum
9 Forest
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Cloudstone Curio
1 Words of Wind
2 Gaia's touch
4 Abundant Growth
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Green Sun's Zenith

SB: 1 Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 Puca's Mischief (random card, missing Kitchen)
SB: 1 Deathrite Shaman
SB: 2 City of Solitude
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Blind Obedience
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity

Next step:
- 2 Gaia's touch MD
+ 2 City of solitude MD

- 2 City of solitude SB
- 1 Deathrite Shaman SB
+ 3 Trinisphere SB (VS combo like Omniclash/Ant, Trinisphere is not a problem for this deck to get infinite mana or storm)
- 1 Puca's Mischief
+ 1 Kitchen (finally obtained)

As I play a version with Curio, sanctum, Emrakul and Tendrils, I would to ask you: Do you want to have my report? Otherwise, I will come back after winning others tournaments until I convince you about my version :cool:.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

[Tanith]

Oh c'moon, sure we want it :D
By the way, i don't understand really well the function of Cloudstone Curio. You play for example an Utopia sprawl, return Abundant growth, replay infinite times, got enough mana to hit with Tendrils of agony or to play Emrakul, the aeons torn? Is that correct?

[Dihensoeur]

Oh c'moon, sure we want it :D
By the way, i don't understand really well the function of Cloudstone Curio. You play for example an Utopia sprawl, return Abundant growth, replay infinite times, got enough mana to hit with Tendrils of agony or to play Emrakul, the aeons torn? Is that correct?

Ok I will post it.

For Curio, yes you can play an enchantement to get another enchantement to draw a lot or only Abundant Growth if you have no Argothian/Presence. But you get infinite mana easily with Faeries (2 faeries with 2lands with only one enchant land is enough), you can have infinite storm with one faerie and an argothian (2 lands with 2 enchant land = 4 mana), etc...There are lot of trix with Curio. You move easily enchant land from a tapped forest to an untapped forest then tap it to remove all enchant land to another untapped forest... (and you can change color from utopia to get black) so have 8-9 spells to kill with Tendrils is very easy.

[Dihensoeur]

Report:

Game1: (TempoTresh)

R1: Mul to 5 to have a Delver T1, I leave one mana for Daze for each spell, when 4 life I go combo=>Tendrils
R2: He keeps a hand with full counter, he plays nothing during 4 turns except land, I do the same. When I have 5 mana (to avoid SpellPierce), I start to play spells in order to consume FoW. He finally attacks me with delver + nimble, I go combo tendrils with 5 spells to deals 12 and gain 12 lifes, it's not enough to kill him but I'm safe with +12 lifes. I use Words of wind to lock him to avoid stifle then Witness for Tendrils and win.

Game2: (EsperBlade Shaman)

R1: Turn4 I can put Emrakul (sanctum on the battlefield + seal, and faeries+Emrakul in hand), but, on the draw, he plays clique vendilion, see my hand and the sanctum on the battlefield, he suspects a dirty trick, counts mana and sees yes yes I will put Emrakul ^^ so he targets Emrakul (snif!). He plays Liliana and Jace, I keep Argothian via Dryad. I play tendrils with 6 spells, then lock with Words of wind, he gives up.
R2: Very quickly, curio => infinite spell (one faeries+Argothian) then Tendrils.

Game3: (NicFit)

R1: Pernicious in the beginning, I try to put others enchant but I draw 6 lands...then he puts Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, no seal => Game Over.
R2: T5 or T6 I put Emrakul (thanks to his Veteran :D)
R3: Very quick too, I play Curio => infinite mana and draw => win.

Game4: (Miracle counterTop)

R1: Only one land, I enchant it with many enchant lands => E.E to 1, no land and jace => Game Over.
R2: I play many spells (city, witness, city again...), he counters with counterspell+snapcaster. He topdecks 2 times Entreat the Angels (withou brainstorm or other spell) => 3 tokens but I succeed to put a words of wind, then curio and fearies, He gives up.
R3: I was very stressed (lack of experience) and scared by his counter spells, I play nothing and leave a Jace instead of play many faeries to attack it and/or consume his counter spells...I need more experience. I learned the lesson.

3-1 : I'm 3th (because 70% OMW,OGW I don't know how works this but it's good :D)

Game5: (monoR painter)
He proposes me draw to go together to Top8, I accept.

Top8: (NicFit)

R1: The same player as Game3. I try Words of wind but it was not a good idea, he puts too many cards and play GSZ => Ruric Thar, the Unbowed...
R2: I don't do the same error, curio => Tendrils
R3: He tries many discard, but I have too ways to combo => Finally it was Faeries+sanctum => Emrakul.

Top4: (OmniClash)

It's totally impossible to win (I have more chance with ANT). Even Gaddock (wish=>bounce), even sliver under Show&Tell (wish=>Stifle).

I finished 3th and got a Taïga.

It was the first time I played this deck in a real tournament. I did many errors from stress and lack of experience.

New modification:
MD
- 2 gaia's touch (it's fun but finally useless)
+ 2 City of solitude (to be safe)

SB
- 2 City of solitude (go MD)
- 1 Deathrite shaman (useless)
+ 3 Trinisphere (need to be tested) : VS OmniClash/ANT. I can combo under Trinisphere so it's not a real problem for me but for Omniclash, this is its worst nightmare.


For information:
There were at least: 4 OmniClash, 2 ANT, many TT, many BUG, many EsperBlade, 1 MUD, 1 NicFit, 1 Merkfolks, 1 miracle, 1 Painter, 1 D&T, 1 elves (I don't know for others players).

[Tanith]

Thanks for the answer, and nice report and congrats for your taiga.
Its the first version I see running with Tendrils of agony and seems interesting.
Against Omniclash, shouldn't Elephant grass be a house? Ok, you can play creatures 'cause your opponent finds lot of bouncers, but with words of wind returning lands and elephant grass lock should work?
SOrry if the answer "no" is obvious, but there maybe there is something I don't see.

[Dihensoeur]

Thanks for the answer, and nice report and congrats for your taiga.
Its the first version I see running with Tendrils of agony and seems interesting.
Against Omniclash, shouldn't Elephant grass be a house? Ok, you can play creatures 'cause your opponent finds lot of bouncers, but with words of wind returning lands and elephant grass lock should work?
SOrry if the answer "no" is obvious, but there maybe there is something I don't see.

Omniclash has many kills: Maniac laboratory, Emrakul and Release the Ants.
He plays Show&Tell, put Omniscience then Enter the infinite, put a Omniscience or another Enter the infinite on the top of the library, wish to get Release the Ants and deals infinite damage from clash (because Enter the infinite = 12manas and few decks can top a card with more cost).
So an Elephant grass is totally useless, even he playes Emrakul, he gets an additional turn and can easily pay 2 from grass.
He needs two lands (a sol land+ one island) to play show&tell. Succeed to play Words of wind with a drawer (argothian/abundant growth) to bounce his lands before he gets 3manas...It's impossible ^_^ except you have a big big luck and he has the worst unluck of the world!

[Dihensoeur]

I finished 6 on 24 players and win a Enlightened Tutor.

List:


1 Dryad Arbor
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Serra's Sanctum
9 Forest
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Cloudstone Curio
1 Words of Wind
2 City of solitude
4 Abundant Growth
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Green Sun's Zenith

SB: 1 Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 2 Trinisphere
SB: 1 Kitchen Finks
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Blind Obedience
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity


G1: Maverick.

R1: lock with Words of wind => He gives up.
R2: Same, he didn't see his Ethersworn Canonist

G2: Goblin

R1: Elephant Grass => win (T1 GSZ=> Dryad to block T1 Lackey gob ^^)
R2: Elephant Grass => win

G3: Esper (I was very stupid during this game....)

R1: Curio=>Tendrils
I side out Gaddock (I forgot that Gaddock protect me from Jace+E.E) => First Stupidity
I forgot to side in Leyline (pro Liliana/Jace/discard) => 2nd stupidity
R2 and R3 Jace+E.E defeat me (at one turn before combo)
I'll have to win this game but I was very stupid and I hope I don't reproduce this anymore ><!!!

G4: Miror (with my friend whom we have built this deck)
He had more chance than me, I lose 2-1 and tell me that I was stupid for the last game :smile:.

G5: Omniclash
played by a pro player (Pierre Sommen which win GP Amsterdam and lot of big tournaments).

R1: T2 I try GSZ => FoW, T3 I play enchant land + faerie, then 2nd faerie, then witness->I get back GSZ then GSZ=>Gaddock :cool:.
He didn't get show&tell (Gaddock prevents him from playing DreamHall and Enter the infinite). When he had 5 life, he try a show&tell to put Emrakul. But I play seal of removal => Win

side in: x1 iona, x2 trinisphere and x4 LL (side out Elephant grass, witness and 2 enchantments)

R2: LL on the battlefield, I put Gaddock T2 with GSZ then Curio then Argo+Faerie => infinite mana and draw => tendrils => Win.
He would to play wish => Intuition to get last card for combo but LL avoids it.

I'm 6/24 and I could have done better.

Modification:
- Improve myself

Regards,
Dihensoeur

[Barsoom]

Can i ask you in what matchups do you side in Blind Obedience? i understand the other sideboard choices but not this one, maybe i'm missing something obvious

[tyriion]

My guess would be aggro decks or stuff like affinity/MUD. While it slows down the opponent it does nothing to slow you down and gives you another win con with extort. The lifegain might be relevant as well. I had been thinking about including Frozen Aether, but Blind Obedience has some obvious advantages over that one.

I'm just unsure whether you need the sideboard slot for aggro match ups. So I would be curious about your practical experiences as well.

I have been thinking about Root Maze as well, as it should slow down combo decks significantly without hurting your ability to combo out too much. Anyone already tested that?

[Dihensoeur]

Can i ask you in what matchups do you side in Blind Obedience? i understand the other sideboard choices but not this one, maybe i'm missing something obvious

Blind Obedience is VS Sneak Attack/Through the Breach but VS Elves too (elves can't combo with blind on the battlefield).
We can use blind vs burn or gobs and you can kill with extort easily (faerie on Sanctum).


I'm just unsure whether you need the sideboard slot for aggro match ups. So I would be curious about your practical experiences as well.
We don't need really sideboard for aggro, Elephant grass is enough, but you can add Plague/Kitchen to gain some turns.


I have been thinking about Root Maze as well, as it should slow down combo decks significantly without hurting your ability to combo out too much. Anyone already tested that?
It's not a good idea. I already tested the card. To use efficiently root maze, you need to have it in start hand AND start, otherwise you will be more affected than opponents.
Moreover, the list works very well and it's really very difficult to find a slot.

[benthetenor]

Just got back into town to talk about SCG St. Louis. Not much happened (as evidenced by the lack of a UG Enchantress deck in the top 8) because I made the choice to party the night before and wasn't quite at my best. I beat a Deathblade list and a Salvagers combo list (completely random...) and lost to another Deathblade list, TES and a UB Delver list. I felt like I was playing well and was in most of my games (except for TES...), but I didn't have the focus and drive to actually wrestle close matches away from people. I made one major change, adding in a single Taiga and a Seal of Fire in the sideboard in order to keep me from drawing games unnecessarily, which is something that did in fact come up. I still feel that under normal situations this is something that is very, very rare if you are playing well, but I guess I worry about it more in real life than I do on MODO. I like it over Emrakul for a number of reasons: 1) it is a cheap enchantment that has great utility and so is never a dead draw and 2) it ensures that if you have a turn, you can win regardless of the opponent's life total. Emrakul has one major benefit, being colorless, but I think if you're going to have a card in your sideboard to ensure that you don't draw games you should win, or to get you to be able to draw matches that you would otherwise lose, it should win in all situations and regardless of how many additional turns you have, since that's the whole point of even having it in the board.

Before anyone asks, the Seal of Fire stays in the sideboard until game 3 in almost all situations. Cutting a Forest for what is, in most cases, a strictly worse Forest is already enough of a liability. You don't want to put yourself into a situation where you have the Seal of Fire sitting in your opening hand against a Wasteland deck which could force you into fetching a risky land just so your hand doesn't clog up. I would almost say that you could get by without any Taigas, but I do think there will be a few games where you will want to be able to use your Utopia Sprawls on blue or green and still be able to play your Seal of Fire in an emergency before you have a chance to go off. Once you go off, you just pick up a Utopia Sprawl and turn it to red, then go nuts.

I don't feel that luck was on my side since I lost some matchups that are probably somewhat favorable. I didn't expect Jund since it seems people have largely forgotten about that deck, so I had some space to work with without Leyline of Sanctity, though I think that the trickiest decks for us to face will be ones that have targeted discard. I'm still looking for a good answer to that, perhaps it's just a lot of Compost. But I got hit with a Hymn to Tourach and was about as unaffected as I've ever been with that card. Sometimes you get blown out, but it's just so random that it's not worth worrying about. What's great about Leyline of Sanctity is that it comes down before they get a chance to Thoughtseize you. What sucks is that you have to have 4 slots in the sideboard for it, and then you have to be able to justify siding in 4 cards in addition to all of the other cards that you're probably bringing in. I will say, in terms of sideboarding, if you're scared of the new Omniclash lists, In the Eye of Chaos will do a number on most of them since they're Cunning Wish decks at their heart.

As for Dihensoeur's list, I'd like to ask that you either A) address the issues that I'd brought up in previous posts about how I feel that you're version is strictly weaker than the list on the first page of this thread or B) start your own thread. Innovation is fun and exciting, but I think if you're comboing off with Cloudstone Curio and Tendrils of Agony, it's pretty safe to say that you're playing a very different deck than I am, so that deserves it's own thread. I do find Blind Obedience interesting and potentially better in the application of win condition than Seal of Fire simply because it's (more or less) on-color, though I'm not sure if the non-extort effect of the spell is good enough since there are so few creatures with Haste in the format and MUD is very, very scarcely played. It's probably an all-star against MUD, though.

[anonymos]

I made one major change, adding in a single Taiga and a Seal of Fire in the sideboard in order to keep me from drawing games unnecessarily, which is something that did in fact come up.

How does sideboarding a shock help? Are you regularly coming up 1-2 damage short of the win or am I missing something? It has to be sacrificed to deal the damage, so how is it being recurred?

[tyriion]

How does sideboarding a shock help? Are you regularly coming up 1-2 damage short of the win or am I missing something? It has to be sacrificed to deal the damage, so how is it being recurred?

There is Eternal Witness. And with Words of Wind bouncing that one back to your hand all the time you can recur it for the kill with enough mana open. Cloud of Faeries takes care of that.

[Dihensoeur]

As for Dihensoeur's list, I'd like to ask that you either A) address the issues that I'd brought up in previous posts about how I feel that you're version is strictly weaker than the list on the first page of this thread or B) start your own thread. Innovation is fun and exciting, but I think if you're comboing off with Cloudstone Curio and Tendrils of Agony, it's pretty safe to say that you're playing a very different deck than I am, so that deserves it's own thread. I do find Blind Obedience interesting and potentially better in the application of win condition than Seal of Fire simply because it's (more or less) on-color, though I'm not sure if the non-extort effect of the spell is good enough since there are so few creatures with Haste in the format and MUD is very, very scarcely played. It's probably an all-star against MUD, though.

You still feel that my last version is weaker than yours. But I want to remember a lesson of this thread:

Test it and see it by yourself
That I applied for Witness because I don't felt it at the beginning. I tested it and see its power.
It will be too long to explain why my last list is stricly stronger (faster, more stable...) than yours. But you're probably right, I'm playing a different deck. So I will make a new thread and continue to try to convince Enchantress players to play this list because I believe on it. You don't believe on it and maybe don't want to test it because you don't like the version, it's your choice I completely respect it.
I'm sad to have failed to convince you, too bad.

So this is probably my last response in this thread. I just want to tell you about Blind obedience:
It's not for creatures with haste or MUD (but can be if you want) or to kill with extort (but you can too) that's bonus.
Bind allows us to be protected from Sneak Attack/Through the Breach and slow Elves because elves can't combo with Blind on the battlefield. So Blind is a good hate for these combo decks.

Good luck to all.

[Barsoom]

Imho your version, while different, is perfectly fine here in this thread, that's usually dead for weeks anyway, so why not discussing another version if we see that's working and making good results?
My suggestion is to put personal egos out of this thread and keep working on this deck, if there is a variation of it that works (in practice) and prove itself on real tournaments, why not going on and believe on it? it's definitely Enchantress, it's definitely U/G (with 1 black card...), so it deserve a place here.
Let's put out the childish attitute "i want to kick you from my thread cause i don't like your version no matter what" and go on, less drama, more magic.

[benthetenor]

I'm sorry you think my attitude is childish; I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that we use this section to discuss the deck that uses Words of Wind exclusively and kills with Cloud of Faeries, since that's what UG Enchantress is. We're not here to discuss things just to discuss them; we're here to further the discussion and development of the UG Enchantress deck. And until this new version proves itself in actual, large tournaments in the hands of more than one person, as UG Enchantress has, it hasn't actually proven anything.

Didn't think about Elves, and I see that you already explained that in a previous thread, so I'm very sorry about that. That's a great use for a matchup that's very difficult to win. If Elves comes back with a vengeance, it is a very, very strong sideboard card.

I would hope that you could at least try to address some of the questions I have. I don't need to test something when it's pretty clearly weaker. At this point, your maindeck is 14 cards different from mine which is a large departure, and for each of the cards that you've added (Serra's Sanctum, Cloudstone Curio, Tendrils of Agony, Emrakul, Abundant Growth, City of Solitude) I have (and have given) very specific reasons why I'm not already playing them. This isn't directed so much at you, Dihensoeur, but is more of an explanation as to what I feel is the appropriate response when someone asks you a question on a thread on the internet. It's not very convincing to say "my list is better!" and then fail to address questions raised at the list that you've posted when someone asks you.

[Dihensoeur]

I'm sorry you think my attitude is childish; I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that we use this section to discuss the deck that uses Words of Wind exclusively and kills with Cloud of Faeries, since that's what UG Enchantress is. We're not here to discuss things just to discuss them; we're here to further the discussion and development of the UG Enchantress deck. And until this new version proves itself in actual, large tournaments in the hands of more than one person, as UG Enchantress has, it hasn't actually proven anything.

Didn't think about Elves, and I see that you already explained that in a previous thread, so I'm very sorry about that. That's a great use for a matchup that's very difficult to win. If Elves comes back with a vengeance, it is a very, very strong sideboard card.

I would hope that you could at least try to address some of the questions I have. I don't need to test something when it's pretty clearly weaker. At this point, your maindeck is 14 cards different from mine which is a large departure, and for each of the cards that you've added (Serra's Sanctum, Cloudstone Curio, Tendrils of Agony, Emrakul, Abundant Growth, City of Solitude) I have (and have given) very specific reasons why I'm not already playing them. This isn't directed so much at you, Dihensoeur, but is more of an explanation as to what I feel is the appropriate response when someone asks you a question on a thread on the internet. It's not very convincing to say "my list is better!" and then fail to address questions raised at the list that you've posted when someone asks you.

Ok, sorry I forgot to answer you (#165 right?)

First about your deck:
- Your kill is only Words of wind that's not a real kill because you hope than opponent gives up and can be easily managed (counter spells, discards, revoker, pithing needle, surgical....) that's extremely frangible (mostly have only one kill).
- the deck is slow and needs at least 5 manas (so at least 3 enchant lands on 8 availables) on 2 lands + one faeries + 2 drawer (argothian/presence) + a enchant (cost 1) to play to lock completely. Even the deck draws a lot, it's not really easy and quick to have all without taken discards/counter/decay...
- the deck keep the same weakness as classical Enchantress: Argothian/Presence, you can't win without them (it's not my case).
- So you "kill" slowly and can do many draw in a tournament (as we can see in a video VS U/R delver).
- So you are forced to give up the first round VS all combo decks.

Second about my deck (that I built with a friend who play the deck too):
- I have still Words of wind because it's an excellent card, can lock, etc...as you know.
- I added Cloudstone Curio because it's faster than words of wind and interacts with the entire deck for free (and it's not sensitive to revoker). Ok the goal of curio it's not the lock as Words of wind but the speed (I can potentially have unlimited mana T2). I need only one enchant land and 2 faeries to have unlimited mana or 2 enchant land and one argothian + one fearie to make unlimited spells, etc... there are lot of combinations (more than words of wind).
- I can have unlimited draw without Argothian/Presence. Even without Abundant growth (by unlimited recycling). I'm more stable and robust from hate.
- So, I can have easily unlimited spells/mana/draw, so I added 2 uncounterable kills: Tendrils of Agony and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. 2 kills because it's never good to have a single kill. Emrakul can kill by "aggro" and is uncounterable, Tendrils kill directly the player and is uncounterable because storm (and it's very easy to make 7-8 spells before Tendrils). So I'm safe from many protections/attacks that opponent can have VS me. At worst, I can exploit Words of wind to remove protections or play a Tendrils with few spells to gain life and so gain time.
- So with this, I can potentially kill T2 and I kill regulary around T4 (or can kill T4 but opponents disturb me ^^ so I kill him few turns after like I explained in reports). There is no match drawn with this deck, I can win in one turn.
- Serra's sanctum is here for speed (unlimited mana easy with it and faeries) and play Emrakul easier.
- City of solitude VS carpet of flowers: I've been fan of carpet since long time. But in this version, I need to be safe during combo (no removal on faeries or counter). It's the same for you, during words+faeries, a removal on faeries stop your lock. And so consumes opponent's FoW instead of on Argothian/presence/GSZ.
- Gaddock Teeg: why md? Because it's a little hate for opponent's combo deck that are faster than me, Gaddock can give me the time to combo before them. A hate for FoW/Jace and Engineered Explosives. Even I can't play GSZ or Tendrils, I have so many way to bounce it when I will win so it's good MD.
So I don't give up the first round vs combo deck even (I agree) I have few chance.

I'm still slower than legacy combo decks yes, but faster than any no combo decks, so approximately all my sideboard is for combo deck because there are only them that MUs are not favorable.

Can you give me your opinion about my explanation?
I'm sure you will be not very agree about some points but I will respect your opinion and will answer you if you have more questions.

Sorry again about my missing explanation.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

[waytowinatwar]

Dihensoeur: Thank you for posting your tournament reports and congratulations to your good finishes. Tournament success across multiple events is the only real quality indicator there is for a magic deck, so I feel compelled to take your deck seriously. However, since your version overlaps the standard deck to a large degree some of your success might just have to do with the common shell and not your idiosyncrasies. I’d be interested in hearing more about your adventures (in this thread preferably; I see no reason to discuss your deck in a separate thread), both successes and (god forbid) failures.

I thought I’d list the reservations I have with your deck (the one you list in the 201 post) so that you can address them.
First and most importantly, your deck differs from what I play, which is fairly close md to the original list (and which I will henceforth refer to as the standard list) mainly on three different counts; 1) the mana base, 2)the inclusion of dedicated kill cards, and 3) the inclusion of Cloudstone Curio (and Abundant growths to support this.). I think it is important to keep these things apart since one could conceivably differ from the standard list in only one of these respects and not the others.

Two things that I originally found very appealing with the standard ug-enchantress list was that it was more or less wasteland-proof, and that it contained no dedicated kill cards, i.e. no cards that are dead if you are not going off. Your list has neither of these qualities.
You have fewer mana sources (only 16 compared to my 18 lands and 2 moxes), four of which are non-basic lands that tap for mana. You can gsz for arbour, and abundant growth cantrips, but this looks very fragile. Moreover, how good is really the white mana that can be generated with Sanctum? I mean there are colorless mana holes that can be filled (2 for presence, 1 for argothian, 3 for curio etc) but this seems underwhelming (the deck doesn’t after all really run white md).

Concerning the dedicated kill cards; since you already include the wow win (bounce everything) two dedicated kill cards seems excessive. I realize that both have their virtues but by safeguarding against everything you get a deck full of speedbumps. Also, the uncounterability only really matters if you are playing to win really fast (and your opponent for some reason don’t counter curio/faerie, or whatever else it is you use for setting up) Tendrils and Emrakul feel good, but I wonder how much their uncounterability really matters in a deck like UG-enchantress which is soresilent. If you really want to include a dedicated kill card (so that you can win the turn you are going off) why not maindeck a blind obedience (which was a very nice find by the way)? It is also a sink for white mana, and is randomly good against popular decks.

Finally, I’m intrigued by the inclusion of cloudstone curio, because as you say the deck has trouble winning without the enchantresses, and curio is a draw engine that doubles as a mana generator. Also, by including the abundant growths you make the mana better (you could for instance include a seal of fire as a win con without changing the lands since abundant + sprawl gives you 8 red sources, it also makes casting leyline of sanctity easier if one is boarding that (which is currently a problem for me)), and make wow’s without enchantresses slightly better. This can also matter post-board since some people board surgical extraction and hope to fow or discard an enchantress effect and then grab all the others via extraction. So what I think is most compelling about your list is the inclusion of curio. Do you see any strong reasons against including curio’s and growth but keeping the mana base intact and not including any dedicated kill cards? What would you replace in that case?

Also, I’m hoping to write down some more tournament experimence of m own soon. I won another tournament and scrubbed out of another (at gp Gothenburg)

[Dihensoeur]

I’d be interested in hearing more about your adventures (in this thread preferably; I see no reason to discuss your deck in a separate thread), both successes and (god forbid) failures.
What do you want to know about my adventures?



Two things that I originally found very appealing with the standard ug-enchantress list was that it was more or less wasteland-proof, and that it contained no dedicated kill cards, i.e. no cards that are dead if you are not going off. Your list has neither of these qualities.

I don't understand your point. Tendrils and Emrakul are not dead even I can't go off. Like I said in reports, I can play Tendrils for few spells to gain life (so gain time) and Sanctum allows me to have 15 manas without faeries. Moreover, WoW is not a real kill (mostly in real tournament). Even you don't like Emrakul/Tendrils, you should think about a second plan instead of only WoW like all legacy combo decks.



You have fewer mana sources (only 16 compared to my 18 lands and 2 moxes), four of which are non-basic lands that tap for mana. You can gsz for arbour, and abundant growth cantrips, but this looks very fragile.

Yes it looks very fragile, but not in reality. In all games that I played, I mull very rarely. I know, see 16 lands with 4 non-basic seems to be crazy, but it's not in practice. To be honest, in many games, I often had the feeling that I have too many lands. But I know that I can't reduce this number.



Moreover, how good is really the white mana that can be generated with Sanctum? I mean there are colorless mana holes that can be filled (2 for presence, 1 for argothian, 3 for curio etc) but this seems underwhelming (the deck doesn’t after all really run white md).

Yes it's only 2 for presence, 1 for argothian etc...but if you sum all, how many colorless need you in reality? I mean, I'm storm, I play many spells in one turn, 2 for presence+1 for argothian + 3 for curio + 1 for fearies + 2 for GSZ...= 9 and more. Sanctum allow me to play many spells in one turn. I tested it before add in the deck.



Concerning the dedicated kill cards; since you already include the wow win (bounce everything) two dedicated kill cards seems excessive.

WoW is not a real kill. I want to say "I win" in a game and not waiting for a probable abort and finally a draw... Tendrils is a "direct kill" and Emrakul is the "aggro kill". WoW is a lock, a control card, not a kill.



I realize that both have their virtues but by safeguarding against everything you get a deck full of speedbumps. Also, the uncounterability only really matters if you are playing to win really fast (and your opponent for some reason don’t counter curio/faerie, or whatever else it is you use for setting up)

Opponent counter/discard curio/faerie when he know the engine. But he has to counter argothian, presence, GSZ, Witness, WoW.... too, there are too cards that he has to manage. He can't manage all.



Tendrils and Emrakul feel good, but I wonder how much their uncounterability really matters in a deck like UG-enchantress which is soresilent. If you really want to include a dedicated kill card (so that you can win the turn you are going off) why not maindeck a blind obedience (which was a very nice find by the way)? It is also a sink for white mana, and is randomly good against popular decks.

UG Enchantress will be more and more popular while we win. A list with only 2 main cards (WoW+Blind) that can't be managed is very dangerous. A good player with some counter spell will wait for your main card and counter them. But you can kill with Blind if you want (already kill a SneakShow with it in training). Even I play Witness and City of solitude, I want to be safe. Moreover, for Emrakul: Emrakul don't need storm but only 15mana and can be useful for Show&Tell (SneakShow mu), for Tendrils: it's easier to cast Tendrils with storm than kill with blind, by example: opponent has 18life, so you need to cast 18 spells with additional one white mana to kill with blind instead of cast 8spells then Tendrils. You can really kill with blind only if you are in the infinite mana case.



Finally, I’m intrigued by the inclusion of cloudstone curio, because as you say the deck has trouble winning without the enchantresses

It's the case of classical UG Enchantress, exactly not my case because I'm using Abundant like a draw engine (with curio or WoW).



and curio is a draw engine that doubles as a mana generator.

Curio is more than a mana generator, it's a draw engine with abundant, a mana generator with faeries, a recuperator generator with Witness, a infinite life engine with Kitchen, .....



Also, by including the abundant growths you make the mana better (you could for instance include a seal of fire as a win con without changing the lands since abundant + sprawl gives you 8 red sources, it also makes casting leyline of sanctity easier if one is boarding that (which is currently a problem for me))

The kill with seal of fire is: play seal, use seal, getback seal by witness.... ?



and make wow’s without enchantresses slightly better. This can also matter post-board since some people board surgical extraction and hope to fow or discard an enchantress effect and then grab all the others via extraction.

With argo/presence/curio engine, it's very difficult to extract all to put me in trouble. Even he can do it, I can always cast Emrakul with faeries or without. So, when an opponent has a surgical in hand, it's very very diffcult for him to choice a target.



So what I think is most compelling about your list is the inclusion of curio. Do you see any strong reasons against including curio’s and growth but keeping the mana base intact and not including any dedicated kill cards?

If I understand (sorry for my english), you want to include Curio without any dedicated kill cards? Curio is a draw/mana/effect engine so yes you can include it without include Tendrils/Emrakul if you don't like them.


What would you replace in that case?

Sorry I don't understand the question, you mean what I will replace in your deck to include curio?

Thanks for your opinion.



Also, I’m hoping to write down some more tournament experimence of m own soon. I won another tournament and scrubbed out of another (at gp Gothenburg)
Good luk!

[benthetenor]

First, I'd like to say it's good for you to try to innovate. I've also tried to innovate with this deck. I've found pretty much every innovation that I've made has been just worse than what Cuneo did, in the long run. I've also found that most of the things that I've tried to do, he's already tried and dismissed. Things like Dryad Arbor, Arcane Laboratory, City of Solitude, even lots of Chrome Moxen are all things he's tried and dismissed, and I just had to learn for myself why he made those choices, often by losing lots of games that I would have won with a more streamlined deck.

Next, a lot of the issues that you bring up quite simply do not exist. You talk about how Words of Wind can be hit with a Pithing Needle effect, or a counterspell, or discard, but I have literally never lost a game in which someone has thought that that was the best way to attack this deck. The only way I usually lose is either a) the opponent's deck is faster than mine and I have no way to interact (combo) or b) the opponent has disrupted my Enchantresses long enough to beat me (usually with targeted discard). Every other plan that anyone has ever tried to implement to beat me has failed. If you needle Words of Wind, I'll still just draw my deck until I find Seal of Primordium, kill the Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker, and then bounce their whole board. If your plan is to counter all of my Words of Wind, you'd better have at least 4 hard counters in your hand when I'm going off (one for each Words of Wind and each Eternal Witness), as well as potentially one for each Green Sun's Zenith. You said something about removal on Cloud of Faeries stopping me from going off. Since there are Eternal Witness in the deck, I'll assume you're talking about Swords to Plowshares. I've never lost to a Swords to Plowshares on Cloud of Faeries stopping me for the turn. Mostly because I have Seal of Removal in the deck, and when I'm going off I have now or will soon have half of my deck in my hand meaning that finding a replacement Cloud of Faeries is pretty simple, but there are also situations where it will stop me for a turn but I'll just win the next turn after having had him pick up most of his permanents and having had me draw a full hand.

The only draw I have received in four large tournaments any many small ones has been from my own illegal play costing me a game, and subsequently being unable to complete a third game in time (as I had been playing at a good pace to win 2 games, and would have if not for my mistake). Regardless, the addition of Seal of Fire or Blind Obedience makes this irrelevant.

I do find it interesting that you mention one of the strengths of the deck (no "kill" cards) as a weakness. It is a strength because it means that you will never, ever (ever) have any dead cards in your hand at any point in the game. Even some that are dead in some matchups (like Carpet of Flowers) still function to draw you more cards by virtue of being an enchantment. All of the cards in the deck function to draw you cards in one way or another, which makes counterspells very, very bad against this deck since it's pretty simple to just run them out of cards in hand with you actually gaining cards in the mean time. In your list, if someone counters the Cloudstone Curio, then they've traded one-for-one. In mine, if someone counters the Words of Wind, they've traded one-for-one, but I then draw at least one replacement card, often 3-4, off of the Enchantress triggers. Same for removal like Abrupt Decay. Same for Discard pointed at anything but Enchantresses. If someone is trying to beat you with one-for-ones, they will lose, often embarrassingly so. But with your list, those one-for-ones can actually do something against you since you've got cards that are main engines in the deck that aren't drawing you extra cards just by virtue of coming into play.

Finally, here's the main issue: Enchantress, by it's nature, is not fast. It will never consistently beat a fast combo deck because of this. No card that you add in to an Enchantress deck will make it a turn 2 deck because it's just not possible with the way that the deck operates. By your estimation, you have added some cards and gained one turn in speed, but that's not fast enough to beat combo. It never will be. It is something you must accept if you choose to play a deck with Argothian Enchantress in it. But where that is a weakness, it is traded off for the strength of being extremely consistent and resilient in the face of disruption. If you want to build a deck that wins turn 2 with Cloudstone Curio, then why aren't you running the full 4 to maximize your chances of that happening?

You have gained that extra turn by cutting cards that should help you control the game to help you get to the late game where you can win (Seal of Removal, Seal of Primordium) and by removing Carpet of Flowers, made yourself more vulnerable to Daze and Spell Pierce which are exactly the cards that are going to beat you in the early game. You have cut into the strength of the deck and replaced it with weakness. As I see it, there are no non-combo decks in the format that kill on turn 4, and few that kill on turn 5, so you haven't really accomplished anything there. You've sped yourself up but made yourself more vulnerable to counterspells. You've added (unnecessary) powerful lands that are mulligans in the wrong opening hands and are vulnerable to Wasteland which is played as much now as ever. You say that Wasteland disrupting you isn't that common; in my list, Wasteland is always a dead card. Always. I do think that a lot of the games that you've won would have been wins with a more standard version of the deck anyway, that maybe one game in twenty you win based on the strength of the cards that you've added to the deck. I also suspect that you lose at least 5% of the games that you would win with a more consistent list like the one on the first page of this thread. That means that at best you're breaking even, and at worst you've traded consistency for flashiness and are losing more games in the long-run because of it. Your deck is just less efficient in a lot of ways than the standard build, and it's not a question of whether or not it's costing you games but rather of how many and how often.

You can play whatever cards you want. I just want you to know that it's not a case of me not having thought of the cards that are in your list (other than Blind Obedience, which I do thank you for). I've thought of and dismissed the cards that you have added in for being inefficient as compared to the cards already present. The deck doesn't not run Emrakul because no one thought of it, it was a conscious choice to not play a dedicated kill card in the deck because it's completely unnecessary. It doesn't not run Serra's Sanctum because we didn't know that card exists, it doesn't run it because the deck already makes more than enough mana and running a non-basic land in a deck that's already very rarely going to have a non-basic in play makes that particular land more than twice as likely to be affected by Wasteland over the course of the game. I don't run Abundant Growth because I'm really only two colors and have tons of Fetchlands and Utopia Sprawls and Chrome Moxen to fix my colors and my enchantments already cantrip if things aren't going terribly, so that's a wasted spot when it could be something that helps control the game like Seal of Removal. If you want to do something flashy rather than consistent, go for it. Just know it's probably a bad tradeoff in the long run.

[kingtk3]

regarding Blind obedience VS Sneak Attack/through the breach:
clever players will activate SA at the end of your turn after the triggers are gone to the stack, in this way their creature will be sacrificed at the end of their turn.
Blind obedience buys you a turn, it doesn't stop SA.

[waytowinatwar]

Dihensoeur: I started responding to your responses but then I saw benthetenors reply. Mine would have been very similar; I have the exact same worries, and the exact same experience.

As I wrote, I'm curious whether the standard build could incorporate the curio+abundant growth engine (but without messing up the mana/include dedicated kill cards) but I don't know if the resulting deck would be better than the standard version. But I'm interested in how you would do it.

Kingtk3: Thanks. I'm reconsidering my Blind Obedience trade-request. :)

[Dihensoeur]

Next, a lot of the issues that you bring up quite simply do not exist. You talk about how Words of Wind can be hit with a Pithing Needle effect, or a counterspell, or discard, but I have literally never lost a game in which someone has thought that that was the best way to attack this deck. The only way I usually lose is either a) the opponent's deck is faster than mine and I have no way to interact (combo) or b) the opponent has disrupted my Enchantresses long enough to beat me (usually with targeted discard).

You mention 2 ways to lose the game. I'm less sensitive to these ways like I explained, I'm more robust on your weakness and have more chance to win combo deck.



Every other plan that anyone has ever tried to implement to beat me has failed. If you needle Words of Wind, I'll still just draw my deck until I find Seal of Primordium, kill the Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker, and then bounce their whole board. If your plan is to counter all of my Words of Wind, you'd better have at least 4 hard counters in your hand when I'm going off (one for each Words of Wind and each Eternal Witness), as well as potentially one for each Green Sun's Zenith. You said something about removal on Cloud of Faeries stopping me from going off. Since there are Eternal Witness in the deck, I'll assume you're talking about Swords to Plowshares. I've never lost to a Swords to Plowshares on Cloud of Faeries stopping me for the turn. Mostly because I have Seal of Removal in the deck, and when I'm going off I have now or will soon have half of my deck in my hand meaning that finding a replacement Cloud of Faeries is pretty simple, but there are also situations where it will stop me for a turn but I'll just win the next turn after having had him pick up most of his permanents and having had me draw a full hand.

Fragile don't mean that the deck is weak. Yes I know you have some way to getback WoW. Again, I'm more robust on this point. Because you need to draw (with only argo/presence) to get Witness/Seal to hope getback WoW and lock instead of win by another way quickly.



The only draw I have received in four large tournaments any many small ones has been from my own illegal play costing me a game, and subsequently being unable to complete a third game in time (as I had been playing at a good pace to win 2 games, and would have if not for my mistake). Regardless, the addition of Seal of Fire or Blind Obedience makes this irrelevant.

So you will kill with seal of fire or blind now? That's a good idea.



I do find it interesting that you mention one of the strengths of the deck (no "kill" cards) as a weakness. It is a strength because it means that you will never, ever (ever) have any dead cards in your hand at any point in the game.

You can have kill cards and no dead cards. It's not impossible. And I already explained that Emrakul and Tendrils are not really dead. Even you think that are dead cards, I prefer have kills and one shot opponents quickly instead of wait and try to install a win con with WoW or Seal of fire and let opponent find a solution to win. But it's my choice.



Even some that are dead in some matchups (like Carpet of Flowers) still function to draw you more cards by virtue of being an enchantment. All of the cards in the deck function to draw you cards in one way or another, which makes counterspells very, very bad against this deck since it's pretty simple to just run them out of cards in hand with you actually gaining cards in the mean time. In your list, if someone counters the Cloudstone Curio, then they've traded one-for-one. In mine, if someone counters the Words of Wind, they've traded one-for-one, but I then draw at least one replacement card, often 3-4, off of the Enchantress triggers. Same for removal like Abrupt Decay. Same for Discard pointed at anything but Enchantresses. If someone is trying to beat you with one-for-ones, they will lose, often embarrassingly so. But with your list, those one-for-ones can actually do something against you since you've got cards that are main engines in the deck that aren't drawing you extra cards just by virtue of coming into play.

Yes, counter curio don't make me draw, but it's the same for GSZ no? Faeries no? And you forgot a detail, I play more enchantments (27) than you (25 no?). So I have more chance to draw enchantment when I play enchantment than you. And I already explained that my draw engine is stronger than you via Curio/Abundant/Recycling.



Finally, here's the main issue: Enchantress, by it's nature, is not fast. It will never consistently beat a fast combo deck because of this. No card that you add in to an Enchantress deck will make it a turn 2 deck because it's just not possible with the way that the deck operates. By your estimation, you have added some cards and gained one turn in speed, but that's not fast enough to beat combo. It never will be. It is something you must accept if you choose to play a deck with Argothian Enchantress in it. But where that is a weakness, it is traded off for the strength of being extremely consistent and resilient in the face of disruption. If you want to build a deck that wins turn 2 with Cloudstone Curio, then why aren't you running the full 4 to maximize your chances of that happening?

First, I can potentially win turn 2. Yes it's not enough to beat combo in game1 and not be sure, because all combo decks don't win T2 all the time so again, I have more chance than you and it's the same for no combo deck. I don't play 4 curio because 2 is enough and I keep more enchantments than you. You don't play 4 WoW right?



You have gained that extra turn by cutting cards that should help you control the game to help you get to the late game where you can win (Seal of Removal, Seal of Primordium) and by removing Carpet of Flowers, made yourself more vulnerable to Daze and Spell Pierce which are exactly the cards that are going to beat you in the early game.

I don't cut Seal of removal. And why I'll need Seal of primordium? Pithing needle doesn't work for me. I have so different tricks than there is no artefact that can really affect me. Except Canonist (like you) and Canonist can came in Game2 when I have already Seal of removal, WoW and add a Sliver that I can get more quickly by GSZ than a single Seal of primordium.
Then, carpet. Yes carpet is useful. And you talk about early game, but you have only 2 carpets, how many time have you a carpet in early game? You give up when you don't have it in start hand VS control deck? I don't think and you know that, you can win without carpet and can be Daze/Spellpierce proof without them. Yes is useful for Daze/Spellpierce, but I don't care, I have so many way to have a draw engine and you know we have so many way to make mana to be Daze/SpellPierce proof. So it's not a problem. So no weakness.



You have cut into the strength of the deck and replaced it with weakness. As I see it, there are no non-combo decks in the format that kill on turn 4, and few that kill on turn 5, so you haven't really accomplished anything there. You've sped yourself up but made yourself more vulnerable to counterspells.

High Tide was a combo deck that kill T4. And could you explain me why I'm more vulnerable to counterspells? I explained many times the opposite.



You've added (unnecessary) powerful lands that are mulligans in the wrong opening hands and are vulnerable to Wasteland which is played as much now as ever. You say that Wasteland disrupting you isn't that common; in my list, Wasteland is always a dead card. Always. I do think that a lot of the games that you've won would have been wins with a more standard version of the deck anyway, that maybe one game in twenty you win based on the strength of the cards that you've added to the deck. I also suspect that you lose at least 5% of the games that you would win with a more consistent list like the one on the first page of this thread. That means that at best you're breaking even, and at worst you've traded consistency for flashiness and are losing more games in the long-run because of it. Your deck is just less efficient in a lot of ways than the standard build, and it's not a question of whether or not it's costing you games but rather of how many and how often.

Obviously, as you don't like the deck, you suspect that I lose when your deck probably win. But, strangly, I'm not convinced, it's just your intuition but I can say the same.



You can play whatever cards you want. I just want you to know that it's not a case of me not having thought of the cards that are in your list (other than Blind Obedience, which I do thank you for). I've thought of and dismissed the cards that you have added in for being inefficient as compared to the cards already present. The deck doesn't not run Emrakul because no one thought of it, it was a conscious choice to not play a dedicated kill card in the deck because it's completely unnecessary. It doesn't not run Serra's Sanctum because we didn't know that card exists, it doesn't run it because the deck already makes more than enough mana and running a non-basic land in a deck that's already very rarely going to have a non-basic in play makes that particular land more than twice as likely to be affected by Wasteland over the course of the game. I don't run Abundant Growth because I'm really only two colors and have tons of Fetchlands and Utopia Sprawls and Chrome Moxen to fix my colors and my enchantments already cantrip if things aren't going terribly, so that's a wasted spot when it could be something that helps control the game like Seal of Removal. If you want to do something flashy rather than consistent, go for it. Just know it's probably a bad tradeoff in the long run.
I know you don't like my version. And I need more proof by winning big tournament like UG Enchantress as did last year but strangly, neither you or me accomplish this in this year, so we can consider two things: UG Enchantress needs modification and I need more proof.

Thanks for your opinion. I will continue to play this version until I convince you. I need more train because I'm not a pro player and time to participate in tournaments.




regarding Blind obedience VS Sneak Attack/through the breach:
clever players will activate SA at the end of your turn after the triggers are gone to the stack, in this way their creature will be sacrificed at the end of their turn.
Blind obedience buys you a turn, it doesn't stop SA.
Read the card (oracle text): "Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step" not his turn, so if the player activate SA at the end of my turn, the creature is sacrified at the end of my turn. Ask arbiter if you have a doubt. But you will never see this play in a tournament except to play Griselbrand and draw many cards to start the turn with twenty cards. So yes Blind works completely vs sneak.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

[benthetenor]

I don't think you're willing to consider any of my points, which is a shame. Nor have you really addressed anything that I've said, other than just saying what you said before, but with more emphasis. The last thing I will say is that I have had zero issues in actually winning during a game or a match that would have been solved by including additional win conditions, and it is not mere speculation to think that adding in cards that only do something when you have already won the game is a bad idea; it is now, as it has been since 1993. I will likely include a single Blind Obedience in the sideboard for game 3 from now on, simply so that I do not draw a match that I should have already actively won, but there is absolutely no reason to have any win conditions main other than Words of Wind. None. Emrakul and Tendrils of Agony are both dead cards in the opening hand. You can't even cycle them. There is no reason to play with them. None. I think if you would play with the actual deck promoted in this thread for a significant period of time, you would see this.

I think if you read the oracle text on Sneak Attack, you will find that it puts a trigger on the creature put into play that triggers at the beginning of the next end step. If you activate Sneak Attack in someone's end step, it not be sacrificed until it's trigger happens, which will be at the beginning of the next end step. Playing Sneak Attack in exactly the way described by Kingtk3 works.

[waytowinatwar]

Read the card (oracle text): "Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step" not his turn, so if the player activate SA at the end of my turn, the creature is sacrified at the end of my turn. Ask arbiter if you have a doubt. But you will never see this play in a tournament except to play Griselbrand and draw many cards to start the turn with twenty cards. So yes Blind works completely vs sneak.

Regards,
Dihensoeur

No. Oracle for Sneak Attack reads: "You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step." What kingkt3 suggested is that a player activates Sneak Attack DURING his opponents end step once he recieves priority. The beginning of the next end step will then be the beginning of his own end step, and he can untap his creatures and attack during his turn before he has to sacrifice them. Cf.

513. End Step

513.1. First, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next
end step” go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)

513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger
condition “at end of turn.” Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the
Oracle card reference to say “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next
end step.”

513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

This is all pretty standard stuff which is relevant from time to time in legacy (with kiki-jiki for instance), you should really know this.

[eriktyvollk]

The reason High Tide and UG enchantress can get away with winning turn 4 is everything in there deck is essentially a can trip which makes them extremely redundant. High tide additionally has counters to fight through the hate. I am not saying your deck is any different I am just saying the redundancy lets you fight through hostility were some decks just die to hate.

[Dihensoeur]

No. Oracle for Sneak Attack reads: "You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step." What kingkt3 suggested is that a player activates Sneak Attack DURING his opponents end step once he recieves priority. The beginning of the next end step will then be the beginning of his own end step, and he can untap his creatures and attack during his turn before he has to sacrifice them. Cf.

513. End Step

513.1. First, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next
end step” go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)

513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger
condition “at end of turn.” Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the
Oracle card reference to say “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next
end step.”

513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

This is all pretty standard stuff which is relevant from time to time in legacy (with kiki-jiki for instance), you should really know this.
Ok thanks for the explanation.

@benthetenor: As you said, you don't consider any of my points and you have no more argument. You think your deck is the best, but you don't win any big tournament like me. I think and I prove by arguments that I'm stronger on many points but you don't care because you don't like it, ok it's your choice. I need to win big tournament to continue to prove my deck yes, but it's your case too. A deck that win only few times last year is not enough. And you don't win any big tournament by yourself to justify your list.

I will continue to play my version while I believe on it. Maybe by winning lot of tournaments I will change your mind. We will see.

[benthetenor]

At what point did you assume that I didn't consider any of the points that you've made? Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I didn't consider them. Truth be told, most of the points you make don't follow logically, so there is very little point in continuing a debate full of illogical ideas. Every time I've tried to ask you to clarify your points or pointed out logical inconsistencies, you've just repeated your original point louder and more forcefully, so there really is no reason to continue the debate.

I'm terrible at Magic: The Gathering. It does not follow that because I am terrible at Magic: The Gathering, this deck is bad. Or flawed. Or in need of innovation. In the hands of genuinely good players (Andrew Cuneo, Chris Andersen, Drew Idoux), this deck has placed highly. If you were to ask those better players why they play the list that I've posted and don't change to the list that you've suggested, I'm 100% certain that they would tell you exactly what I've told you. I can be so certain because I've talked to some of them about this deck, either over the internet or IRL, and their reasoning for card inclusions or disinclusions are the same or similar reasons that I've given you. Make no mistake, our two lists are not equally valid, as you are trying to suggest.

In the end, I literally could not care less what list you play, but I'd really appreciate if you didn't mislead people who are new to the deck into picking an inferior (here being not derogatory, but rather a simple statement of fact as to the deck's qualifications) version and getting frustrated with it. The deck at the beginning of this thread was designed and honed over a period of more than a year by an old-school pro with two PT Top 8s, and then further honed by one of the top 40 players on the SCG Open series. You are some guy who doesn't fully grasp the end-of-turn trigger. That doesn't mean you can't be right, but it does mean maybe you should readjust your perspective.

I don't think that this deck is "the best", whatever that means. I think it is very consistent and fairly well-positioned right now, which is why I play it. If it's positioning changes, as it has a few times since this thread has begun, I will re-evaluate, as I have in the past. I am under no illusions that this is the best deck ever. No deck is perfect. Hell, no deck even goes 60/40 against the entire field. It's impossible in a well-balanced metagame with 10 first-tier decks and 20-30 other viable decks like Legacy. This deck crushes fair decks and has maybe a 20-40% chance of winning against an unfair deck, depending on what that deck is. That's a good tradeoff for me in this metagame.

[tyriion]

I've traded/bought all the cards I need to build the deck and today they all arrived. Just waiting for one more Argothian Enchantress, she's a bitch (no pun intended) to find. So I started goldfishing right away and I have to say, this deck is complex :O. Lots of things to think about, math to do and triggers to observe. So I don't think I will take it to a tournament next Sunday, as I probably would end up making a fool out of myself. Currently no Living Wish and 3x Chrome Mox as that one really can save your ass if you miscount your mana.

While I was building the sideboard I noticed that I somehow misplaced 2x Leyline of Sanctity. Would you leave the house without them? I don't really like mulling for Leylines, so I have upped the count of Deep Analysis, Mystic Remora and Compost. I have also included Blind Obedience as I see more and more Elves around here, so I will try that one out.

All in all I'm looking very much forward to playing this deck, even if it's just to see the look on peoples faces. I'm pretty sure no one plays this where I usually play.

[benthetenor]

If you're without Leyline of Sanctity, I'd put in 2-3 Compost and hope for the best. I think early targeted discard is one of the few ways that any fair decks have to interact with you, but if you can land a Compost, you stand a good chance of recovering. Leyline of Sanctity is the best answer here because it can't be hit by Abrupt Decay and it comes down before the opponent has a chance to cast Thoughtseize, but they are not exactly cheap so I could see you trying something else out in their place. I don't like the fact that it's such an all-or-nothing card, but then it is really good at what it does and there really aren't any other cards that do what it does, so I guess we're kinda stuck. But yeah, Compost is a good replacement, and Deep Analysis is good if you think you can afford to pay the life in the matchup that you're bringing it in for.

[Dihensoeur]

At what point did you assume that I didn't consider any of the points that you've made?
See #217. I answered to all of your points and reminded you some details (about number of enchantments, chance to win vs combo...), I'm waiting for your defense.




Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I didn't consider them. Truth be told, most of the points you make don't follow logically, so there is very little point in continuing a debate full of illogical ideas. Every time I've tried to ask you to clarify your points or pointed out logical inconsistencies, you've just repeated your original point louder and more forcefully, so there really is no reason to continue the debate.

It's not necessary to say "it's illogical" when you have simply no more argument...And who continue to repeat "your deck is inferior" without explain clearly, without defend your point? Without test? I began with your list. I tested it, you never ask yourself why I change my mind for my version? Why I'm still
stubborn? If you don't want to continue the debat because you have no real argument and you don't want to "lose" the debat, it's your choice.
What point do you want I clarify? Tell me and I will explain you.



I'm terrible at Magic: The Gathering. It does not follow that because I am terrible at Magic: The Gathering, this deck is bad. Or flawed. Or in need of innovation. In the hands of genuinely good players (Andrew Cuneo, Chris Andersen, Drew Idoux), this deck has placed highly. If you were to ask those better players why they play the list that I've posted and don't change to the list that you've suggested, I'm 100% certain that they would tell you exactly what I've told you. I can be so certain because I've talked to some of them about this deck, either over the internet or IRL, and their reasoning for card inclusions or disinclusions are the same or similar reasons that I've given you. Make no mistake, our two lists are not equally valid, as you are trying to suggest.

You say that you're not a genius like Andrew Cuneo, Chris Andersen or Drew Idoux but you claims that your list are superior only with your eyes, without tests, without take account arguments...



In the end, I literally could not care less what list you play, but I'd really appreciate if you didn't mislead people who are new to the deck into picking an inferior (here being not derogatory, but rather a simple statement of fact as to the deck's qualifications) version and getting frustrated with it. The deck at the beginning of this thread was designed and honed over a period of more than a year by an old-school pro with two PT Top 8s, and then further honed by one of the top 40 players on the SCG Open series. You are some guy who doesn't fully grasp the end-of-turn trigger. That doesn't mean you can't be right, but it does mean maybe you should readjust your perspective.

People play what they want to play. I post reports, I explain what people want to know, if they prefer your version or my version, it's their choices. What do you need to be convinced by my version?



I don't think that this deck is "the best", whatever that means. I think it is very consistent and fairly well-positioned right now, which is why I play it. If it's positioning changes, as it has a few times since this thread has begun, I will re-evaluate, as I have in the past. I am under no illusions that this is the best deck ever. No deck is perfect. Hell, no deck even goes 60/40 against the entire field. It's impossible in a well-balanced metagame with 10 first-tier decks and 20-30 other viable decks like Legacy. This deck crushes fair decks and has maybe a 20-40% chance of winning against an unfair deck, depending on what that deck is. That's a good tradeoff for me in this metagame.

I agree.

In conclusion, only by your feeling, you think that my version are inferior like the deck on this thread. You believe totally on your first feeling, it's your choice. I lost the good feeling of the first version of this thread in spite of your reports and tests, that's why I turned myself to Curio in a first step. Kills are not my idea, but I was convinced on them.
If I continue to play my version and no more the version of this thread (that I tested before), that's there is a good reason.
Maybe I didn't mastered enough the version of this thread. But while my version doesn't disappointed me, why stop it?

To be restart the debat on a clear base:
If I can summarize, things that bother you are:
- Curio that seems to be an overkill and a non-enchantment card
- Number of lands that seems too weak and risk to force you to mulligan many times.
- Number of non-basic lands that seems useless and makes weakness.
- Kills cards that can be dead cards and useless in UG Enchantress.
Right? Or I forgot something?

If we can restart from things that bother you, maybe I will enable to clearly explain each point.


A little question: What is the problem of the deck of this thread that oblige you to make your version?

[waytowinatwar]

Dihensoeur: I agree with benthetenor, your replies are often not very convincing. Let me give you one example to illustrate this.

Both me and benthetenor remarked that the mana of your deck is significantly worse than the mana of the standard list (i'm going to use my own list here to make things explicit - 7 forests, 2 islands, 1 tropical, 1 Savannah, 7 fetch and two moxes). You seem unwilling to concede this point.

One simple way to illustrate this point is to calculate the probabilities of getting starting hands where the mana is so poor that they have to be mulliganed. These probabilities can be calculated both with your deck and with the standard list, and can then be compared. One doesn't really have to consider wasteland vulnerability to see how inferior your mana is to the standard list. One just have to concede three fairly obvious things about how to mulligan with these decks (see below).


1. All hands that contain ZERO lands(/moxes in our case) absolutely have to be mulliganed:

The probability of this happening in your deck (with 16 lands and 44 non-lands) = 44/60*43/59*...*38/54=0,099

The probability of this happening in the standard list 40/60*39/59*...=0,048


2. Some hands that contain exactly ONE land (/mox in our case) absolutely have to be mulliganed:

Your deck: any hand that contains, as its only land, island, underground sea, arbour, sanctum #1, or Sanctum #2 (these either don't produce green mana, or, with arbour, only does so t2 and only given arbour's miraculous survival) = 1/60*44/59*43/58*...*7*5= 0,09

The standard list: island #1, island #2, chrome mox #1 chrome mox #2 = 1/60*40/59, 39/58...*7*4=0,036


3. Some hands that contain exactly TWO lands (/moxes in our case) absolutely have to be mulliganed.

Your deck: any combination of island, underground sea, arbour, sanctum #1, Sanctum #2 (10 combinations)= 1/60*1/59*44/59*...*42*10=0,028

The standard list: double chrome mox, double island (2 combinations)= 1/60*1/59*40/59*...*42*2=0,028

If these probabilities are summed we can conclude that your deck has a 0.218 probability to get a hand that absolutely has to mulliganed. The corresponding probability for the standard list is 0,089. So for your deck, more than every fifth hand absolutely has to be mulliganed! For the standard list less than one in ten hands absolutely has to mulliganed. So the mana in your deck is clearly worse than in the standard deck, in fact it is so bad that it alone makes me hesitant to play the deck.

What was your counter-argument when I pointed out the poor mana? Here is what you wrote:



Yes it looks very fragile, but not in reality. In all games that I played, I mull very rarely. I know, see 16 lands with 4 non-basic seems to be crazy, but it's not in practice. To be honest, in many games, I often had the feeling that I have too many lands. But I know that I can't reduce this number.


This is no argument. It is a statement about you being oblivious about the statistics of your deck.

Finally, if you want to convince anyone about the merits of some component of your deck, discuss that aspect separately from other aspects that are more controversial. But you don't really seem interested in this kind of analysis. I asked you twice for instance about how you would incorporate the curio engine into the standard list (without damaging the manabase or including dedicated kill cards) without a response. I don't want to play your deck because of its poor mana, and if you are unwilling to discuss components of your deck on their own terms, I benefit a lot less from your posts.

[Dihensoeur]

Dihensoeur: I agree with benthetenor, your replies are often not very convincing. Let me give you one example to illustrate this.
Both me and benthetenor remarked that the mana of your deck is significantly worse than the mana of the standard list (i'm going to use my own list here to make things explicit - 7 forests, 2 islands, 1 tropical, 1 Savannah, 7 fetch and two moxes). You seem unwilling to concede this point.

Ok, so we will discuss for the mana base. I already say that yes the mana base seems to be worse than yours.
Yes I know probability:
With 18 lands, to have a good hand (1,2 or 3 lands) = 81,7% then 80,7% with 19 lands but more chance to have 2 or 3 etc...
With 16 lands = 82,6%

Computing:
X : have X lands in start hand.
P(X): probability to have X lands in start hand.

If we consider a good hand (for lands number) as a hand with 1,2 or 3 lands so:
P(X=1 || X=2 || X=3) = P(X=1)+P(X=2)+P(X=3)

(draw without reset) P(X=k) = C(k,m) * C(7-k, 60-m) / C(7,60)
With (Combination) C(k,n) = n! / k!(n-k)!

So, P(X=1 || X=2 || X=3) = 0,292446422 + 0,33743818 + 0,196838938 = 0,82672354

So, I have more chance to have one land in hand and less chance to have hand full lands (and so not more chance to mulliganed). But Ok, it's surely not enough for you.
Let's continue with probability:
Even we have a good start hand, we don't want to draw many lands when we play enchantment.
First, we need to have a lot of enchantments cards: 27 for me, and 25 for you.
Second, chance to draw a land:
With 18 lands and started with one land: 32%
With 18 lands and started with two lands: 30%
With 18 lands and started with three lands: 28%

With 16 lands and started with one land: 28%
With 16 lands and started with two lands: 26%
With 16 lands and started with three lands: 25%

So, it seems that I have more chance to draw more than you by Argothian/Presence effect. Ok, you play fetchs and I'm thinking to run 4 fetchs instead of 2 because I draw again too many useless lands. Maybe you tell me that in game that's not the case, but it's the same for me and you tell me that's experiences are not enough for this.

Then, non-basics lands. I agree, my x2 sanctum reduce the probability for a good hand to 81,6% (considering 14 lands) so the same than you.
I agree, have non-basics lands or few is a strenght, you play 2 non-basics and me 4.
First, I tested without Sanctum and with Sanctum, and by my experiences (maybe not enough), I found better with Sanctum. I don't contratict you about play or not play Sanctum, I just said that I find it useful in my deck, it's my personal opinion and I don't tell you to play them, I just explained what I find it useful in my deck. If we imagine that you want to play my version without Sanctum, I don't forbid you.

About Underground Sea: It's not for Tendrils, not at all. It's only for Plague. To have more chance to put plague T2 and beat Elves. Or maybe to play some discard card like Duress (from sideboard) for another combo deck (I'm thinking about it). If you have a best idea that allow me to not play this non-basic land, I'm OK.

My apologies for my behavior. I have been irritated by benthetanor and its "My feeling tell me you're inferior" in loop. I'm more zen with you.

Is it a more structural argument than I said before ?



I asked you twice for instance about how you would incorporate the curio engine into the standard list (without damaging the manabase or including dedicated kill cards) without a response. I don't want to play your deck because of its poor mana, and if you are unwilling to discuss components of your deck on their own terms, I benefit a lot less from your posts.
Sorry for this, You could try with -1 Kitchen (or -1 Witness) and + 1 Curio (only +1 because you're more based on WoW, and it's for test).

[benthetenor]

Ok, we'll go through this one by one. Let's stay on the mana base for a minute. I have a few questions.

1) how is Underground Sea better than Bayou? In this deck, any land that can't tap for green is a bad land to have in the opening hand. Replacing Underground Sea with Bayou would immediately improve the number of hands that you have to mulligan.


2) 16 mana sources is almost certainly too few. The standard list plays 20-21. I've dropped to 19 before and found it to be too few. Of course you have a higher concentration of enchantments; you've cut somewhere around 4 mana sources to do it.

-> This is almost certainly why you feel you need Serra's Sanctum, so that you have something to create more mana while using fewer lands. The downside, even if you refuse to acknowledge it to be a downside, is that it places more strain on your deck by relying on a non-basic land in an environment full of Wastelands. If Sanctum were your 20th land, it would probably be fine (still bad, but not dire), but with it as your 15th and 16th lands, you're going to have to have it in play in way more games.


3) I'm not sure how you're hitting all of your colors on time with 9 Forests and only 2 fetchlands, unless you're leaning super hard on Abundant Growth and Utopia Sprawl. It makes you especially vulnerable to Chalice of the Void set on 1 and Engineered Explosives and Pernicious Deed because you can't even develop your mana in that situation, whereas with our version, you can at least start building up a board presence and power through.


4) Lastly, this is more of a comment on your last post; what exactly is your argument? It looks to me like you're just putting numbers in a post (which is pretty pointless since waytowinatwar already did a statistical analysis of keepable hands), but you never draw a conclusion about the mana. We say that your mana base is a problem, you put up a bunch of numbers and I think the conclusion you draw is "but I will draw more enchantments than you will!". If that is indeed what you're saying, it's completely irrelevant to the mana base. If you feel that your deck is superior, you should be able to defend the points we bring up, rather than bringing up other irrelevant points. If you concede that your mana base is weaker, then that is an area of weakness.

[Dihensoeur]

1) how is Underground Sea better than Bayou? In this deck, any land that can't tap for green is a bad land to have in the opening hand. Replacing Underground Sea with Bayou would immediately improve the number of hands that you have to mulligan.

The UG Enchantress play 2 island, so it's nearly the same that play 1 island+1 Underground sea, no? I tried Bayou (and no island to be honest, full trust on abundant growth/Utopia), but I saw too many situation where I need an island.



2) 16 mana sources is almost certainly too few. The standard list plays 20-21. I've dropped to 19 before and found it to be too few. Of course you have a higher concentration of enchantments; you've cut somewhere around 4 mana sources to do it.

-> This is almost certainly why you feel you need Serra's Sanctum, so that you have something to create more mana while using fewer lands. The downside, even if you refuse to acknowledge it to be a downside, is that it places more strain on your deck by relying on a non-basic land in an environment full of Wastelands. If Sanctum were your 20th land, it would probably be fine (still bad, but not dire), but with it as your 15th and 16th lands, you're going to have to have it in play in way more games.

You're probably right, I'm trying to play with 16 lands (which 4 non-basics lands), I taked the risk, I assume. I will continue with this mana base even it's probably an error but while I don't see in test/tournament a mull problem or others, I continue to "challenge the probability" that you show me. I don't encourage to follow the same way.



3) I'm not sure how you're hitting all of your colors on time with 9 Forests and only 2 fetchlands, unless you're leaning super hard on Abundant Growth and Utopia Sprawl. It makes you especially vulnerable to Chalice of the Void set on 1 and Engineered Explosives and Pernicious Deed because you can't even develop your mana in that situation, whereas with our version, you can at least start building up a board presence and power through.

I will surely move to 4 fetchlands. We don't need inevitably to have blue mana to develop us and win.



4) Lastly, this is more of a comment on your last post; what exactly is your argument? It looks to me like you're just putting numbers in a post (which is pretty pointless since waytowinatwar already did a statistical analysis of keepable hands), but you never draw a conclusion about the mana. We say that your mana base is a problem, you put up a bunch of numbers and I think the conclusion you draw is "but I will draw more enchantments than you will!". If that is indeed what you're saying, it's completely irrelevant to the mana base. If you feel that your deck is superior, you should be able to defend the points we bring up, rather than bringing up other irrelevant points. If you concede that your mana base is weaker, then that is an area of weakness.
I shown by probability (see #227), that I seem to be nearly equal because I'm taken account the hand with full lands (or 4,5,6 lands), you don't keep a hand with 4 or more lands right?

Ok I concede you, my mana base is worse than yours and surely the experience will show me that I need to play more basics lands.
Ok I concede you, maybe kills cards like Emrakul/Tendrils are useless (fun?) and dead cards. I continue to play them because I like them (and don't really like consider WoW as a real kill in tournament) and I won't encourage anyone to play them, but I will answer anyone want to know more about my experience with them.
I will continue to play and report with my list (except if I finally found by experience that it's really worse than classical UG Enchantress) but no more incitation, only answer questions.

The mainly card that I would like you to try is Cloudstone Curio engine. It's a draw engine, an effect engine and a mana engine (all that UG Enchantress play).
It accelerates really the deck (not only one clock), and can complete the draw engine (Argo/presence) via Abundant Growth.
Could you, at least, try this engine? By cutting a non-enchantment card like a Witness/Kitchen card (one Witness is enough no?).
And for add Abundant Growth, I want to suggest you cards like Mox, Carpet or Seal of primordium (are you certain that seal is useful MD? Your experience show you that seal are more often useful?)
but I know you won't agree. Maybe you have an idea if you need to add abundant growth?

Regards,
Dihensoeur.

[benthetenor]

So that leads directly to the second line of questioning:

1) Why should I add in 6 cards (2 Cloudstone Curio and 4 Abundant Growth) to do something that the deck already does very well (makes mana, draws cards, solid mana base)? I already feel that Abundant Growth is an objectively weaker card than any of the cards that you've suggested I cut for it strictly because my mana is already so good so it doesn't add anything to the deck in and of itself, which gives me no reason to play it on it's own merits. The only reason I would play it would be as a draw engine with Cloudstone Curio, but then, as I said, I'm adding in six cards that don't add anything to the deck aside from speed, and at the cost of consistency (here, about 4 lands and 2 other cards that are already pulling their weight).

2) Why should I want to be faster? Even if I live the dream with your list and somehow combo off on turn 2, many of the decks I couldn't beat before (combo) are at least as fast, except consistently. At an average speed of turn 5 (with my current list), I am already fast enough to consistently beat any deck that isn't a combo deck. And if your goal is actually to speed up the deck, you should be playing the full 4 Cloudstone Curio to increase the chance of winning on turn 2. If it does everything, as you say it does, then you should want every one you can get.

3) Some quick answers to your points, not anything you have to answer or even consider. 1 Tropical Island and 1 Bayou is probably just better than 1 Underground Sea just because in that setup you still have fewer lands that don't tap for green, and are free to fetch out whichever color you need without endangering your green mana development. And second, Words of Wind is a kill in a live tournament. Your opponent is just as dead with 0 permanents from a Words of Wind as they are with 0 permanents from an Emrakul, except that the Words of Wind can deal with any number of permanents, is active as soon as you cast it, and draws you cards when it comes into play, which can be pre-combo, mid-combo or as the last card you cast before you beat them. Emrakul just sits in your hand looking at you until you can generate 15 mana. As I said previously, I have never failed to complete a round on time using only Words of Wind, aside from the one round where I made a procedural error and received a game loss. I've never even gone to time with this deck, truth be told. I would also not hesitate to keep a 4-lander, though it probably isn't the best hand.

[Dihensoeur]

So that leads directly to the second line of questioning:

1) Why should I add in 6 cards (2 Cloudstone Curio and 4 Abundant Growth) to do something that the deck already does very well (makes mana, draws cards, solid mana base)? I already feel that Abundant Growth is an objectively weaker card than any of the cards that you've suggested I cut for it strictly because my mana is already so good so it doesn't add anything to the deck in and of itself, which gives me no reason to play it on it's own merits. The only reason I would play it would be as a draw engine with Cloudstone Curio, but then, as I said, I'm adding in six cards that don't add anything to the deck aside from speed, and at the cost of consistency (here, about 4 lands and 2 other cards that are already pulling their weight).

2) Why should I want to be faster? Even if I live the dream with your list and somehow combo off on turn 2, many of the decks I couldn't beat before (combo) are at least as fast, except consistently. At an average speed of turn 5 (with my current list), I am already fast enough to consistently beat any deck that isn't a combo deck. And if your goal is actually to speed up the deck, you should be playing the full 4 Cloudstone Curio to increase the chance of winning on turn 2. If it does everything, as you say it does, then you should want every one you can get.

3) Some quick answers to your points, not anything you have to answer or even consider. 1 Tropical Island and 1 Bayou is probably just better than 1 Underground Sea just because in that setup you still have fewer lands that don't tap for green, and are free to fetch out whichever color you need without endangering your green mana development. And second, Words of Wind is a kill in a live tournament. Your opponent is just as dead with 0 permanents from a Words of Wind as they are with 0 permanents from an Emrakul, except that the Words of Wind can deal with any number of permanents, is active as soon as you cast it, and draws you cards when it comes into play, which can be pre-combo, mid-combo or as the last card you cast before you beat them. Emrakul just sits in your hand looking at you until you can generate 15 mana. As I said previously, I have never failed to complete a round on time using only Words of Wind, aside from the one round where I made a procedural error and received a game loss. I've never even gone to time with this deck, truth be told. I would also not hesitate to keep a 4-lander, though it probably isn't the best hand.
Ok, by your experience, UG Enchantress doesn't need speed and WoW is enough to win, sorry for thinking the opposite (maybe lack of experience). So it doesn't need anything that I suggested, Ok.
As my deck is completely not a response to improve UG Enchantress (that seems not need any innovation),
what is, by your experience, the actual problem of UG Enchantress? What's blocking the deck to be in Top8 in big tournament?

PS: a little suggestion: why not a Gaddock Teeg MD to have a little hate VS combo/control deck? Instead of Kitchen?

[benthetenor]

Put simply, there's no room. I'm not running Kitchen Finks anywhere in the 75 anymore (I'm running 4 Leyline of Sanctity, so there's no need for any additional anti-burn cards), and if I were planning on playing a deck in a metagame with enough combo to necessitate a maindeck answer, this isn't the deck I would play. Gaddock Teeg is definitely the most high-impact card though, since it's good against almost all combo decks and can be tutored for with GSZ, so if I were going to run one main, that would be it.

As for why the deck isn't doing well, I think it's pretty clearly that no one is playing it. Even when Chris Andersen was making multiple top 16s (some back-to-back) on the SCG circuit with this deck, and actively telling everyone that it was the best deck and extremely well-positioned, he was still pretty much the only UG Enchantress deck in the room. Even when he was featured on-camera across multiple tournaments, still no one really picked up the deck. The reasons for people not playing a deck are pretty numerous, but here it's probably equal parts: the stigma of playing Enchantress, the perfect nature of the deck stifling people's ability to innovate, the fact that it's an extreme dog to combo, the desire of players to "win big" with Emrakul or Tendrils of Agony or Griselbrand, and the perceived difficulty in any combo deck. Most of those things we've seen on this very forum, with people trying to fit in cards just because they wanted to make it different, or to fit in a "win condition" when it's just not necessary. As far as difficulty goes, I find this deck to be significantly easier than pretty much any combo deck I've ever played, though I have played pretty much all of them and could be accurately described as a "combo player", so perhaps I downplay the difficulty of piloting combo decks. I do think there are a lot of people who conflate "Enchantress" with "Timmy" and so they just don't want to play it because they think it's a little kid's deck. I guess I understand that, though it's a pretty silly thing to think when we're all playing a card game. But regardless of the reason, no deck can put up results with only a handful of people playing it.

It seems to me that from the moment you picked up this deck, you had already inserted Cloudstone Curio and an additional combo-finish (along with a lot of other cards that have eventually gotten cut), and you've stuck by it. The main strength of this deck is that it's a control deck first and a combo deck second, which means that it's very good at surviving until the late game where the natural strength of Argothian Enchantress takes over and makes this deck more or less unbeatable. The main problem is that each of the changes that you've made have pushed the deck away from being a control deck and towards being a combo deck, which is not the kind of game that Argothian Enchantress is well setup to play. Again, you haven't made it completely a combo deck, and have still kept in elements of control, but you've added cards that are only good at being combo cards and are not good at fighting through the opponent's disruption (Carpet of Flowers, lands) or controlling aspects of the game (Seal of Primordium, Mindbreak Trap). The point I've tried to ask a few times, and have not yet gotten a good answer, is if you're trying to make a Cloudstone Curio combo deck, why not just make a Cloudstone Curio combo deck? The Enchantress shell isn't built for speed, it's built for the long-game, so you'd probably be better suited playing cards that are fast, like Dark Rituals and Lotus Petals and lots of other Moxes that you could bounce back and forth for free with Cloudstone Curio. If you want to play UG Enchantress, maybe you need to start with an actual build of UG Enchantress and see what makes it good before you start making changes. But as I've said from the beginning, it's your choice.

[waytowinatwar]

I don't think the curio-list/standard list discussion is really progressing anymore. I've tried goldfishing the standard list with an added curio and it definitely does interesting things, but I'm currently undecided on the merits of including it. I have a feeling that it points towards a slightly different game-plan than the original and might to this extent be disruptive but it is too early to tell. I will continue testing. There are lots of other things that I find are more pressing right now though that I would rather discuss, such as sideboard configuration, and mulligan decisions, so starting with this post, I will probably focus on them and on writing up tournament reports.

So I won the Legacy Treasure Chest side event tournament on the first day of GP Gothenburg. The event only featured 16 players (since most people were playing in the main event) but it had an extremely good payout. I won, in no particular order, a Foil Primespeaker Zegana, a foil Chrome Mox, a foil Advent of the worm, an english three portals Loyal Retainer, a foil Spiritmonger, 8 DGM boosters and a complete set DGM (including 10 shocklands).

I played roughly what I have been playing in the last couple of tournaments, but I replaced one Surgical Extraction in the sb with a Detention Sphere, since 1) Dredge and Reanimater are fairly scarce these days, 2) Extractions only have marginal utility against Storm Combo where I usually board them, 3) I don't board Extractions against anything else, and 4) I wanted something good against Show and Tell decks (since I found the Omniclash/Omnimaniac matchup to be pretty poor). Here's the list again for your convenience;

Main Deck
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Chrome mox
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
7 Forest
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Island
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Seal of Removal
1 Tropical Island
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded foothills
2 Words of Wisdom

Sideboard:
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Deep analysis
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Detention Sphere

R1 UW Miracles 2-0

G1otd
7 Misty, Foothills, Growth, Argothian, Presence, 2 Elephant Grass. Extremely good against everything. Keep.

He goes tundra top. I draw another argothian(!), fetch a forest and play growth.

He goes plains pass. I draw another prescence(!), play misty and argothian which resolves(!). Fetch forest into grass draw wild growth. He tops eot.

He untaps and play another plains. I draw a forest. I play a second argothian which also resolves. Play forest and another wild growth, draws sprawl and chrome mox. Play mox and sprawl and precence which he spell pierces.

I'm a little hazy about the specifics of our turn fours. He might have played a jace on his. I definitely won on mine.

G2 (-3 grass, 2 removal, finks, +carpet, sliver, grip, teeg, deep analysis, detention sphere)
7 Forest, Misty, Carpet, Growth, Sprawl, GSZ, removal. Not great, since I'm a bit mana heavy, but it is likely that I'll be able to play around spell pierce t2 with my only enchantress effect, and I'm fairly likely to draw another pretty soon if he fows it.

He goes island top. I play carpet into growth. He plays island counterbalance. I play land gsz for argothian (not sure if this is right, could have gone with sliver but at this point I have no other enchantresses) he blindflips a land. I play sprawl. He thinks for a bit (about drawing with top most likely. It resolves. Removal. Resolves, Grass resolves. At this point I've drawn another carpet and a grip. Next turn I bait counterbalance with carpet and then grip. The exact details of the rest of the game escapes me. I win

R2 Junk 2-0

G1 otp
7 forest, misty, catacombs, growth, gsz, witness carpet. Ok hand.

I fetch a forest and play growth. he plays swamp inquisition and forces me to discard the gsz rather than the witness. I go t2 witness even though I expect him to force me to discard the next turn. He doesn't! He plays savannah and a dark confidant. I gsz after argothian and play a seal of removal which I have drawn and bounce bob. He replays it next turn. I cantrip a few enchantments into a new removal and bounce bob again. Next two turns I repeat this (he might have done something other than just replaying bob but it wasn't very impactful or memorable). Eventually I find another enchantress and bounce everything.


G2 ( - 1 witnes, 1 removal, 1 primordium, 2 carpet + 1 sliver, +4 leyline of sanctity)
7 2 forest, growth, sprawl, argothian, presence, wow. Pretty good, no leyline but a single discard spell is not the end of me.

He thinks about his hand for awhile but decides to keep. Swamp but no t1 discard! I play forest sprawl. He plays forest(?) go. I play argothian into growth (even if he has lilliana, this seems better than prescence since he signals abrupt decay, also everything else being equal you want to play your argothians before your prescences). He doesn't have lilliana (!), plays a land and passes. I go prescence, into seal of removal. He has the decay, but I've drawn another gsz. He plays a dark confidant. I play gsz, draw four or so cards, bounce his confidant and win next turn.

R3 RUG 1-1-1

G1 otd
7 Island, tropical, savanah, misty, carpet, sprawl, prescence

The specifics of this match escapes me. I think he plays delver or mongoose t1, I carpet into growth (to play around spell pierce t2) and prescence t2. I win.

G2 (-witness +carpet)
7 no lands
6 no lands
5 forest, island, sprawl, grass, presence A very good hand of five cards.

If I remember correctly he has multiple fows and I'm never able to regain the initial card disadvantage.


G3
7 heath, catacombs, 2 sprawl, argothian, faerie, finks

This was an interesting game that we drew on time but I should have won. At some point I realize that I most go on the offence with my creatures to win (since we are short on time), but I make the mistake of attacking with my witness into a flipped untapped delver, which I could have bounced the same or possibly the next turn. The two points extra damage cost me the game more or less since three turns later I have my last round and he is on five lives. At this point he has no permanents.


R4 Deathblade (the only guy with 9 points)

G1
7 2 Misty, sprawl, growth,gsz, witness, removal
I don't remember that much. I think he fows my t2 gsz but my t4 gsz resolves and I cantrip for awhile until I win.


G2 (- 2 grass, removal, finks, prim + carpet, 4 leyline)
7 no lands
6 forest, catacombs, growth, mox, gsz, witness Good 6, although no leyline

I think he forces me to discard the witness t1, and maybe fows the gsz. The game goes back and forth for a while, he draws a lot of discard but has no real clock. At some point, I'm low on cards but topdecks a presence, plays it but doesn't draw enchantments. A few turns later I topdeck wow and can start bouncing his stuff.

So anyway, I finished 3-0-1 and won the tournament (the Rug player from R3 also won his final game but I had better tiebreakers since my R4 opponent was undefeated before he met me). Apart from my R3 mistake I'm very happy with my performance.

In other news, I made t8 in the legacy league where I normally play legacy, and will be playing the t8 on tuesday next week. I will likely need your advice about some things before then. :)

[benthetenor]

I like pretty much everything about your list, the only thing I would suggest (and this came after a lot of testing) is that you probably don't need to run both Kitchen Finks and Leyline of Sanctity. They are definitely in there for different reasons, but Leyline destroys burn decks which is the primary reason to have Kitchen Finks. You lose a little bit in terms of other aggro matchups, but you can also replace it with a good card in the aggro matchups. For me, it's either an Oblivion Ring or a Blind Obedience, or maybe a 4th Mindbreak Trap or an In the Eye of Chaos if you want to go that direction, though I haven't actually tested out Blind Obedience yet, just using it as my insurance policy for game 3s. But I would move one Mindbreak Trap to the main, and swap out the Kitchen Finks with something else. Finks still has utility, so it's not a bad call to keep him in, but I'd see if I couldn't find something with a little more play in it.

Also, in general, I'd run Oblivion Ring over Detention Sphere. It's almost a toss up, but in the matchup where you really want it (Show and Tell variants), exposing it to potential REB is not great. I know Detention Sphere does more work against tokens though, so it's a judgement call.

[Dihensoeur]

GG for tournament.



I played roughly what I have been playing in the last couple of tournaments, but I replaced one Surgical Extraction in the sb with a Detention Sphere, since 1) Dredge and Reanimater are fairly scarce these days, 2) Extractions only have marginal utility against Storm Combo where I usually board them, 3) I don't board Extractions against anything else, and 4) I wanted something good against Show and Tell decks (since I found the Omniclash/Omnimaniac matchup to be pretty poor). Here's the list again for your convenience;


For Omniclash/Omnimaniac: The best weapon that I know actually is Iona, Shield of Emeria under Show&Tell or casted. A pro Omniclash player tells me that he doesn't like an early Trinisphere but a Trinisphere under Show&Tell can give you at least 2 turns (after you first turn he wishs to get bounce, after the second turn he bounces trinisphere then win) except if he has an Emrakul in hand.
For others weapons, Omni has a response (spells to get wish=>bounce/Stifle/tutor=>Emrakul...).
Trinisphere can be a weapon VS storm if you have some slots for it.

[tyriion]

GG for tournament.



For Omniclash/Omnimaniac: The best weapon that I know actually is Iona, Shield of Emeria under Show&Tell or casted. A pro Omniclash player tells me that he doesn't like an early Trinisphere but a Trinisphere under Show&Tell can give you at least 2 turns (after you first turn he wishs to get bounce, after the second turn he bounces trinisphere then win) except if he has an Emrakul in hand.
For others weapons, Omni has a response (spells to get wish=>bounce/Stifle/tutor=>Emrakul...).
Trinisphere can be a weapon VS storm if you have some slots for it.

I could imagine In the Eye of Chaos shown in to be quite a big thing against Omniclash. Not so much against other SnT versions of course. But I'd hate to run such a one off solution (Iona) that's only good in that particular matchup. ItEoC fits the deck a lot better, while having applications in other matches as well.

I wouldn't run Trinisphere either, as it will also cause you some inconvenience. The beauty of this deck comes in part of the ability to run big sideboard answers that don't harm you in any way and ideally even fit into your game plan (enchantments). ItEoC slows him down as much as Trinisphere (should give you at least 2 turns before he has found mana to cast a wish) while allowing you to steam ahead and bounce his board before he finds an answer.

[waytowinatwar]

GG for tournament.

Thank you! It felt very good!



For Omniclash/Omnimaniac: The best weapon that I know actually is Iona, Shield of Emeria under Show&Tell or casted. A pro Omniclash player tells me that he doesn't like an early Trinisphere but a Trinisphere under Show&Tell can give you at least 2 turns (after you first turn he wishs to get bounce, after the second turn he bounces trinisphere then win) except if he has an Emrakul in hand.
For others weapons, Omni has a response (spells to get wish=>bounce/Stifle/tutor=>Emrakul...).
Trinisphere can be a weapon VS storm if you have some slots for it.

When I originally saw Trinisphere in your sideboard I was quite impressed with it's power (for the reasons you mention), it is also good against elves, and tin-fins, two other problematic matchups. However, I share tyriion's worries about it interfering too much with what you are trying to do yourself. True, ug-enchantress functions better than most decks under a trinisphere since we have the eight land auras. However, the average cmc on our spells is 1.79 (if we count gsz as having cmc 3 since it typically gets argothian) which means that on average, trinisphere makes our spells cost 1.21 more mana, which significantly slows us down. Looping with cloud of faeries and two cmc 1 enchantments require six land auras rather than the normal three (there are ways around this of course, like killing your trinisphere, but I think that it bears emphasis nonethelesss).

Iona is super powerful, but too narrow, and interacts quite poorly with the rest of the deck (i.e. is not an enchantment, cannot be tutored for, and does nothing until you have a lot of mana).



I could imagine In the Eye of Chaos shown in to be quite a big thing against Omniclash.


Unfortunately, they can still play enter the infinite and if they have an alternative win condition (like emrakul) they might proceed uninterupted even if iteoc is in play. Even if they haven't got another win condition main, iteoc might just buy us a single turn since they might have bounce in the deck after boarding, and they find it with enter the infinite. Iteoc is soooo great since it doesn't interfere with us at all but I worry that it's effect isn't strong enough. (and also thatit might be too expensive against faster storm decks).

On a slightly different note, I've just returned home after playing some legacy. The legacy league we have running where I live played it's top 8 tonight. The top 8 was (except for me) zoo, elves, painter-grindstone, 12post, tin-fins, pox, jund. Not a great field, although by no means impossible, for enchantress. Unfortunately, I was paired against tin-fins and got knocked out in the quarter finals in two swift games. I was really never in either games. This is a very poor matchup for us imho. It got worse by me trying to be clever before the tournament and removing the graveyard hate from my sideboard (since I almost never board it) but it wouldn't have made much of a difference, since he won behind silence g2. Anyway, when I got back I read Melissa DeTora's excellent Enchantress primer (focused on GW enchantress) and she suggested cursed totem against griselbrand. It is no enchantment, but it is also good against elves, comes online fast, and doesn't disrupt us at all.

Anyway, after I got knocked out I could sign up for the main legacy tournament (18ppl, four rounds) with a first round loss. I managed to go 3-0, and this was good enough for me to get tied for second place. I defeated living end, goblins and nic-fit (6-0 all in all).

The matches weren't very interesting except for the fact that I have now come to think that Elephant Grass is absolutely crucial in certain matchups (Like goblins) and I now more or less mull after it (within reason). For instance, in this tournament I mulled (otd) forest, growth, 2*arg, presence, faerie, witness for 2*fetch, growth, grass, mox, witness, which I kept and won with. I played another tournament last week (where i defeated spiral-tide and miracles but lost to painter grindstone and zoo) where I mistakenly lost against zoo (with Burning tree Emissaries) due to mulliganing(otp) incorrectly i now believe, sprawl, grass, five lands for two lands, argothian, presence, witness and prim. After my opponent won the game he indulged me and we played out my seven card hand, which I won. I attribute my poor 2-2 performance here partly to my mulligan decision.

[Muffinman]

First of all, I have to say that I haven't read the entire thread, I think I got as far as page 6 before I stopped. I also created this account right now, just so I could post this. ;)

I found this thread and became aware of the existence of the deck about 2 months ago, and I instantly fell in love with the deck, as I've always loved enchantress. I only ever played a very budget deck though, and it wasn't at all on par with the legacy scene. (It played Mesa Enchantress, Attunement, Replenish and Opalescence.) I've never actually played legacy for real apart from on Cockatrice and Magic Workstation, as it has been rather unreachable for me in terms of cost.

Anyway, I've started building the deck, and I took it to a local tournament. So I guess I want to share the outcome, as well as ask a bit about the sideboard.

The list I run wasn't as complete as I would've wanted it, I lacked some cards that I couldn't get a hold of before the tournament, so at that time, it looked like this:

2 Breeding Pool (Those other duals are too damn expensive!)
4 Misty Rainforest (Fetches are also expensive, but I already owned some, and I managed to borrow the rest.)
3 Wooded Foothills
9 Forest
2 Island

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
2 Words of Wind
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (I was planning on playing with the wish, but couldn't find one, so I just stuck him in the main board.)

Sideboard was not at all complete, but here goes, I guess

2 Faerie Macabre (Pre-emptive strike against a deck I knew would be there, which is the landless Balustrade spy into Laboratory Maniac combo deck.)
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Palinchron (What do you think about this one? I thought of it as an alternative way of producing infinite mana/bounces in case your opponent plays Surgical Extraction on one of your Cloud of Faeries for example.)
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Verduran enchantress
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks

It was a rather small tournament (14 players in total I believe) so this might not be the best test I could get, and I managed to dodge my worst match-ups. This is basically the first time I play the deck outside of goldfishing, and my experience with legacy is farily limited, so even though there weren't too many rounds, I learned a lot. With so few players, we played 4 rounds of swiss, which will result in a maximum of one player remaining unbeaten.

I'm worthless at writing reports, and I might've forgotten some things, but I'ma give it a try.

Match 1: BUG Delver
I end up winning 2-0
I really felt like the Elephant Grasses as well as Seal of Removals saves this deck against Delver-style decks. They bought a bunch of time which let me get enchantress effects on the table and overwhelm his counterspells. I didn't go off as early as turn 4 or 5 any of the games, but around turn 6 or 7.

Match 2: Maverick
I won 2-0 easily.
This match up almost felt like a joke. He just sat there and watched me play solitare.

Match 3: UWR Delver
I won 2-1.
Game one was very close, and I won with 3 life left. It was a lot like the BUG delver match-up but I feel like this one is worse because of the burn spells he ran. Game two, I lost. I got countered and burned out. He also played a clutch Surgical Extraction that removed an enchantress's presence, which also made me discard the one in my hand. (My only enchantress effect at the time.)
Game three, he kept a hand without Force of Wills, and didn't get any, so I pretty much roamed freely.

Match 4: Maverick?
As I said earlier, I'm not the most experienced Legacy player. This person played some kind of a maverick-style deck, but he had added red into the mix, and played with Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows.
We ended up going to time, and no one won the match, 1-1.
In game one, he didn't do much to stop my assault apart from 2 Qasali Pridemages that tried to remove my enchantress effects. Game two was intense though. He dropped a Ethersworn Canonist, and together with Sylvan Safekeeper(Couldn't bounce his canonist) and Umezawa's Jitte (To kill my faeries and hit hard), he managed to pull out a victory.
Game three was kind of awkward. I only found one enchantress effect, and drew my emrakul(He just stared at me stupidly) as well as a lot of other dead cards, lands mostly. We ended up going to time, and neither of us could end the game.

I did win on tie-breakers though, so I finished first. I was very pleased with the deck, both how it performed and how fun it was to play. I will most certainly continue to play the deck, and continue with Legacy - it is the coolest format after all.

As for the sideboard, what would you suggest I should do with the it? It seems to be the only part of the deck that is truly adjustable, apart from a few cards in the main. I know that combo is a weakness, so I'd have to adjust it to that, I guess.

That's all from me. Bye!

[tyriion]

Thank you! It felt very good!



When I originally saw Trinisphere in your sideboard I was quite impressed with it's power (for the reasons you mention), it is also good against elves, and tin-fins, two other problematic matchups. However, I share tyriion's worries about it interfering too much with what you are trying to do yourself. True, ug-enchantress functions better than most decks under a trinisphere since we have the eight land auras. However, the average cmc on our spells is 1.79 (if we count gsz as having cmc 3 since it typically gets argothian) which means that on average, trinisphere makes our spells cost 1.21 more mana, which significantly slows us down. Looping with cloud of faeries and two cmc 1 enchantments require six land auras rather than the normal three (there are ways around this of course, like killing your trinisphere, but I think that it bears emphasis nonethelesss).

Iona is super powerful, but too narrow, and interacts quite poorly with the rest of the deck (i.e. is not an enchantment, cannot be tutored for, and does nothing until you have a lot of mana).



Unfortunately, they can still play enter the infinite and if they have an alternative win condition (like emrakul) they might proceed uninterupted even if iteoc is in play. Even if they haven't got another win condition main, iteoc might just buy us a single turn since they might have bounce in the deck after boarding, and they find it with enter the infinite. Iteoc is soooo great since it doesn't interfere with us at all but I worry that it's effect isn't strong enough. (and also thatit might be too expensive against faster storm decks).

If he goes for Emrakul he can't shuffle back his hand, so all you need then is 7 permanents to win it. Unless I'm missing something, which is probably the case. I don't think 7 permanents has to be a problem for this deck really, but as with every sideboard card ItEoC isn't perfect. As I haven't played the deck for real yet I wouldn't know of course, but on paper it looks as the best piece of hate we have against Omniclash, blue based combo decks in general and maybe even Burn. The drawbacks of that card are just significantly less than with the other cards (Iona, trini) so I see much more flexibility and a broader range of application. That's quite a good thing to have in a sideboard card.

[LurkingMatt]

Thank you! It felt very good!



>>Snipp<<


Unfortunately, they can still play enter the infinite and if they have an alternative win condition (like emrakul) they might proceed uninterupted even if iteoc is in play. Even if they haven't got another win condition main, iteoc might just buy us a single turn since they might have bounce in the deck after boarding, and they find it with enter the infinite. Iteoc is soooo great since it doesn't interfere with us at all but I worry that it's effect isn't strong enough. (and also thatit might be too expensive against faster storm decks).

Well it all depends. If you manage to resolve ITEOC before they resolve EtI, you are set.
Still the mono blue lists are really hard with hate to get since they run tons of protection.
The one good thing about them is the fact that they need god hands to combo before T3
which we also "can" manage (though we prefer T4).

Other then ITEOC I could only suggest Flusterstorm which I continue to run as a four-of in my
sideboard (primarily vs Storm I admit).


On a slightly different note, I've just returned home after playing some legacy. The legacy league we have running where I live played it's top 8 tonight. The top 8 was (except for me) zoo, elves, painter-grindstone, 12post, tin-fins, pox, jund. Not a great field, although by no means impossible, for enchantress. Unfortunately, I was paired against tin-fins and got knocked out in the quarter finals in two swift games. I was really never in either games. This is a very poor matchup for us imho. It got worse by me trying to be clever before the tournament and removing the graveyard hate from my sideboard (since I almost never board it) but it wouldn't have made much of a difference, since he won behind silence g2. Anyway, when I got back I read Melissa DeTora's excellent Enchantress primer (focused on GW enchantress) and she suggested cursed totem against griselbrand. It is no enchantment, but it is also good against elves, comes online fast, and doesn't disrupt us at all.

Mind handing a link to Ms. DeTora's Primer?
Also thanks for the idea of using Cursed Totem (Dampening Matrix if Affinity/ Mav/ DnT are big in your area but Elves ain't). Since I dropped the deck b/c Elves where are real pain in the ass and popped everywhere I went, I have to admit this might be
a nice addition which would let me pick up the deck once more.


Anyway, after I got knocked out I could sign up for the main legacy tournament (18ppl, four rounds) with a first round loss. I managed to go 3-0, and this was good enough for me to get tied for second place. I defeated living end, goblins and nic-fit (6-0 all in all).

The matches weren't very interesting except for the fact that I have now come to think that Elephant Grass is absolutely crucial in certain matchups (Like goblins) and I now more or less mull after it (within reason). For instance, in this tournament I mulled (otd) forest, growth, 2*arg, presence, faerie, witness for 2*fetch, growth, grass, mox, witness, which I kept and won with. I played another tournament last week (where i defeated spiral-tide and miracles but lost to painter grindstone and zoo) where I mistakenly lost against zoo (with Burning tree Emissaries) due to mulliganing(otp) incorrectly i now believe, sprawl, grass, five lands for two lands, argothian, presence, witness and prim. After my opponent won the game he indulged me and we played out my seven card hand, which I won. I attribute my poor 2-2 performance here partly to my mulligan decision.

[LurkingMatt]

Considering all posts that where made while I was lurking (which I probably will do again ; ) ), a bit of feedback:

@Ben: Please, you "try to discuss logically" but:


If you want to improve a deck (e.g. Di's, WaytoWinAWar's) you do not only disrupt an idea but offer alternatives. "My build/ the old build is better" doesn't really qualify. And yes I know Di can be frustating since he is so empathical about his ideas.
Especially since you more then once stated "I changed that in my deck" during this threads timeline without any update to the- admittedly not really primer like front post - nor a post of your current decklist(s)/ iteration of those.
I really enjoy(ed) your style of discussion since you always try to reason with anyone. But since Di and you seem to
agree to disagree - leave it be (as a suggestion).
How about an updated list and a few things you learned while trying different things?
I am really eager to learn more about the deck and dust it of (I am currently running Tide/ 12Post since I am more comfortable with those but take this beauty for a ride in our local LGS regularly). But not without convincing that my Matchups vs fair decks are better/ Storm "not worse" then 12Post.
How about aOr maybe a "real" primer? I would be willing to help out any way you want.
This deck (Enchantress in any incarnation has been a baby of mine for quiet some time. So I am willing to invest/ do stuff if the reasoning is logically (and yes, I own the whole shebang (including exotic Helm-Enchantress or
some Curios I purchased to test Di's suggestions (NO I WILL NOT RUN TENDRILS) excluding ITEOC.
The fact alone that I joined the active community (more or less at least ;) ) and created an account to get involved should be proof enough


@ Di (sorry for shortening your Name, Di)

I know you are not a native speaker (Belgian I would guess?), but please keep your sentences simple.
If you do that I am more willing to follow any argument you make and the sense is less open to interpretation.
Thanks for your interest in the deck and the will to innovate.
While not all of us might buy your ideas, your "mad scientist build" helps the rest of us to learn more about the deck.
So keep on doing your thing and to push borders!
Speaking of that:
Please consider dropping either Tendrils OR Emrakul. At least main deck. I understand the general idea of redundancy you want to have but both go different ways:
Tendrils -> Storm (works nicely with Curio, likes Sanctum since you need more mana).
Emrakul -> going BIG (works nicely with the "normal" engine, likes Sanctum since you only need Faeries and a few enchants to drop him fast)
Your manabase is really interesting. As long as it works: "Go push the probabilities".
My experience as a "casual" tournament player (2-3 tournaments (16+ players) / month, no big leagues since Germany has few of those + 3-4 LGS meetings / month) tells me it will bite you in the ass in a critical moment.
Also thank you for your explanation(s) of your land choices!
Thanks for the math on your manabase but you have to consider the probabilites of "usable" mana in your hand.
That'S the main point of argument by Way and Ben.
Could you please offer "a complete standard list" integrating Cloudstone Curio and Abundant Growth for real discussion of the topic "Curio + Growth"?
My experiences while testing them showed that they don't really like being one ofs, you need both of them
preferably as two+ ofs(Growth at least - and that thing at least cantrips on its own).
I am currently not bought by the tech but it showed more promise then most things I tried.

[waytowinatwar]

@Muffinman: Congratulations to your finish - that's great! - and welcome to the thread.

Your maindeck is just a few cards of what I'm playing myself so there is not a lot i disagree with. There is a discussion in the thread about usling dedicated kill cards like Emrakul. Personally, i don't think you need one, as you say sometimes they just sit there and stare at you. You need to be able to safely pass the turn, so I play finks for infinite life since finks help out pre combo with various things.

Your sideboard is weak to stormbased combo and, I think, overloaded with graveyard hate. Maybe you just want to ignore storm based combo decks entirely? That's a perfectly reasonable position since you have to board so much to even have a shot But a teeg in the sb and a temple garden main does a lot and I highly recommend it. Also note that your sideboard only contains two enchantments so your enchantment count is likely to go down after boarding. (Also note that you only report 13 cards). Leyline of sanctity is clunky but strong against a lot of things that are difficult to deal with. Tendrils, discard, liliana etc. Concerning Palinchrone: I don't think the probability or severity of the threat you mention warrant a dedicated sideboard slot. If you disagree, snap is a more versatile option (snap witness for inf mana).

[LurkingMatt]

Regarding the Curio // Growth Engine:


So that leads directly to the second line of questioning:

1) Why should I add in 6 cards (2 Cloudstone Curio and 4 Abundant Growth) to do something that the deck already does very well (makes mana, draws cards, solid mana base)? I already feel that Abundant Growth is an objectively weaker card than any of the cards that you've suggested I cut for it strictly because my mana is already so good so it doesn't add anything to the deck in and of itself, which gives me no reason to play it on it's own merits. The only reason I would play it would be as a draw engine with Cloudstone Curio, but then, as I said, I'm adding in six cards that don't add anything to the deck aside from speed, and at the cost of consistency (here, about 4 lands and 2 other cards that are already pulling their weight).

To be honest, I have to admit I am not really bought to add six (!) cards either since the list is tight.
The main point of this engine is that


Cloudstone Curio:
Pros:
- It "can" accelerate comboing out since you need fewer resources (since you can cantrip/ bounce Faeries more easily).
- Would add more resilience to this deck
- Synergizes nicely with current pieces in this deck
- New Wincons are possible (not needed though -> for reference check White Staxx).
Cons:
- You still need other permanents to achieve anything though
- Not really needed since we already do lots with it
- You need space which is thigh in this deck

Abundant Growth
Pros:
- Cantrips
- Mana fixing thus less non basics needed
Cons:
- Doesn't increase our mana efficiency
- Actively slows our mana production rate by producing not "more"




2) Why should I want to be faster? Even if I live the dream with your list and somehow combo off on turn 2, many of the decks I couldn't beat before (combo) are at least as fast, except consistently. At an average speed of turn 5 (with my current list), I am already fast enough to consistently beat any deck that isn't a combo deck. And if your goal is actually to speed up the deck, you should be playing the full 4 Cloudstone Curio to increase the chance of winning on turn 2. If it does everything, as you say it does, then you should want every one you can get.


Actually you only want one.

Still I agree that - if Curio is not only winmore - or should be treated as an redundancy, as a matter of fact, you would want it as a three of (increasing probabilities to draw it on T3/ T4 to go off).

You are once again referring to "your current list".

Willing to enlighten us?

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

First of all, I have to say that I haven't read the entire thread, I think I got as far as page 6 before I stopped. I also created this account right now, just so I could post this. ;)

I found this thread and became aware of the existence of the deck about 2 months ago, and I instantly fell in love with the deck, as I've always loved enchantress. I only ever played a very budget deck though, and it wasn't at all on par with the legacy scene. (It played Mesa Enchantress, Attunement, Replenish and Opalescence.) I've never actually played legacy for real apart from on Cockatrice and Magic Workstation, as it has been rather unreachable for me in terms of cost.

Anyway, I've started building the deck, and I took it to a local tournament. So I guess I want to share the outcome, as well as ask a bit about the sideboard.

The list I run wasn't as complete as I would've wanted it, I lacked some cards that I couldn't get a hold of before the tournament, so at that time, it looked like this:

2 Breeding Pool (Those other duals are too damn expensive!)
4 Misty Rainforest (Fetches are also expensive, but I already owned some, and I managed to borrow the rest.)
3 Wooded Foothills
9 Forest
2 Island

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Eternal Witness
2 Words of Wind
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Elephant Grass
4 Seal of Removal
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (I was planning on playing with the wish, but couldn't find one, so I just stuck him in the main board.)

Sideboard was not at all complete, but here goes, I guess

2 Faerie Macabre (Pre-emptive strike against a deck I knew would be there, which is the landless Balustrade spy into Laboratory Maniac combo deck.)
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Palinchron (What do you think about this one? I thought of it as an alternative way of producing infinite mana/bounces in case your opponent plays Surgical Extraction on one of your Cloud of Faeries for example.)
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Verduran enchantress
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks

Regarding Pools:
I used those myself. Did you get along with the life loss?
Regarding Emrakul:
I use(d) Emrakul myself maindeck - nice secondary wincon isn't it?
But not really needed in G1 as I had to find out.
Regarding Palinchron:
Never thought of it, to be honest.
Would be applciable with Living Wish I guess.
Regarding Sideboard at all:
Seems it worked for you. Congrats :)

You might want to consider picking up Temple Gardens/ ~2 Serra's Sanctum while they are cheap.
Sanctum is not really an option for you unless you consider strengthening/ adding a white splash but they are nice to have.


It was a rather small tournament (14 players in total I believe) so this might not be the best test I could get, and I managed to dodge my worst match-ups. This is basically the first time I play the deck outside of goldfishing, and my experience with legacy is farily limited, so even though there weren't too many rounds, I learned a lot. With so few players, we played 4 rounds of swiss, which will result in a maximum of one player remaining unbeaten.

I'm worthless at writing reports, and I might've forgotten some things, but I'ma give it a try.

Match 1: BUG Delver
I end up winning 2-0
I really felt like the Elephant Grasses as well as Seal of Removals saves this deck against Delver-style decks. They bought a bunch of time which let me get enchantress effects on the table and overwhelm his counterspells. I didn't go off as early as turn 4 or 5 any of the games, but around turn 6 or 7.

Match 2: Maverick
I won 2-0 easily.
This match up almost felt like a joke. He just sat there and watched me play solitare.

Match 3: UWR Delver
I won 2-1.
Game one was very close, and I won with 3 life left. It was a lot like the BUG delver match-up but I feel like this one is worse because of the burn spells he ran. Game two, I lost. I got countered and burned out. He also played a clutch Surgical Extraction that removed an enchantress's presence, which also made me discard the one in my hand. (My only enchantress effect at the time.)
Game three, he kept a hand without Force of Wills, and didn't get any, so I pretty much roamed freely.

Match 4: Maverick?
As I said earlier, I'm not the most experienced Legacy player. This person played some kind of a maverick-style deck, but he had added red into the mix, and played with Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows.
We ended up going to time, and no one won the match, 1-1.
In game one, he didn't do much to stop my assault apart from 2 Qasali Pridemages that tried to remove my enchantress effects. Game two was intense though. He dropped a Ethersworn Canonist, and together with Sylvan Safekeeper(Couldn't bounce his canonist) and Umezawa's Jitte (To kill my faeries and hit hard), he managed to pull out a victory.
Game three was kind of awkward. I only found one enchantress effect, and drew my emrakul(He just stared at me stupidly) as well as a lot of other dead cards, lands mostly. We ended up going to time, and neither of us could end the game.

I did win on tie-breakers though, so I finished first. I was very pleased with the deck, both how it performed and how fun it was to play. I will most certainly continue to play the deck, and continue with Legacy - it is the coolest format after all.

As for the sideboard, what would you suggest I should do with the it? It seems to be the only part of the deck that is truly adjustable, apart from a few cards in the main. I know that combo is a weakness, so I'd have to adjust it to that, I guess.

That's all from me. Bye!

Congrats to your wins and welcome to the thread!

Re sideboard:

Some suggestions (please note they are generalized):

vs Storm-based combo:
Leyline of Sanctity, Kitchen Finks,Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm,
In the Eye of Chaos - if resolved - is a pain in the ass, also a nuisance: Mana Maze.

vs Discard:
Leyline of Sanctity, Compost and Deep Analysis

vs Burn:
Leyline of Sanctity, Kitchen Finks, Energy Field

vs Omnishow:
Generally speaking Counters, In the Eye of Chaos .... uhm... maybe(!!) Mana Maze?

vs RiP/Helm Combo:
Leyline of Sanctity, Seal of Primordial[cards], [cards]Krosan Grip[cards] (fragging [cards]Counterbalance!)

vs Creature-based combo (aka Elves, Painter, Sneak and Show):
the only "real" answer to those is a) being faster and b) slowing them down enough to make sure you can combo out.
Answers can be Mana Maze, Propaganda, Blind Obedience, Bounce and Cursed Totem/ Null Rod/ Dampening Matrix (a compromise of those two).

vs Dredge:
you MIGHT want to consider boarding in your Leyline of Sanctity / Compost since they
could be on a Flayer list but otherwise..... let's just say their odds are not good. ;)

vs Loam (I know not really combo but hey.... I am at it):
Leyline of Sanctity, Compost, Counters vs their Dreams


Afterthought:
If you are running Blind Obedience in your sideboard and know that SnS/ Reanimator will be around, Meekstone is really nice and sort of a no brainer. It also blind sides Craterhoof so you only have to survive him (and his buddies) once....

Also Solitary Confinement is an option.
Using a Rest in Peace/ Helm of Obedience and Energy Field engine is an option, although this take the deck into a different thread since the engine is a different one (Lock (our version) vs Combo(RiP/Helm)).

Did I forget something, guys?

I hope the choices give you ideas about what can/ could work.

Regards,
Matt

[LurkingMatt]

@Muffinman: Congratulations to your finish - that's great! - and welcome to the thread.

Your maindeck is just a few cards of what I'm playing myself so there is not a lot i disagree with. There is a discussion in the thread about usling dedicated kill cards like Emrakul. Personally, i don't think you need one, as you say sometimes they just sit there and stare at you. You need to be able to safely pass the turn, so I play finks for infinite life since finks help out pre combo with various things.

Your sideboard is weak to stormbased combo and, I think, overloaded with graveyard hate. Maybe you just want to ignore storm based combo decks entirely? That's a perfectly reasonable position since you have to board so much to even have a shot But a teeg in the sb and a temple garden main does a lot and I highly recommend it. Also note that your sideboard only contains two enchantments so your enchantment count is likely to go down after boarding. (Also note that you only report 13 cards). Leyline of sanctity is clunky but strong against a lot of things that are difficult to deal with. Tendrils, discard, liliana etc. Concerning Palinchrone: I don't think the probability or severity of the threat you mention warrant a dedicated sideboard slot. If you disagree, snap is a more versatile option (snap witness for inf mana).

Teeg.... Damn I knew I forgot something.
Tried Snap as backup but lost them along the way
since sideboard space was tight. Worked as intended though.

Thanks man!

Matt

[waytowinatwar]

Here's deTora's primer: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/melissadetora-070512-casting-enchantments-for-fun-and-profit-a-legacy-enchantress-primer/

I'm actually working on something like an extended primer myself which I hope to finish in the near future.

[Muffinman]

Thanks, great response. :)
We usually have one legacy tournament each month here, so I might come back next time and tell you how I did.

Regarding the graveyard hate in my board: The only two decks I knew would be on the tournament were the landless balustrade spy deck as well as a dredge deck. So I kind of prepared for them. The dredge one didn't show up though, and I managed to dodge the other one, so I never really needed any of them. I didn't really know how the rest of the meta looked here, since this was my first real legacy tournament. There were loads of delver and maverick, I can tell you that much. Apart from that, I saw a Show/Tell and a Pox deck, as well as some random super-control deck that basically had Jace as his only win-con. Considering this, I guess the storm combo decks aren't the first problem in mind, since it will probably be a while before I take the deck outside of my home town. I still want to board against them in time though, and appreciate the help. :)
Leyline of Sancticity seems to be where it's at.

Any of you ever consider Circle of Protection: Red against the burn matchup?

Emrakul: I dunno, I like having a dedicated win con. I'm not sure that I need one, but I think it helps. Once I comboed out at 3 health, and if it weren't for emrakul, I would have to pass the turn and risk getting bolted. I do think I prefer the wish though, as it gives added utility when I'm not ready to go off.

Breeding pool: I don't see them as a real problem to be honest. Especially when you want to get basics as often as possible. (I guess this goes for legacy in general - if you can afford it, get basics to avoid wasteland.) I think I only played a breeding pool untaped two times during the entire tournament. I almost always favor getting a basic forest or island over the pool, and I only go fetch it when I feel I really need to.

The list with kitchen finks in main looks interesting, I can certainly see the benefits.

[Dihensoeur]

Considering all posts that where made while I was lurking (which I probably will do again ; ) ), a bit of feedback:
@ Di (sorry for shortening your Name, Di)

I know you are not a native speaker (Belgian I would guess?), but please keep your sentences simple.
If you do that I am more willing to follow any argument you make and the sense is less open to interpretation.
Thanks for your interest in the deck and the will to innovate.
While not all of us might buy your ideas, your "mad scientist build" helps the rest of us to learn more about the deck.
So keep on doing your thing and to push borders!
Speaking of that:
Please consider dropping either Tendrils OR Emrakul. At least main deck. I understand the general idea of redundancy you want to have but both go different ways:
Tendrils -> Storm (works nicely with Curio, likes Sanctum since you need more mana).
Emrakul -> going BIG (works nicely with the "normal" engine, likes Sanctum since you only need Faeries and a few enchants to drop him fast)
Your manabase is really interesting. As long as it works: "Go push the probabilities".
My experience as a "casual" tournament player (2-3 tournaments (16+ players) / month, no big leagues since Germany has few of those + 3-4 LGS meetings / month) tells me it will bite you in the ass in a critical moment.
Also thank you for your explanation(s) of your land choices!
Thanks for the math on your manabase but you have to consider the probabilites of "usable" mana in your hand.
That'S the main point of argument by Way and Ben.
Could you please offer "a complete standard list" integrating Cloudstone Curio and Abundant Growth for real discussion of the topic "Curio + Growth"?
My experiences while testing them showed that they don't really like being one ofs, you need both of them
preferably as two+ ofs(Growth at least - and that thing at least cantrips on its own).
I am currently not bought by the tech but it showed more promise then most things I tried.

@LurkingMatt: thx for your notes.

As you requested, see below a suggestion from the thread's list (that's running 20 lands not 18 or 16) which includes Curio+Growth engine and keeps WoW as the only "kill" :

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
7 Forest
2 Island

Creatures:

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Eternal Witness

Spells:

4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Seal of Removal
4 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Words of Wind
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Abundant Growth
2 Cloudstone Curio


Changing:
- 1 Witness
- 1 GSZ
- 1 Seal of primordium
- 1 Living Wish
+ 2 Cloudstone curio
+ 2 Abundant growth

[waytowinatwar]

@muffinman concerning cop: red. Between leylines and finks you really don't need it. Burn is really quite easy. Also, cop requires that you keep open at least two mana at all times which interferes with your gameplan.

[Dihensoeur]

If he goes for Emrakul he can't shuffle back his hand, so all you need then is 7 permanents to win it. Unless I'm missing something, which is probably the case. I don't think 7 permanents has to be a problem for this deck really, but as with every sideboard card ItEoC isn't perfect. As I haven't played the deck for real yet I wouldn't know of course, but on paper it looks as the best piece of hate we have against Omniclash, blue based combo decks in general and maybe even Burn. The drawbacks of that card are just significantly less than with the other cards (Iona, trini) so I see much more flexibility and a broader range of application. That's quite a good thing to have in a sideboard card.

Example:
You put ItEoC quickly. He still continue to search his combo cards with Ponder/Preordain or Brainstorm(brainstorm cost only 2 with ItEoC so not a problem).
Then he plays Show&Tell for 3 and put Omniscience (or you put a ItEoC under Show&Tell). He play for free Ponder/Preordain then Enter the infinite then Emrakul so he gets an additional turn.
New turn for him. Draw his last card, then attacks you.
2 cases:
- you have less than 7 permanents so ItEoC is sacrified so he plays a wish=>bounce (or bounce directly) Emrakul then he discards with keeping a perfect hands and so discards Emrakul=>shuffle all then he achieves you next turn.
- you have more than 7 permanents so you keep ItEoC, so he plays a bounce from hands for 3 to bounce ItEoC and like first case, bounce Emrakul to achieve you. Or he plays wish for 3 to get Maniac Laboratory then plays it for free and win next turn.

For me ItEoC is not enough VS OmniShow. But you can test it and tell us the result! Maybe I'm wrong.

For Mana Maze:
I think he will play like this:
- he plays one ritual during his turn and an instant spell during your turn.
- When Mana Maze under Show&Tell, He will play Wish during your turn to get Eladamri's Call and then plays it to get Emrakul and so win next turn.