[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[Zach Tartell]

This is my list, as of 12 March 2007:

// Lands
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
4 Savannah
2 [A] Taiga
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [P3] Plains (1)
6 [UG] Forest

// Acceleration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
4 [US] Exploration

// Engine
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence

// Utility
1 [MR] Rule of Law
1 [WL] Aura of Silence
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
2 [LG] Sylvan Library
1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
1 [OD] Holistic Wisdom
1 [OD] Karmic Justice
1 [DIS] Seal of Fire

// Lock
1 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
2 [LG] Moat
2 [VI] Elephant Grass
4 [JU] Solitary Confinement

// Win
1 [ON] Words of War
1 [MI] Sacred Mesa

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 1 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [DIS] Seal of Fire
SB: 1 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 2 [VI] Elephant Grass
SB: 3 [MR] Rule of Law
SB: 1 [TE] Light of Day
SB: 1 [MM] Spiritual Focus
SB: 1 [MI] Null Chamber
SB: 2 [TE] Choke

[B]Card Choices:

Let me explain the mana base first: I run 8 basic land, 4 fetches (four is all you need: I need to be able to grab the basic plains against goblins when I really need it, and you find yourself wanting more mana than shuffle effects). The two sanctums are completely necessary. I know it sucks to have one in your opening hand, but it’s playable if you have an exploration or a forest. Then it’s just a non-basic plains.

Acceleration: I think that it’s pretty much self-explanatory. Utopia sprawl is so good. Unless you’re playing against ports. But, then you get to keep your duals. Aydunno.

Engine: I think you only need 8 enchantresses. Bearded judge at TMDOII said I should run the 0/2 one, as well, but she’s not untargetable, nor much better at blocking than the ol’ argothian one.

Tool box: First of all, ROL main boarded: Thoughts? I’m not sure I like it, but it’s nice to have something to tutor into game 1 v. combo, if you have the chance to go that long. I’ll get to that later.
-Aura of Silence: So good against affinity, and any artifact mana based combo. The 1WW cost is kind of difficult to pull off sometimes, but it’s certainly worth it. And it’s much eaiser than getting the WG of grove, once you have sanctum.
-City of solitude: I hate blue cards, when I’m playing this deck. Helps, a bunch. And, it’s easily boarded out against goblins and survival.
-Sterling Grove: This must be a 4-of. Early game, it’s tough to come by the white mana to cast it, and late game, it’s tough to come by the green mana to cast it (I almost want to run cradle or something – it’s so hard to get green when I’m combo-ing out.). But it makes shit tough to blow up, and it tutors for your answers. Necessary.
-Library: I don’t like it, at all. But it’s great against combo. And better in pairs than mirri’s guile. And, when not under confinement, it can combo nasty with WOW.
Seal of primordium: Eats vials, man-lands, crucible, chrome and diamond moxen, and it’s the right color. I like it.
-Holistic wisdom: This is the single weakest looking card in the deck, but I wouldn’t get rid of it for the world. It pulls back wasted sanctum, countered confinement, and seal of fire to kill remaining meddling magi.
-Karmic Justice: I don’t’ like this main board, but I think it’s necessary, with the amount of wastelands and engineered explosives floating around. And green goblins scares the shit out of me, with their possible tranquil domains. Wrath + Armageddon for 3. I’ll take it. Makes deed a scary play for black players.
-Seal of Fire: Tutor for it against meddling mages, hippies, and . . . goblins. Boarding in the other two against goblins is a good play. Answers first turn lackey.

Lock pieces:
There’s no Squee here. I hate that. He’s my 61st card. The first cut, if I need to get under 61. Don’t play him. I’m trying not to. The problem is that it’s tough to persuade myself. Look at this data: This is from my reports and additional notes on the last 3 tournaments (the only three where I played enchantress). I attributed each of these games to Squee + confinement FTW.
Gagg:
round 1, game 1 v. solidarity
round 2, games 1&3 (game 3 had double grove lock, too) v. show & tell
round 3 game 1 v. duck hunt
round 4 game 2 v. mono red goblins
top 4 game 2 v. 3color AS

TMDO day 1:
round 1 game 2 (with grove lock) v. mono red goblins
round 3 game 1 v. red death
round 4 games 1 +3 v. RG goblins (jeff folious)

TMDO Day 2:
Round 1 game 2 v. UBR affinity
Round 3 games 1 & 2 (double grove lock both times) v. Matt's survival
Round 4 game 1 v. UBW landstill
Top 8 games 1+2 v. RG goblins (agent cody mannion)
The problem is, though, that he is hand clog when you’re not just sitting dead under confinement. At the Gagg I was running two, and I had to hardcast it against Bennett Toms’ BR goblins. I dropped one for TMDO, and I did real well in swiss. But against Watcher in the top 4 I actually had to hard cast him again. Shit with a quick clock really makes me have to play him. I don’t like admitting it, I don’t like thinking about it. Squee confinement is like cheating. But I guess every good beginning has to come to an end. I’ll miss you, my goblin naboob. Ha. Boob.

I moved my third elephant grass from main back to the board in favor of some trash. The rest is the same.

Win: I dropped my second mesa that I was running at TMDO. One is enough. And Form of the Dragon was just a hilarious mistake. It was fun, though.

Board:
-City: no brainer. I mull into this against blue control
-Aura of silence: A second gives affinity headaches. And tendrils combo w/artifact mana.
-Seal of fire: I discussed this earlier. So good.
-Karmic justice: In against a bunch of stuff I don’t like. Like BG for deeds.
-Grass: Duh.
-Rule of law: I need four for combo. Man, I use italics a lot. Being able to mull once and almost be albe to say that I’ll have it (and the mana to power it out turn two) is real good.
-Light of day: I need a solid answer to black decks. Or maybe not. I cut Sacred ground for this. Which, I think, is a weaker card overall. Aydunno. Random Black.dec is scary for me.
-Spiritual focus: I almost cut this card. But it’s great against IGG combo. Which gives me enough time to tutor for and play it. Makes the matchup hilarious. I gotta give Spatula the credit on this one.
-Null Chamber: Name tranquility against TES. Name engineered explosives against various fish and Landstill builds. I wish I could have two out at once. That’d be like cheating.
-Choke: Blue decks can eat my shit. Get a grove out so solidarity can’t chain it on your endstep.

61st cards (this comes from my days as a SWCCG player; after you write out your list, you’d list the cards you want in, but didn’t fit only 60 cards]. Thusly, this is not a list of cards to make your sixty first card. People make fun of you for that kind of stuff.):
-Mirri’s Guile: From what I hear, library is just better than this. I picked up a Chinese one from a dollar box at gaming, etc., and I really want to play it. Functions under confinement (really nice to string together 1 enchantment after another until you can start drawing two or three off of each one).
-Worship: I really want to throw it in the board, but I can’t find the space. And, you’d only need it against goblins.
-Parallax Wave: I want to test 1 moat, 1 wave, but I don’t have the wave, and double moat works fine. I’d only use it to hide a mage on one of my win conditions, or confinement. I think that it might be good to hide siege gang commander or sharpshooter when you have moat out but aren’t ready for confinement. I just don’t have room for it.
-Ivory mask: against goblins with a moat, this is almost as good as confinement. Better, I think, in that you don’t have to ditch a card. But the 2WW is tough to get early enough for it to matter. I’d love to get it out against combo, and it’s possible (though unlikely) to whip it out turn two. I want it but I can’t fit it.
-The entire blue splash for Words of Wind: This is kind of nice, but I find myself thinking that I have to leave out my control element in order to pull off the combo. And, to be completely fair, I don’t know how to put the combo together. Rancor, cloud of faeries, serra’s sanctum, and a trop with a utopia sprawl on green seems like you can go infinite. And you get trade routes, which means you can get dumb amounts of mana with sanctum. Maybe we could discuss that at a greater length later.
-Black splash: This gives access to cadaverous bloom. And use of your ridiculous storm count that you can generate.
-Multani’s Presence: This card is pretty cool, I’ll admit. I’d love to fit one or two in my board, but I already don’t have issues with decks with counterspells. I’ll put this on the back burner until I can think more about it.
-Ground Seal: If you’re going to run squee, or eternal dragon, or any other graveyard-oriented hotness, you really might want to look into this. And, it double-cantrips with your enchantress effects. I wish IGG targeted cards in that player’s graveyard. Then this would be a 1-of main, and a 1-of board. Might want to think about it, anyway. Or not.
-Seal of cleansing: Seal of primordium is better. And, for my money, aura of silence is better. When you’re going to try and go into confinement, you’ll never be short on white mana. Only early game is it taxing.
-Genjus: These don’t make me go crazy. They’re only good against agro, and you shouldn’t be afraid of agro. Know what’s good against it? Half your deck. Try ‘em if you like, if you don’t have moats. Not for me.
-Blessings: I don’t dig it. Re-animator gets around them by just being faster. And solidarity is able to play around them if they’re even a little competent.
-Fat in the board: Something like an eternal dragon seems nice against landstill, after they board out their creature hate. I just don’t have room in the board for it. Try it yourself. Maybe an exalted angel.
-Circle of Protection: Red: Dudes, you beat goblins if you’re doing it right. You needn’t fret over any more of that.
-Spreading algae: I tried it at TMDO. I played against 1 black deck. And he just didn’t tap that swamp. Maybe if there’s a lot of black in your area. It’s really nice, because it comes back to your hand, and you can draw off of it after you play it again. And if fucks up … braids? Or stax. With black in it.
-Humility: I hear it’s good against goblins and other agro. But I don’t like it. Makes my enchantresses bad. Makes my pegasuses not able to fly over my moat. I guess if you really need to beat goblins, then you should run it in your board. I still don’t like it.
-Sacred ground: I don’t dig it. I played it all three days that I ran my deck. I put it in against two different landstill decks, 1 goblins build at the GAGG (the mono-red guy), and the red death that I beat. Never saw it once. It’s really good, when you’re able to get it out. I just never wanted to waste a tutor on it. Try it yourselves.
-Chalice: Spatula wanted me to think about it, but I just don’t like it. All of my sweet stuff falls in the 1-3 range, and I just don’t want to lock myself off of anything amazing like that. Maybe for 0 against TES.

Match-ups (I will tolerate no player-hating on my match up lists. I’m not putting down percentages, and if you want to offer them, fine. I don’t want any “there’s no way you do that well” shit. If you don’t think I’m right, play it in a tournament [MWS doesn’t count for anything], and post your report.):

-RG Goblins: Pre-board is extremely favorable for you. Or, I should say, it was with both of my last two lists. I muddled the mixture a bit by adding the ROL. They have nothing to disrupt your confinement, nor your combo, ‘scept maybe a needle or two. Boarding: -1 City, -1 Aura of silence, -1 Rule of Law, -2 Library; + 2 E-grass, +2 Seal of fire, + Karmic Justice. I leave in the seal of primordium so you can tutor for it/rip it in order to deal with a needle if they put one on your wins. Even more favorable after boarding. All you have to worry about is tranquil domain, really. Krosan grip is just an un-counterable, worse (against you) disenchant against you. This is the same for RW goblins. (Like, exactly). I like Justice against Armageddon better than I like it against tranquil domain.

-Solidarity: Game 1 is just you digging for ROL via Grove, holistic-ing shit back if they counter it, and trying to resolve confinement/double grove. I haven’t lost a game 1 to solidarity, ever (I played shady and Gearhart), but it seems to me that if you aren’t made of solid luck I’d call game 1 unfavorable, almost extremely. Their fundamental turn is turn 4, yours is five or so. Boarding: -2 Elephant grass, -2 moat, -1 ghostly prison, -1 seal of primordium, -Aura of silence, - karmic justice; +3 ROL, + 1 Null chamber, +2 choke, + 1 city of solitude, + 1 Seal of fire (This is kind of weak, but I have 8 dead cards main, and I’d like to have another one drop, having lost the two e-grasses. And you can fetch a taiga w/o having to worry about wastes). Post board this is a riot. You have so many must-counters that their paltry 8 counters won’t hold up to anything. I think I used ‘counter’ too much in that last sentence.

-Threshold: Neither of these is much fun for you. I’d call it between even and unfavorable. They have all kinds of early-game disruption (both builds), magi (white), fliers to get over moat (both, though, to be fair only 1-3 in either build), and reach (red). I haven’t played against either build in a tournament, which is weird (I think it’s among the best decks in the format). I do believe, however, that it gets better post board. Let’s look at my choices v. UGr Thresh (I honestly have played against that only twice, and both times were against UGw, on an older list without side boarding): -Rule of Law, -1 Elephant Grass, - Seal of fire; +2 choke, + City of solitude. Depending on what they’re gonna put in, you should keep the karmic justice. Tutor for it and drop it, because Engineered Explosives at 3 sucks nuts. Armageddon and wrath (with the exception of a mongoose or two) for the cost of a grove is worth it for me. Board in the second if they make it to game 3 and you see the explosives. Boarding v. UGw: -1 Rule of Law, -2 Elephant grass; + City, + Seal of fire, + Karmic Justice. I’ve won against Armageddon only once, and it was tough. 3 Color angel stompy. Friendly Phil Stolze knows what he’s doing. I’ve seen more of these builds running Engineered Explosives, too. Let me know how you guys do against thresh – I’m interested.

-Landstill: uhh. . . I hesitate to call this favorable. I’ve had great success, but I can’t say you will (whole God’s chosen people thing). Against UB you’re golden game 1; run for confinement before echoes, then take your time shocking them out or whatever. Against UW they’ll have some sort of disenchants main boarded, maybe. So play around that. Bitches Hoes West Coast is more difficult. I mean, if they can find lands that make mana. Anything with xBG is scary for you, because of pernicious deed. So we’ll settle on “even” pre-boarded versus the various colors, then get on to boarding: -2 elephant grass, -1 Seal of fire, -1 Ghostly Prison, -1 Rule of Law -; +2 Choke, + Karmic justice, + city, + Null chamber. Name Explosives on chamber if they don’t have green, deed if they do. I’d say post board this gets favorable to very favorable. Depends a lot on what they board in.

-Red Death: Favorable. Elephant grass is real nice, from what I hear. It’s tough to deal with a 1st turn negator, but luckily I never had to. Boarding: -ROL, -City, -Aura of silence, -Seal of primordium, -Ghostly prison; +light of day (they scoop to this), +2 Elephant grass, +Spiritual focus, +Karmic Justice. Maybe we should switch the aura of silence for the seal of fire. Like, leave the Aura in. Distopia could get nasty. But I don’t play non-permanents. This becomes very favorable post-board. Five “Cannot Attack” effects is a pretty good ratio. Then just win before they get like 4 disopias online.

-Survival: There are like 20 ways to play survival. I’ll pretend I’m playing against RGBSA. Even, or maybe unfavorable pre-board. Unless they don’t have reverent silence or tranquility or one of its bastard brothers as a wish target. I mean, they have plenty of hand-rape. And, when they get survival out, a decent clock. Boarding: -City, -ROL, -2 Elephant grass (this is assuming they have the wish target); + Karmic Justice, +2 Seal of fire, +Spiritual Focus. Post-board, it gets reasonable. Even, or favorable, I’d say. Other variants don’t have the ridiculous toolbox that RGBSA have, so the most you’ll have to worry about pre-board is a viridian Zelot or something. ‘Yknow, the guy for GG that has GG: disenchant. I’m 4-0 against GWrb and GWru Survival.

-TES: This is only here because I test against it so much (I live near wastedlife). Game one, you probably lose. Very unfavorable. The one rule of law main board is there incase you can get to pull it out, and have a grove out for protection (I hear they’ve started running hull breach in stead of tranquility, which is amazing for us. Boarding: -1 Seal of primordium, -1 Seal of fire, -1 city, -1 karmic justice (doesn’t matter – you’ll either lock it down or it won’t be relevant – their land doesn’t stick around long enough – here are a couple more hyphens - - - ), -1 ghostly prison, -2 moat; +Elephant grass, +3 ROL, +1 Null chamber, +1 Aura of silence, +1 Spiritual Focus (in case they have to go for IGG instead of d-returns). Post board: Even. game 2 if you have three land or two land and a utopia sprawl (why doesn’t it sound right to say “an utopia sprawl”) you're golden for the turn two ROL. I add the elephant grass in case they go for the warrens. Ideally, you will go first turn: mana explosion. Turn two ROL, turn three aura of silence turn four aura of silence turn five null chamber naming either hull breach (if they have wished for it) or tranquility (if they haven't, or if they pulled it out with wish game 1)(if they run both, you’ll be in trouble). That’s as close to perfect as it gets. If you win game two (assuming you lost game 1 and thusly didn’t win the match), then he’ll probably win game 3, unless he keeps a trash hand and you get another good one. So: Very unfavorable, even, unfavorable. Good luck. (you’ll need it)

Less likely and thusly less detailed match-ups:

-Train wreck: I don’t there’s a way to win this. Scariest match-up, period. Null chamber on deed doesn’t even work, because they’ll have two or three crime/punishment as well. Dedicated Land destruction is pretty hard. Only gets a little better post-board

-Stax (or angel stax) (or anything variant): You play 60 permanents. And two aura of silences post board. I dream about match-ups this good.

-Affinity: Shit's tough. They are really fast at the start of the game, but then they usually run out of gas. Elephant grass is pretty important here. Pyrostatic pilar sucks to play against, and in my expierance (all two of the decks I played against) they don't need to sweat it much. I would call it Unfavorable/even. (for clarifaction, all of these with a slash in them connotate pre and post board)


-Wombat (MWC): if they went with the plan of wining against combo, you win, because they don’t have vengeance. If they do have vengeance, then I think you lose. Even with karmic justice x2. No joke.

-MUC: No clock + islands = you prolly win. Depends on player and the way they build their deck. You play enough basics that back to basics isn’t that scary.

-Angel Stompy: Cataclysm is real bad for you. Null chamber that shit. If they don’t run any, then you’re golden. Watch out for ‘geddon post-board. And acid rain. I saw that played once. It’d suck.

-IGGYPOP: Jesus, thinking about how much better TES is than this made me remember to write up the TES match-up. This has gotten eaiser and eaiser for Enchantress, having moved its fundamental turn from turn 2 or three to turn 3-5. The addition of white, in my opinion, makes the deck only a little better against control. Anyway, you should definitely be able to make it under confinement by then. I have faith in you. Post board just name tendrils with null chamber, and get Spiritual Focus out. Then laugh your ass off. I gotta give Spatula credit on this. Even/favorable.

-Deadguy: This is the only match where I’d want a sacred ground. Re-read Red Death, then worry about more land destruction via vindicates. Even/favorable.

Goldfishing:
I’m not going to walk you through opening hands, because, unlike combo (where your hand matters now, and what you’d draw into in the next ten usually doesn’t matter) you don’t have an “OMG I win turn 1” hand. You have ideal hands. Here’s one:

Enchantress’ Presence
Forest
Forest
Exploration
Utopia Sprawl
Plains
Argothian Enchantress.

But you’re not going to get that. Here is you you’d throw away:

Moat
Taiga
Exploration
Utopia Sprawl
Solitary Confinement
Aura of Silence
Exploration

No enchantress effect is usually an iffy hand. And so are one land-ers. But here’s a one-land-er you’d keep:

Forest
Utopia Sprawl
Argothian Enchantress
Utopia Sprawl
Sylvan Library
Aura of Silence
Sterling Grove

Here’s another one you’d throw away:

Plains
Exploration
Solitary Confinement
Serra’s Sanctum
Seal of Primordium
Sterling Grove
Moat

But then here’s a Sanctum hand you’d keep:

Forest
Utopia Sprawl
Moat
Enchantress’ Presence
Serra’s Sanctum
Sterling Grove
City of Solitude

Having a basic forest is so important. I can’t stress that enough. Wasteland sucks to play against. ‘Specially after going Savannah, utopia sprawl, go. Port sucks, too, but there are plenty ways around that.

Additional Reading:
I went through nine pages of stupid legacy articles on TML, and twenty five on Star City, trying to find stuff about enchantress. I found three decent articles, which address and (have links to) Blue enchantress (words of wind combo) and black enchantress (for a tendril of agony kill. Which, by the way, I will be looking into putting together someday).

Cavius the Great put this one together. Looks solid. (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27993.0)
This is Spatula convincing ig'nant hoes that he's right (and he is) (http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=290441)
This one's a guy named Scooba and some hippy pirate aruging between the builds. Some good ideas here and there, though. Spatula is here as well. (http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=285861&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)
This is the orrigional Enchantress Thread from the Source. Spatula started it. (if you can't tell, he's been pretty influential in making enchantress a good deck) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2601)

I don't know if Props are usually included in Primers, but I'm going to at least thank two people: Jim Lampman, for getting me to play the deck in the first place, and Matt Elgin. Without Matt's suggestions and previous discussions to read, I don't think I'd've made it as far as I have already.

Enjoy!

[Peter_Rotten]

Just wanted to toss out a quick "thank you" for refreshing a deck and starting out a new thread with a detailed opening post.

If you didn't know why we think you should be paying attention to Enchantress, it's because of the deck's back to back to back top 8 at some larger and diverse NE tournies (GAGG, TMLO 1 and 2). Not even Goblins was able to accomplish that.

Unfortunately, I think that Enchantress may suffer from that dreaded "hard-to-play-deck" syndrome. People may pick it up, play it poorly, lose, and then decry it. I always had a soft spot for the deck but Norm and JP would ream me out whenever I tried to play it. Hopefully, it can make day 2 at the GP.

[MattH]

turn five null chamber naming either hull breach (if they have wished for it) or tranquility (if they have, or if they pulled it out with wish game 1)(if they run both, you’ll be in trouble).

Why wouldn't you just name Burning Wish?

[Zach Tartell]

Why wouldn't you just name Burning Wish?

I tried that once, and named the wish, (I'm no longer familliar with the optimal list), and he had put Trainquilty in mainboard, then hellbent tutored for it FTW. It's eaiser to just take the one you're worried about, rather than running the risk of him having main-boarded it.

[Cavius The Great]

@lonelybaritone - I'm glad to see you posted a link to my Enchantress Bloom decklist. I'm quite flattered to be honest. I also think that there is another thread on the decklist, by me, on this forum floating around somewhere. If it's ok with you, I'll post my most current list in the near future on this thread, with your consent of course. Oh and gratz on doing so well at the Mana Leak Open 2. You deserve much props. :wink:

[Cait_Sith]

First, My Enchantress build:

// Lands
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Taiga
4 Savannah
2 Plains
3 Forest
2 Serra's Sanctum

// Enchantresses
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

// Mana Accel
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Elvish Spirit Guide

// Wincons
1 Words of Worship
1 Words of War

// One Drop Enchantments
4 Elephant Grass
3 Genju of the Cedars

// Two Drop Enchantments
3 Sylvan Library
3 Sterling Grove
1 Seal of Primordium

// Three Drop Enchantments
2 Solitary Confinement
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Aura of Silence
1 Karmic Justice

// Four Drop Enchantments
1 Moat

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Solitary Confinement
SB: 1 Aura of Silence
SB: 2 Choke
SB: 1 City of Solitude
SB: 1 Sacred Ground
SB: 2 Karmic Justice
SB: 4 Rule of Law
SB: 1 Seal of Primordium
SB: 1 Null Chamber

Now for the card choices:

Lands: Its red splash Enchantress, but with only 1 red card and immense drawing and fetching power, finding that single red is rarely a problem.

Enchantresses: Very standard 8 selection (lonely baritone is right in saying Verduran Enchantress is utter trash. Sure, she can block a lackey, but on turn 2 that may not matter much since the goblins will simply blow her up anyway)

Mana Accel:

Utopia Sprawl: This used to be Wild Growth until I realized that I am running 4 non-forest lands. Duh much?

Exploration: Lets me drop all the lands I'll be digging up. Very good.

Elvish Spirit Guide: Early on this card can let me drop a Turn 1 Argothian, a Utopia Sprawl, an Exploration, and any other one drop Enchantment I might want to, or one of 2432 other great plays. If you draw it later on you can use it to power out more enchantments by having that extra bit of mana (it can really screw with your opponent's math). If nothing else it is a body to chump with.

Wincons:

Words of War: This card is fast and effective (often taking no more than 2-3 turns to kill my opponent. It is worth the red splash.

Words of Worship: Most people will probably go "huh?" to this, but I personally like it. Since you aren't drawing cards you can't be decked and very few aggro decks can handle someone gaining 20+ life a turn (with Sylvan Library you can gain 15 a turn + 10 for every other library in play)

One Drop Enchantments:

Elephant Grass: Slows down every aggro deck there is without serious cost to this deck (Enchantress is a great deck for generating a massive pile of mana). It even has some effect on TES, which is nice.

Genju of the Cedars: This dude is a one drop that can deal with almost any creature a deck will throw at you. He is inexpensive to play and is never a dead card. (I would honestly prefer Genju of the Fields, but with only 6 plains and a white cost the card is far less playable). He is also a wincon is a pinch.

Two Drop Enchantments:

Sylvan Library: This card lets me essentially choose the best of my top three cards for free. The advantage of this over Mirri's Guile is that this works with Words of War/Worship to generate the effect in triplicate every time. Another advantage is that in a situation where you don't care too much about your life total this card lets you draw an extra card occasionally (funny note with Words of Worship, for one colorless mana you can draw one cards and still gain one life while choosing the best of your top two cards, not a bad deal overall.)

Sterling Grove: Protects my enchantments and serves as a tutor, is nice.

Seal of Primordium: Enchantment, stops pesky needles, is green. Seems good.

Three Drop Enchantments:

Solitary Confinement: Although you cannot get an actual lock with Solitary, you can keep it up long enough that you have a good chance at winning. I will probably up this later to 3 because of its usefulness.

Holistic Wisdom: Recur useful enchantments as the price of an enchantment in hand. Its not like I run out of those often.

Aura of Silence: Stops pesky needles and Stax decks.

Karmic Justice: Lego recommended I try this because of problems with people blowing up my lands. I liked Scared Ground better for sometime, until I had a Karmic Justice out and some nuked all my enchantments. All 10 of them. Yea, he wiped his own board and my 2 Argothians scoffed my loses off.

Four Drop Enchantments:

Moat: Good vs aggro. 'Nuff zed.

Sideboard:

Solitary Confinement: This comes in vs combo on account most of my cards are dead versus it and they have to remove Solitary somehow before they can finish comboing out.

Aura of Silence: Stax builds (leave my lands alone please) don't like this card, anyone running a pile of artifact mana accel doesn't like it either. I like to bring this in vs any deck running LED (it cuts down the amount of mana you get by recurring the diamond by half)

Choke: I hate you Solidarity. I really do.

City of Solitude: See above.

Sacred Ground: This is destined to be changed as soon as I can think of something better, but until then I will bring this in against dedicated LD strategies.

Karmic Justice: Good against land destruction and enchantment destruction. This comes in vs decks like Stax, DGA, MGC, and most decks running Armageddon (sometimes). Sadly Cataclysm gets around this card, but Trainwreck does not.

Rule of Law: The ultimate anti-combo tech in Enchantress.

Seal of Primordium: In case I need more artifact hate.

Null Chamber: This card is the ultimate utility. Run it. I wish I could have 4 copies maindecked, but that's dumb.

On a side note I may just steal some of Baritone's anti-black tech. Spiritual Focus is really amazing against discard and Light of Day shuts down almost every black deck in the format. They must have another color (Trainwreck) or be playing Nevy's disk.

EDIT: I never realized my list was so close to Baritone's. I feel stupid now. Enjoy the larger card choice descriptions?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

edit: Thanks for the props, and for revitalizing the deck we love to make people love to hate.

I think Light of day is kind of meh. Moat, Elephant Grass, Ghostly Prison, and Seal of Fire all ready do a good job of keeping their men down. I don't think using a SB slot for a narrow way of doing the same thing is a very good expenditure, especially as its 4 mana, and the way they beat you is discard and LD, not with critters. The best anti-black cards are either Spreading Algea(but you really want to run 3x or 4x, or it's not worth it), Compost, and Spiritual Focus(which I like best right now cause it has some splash damage vs. combo).

I think it's interesting how some changes in combo have made the deck more viable; Solidarity without a way around Grove+Confinement lock changes it from an auto-loss to winable, especially with MD CoS. IGGy becomes a lot easier with the Focus tek.

re:Chalice -

The thing is that turn 1 you can drop it for 0 without losing anything, and by turn 2 you've still used whatever your first turn accelerant is, so dropping it for 1 isn't that devestating. You still draw cards off of an enchantment that's countered by CotV, so it's much more favorable for you.

The other thing is, and this may seem stupid, since I haven't gotten a chance to thoroughly test it, but it can come in with Multani's Presence post-board vs aggro-control decks like Threshold or even Pikula. Combo-riffic? I'm not sure, but it's something to think about.

[Nihil Credo]

Random though: Gaea's Touch as extra Explorations?

[Lego]

@ Cait_Sith: Your list is very close to Zack's list in the first post. It's easiest to discuss your deck by first listing the changes. The changes you've made are:

-1 Sacred Mesa
-1 Moat
-1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Seal of Fire
-1 City of Solitude
-1 Rule of Law
-1 Sterling Grove
-2 Solitary Confinement
-1 Land

+1 Words of Worship
+2 Elephant Grass
+3 Genju of the Fields
+1 Sylvan Library
+3 Elvish Spirit Guide

Words of Worship over Sacred Mesa: This seems like a pretty bad choice to me. My guess is that you've only ever played the deck on MWS. Words won't actually ever win you the game, and in a tournament setting you can't afford to be sitting around turn after turn while an annoying opponent refuses to concede. You often need something that actually wins.

Elephant Grass over Moat and Ghostly Prison: This change is the most justifiable of the changes you've made, but I still don't like it. I could see cutting the Prison for another Grass, but that second Moat is crucial. Moat is so important in the mid to late game when your opponent can pay for Grass, even if you can afford to keep it in play.

Genju over Seal, CoS, and RoL: You claim Genju as a blocker and occasional win condition. Without testing, I would assume at best that makes your Threshold and Goblins matchup slightly better (although I'm thinking wasting all that mana will often hurt your development, putting you in a bad position going into the late game where the deck usually shines.) CoS helps your Solidarity and Threshold matchups a lot, and RoL, despite being probably the weakest maindeck card, is one of your best game 1 tools against combo.

1 Sylvan Library over 1 Sterling Grove: You've got a second Words, meaning your Sylvan Libraries are going to be slightly more useful, but I've already advocated removing that Words. Even if you desperately need to fit a 3rd Sylvan Library (which I'm guessing you don't) do it somewhere else. Sterling Grove is crucial. Play 4.

ESG over 2 Confinement and a land: I used to play ESG in the deck, and I liked it for a while, but with more and more testing I liked it less and less. He creates some explosive starts, but it means one less permanent in your hand, meaning one less card to keep your engine running in the midgame. He's (she's?) usually a terrible topdeck after turn 3 or so. Not to mention that you should at the very least get that 3rd Confinement back in there right now. Confinement lock will win the vast majority of your games. I'd really rather have 4, but 3 is the bare minimum I would play. Often, having the extra means you can play one that you can't sustain, knowing that you'll be able to kill it in a turn or two and still dig into another one.

Keeping 2 Confinement in the board doesn't make sense to me either, as there isn't a single matchup where I would want to board out 2 Confinement, so I'd want to bring them in every round. That suggests a maindeck card to me.

Okay, so I've basically just advocated that you play the exact same main as baritone. That's cuz he's the bomb. There are definitely changes I could see making with testing, but overall his list is really strong. Your post seemed to suggest that you haven't looked at his list much, so go ahead and test it out. You'll occasionally get frustrated with dead cards in certain matchups, but I think the versatility of his toolbox approach outweighs the occasional dead card. Oh, and don't tell him I said this, put Squee back in, cuz more people will scoop to you.

[Cait_Sith]

@Lego: I will explain my reasons to you:

I am going to start with the most important change, the Genjus:

Genju vs Seal of Fire: Both have CmC 1, so that is good. Although Seal of Fire is much better early game, like you said this is not an early game deck. Once Thresh reaches threshold my Genju can be activated to eat mongeese at will. Even "trading" with a Werebear often ends up in my favor because I have a one drop enchantment back in my hand. I replay it, draw cards, and still gain card advantage. Seal of Fire becomes much weaker once Thresh hits its mark because it cannot kill any of Thresh's men (although it can kill Meddling Mage, most Thresh builds seem to be drifting away from having it Md).

Genju vs City of Solitude: Genju costs 1 and is good in a variety of matchups while City of Solitude is good primarily vs Solidarity and can cause small problems if you wanted to activate an ability when it is not your turn.

Genju vs Rule of Law: Outside of combo this is one of those "duh" things. Rule is a poor choice against Aggro decks (in fact it is almost dead, if you play it you limit yourself to one enchantment per turn unless you use one of your own to destroy it). Genju is never dead since it is always just one green mana for free cards, a good trade off.

Words vs Mesa: You are right in saying that Mesa is a better wincon. However, Words of Worship is STILL a wincon in an emergency and also is a major wrench in tempo. If you are close to dieing then you can simply gain 10-15 life and ensure that you will win.

Elephant Grass vs Moat: This is actually probably a good idea. I used to run a Words of Wilding so multiple Moats were bad, but since I dropped it I like this shift.

Elephant Grass vs Ghostly Prison: I like the one drops better personally and Elephant Grass hates nicely on the evil black decks, not to mention my 3 drop slot is on the fullish side, and since I am not running Mesa paying the for cumulative upkeep is much less of a problem.

ESG vs Land: This just seems silly to argue because of how strange it would be. Instead the focus will be on how important Confinement is.

ESG vs Confinement: This is ultimately late game vs early game. Confinement is more restrictive, but one it comes down it dominates the game. ESG allows for powerful and explosive openings that greatly improve your ability to control the midgame. Since I have so many one drops both cards are very good choices and it comes down to the meta. In an undefined meta you are correct in advocating Confinement over ESG, so if I were to take this to GP I would take Confinement most likely.

Library vs Grove: Since I cut a Words of Wilding I might make this change because Library is nowheres nearly as important as it used to be (3 dudes every single turn is hard for most decks to stop, even goblins).

[Lego]

A bunch of stuff about Genjus being good and the other three cards being bad

I had a bunch of stuff written out about why CoS, RoL, and Seal of Fire were good, but I deleted it, because if you don't think your meta warrants them, then that's okay. Quick explanation though:

CoS helps in pretty much any matchup where your opponents play blue. Resolving this against Threshold, Fish, MUC, and sometimes even Solidarity, more often than not just wins the game.

RoL is a necessary evil due to the rise in combo. If you don't see that rise, or just want to throw away game 1, don't play this.

Seal of Fire is a great utility card. As baritone said, you tutor for it against Mage, Hyppy and Goblins, and bring in the others against Gobs. It's not really meant to stop your opponents from killing you (every other card in your deck does that) but to take care of utility dudes. Plus, winning with Seal of Fire is pimp.

@ Genju: It ties up mana, encourages you to play the deck incorrectly, can't attack with a Moat in play (ideally you'll always have one of these in play,) and probably other arguments that I'm forgetting. As I see it, you provided three arguments for Genju: he can attack, he can block, and he's an enchantment. Instead of spending three mana a turn to attack with Genju, why don't you use that mana to drop the lock, at which point winning becomes elementary? And instead of spending three mana to block, why don't you use that mana to make their creatures completely irrelevant? If you're just playing it to draw a card, Ground Seal is probably a better choice.

Chances are I'm not going to convince you not to play it though, so I'll just move on.


Words vs Mesa: You are right in saying that Mesa is a better wincon. However, Words of Worship is STILL a wincon in an emergency and also is a major wrench in tempo. If you are close to dieing then you can simply gain 10-15 life and ensure that you will win.

Let me get this straight. Words of Worship is there for all those games where you've done nothing for several turns and are therefore almost dead, but have a Sylvan Library out which has yet to give you any cards whatsoever that you can use to win? Seems limited.


Elephant Grass vs Moat: This is actually probably a good idea. I used to run a Words of Wilding so multiple Moats were bad, but since I dropped it I like this shift.[/QUOTE

Good, now when you add the second Moat that'll give you one more reason to drop the Genjus.

[QUOTE=Cait_Sith;117031]ESG vs Confinement: This is ultimately late game vs early game. Confinement is more restrictive, but one it comes down it dominates the game. ESG allows for powerful and explosive openings that greatly improve your ability to control the midgame. Since I have so many one drops both cards are very good choices and it comes down to the meta. In an undefined meta you are correct in advocating Confinement over ESG, so if I were to take this to GP I would take Confinement most likely.

This actually isn't about late game vs early game at all. This is mostly about ESG not being very good, and Confinement needing to be a 4-of. I think I was wrong in comparing the two slots, as I have a hard time imagining someone looking at the deck and saying, "Needs less Confinement, more ESG." They were just the last cards I had to mention in the list of changes you made. So I'll discuss them individually:

ESG allows you to occasionally play a first turn Argothian, and gives you a couple more options in the first 2-3 turns at the expense of card disadvantage. The first assumption you make in playing the card is that this is a good trade off. I'm not sure it is, as it always means you'll have one less enchantment or land to play, stunting your development. Even if it turns out that this trade is worth it, ESG is dead every turn thereafter. I think the combination of the card disadvantage, the relatively small boost that it gives you, and the overwhelming suckiness of this card late game is good enough reason not to play it, but if it's been good for you in testing, I can't refute that.

As for Confinement, you must play the deck considerably differently than I do. I wouldn't even consider playing less than 3, and I'd have to have a pretty good reason not to play 4. This card is responsible for something stupid like 75% of game wins. I don't even know how to have this argument because I can't imagine a reason why you'd play 2. It's "more restrictive"? What does that even mean? If it means what I think you're trying to say, then that's even more reason to run more than 2. If you can explain your reasoning here a little better, I might know how to respond.

[Radley]

Words of worship is a really good card against burn but against other decks, it is utterly useless. Maybe SB it against burn, but I don't think burn decks will be a problem.

[scrumdogg]

The only possible defense I can think of for ESG is either get your engine online faster (at the expense of slightly fewer engine cards) or to counter Daze. Given how popular and how good Thresh (and Fish & Fs style decks that also might run Daze) is, it is a point worth debating. Although, I believe that sticking a Confinement (which should be a 4 of automatically in the current environment) is better... Confinement is good against combo & aggro and can just 'oops win' games versus opponents who have no outs to it. How many other cards can say that?
How valuable is having a lone Rule of Law maindeck? Does it really enhance your chances that much versus combo since you need the 3 land + Exploration or 2 land + Utopia Sprawl (and RoL, of course) + no disruption from your opponent to even consider sticking it in a relevant amount of time. Balance that with the fact that you run 4x Solitary Confinement already (which has essentially the same desired effect only better) and that RoL is bad versus aggro decks since their one spell per turn is likely to be more potent than ours. Now, I have just recently started testing Enchantress but I'm not seeing the benefit of RoL maindeck.
Why 2x Moat instead of 1x Moat & 1x Humility? Not that 2x Moat is a bad thing, mind you, but there are a lot of viable paths to victory that Moat just doesn't cure.
Given that red is your splash & all non-basic (unless you call red on a Utopia Sprawl enchanting a basic forest, but even that can be Ported in upkeep), is recurring Seal of Fire viable versus decks with land disruption?

[Cait_Sith]

Why 2x Moat instead of 1x Moat & 1x Humility? Not that 2x Moat is a bad thing, mind you, but there are a lot of viable paths to victory that Moat just doesn't cure.

Humility sucks because it turns off Argothian Enchantress entirely and makes it vulnerable to targeted removal.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm still not crazy about 2x Moat; more for the casting cost than anything else. I think 1 is fine, and the other card could be something that curves better, like Elephant Grass or Seal of Fire.

I also don't think you need 4 Confinement, in fact, I'd say the only reason to run 4x is if you're MDing Squee. But that's kind of a meta-gamble.

Rule of Law also seems shaky MD; I'm not sure the sliver of hope it gives you against combo is worth having a dead card against everything else. Especially since it slows you down and can thus limit your ability to seal the deal while they try to answer it.

[Zach Tartell]

@ Cait: Have you tested your list, yet? There are a couple things I don't like about it.
-At least 3 confinements: Dude, confinement is tits. It lets you fog against raondom shit, at least. I've played it against goblins when they'lll have lethal next turn, against faerie stompy when they're gonna fly over my moat (this will be discussed momentairly), agaisnt tendrils when I'll be ready next turn to win. I'd never cut even one, but try it at three. You'll be boarding them in every single time, I almost gaurentee it.
-Words of Worship: Not feeling it. I have a foil signed one sitting in my binder because of how much potential I thought his card had. But, when you think about it, I've seen goblins beat life before because the kid didn't pick a high enough number. And, that was entirely his fault. But you cannot honestly tell me that fifteen or twenty five life a turn will stop goblins. Nor any other deck, 'scept maybe landstill. 'Course, that means you aren't under confinement, which means that they'll just echoes you as soon as they don't draw a freaking colorless land. If you were running test of endurance (don't) I could see mainboarding this. But, otherwise, it's only an out against like boros or something that doesn't have fliers and won't have anything to more than fifteen a turn.
-Genjus. You need to have had an amazing first turn, else the first time you'd activate these it would be turn 3. (turn 1 land sprawl, turn two land genju). They'd be tremendous if they cost 1 to activate. But two is just too much early game. You'd have to neglect your whole engine in order to get these guys online, and you just beat goblins anyway.
-Sterling Grove: Don't go under 4. Just don't. You'll never beat solidarity, you'll never beat goblins w/o tranquil domain (and prolly never with it). It pulls your answers, makes it tough for them to vindicate shit, and is usually a turn two drop for lack of a library or enchantress.
-ESG: Not for me. I tested it, almost traded for spanish ones, then decided that it was just better to run more enchantments. Running only three means you'd have to mull into it to get the monstor explosive start, and you get enough of those anyway. You don't draw off of it late game (and saying that it beats daze is not good enough for me), and it doesn't even have flying to get over moat. Nope.
-Only one city after boarding? Dude, you'll never resolve that, let alone find it, against solidarity.

@ Spatula:
I odn't know what to cut in my board for chalice. Any ideas? Other than Light of Day. I think that's gone for sacred ground.

@scrumdogg:
-The one rule of law is so I have a glimmer of a chance against TES. I dont' even drop it against agro to draw off of, unless I have a disenchant on the board. Hinders you more than most decks. Remember, we're control/combo.
-Humility: the only matchup it helps dramatically is goblins, turning all of their good shit into 3 and 4 costing 1/1s. But it kills my enchantresses. Which is weak. I'd rather drop moat, then make them dig for SGC/sharpshooter, giving me another turn or two at least.

@ Spatula again: There's nothign out there better than moat (for me) at the 4cc other than mabye ivory mask, but I don't own a black boardered one, so that's out. But playing two makes it eaiser to mise, and having two out makes naturalize/grip/disenchant worthless. Mostly

Maybe we should think about running worship against goblins. Unless it's bennett toms and he gets dranlu's anthem out, then infests. But I wouldn't worry about that.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

-ESG: Not for me. I tested it, almost traded for spanish ones, then decided that it was just better to run more enchantments. Running only three means you'd have to mull into it to get the monstor explosive start, and you get enough of those anyway. You don't draw off of it late game (and saying that it beats daze is not good enough for me), and it doesn't even have flying to get over moat. Nope.

I think you under-estimate it's potential in powering your "go-off" turns.

Being able to ESG into Exploration when you thought you were done, then drop a Sanctum, for instance, is huge. It's help with Explosive starts and against Daze are also very handy; and if you're running Holistic Wisdom, it'll trade for an Argothian. I'm not sure if it's worth including right now, but it's a very good card in the deck.


@ Spatula:
I odn't know what to cut in my board for chalice. Any ideas? Other than Light of Day. I think that's gone for sacred ground.

2x Rule of Law and 1x Elephant Grass(I don't think I'd ever MD less than 3) would probably work. Rule of Law's marginal value over 1x is less than CotV, since it's an enchantment anyway, and it's slower. Not drawing a card off it is irrelevant, since Rule of Law isn't exactly friendly to your engine anyway. The only reason to run enchantments that neuter your combo as well as theirs, over other kinds of permanents, is Sterling Grove, but by running 1x, you get most of that bonus anyway.


-The one rule of law is so I have a glimmer of a chance against TES. I dont' even drop it against agro to draw off of, unless I have a disenchant on the board. Hinders you more than most decks. Remember, we're control/combo.

That's my problem with it MD. I don't think improving a few match-ups by a slim margin is worth running dead cards main. I'd rather have Spiritual Focus or Warmth or another Aura of Silence or Null Chamber main. They're just as narrow, but they don't hurt you.


@ Spatula again: There's nothign out there better than moat (for me) at the 4cc other than mabye ivory mask, but I don't own a black boardered one, so that's out. But playing two makes it eaiser to mise, and having two out makes naturalize/grip/disenchant worthless. Mostly

I agree in theory. My point isn't that it's not worth it, but two of them makes the casting curve of the deck too top-heavy. I wouldn't look for any similiar costed enchantments, I'd find a cheaper replacement, like more Grass or SoF.


Maybe we should think about running worship against goblins. Unless it's bennett toms and he gets dranlu's anthem out, then infests. But I wouldn't worry about that.

It seems so narrow, and for a match-up that's all ready positive. Thresh counters your Argothians anyway. It doesn't stop life loss or discard or Edict/Pyroclasm/Wrath/Plague. It seems weak.

[scrumdogg]

I think you under-estimate it's potential in powering your "go-off" turns.

Being able to ESG into Exploration when you thought you were done, then drop a Sanctum, for instance, is huge. It's help with Explosive starts and against Daze are also very handy; and if you're running Holistic Wisdom, it'll trade for an Argothian. I'm not sure if it's worth including right now, but it's a very good card in the deck.



2x Rule of Law and 1x Elephant Grass(I don't think I'd ever MD less than 3) would probably work. Rule of Law's marginal value over 1x is less than CotV, since it's an enchantment anyway, and it's slower. Not drawing a card off it is irrelevant, since Rule of Law isn't exactly friendly to your engine anyway. The only reason to run enchantments that neuter your combo as well as theirs, over other kinds of permanents, is Sterling Grove, but by running 1x, you get most of that bonus anyway.



That's my problem with it MD. I don't think improving a few match-ups by a slim margin is worth running dead cards main. I'd rather have Spiritual Focus or Warmth or another Aura of Silence or Null Chamber main. They're just as narrow, but they don't hurt you.



I agree in theory. My point isn't that it's not worth it, but two of them makes the casting curve of the deck too top-heavy. I wouldn't look for any similiar costed enchantments, I'd find a cheaper replacement, like more Grass or SoF.



It seems so narrow, and for a match-up that's all ready positive. Thresh counters your Argothians anyway. It doesn't stop life loss or discard or Edict/Pyroclasm/Wrath/Plague. It seems weak.

Agreed with all, from what testing I've been able to do & observation over the years (including losing to Spat playing Enchantress in several top 8s....). Seems screwy, but maybe ESGs as a SB card vs Thresh? To counter Daze & use with Holistic Wisdom to get back Argothians? Holistic Wisdom is silly good in a deck this type-redundant, why not abuse it more? Humility + Moat is a lock Game 1 vs Goblins (& possibly Games 2 & 3 vs certain builds i.e. non green....) as well as vs Thresh & Faerie Stompy. Boros, D3Deuce etc, & Red Death have to hope they can burn you out before you drop the Confinement lock but with 4x Grove & 4x Confinement (plus Squee), your odds are pretty good. Yes Humility does neuter Argothians, but we also have Presences. Plus, I don't give a rat's ass if my Argothian(s) are 1/1s if I've just locked my opponent or stopped my imminent death. I can also unlock my Argothians after finding a Confinement by Sealing my Humility & swinging with my now gynormous army of 1/1 Pegasuseseses.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I don't think the meta is right for Humility anymore. When people played Dragon, FCG, and Survival, it was a lot more do-able. But against aggro-control and creatureless combo it's pretty meh. Plus, now it doesn't effect man-lands, or +1/+1 counters, which makes it over-all weaker.

[Jak]

Well I bought like half the deck today, not wanting to spend all my cash, and proxied up the rest. I tested versus Rg Gobs. I didn't play with Moats, cut the RoL for Squee and added Decree of Justice just to have an uncouterbale win cindition for stuff like Thresh and for the surprise blockers. Favorite card. I had 3 Elephant Grasses and 2 Ghostly Prisons. Well it was 61 cards, but it was working great.

Well Ghostly prison was MVP. Seal of Fire helped stopping a first turn lackey into siege, so I like that main. I am thinking of playing mirri's guile over sylvan library because now that solidarity is splashing red and has urzas rage, I wouldn't want to be paying the additional life. Plus Solidarity is not played as strongly anymore, so Mirri's Guile just seems better.

I feel the need for Squee also because against gobs I was trying to get the lock down fast. He helped me to carry on the lock if I wasn't beating down fast enough and I would have lost confinement without him.

Thoughts on the testing. Changes to the deck?

[Zach Tartell]

I'm posting at a friend's house, because I have dialup at home. I've been testing ESG, and it turnsout that it's much better than I'd found it to be in the past. I added three, dropping the aura of silence, ROL, and a forest.

More testnig to follow.

[burkey_boy]

i find when i used to use ESG i had crazy explosive starts then died to do nothing.

now i dont have it, i dont have hte explosive start ,but i feel like i win more.

[Zach Tartell]

i find when i used to use ESG i had crazy explosive starts then died to do nothing.

now i dont have it, i dont have hte explosive start ,but i feel like i win more.

Nice grammar. Uhh, I'm not sure how I feel about ESG right now. I tested for like eight hours against WR goblins, GR goblins, UGW grow, UGR grow, UGRW grow, and BHWC landstill. And some shitty zoo and 43 land, but I'm pretty sure they don't count as matchups. I've come up with the following:

-Cutting a forest and a random card for a trop and a Trade Routes is bad.
-My cutting the red splash for the blue splash was pretty poor. Let me write it out: (previous list as the starting list)
-1 Slyvan library
-1 Seal of Fire
-2 Taiga
-1 Words of War
-Squee
-Rule of Law
+2 Trop
+1 Words of War
+2 Clouds of Faeries
+2 Seal of Removal

My board included some trash that I threw together. Conclusion: Playing the blue splash is much harder to goldfish. Testing against another person is a must. Or just a better player. I found that I was just waiting to go infinite, until I got pwn'd by whatever clock the other deck had. Maybe if I had a combo to play against it would have turned out differently. I think this is one where having multiple libraries would have been nice, but I didn't see anything else to cut. Any blue players out there? I'd like some feedback, and I think that it has mad side-board potential.

(back to the orrigional me making points)
-ESG is good to draw almost any time, contrary to my beliefs. I tested both three and four, in bith red and blue, and settled on running none. I don't like cuttin gbusinesss spells for more mana, 'specially when it doesn't have such an astronomicial (sp?) impact. It kicks ass to go: Forest, ESG, Sprawl, whatever two cost spell you want. But that didn't happen enough for me. Unless I want to ramp it up to five or six, and not play in sanctioned events (or in the company of anyone with any wits), I don't think I'll play it. SOmeboyd needs to play in a big tournament, and not do shitty, and post their results. I'm tired of fucking Aggro/loam from the germans (no hate on the germans - I just want to see you playing enchantress, instead of crappy confinement terravore decks. Yeah, I went there.). Go out and win!
-Dropping a forest for a trop might be a good idea. No foolin, either. Frees up some ridiculous side-boarding hottness:
-In the Eye of Chaos (actual name? blue world enchantment from Legends)
-Energy Flux. I had a hard time with affinity. But Titania's Song (no joke) might be a better option. I feel the need to write "no joke" again. It's in our real colors, kills affinity's lands, makes cranial plating not a scarry idea, chalice gets pwnt, nevvy's disk gets destroyed, and crucible (this actually might be worth putting in our board, boys). I'm buying two before I break the format further
-Meddling mage? I like to have three examples whenever I'm explaining something. Kind of fell short here, though. (Don't play meddling mage)

I also dropped the spreading algae from my board in favor of a second spiritual focus (I need a way to beat TES and IGGY). I'm kind of running out of ideas here, so I'm gongi to sign off. For motivation, just re-read my notes on ESG.

[tomjulioo]

hi

i play Dark Depths (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=121155#) as a win condition and it's a cool card
removing 10 counters is easy with this deck and if your apponent doesn't play StP, it's game
colorless mana is not a problem since i run only 1 Dark Depths
what do you think of this card?

i tried confiscate (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=10426#) too
it was not a bad card
someone tried it too?

tomjulioo

[scrumdogg]

hi

i play Dark Depths (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=121155#) as a win condition and it's a cool card
removing 10 counters is easy with this deck and if your apponent doesn't play StP, it's game
colorless mana is not a problem since i run only 1 Dark Depths
what do you think of this card?

i tried confiscate (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=10426#) too
it was not a bad card
someone tried it too?

tomjulioo

Because it does nothing useful until you have Serra's Sanctum & a board full of enchantments anyway...at which point you should be winning. Also, unlike Sacred Mesa, it neither fuels your draw engine, creates more creatures or folds to the best (and most commonly played) creature removal in the format. STP looooooves Dark Depths, Pegasi tokens? Not so much.... What is Confiscate in for? By the time you can cast it, the deck probably has better things to be doing.
Welcome to the board, feel free to post ideas & questions but the shift key is required or the mods yell at you :cool:

[Julian23]

Hi Partypeople,

Thanks for proving that "The most beautiful Deck" is still / again competitive; Im in love with it since I started playing in the early Days of Urza :-)
Now folks, theres one thing: I finally put this deck together and am gonna attend a tourney this weekend. However I wasn't able to retrieve the two [CARD]Moat[CARD] i want to put into the list; the rest is almost 100% lonelybaritone's list.
I really DO know how crucible (meaning saving-my-ass) Moat can be to the deck. Still I need to replace it's two spots with alternatives.

What can you "recommend" to at least try and replace the Moats with?

Thanks, Julian

[Lego]

Hi Partypeople,

Thanks for proving that "The most beautiful Deck" is still / again competitive; Im in love with it since I started playing in the early Days of Urza :-)
Now folks, theres one thing: I finally put this deck together and am gonna attend a tourney this weekend. However I wasn't able to retrieve the two /&/Moat i want to put into the list; the rest is almost 100% lonelybaritone's list.
I really DO know how crucible (meaning saving-my-ass) Moat can be to the deck. Still I need to replace it's two spots with alternatives.

What can you "recommend" to at least try and replace the Moats with?

Thanks, Julian

You probably don't want to play the deck without at least one Moat. Parallax Wave should replace the other one. If you can't even play 1, I honestly might throw the Squee back in, because Confinement lock is going to be so much more important without Moat.

[Zach Tartell]

What can you "recommend" to at least try and replace the Moats with?


Welcome to the source, Julian. Also:

OMG We're now officially a deck to watch. Righteous.

Well, I would main-board 4 elephant grasses, and add 2 Ghostly prisons (brignign it to three) mainboarded. I'm not sure what you'd drop. RUle of Law, if you're playing it. I really don't think it belongs.

And, in moat-owner news, I may drop one in favor of a second Ghostly Prison. It helps beat faerie stompy, on account of they just fly over moat, comes down turn two against goblins and other random agro, and doesn't have the WW in its cost, which can be arduous to pull out against goblins after they get wastes and ports out.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I dunno; with all the hype about Slivers and Fish and X Stompy ousting Threshold, it makes me wonder how useful Moat is going to continue to be. If the hype is empty, it's another story, but it seems like there are a lot of flyers running around these days.

Additional Squees/Prisons/Grasses might be a better choice ATM.

[Lego]

OMG We're now officially a deck to watch. Righteous.

You know this is all because of you, right?

I still like the Squee to maintain the lock much faster. At the very least it seems like it will make more people scoop it up, which is nice. I also enjoy 4 maindeck Elephant Grass, and Ghostly Prison just feels better than Rule of Law. Much better suggestions than mine.

Speaking of Rule of Law, how have you found it to be? I find that it's even more dead than Ghostly Prison in a lot of matchups. Against a large range of decks, Rule of Law is going to hurt you more than them, so you can't even play it for a cantrip effect ::sadface::

[Zach Tartell]

In the interest of getting people to play a more optimal list, Here is the one I have this very moment. Prolly not what I'm bringing to Kadilak's duel for duals, on account of I'm going to hold out on the super secret tech. Man's gotta draw the line somewhere.

4/5/07

Land (20):
Forest x6
Plains x2
Taiga x2
Savannah x4
Serra's Santum x2
Windswept Heath x4

Acceleration (10):
Sylvan Library x2
Utopia Sprawl x4
Exploration x4

Engine (8):
Argothian Enchantress x4
Enchantress's Presence x4

Toolbox 'n Such (16):
Elephant Grass x3
Moat x2
Ghostly Prison x1
Karmic Justice x1
Sterling Grove x4
City of Solitude x1
Seal of Fire x1
Aura of Silence x1
Seal of Primordium x1
Holistic Wisdom x1

"Do you even play a win condition?" (6):
Solitary Confinement x4
Words of War x1
Sacred Mesa x1

The 61st card that you shouldn't play (1):
Squee, Gobin Naboob (haha - boob) x1

Sideboard (30):
City of Solitude x1
Sacred Ground x1
Elephant Grass x1
Null Chamber x1
Aura of Silence x1
Karmic Justice x1
Choke x2
Spiritual Focus x2
Seal of Fire x2
Rule of Law x3
Pegasus Token x15 (Some chump stole five of my pegasuses. I'll stab yo' ass if I ever find out who. No foolin'.)

Deep Thoughts, with Jack Handey (1):
"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

I'm thinking -1 Moat, +1 Elephant grass, replace elephant grass in board with a ghostly prison. Anyone have any violent objections?

[Ewokslayer]

The 61st card that you shouldn't play (1):
Squee, Gobin Naboob (haha - boob) x1


Another member of Team Epic cured from having shit in their fur.

I am really proud of you guys.

I am unsure as to the strength of rule of law in the board. It seems like it would be good against you, not for you. Against Solidarity it makes Remand wonderful against you until they can bounce it and win. Against TES, doesn't it give them enough time to wish for tranquility?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I am unsure as to the strength of rule of law in the board. It seems like it would be good against you, not for you. Against Solidarity it makes Remand wonderful against you until they can bounce it and win. Against TES, doesn't it give them enough time to wish for tranquility?

Your options against combo are pretty few, and most of them have some backlash. We're currently working on some SVG TEK! but right now RoL is better than nothing. You're also supplementing it with Null Chamber/Aura of Silence vs TES, and Sterling Grove/City of Solitude vs Solidarity.


List

Is 2x Taiga, 4x Heath and 4x Sprawl enough to cast an early SoF if you need to? It seems like another Taiga might smooth things out.

[Zach Tartell]

SVG TEK!

Guys, you aren't even goign to know what happens here. By the time Spatula and I get done with enchantress, it'll be like if Trix could have the uruk shaman loop. LotR + Magic FTW. however, in real news.


Is 2x Taiga, 4x Heath and 4x Sprawl enough to cast an early SoF if you need to? It seems like another Taiga might smooth things out.

Yeah, sometimes I find it difficult to play it games 2 & 3. But game 1 it isn't an issue, because I only run 2 red cards main. And against most of the matchups other than Survival I'd have to worry about Land destruction (goblins, madness). I guess most Zoo decks you wouldn't have to worry about, either. I'll test adding a tiaga in the place of a forest, going to 3 and 5, respectively. Damnit, even after I ordered my P3K basics...

[Awesomator]

This may be a bad idea because I dont play enchantress and don't know anything about it at all. Combo seems like it would be a horrendous match up. I'm not sure if you guys need to dedicate a lot of your board against it like wombat does, but gilded light / orim's chant seem like they would be better vs combo than the choices you have. Although you wouldnt have as much card draw from having less enchantments, it would still be more productive. Gilded light can cycle, and it isn't too bad against decks with a lot of targeting hand disruption or even burn decks. Chant could buy a little time against quicker creature decksalso. If you have weaker slots you could always board them in Not that you would necessarily need to board both but just an idea.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I still don't like Sprawl in this deck at all, at the cost of accelerating your deck early in 1/4 games you added 4 cards that are not "Must Counter" cards which sucks when the other person runs Force and such. I think it be much stronger to bump i up to 4x Elephant Grass (since it rips), the Squee (since its a 2 card combo with Confinement or maybe 3 with Grove that ends the game vs. over 2/3 of the field), then 2x Savage tech (maybe a second Moat if you only run 1x).

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I still don't like Sprawl in this deck at all, at the cost of accelerating your deck early in 1/4 games you added 4 cards that are not "Must Counter" cards which sucks when the other person runs Force and such. I think it be much stronger to bump i up to 4x Elephant Grass (since it rips), the Squee (since its a 2 card combo with Confinement or maybe 3 with Grove that ends the game vs. over 2/3 of the field), then 2x Savage tech (maybe a second Moat if you only run 1x).

Realistically you need the acceleration for a number of reasons;

A)You need a second turn Enchantress. This means running some acceleration, because half of your Enchantresses cost 3 mana.
B)You also need cheap cantrips to combo off quickly and dig for whatever tools you need. Wild Growth is free after the first turn, and the turn after its played it increases mana.
C)Adding more "must-counters" might be good if the format was all slow control, but against a varied and fast meta-game, you have to face a clock and the fact that you just don't have an infinite amount of must-counters available. Moat isn't a must-counter for a lot of decks, neither is Elephant Grass. Squee sure isn't. Without acceleration, if you didn't draw an Argothian, you're talking about not doing anything before turn 3; all that most aggro-control decks need now is a Daze and a counterspell to buy enough time to seal you out.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Realistically you need the acceleration for a number of reasons;

A)You need a second turn Enchantress. This means running some acceleration, because half of your Enchantresses cost 3 mana.
B)You also need cheap cantrips to combo off quickly and dig for whatever tools you need. Wild Growth is free after the first turn, and the turn after its played it increases mana.
C)Adding more "must-counters" might be good if the format was all slow control, but against a varied and fast meta-game, you have to face a clock and the fact that you just don't have an infinite amount of must-counters available. Moat isn't a must-counter for a lot of decks, neither is Elephant Grass. Squee sure isn't. Without acceleration, if you didn't draw an Argothian, you're talking about not doing anything before turn 3; all that most aggro-control decks need now is a Daze and a counterspell to buy enough time to seal you out.

You're still running Exploration, which I feel is all the acceleration you need.
Against aggro control (which I feel is the most important matchup at this point) if you "accelerate" then that one card you used to boost into a turn 2 Presence or w/e could have been something on the order of Elephant Grass #4, Squee (which makes all 4 Confinements a must counter), Mirris Guile #3 (I don't like Library), or that one more silver bullet. So say your playing vs. Meathooks (which I feel is about to become very popular). They let your Wild Growth resolve then just hold the Daze/Force/Counter for your Presence or w/e. In my world either Guile is digging turns 2 and 3 + Fetch lands maybe shuffling increasing your card quality, or Elephant Grass is buying you extra turns by forcing them to either attack or play creatures, or Squee is sitting there ready to turn a resolved Confinement into a win condition, or w/e card #60 is is ready to do it's worst. Now I just either increased my card quality, bought myself extra turns, turned 4 cards in my deck into enchantments that say "You Win", or w/e else (I'm partial to Parallax Wave for card #60 just because of Meddling Mage seeing play, but it's really a personal choice).
That's just the way I see it, but I think it comes down to this. You see Enchantress as a combo deck with heavy control elements, I see it as a heavy control deck with a retarded draw engine. Just thought I'd make my opinions known at any rate since I am very partial to this deck.

[Zach Tartell]

Change in the list! Switch Deep Thought to:

"Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think."

More Importantly, allow me to address some of the talk:
@Awesomator - I tested orim's chant for a while, and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't belong. Gilded light is really only good agianst tendrils combo, and at that, tendrils combo without counterspells. Like, if they're playing the current (as far as I've seen) IGGY pop incarnation, with FOW mained and orim's in the board, then orim's chant will only be something that they'd play around it game two they'd see it ocming and just wait to go off. And gilded light is teh suk against solidarity and IGGY pop. Against TES it's only good against one of its win conditions, and they can play around it if they're any good. I mean, if it's in response to tendrils, it's good - I'll give you that. But games two and three they'll just get like twelve tokens turn one, and rain on your parade. They're cool ideas, but certainly only in the board, and that makes them kind of not good enough for me. I want something I can tutor with with Grove.

@dontbiteitholmes - Allow me to answer this as maturely as possible: Have you been drinking? Seriously, man. Trading acceleration for more must-counters is probably the worst thing you could do to this deck. I understand that it's inabliblty to enchant any land makes it kind of shitty. Well, not really, but I have found myself wanting to drop it on a basic plains (usually if I'm on two lands against something that can mill non-basics - seriously, like half my team seems to have nerd wood for Red Death. Good job, anwar) once in a while, but that's usually when I'm hard up for lands. I can't even think of what I'd run if I had four extra spaces. Allow me to be candid with the choices that come to mind:
-Ivory Mask: No. WW is almost always a no-no (notable exceptions include moat). It's a great lock with moat against goblins, but, then, so is an enchantress with worship out.
-Worship: If it read "your life cannot go below 1" or even platnium angel text, I'd go nuts for it. But, as it stands, it would only help out matches you should be winning anyway.
-Squee: No, no, a thousand times no! Squee doesn't belong in the deck! If you want to play squee confinement, then run more than one of him. I did at the GAGG, and it got me second. But that was before I saw the light. Squee is always a dead card when you draw him. Unless you're comboing out that turn five with double grove/confinement/wincondition on talbe, you don't want to draw into him. And, even then, you only really want him if your opponent doesn't main board needles and you have mesa on table. Otherwise, I'd rather just draw an enchantment. I've had to hardcast him more often than win games with him. ANd it's taken me a long time to say goodbye. But once you do it, you'll feel better, like I do.
-Fertile Ground: No. Costs two, and I'm not putting up with that. Turn two is when I drop enchantress's presence/argothian + 1cc enchantment. Fo' sho, broseph.
Bottom line: Don't cut utopia sprawl. It's nuts acceleration, 'specially with ESG if you play her (it's like cheating to get a turn 1 enchantress), it gets you that double white or single red agianst wastelocks and goblins, and cantrips. That's like... almost as good as Anaba Grunt.

I'll let you guys know if I'ma spoil some of the SVG TEK - spatula's been earnign his pay lately.

[Meister_Kai]

Its really good to see my favorite deck as one of the top dogs again in the format!

I noticed that you said you wanted to see a G/W/U build of Enchantress, which happens to be exactly what I play (have been for 3 years). While it is hard to get the hang of it at first, I sincerely think that it is better than the G/W/R version.

Please note though, that in my meta, there are few goblin decks, so changes to fit the meta at large will probably be needed:

Land:
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savanna
4 Tropical Island
4 Forest
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Serra's Sanctum

Creatures:
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Cloud of Faeries

Enchantments:
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Sylvan Library
3 Seal of Cleansing
2 Words of Wind
1 Holistic Wisdom

Other:
3 Living Wish
1 Stroke of Genius

Sideboard:
4 Elephant Grass
3 City of Solitude
2 Karmic Justice
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Eternal Witness
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Serra's Sanctum


You should know why most of the cards in the deck are there, so I shouldn't have to explain anything (no moat, because I am unable to find someone selling one for a price I deem appropriate) in much detail except upon your request.

I suggest trying out my build (remember, you don't have to go infinite ASAP, you just have to try to lock them down, or start beating with Akroma ASAP) and making changes based on what you discover. Good luck.

[Lego]

Meister_Kai, your deck looks good, and I'm happy that someone has been playing the blue splash. It doesn't look like you've got any tools to deal with Goblins outside of Solitary Confinement, so that has to be remedied. But that shouldn't be too difficult to shore up. I've also never been a fan of Living Wish, and I'm still not sure I'm a fan of it here. That wish board looks nice and all, but I just don't know if it's worth the added investment in time and mana, and the reduced enchantment count. I'll do some testing though.

Seems like at the very least, these

3 Seal of Cleansing

Should become Seal of Primordium. And do you really need 3?

[Meister_Kai]

Meister_Kai, your deck looks good, and I'm happy that someone has been playing the blue splash. It doesn't look like you've got any tools to deal with Goblins outside of Solitary Confinement, so that has to be remedied. But that shouldn't be too difficult to shore up. I've also never been a fan of Living Wish, and I'm still not sure I'm a fan of it here. That wish board looks nice and all, but I just don't know if it's worth the added investment in time and mana, and the reduced enchantment count. I'll do some testing though.

Seems like at the very least, these


Should become Seal of Primordium. And do you really need 3?

Thank you for responding to the post! It is indeed hard to find someone who plays the blue splash, and the builds that I have seen vary wildly (most people will advocate the win-more card Trade Routes, which my testing has proven unessicary).

@ Goblins: In my metagame, there are few goblin players. The group usually consists of a couple thresh players (various builds), control (landstill, stax), some combo (TES, Solidarity) and a few other random teir 1-2 decks. Since Grass is meh in the majority of the matches I play, I have 4 sideboarded just for goblins.

@ Living Wish: I like it because it more or less can get me out of any situations (closest game I can remember is having JUST enough mana to wish for, play, then use a Virdian Zealot before Scepter-chat would've locked me down), being the utility card that it is.

@ Seal of Cleansing: Three is needed in my meta. Like I said in my first post, this deck will have to be changed to fit the meta at large. As for Seal vs. Seal, I think I might change it up to 2 prim, 1 clean. as I think people are more likely to extract/mage/whatever prim because they are newer and fresher (word?) in the minds of players overall.


For people who don't know how the combo works, it goes something like this:

Have a land in play that can produce green, with a Utopia Sprawl that produces a color (as long as you are getting U/G with every tap) and a Serra's Sanctum that can produce, oh lets say, WWWW.

Have at least 2 Enchantress affects and a Words of Wind in play, along with a Cloud of Faeries and a 1 casting cost green enchantment (I like using Exploration for this)

Tap the Lands (U,G,WWWW), and play a Cloud of Faeries (using U,W).
Untap Serra's Sanctum and the other land.
Play Exploration (WWW remaining), but instead of drawing cards, pay WW to return Exploration and Faeries to your hand (W remaining).
Since the lands are untaped, do it again! (and again, so on)

Every time you Build up 1(W), so you have infinite mana. Since everyone has to return 2 permanents every time, you opponent has no board. If he doesn't conceed right then and there, stop the cycle and hit him for a 1,000,000+ Stroke, of wish for Ambassador Laquatus and mill him (if you do this, make sure to leave some mana left to counter and Daze effects etc).
If you have nothing to do with the mana, just spend it into Words of Wind.

Thats about it. When I play my deck, I usually go for the lock down with WoW ASAP (no infinite stuff, just locking him down). I kill more often with Akroma than anything else. I hate using the squee stall tactic even more than I hate using the same tactic with Genesis in Extended, but oh well.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

For the meta-game you're describing, I'm not sure Enchantress is ideal, but some thoughts;

If you want 3 disenchant effects, I would split it 1 Seal of Primordium/1 Seal of Cleansing/1 Aura of Silence; the added power of Aura is something I doubt you'll regret.

If you're running Living Wish, why isn't there an Argothian to wish for?

Even if you're going to play blue, the Cloud of Faeries combo is unnecessary; at most you should have one as a wish target, but especially in a control-heavy enviroment, it's clutter without the rest of the setup, and doesn't dig very well.

Also, it seems like StP should be common in your meta-game; why not Simic Sky-Swallower instead of Akroma?

[Meister_Kai]

For the meta-game you're describing, I'm not sure Enchantress is ideal, but some thoughts;

If you want 3 disenchant effects, I would split it 1 Seal of Primordium/1 Seal of Cleansing/1 Aura of Silence; the added power of Aura is something I doubt you'll regret.

If you're running Living Wish, why isn't there an Argothian to wish for?

Even if you're going to play blue, the Cloud of Faeries combo is unnecessary; at most you should have one as a wish target, but especially in a control-heavy enviroment, it's clutter without the rest of the setup, and doesn't dig very well.

Also, it seems like StP should be common in your meta-game; why not Simic Sky-Swallower instead of Akroma?

@ Aura: I've been off and on with Aura for a long time, throwing it in and out of the deck every so often. For some reason I have bad luck with it, never getting the WW to play it soon enough to make a difference (why I have such a hard time getting WW when i'am trying to use this card, i'll never know). If I were to make an official, official list though, I guess I would go with the set-up you suggested.

@ A.Wish: I want to make sure I draw an Argothian, or any Enchantress effect, not have to wish for one. Since there are already 8 effects in the deck, plus 4 searches to get more if needed (and wisdom to bring them back). I considered putting in a lone Ver. Enchantress in the board, but in testing it didn't hold its weight.

@ Faeries: The infinite loop was first needed to combat things such as Aluren (if they couldn't kill the with the combo at first, they would gain infinite life then just sit), but now with both the resurgance and de-resurgance (probably not a word) of Aluren, I just don't know. Various things have been in this spot over the years, including x2 Ground Seal, x1 Null Chamber and x1 Trade Routes, 2 Elephant Grasses, 2 Sacred Mesa etc. I haven't updated my list in quite awhile, and since cards like Extripate have been printed, 2 Ground Seals might see there way back to this slot. Unless something unknown to me has been printed that is better.

@ Angel: The vigilance and nantucko shade/piledriver garunteed survivability (along with haste) keeps the spot for the beatstick creature for me (this being the case if no Confinement is on the board). Since few decks keep a full arsenal of STP in their MDs game 1, Angel is safe game one, while something like laqautus needs to be brought in game two.


As for Enchantress not being the ideal deck for where I play, you're right. The only thing that really keeps it going is me knowing the decks and archtypes I play against, what cards they will use and when. Knowing what hands to keep agaisnt who, what to grab with search, and what to wish for (mainly how to win) against a particular deck is all key, but you already know that. I am a staunch defender of the idea that any deck can beat any deck, it just depends on who's playing.

This deck (at least mine) in my opinion takes awhile to really get the hang of, as you have to know what to do and how fast to do it in any given situation. You can't play this deck for a week on MWS and start saying you're a pro. Hopefully people will learn sometime that with practice, this deck (almost any type of Enchatress, but certianly not the shitty auratog version) is useful in any tournament, given the right MD and metaboarding (probably not a word).

[Daze]

Ahhh... feels so good to see that old Enchantress deck back again... I built one the time it was legal in Extended and had lots of fun with it, but sadly didn't make it to a tournament before the rotation >.<.

I was also playing the Blue-Splash, and it rocked, kinda. Still, the idea of cutting Faeries maybe quite genious, since going infinite isn't really needed (at least, I can't think of any Matchup except Burn, maybe...): We should be able to bounce their permanents and then just beat them to death; they probably won't be able to do much with their board returning to their hand every turn, and we can skip our draw phase, which means we also deal "infinite" damage or wait until they deck themselves (how is this judged, btw?).

If you keep the Faeries I would suggest Seal of Removal, which helps dodging STP and other removal and also helps you against difficult threats. As for the Seal of Cleansing; with Faries MB i think they are better since you don't need the Sprawl to go infinite.

Other things that came to my mind:
Holistic Wisdom- How often have you used it? It seems to me a little like a win-more, since you won't be able to use it early on, and since it is a one-off, I could also fetch the enchantment I need instead of getting Wisdom and then returning something from my grave.

Sylivan Library- I don't like that one... Miri's Guile is just as good for finding a specific card, and the only one i could imagine is an Enchantress since after you have one, you will draw 2 cards a turn, which negates the Library. Paying 4 life to draw a card also doesn't seem that great to me, you probably won't do it more then 2 times, and quite often you won't use it at all (On the other hand, I've been playing against aggro decks, mostly...). Finally, the interaction with Words of Wind also isn't that great since you don't want to bounce permanents during your draw step because you will either get manaburn through Sanctum or have to use coloured mana, which you need to cast your Enchantments.

This means I will cut
2x Cloud of Faeries
1x Stroke of Genius
3x Sylivan Library
1x Holistic Wisdom
and maybe some Seals of Cleansing. That makes up to 10 slots I can fill with other cards, although I'm not really sure which cards to take >.<.

How big were your problems with land destruction, especially Wasteland? It seems to me like wasting enchanted lands or the Sanctum could hurt the deck a lot; sadly Sacred Ground doesn't save enchantments...

As for the Wishboard I can remember playing Palinchron, which also nets infinite mana quite fast.

[Meister_Kai]

Vielen Dank für Ihre Erwiderung! (sorry, I am a 5th year German student, and try to use the language whenever possible)

@ Faeries: If the metagame is what people around here are saying (more gobbos), the Faeries do need to leave the MD. Since the meta around where I live is sort of stagnate, I have just sort of let it be for about the past 6 months.

@ Hollistic: I think the 1 copy is good. It saves you game one against mass distruction (before Justice comes in round 2 to even things out), letting me pitch faeries for either an Argothian or destroyed/countered wish target.

@ Sylvan: Since there is more aggro where you play, I would remove these also. In my meta, there is more combo and control, so against anything but Tendrils you usually draw the cards to get you that much closer to your goal. However, it also speeds up the lock-clock against control and combo, something that is neccisary in my meta.

If your talking about Wasteland and LD in the same sentence, you are probably talking about Deadguy or some varient. That is this decks worst match-up IMO. I don't know what to do besides loading the SB with cards like Spreading Algae or Compost.

Just remember, Enchantress is a deck that must be meta'd heavy to win. Posting a all-around decklist is impossible IMO. You have to do your own research and go from there.

[Daze]

Hehe, it's "Erwiederung" and a more fitting word would be "Beitrag" or "Antwort" :D.
As for the Faeries- isn't Candelabra of Tawnos much better? It costs colourless mana (thus we need only 1 coloured mana to go infinite), it can be re-used without bouncing it, it is imune to StP or Burn and it can untap more than 2 lands, which is nice because I tend to distribute the Sprawls on more than 1 land, since I'm really afraid of Wastelands, our Meta was corrupted by LftL decks and I guess I got kinda thraumatized >.<. Of course, Candelabra needs 1 more mana, is more expensive to get and can be solved by the removal our opponents board in (Disenchant, Grip, etc.). Still, it is imho 10 times better than Faeries, its biggest disadvantage is just that it doesn't cycle...

[Zach Tartell]

Let me see if I can fit all of my thoughts into one post:

@Meister_Kai - Thanks alot for putting together a blue list, though I think it may be a bit unusable as it stands - where do you live, where goblins doesn't make up any of the meta? Sign me up. Anyway, let me make some vastly overstepping observations:
-Living wish: I don't dig it. I've tested it, and I always found that wish was pretty underwhelming. Mid game when you topdeck it it sucks, though I guess your wishboard is pretty much made to make it not suck. Add a city of brass to the board to make it completely optimal, maybe? You're playing 22 land, which makes it alot eaiser to hit enough of them. Actually add loquatus maybe? I never liked it.
-Your board: How do you beat combo? Is your meta composed entirely of non-goblins agro? Or like... mono-blue control?

@Daze - Holistic wisdom is probably the weakest card in the deck. But, let me tell you, I wouldn't play without it. It isn't just for pulling back enchantments. Although, that does help. One time I pulled squee back by pitching an argothian in response to echoes. And you can pull back sanctums against like... anything with wastelands. It's like as necessary as counterspell in agro control. Not what makes it work, nor what makes it nuts. But it makes it good.

And I'm still swinging back and forth between library and guile. Guile works under confinement, but you can win with library. Or pay eight life, then go under confinement. It's pretty good. I'll let you know what I'ma do. Dropping confinement against like landstill or something without a "kill you on your turn" win condition with two libraries out and Words of War is ten damage with five mana. It's pretty sweet.

[Meister_Kai]

- Daze

@ German langauge: Damn you synonyms!!! :tongue:

@ Tawnos: its not a holistic-able, its not grove-able, I can't wish for it, and it has been errated' so that it must tap. Unfortunately it can't go in.

- Baritone

@living: Near Indianapolis actually.. Being only 2 hours from Gencon, you think think there would be a crazy meta. There was a time when nearly everyone used goblins, a time when my deck had x4 confinement and x4 elephant grass in it, but most of those people tired of the deck after about 6 months. Right now its basically everything you could think of, only minus the goblin influx (which makes games as a whole more fun and varied, as more archtypes can survive).

@ Holistic (again): I agree with Baritone. I wouldn't go more than 1, but I wouldn't cut it completely either.

@ Wish: Wish can get Sanctum early game, or zealot to break a potential disk, keg, deed, whatever explosion early on (if no cleansings are present). Also, it allows me to run the squee stall tactic without breaking "your rule" of never running him MD (which I wouldn't do). It allows me to get my win conditions other than stroke or faerie beatdown, and having to resort to faerie beatdown isn't fun (I am surprised by the amount of people who don't conceed to having no board). Toping' it in the mid game isn't a problem as all my wish targets are golden.

--Quick note: I remember, back before everyone where I live started to SB Stifle, I would write down my deck as storm combo and use Brain Freeze instead of Stroke of Genius. That was a long time ago though, so I can't remember the list (it was a good deal different).

@ Combo: I used to run 2 Gaea's Blessing SB before every Solidarity player left discovered how to play around it. Usually aggressively mulling into a CoS or a hand with WoW in it is enough, as TES runs at most 4 counters (most builds ive seen run none, at least game 1).

@ Guile: I don't know about the red version, but I have always seen Slyvan as being better than Guile. The only difference between the two I see is that one costs 1 more (you should be playing something else turn 1 anyway), and you actually draw cards with library. I get people asking me to try the Guile all the time, but I just don't see the use in it (besides playing it turn one).

The deck looks unstable to you because the build I showed probably wouldn't hold up in a major tournament. If I were to take this deck to a major tournament, with the meta described by you guys as a clue (even though by looking at world's last year, I doubt predictions will come true), I would go with this:

Land:
--Same as before, only -1 tropical island

Creatures:
x4 Argothian Enchantress

Enchantments:
x4 Enchantresses Prescense
x4 Sterling Grove
x4 Exploration
x4 Utopia Sprawl
x3 Elephant Grass
x3 Words of Wind
x3 Solitary Confinement
x3 Sylvan Library
x1 Moat
x1 Holistic Wisdom
x1 Seal of Primordium
x1 Seal of Cleansing
x1 Sacred Mesa

Other:
x3 Living Wish

SB:
x3 City of Solitude
x2 Aura of Silence
x2 Karmic Justice
x1 Null Chamber
x1 Elephant Grass
x1 Ground Seal
x1 Viridian Zealot
x1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
x1 Eternal Witness
x1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
x1 Serra's Sanctum

Since we are talking about the meta at large and not where I play, i'm about 99% positive this can be improved (moat etc?). I don't want to take the focus off of your list though, because if more people play G/W/R Enchantress than mine, then I have the surprise advantage game 2 (and maybe 3) against combo :tongue: .

[Daze]

@ Tawnos: its not a holistic-able, its not grove-able, I can't wish for it, and it has been errated' so that it must tap. Unfortunately it can't go in.


Guess you have to look a little deeper than this :). It is not holistic-able?
hmkay, Holistic is a one-off and the only thing you can remove to get Faeries back are the Argothian Enchantresses.
You can't wish for it? Well. putting them in the SB of course sucks, the Faerie there has to stay.
You can't fetch it with Grove? You can't fetch Faeries with Grove.
And you always had to tap it :D. <3 Mono Artifacts... still, you only pay one mana more to achieve the same effect (untapping 2 lands), but you only need one coloured mana to bounce it, which means you can go infinite without Sprawl. It doesn't cycle, but it can exchange white for green/blue mana, it produces mana every turn and not just the turn it comes into play and it isn't as easily hated.

[Meister_Kai]

- Daze

@ Tawnos: When I say its non-holistic-able, I mean that there is no way of getting one back with Holistic if I didn't have one in hand (of course then there would be no point). Even though there is only one Holistic in the deck, with all the draw and search it can be found rather quickly. Tawnos also would open the floodgates for cards like Pithing Needle and artifact distruction (even though Faeries are hated on as well), making more of the opponents potentially dead cards active. I could also go on a "the one mana really does make a difference" rant, but I don't really want to.

I think that you should play around with Tawnos in a G/W/U build of your own and give your perspective on it, because right now I just can't see it working out.

[Zach Tartell]

Enchantress is not a viable deck.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I believe that Enchantress's fifteen minutes is over.

I've a laundry list of reasons, and allow me to detail them for you:

Splash Damage from other competitive decks.

-With more and more decks gearing up to beat 10 or 15 turn one Goblin tokens, Engineered Explosives is becoming more and more wide-spread. I played against Slay at Kaddy's recent Dual land Draft (he was running UGw Threshold) and Game one I attempted to hide behind a squee + confinement lock (I'll admit - I was running him), only to be PWNT by an unforseen main-decked engineered explosives. I was being lazy, as I was like 1-1-1 then, and probably out of contention for the top eight. But my play mistake doesn't negate the fact that he was running the Explosives. I know that I've been telling everyone that Enchantress can't just go prison, that sitting behind squee isn't the way to play. And that's what everyone's been telling me. But I think, deep inside, that we all just want to say "Squee bounce, go" every turn while your opponent decks himself. It's easy. And I'm lazy.

-Engineered Plague also provides headaches, for us. Most decks run one or the other, in light of the whole "ETW is the Greatest Card Ever" phase the format is undergoing right now. Watcher487 beat me in the top 4 at TMLO:II only because he had the plagues. One on enchantress, the other on pegasus. Frustrating. RGBSA runs them, Dead guy runs them, Red Death runs them, BHWC Landstill runs them, and any deck with black runs them.

Inability to handle extra-fast combo.

-I am a member of the EPIC Syndicate, the team for which Bryant Cook (a fellow memember) chose to name his deck, The Epic Storm. Thusly, everyone with whom I test has decided to build it. I have, myself. It's a solid deck, resiellient(sp?) to hate, with the ability to win turn one or two. Which is pretty cool, and has recently changed the face of the Legacy Format. Now a deck has to be able to win by turn 3 or 4 with a disruptive clock, be able to deal with a first turn lackey, and be able to answer 10 1/1 men turn one. That's alot for a deck builder to keep in mind. But I've gone over the splash damage thing earlier, and simply talking about what a deck has to look like isn't goign to do anything productive. The more I play against TES, Solidarity, and even Aluren, the more I'm sure that the best I can do is slow down the combo player for like twenty minutes game one, until they win, take down game two, then try and force a draw for game three. It worked this past weekend against Aluren and TES (which I actually 2-0'd, but the kid was out of contention so he didn't really care so much). Humility would answer aluren, and help the already amazing Goblin match-up. Elephant grass answers the goblins, but I dont' have a solid enough clock to stop them from drawing into Burning Wish for Tranquility. And, with this CRET Belcher coming out of Canada, there's just another threat that I can't answer by turn two.

Complete lack of people playing the deck.

-Since February 2005, Enchantress has been played to 26 posted finishes:

Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 2/06/05
Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 2/12/05
Matt Elgin, Amrod's, 2/19/05
Afro, Albany, 2/25/05
Afro, Albany, 3/4/05
Peter Rotten, Albany, 3/11/05
Afro, Albany, 3/11/05 (This is the only event with two enchantress's, to my knowledge)
Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 3/19/05
Jesse Hetfield, The Lucky Frog, 3/26/05
Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 4/30/05
Jesse Hetfield, The Lucky Frog, 5/28/05
Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 6/11/05
Matt Elgin, The Lucky Frog, 6/18/05
Jeremy, Game Empire (San Diego), 7/29/05
Some nameless dude, Aurich Germany, 10/1/05
Some nameless dude, Stuttgart Germany, 11/26/05
Trenton Bollinger, Wednesday Legacy at TJ's, 7/27/06
"Kyle G" at the Gamer's Inn, Arizona 10/27/06
Thomas Iversen playing "Enchantments!" - Danish Legacy Championships, Nov. 2006
Jesse Hetfield (sp?), The Lucky Frog, 12/16/06
Zach Tartell, Running GAGG II, 2/11/07
Zach Tartell, TMLO:II Day 1, 3/3/07
Zach Tartell, TMLO:II Day 2 3/4/07
Alix Hetfield, The Lucky Frog, 3/24/07
Some Nameless Hero, Magic-League Online Trial, 4/26/07
Zach Tartell, Kaddy's DLD III, 4/28/07

Seven of these finishes are by Matt Elgin. Three by Jesse Hetfield. 4 by Zach Tartell. Leaving a grand total of fifteen people (assuming the two folks in Germany were different competitors) having played the deck to a notable finish in two and a quarter years. To demonstrate the desparity between the prominence of Enchantress and, say, any other well-known archtype in magic, UG Madness (to my knowledge, an under-played deck as it is) posted more than twice as many top 8's and top 4's during that time. Rifter (and WR control) had 31 posted finishes. Yes, I counted.


Folks, Enchantress isn't terribly expensive to make. I don't need you to play two copies of The Abyss. You don't need Chains of Mephistopheles to be able to play it. It beats Goblins into the ground in the hands of a compotent player. Which would be a selling point, you'd think, as Goblins has made up the largest percentage in every recent relavent tournament. This leads me to:

My Conclusion:
Enchantress is a deck that will never have more than a handful of players at any event. I'll bet anyone a foil Elvish Champion (from eighth - and I can only take the first two people that accept) that no more than 3 people play it at the upcoming GP. Its engine does not lend itself to splashing a large enough amount of blue cards to have force of will or any counter package. It is turned off early in the game by chalices for 1. It cannot lay down any early hand disruption. It loses to pyrostatic pilar, often. It has a good game against mono-agro decks, and control decks that also have poor clocks. It has trouble with burn, massive hand disrutpion (Red Death and B/W COnfidant), and cannot realistically beat combo. I'm tempted to leave the period after that, but I'll add a disclaimer that solidarity is a winable matchup, and that Aluren is do-able, and that TES is okay if you hit exactly what you need. I'm pretty sure that I lose to Flash, period.

I don't like jumping onto the whole Alarmist bandwagon, but you can't beat the current meta with this deck. Period.

Go sell your savannahs for a set of flashes or something. Or pick up chrome moxen for TES.

[cdr]

So what was the anti-combo SVG TEK? I still want to build the deck for fun since the cards aren't being used for anything else.

[Zach Tartell]

It was root maze. But further not-being-retarted yeilded the fact that LED doesn't need to tap to activate. And 1 Immolation in the board to bring in against agro, instead of the third seal of fire. Both Spatula's idea, the second actually worked.

[cdr]

What does Immolation do for you? Get around Meddling Mage on Seal of Fire?

[Zach Tartell]

Yes. that, and, give a permenant answer to Tog or mongrel, things that can pump in response to a seal of fire.

[Xero]

It has trouble with burn
Warmth is a good answer to this.

This is a solid deck that seems to go through cycles of goodness. Even if its not the best choice right now, I expect it to always be able to surprise people and perform well. Just have to time it right.

[dontbiteitholmes]

To the guy trashing Enchantress.
The way I see it Enchantress is a metagame deck for Aggro heavy metas. Right now you would be an absolute moron to goto GP with the deck obviously, most importantly because it loses to Flash and takes splash damage from people's anti-combo sideboards. Put the deck on the shelf for a while, one day Aggro will make a comeback and Combo will be scarce then strike like a ninja in the night with Enchantress, and be all like "Booya". That's how it works, the time is definitly wrong for this deck right now in most metas. In my opinion it was this way before Flash anyways, that just twisted the knife. Also I was the "Unnamed Player" who played Enchantress in the M-L Trial, if you check the Meta breakdown for the previous Trial you might understand why I chose Solitaire.
http://www.magic-league.com/deck/32537/legacy_t15.html#Mono%20Red%20Burn50167
I would gladly pilot Enchantress through a feild like this anytime, that's basically my point in a nutshell.
*EDIT* Also you forgot my Top 8 at a Duel 4 Duals with the deck back in early 06', it's on Starcity.

[Xero]

Does Lifeforce (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=162) have any merit for fighting Black decks? It seems like it could be useful against B-based control.

[noobslayer]

To the guy trashing Enchantress...
That guy is the reason Enchantress is in the LMF. The deck can't compete in the current field, and I think it was only able to do so before because of a very competent pilot, and a perfectly unprepared meta game in that two week window.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That guy is the reason Enchantress is in the LMF. The deck can't compete in the current field, and I think it was only able to do so before because of a very competent pilot, and a perfectly unprepared meta game in that two week window.

I <3 Zach, but he scooped to Echoes with Confinement in play.

I'm not saying he's bad with the deck overall, but he's not this amazing pilot that can make a trashy deck win. The deck won because it smashes Goblins like almost no other deck(possible exception: Slivers), and it can take out control and aggro-control when you tune it right.

Technically what he's saying isn't incorrect either; the deck doesn't handle combo very well. But I think a few things are making him exaggerate the deck's weaknesses;

A)He's testing with TES more than most people will actually see it in a tourney, and
B)He's running Squee.

re: Lifeforce -

It depends. If you're talking about stuff like Truffle Shuffle, Train Wreck, or Tog, yes, Lifeforce can be good. It stops Deed, their kill conditions, Deed, Echoes, Deed, late-game disruption and Deed.

But if those aren't strong enough a meta-concern, it can be pretty jank against more tempo-based black decks.

[Meister_Kai]

:rolleyes: ....

Aww screw it.

I can't attend the GP on the 19th and 20th, but goddamn it, i'm there on the 18th for the qualifier. I couldn't care less about the 3 byes, I just want to see how many people I can beat with Enchantress (and win a foil Elvish Champion).

I thought about running Deadguy (Pikula's list exactly, only with 2 MD leylines instead of 2 Plagues, 4 Joetun Grunt instead of 4 WW, and a total of 4 plagues and Leylines between the MD and the SB; but i'm letting a friend borrow that).
Then I thought about running Belcher (I have all the cards for it, including a sideboard with 4 leyline, but i'm still too scared of control).
Then I thought about Flash (then I remembered how I had just bought all the Flashes and Hulks in my area for $1, then sold them for $12 apiece).

Since Angel Stompy (Godzilla's most current list, one of 4 decks I have built) is completley out, all I have left is Enchantress.

I could really care less about all this talk about how the deck isn't viable. The way I see it, Elephant Grass stops ETW's cold, and Confinement + Grove =='s GG against Flash (barring you live that long to cast them). I have play tested this deck to hell and back in the past month, and chalked up my win/loss records to every deck in the format (except Hulk, but I know how stupid that deck is).

Here is a fact of Enchantress (at least in my testing): it topdecks like a muthafucka.

Fact: I played 3 games against a mono-black control deck with MD Extripates, Therapies, Duresses, and Hymns. I was Cabal'ed turn one game one for 3 Argothian Enchantresses, and yes, I won that game. Game 2 I was Extripated for Solitary Confinement, Elephant Grass, and Enchantresses Presence, yet still won that game. Game 3 I also won, not at all thanks to 2 Spreading Algea's (yes, he used the tactic of just not tapping those two lands, which led into the tactic of not playing spells).

If I completely scrub out due to everyone and their dog playing Hulk Flash and other combo, then whatever, I accept the same fate as everyone else not playing Combo during the GP/qualifier. With that said, here is the list that I will more likely than not be taking to the GP:


//G/W/U Enchantress

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
2 [R] Tropical Island
4 [R] Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [4E] Plains (1)
6 [IA] Forest (2)

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
2 [5E] Sylvan Library
4 [JU] Solitary Confinement
4 [US] Exploration
1 [ON] Words of Wind
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
3 [VI] Elephant Grass
1 [OD] Holistic Wisdom
1 [OD] Karmic Justice
1 [WL] Aura of Silence
1 [ON] Words of Wilding
1 [MI] Sacred Mesa
1 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
2 [NE] Seal of Removal
1 [NE] Parallax Wave

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [VI] Elephant Grass
SB: 1 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [WL] Seal of Primordium
SB: 1 [MI] Null Chamber
SB: 4 [US] Spreading Algae
SB: 1 [SH] Sacred Ground
SB: 2 [MR] Rule of Law
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void

I think Moat is overkill (both in the deck and in the wallet). This deck smashes aggro, and if you resolve Words of Wind against most control players, thats more or less game. Of course this has a bad combo match-up, but thats what most of the SB is geared towards anyway. The 4 Spreading Algeas really do make a difference against black.

If any of you are going to be at there at the 18th for any reason (by some miracle I could be there on the 19th, but no way in hell am I going to run this during the actual GP unless I stomp unprecedented face) and want to talk shop or whatever, it would be a blast to discuss things (especially if any present/past Enchantress players are there) like deck tech etc. Make sure to wish me luck, as I know people would rather read:

HOLY CRAP, ENCHANTRESS STORMS GP COLUMBUS

than

FLASH STORMS GP, SOME EXPERTS EST. SEEING IT COMING 3,000 MILES AWAY

[Zach Tartell]

To the guy trashing Enchantress.




Zach struck the ground with lightning and out sprung barely-clad, nympho Enchantresses, riding pegasuses and listening to heavy metal; thus did a new age dawn.


Does Lifeforce (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=162) have any merit for fighting Black decks? It seems like it could be useful against B-based control.

Lifeforce is tough to run (though I hadn't thought of it before this) on account of the fact that when you're doing your thing, it's awful tough to come by :g: :g:. :w: mana is like hella easy to come by, on account of sanctum. I'll test it after flash is gone, though.


That guy is the reason Enchantress is in the LMF.

Stop, you're making me blush... Seriously, though. I'm not that good at anything (excluding, perhaps, getting familiar with my German tutor). The meta was right for it (I've only lost to one goblins deck, ever. Therapy on moat to hit two sucked alot. Fucking lucksack.), I got awful lucky alot of times, and I got Gearhart to sign my City of Solitudes. I'll post that in the pimp forum when I get near a camera.


I <3 Zach, but he scooped to Echoes with Confinement in play.

I'm not saying he's bad with the deck overall, but he's not this amazing pilot that can make a trashy deck win. The deck won because it smashes Goblins like almost no other deck(possible exception: Slivers), and it can take out control and aggro-control when you tune it right.

Aw, unicorn love is perhaps the last pure thing on this earth. But, yeah, I'm not good at this. I started at Dissension, though, so I'm pretty far above the curve, I reckon.


A)He's testing with TES more than most people will actually see it in a tourney, and
B)He's running Squee.

A) Yes.
B):

But I guess every good beginning has to come to an end. I’ll miss you, my goblin naboob. Ha. Boob.


I'm pretty sure there's a more succenct answer somewhere in here, but I've cut him to go sixty, toying with adding an ivory mask or humility and goign back to 61. I don't play him, 'scept for when I top eight.


HOLY CRAP, ENCHANTRESS STORMS GP COLUMBUS

Good luck! If you lose game one, you'll smash the anti-anti-Flash decks, like goblins. And probably even the anti-flash decks. Aydunno. I can't see you wining unless you're already in the loser's bracket, what with flash.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

As a note to anyone trying to play this at the GP,

A) Good luck.
B) I did some brief testing with a Hulk-hate Enchantress list. I don't have an exact list, but it included

4x Leyline
4x Ground Seal(against the Kiki kill)

Plus the requisite Grasses, Confinements, and Groves and you actually have a fair number of cards that could potentially shut them down. I ran with G/W/r/b, since REBs will be flying around like hot cakes and otherwise red and blue serve the same function.

A few problems I ran into;

A)There are versions with Deed, MD and SB; insane kill, draw, AND Deed?

Possible solution: fit in Suppresion Fields. This may force you to switch from the prefered kill conditions to the Hondens, but it may be worthwhile anyway.

B)Stern Proctor can be a pain in the ass if you don't have Leyline out.

Possible solution: there is none that I can think of.

It's not too hard to tweak it to deal with the U/(b/w) aggro-control decks; they don't usually have much clock, and often have dead cards against you(Stifle, Leyline). You can also SB in Algea/Multani's Presence.

If you tweak it, I think it could be as good as any other non-Hulk deck in the era of Hulk, which is some kind of compensation I guess. If you get the right pairings(that is, the right types of Hulk + non-Hulk decks), I can see you making day 2 with Enchantress.

[emitch]

if anyone is interested. i actually was brave enough to run enchantress at GP Columbus. Unfortunatly it was a last minute decision and the deck wasnt quite up to par in my opinion. i went 3-3 before dropping ( knowning that i wasnt going to make top 128 and that i wanted desperatly to play in the vintage tourney ).

Here is the deck list that i ran at GP:

( -2 Wild Growth, +1 Elephant Grass, +1 Utopia Sprawl )

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Elephant Grass
4 Sterling Grove
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Exploration
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Cloud of Faeries
2 Snap
2 Decree Of Justice
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Words of War
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Seal of Primordium

1 Taiga
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
3 Tropical Island
4 Savannah

SB needs tweeking still. I barely had to SB anyhow.

Matchups went like this:

Match 1 vs. Gobs: i won 2-1. Fairly easy, just didnt see the cards i needed in the second game. Started noticing deck tweeks from the get go. Not Running the 4th confinement was just retarded. Not having moats didnt help either.

Match 2 vs. G/R Zoo: i won 2-0. this match wasnt too difficult either. everything went pretty smoothly.

Match 3 vs. Gobs: lost 2-1. im still not quite sure how this happend. didnt see necessary cards due to the random jank that was taking up spots.

Match 4 vs. Hulk Flash: this deck is just dumb. there wasnt much i could do. game 1 he got turn 2 kill. game 2 i almost held off his attack ( the kiki version ) with a ghostly prison and grass. but i made poor decisions.

Match 5 vs. Some Blue White Control ( death and taxes? maybe? ) .... anyway... somehow lost 1-2. good games tho. not much to say about this one. ddint make too many player mistakes... just not an efficiant build.

Match 6 vs. 4 Color Zoo: i won 2-0. probably the coolest person i played against in the gp - lol. ( i think hes on here, but i cant remember his name... i want to say kenderleech? maybe? )

if there are any questions just ask. try not to demolish the deck list too hard :wink: - lol.

-E

[Meister_Kai]

snip

There was a time, about 1-2 years ago, where I had the patience to lay out card choices one by one, explaining everything and why it was there.

Don't take this the wrong way, I don't mean to be rude, i'm just going to get to the nitty-gritty from the get-go and not spew bullshit about why certain things should be done, as its your duty to try the changes and see why they work.

First of all,

3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Cloud of Faeries
2 Snap
2 Decree Of Justice
1 Mirri's Guile

I recommend losing all of these, the only exception being perhaps 1 DoJ as a finisher and maybe Words of Worship (if you wanted to do some weird stuff with Test of Endurance).

Words of War vs. Words of Wind

Really depends on your meta. If you expect LOTs of fish, or other kinds of decks with Meddling Mage, I would perhaps go with War. However, since this deck already smashes aggro like no other, I like the Winds because resolving it and using it properly for like 1 turn seals the game against basically everything (thats not something like Belcher or Flash).

I think your deck could use 2 more forest, the 4th Exploration, 2 Moats (or, as I perfer, 1 Moat and 1 Parallax Wave), the 4th Confinement (as you said), and Sylvan Libraries (works great with Words of ___).

If you plan on using this in a tournament, I would start with a sideboard of 4 Spreading Algae's, as they rape B/x control. Sure they can just not tap that land, but thats 1 less mana they are using every turn.

More tips later on request/if I feel like it.

Also, Spatula, could you pm me your lattest build of G/W/R Enchantress, I want to see what you guys came up with and tech besides Immolation and Root Maze (sounds sort of dumb, I would almost rather use Kismit).

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Root Maze - The original thought was to shut down the artifact acceleration. But as it turns out LED doesn't have to tap to sac. So scrap that idea. We may just have to rely on CotV as the main anti-combo card. Aura of Silence and Spiritual Focus are also of some value.

Immolation - Post-board as an alternative to Seal of Fire;

Pros - Hits guys with Jitte
Hits Tog
Hits Mongrel

Cons - Doesn't hit Negator
Needs a target in play in order to cast it



Moat/Parallax Wave - I've been noticing kind of an upswing in decks that don't really care about these, Slivers in particular. I really think Ghostly Prison would be better here.

[Zach Tartell]

I came to the same conclusion, probably at your insistance like a month ago. I currently run this list (I'll post it, for lack of a GWr list recently):

Lands (20):
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
6 Forest
2 Plains
2 Taiga
2 Serra's Sanctum

Engine (8):
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

Utility ():
2 Sylvan Library
1 Seal of Fire
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Moat
4 Sterling Grove
1 Karmic Justice
1 Holistic Wisdom
4 Elephant Grass
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Primordium
1 City of Solitude

Acceleration (8):
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl

Lock (4):
4 Solitary Confinement

Win (2):
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Words of War

Alright Matt, you caught me (1):
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sideboard (15):
3 Rule of Law
1 Karmic Justice
2 Spiritual Focus
1 Aura of Silence
1 Null Chamber
1 Seal of Fire
1 Immolation
2 Choke
1 Sacred Ground
1 City of Solitude
1 Ghostly Prison

Thoughts (several):
- Immolation hasn't really proven itself either way, yet. I think that it has potential, but I've yet to see it in a tournament.
- Root Maze: Don't knock it. It locks down control matchups, and it's more attractive than the nivmizzet or whatever because it drops turn 1. Which was huge against combo. Until some stupid designer decided that if you had to discard your hand then you probably didn't need to tap. Asshole.
- 4 Spreading algaes: NO! Don't try it. I know that if you're goign to use any algae, it has to be like four, or at least three, but I can't see this being necessary. Period. Just roll like a pimp and get card advantage from a hymn with two spiritual focuses. That card is seriously hot, and it's definetly proven itself. Makes shit like truffle shuffle almost 50-50.
- 3 Rule of law is necessary.
- Sacred Ground still hasn't proven itself. Anyone feel one way or the other on that one?
- I dropped a moat for the fourth elephant grass from the board, and added a ghostly prison there to board out for the matchups where that is worthless, particularly Faerie stompy and Slivers, which have started to get kind of popular. I dig it.

Let's use this LMF while we're still awaiting data from colomubs, boys.

[MattH]

Is spiritual focus really better than Compost? It's better against discard and especially Hymn, but doesn't draw off of Sinkhole, Vindicate, Dark Ritual, Pernicious Deed, any of the storm combo black cards, the occasional Seal'd Specter/Confidant or Seal'd Engineered Plague (different Seal), or the even more occasional Whiff Duress or less occasional Whiff Therapy.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Is spiritual focus really better than Compost? It's better against discard and especially Hymn, but doesn't draw off of Sinkhole, Vindicate, Dark Ritual, Pernicious Deed, any of the storm combo black cards, the occasional Seal'd Specter/Confidant or Seal'd Engineered Plague (different Seal), or the even more occasional Whiff Duress or less occasional Whiff Therapy.


The reason that Focus is better than Compost right now is because Focus is extremely effective against Ill Gotten Gains; no storm combo deck can really go off through Spiritual Focus.

In a meta where your main black concern is Sui, I would prefer Spreading Algea, since most Sui decks are going to bring in Dystopia against you, and Algea acts as both hate and answer to their hate.

If you were mainly worried about Truffle Shuffle and/or Tog, I would think that Lifeforce would be your best bet, since its slowness is less relevant in those match-ups and it can be more powerful.

Compost is kind of the compromise candiate among your black hate. It's ok against everything, but not extremely effective in any match-up, in my experience.

[Xero]

So, Replenish is back. How many MB/SB does this run? I'd think 3-4 would warrant at least slots in the SB.

[Zach Tartell]

So, Replenish is back. How many MB/SB does this run? I'd think 3-4 would warrant at least slots in the SB.

Damnit, you beat me to posting. I reckon I'll play like 0/3 mb/sb. It's really only useful against decks with deed, which I don't think make up enough of the format to be worth mb-ing. I think this will either lessen or negate the need for Karmic Justices, or, at least, Holistic Wisdom. Maybe 2 mained, cutting the wisdom and justice? I really think that the number of decks that can potentially have acess to massive enchantment removial is pretty short. But with weird stuff like 3 mb'd EE's top8ing at kaddy's event, I'd like to keep at least one in the board, at least. Let me stop being incoherent and tired and try to make a blanket statement (this is the best kind):


Yes on rplenish.
No on entirely cutting Justice
Laptop keyboards suck because my thumb keeps on hitting the mouse pad and moving where I'm typing.
Wait for Spatula to offer his adivce - I know I'll be pming him tomorrow when I'll make actual sense.


Edit: Now you can play Enchntress again. Also, Mister Kai owes me a foil eigth edition elvish champion, if I'm not mistaken.

[burkey_boy]

Hmm... I really think you shouldn't drop the Holistic Wisdom.
I really like (although it is weak) the synergy with the draw engine, Seal of Fire, and graveyard recursion if you havent gotten to your other win conditions.

I'll really have to brainstorm to see what I could cut from my list for Replenish, although I really want some in my deck. as most of the time you will fetch at least 2/3 enchantments.

Plus, I find sometimes with a couple of enchantress effect out, I have to discard down to 7 at end of turn. Those can be basically reused.

Also, does Replenish trigger the enchantress effect? That could be a liability - killing yourself via drawing your deck. I'm thinking it doesnt trigger it as you dont 'play it'.

Also, do you have to return all you can, or do the 'Haunting Echoes trick' of not finding all the cards, oor the Mindslaver fetch trick of not finding the land?

In the LMF, proper grammar and punctuation are required. If you intend to continue posting in this forum, please find your shift key. Also, Replenish does not trigger the Enchantresses.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

For now, I'd try the old configuration-ish of 2x MD and 1x SB.

This isn't just good against Deed, it also smashes any deck playing counters or discard. I really think this pushes Enchantress back out of the meta-game foil role and into at least tier 1.5.

Anyway, Holistic Wisdom; I'd drop that shit cold. I could pay 8 mana to play an Enchantress(3 for Wisdom + 2 to activate + 3 to play again) or I could pay 4 and dump 10+ enchantments directly into play. This isn't a trick question.

And no, it doesn't trigger Enchantresses, but it does trigger Ground Seal if you're running it.

[Cait_Sith]

Given that Replenish REALLY wants your Graveyard to stay safe, 1-2 Ground Seal MD seems like a good idea (And screws over Extirpate even more).

I still think that Holistic Wisdom might, MIGHT, be a possible SB cards just because it can fetch back Argothian and destroyed lands. (Maybe that isn't as big a problem as I think it?)

I am running 2x MD 1x SB now and I am not sure how much I like it, they can be mostly dead sometimes, but being able to recur Sterling Grove is always a nice feature.

[MattH]

You could also move towards more sac-enchantments like Seals of Disenchant, Sterling Groves (well they're already there but...), or Pursuit of Knowledge and abuse Replenish that way.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

You could also move towards more sac-enchantments like Seals of Disenchant, Sterling Groves (well they're already there but...), or Pursuit of Knowledge and abuse Replenish that way.


This is something that's important to note. Replenish is almost never entirely dead because it can recur otherwise useful enchantments like Grove, Seals(Fire or Disenchant/Aura), plus Elephant Grass and Solitary Confinement.

[Cait_Sith]

Pursuit of Knowledge isn't really worth it unless you have Sylvan Library in play, but it could be worth to try it in one slot (If I could find one slot, my list is full up except for the 3 ESGs which I may, or may not, keep.)

If you run Mirri's Guile, Pursuit just seems bad as you need an Enchantress effect not to die under it.

Edit: I don't know what is worse, the fact that you stated the obvious, or the fact that the obvious needed to be stated.

[freakish777]

In a list with Words of Wind, I think I've stumbled on some tech to go close to infinite with it:

STEP 1:

In play - 1 Exploration, 2 Enchantress Effects, 1 Words of Wind, Serra's Sanctuum (say it taps for 8). No lands played yet this turn

In hand - Celestial Dawn

Tap Sanctuum for 8.
Play Celestial Dawn (5 floating). Replace 2 draws with 2 WoW activations (3 floating), choose Exploration, and Sanctuum.
Dawn resolves, you now can use white mana as mana of any color.
Play Sanctuum (land for turn).
Play Exploration with W (2 floating). Replace 1 draws, (1 floating othre draw still on stack) first activation choose Celestial Dawn.
Second draw on the stack, tap Sanctuum for 7 (neither Exploration or Dawn is in play) since Dawn is no longer in play (8 floating). Replace draw, choose Sanctuum (7 floating).
Exploration resolves (now a new object).
Replay Sanctuum,(7 floating).


STEP 2:

In play - 1 Exploration, Sanctuum, 2 Enchantress effects, 1 WoW, Explorations used. Land played for turn and Exploration used.

In hand - Celestial Dawn

Tap Sanctuum for 8 mana (15 floating).
Play Dawn (12 floating), activate WoW twice, bounce Explo and Sanctuum.
Replay Explo (11 floating), replace 1 draw with WoW, choose Dawn (10 floating). Do something with the other draw (draw the card, bounce a different permanent, activate another Words of enchantment, something).
Play Sanctuum off Explo (10 floating).

In play - 1 Exploration, Sanctuum, 2 Enchantress effects, 1 WoW, Exploration used, land for turn played.

REPEAT STEP 2 large number of times (possibly infinite if you find a good way to sink that card draw), gain +3 mana each time through the loop, and +1 card, and bounce 3 permanents from your opponents side of the board each time through. You're going to be bounded by the number of cards in your deck, or you'll need to find a way to throw something else in there (whether it's another permanent bounced by WoW that comes back everytime without triggering the Enchantresses, or a Words of Wilding/War/Worship activation, meaning you get +2 mana each time through instead).

It's kinda irrelevent since you probably want to draw most of your deck anyways to find Sacred Mesa/Words of War, or whatever else is in your deck. Essentially you bounce 3 permanents from your opponent's side of the board for each card you draw, which should be enough to bounce their entire board in 1 turn, as well as draw you deep enough into your deck to find your win condition, AND make enough mana to power whatever that win condition is. With Words of War, it's infinite damage.



Perhaps a list along the lines of:


//21 lands
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
6 Forest
2 Plains
2 Tropical Island
3 Serra's Sanctum

//8 enchantress:
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

//other stuff:
1 Sylvan Library
1 Moat
4 Sterling Grove
1 Holistic Wisdom
3 Elephant Grass
1 Seal of Primordium
1 City of Solitude

//8 Acceleration
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl

//3 Lock
3 Solitary Confinement

//5 Go inf
3 Words of Wind
2 Celestial Dawn

//Win
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Words of War


//Squee
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob


Words of Wind is fine on it's own, and all your permanents that you bounce should be coming back the same turn cantripping anyways. Celestial Dawn is obviously weak by itself, but the ability to bounce your opponent's entire board in one turn, draw your deck, and make near infinite/infinite mana can't be overlooked.

I'm not positive in the slightest that this list is anywhere near optimal. It's just a rough cut and paste of Zach's latest with some stuff moved around to make room for Words of Wind + Dawn.

[Jak]

Yes! I have a reason to finish Enchantress. Well what would a build with replentish look like. I am probably running 2 MD and 1 SB like a lot of people, but what gets cut main? Any lists?

[C.P.]

Yes! I have a reason to finish Enchantress. Well what would a build with replentish look like. I am probably running 2 MD and 1 SB like a lot of people, but what gets cut main? Any lists?

I'm currently trying 2 maindeck in place of wisdom and justice. I feel I still need wisdom on some occasions, though.

[Zach Tartell]

I think that the auto-cut is clearly a holistic wisdom. Everything I said defending it like a month and a half ago, I take back. Replenish is like Hanukkah and my birthday just overlapped. In comparison, Wisdom is like finding that last quarter you need to pay for your load of laundry.

I'd also consider cutting a fourth sterling grove. I'm not sure that cutting justice entirely is the best idea. It's awful powerful in that if you have, say, one win condition, an EP, justice, and a ghostly prson out when EE for 3 pops, you geddon thresh, or at least pwn their bears. Makes people think twice before blowing stuff up. So, either that, or an elephant grass. I need to test. Which prolly won't happen for like a week or two. I must meditate on this.

[ho_master]

Wow, can't believe this deck is still alive and back in the LMF. I've been in hiatus for two semesters and glad i missed the whole Flash nonsense...


I tried my deck out against people on MWS with the Replenish...My deck is WGu, but I'll try to flesh out the differences:

20 lands (with 2 Tropical Islands instead of two Taigas)
20 "Essentials" (Argothian, Presence, Exploration, Utopia, Elephant Grass)

// Win
1 Words of Wind
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Decree of Justice

// Lock
3 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement

// Random 1 of's and 2 of
2 Mirri's Guile
1 Parallax Wave
1 Karmic Justice
1 Aura of Silence
1 City of Solitude
1 Seal of Primordium

// REPLENISH!
2 Replenish

// Side
1 Replenish
1 Karmic Justice
1 Aura of Silence
2 City of Solitude
1 Sacred Ground
1 Null Chamber
1 Ground Seal
2 Spiritual Focus
3 Rule of Law
1 In the Eye of Chaos

Deck Choices:

Words of Wind -

Ok, this is the non-standard decklist, but I still advocate this build. In my opinion, drawing a Words of War early isn't optimal because, though you may have parts of your engine up, you aren't going to be killing them in the early turns 5-8. But, if you have draw into Words of Wind during this time, you can have them proceed to pick up pieces of their board while you pick up lands to be replayed via Exploration, which is far more costly to them compared to the 6-12 (non-lethal) damage you might inflict upon them during this time. Actually, I used to get wins at tournaments when I played Words of Wind and made them scoop their board by turn 6-7 without actually inflicting damage. I don't run the infinite version with Cloud of Faeries because I find that to be overkill; you just want them to pick up ANYTHING really, because with all the mana accel you have with Utopia Sprawl, Exploration, and Serra's Sanctum, you're way ahead of them in terms of returnable cards.

I do appreciate the fact that Words of War can burn critters too, though, but I use Parallax Wave to stop the really annoying ones.

Also, I added Decree of Justice because of the prevalence of Meddling Mages in my area (Also another reason why I chose Words of Wind and not War; people usually name War and I chuckle inwardly.)

Mirri's Guile vs. Sylvan Library - Mirri's Guile works under Confinement, so it helps during those times when you have to throw it up early and you only have one enchantress to support it. That and the cheaper casting cost gives it the slight edge to library, though I'm 55/45 on this issue.

Parallax Wave - Used against Meddling mages and random critter jank. I suppose if I splashed red, Immolation would be a better choice, but there's never anything wrong with taking care of multiple random critter threats. I recently used it against a life deck to stop his nomads/spiratulist nonsense by removing them before both got into play.

Less Sterling Groves/Confinement - I'm not sure why but 3 has always worked for me. Since there's relatively few slots for the toolbox, and other 1 of's need to get in so I cut them both by 1. I'd cut them anyway to put in the 2 Replenishes.

Replenish - Very awesome. There needs to be at least 2 of them in this deck, period. Man, I used to run Rofellos's Gift in this slot and now the deck just seems to hum so much better. I'd cram in more sac stuff if I could to max this card's usefulness out. Even if it only brings back a spent Sterling Grove or Elephant Grass, it is still too awesome. Holistic Wisdom is terrible in comparison.

In the Eye of Chaos - You know, I've actually never gotten this out against any combo player, but I've only tested a handful of times against Iggy, Solidarity, etc. Eh, I just put it in because I was running blue and just because I could, but I can't verify whether this card is any better than just a Rule of Law. Maybe just acts as RoL 5 if necessary.

The sideboard always needs tweaking and is definitely meta-dependent. I still dislike using Rule of Law, but I guess there's really no other way to put in more combo hate.

The one thing I hate/love about this deck is how tight the slots are after you get the 40 so-called essential cards out of the way (lands, engine, accelrants, and Elephant Grass). I still don't think Replenish will bring this deck more T8's than before, but it sure as hell is fun to bring the party back after Tranquilty, Tempest of Light, Deed, Explosives, etc.

There are decks that still use Deed and Explosives out there, right?

[Jak]

Your deck only has 58 cards so I recommend that you up the grove and confinement count to 4. I like you list. I run DoJ too just because of the uncounterable win con. I also think ghostly prison would be some good. I run between 1-3 because they just own once you get them down. Still testing their usefulness. I mostly just run 2. Good list though.

[Jak]

Sorry for double post

So I still need to finish this. Here is my list.

Land 20
4 Savannah
3 Taiga
5 Forest
2 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath

Engine 8
4 Enchantress Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress

Win 3
1 Words of War
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Decree of Justice

Lock 5
4 Solitary Confinement
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Accel 8
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl

Goods 17
2 Replenish
4 Sterling Grove
3 Elephant Grass
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Mirri's Guile
1 Aura of Silence
1 City of Solitude
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Seal of Fire

Sideboard 15
1 Replenish
3 Rule of Law
2 Choke
1 City of Solitude
2 Spiritual Focus
1 Null Chamber
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Fire
1 Immolation
1 Sacred Ground
1 Karmic Justice

Thoughts before I buy?

[Xero]

I don't think Squee is all that good. You only want him when Confinement is down. Being a 1-of, the chances of you having Confinement, having Squee, but not being able to maintain the lock w/o him are nil. I also think Library is better than Guile, since it works with WoW and can actually draw you extra cards.

[Jak]

Yeah maybe not. I just really like him and gets the opponent to scoop :wink: . Guile is in there because it works under confinement. If I drop squee, I will definitely keep this in though. Further thoughts?

[Mr. Nipples]

Is there any reason in particular that you're running more than one Taiga? Three seems unnecessary considering you're running both fetches and Utopia Sprawls. I would try to fit a couple more basic lands in there.

[Zach Tartell]

It's necessary to have the two Taigas because the deck's primary win condition is a red card. While it does leave us open to a little more waste hate, a goblins player who snatches a taiga can keep me off red all day - I'll keep my sanctums, thanks.

Raising the count of basics is also kind of a moot point. The suggested decklist plays eight (6/2) and, in my experiance, the first fetch is always for a basic forest.

I suppose you are correct to say that it's unnecessary to run two taigas, but I'm going to keep it up. Without enough opportunity to play and get results from a 1 taiga list, I'll allow my irrational fear of having my turn 1 taiga wasted, holistic wisdom (do we even play that anymore?) needled, windswept heath needled, and an engineered plague on pegasus on the board to dictate my actions. 2 taigas, end of story.

[Tacosnape]

Ok so it's the first match I ever piloted this deck outside of the 2-Man Tourneys, and I'm playing online. And I get the Enchantress mirror. Not even kidding. Decks that have annoying mirrors shouldn't turn popular.

As my head hurts and I don't quite know what I'm doing with this deck, Lonelybaritone or any other experts, what's your plan in the Enchantress mirror?

[Zach Tartell]

As my head hurts and I don't quite know what I'm doing with this deck, Lonelybaritone or any other experts, what's your plan in the Enchantress mirror?

Short answer: Aura of Silence

Long answer: I'm not really sure, to be honest. Being as nobody else has two moats sitting around, I'm really lacking a compotent test partner. But, with the recent unbanning of Replenish, I think we'll have to worry about running into enchantress sitting across from us sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Hmm...

My first thought is resolution of confinement. That would end the whole problem of WOW (assuming you're up against the more sucessful red version). Then, assuming your opponent is running Sacred Mesa (or the less worrisome Words of Wilding) I'd try to lock down a ghostly prison, or, if you're running the double moat version, an elephant grass. The ideal thing woudl be the to get your opponent to have one (or none) Groves in play around the pivotal turn 5-7 (not being worried about creatures or actual combo you won't have to waste time digging for moat or paying for an elephant grass). I say turn 5-7 because through your (hopefully assembled) draw engine you'll have hit at least one land a turn, you'll have a relatively full hand, and ... well, I guess I don't have a third reason.

If they have double grove and confinement, pray that they don't have squee. I really have to tell people to stop playing him. If they go Grove/grove/confinement, you should offer a draw. Remind them that you too are playign enchantress; hope that they don't demand to see squee.

This reminds me of the situation at Kaddy's latest DLD, when Zach Fine (who ripped me off for that plateau, thank you very much) asked me for tech for the goblins matchup. I answered flippantly, "Plague." This is the same sort of thing: Our pyrokenisis is Aura of Silence. Otherwise, it'll be mostly up to the luck of the draw. Deed, maybe? I reckon that MD'd a second Aura of Silence will help alot against artifact based combo, decks that play pernicous deed, and the chalice agro (5/3) matchup.

[MattH]

Cleansing Meditation!

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Or Calming Verse.

Seriously though, it comes down to Aura of Silence, Serra's Sanctum, and to a lesser extent, Sterling Grove.

[strom]

Hi!
I have to raise two questions concerning the main board:

1.) Is the red splash really needed? Its quite plain to me that Words of War is better then Words of Wilding -but the cards are basically doing the same (winning the game). Its just that Words of Wilding is a bit slower. I personally dont like getting manascrewed or make the manabase more unstable just for one or two cards, which can be replaced very well by others.

2.) Why dont you play Wild Growth? I like to run a full playset of them along with Explorations and Sprawls. The old Extended lists also used to play Wild Growth and Fertile Ground as a 4-of. It ensures to lay down an Enchantress Presence second turn and makes your manabase more consistent. Its always a nice topdeck, beacuse it replaces itself in terms of card(s) AND mana-investment.

[Zach Tartell]

1.) Is the red splash really needed? Its quite plain to me that Words of War is better then Words of Wilding -but the cards are basically doing the same thing (winning the game). Its just that Words of Wilding is a bit slower. I personally dont like getting manascrewed or make the manabase more unstable just for one or two cards, which can be replaced very well by others.

Yes. Very yes. Having two taigas, or one, as afro suggested, isn't that problematic. What kind of mana screw are you talking about? If it's the inability to get white mana, then I don't see how it'd be different from it being just a basic forest. If it's the inablility to get red mana, that's why we run 4 fetches and 4 sprawls - shouldn't bee that much of an issue. If it is, just pump out Sacred Mesa tokens and pegasus them to death.

Secondly, I don't understand why you'd want to use words of wilding over sacred mesa. While it's only vulnerable to double engineered plague, I don't think it'd be that big a difference. Pegasuses fly, and that means you don't have to burn your own moat to kick some ass. Also, the ability to kill an opponent without passing the turn is always (maybe not always, but I cna't think of an example where it's advantageous) better than passing the turn.



2.) Why dont you play Wild Growth? I like to run a full playset of them along with Explorations and Sprawls. The old Extended lists also used to play Wild Growth and Fertile Ground as a 4-of. It ensures to lay down an Enchantress Presence second turn and makes your manabase more consistent. Its always a nice topdeck, beacuse it replaces itself in terms of card(s) AND mana-investment.

I think that opening up to more hate from chalice (you really don't have to sweat until 3 hits, and by then you should have answered it or you deserve to lose) is a pretty poor option. I'd support ESG's (I'm very much against them) before I'd suggest more 1-drop acceleration enchantments. ESG allows you to get the mana when you need it (first turn enchantress, second turn moat, etc), as well as dodges daze. More utopia sprawls set to green seems like a poor idea. That is, of course, based on that I'm thinking about the ":g: : this land adds :g: to your pool when you tap it" as opposed to ":1: :g: : plays on a land, or some madness. Add 1 mana of any color to your pool." That one is an even worse idea. You want your first turn to be acceleration - either exploration, or spralw, or exploration sprawl. Not your turn to to be "acceleration, pass the turn (eat my face, lackey)."

The extra acceleration is unnecessary - I find that at times it sucks to drop a fetch and pass the turn, or, god forbid, live through the thrice-cursed "forest, go" first turn. Ugh.... While more acceleration might be kind of cool, there is no place for it in the deck where it stands.

[Xero]

I think I've been wrong on Library being better than Mirri's Guile. I've tried both out, and Guile seems stronger. For one thing, I very rarely have used Library for extra cards: either the four life isn't worth it, or I have an Enchantress affect out that will draw me the next cards anyways. On the other hand, I often wish Library was Guile when I have Confinement out. Library is just worthless crap at that point, and it costs more. Basically, I find myself wishing Library was Guile far more often than the other way around....and you can play Guile on the first turn.

[C.P.]

The extra acceleration is unnecessary - I find that at times it sucks to drop a fetch and pass the turn, or, god forbid, live through the thrice-cursed "forest, go" first turn. Ugh.... While more acceleration might be kind of cool, there is no place for it in the deck where it stands.

Although I'm against the inclusion of WG, I wanted more acceleration to take care of combo. Chrome mox was not very impressive, though. Any thoughts?

@ Guile

I support Guile, since I found myself to be stuck in 3 mana with the enchantress, and 1cc>>>>>>>2cc in those situations. Not being dead under confinement was also pretty good.

@Squee

I was running him for a while, and he served me well, but I cannot help but think that he does not deserve that extra space. I'd like to see him in multiples in SB, though.

[Mad Zur]

I've been meaning to post in here for a while, but haven't gotten around to it until now. This is the Enchantress list Obfuscate Freely and I have been working on. It's obviously very different from most of the lists in this thread, but I'll do my best to explain the more unusual card choices.

3x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
4x Living Wish

4x Exploration
4x Utopia Sprawl
3x Wild Growth

4x Elephant Grass
4x Solitary Confinement
3x Sterling Grove
1x City of Solitude
1x In the Eye of Chaos
1x Seal of Cleansing/Primordium
1x Words of Wind
1x Dovescape

1x Replenish

3x Chrome Mox
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
5x Forest
4x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
3x Savannah
2x Tropical Island
1x Plains

Sideboard
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Replenish
1x In the Eye of Chaos
1x Karmic Justice
1x Seal of Cleansing/Primordium
1x Argothian Enchantress
1x Meddling Mage
1x Serra's Sanctum
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Eternal Witness
1x Gigapede

First of all, Living Wish is amazing. Its primary purpose is, of course, to allow the deck to run a full eleven Enchantresses, which is pretty good. Almost as relevant, however, is the ability to get Sanctum. This deck never draws Sanctum before it's good and always finds it when it wants to go off. Sanctum can't really fill a land slot, because it isn't effective until turn two or three, so it's essentially a mana source that fills a spell slot. That's acceptable, because Sanctum is so powerful, but Living Wish is better. Paying an extra 1G for the added versatility is well worth it. Wish also gives the deck access to a full set of Squees without having to run dead cards.

We also run a lot more acceleration than most builds. As I see it, the deck always wants to start drawing cards on turn three. That either means playing an Enchantress on turn two or playing an Enchantress on turn three with mana to spare. If the Enchantress in question is either Presence or Wish, that will require acceleration. With Wild Growth, the deck has eleven ways to generate mana to play an Enchantress that also draw cards for free after one is in play. Chrome Mox and ESG give the deck some explosive openings and sometimes let Wish get an Enchantress into play on turn two. Card disadvantage isn't really a problem, because if there's one resource this deck has in abundance, it's cards.

Blue is in the deck for In the Eye of Chaos (great anti-control card that happens to hose some combo decks), Meddling Mage in the sideboard (so that Wish can give it access to combo hate in game one), and Words of Wind. Blue could be cut for red, and Words of War would be a fine replacement for Words of Wind, but red doesn't really offer much else, so I think blue is the better call right now.

Dovescape serves two important functions: it can win the game or provide protection from pretty much everything, and sometimes does both. If you have a potentially vulnerable lock like Confinement + Squee, Dovescape can turn it into a hard lock. If you have a Words of Wind in play before playing Dovescape, you can bounce it so that it only counters your opponent's spells. Combined with one or more Enchantress effect, it is an effective win condition, especially against combo decks.

We don't run cards like Ghostly Prison or Moat, preferring instead to run full sets of the more efficient Elephant Grass and Solitary Confinement. We also eschew Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile, because this deck doesn't intend to see many upkeeps or draw steps. Those cards are good against control, but I think there are better options against control.

Most of the sideboard cards that are not fairly standard are things I have already mentioned. Chalice is our answer to both aggro-control and combo (the deck's worst matchup). Witness allows a second Wish to be a threat against control. Gigapede is generally used as a win condition after bouncing all of the opponent's permanents, though it might occasionally be decent on its own. Gigapede is probably the most questionable card in the board.

It should be stressed that this is a combo deck, but rather than win the game on turn four, it tries to assemble a combination of cards that shuts off the opponents ability to win the game, then finishes the game within the next few turns. The typical gameplan is:
Turn 1: Play acceleration.
Turn 2: Play an Enchantress.
Turn 3: Draw cards; play an Elephant Grass or Confinement if possible/necessary.
Turn 4-5: Draw cards, play some combination of Confinement/Grove/Enchantress.
Turn 6-7: Draw lots more cards, find Words of Wind and Wish for Sanctum, bounce the opponents permanents, play win condition.
Turn 8+: Bounce anything the opponent plays, attack with Gigapede or bird tokens, set up whatever additional protection might be relevant, win the game.

The typical Words of Wind combo in this deck works as follows. Start with one Exploration and at least two Enchantress effects in play, with one Exploration in hand. Play Serra's Sanctum using the Exploration in play, tap for a lot of white mana. Play Exploration; use two of the white mana to activate Words of Wind twice. Return Sanctum and the used Exploration. Play Sanctum using the newly played Exploration. Repeat a large number of times. As you run out of green mana to play Explorations, but generate a large amount of white mana, you can start returning a green source instead of Sanctum. Essentially, you pay :2::g: to untap a land, bounce two of the opponent's permanents, and draw a card for every Enchantress you control beyond the second.

There is no way to go infinite with Words of Wind in this deck, though a Cloud of Faeries in the board would give it one. This is not a problem since the above method will almost always bounce all of the opponent's permanents. Infinite mana plus a win condition that runs on mana would allow the deck to win in one turn, but that would only be relevant when it goes to time. I don't think it's worth finding room for Cloud and something like Ambassador Laquatus.

In summary, I've been very happy with this approach to the deck. There's still room for tweaking, but if I were to play Enchantress in a tournament tomorrow, this is the list I would use.

[zulander]

I remember the main critisizm hapy gilmore had was that there are only 16 lands in the deck but 4 exploration. I haven't tested the deck out but it seems like a fair critisizm, maybe I'll have to goldfish with your list later on this week.

[nitewolf9]

Happy Gilmore complained to me as well about the land in his deck. I was however uninterested because after 30 minutes of complaining I kind of wanted to eat broken glass. But yeah, maybe the deck needs more land. And less bitching about it. I swear to you, I almost started stapling my arm to the table.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Happy Gilmore's experiences from That One Time are hardly enough to draw any conclusions from. He was sick that day, and he had never played the deck before.

I also know, from reading Zu's report, that Happy sideboarded Chalice in against Zoo. This is awful. He ended up getting manascrewed because he had multiple acceleration enchantments in hand after he played Chalice at one.

The deck has 16 lands, three Chrome Moxen, and two Elvish Spirit Guides. It also has seven one-mana enchantments that produce mana. The curve tops at three and the deck draws billions of cards past its third turn. There is no need for more lands.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I think the complaint was more that you're losing a lot of efficiency from Exploration by running so few lands. Which I think is valid.

I've been tempted to drop to 3 in my build, in yours I don't see any reason not to.

[Mad Zur]

Words of Wind is easier to use with multiple Explorations. Even so, cutting one for the third ESG or fourth Wild Growth might be correct.

[Zach Tartell]

I hate to bump in a crappy fasion such as this, but has anyone been playing lately? Any svg tek about stoping Tendrils combo? I kind of think we have enough answers to multiple ETW tokens, but the whole possibility of running into TES (or even solidarity) and scooping is crappy. I reckon that with me now being able to pick up S-Chinese root mazes will aid in my ability to take out belcher (read: give us a chance).

Anyone else out there trying?

[C.P.]

I've been running GWu version of Deck with living wish. what I felt was that Living wish gives fexiblity that helps you in the matchup, such as tendrils combo. Blue gives you Mage SB, which is too slow at times, but it helps. Another card that I was thinking in SB was Children of Korolis, but have not tested that yet.

Also, If you do not play living wish(Read: you have more SB spot) Chant might be an option.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Has anyone tested Chill?

[C.P.]

Has anyone tested Chill?

Wow. That's interesting. I feel we need ESG/Mox to fully utilize it, though.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

This is the list I played at the NoVa Fudd's Tournament;

Threats:
4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
2x Sylvan Library
2x Replenish
1x Holistic Wisdom
1x Sacred Mesa

Acceleration:
4x Exploration
4x Utopia Sprawl
1x Wild Growth
2x Elvish Spirit Guide

D-FENCE!
4x Elephant Grass
1x Moat
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Aura of Silence
1x Seal of Primordium
3x Solitary Confinement
3x Sterling Grove

The Kill:
1x Words of War

Mana-base:
1x Taiga
1x Tropical Island
3x Savannah
4x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
7x Forest
1x Plains
2x Serra's Sanctum

Sideboard:
2x Enlightened Tutor
2x Chill
2x Suppression Field
2x Choke
1x Ground Seal
1x Spiritual Focus
1x Seal of Fire
1x Sacred Ground
1x Karmic Justice
1x Aura of Silence
1x Words of Wilding

Round 1; John R.Polishname(Mr.Nipples) w/ 5/3

Game 1: He goes first turn Trinisphere on the draw. I play a Sterling Grove turn 3 and tutor up an Elephant Grass that holds off his Raiders and his Negator long enough for me to solidify my board.
Game 2; He opens with CotV @ 1, followed by Trinisphere. I end up resolving a Moat and winning from there.

1-0

Round 2; Nick (I think he's probably on the Source, but I'm not sure) w/ CRET Belcher.

Game 1 He wins via token beat down fairly quickly, and I don't draw an Elephant Grass.
Game 2 He goes token beat down and I draw an Elephant Grass, followed by a Chill to hold off any Belcher shennanigans.
Game 3 See game 1.

1-1

Round 3; Noele(Local guy, I don't know if he has a Source s/n) w/ IGGy Pop

Game 1 We both have fairly weak hands, and I get an Aura of Silence out pretty quickly, followed by a Sterling Grove. Within a couple turns I have Confinement lock.
Game 2 I get out Spiritual Focus, but he has double Tendrils and no IGG.
Game 3 He taps two of three lands main phase of his third turn to Infernal Tutor, I break my Grove for Choke, play it, then next turn drop Aura of Silence.

2-1

Round 4; Dominic(Happy Gilmore) w/ U/G/r/b Thresh

Game 1 I get out Enchantresses but draw too many non-enchantments and not enough business to deal with Goyfs.
Game 2 We fight around Top-Counterbalance and Choke, respectively, for a while, and evenetually I resolve a Replenish.
Game 3 He keeps a land light, cantrippy hand, and I resolve an early Choke.

3-1

Round 5 Zohar (powergamer) w/ U/b/w Landstill

Game 1 I have to mull to 5 and keep a hand with Mesa as the only business. I start cranking out tokens, but I'm light on actual lands, and when he wastes my second white source, I choose to let the Mesa die. I think this was a mistake, and to confirm my suspicions, I draw a white source for my turn. He drops a Standstill the turn before I finally draw an Enchantress, and evenetually he casts Echoes and I scoop.
Game 2 I go Presence, it gets Forced, he drops Meddling Mage naming Presence, and I draw Presence for my turn. I break a Grove for Choke, but he ends up Vindicating it and I don't draw enough threat. I think I mulled once this game.

Round 6 Dave Price(quicksilver) w/ G/R/B Survival

Game 1 He goes Duress my Presence, followed by Therapy, followed by Goyf, followed by Witness->Therapy. I get an Argothian, and he Wishes for Chainer's Edict. I get a Presence and he get Stomper. Playing Survival without Survivals and fewer creatures than Sorceries must be nice. ***.
Game 2 See game 1. ***.

Findings;

The E Tutor SB plan worked really well. I think I'd up it to 3 E Tutors, and drop 1 Suppression Field, plus Ground Seal.

Ghostly Prison is balls. Sylvan Library isn't very good. And I didn't care much for Holistic Wisdom.

The card I really found myself wanting was Ground Seal. I think this feeling would be triple if I had actually been paired against Breakfast. Even without that match-up, I felt it was what the deck was really missing. Too often I would be stuck on one Enchantress, and I'd be unable to draw enough to get to more business. I'd draw an Exploration, play it, draw a land. If I had had Ground Seal I don't think it would have been as hard to accelerate into more relevant spells.

The point being, with only one Enchantress, you're playing Fluctuator. And Fluctuator fucking sucks. Ground Seal puts you ahead of the game on your Enchantress count, plus randomly nukes decks like Breakfast.

So I think I would take the list and make the following changes;

-1 Forest
-1 Holistic Wisdom
-1 Wild Growth
-1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Sylvan Library
+4 Ground Seal
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide

SB

-1 Ground Seal
-1 Suppression Field
-1 Sacred Ground
+1 Enlightened Tutor
+1 Titania's Song(we really need a better answer to Explosives than Suppresion Field)
+1 Lifeforce(answers Deed, Echoes, etc.)




On a seperate issue, I had the following thought;

If you cast Replenish with 3x Measure of Wickedness in the graveyard, once the Replenish resolved, they would automatically switch over to the opponent's control. With a Solitary Confinement in play(or a Leyline of the Void), they would be unable to transfer ownership back to you. I don't know if it actually belongs in an Enchantress variant, or in more of a Blackjack style deck as a more compact kill condition, but I think it's probably worth exploring.

[Xero]

I don't like ESG in this deck. Too often, I was drawing them late in the game where they were useless; Utopia Sprawl/Wild Growth at least draw you cards.


Ghostly Prison is balls. Sylvan Library isn't very good. And I didn't care much for Holistic Wisdom.

I agree with this. Prison is the worst of the anti-critter enchantments, and Hollistic Wisdom just sucks compared to Replenish (I run 3 couting SB). Have you tried Mirri's Guile? I've found it to be better than Library here, considering it can be played turn 1 and works under Confinement.

I think I've found some maybe laughable, maybe brilliant tech against Belcher: Rune of Protection: Artifacts. It's incredibly narrow, but it can cut Belcher off from one of its win conditions. Plus, it stops Factory beats :cool:

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

At 3 mana to play and activate, what advantages does it have over Aura of Silence?

[Xero]

I'd run it alongside Aura. I wouldn't play it normally, but if you see tons of Belcher, it might be okay-at least it cycles, so its never completely dead.

[Zach Tartell]

Why hasn't anyone posted anything? I'm way too lazy to re-write the opening post to reflect how cool the newest splash is, and if interest is so low that I can top 8 again without any hype, is it even worth it?

Come on, folks. Make some noise.

[Holo_rip]

Enchantress is a really cool deck (well, cool for the one who play with, not the one who play against).
It is one of the deck that a call "combo-control" (even if sometime you will say "OMG YOU RE SOOOOO WRONG).
It has good tutors, and is good at what it does.
It destroy aggro and aggro-control.
About Splash, i've been testing the blue one for "In The Eyes of Chaos" personnally, and i've like it.
There's also the black splash for some more disrupt and In The Abyss.
It is a deck that can be well tuned to your metagame, and all i have to say is that, here in france, some people have clame that "Enchantress, once well tuned for a certain metagame, just wrap it".
I agree with this statement.
But there is an inerante weakness in enchantress gameplan, and that is against combo.TES, CRET Blecher and IGG tend to be more and more played in addition to threshold, and all i have to say is that winning turn 1 / 2 / 3 is annoying for us, cause we can't drop any sort of hate against tendrils/belcher before our own turn 3 or more.
I think that this thread should be close, and we open a new one, with brand new list, advice and matchup. It could make people think "hey, why not play this deck and win some tournament?".
For this, as i have already told you lonely, i'll be glad to help (even if being french doesn't help for playtest and grammar etc..).
Sadly, i haven't been able to roll over people with enchantress in any tournament here in paris, cause well, works and study first.

Holo.

[thefreakaccident]

Why hasn't anyone posted anything? I'm way too lazy to re-write the opening post to reflect how cool the newest splash is, and if interest is so low that I can top 8 again without any hype, is it even worth it?

Come on, folks. Make some noise.

Good job, I have no interest in this deck/thread whatsoever... but you sounded like you were in dire need of a pat on the back.

So I don't get in trouble, why would you play enchantress over any other control deck in the format?

Is it the fact that it can muck up the board with annoying enchantments that double as a wincon?


Edti: But stax does that, and I think better.

[Xero]

So I don't get in trouble, why would you play enchantress over any other control deck in the format?

Is it the fact that it can muck up the board with annoying enchantments that double as a wincon?


Edti: But stax does that, and I think better.

It's a control deck with a fairly fast combo win. Stax does not do it better-Stax sits there for infy turns hoping its opponent concedes, while Enchantress actually wins.

[Tacosnape]

Enchantress's draws are also 400 times more consistent than Stax's. And while Stax seeks to get a lock on absolutely everything, Enchantress just wants to stall for a few turns until it can teabag you.

[Barook]

How much will this card have an impact on the deck?

Oblivion Ring
:2::w:
Enchantment (Common)
When Oblivion Ring comes into play, remove target non-land permanent from the game.
When Oblivion Ring leaves play, return the removed permanent to play under its owners control.

[Pinder]

How much will this card have an impact on the deck?


Well, it is a Mega-Swords that draws you ~2-3 cards for 3 mana. Other than that, though, it probably won't do much.

[Zach Tartell]

Well, it is a Mega-Swords that draws you ~2-3 cards for 3 mana. Other than that, though, it probably won't do much.

Remember in the hypothetical green thread, when Spatula was reacting to a 1GG enchantment with fading 2 that said "You cannot lose the game"? He said, "Dear wizards, please print this card, love enchantress?"

Dear wizards,

If this card is real, I will sacrifice my firstborn to you.

Love,

Enchantress.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

It kind of takes away some reason for the black splash. The ability to deal with fatties/utility creatures/troubling artifacts/enchantments is nice.

What kind of interaction could there be by targeting your own permanents? Ground Seal?

Edit: You could Ring away a Presence in anticipation of a sweeper perhaps?

[Zach Tartell]

It kind of takes away some reason for the black splash. The ability to deal with fatties/utility creatures/troubling artifacts/enchantments is nice.

What kind of interaction could there be by targeting your own permanents? Ground Seal?

Edit: You could Ring away a Presence in anticipation of a sweeper perhaps?

Black is still necessary, in my book. The Abyss is an absoulte house against agro. It's a permenant answer to multiple tarmogoyfs, and other creatures. Like, it'll definetly replace Seal of Doom (and then one - I'm only running one seal main'd), but black is just way too good to cut. You get Leyline! Leyline of the Void! When breakfast is gone, we can cut black. But I already got my German Bayous, so black is here to stay through the breakfast fiasco.

Because, if he actually gets to knock some of the stuff into his yard, when he deeds away the board, he could possibly win. Leyline RFG's everything that he could have for the combo.

Comclusion:
Oblivion Ring - Amazing
Black - here for a while
Seal of doom - got pwnt. 'scept for seal's at instant speed. hmm....

[Nihil Credo]

With access to black mana, couldn't Planar Void be better than Leyline of the Void? Especially as a 2-of (i.e. you'll often pay 2BB for Leyline).

It hoses Breakfast and Goyf decks just the same, and Ichorid only slightly less (they still get Zombie tokens from any Bridges they dropped in the yard earlier). And in the matchups where you'd want graveyard hate, you don't care about board sweepers and thus don't need your own graveyard (for Replenish).

[Zach Tartell]

With access to black mana, couldn't Planar Void be better than Leyline of the Void? Especially as a 2-of (i.e. you'll often pay 2BB for Leyline).

It hoses Breakfast and Goyf decks just the same, and Ichorid only slightly less (they still get Zombie tokens from any Bridges they dropped in the yard earlier). And in the matchups where you'd want graveyard hate, you don't care about board sweepers and thus don't need your own graveyard (for Replenish).

Planar Void's symetry (sp?) is an issue - at least where I'm from. Di, creator/advocate of Eternal Gardens, plays at my locals. In that matchup, whose liklihood to occur is pretty much nihl, the lack of symmetry is huge. Smokestack + EE = very much important to have acess to replenish.

Against goyf, I hadn't thought about the excellence that planar void would be. True, it would be better against that. However, decks with tarmogoyf commonly have countermagic, and it's fucking irritating to have to actually cast a spell that has :b: in its cost. Being able to START with leyline, it's freaking sweet. That wasn't a sentence, but whatever. Leyline > planar void.

[honz]

So, is the idea to cut red for black, or just a 1-2 land black splash?

Leyline does seem pretty crazy against breakfast/ichorid, but with moat, solitary, and elephant grass, do you really need it? Also, light of day coming out of the board (probly only 1 card, but still a factor). I can't say i have tested against either of those much at all, but it seems like you would have a favorable game. I would really like to see a list with black though.

I have really been having problems with thresh, so maybe a black splash could help there. Oblivion ring seems like it would really help. Despite running 4 groves, 4 seals, 2 replenish and alot of SB hate, i seem to loose almost everygame against thresh. Goyf has just been way too much to handle, especially with counterspells to back it up. Is there any good way to solidify this MU?

Aside from thresh being a problem i love this deck. It has been playing really well for me, and as soon as i find a decent priced moat (been using island sanctuary which is almost as good), i plan on playing with it alot more. I appreciate all the work you guys have done with it.

[Xero]

I run 1x MD City of Solitude for Thresh., plus more in the board. That+Choke from the SB is pretty good at hating it.

[strom]

I can`t see the necessity for splashing black.

Moat is strictly better than The Abyss. If you want another card with similiar effect try Parallax Wave. This card is also more synergetic with Replenish.

If you need some replacement for Leyline try Night Soil. It shouldnt be that bad vs breakfast and is on-color.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I think that in most of the current relevant match-ups, Ground Seal is going to do the same job as Planar Void/Leyline. If that seems insufficient, there is Night Soil, as Strom just said.

Leyline is nice of course, in that it's uncounterable and free sometimes,but on the other hand, sometimes its bleeding expensive.

Xero - Try maindecking Choke instead of City of Solitude. Choke actually seems more relevant in the match-ups where either card matters.

[honz]

I would take city over choke against thresh. Preboard, choke still allows them FoW, and island use one time. Plus, bouncing islands with daze is just a slap in choke's face. Post board, you have to worry about eot, krosan grip. City assures that, atleast, you turn will be counter free. That allows you to tap out for moat, or solitary, or whatever.

Does the spoiler card,

Gaddock Teeg
Legendary Creature - Kithkin Advisor
Noncreature spells with converted mana cost 4 or greater can't be played.
Noncreature spells with X in their mana costs can't be played.
2/2

do anything for us? If you run ESG, it is a turn 1 answer to combo (tendrils, dread return, belcher, ETW). If you don't, it comes down turn 2 almost 100% of the time. Rule of law can be too slow to matter, with the 3cc. Since it can't be tutored for via grove, it looses some synergy. However, by the time you drop grove and tutor for rule, and play it, you will be dead.

Just a thought, perhaps it is worth some testing.

[Tacosnape]

I don't think Teeg does anything here, because there's plenty of other Enchantments we can drop turn two or quicker to mess with combo, and Enchantments are often tougher to remove.

Teeg's biggest point of assistance would be against Storm Combo, or more specifically, Tendrils of Agony. Leyline + Ground Seal + Elephant Grass is already triple tech against Breakfast/Ichorid. Against Storm Combo, we have a protectable Rule of Law (Which we -can- get down turn two but won't usually), Elephant Grass to stall against Warrens tokens, and Solitary Confinement if we stall long enough to function under it.

Also, I run an Engineered Plague maindeck (Solid against Ichorid, Breakfast, ETW Combo, Goblins, etc), but I don't think Zach does.

Tendrils of Agony is still a bitch, though.

[Zach Tartell]

My list, as of 14 September 2007:
5 Forest
1 Taiga
4 Savannah
2 Bayou <- Secret, Savage Tech
2 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Serra’s Sanctum
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Sylvan Library
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Ground Seal
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Seal of Doom
1 Moat
1 The Abyss
2 Replenish
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress’s Presence
4 Elephant Grass
1 Words of War
1 Sacred Mesa

Sideboard:
2 Leyline of the Void
3 Rule of Law
2 Karmic Justice
2 City of Solitude
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Doom
2 Choke
1 Null Chamber
1 Solitary Confinement

Allow me to address some concerns that I either haven't been asked directly, or missed, because Callusso complemented my ability to make it rain on them hoes:

Splashes:
-Green: Necessary. I won't patronize you by saying things like, "Oh, gosh, I wish we didn't have to play Green. Forests make me sad, LOL."
-White: Allows the orrigional plan of sitting behind squee and confinement. Enables lots of tool-box-y sort of enchantments, and the best tutor we have acess to (Golden wish, of course).
-Red: The old-school win of Words of War is red. When Goblins ruled the world, seal of fire was pretty tech. Immolation was used as a permenant answer to Psychotog and wild Mongrel, both of whom have sort of left the play scene of late. I played Form of the Dragon in my first Top 8 back at the second Annual GAGG tournament.
-Blue: This allows the ever-annoying Words of Wind. Being able to bounce an opponent's entire board while returning an Exploration and Serra's Sanctum to yours is awful pimp. Trade Routes is really good at recycling Sanctum, and Seal of Removial is good against goblin lackey (and lethal Tarmogoyf damage).
-Black: I'd discounted Black like, forever. It doesn't seem to offer much in the way of utility or power, on the outside. But then you start using Gatherer to look up every single Black Enchantment. After six or eight hours and a liberal application of pizza, an obervant... observer will note that there are some pretty good Black Enchantments. Planar Void, Leyline of the Void, Seal of Doom, The Abyss, Engineered Plague, and Necra Sanctuary (look it up, I'll wait). Words of Waste is pretty much unplayable, but there might be some other cool ones. Props to Tacosnape (who, in fact, killed Tacodumbledore) for looking into Black in earnest.

Card by Card Choices:
I'm going to skip the part where I go over why we play Argothian Enchantresses, and Savannahs. If it's normal, boring stuff, I'm not going to explain it.

-Manabase: 2 Bayous are necessary to support Leyline of the Void, which I will explain the need for later. 1 Taiga is still needed to play the Words of War, which is the deck's main win condition. Sanctums are a necessary evil - Living Wish is trash, in my humble opinion, so it's not worth putting one in the board and cutting the two main'ed ones.
-Leyline of the Void over Planar Void: Replenish is amazing. I'd've said "a house," but I anticipate using it later when I describe how amazing The Abyss is. Leyline is better in my opinion, because (rarely) you can open-hand it and just drop it. Un-counter-ablility is really good against Breakfast. And its not being symetrical makes Replenish good, a point which I'd digressed from only moments ago.
-Ground Seal: I could only MD two of these bad boys. In the olden days (we're talking like 2002) people played two or three of these guys, just for the double cantrip you'd get off their Enchantress Effects. Sages before their time, they were.
-Solitary Confinement in the board: I'm not so afraid of agro anymore. I see a lot more Control in Syracuse than elsewhere. You only really need it against goblins and combo with tendrils. You can move it main-decked at the expence of the... something. I'm not sure what.
-Moat: I'm still running moat because some agro (is there a second "g" in agro?) and agro/control decks just don't run fliers. For serious. Getting poeple to scoop to an enchantment is AMAZING for your morale. It's good enough that I used to run two, but decks like Faerie Stompy keep popping up here and there, so it's good to keep your Elephant Grasses main, still.
-No Ghostly Prison: Yup. No room for it, just not worth the space. I'd love to go on about how good it is, usually, because it is. Maybe if I could fit a single one in the sideboard. Hmmm... This leads me directly to...
-Elephant Grass: Ever play against, or just been around Adam Barnello? Guy's pretty cool (not just because he gave me a shout-out in his next-to-last article), and has an amazing manurism (sp?), or tick or something. When something really cool happens, he gets all excited, and like does Jazz Fingers or something weird with his hands, adopts a different tone of voice, and says, "That's AWESOME!" I guess you have to have been there at least once, but it's really cool to watch. Adam's an awesome guy. Anyway, I'm not sure if there's much more to say. Breakfast made Enchantress good again, solely because of this card. Whether they go Kiki/Hussar or Sutured Ghoul, Elephant Grass is a one-card answer to their win condition. Cumulative upkeep aside, this card is great. Comboes nicely with Choke.
-Seal of Primordium: I was going to cut this before Eli's last DLD, but I didn't, because I didn't have a third Aura of Silence in Korean, so I didn't. In my match against Kyle Dorgan, he needled Aura of Silence, which I had in my hand. I played it to cantrip, drew into seal of primordium, and blew up the needle on it, then blew up counterbalance, then won. Absolute redundancy is necessary.
-No Mainboarded Karmic Justice: Two in the board, it's good enough, I reckon. Only relevant against decks with forests and Burning Wish (for Reverant Silence), Landstill (EE, Deed, Wasteland), Truffleshuffle (Crime/Punishment), and... I'm sure there's something else to fret about. I'll get over it. I only bring them in against Landstill, mostly.
-City of Solitude: In the board, only good against thresh and Blue Based Control. Don't worry, you won't mind it game one.
-No Sacred Ground: I want it, bad. Just no room for it, though. Helps greatly in the Stax and Landstill matchup, but not enough to keep it in.
-No Spiritual Focus: Not enough room. Because IGGY mopped the floor with me, I may add it back in. Not sure what I'm gonna cut, though.
-PM me with questions and I'll amend this, or I'll write a new post.

Match-Ups:
I hate it when some tool goes on and claims a 90%/10% MU for everything, ever. I'm not gonna be that guy. A match-up is either favorable, un-favorable, or even. I might tack on "extremely" for something, but probably not in a positive way.

-UGr/UGw/UGrw/UGbr/UGbw Thresh: Thresh with Meddling Magi is difficult. UGr is probably the best you could hope for. No Counterbalance card at 4, no "pro-black" fliers... Excellent (you've got to picture me steepling my fingers here). Needles are arduous, if they know what to needle. And Meddling Magi are really tough to play around if they're not dumb. The Abyss helps this alot. (Favorable)
-Landstill: If there's Black and Green, you might be in trouble. Otherwise, they just don't have enough Engineered Explosives to pick off your threats, and replenish is really good against control like that. Their slow clock allows you to abuse Sylvan Library savagely. I once used Words of War to race a turn two monastry, and won. I wouldn't recomend that, though. Extremely Favorable post-board, if they don't have deed. Good already (before boarding).
-Goblins: I recall what Matt Abold told me at the GAGG, when I got matched up against Bennett Tomms, "Y'know what's really good agaisnt goblins? Half your deck." Though the list has changed, goblins has switched to green, which loses Armageddon. I'm pretty happy about that. Tranquil Domain isn't that scarry, because it's a terrible card. I'm extremely confident about playing Goblins. Favorable/Favorable. Boarding doesn't help that much.
-TES: Bad. If you can lock down game one then you have game three to try for your turn 2 ROL. Extremely Unfavorable/Just slightly less than even.
-IGGY Pop: Not as bad as TES, because they don't have acess to the same amount of tutors and rituals. Unfavorable/Even.

I don't care to write more about match-ups; if it's agro, odds are it's in your favor. Control is in your favor, because they can't kill you fast. Again, PM me if you'd like me to add thoughts about a particular match-up.

Enjoy it, folks. Enchantress is good again, for a while.

(There's an 's' in here somewhere. Find it, and I'll give you a quarter.)

[burkey_boy]

i am terribly against teh abyss... moat is just better really...

plus, with the number of locks aka confinement... it isnt needed... plus it may only kill your enchantress's or peg's...

[Sanguine Voyeur]

i am terribly against teh abyss... moat is just better really...

plus, with the number of locks aka confinement... it isnt needed... plus it may only kill your enchantress's or peg's...The Abyss can't kill Enchantress, it has shroud.

The Abyss provides a permanent advantage. Moat stalls until you win or they find an answer, although it does stop stop immediately. One of each could be best if you're playing black and happen to have them.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I would take city over choke against thresh. Preboard, choke still allows them FoW, and island use one time. Plus, bouncing islands with daze is just a slap in choke's face. Post board, you have to worry about eot, krosan grip. City assures that, atleast, you turn will be counter free. That allows you to tap out for moat, or solitary, or whatever.


City of Solitude;

Pros -

-It stops FoW, Daze, and Counterspell.
-It can steal you games against Solidarity.

Cons -

-It costs 3 mana, meaning it only stops those counters turn 3 at the earliest, assuming you forsook your second turn for Choke rather than an Enchantress, and assuming you have it in the top 8.
-If your initial set of threats ran into an answer wall, City does absolutely nothing. City never effects the board situation.
-In match-ups not running counter-magic, City is useless.

Choke -

Pros -

-It has strong synergy with Elephant Grass; getting Thresh to tap out to swing, then dropping Choke can be devestating, and this play works well mid-game with Sterling Grove tutorage, unlike City of Solitude.
-It's massive tempo advantage whenever a blue player taps out for something sorcery speed, including IGGy Pop for a tutor, Thresh for a beater, or Breakfast for whatever.

Cons -

-It doesn't shut off FoW or Daze.
-It's useless against decks not running islands.

[tpnp]

I think another con for City of Solitude is that you can't make Pegasus tokens on your opponents turn from your Sacred Mesa. Maybe that's not such a big con, but I prefer to make tokens at the end of my opponents turn.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

The thing is that there are a lot of decks running islands right now, but they don't need to be able to counter your shit mid to late game. They have alternate game-plans. City doesn't stop those plans. Choke can.

[burkey_boy]

ive been looking at the new set... and the cards...

semi-creature removal enchantment style....
Lignify 1G
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature loses all abilities and becomes a 0/4 Treefolk.

bit of alt win, and cool replace for city... free biggins...
Eyes of the Wisent 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Elemental
Whenever an opponent plays a spell during your turn, you may put a 4/4 green Elemental creature token into play.

great removal... for everything... just cool really....
Oblivion Ring 2W
Enchantment
When Oblivion Ring comes into play, remove another target nonland permanent from the game.
When Oblivion Ring leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control.

alt win 2... with all that draw... cooler than the pegasus win...
Hoofprint of the Stag 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Elemental
Whenever you draw a card, you may put a hoofprint counter on Hoofprint of the Stag.
2W, Remove four hoofprint counters from Hoofprint of the Stag: Put a 4/4 white Elemental creature token with flying into play. Play this ability only during your turn.


i especially like the hoofprint... might be a bit slow though....

[Faluzure]

ive been looking at the new set... and the cards...

<stuff>

alt win 2... with all that draw... cooler than the pegasus win...
Hoofprint of the Stag 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Elemental
Whenever you draw a card, you may put a hoofprint counter on Hoofprint of the Stag.
2W, Remove four hoofprint counters from Hoofprint of the Stag: Put a 4/4 white Elemental creature token with flying into play. Play this ability only during your turn.

i especially like the hoofprint... might be a bit slow though....

Hmm.... I like Hoofprint of the Stag but I don't think it will replace Sacred Mesa. The thing that bothers me about Hoofprint is the fact that you need four counters per 4/4 Elemental. Enchantress draws cards like mad, but you need the card drawing from Argothian + Enchantress's Presence out there to build up those counters, otherwise you're only drawing 1 card per turn. That might be too slow.

With Sacred Mesa, there are already ton of other 1cc to 2cc drops. So if you happen to drop a Serra's Sanctum, you can pump out at least 4+ Pegasii the minute it comes out.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

It also can be countered to give opposing Goyfs +1/+1. It might be worth testing as a third kill condition, but I wouldn't be too hopeful.

[Cait_Sith]

With multiple Sylvan Libraries you can be drawing 5+ cards a turn still, but not deck yourself thanks to the fact 4 have to go back.

[Lone Signal]

I like the fact that Mesa can pump stuff out without the card draw. It seems like a faster finisher if you have a lot of draw already going, but if you have that much drawing, I think winning won't be much of a problem.

[tpnp]

ive been looking at the new set... and the cards...

semi-creature removal enchantment style....
Lignify 1G
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature loses all abilities and becomes a 0/4 Treefolk.

As for this new enchantment, I'm not a big fan of it. With the current list, there aren't any Auras except the Utopia Sprawls because of how conditional Auras are. I haven't seen any lists play Pacifism-ish cards before, so I don't see how this would be any better.

Oblivion Ring on the other hand, is hot. Being able to rid the other side of any obnoxious permanent (Needle, Deed when they are tapped out, Siege-Gang, etc) is fantastic.

[honz]

I really am looking foward to rings, because it is going to help the thresh MU without splashing black (i can't afford an abyss, i still run island sanctuary as my moat).

As to the hoofprint enchantment, it seems weak. Sanctum is such a powerhouse with mesa, and the fact that you can just drop tokens whenever you have 2 mana is amazing. I have just chumped with mesa so many times, and waited till i drew what i need. 4 mana + mesa > goyf.

[Seraph2k]

This is the Deck I played 2 weeks ago at a local tournament here in germany. The fist time enchantress went T8 in germany i think!

Maindeck:
8 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Serra´s Sanctum
1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Taiga
21

4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Argothiasn Enchantress
4 Enchantress´s Presence
2 Moat
3 Elephant Grass
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Sterling Grove
2 Sylvan Library
2 Replenish
1 Seal of primordium
1 City of Solitude
1 Ground Seal
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Words of War
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
61

Siedeboard:
4 Rule of Law
3 Choke
2 City of Solitude
2 Karmic Justice
1 Null Chamber
1 Aura of Silence
1 Holistic wisdom
1 Hidden gibbons
15


22 players tournament – 5 Rounds

1. vs 8 Pox 2-1
game1: lost...duress..hymn...+3 sinkholes
game 2: same start but no sinkholes.....moat....eternal win
game 3: hymn, hymn....extirpate-> presence ...WoW win

2. vs Mono r burn 2-0
game 1: 3turn confinement + squee.....soooo amazing!
game 2: 2.argothian, 3.turn presence 4.confinement game

3.vs Staxx 0-2
game 1: no enchantress found! Loss
game 2: muligan to 5(no lands found)..bad matchup

4. vs grow 2-0
game 1: moat stopps goofys and mongoose..replenish->then a lot of stalling behind confinement and then dragon hardcast+WoW
game 2: 2nd mage naming presence...then argothian....one turn later words of war...->mage kill and sylvan library ->library+wow wins

5. vs AyBaseruption 1-1
We played for fun (a draw was enough for both players to receive a price)
Game 1: goofy was too fast
Game 2: notes missing..but eternal was great....15dmg...but then he was vindicated

So I went 3-1-1....

Pros:
With luck I can win vs 8Pox!
Amazing Grow matchup!
I love to play against MonoR Burn with this deck!
For me its amazing to play this deck...I think my opponents doesn`t......
Received 1 Flooded Stand for 4th place
My random eternal wins a lot of games....often the second one when everyone has boarded out his removal;)
Next tournament I`ll try Necra Santuary

Kons:
No chance against Staxx...The next tournament I`ll play more aura of silence
Never found or used the mesa

[Tacosnape]

Aura isn't the card that slaughters Stax. Karmic Justice is. With Stax, Pox, Rifter, and Train Wreck rampant in my metagame, Karmic Justice is a godsend.

Also, Eternal Dragon? Why on earth?

[Seraph2k]

In the stax game, i never found the justice! So it was a lot of misfortune.

The lonely eternal is soooo amazing! Normally it cycles for the missing taiga, plateau or scrubland with black splash.
In addition the dragon is an amazing finisher. Many opponets side out the swords and other creature removel. Thats the reason why it finished 3 times at the tournament.

[DragoFireheart]

Has this deck ever gone up against a Kavu-Cure deck? It would more than likely roll over and die due to Cures main-decked mass enchantment removal.

[Tacosnape]

Has this deck ever gone up against a Kavu-Cure deck? It would more than likely roll over and die due to Cures main-decked mass enchantment removal.

Possibly. Fortunately, nobody seriously runs Kavu Cure.

As to how to counteract that, um. Null Chamber on Reverent Silence seems to be about the best thing I can think of.

[Faluzure]

Has this deck ever gone up against a Kavu-Cure deck? It would more than likely roll over and die due to Cures main-decked mass enchantment removal.

Kavu-Cure is really a fragile deck. Yes it can be explosive and can have good runs, but it's not consistent. As Tacosnape stated, nobody seriously runs it because of those reasons.

[Silverdragon]

I was the Stax player Seraph2k lost to and I totally disagree with his assumption that it is a bad matchup for Enchantress. In fact Enchantress was about the second worst matchup for me during testing even without Karmic Justice or Sacred Ground. I simply got lucky that day winning 2 matches against decks I'd never beat without a god draw + mulligans on their side.
I think if you really are concerned about the Stax matchup play Sacred Ground or, after Lorwyn, Gaddock Teeg from the board. They come down turn 2 and stop my Armageddons and Smokestacks. Basically I as a Stax player try to keep you low on mana because I have no way to deal with your Enchantments aside from Smokestack or boarded options. Even if you play Karmic Justice I can still plan ahead, play Armageddon, lose my board but rebuild before you get to 3 lands again. Aura of Silence is even weaker because I play a lot of mana so you have to kill me fast or I will eventually get enough stuff on the board, play Armageddon and win from there.
I hope this helps.
edit: just to clarify the above scenarios a exaggerated. I assumed that you didn't have any more relevant permanents except your hate and lands and I got the needed cards in a reasonable timeframe. I'll stress it again Stax is a good matchup for you :)

[Faluzure]

Stuff

Interesting. Thanks for your input as a Stax player. I'm assuming you play Armageddon-Stax right? As much as I would like to play Gaddok Teeg, I'm not sure he's usable in Enchantress. Just because of the fact that he's so easy to remove. Not to mention, ArmaStax uses Powder Kegs and/or Engineered Explosives. That's the easy way out for you guys.

lonelybaritone, since Stax in general is an established deck, what is your opinion on Silverdragon's comment of Sacred Ground being better than Karmic Justice/Aura of Silence vs Stax decks. Most of us have completely cut Sacred Ground from our MD/SB.

[Nihil Credo]

As a Stax player, I agree with Silverdragon that the strategy against Enchantress is to hit their mana - simply because Tabernacle and Ghostly Prison effects are useless, and hitting their permanents is difficult since they have lots of them, and with varied CMCs (meaning Keg/Explosives/Chalice is ineffective). Not to mention they can just Replenish all of them in play.

However, I disagree that the matchup is terrible for Stax. Enchantress decks have pretty minimal manabases, so aggressive Armageddons are very good for you, especially since Angels lets you win quickly even through Moat.
My boarding strategy is: -4 Ghostly Prison, -3 Magus of the Tabernacle, +1 Wasteland, +3 Disenchant, +3 Powder Keg.

[DragoFireheart]

Kavu-Cure is really a fragile deck. Yes it can be explosive and can have good runs, but it's not consistent. As Tacosnape stated, nobody seriously runs it because of those reasons.

Never mind the fact that:

-Bounce utterly screws up Kavu [Thanks for the free life!].

-Counterspells.

-Removal [I smother your 18/18, thanks for the free life].

-STP on a huge Kavu after a False Cure [OUCH!].

Kavu/Cure crushes most other aggro decks and some combo, but anything with a small amount of creature removal/disruption will kick the crap out of it.

[Tacosnape]

As a Stax player, I agree with Silverdragon that the strategy against Enchantress is to hit their mana - simply because Tabernacle and Ghostly Prison effects are useless, and hitting their permanents is difficult since they have lots of them, and with varied CMCs (meaning Keg/Explosives/Chalice is ineffective). Not to mention they can just Replenish all of them in play.

However, I disagree that the matchup is terrible for Stax. Enchantress decks have pretty minimal manabases, so aggressive Armageddons are very good for you, especially since Angels lets you win quickly even through Moat.


I agree with this. I'd say this is pretty close to an even matchup. Stax wins if it can hit Enchantress's mana quickly. (Chalice for 1, Trinisphere, and Geddon all do this nicely, as does Crucible/Wasteland to a lesser degree) Enchantress wins if it gets out Karmic Justice or if Stax can't slow the mana.

[Zach Tartell]

I don't want the whole world to think I don't care anymore - quite the contrary. I have some pretty good evidence (I started to take down notes on every match I play, even casual ones, with Enchantress) that debunks Enchantress' poor Stax match-up, though, to be fair, most of it was against Gardens. I plan on making a thoughtful, long post, and include a new list, rife with new SVG TEK from Lorwyn and the largely unplumbed bowels of my creative mind.

In short: Stay tuned, folks, for after my German test tomorrow (ending at 12:25 EST) I plan on making a post of such epic porportions that my team may end up changing their name to "The Enchantress Syndicate."

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

lonelybaritone, since Stax in general is an established deck, what is your opinion on Silverdragon's comment of Sacred Ground being better than Karmic Justice/Aura of Silence vs Stax decks. Most of us have completely cut Sacred Ground from our MD/SB.

Who cut Sacred Ground? That's crazy talk. Sacred Ground deals with the deck's biggest Achilles heel.

As Silverdragon said, it neuters Smokestack and Geddon effects, plus Wasteland if they play it.

Seriously, what does Justice do in this match-up that Sacred Ground doesn't?

[Faluzure]

Who cut Sacred Ground? That's crazy talk. Sacred Ground deals with the deck's biggest Achilles heel.

As Silverdragon said, it neuters Smokestack and Geddon effects, plus Wasteland if they play it.

Seriously, what does Justice do in this match-up that Sacred Ground doesn't?

Several decklists in this thread opted to not use Sacred Ground... even in SB. Particularly the ones with Blue splash don't have them and lonelybaritone's latest list doesn't have it either.

[Zach Tartell]

Ok, I’m going to paraphrase the quotes so that this post doesn’t reach rig-a-marole status. In order, from about the last time I addressed Enchantress:



-semi-creature removal enchantment style....
Lignify 1G
-bit of alt win, and cool replace for city... free biggins...
Eyes of the Wisent 1W
-great removal... for everything... just cool really....
Oblivion Ring 2W
-alt win 2... with all that draw... cooler than the pegasus win...
Hoofprint of the Stag 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Elemental

-Lignify: I wouldn’t wipe my ass with this. Doesn’t belong in Enchantress, there’s just way better removal out there.
-Eyes of the Wisent: Ridiculous name, maybe worth looking into. Makes me want to like… put moat into my board. Which is a terrible idea, because the list that I’ve been advocating is build to play control game one. Or, rather, the list that I’m working on. Anyway, Eyes seems pretty promising – it’s another sort-of-must-counter. Helps a lot against Thresh, and would make the control game a lot better. Blue-based control. I’ll pick up a couple, but don’t go pick up your foil signed Japanese copies right yet. City actually makes your spells resolve. Eyes gives you a beater that dies to EE real quick. One significant drawback is that it pumps ‘goyf. (Don’t you dare suggest adding ‘goyf to Enchantress)
-Oblivion Ring: I’m drooling. This is the new removal, coupled with an Abyss and Seal of Doom (I’m going to keep one main, and cut the one in the board. Seal is an instant speed answer, which can be necessary). Ob Ring is a HUGE card for Enchantress.
-Hoofprint: I’m against it. It opens you up to wrath effects, and is a second draw-based win condition. Like, Eyes might be a “hey, toss one in to see what it does.” But you’d be dropping Mesa for Hoofprint, and I just don’t see it being worth it. Maybe if you were staying within mono-Gw.


I really am looking foward to rings, because it is going to help the thresh MU without splashing black (i can't afford an abyss, i still run island sanctuary as my moat).

I’m not going to tell you to add more colors or drop more money on cards for a only-slightly competitive deck. But, in my opinion, I’d advocate Parallax Wave over island sanctuary. It has better synergy with Replenish. And gets rid of troublesome creatures. You’re okay to let a fanatic and two matrons through, if you slide out the piledriver. And, yes, I realize that goose beats might be tough on you, but getting rid of any goyfs is better. I’d love to tell you to go drop whatever on a moat, but I won’t. Test, and let me know what’s going down.


This is the Deck I played 2 weeks ago at a local tournament here in germany. The fist time enchantress went T8 in germany i think!

list

22 players tournament – 5 Rounds

Matches

You are not, to my knowledge, the first to Top 8 in Germany with Enchantress. There was a guy sometime during like 2006 who got like sixth with a heavy red list, that used the extra draw to draw into its 24 (ballpark) lands, then Seismic Assault his opponent out. I don’t recall if he ran WOW as his alternate win.

List:
-Squee? What’s up with that? I mean, looking back over my just-under-a-hundred games with Enchantress, I can’t think of more than thirty games that I would’ve won with him, and probably fifteen where I did draw him and win. It took me a lot of convincing, but between Adam “Nightmare” Barnello and Bryant “wastedlife” Cook finally got me to drop it. I’ve actually hard-casted him a couple times, and that’s pretty weak. Just play better cards, in my opinion. I don’t want to tell you your list sucks, but it seems kind of quirky.
-Dragon? Same thing – I can see him as a possible beater, and he justifies your inclusion of a Plateau (I envy your ability to cut enchantments for that twenty-first land), but I’d rather play a better win or something, myself. I guess you’ve got evidence that he works, though.
-One Hidden Gibbons in the board? Why not a playset? Or none? I asked Spatula about that, and he said that it’s really only worth it on turn one. Modifying your opponent’s play is pretty sweet, but Landstill has an ass-load of options to deal with a vanilla 4/4.

Matches:
-Round 1: This is where Spiritual Focus and Sacred Ground are hot tech. I haven’t played them because a relative lack of Armageddons, Poxs (Poxen?) Sink Holes, and Hymns. Try resolving an Enchantress effect and landing a Spreading Algae on a swamp. Not only does it hurt their mana, but it also comes back if they drop a dystopia or something. Also hot Spatula Tech.
-Round 2: Burn is freaking difficult for me. Having Squee makes it more playable, but I just couldn’t land an Enchantress effect while under Confinement to, y’know, keep Confinement.
-Round 3: Inexcusable. You run a 59-permenant deck with two sorceries that return every relevant card in your ‘yard to play. Even without sacred ground you should be able to beat prison decks. Against decks without a clock you have so many options; Sylvan Library makes it easy to fill your hand before they actually find and beat with a factory.
-Round 4: Thresh is a good match-up, generally. Two moats makes it even better.
-Round 5: I’m really unfamiliar with AyBaseruption. From my understanding, it’s like fish, but with Finkles. Right? Sounds like you should have a pretty decent match-up. Y’know, on account of how Fish plays islands, and you, um, have choke?



Uh… I think the name says it all.
Karmic Justice only trades with things Destroyed, not Sacrificed. It’s a two-of in the board, but since it still doesn’t keep your shit out there, you need other stuff to keep your Enchantments alive. Justice beats ‘geddon, Pernicious Deed, and Wasteland. Justice twiddles its fingers to Pox and Smokestack.


Has this deck ever gone up against a Kavu-Cure deck? It would more than likely roll over and die due to Cures main-decked mass enchantment removal.

I find it difficult to address this with a straight face. I’m not trying to be glib, either. A deck that needs to hit a 4-of creature without haste, and relies on giving its opponent a shit-ton of life, then beating down, can give me a bad match-up all day. I’d expect this to be in the 0-x bracket at any actual (read: non-local) Legacy tournament. Slide has a better game against the rest of the meta.

In short, I won’t worry about match-ups with ridiculous decks. Anyone want Doug Lin (sp?) to write his next article about the Nourishing Lich-Turbo Obliterate match? Don’t worry about obscure decks, and how they do against other, only slightly less obscure decks. Go win a Dual Land Draft with Kavu Cure, and then I’ll write a primer about its match against Enchantress.


Enchantress/Stax Match
Unless you’re running Braids Stax, Stax shouldn’t be a big deal for Enchantress. I’ll agree that a first, second, or (dare I say) even third turn Trinisphere is pretty nasty for Enchantress. ‘Specially if the Stax player is on the play. But it certainly isn’t a bad match. I’d ball park it at about, uh… 50-50, depending on the skill of both players, and draws involved. I know that the Eternal Garden match is almost a joke – though they play both the dreaded 3sphere and Smokestack, Colin (he’s my only opponent on whom I have evidence) always just gets bad draws and usually scoops to Leyline (pre-board).



I don’t have a list I want to show off right now – I’m working on a post Lorwyn disaster that’s five-color, with a 63 card deck and an 18 card board. Maybe a 19 card board. I’ve sort of lost track. Blue just offers such good answers to control. And white’s necessary, because, it is. Green’s a given, and Black is there for removal. And Red’s the “I win when I resolve Words of War” color. So, five colors it is. I’ll get back to you folks when I have some actual testing done.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

One Hidden Gibbons in the board? Why not a playset? Or none? I asked Spatula about that, and he said that it’s really only worth it on turn one. Modifying your opponent’s play is pretty sweet, but Landstill has an ass-load of options to deal with a vanilla 4/4.


I said it's only useful turn 1(on the play, really).

It's still not worth it. Especially in the age of Goyf. Why do they care about a 4/4 that can be played around?

[strom]

Round 2: Burn is freaking difficult for me. Having Squee makes it more playable, but I just couldn’t land an Enchantress effect while under Confinement to, y’know, keep Confinement

That is true, but you can fix the Burn matchup by adding this little gem:
http://magiccards.info/od/en/1.html

[Tacosnape]

Or you could just run Circle of Protection: Red. Imagine that.

LB: Blue splash seems interesting. I'm curious as to which control answers you're running, though. I can't help but think that Mystic Remora (Why does nobody run that card anymore?) might be godly in the right matchups, especially due to insane synergy with Replenish, but I've mostly felt like by running the extra two Replenishes in board that I get a semi-decent control match.

[Zach Tartell]

Remora sounds like an amazing Card, and I weep that it wasn't printed in Korean (My newest favorite among asian languages). I'll pick up a playset from starcity or something, and test if out. I don't like how it could make you fetch out a blue source if that's your only hope. Also, it's freaking irritating to try and cut cards from my newest list.

Aligas (sp?) of Honor seems really tempting at first, but then you realize it's just an over-costed, less-effective Honorable Passage. And that has a way cooler picture, too. The burn match-up isn't scary enough to board a completely narrow hate card; Just don't lose your first match, and your second match, and you should probably be good. I'm thinking about Chill, right now, and COP:Red (or even green, as a 1-of) is an interesting option for a sideboard. Helps both the goblins match (which has become problematic as I play more and more to beat control) and the burn match (which is terrible).

[Tacosnape]

Has anyone tried out Wild Research? It seems like it might have some interesting potential for abuse, and has ridiculous synergy with Replenish.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I think the burn match-up is bad for you because you've made your curve too high. This makes the deck's main plan (Confinement) a lot slower.

CoP Red and Aegis are probably inferior to cards that don't require constant mana. Warmth and Chill spring to mind. Energy Storm might be ok; and it combos with Moat!



...It's ok that you had to look up Energy Storm. Everyone does.

Also, yeah. Remora is solid if you're running fairly heavy blue. The ability to side it in against both blue and black based disruption, plus random stuff like Stax or Life from thee Loam.

[Tacosnape]

Warmth is a fantastic idea for burn, actually. I always forget that card exists.

I don't think I'm a huge fan of Energy Storm (Yes, I did have to look that up, sigh) due to the cumulative upkeep when this deck's already mana hungry in its first five turns or so, and that's when you need the burn defense online.

If we're running a lot of silver bullet cards in the 2 CMC range, is it worth investigating the possibility of one or two Enlightened Tutors in board in order to increase chances of snagging said card?

[Happy Gilmore]

What is the current list for the deck? I've heard alot of references to individual "lists" but nothing definite since the Fuds Tournament. All I can say is that in the current meta there is no reason not to run 4x Ground Seal and 4x Elephant Grass.

[Zach Tartell]

what is the current list for the deck? I've heard alot of references to individual "lists". In the current meta there is no reason not to run 4xGround Seal and 4xGrass. I can't suggest much else at this point.

Well, there's 20 land, which may or may not include sanctums. And 8 Enchantress effects. And maybe one or two Solitary Confinements. Maybe comething other than E-Grass to slow down creatures.

Then there's usually a win condition or two, and maybe something to bullet your opponent from winning, or from stopping you from winning.

Oh, and two replenishes.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If we're running a lot of silver bullet cards in the 2 CMC range, is it worth investigating the possibility of one or two Enlightened Tutors in board in order to increase chances of snagging said card?

I think I advocated that idea a few pages back of this thread. I ran it at the Fudd's NoVa tournament, and was very happy with its effectiveness, even if I personally played poorly.

I ran 2 in the SB, but 3 might be optimal. With targets like Spiritual Focus, Chill, Sacred Ground, Seal of Primordium, Ground Seal, Warmth, Chalice of the Void, Choke, Lifeforce, etc.

The strength of E. Tutor is in match-ups where you're forced to play the control role. The silver bullet strategy is bad in the MD because it slows down the deck's aggressiveness. But as a SB strategy where you know you're playing the control, it's very effective.

[calosso]

I am to lazy to look through the wntire thread so I am just gonna suggest it here. Has anyone tested Oblivion Ring? The card is a vindicate, and it is an enchantment. I dunno if it's any good but I am just putting it out there.



Sry for bad tying in school and in a hurry.

[Happy Gilmore]

Well, there's 20 land, which may or may not include sanctums. And 8 Enchantress effects. And maybe one or two Solitary Confinements. Maybe comething other than E-Grass to slow down creatures.

Then there's usually a win condition or two, and maybe something to bullet your opponent from winning, or from stopping you from winning.

Oh, and two replenishes.

Thanks for nothing, I'm fairly sure I knew all of that. And there should be atleast 3 confimenment. I guess I'll check back when there is an actual list to view.

[Zach Tartell]

Thanks for nothing, I'm fairly sure I knew all of that. And there should be atleast 3 confimenment. I guess I'll check back when there is an actual list to view.

Be patient, Grasshopper. A little bird told me that my newest list might be mentioned in a SCG article on this Thursday, or next. I'm not sure, but word on the street was that it was submitted today. Maybe.

[Faluzure]

Hmm... I'm having a problem against a certain player. I'm running a WGr Enchantress and my opponent is running UB Control. We're about to have a local tournament and he beats me to the punch every time I play my Enchantress.

His combo relies on Brine Elemental (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=118895) and Vesuvan Shapeshifter (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=109765). It may not seem like a lot but he is backing himself up with lots of counterspells and the fact that Brine Elemental's "Face-Up" ability does not target gets him past my Solitary Confinement.

I do have City of Solitude in my sideboard, which stops him from countering me but I have no way of removing those card combos once he lays them down. I thought Choke would help, considering those two creatures are Island heavy but he runs almost an entire deck of non-basic dual-color-capable lands. The only thing I could think of to add to this deck was Back to Basics, but that of course requires me to splash Blue.

Any suggestions? The Abyss is not an option considering it is quite expensive. The closest thing I could think of was City of Solitude -> Parallax Wave to get those creatures out of the game long enough for me to bust his face. It really bothers me that such a non-competitive combo is able to shut me down relatively quick.

[ClearSkies]

Humility seems like a good idea. It doesn't affect Enchantress that much compared to creature-based decks.

[Skullclamping]

Just kill the morphed creatures with Words of War and everything should be OK. If you have problems finding it, add some Enlightened Tutors in side.

[Zach Tartell]

Just kill the morphed creatures with Words of War and everything should be OK. If you have problems finding it, add some Enlightened Tutors in side.

I'm pretty sure that it'd be tough to just WOW a creature. Are you running black? Seal of Doom is a dandy answer, and so is The Abyss, if you're less budget-concious. If you're just doing the old Gwr list, Seal of Fire PWNs morphed creatures pretty hard.

Also, you're right - this combo seems so fragile that I'd just wait a week or two (I reckon you're playing at locals, I can't see how this would be even a little competitive), and let it get hated-out.

[strom]

Well, wizards gave us Oblivion Ring which will help you to stop/delay your opponents combo, too.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Faluzure -

Um. Humility if you see a lot of Aluren or other creature based combo, or Carpet of Flowers if you see a lot of blue.

[Faluzure]

Faluzure -

Um. Humility if you see a lot of Aluren or other creature based combo, or Carpet of Flowers if you see a lot of blue.

Nice nice. I didn't even know Carpet of Flowers existed.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Carpet of Flowers - Serene Rebecca Guay art for those days when you just wish Stasis players would fucking die.

Seriously though, beyond its Stasis-smashing skills, it's not that great. It's ok, but Choke and Multani's Presence and Replenish all do it better. It's a fairly narrow hoser.

[slobad23]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14837.html

For Discussion:

EPIC 5C Enchantress — Zach Tartell

1 Taiga
2 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
5 Forest
2 Bayou
4 Windswept Heath
1 Tropical Island
3 Savannah

4 Argothian Enchantress

1 Moat
2 Ground Seal
4 Sterling Grove
1 Seal of Doom
2 Replenish
1 City of Solitude
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Aura of Silence
1 Words of War
1 Sacred Mesa
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Exploration
2 Sylvan Library
1 The Abyss
4 Elephant Grass

Sideboard
2 Karmic Justice
2 Choke
2 Chill
1 In the Eye of Chaos
4 Leyline of the Void
1 City of Solitude
1 Humility
1 Dovescape
1 Aura of Silence

(I will comment a little more later on when i am less tired/more awake and have something worth while to say)

[Zach Tartell]

That's a fine looking list. I'll bet the guy who put that together gets laid like all the time, and is wicked rich.

I'll play in a local tomorrow and the EPIC DLD on sunday, and write a report about.... wednesday. Don't hold your breath.

[GreenOne]

I'll play in a local tomorrow and the EPIC DLD on sunday, and write a report about.... wednesday. Don't hold your breath.

It'w wednesday, and I'm holding my breath.

However, I thought about a 3 color list, with a much more stable manabase (wasteland is rarely a problem) and oblivion ring MD in place of the creature control the Black splash offers. However, Oblivion Ring is sort of creature control too.
I put some Wild Growths MD because I felt the need of some more mana (raised the 3cc count). I cut down 1 Exploration because with only 20 lands you only want it when the engine is going.

// Lands
2 [6E] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [B] Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
7 [8E] Forest (3)
1 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
3 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
2 [OD] Ground Seal
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
1 [ON] Words of War
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [AT] Sacred Mesa
1 [LG] Moat
2 [UD] Replenish
2 [IA] Wild Growth

Side:
SB: 2 [OD] Ground Seal
SB: 3 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 1 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [MM] Spiritual Focus
SB: 2 [8E] Choke
SB: 2 [MR] Rule of Law
SB: 3 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [DIS] Dovescape


Oblivion Ring which will help you to stop/delay your opponents combo
Oblivion Ring proved to be awful vs storm combo and ichorid. It's quite bad vs belcher and quite good vs Breakfast.

I'm really missing the Leylines, so I put 2 more Ground Seal in side for ichorid and breakfast. However, ground seal sucks in other matchups.
I found some space in SB for some more thresh/control hate.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Right now I've been tinkering with a MD that's pretty traditional;

8x Enchantresses
8x Exploration/Sprawl(although I have mulled -1 Exploration and + 1 Wild Growth for the reasons GreenOne has stated...still mulling)
4x Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Sterling Grove
2x Replenish
3x Solitary Confinement
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Aura of Silence
1x Moat
1x Choke

I'm working with 22 mana sources right now. The options, as I see it are either

A)19-20 lands with 2-3 ESG/Petal/Chrome Mox, or
B)22 lands

If the latter, the 4/4 Exploratio/Sprawl split seems best, since it allows Exploration to function as acceleration more reliably. If the former, 3 Exploration probably makes more sense.

My SB is less conventional;

4x Enlightened Tutor
1x Chill
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Spiritual Focus
1x Suppression Field
1x Lifeforce
1x Titania's Song
1x Choke
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
1x Aura of Silence

The plan is that you all ready do a pretty good number on aggro, control, and aggro-control maindeck. So the SB is set up to deal with a specific overlap of bad match-ups. Some of the Outs are iffy, so take those with a grain of salt.

TES:
In; 4x E Tutor, Lifeforce, Chalice of the Void, Titania's Song, (Chill?), (Spiritual Focus?)
Out; Moat, Choke, Sacred Mesa, Exploration, 2x Ground Seal, Replenish.

IGGy Pop:
In; 4x E. Tutor, Spiritual Focus, Choke, Chalice of the Void
Out; Moat, 4x Elephant Grass, Exploration, Sacred Mesa

CRET Belcher:
In; 4x E. Tutor, Chill, Chalice of the Void, Titania's Song
Out; Moat, Choke, Sacred Mesa, Exploration, 3x Ground Seal

Aluren:
In; 4x E. Tutor, Seal of Primordium, Aura of Silence, Suppression Field, (Chill - if Recruiter Aluren)
Out; Moat, Words of War, 4x Elephant Grass, Exploration

Cephalid Breakfast:
In; Choke
Out; Solitary Confinement

Landstill:
In; (Titania's Song - if sweeper is EE), (Lifeforce - if sweeper is Deed), Karmic Justice, Choke, Aura of Silence, Seal of Primordium
Out; 2x Elephant Grass, 2x Exploration, Solitary Confinement, Utopia Sprawl

Life from the Loam:
In; Karmic Justice, Chalice of the Void, Chill, Sacred Ground
Out; Moat, Choke, Aura of Silence, Utopia Sprawl

Survival w/ Burning Wish;
In; Karmic Justice, Suppression Field, Chill, Seal of Primordium
Out; Choke, Aura of Silence, Exploration, Solitary Confinement

[honz]

I have been running 3 color, 20 land for a little while now, and found 4 explorations way to many. I have long since dropped 1 for a MD choke.

I really think 3 ground seals is the right number as well. The draw is amazing almost all the time, especially when under 1 or 0 enchantress effects. The fact that is shuts down dread return, and loam is just another reason it is amazing.

I have always loved my 1 SB titania's song. I have run into janky-countertop way too much to ever let it go. I noticed a supression field in spatula's board, and i have always considered trying it out. How has it been working out for you?

In regards to oblivion rings, i think 2 is the right number, and im not sure if i would put any in the SB. I think i would go -1 seal of primordium, -1 ground seal (atm i run 4). I can't imagine when you would need them coming out of the SB, or even more MD.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

To be honest I haven't had enough actual testing with Titania's Song to give a solid read on it. Right now it, Suppression Field and Lifeforce are experimental slots. The main part of the SB strategy is to have multiple over-lapping answers to your problems. Suppression Field can be brought in against Survival, or Aluren, or Landstill, or random combo decks. Breakfast if you need it.

I'm really not sold on Oblivion Ring. How often do you actually find yourself hitting artifacts or enchantments with it? How often does it really effect the game?

It seems like it's a card that tries to play a one-for-one game. That's a game Enchantress isn't very good at. We run too much fluff to try to trade situationally. We need more ways of gaining strategic advantage(Confinement, Moat, Replenish, the Engine, etc.), not card parity.

[GreenOne]

I'm really not sold on Oblivion Ring. How often do you actually find yourself hitting artifacts or enchantments with it? How often does it really effect the game?

It seems like it's a card that tries to play a one-for-one game. That's a game Enchantress isn't very good at. We run too much fluff to try to trade situationally. We need more ways of gaining strategic advantage(Confinement, Moat, Replenish, the Engine, etc.), not card parity.

It just buys you time, and if there are enchantresses in play, that's card advantage.
It really affect the game: Meddling Mage, Dark Confidant, Specter, Breakfast critters (if you have no ground seal), Rector, Yosei and Goyf in a little way, are somewhat a problem for the deck.

Oh it's also an answer for CB maindeck.

Seal of Primordium / Aura of silence are narrow answers (the first expecially) as they are dead against a great number of decks G1.

Oblivion Ring buys time, acts as protection of the combo and against opposing threats, is almost never dead and relies less than Aura of Silence on white mana.
The real thing i think we have to discuss is it's 3cc, that's a bit narrow to run 4. At the moment I'm running 3. The other thing is that is not that good vs Pernicious Deed, as their RFG threat comes back, but how many decks are playing this and can reach 6 mana to play and sac in their turn? Not a lot.

[Zach Tartell]

Oh it's also an answer for CB maindeck.

What? Kindly explain this.

The real thing i think we have to discuss is it's 3cc, that's a bit narrow to run 4. At the moment I'm running 3. The other thing is that is not that good vs Pernicious Deed, as their RFG threat comes back, but how many decks are playing this and can reach 6 mana to play and sac in their turn? Not a lot.

Landstill can, eaisily. Which is why I like aura better. It also slows down EE, since they need to fix their mana before they can cast it at 1, for instance.

Can you post a list?

(Brief tourney report - 3-2 at the local, got one of the 5-8 spots in the top 8, lost to belcher in the top 8 (took game two), went 4-2 at the EPIC event, would've made top 8 if Matt and Tariq drew. Screw tie breakers)

[GreenOne]

What? Kindly explain this.


Counterbalance MD is usually played by some thresh players. Thresh doesn't have cards on the 3cc slot, so they can probably counter Seal of Prmordium, but not Ring.
Baseruption has few 3CC slot (finkel and shackles) and a clogged 2CC slot, so it's easier to pass through the counterbalance wall.



Landstill can, eaisily. Which is why I like aura better. It also slows down EE, since they need to fix their mana before they can cast it at 1, for instance.

Can you post a list?


D'oh! never played against BHWC Landstill: in my meta is not present. The only decks that play Deed here are Truffle Shuffle and BG or BGw aggro-control.

Here's my list atm, I'm testing Chrome Mox:

// Lands
2 [6E] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [B] Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
7 [8E] Forest (3)
1 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
3 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
2 [OD] Ground Seal
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
1 [ON] Words of War
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [AT] Sacred Mesa
1 [LG] Moat
2 [UD] Replenish
1 [IA] Wild Growth
2 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [OD] Ground Seal
SB: 3 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 1 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 [MM] Spiritual Focus
SB: 2-3 [8E] Choke
SB: 3 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [DIS] Dovescape
SB: 1-2 [WL] Aura of Silence

[Hoojo]

Right now I've been tinkering with a MD that's pretty traditional;

8x Enchantresses
8x Exploration/Sprawl(although I have mulled -1 Exploration and + 1 Wild Growth for the reasons GreenOne has stated...still mulling)
4x Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Sterling Grove
2x Replenish
3x Solitary Confinement
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Aura of Silence
1x Moat
1x Choke

I like your focused maindeck, but I'm curious why you're not running at least one Sylvan Library?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If we accept that the role of Library is to supplement the draw engine:

Against aggro; they don't have an answer to your Enchantresses, and you can't keep a hand where Library is your only draw(against an unknown or aggro deck). So Library is pointless.

Against aggro-control; in the age of Goyf, the pay 4 life is almost never an option, so it's basically a delayed Brainstorm sans the card parity. Sterling Grove is basically strictly better in this situation, since it gets you what you're really after. A real threat is also better in this situation. Ground Seal is better when a single Enchantress has all ready resolved.

Against combo, it doesn't really do much unless you can go turn 1 Library into 8 life for 3 cards. That doesn't come up enough to really make it worthwhile, and the 8 life matters more against Tendrils than it did against Dragon.

Library is good against control like Landstill and Life from the Loam, but Ground Seal is better against the latter, and the former isn't prevalent enough to make Library better than the other options.

Counter-argument; Library combos with Words of Whatever.

Response; I only run Words of War. That and Library is very rarely going to be a fast enough clock to make up for the rarity with which you see it. If I was running Wind or Wilding, it might be different.

That's my current take on Library. The same pretty much applies to Guile.

[Zach Tartell]

@ GreenOne: you're absolutely correct; I read that as "Cephalid Breakfast" instead of "counterbalance." My mistake, it's an excellent out.

Your list, however, is kind of puzzling. I think that 3 Ob rings might be a few too many. I might play one main'd.

Also, Spatula may have just convinced me to drop my Libraries for Ground Seals. Maybe...

[Tacosnape]

I also like Ground Seal over Library. In fact, I can't stand Library maindeck at all. Like Sensei's Divining Top, I find them to only be useful if you're shuffling your library every turn. I'd rather run an Enchantment that gets me my card immediately and actually does something. Like, you know, shut off Dread Return and Life From The Loam.

[Hoojo]

I understand your reasoning. Maybe I'm not playing correctly, but I found Words of War to be so furgin' slow without Sylvan Library, as unless I have a fistful of enchantments when I play it, I usually putter out and take a few turns to finish off the opponent, especially if I have Solitary Confinement out for any period of time. With Sylvan Library and Sterling Grove, I can pull the combo off quickly and kill my opponent much faster. Is there a piece or synergy I'm missing that would allow a faster kill, or at this point do you just fetch Sacred Mesa and go for a two prong attack?

[GreenOne]

Your list, however, is kind of puzzling. I think that 3 Ob rings might be a few too many. I might play one main'd.

Also, Spatula may have just convinced me to drop my Libraries for Ground Seals. Maybe...

I tested Library and Mirri for a while and I found them horrible too, I'm not that sold on too many ground seals. Seals are a strong meta choice however, so probably your meta deserves it. I found 2 enough.

Ob Ring are there as Seal of Doom + Seal of Primordium.
It's good vs Aggro (goblin, Faerie stompy, zoo), Aggro-control (thresh and pikula), Survival, Breakfast. It's rarely really dead in many matchups, where Seal of primordium and Seal of Doom are.

[Xero]

How good is Dovescape? I know that that the effect can be game endind, but it's 6 mana. What match-ups do you bring it in against besides Landstill?

[Zach Tartell]

How good is Dovescape? I know that that the effect can be game endind, but it's 6 mana. What match-ups do you bring it in against besides Landstill?

Combo. Aaginst combo I almost wish I had Titania's song, though. That shit's mad awesome against their mana, though yuo need a pretty amazing hand to drop it turn 2.

In the one game where I resolved Dovescape against Belcher, I smashed face. In the two games where I resolve it against landstill, I just bury them with card advantavge (Argothians don't get countered) and B/W white birds. That's really all I bring it in against.

[honz]

I have found library entirely underwhelming as well. I have never drawn words and library early enough to make it worth my while, and almost never had a time where sacing 4 life for a card was worth it (stax?). I have been running guile for a while now, mainly because of its cc. It allows you to keep 1-land hands with guile. It also comes down turn 1 against control, before their counters come online (nobody forces a guile). Although, with only 5 fetches, and 4 groves for shuffle effects, you feel like your missing out on some potential...

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I understand your reasoning. Maybe I'm not playing correctly, but I found Words of War to be so furgin' slow without Sylvan Library, as unless I have a fistful of enchantments when I play it, I usually putter out and take a few turns to finish off the opponent, especially if I have Solitary Confinement out for any period of time. With Sylvan Library and Sterling Grove, I can pull the combo off quickly and kill my opponent much faster. Is there a piece or synergy I'm missing that would allow a faster kill, or at this point do you just fetch Sacred Mesa and go for a two prong attack?

I'm not sure I understand the situation you're describing. Words of War is pretty much crap without an Enchantress out, Library or no. Sacred Mesa is usually good on its own, but as the main kill its kind of slow.


I have found library entirely underwhelming as well. I have never drawn words and library early enough to make it worth my while, and almost never had a time where sacing 4 life for a card was worth it (stax?). I have been running guile for a while now, mainly because of its cc. It allows you to keep 1-land hands with guile. It also comes down turn 1 against control, before their counters come online (nobody forces a guile). Although, with only 5 fetches, and 4 groves for shuffle effects, you feel like your missing out on some potential...

The basic arguments apply to Guile as well. Basically, Library and Guile do their job(supplement the draw engine when it gets answered) poorly. Sterling Grove and Moat/Replenish/Choke/City of Solitude do something similiar, but more effectively. Ground Seal does a different job(speed up the draw engine, shut down random decks), but it does it very well.

[Hoojo]

I'm not sure I understand the situation you're describing. Words of War is pretty much crap without an Enchantress out, Library or no. Sacred Mesa is usually good on its own, but as the main kill its kind of slow.

My situation with Words of War is not having enough enchantments in hand to cast and produce enough draws to kill the opponent, particularly when I had a Solitary Confinement in play for a few turns before. Sylvan Library provided a way to refill my hand and/or use extra draws to kill the opponent faster. I'm worried that without Sylvan Library, the Words of War kill will be too slow, and it might as well not be in the deck, as it requires a lot of setup to have a reliable draw engine to kill with.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

My situation with Words of War is not having enough enchantments in hand to cast and produce enough draws to kill the opponent, particularly when I had a Solitary Confinement in play for a few turns before. Sylvan Library provided a way to refill my hand and/or use extra draws to kill the opponent faster. I'm worried that without Sylvan Library, the Words of War kill will be too slow, and it might as well not be in the deck, as it requires a lot of setup to have a reliable draw engine to kill with.

I think that's just exacerbating an all ready existing problem. Words of War is really only a formality in a winning situation, but I think it's necessary.

My take on the deck's win conditions;

Words of War; for when everything goes pretty much to plan, or you get your engine on line, at any rate, it's a one-turn kill. It's not that useful on its own, and even with Sylvan Library its only marginally useful, but I'd rather be able to kill immediately because of a)time limits, and b)board sweepers.

Sacred Mesa; for a kill condition that can go all the way on its own.

If there were a kill condition that could be relevant on its own and still kill immediately, I'd be behind it, but the closest is Stormbind, and the cost seems prohibitive.

[mnellsae]

My situation with Words of War is not having enough enchantments in hand to cast and produce enough draws to kill the opponent, particularly when I had a Solitary Confinement in play for a few turns before. Sylvan Library provided a way to refill my hand and/or use extra draws to kill the opponent faster. I'm worried that without Sylvan Library, the Words of War kill will be too slow, and it might as well not be in the deck, as it requires a lot of setup to have a reliable draw engine to kill with.

I know it's not entirely what you're saying, but for what it's worth, when you're under Solitary Confinement, the Library is even more of a dead draw than Ground Seal.

I love this deck, btw.

[ClearSkies]

Just wondering, just how good (or bad) is Dovescape out of a Sideboard or MD? Once it is out, are there even answers to it? Can it actually backfire on you?

[GreenOne]

Just wondering, just how good (or bad) is Dovescape out of a Sideboard or MD?
It's good if you manage to getit out. 6 mana is a lot for the matchups where you want it (mostly combo).



Once it is out, are there even answers to it?

Yeah, all sort of critters that can bounce or destroy it (Venser, Harmonic Sliver, Nantuko Vigilante...). However, nobody plays those excluding Survival and maybe slivers.
Oh, there's Temporal Fissure too!



Can it actually backfire on you?


As long as you have an enchantress effect out no.
If you have Elephant Grass or Confinament going it's a NO with capital letters.

[crazyroundman]

Hey, I'm a long time reader, first time writer.

I was wondering why more people don't play Enchantress right now. It seems to me that it's an excellent Meta choice right now. Seriously, let's look at the Legacy Metagame Forum, and compare match-ups:
-Breakfast: Leyline + Elephant grass + ground seal = GG nub
-43 land/Lands! - I must admit I'm pretty poorly versed in this match. I can imagine that playing 8 basics helps against waste locks, and that null chamber on Life From the Loam is an excellent choice.
-Landstill - Remember Replenish? I'd think that with city of solitudes, two or three different wins (depending if you're running dovescape), and Replenish, you'd have at least a fair game. Karmic Justice also helps, I'd imagine.
-Thresh Variants - Choke? I can see white giving problems, on account of mages can fuck you over pretty hard, but running black (who can afford an abyss, though) or even just fucking seal of fires should seal (lol) that deal.
-Aluren - They ahve deed, but you have comfinement and grove lock. Also, humility if you're main boarding it.
-Fish - See gro, only they dont' have Tarmogoyf. Walk in the park.
-LFTL decks - Jesus, did nobody honestly post in that in more than a month and a half?

Seems pretty good to me. And with Chrome mox or ESG you can get an early chill (with blue) or ROL to help out against belcher/TES.

I just love playing enchantress because it draws you so many freaking cards.

[honz]

Loam is a joke. Ground seal shuts off loam itself, with oblivion ring / aura to cut off exploration/manabond. Leylines take their graveyard away. Grass + activation cost is enough to keep them down to 1-2 manlands a turn. Their only chance is topdecking manabond and 3-4 ports.

Thresh has been my biggest problem. Rings help, but i think you really need black for a possative MU. Since i dont own an abyss, i havent had the need to run black. It is still pretty close, depending how fast they find a goyf.

This deck has great MUs, and i dont see why more people dont play it either. Fast combo is the only issue, and even that isnt a huge deal.

EDIT: On second though, i know exactly why more people don't play this deck. Mainly, because the deck is made up entirely (aside from lands) of cards that arn't played in any other decent deck. There are only 6 cards that ever see play in any other deck: 3 conifnements, 2 replenish, and 1 moat.

So, buying this deck allows you to only play this deck. If you were to buy something like thresh, all those cards are played in numerous other decks, allowing you to invest in multiple decks at once.

[GreenOne]

I wonder what version is people playing right now.

I'm playing GWr, with 3 Oblivion Rings maindeck and red only for WoW. This allows me to play with 9 basics. I play with a couple Chromes too. The only thing I miss about Black is Leyline. The Abyss is not that gamebreaking for its cost (let untargettable creatures survive), seal of doom seems to me like Oblivion Ring's poor brother.
I usually board 2 Choke and 4 City of Solitude vs thresh and the game becomes quite one-sided: too many threats in the deck to counter (8 Enchantress, 4 City, 2 Choke, 1 Moat and maybe oblivion ring too).
Vs lands and Loam I have 3 Ground Seals (1 more in SB) and 1 sacred Ground in SB. I also have plenty of basics.

Black based Aggro-Control is slightly unfavorable. I board 1 Sacred Ground and 1 Spiritual Focus, but that doesn't change much the results (they can board Plagues, Etirpates, Disenchant, Dystopia...)
My combo matchup (excluding Breakfast) is pretty poor, is ther a way to improve it without adding other colors? SB Orim's chant?

What about you all? What colors are you playing?

[HdH_Cthulhu]

It is a little bit oldschool but in my SB are 3 Compost! Thats because in my meta there are a lot of POX, sucide usw...
Compost is a realy good card against such decks!
I also play wramth against BURN decks and i am quit happy with it...
I couldnt think of a better card aginst burn, and whene you have 2 on the board it is gg

[slyfer]

I really have problems with BW pikula.... you go land utopia, he go land ritual duress sinkhole, then wasteland, then vindicate.... damn, i couldn't do anything :cry:

If I am unlucky and draw the duals, it's over...

[ClearSkies]

I really have problems with BW pikula.... you go land utopia, he go land ritual duress sinkhole, then wasteland, then vindicate.... damn, i couldn't do anything :cry:

If I am unlucky and draw the duals, it's over...

You can always try Sacred Ground... and avoid fetching your dual lands.

[slyfer]

yes, but maindeck I don't play sacred ground, post side you can play 1 sacred ground and hope into grove (GW ench tutor).
Sometimes you just drop savana because it's in you hand, not for fetching it

by the way I like the finisher 1 sacred mesa 1 words of war and 2 replenish

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

You could always slow play your fetch-lands. I find the black-based match-up to be a bit rough in the beginning, but Elephant Grass often saves the day by stalling them long enough to get running again. Replenish is also potentially huge here.

If it's the LD that's causing you fits, you could run Sacred Ground, Karmic Justice, or Spreading Algae.

[Zach Tartell]

Try the Spreading Algae - not only does it hose Dystopia, but it helps draw cards if you can resolve a single effect. It doesn't really work at mana-denial unless you've got four or so in your board, but it's a great one- or two-of.

Jury's still out on Ob ring. I haven't played in a tournament with or without it (I ran gardens at the last local), but it seems to me like I'd only slide out Counterbalance (I have aura at 3, seal of Primordium at 2, and Replenish at 4 to deal with those) or a creature. And Seal of Doom is one hell of a lot better at dealing with creatures. Say what you will, but Instant speed > sorcery speed, even if it's only non-black. What's black that you're afraid of that you could deal with at sorcery speed? Not a Ghoul. A negator, maybe. But a hippy will just drown in my card advantage, and Bob can draw my opponent all the cards he'd like - I'll sit under confinement, thanks.

As for colors and wins, I'm running a 5 color manabase with WoWar, Sacred Mesa, and Dovescape (boarded for control and combo) for my wins. Blue is for chill and dovescape, red for WOWar, Black for THe Abyss and Seal of Doom (I'm wishy washy about wanting Leyline in teh Board or Planar Void in the main), white for the normal shit and green for the engine, accelleration, and Ground Seal.

[GreenOne]

And Seal of Doom is one hell of a lot better at dealing with creatures. Say what you will, but Instant speed > sorcery speed, even if it's only non-black. What's black that you're afraid of that you could deal with at sorcery speed? Not a Ghoul. A negator, maybe. But a hippy will just drown in my card advantage, and Bob can draw my opponent all the cards he'd like - I'll sit under confinement, thanks.


Vs black decks everything is going to be ok if you have your engine running. The problem comes if they disrupt your engine with discard (they have thoughtseize to discard argothins now), killing Argothians, LD. So confinament is not an option if you're not in a already winning position, a Hippie or a confidant is going to be some good if you don't have an enchantress effect out.

Say what you will, but useful card > dead card. There are decks with no/little creatures and a lot of decks with no/very few artifacts/enchantments. Oblivion Ring is rarely a dead card, but i can't say so of Aura of silence and seal of primordium.
Let's say it's G1 vs thresh with no maindeck counterbalance
Seal of doom is not really that better than Oblivion Ring, it just worsen your manabase if you're playing Vs a version with wasteland.
Seal of primordium / aura of silence are useless unless they run MD EE or Needle. Not much.
Vs Goblins you have to draw that Seal of primordium or Aura of silence when they draw a vial or they are really dead.
And the istant speed is taken out if you SB in City of Solitude.

[FredMaster]

Could one of you bring up a current list? :confused:

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Say what you will, but useful card > dead card. There are decks with no/little creatures and a lot of decks with no/very few artifacts/enchantments. Oblivion Ring is rarely a dead card, but i can't say so of Aura of silence and seal of primordium.

In a vacuum that's true. But compare Bandage to Swords to Plowshares. Bandage is never dead because it always cantrips, whereas StP is dead in many match-ups; Ichorid, Enchantress, storm-based combo. Yet people play StP over Bandage. Why?

A card that might be dead is worth running over a card that's never dead if the former wins more games than the latter. I'm not convinced that Oblivion Ring is really going to be winning me many games that Aua of Silence wouldn't. It can slide out a creature, but only one. If my engine isn't online, trading cards on a one-for-one basis isn't going to work.

[GreenOne]

In a vacuum that's true. But compare Bandage to Swords to Plowshares. Bandage is never dead because it always cantrips, whereas StP is dead in many match-ups; Ichorid, Enchantress, storm-based combo. Yet people play StP over Bandage. Why?


Bendage doesn't kill creatures, STP does. How can you compare those?
A better example would be Abeyance vs Orim's Chant, the discussion is close. Some prefer the first some the latter.

If you like to take similar cards then it's something like
Seal of primordium/aura of silence = disenchant
Seal of doom = dark banishing
Oblivion Ring = Vindicate that can't hit lands. We don't have a LD plan anyway.

Why is people playing MD vindicate but noone plays MD disenchant and dark banishing?
Because Vindicate does many things where the others are too specific.




A card that might be dead is worth running over a card that's never dead if the former wins more games than the latter.

That's right, but not easy to quantify.


I'm not convinced that Oblivion Ring is really going to be winning me many games that Aura of Silence wouldn't. It can slide out a creature, but only one. If my engine isn't online, trading cards on a one-for-one basis isn't going to work.

If your engine isn't running oblivion ring buys you time to draw into your engine/replenish/grove. That becomes easier if you're not taking 4-5 a turn from a Goyf.
In today's meta weenie decks (goblins, zoo) are on the fall. People is more and more trying to beat down with a little number of disruptive or powerful creatures. Taking down a creature may mean the opponent didn't drew other threats and you can just draw-go until you have the engine online.

Did any of you actually test a significant amount (2-3) Oblivion Rings or is this just speculation?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm not going to lie, I'm basing it on speculation and feedback I'm seeing from people testing it. I could be totally wrong, but the card's effect just doesn't impress me. Neither does Seal of Doom for that matter. It just seems like I could be running another Moat in that spot for 1 mana more.

[mnellsae]

I'm not going to lie, I'm basing it on speculation and feedback I'm seeing from people testing it. I could be totally wrong, but the card's effect just doesn't impress me. Neither does Seal of Doom for that matter. It just seems like I could be running another Moat in that spot for 1 mana more.

I don't think the entire point of Seal of Doom (or Oblivion Ring) is to stop attackers, which is the only thing moat does. It also serves to kill problematic utility creatures, like Mettling Mage or whatever.

As far as Oblivion Ring vs. Seal of Doom/Seal of Primordium: The ring is definately more vesitle, but it all depends on the amount of enchantment hate out there. That answer will only come from your meta and your testing, and inclusion of the Ring will be specific for said answer.

If there's no enchantment hate out there, use the Ring, it gets nearly everything. If there's always an answer for the Ring, use the Seals so that shit'll be gone forever.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

In which case it only kills two relevant guys I can think of; Dark Confidant and Meddling Mage. Neither sees that much play, and Elephant Grass tends to trump the strategies of decks that use the former.

So it answers 1 Mage, or 1 Enforcer, or 1 Confidant, but Moat answers an entire attacking army of Goyfs and Geese.

[mnellsae]

In which case it only kills two relevant guys I can think of; Dark Confidant and Meddling Mage. Neither sees that much play, and Elephant Grass tends to trump the strategies of decks that use the former.

So it answers 1 Mage, or 1 Enforcer, or 1 Confidant, but Moat answers an entire attacking army of Goyfs and Geese.

I'm not discounting the value of Moat, it's definately one of the top must-haves for this deck. I'm just saying it might not be the answer for everyone to replace Seal of Doom or Oblivion Ring with more Moats.

I agree about the Mage, I don't see it played so much lately (but if he's chanting Words of War or Sacred Mesa...). But nearly every deck I see playing black has Confidant. Maybe just my meta.

As for the other utility and flying creatures, there are plenty out there that you might find yourself needing answers for:

Kiki Jiki, en-Kor guys, Eternal Dragon, Raven Familiar, Cavern Harpy, Mother of Runes, Jotun Grunt, Wild Mongrel, Serra Avenger, et al.

I'm not trying to convince you to use the Seal or the Ring, choose what's right for you. I'm just putting out a PSA that Moat and Elephant Grass will not answer all your creature problems.

I'm just realizing that I hijacked the thread for an off-hand comment that probably wasn't meant too seriously, sorry :P

[Joon]

Has anybody an actual list with the b-splash? And are you guys cutting red for it or just splash black in addition? The main reasons for splashing black were (if I remember right :confused: ):

LotV
The Abyss
Seal of Doom

Did I forget anything?

[bigbear102]

The main reason that I can see for playing Seals over Ring is that you can play the Seals whenever you want to draw cards, whereas Ring has to sit and wait for a target. Sure, there will probably be a target for Ring whenever you play it, but it might not be the target you want to get rid of. You can drop the seals whenever just to get the engine going and they are still just as good, dropping Ring to get the engine going lessens its versatility greatly.

There is also the possibility that you are playing against Landstill or 43 Land and they have no permanents on board. At that point you are going to not want to play it because you would have to RFG one of your own cards. I know that situation won't come up a lot, but it could.

[GreenOne]

There is also the possibility that you are playing against Landstill or 43 Land and they have no permanents on board. At that point you are going to not want to play it because you would have to RFG one of your own cards. I know that situation won't come up a lot, but it could.

In my meta there's no landstill, so you're probably right here. Vs 43Lands they always have at lest a permanent: they almost never keep a hand without exploration or manabond.
When the opponent has no permanents in play I usually target a ground seal or confinament (if I have 2 in play of those) or target a Sterling Grove and sac it in response. If I have 2 sterling groves there's no legal target on my side.

[strom]

I played the deck today at our the monthly Legacy-tourney and went undeafeted going first.

I played vs BHWC Landstill 2-0
vs Rock with R Splash 2-0
vs Pox with G id
vs Angel Stompy 2-1

The deck is amazing - it even copes with pernicous Deed via Replenish and Karmic justice, which I played as a 1-of maindeck and another copy in the side. Justice won me some games -so did Replenish.

I also changed my sideboard shortly before and added 2 Pithing Needle (because I saw so many decks playing Deeds and Explosives) and they did well for me, too.

[dlevsApiJ]

And whats your build :)? Maybe I see something that looks good (i am new in playing Enchantres,, and i'm a n00b ;P)

I play 2 Mesa Enchantress/2 Verduran Enchantress for extra speed, my build looks more like a turn 3/4 combo enchantress :P.. Cutted the Elephant Grass (have seen some people playing him here, why?)

Mvg

[ClearSkies]

And whats your build :)? Maybe I see something that looks good (i am new in playing Enchantres,, and i'm a n00b ;P)

I play 2 Mesa Enchantress/2 Verduran Enchantress for extra speed, my build looks more like a turn 3/4 combo enchantress :P.. Cutted the Elephant Grass (have seen some people playing him here, why?)

Mvg

So total 12 Enchantress effects? Why? The problem with the other enchantress is that they cost double WW or just cost 3. Since they themselves arn't enchantments, you don't really benefit from it. It would seem like you are slowing yourself down though. If you want to speed up your deck, why not try cheap mana producing enchantments like Wild Growth?

Are you also running exploration?

Other the same note, is Eladamri's Vineyard a bad or good idea?

Like someone people mentioned above, ground seal is a good cantrip when you are lacking some enchantress effects.

Elephant Grass is to slow aggro decks down. Also it deals with Empty the Warrens or massive amount of Zombies from Ichroid. Besides, it is also an enchantment that cost only G.

[GreenOne]

The deck is amazing - it even copes with pernicous Deed via Replenish and Karmic justice, which I played as a 1-of maindeck and another copy in the side. Justice won me some games -so did Replenish.

I also changed my sideboard shortly before and added 2 Pithing Needle (because I saw so many decks playing Deeds and Explosives) and they did well for me, too.

Congrats on the finish! Great job! I'd like to play the deck as well, but at the moment there are no tournaments in sight.. :mad:
I don't know if Needles can be good. They're not much synergistic with the rest of the deck.
I thought of playing 1 MD Karmic Justice too, but i dismissed it because there are not loads of decks that can destroy many enchantments maindeck. In those cases, Replenish does the job.


And whats your build :)?
I play 2 Mesa Enchantress/2 Verduran Enchantress for extra speed, my build looks more like a turn 3/4 combo enchantress :P.. Cutted the Elephant Grass (have seen some people playing him here, why?)
More than 8 Enchantresses are not needed by the deck. They cost too much and are creature instead of enchantments. They are also open to critter removal.

Elephant Grass is cheap and quite effective in many of the matchups you'll encounter.
- Goblin is slowed A LOT, as it relies in attacking with hordes for the win.
- Threshold runs few lands, that usually means it can attack with just a creature and can't do many cantrips.
- Ichorid can't attack you with almost all of his dudes
- Breakfast can't attack you with his giant Ghoul
- Buys a lot of time against Black-based disruption decks.

My list at the moment is this:
// Lands
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [B] Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
1 [A] Taiga
7 [ON] Forest (1)
2 [MM] Plains (1)

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
3 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
3 [OD] Ground Seal
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
1 [ON] Words of War
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [AT] Sacred Mesa
1 [LG] Moat
2 [UD] Replenish
1 [IA] Wild Growth
2 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [OD] Ground Seal
SB: 4 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 1 [MM] Spiritual Focus (still not sure, maybe Compost)
SB: 2 [8E] Choke
SB: 3 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 2 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [7E] Sacred Ground
SB: 1 [TE] Warmth (still not sure, maybe Dovescape)

@Chrome Moxes: those are great if in the initial 7 or drawn in the first turn. Damn, landing an enchantress on turn 1 is unfair.They're quite good when you're "mid-combo" with like 10-12 cards in hand and you'll discard cards anyway at EOT. It helps keep going your combo. They somewhat help vs LD strategies. Unfortunately they're shit if drawn on the 2nd to 4th turn.

@1 Wild Growth: the deck is running too little lands to have 4 Explorations, but still needs 1 drops. Think about it as the 5th Utopia Sprawl.

@3 Oblivion Rings: They're good vs threshold as they take care of Goyfs and Counterbalances, nice vs Goblins as they can take a SGC when you've moat out or take an early vial/lackey, theyr'e nice vs Breakfast as they take out Vials and combo-creatures. They're good vs Black decks because they take care of opposing Hippies, Confidants, Engineered Plagues, Dystopias. IMO they're better than seal of primordium and Seal of doom. Aura of silence, however, does different things, as it's better in some matchups (Affinity, TES, Belcher, pernicious, EE) and almost useless in other ones (Goblin, Threshold with no MD CB or EE).

[strom]

My build:

// Lands
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
8 [UNH] Forest
1 [IA] Plains
3 [B] Savannah
2 [B] Taiga
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
4 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
1 [ON] Words of War
1 [MI] Sacred Mesa
2 [OD] Ground Seal
2 [5E] Sylvan Library
2 [UD] Replenish
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
1 [LOR] Oblivion Ring
1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
1 [LG] Moat
1 [OD] Karmic Justice

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
SB: 1 [OD] Aegis of Honor
SB: 2 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 3 [UD] Compost
SB: 1 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 2 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 3 [MR] Rule of Law
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle

The inclusion of needles was -like I said -meta decision. They are probably not needed in every meta.

I am also pretty happy with the 2/2 split on Library and Ground Seal.
Both cards have their advantages. Its always nice to have a library vs slow control like Landstill where losing 4-8 life to draw extra cards is not a problem. The Ground Seals helped me to shut off Life from the Loam and Eternal Witness during the tourney -so they served their purpose.

[honz]

I really see no reason to be running library over guile. The ability of guile to let you keep those 1-land hands, plus it comes down before it can be countered, just makes it so much better than library. You will almost never have library + words both in play in a timely enough manor to make it matter. With that said, i hear good things about mox / ESG in that spot.

If you want oblivion rings, the thing to cut is seal of primordium, not aura of silence. Aura serves a much different purpose: beating belcher, instant speed removal, crippling stax & 5/3 & affinity, destroying the mirror, and generally slowing any artifacts and enchantments. If nothing else, you can use it to nuke a ground seal in resp to replenish, and draw a card. Oblivion ring has a different role, it is mainly to answer big creatures beating through moat / grass (tombstalker, angels, goyfs, psychatogs, krosan tusker --yah, that happened to me...--). I think 1-2 is the right number, with groves to conjure them up if needed.

I have really liked the third replenish in the board. A lone humility in the board has also been amazing. For black decks, a single light of day has done the trick for me (as they often have no answer).

The problem with needles, they die too easy. One disenchant, EE, grip, or naturalize later, you have no permanents. The trick is, just use seal / ring / aura at the time it suits you best (when you have a replenish). Also, try to bait out the deed, often people will sac it to take out solitary, or a win-con.

[strom]

Guile can not draw extra cards -thats why you shouldnt play it.
And to be honest: I would never ever keep a one-land hand no matter if I had Guile in my opening hand or not.

Seal of Primordium vs Aura: This is a tough one - I have chosen seal over Aura because of its speed. In my testings I often found myself being to slow with so many enchantments with a cc of 3. The double-white can be bothering, too sometimes if you need it in the very early turns.

I have to admit that the effect of Aura is bigger but I dont think that it will "beat belcher".


I am still not sure if Paralax Wave would be better than moat. Need some more testing. Yesterday there where match-ups where the Wave would have been better. ..

[Zach Tartell]

I absolutely hate posting a deck list right after like three others, but I'm gonna share the secret, SVG TEK that the entire city of Syracuse gave to me yesterday:

Blood moon.

Stand baffled, or rage that you've come up with it before (you haven't posers), but I think it's pretty cool. Look at the reasoning (watch me use these buttons and tabs like a pro):

The Landstill match

Wasteland
They run only 4 basic land
Shuts down Man-Lands

Hoses Breakfast even more

Seriously - they run 1 basic land. The Hatfields don't run any.

4x Land match may or may not be difficult

Rishidan Port plays havoc with your only 2 white sources, and with Utopia Sprawled lands
Wasteland
Man-Lands
Direct damage lands

The Threshold match

They run 3 basic land, if they're lucky.
They can't fetch out their 2 or 3 basic land
I'd like to see them resolve a Meddling Mage or Enforcer (Dragon comes a little eaiser)

Shuts down Wasteland

I, uh, think I've covered this.
Making these lists is pretty fun
Did you know that Ludacris was in 2 Fast 2 Furious?



This, and, cutting the fifth color from the deck makes it pretty good. One less non-basic (actually, exactly the same amount of non-basics) is a step in the right direction. Maybe we could cut the second taiga for plains - I find that WW is tough to hit all too often. The only thing that sucks about basic plains is that it doesn't tap for :g:. That's infuriating.

Black is, in my experience, necessary. The Abyss is a HOUSE. And not one built by love, that's for sure. Elephant Grass or Confinement (or Moat) + The Abyss is amazing. It makes your opponent have to drop two creatures (or a hasty creature) in order to swing in. Or, I guess, a Mystic Enforcer. The instant speed removal of Seal of Doom way out shadows the coolness of Ob ring. The only two non-creature things I need to deal with are crucible (solved by Blood Moon)(That is, waste-lock is really like +1 Mountain lock) and Counterbalance. Counterbalance is a nuisance, I guess. I don't like my list (coming up next), on account of I tossed the Seal of Primordium into the board to accommodate the Blood Moon.

Here's my list, in no particular order:

// Lands
3 [A] Savannah
2 [R] Taiga
2 [6E] Plains (1)
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
6 [UNH] Forest
1 [A] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
1 [OD] Karmic Justice
1 [LG] Moat
1 [WL] Aura of Silence
1 [MI] Sacred Mesa
1 [ON] Words of War
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
4 [US] Exploration
3 [OD] Ground Seal
2 [UD] Replenish
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 Sterling Grove
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [9E] Blood Moon
1 [DIS] Seal of Doom
1 [LG] The Abyss

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 2 [9E] Blood Moon
SB: 3 [10E] Rule of Law
SB: 2 [TE] Humility
SB: 1 [DIS] Dovescape
SB: 2 [TE] Choke
SB: 1 [MI] Null Chamber
SB: 1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium

This is extremely un-tested. Allow me to break down some card choices (also, I'ma try a different listing function):

Blood Moon

We've been over this.

20 permenant mana sources with only 4 "Tap to add extra" sources

I can't stand Chrome Mox. Or ESG. I tried a 21 land for a while, which sucked pretty hard. Mana flood is pretty harsh. At a local yesterday I misplaced my third Savannah and played a 19-land, 60 card deck and still drew too many land. Except for the times when I drew [i]exactly the right amount of land. I think it's okay. What do the rest of you think?

No Ob Ring

You can't just play it to draw off of it. And don't give me any crap about, "Well, you can slide out things that don't matter. It's sweet to hide a Presence and then recover from a Deed." Yeah, you're right. Except that it's also nice to just kill that Thresh player's Tarmogoyf without having to worry about him gripping your Ring EOT and swinging in FTW. It's great in some matches, and it's freaking terrible in other matches. I'll just leave it at that.

Only one Disenchant effect

I'm still mulling this over. It's hot to be able to disenchant your Landstill opponent's turn three crucible (or just play it and sit on it, forcing him to not play standstill), but it also is terrible frequently. For instance, you're up against burn. Or Solidarity. Or... there must be more. The point is that many decks don't play artifacts or enchantments worth getting rid of. And for the half or so that do, you have Aura of Silence. I'll think about adding it back into the main, but I'm not sold.

No Sylvan Library or Mirri's Guile

Spatula made an argument about a page back that made sense. Something about the matches where you need the cards, Library is too slow, and Guile doesn't draw anything, which makes it kind of unnecessary. I like Guile back in the day, but it encourages you to keep one-landers. Uncool, generally.

No 'yard hate

Yeah, I know. I cut my 3 Leylines for three Titania's Songs. But they were pretty terrible, since I didn't play against either Affinity or storm-based combo. I'm still up in the air about it. But we beat Breakfast with Ground Seal, and Life from the Loam with Ground Seal, and Ichorid has trouble with Elephant Grass and Ground Seal and Moat. Again, I'm not sure how I feel about these slots.

Rule of Law?

Yeah, aydunno. I'm really not comfortable scooping to storm-based combo.

Dovescape? SRYSLY?

Okay, scoff if you want, but I'm pretty sure that is is sick nasty in Enchantress. I could go to two colors if I wanted and just run this instead of Words of War. I resolved this against Landstill yesterday after sealing his Pernicious Deed (He didn't have mana to pop it because I'd resolved Choke), and honestly did a happy dance. Straight up Knights of the Hokey Pokey style. Your enchantresses resolve, and then you cantrip off of your enchantments, and your opponent (baring every turn x-spells) won't be able to keep up with your Bird Advantage.



That's about all of my thoughts, right now. Bring on the discussion.

[dlevsApiJ]

So total 12 Enchantress effects? Why? The problem with the other enchantress is that they cost double WW or just cost 3. Since they themselves arn't enchantments, you don't really benefit from it. It would seem like you are slowing yourself down though. If you want to speed up your deck, why not try cheap mana producing enchantments like Wild Growth?

Are you also running exploration?

Other the same note, is Eladamri's Vineyard a bad or good idea?

Like someone people mentioned above, ground seal is a good cantrip when you are lacking some enchantress effects.

Elephant Grass is to slow aggro decks down. Also it deals with Empty the Warrens or massive amount of Zombies from Ichroid. Besides, it is also an enchantment that cost only G.

I play 4 Wild Growth and 4 Exploration,, as i have said,, its a much faster build, but you play much less control cards, and i really gonna play a more control build ;).

Mvg

[honz]

I have actually considered blood moon, but never tried it out. I always thought that choke serves almost the exact same purpose, except choke combos with grass & aura. In fact, all the match-ups you want blood moon, are blue based decks (thresh, landstill, breakfast). Although, Blood moon has the advantage of shutting off those colored lands immediately, and disabling fetches. There are a few non-blue decks it could come into play against, if thats in your metagame (BW confidant, lands, the rock).

With that said, i think you should go with one or the other. I think blood moon is the better option, and choke is no longer needed.

I must say, 4 colors and a MD blood moon seems counter-intuitive, but there are so many basics you might not notice. Also, you have alot of 1-of in the main, which are completely dead in many MUs (city, moon, justice, aura). I don't like the idea, it seems like you have a wishboard in the main deck...

I'm still not sold on dovescape either. Every place you need it, i would rather have moon, city, or choke.

[Swing4Five]

I like the Blood Moon idea, just have to be careful about where you put your Utopia Sprawls, don't have them fall off your duals when they lose thier forestitude.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Blood Moon seems like it only beats out Choke if you have a lot of 4CC Landstill in your meta-game.

A)Backlash. Bloodmoon is shit when you draw all your non-basics.

B)Tertiary color instead of primary color. This seems especially important given that you need either a non-basic or Utopia Sprawl to cast it.

C)If they have a single basic island they can function pretty well under Blood Moon. Choke + Taxing effects = Down w/teh Sickness. It seems easier for most decks to play around Blood Moon than Choke.

D)BEB/Hydroblast gives them additional outs to Blood Moon.

[ClearSkies]

Back to Basics would be a bad idea right?
Or combining Back to Basics with Blood Moon is redundant?

I always want to use Back to Basics somehow, lol.

Besides, the inclusion of blue allow for Chills, but it doesn't go very well with Choke.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Yeah, but you bring them in against totally different match-ups and you're only running 1-2 Trop.

[Nihil Credo]

Warning: Utopia Sprawl reads "Enchant Forest". That means that if it is attached to a nonbasic Forest, and you play Blood Moon, the Sprawl falls off as a state-based effect, probably cutting you off from one or more colours.

[GiantGrowth]

baritone is it just me, or is your list 61 cards?

[crazyroundman]

baritone is it just me, or is your list 61 cards?

It is exactly 61 cards.

[Hoojo]

Black is, in my experience, necessary. The Abyss is a HOUSE. And not one built by love, that's for sure. Elephant Grass or Confinement (or Moat) + The Abyss is amazing. It makes your opponent have to drop two creatures (or a hasty creature) in order to swing in. Or, I guess, a Mystic Enforcer. The instant speed removal of Seal of Doom way out shadows the coolness of Ob ring. The only two non-creature things I need to deal with are crucible (solved by Blood Moon)(That is, waste-lock is really like +1 Mountain lock) and Counterbalance. Counterbalance is a nuisance, I guess. I don't like my list (coming up next), on account of I tossed the Seal of Primordium into the board to accommodate the Blood Moon.

Is The Abyss really that strong against Threshold? Mystic Enforcer and Nimble Mongoose are both immune. I assume you wouldn't maindeck it in a Thresh-heavy environment.

[troopatroop]

Blood Moon seems like it only beats out Choke if you have a lot of 4CC Landstill in your meta-game.

A)Backlash. Bloodmoon is shit when you draw all your non-basics.

B)Tertiary color instead of primary color. This seems especially important given that you need either a non-basic or Utopia Sprawl to cast it.

C)If they have a single basic island they can function pretty well under Blood Moon. Choke + Taxing effects = Down w/teh Sickness. It seems easier for most decks to play around Blood Moon than Choke.

D)BEB/Hydroblast gives them additional outs to Blood Moon.

If they have a single basic island, unless they fetched for that island seeing blood moon coming, which imo is pretty rare, they can't even fetch for it or search for it if they're running Breakfast or Thresh. That seems overwhelmingly strong, moreso than choke. Choke requires them to tap out before you use it, and usually that means theyve played some sort of mid turn bomb. Blood moon can prevent them from ever casting it in the first place.

The thought of giving them 1 out in their deck might be swaying my opinion.

[crazyroundman]

Blood Moon is an interesting addition to the deck. I kind of like it better than choke, on account of I find myself needing it against 3 and 4 color Landstill.

Really - think about the matches you'd want choke against. Then close your eyes and pretend you're playing blood moon instead. I think it helps those matches as well as helping other, non-blue based decks.

[dlevsApiJ]

Anyone tried Hoofprints in this deck? Instead of the Mesa. I think this works very good, I gonna try it :).

Mvg

[Vorus]

Hoofprints might be worth testing in the deck but it is no replacement for Sacred Mesa. Sacred Mesa kills in situations where your Words of War are in the last three or so cards of the deck or you end up with too many enchantress effects in play to play Words of War due to Replenish or the like.

This situation came up for me during my last tournament where my Sterling Groves were Extirpated and Words of War was the last card in my deck. Pegasi Tokens won me the game where Hoofprints would have done nothing.

[Zach Tartell]

I've been doing some testing with hoofprints on MWS lately, and it's all been pretty positive. Vorus has a pretty solid point, though - hoofprints is not a replacement for mesa, but not for the reason that he cites:

You don't want your entire win package draw-dependent. Mesa is nuts when you're trying to win through something like Arcane Lab or Rule of Law. It's also pretty good when you're in topdeck mode, even if you don't have any Enchantress effects out. Compotent opponents will only counter your 8 Enchantresses, WOW and Sacred Mesa. (Don't you dare remind me of Replenish - I'm not an idiot.) Adding two more win conditions has been pretty good.

The list that I've been rocking out with follows:

// Lands
2 [6E] Plains (1)
7 [UNH] Forest
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [A] Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
2 [R] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress
1 [UL] Karmic Justice (I know - I have a special promo creature version printed three years earlier!)

// Spells
3 [OD] Ground Seal
2 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
1 [WL] Aura of Silence
2 [UD] Replenish
1 [LG] Moat
2 [VI] Elephant Grass
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 Sterling Grove
1 [9E] Blood Moon
4 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [ON] Words of War
1 [MI] Sacred Mesa
2 [LRW] Hoofprints of the Stag

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [UL] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [VI] Elephant Grass
SB: 2 [9E] Blood Moon
SB: 1 [DIS] Dovescape
SB: 2 [TE] Humility
SB: 1 [MI] Null Chamber
SB: 1 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
SB: 2 [IA] Circle of Protection: Red
SB: 2 [LRW] Eyes of the Wisent

The List:
I cut the tool box a little while trying to fit in Hoofprints. My thoughts on that: [i]Awesome. You can just drop it on turn 2 and slowly ride it out until you exaust your opponent's options, then make like 4 4/4 to beat face with. If only it were instant speed. Maybe we could rune fires or concordant crossroads? (No.)

I worked to make it to beat more landstill/control-y decks. Agro is usually pretty easy to deal with, but I'm a little afraid to have e-grasses in the board. I wish I played in the European Meta.

Mixed reviews on o-ring. Being able to take crucible/counterbalance/goyfs is nice, but I miss the instant speed of Seal of Doom.

Eyes has been kind of iffy - I can't decide whether or not I want to cut one for another CIty of Solitude and have another extra spot, or not. It's ballin against decks like gro - I just board out moat, then I have like even more must counters. Landstill, too.

COP:R's are there because goyf sligh sucks. And it makes goblins even more of a laugher.

[GreenOne]

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress
1 [UL] Karmic Guide


Is there some savage combo i can't see or is that karmig guide just karmic justice? :confused:

I'm trying to bring Enchantress to a good tournament (>80 people) next month and like to clarify all my doubts before that date.
There are some choices I can't understand.
- Humility. In which matchup is that good? Outside faerie stompy and maybe breakfast I can't see it much different from Moat, except it does bad things to your Argothians.
- Eyes of the Wisent. Never thought of those. They can be good in any counter matchup. Side them in vs Landstill, Solidarity and Threshold? is there any other deck i'm missing?
- 4 Explorations. I found 4 too much. The deck plays 22 lands and i feel like 3 are enough.
- Hoofprints. Are them any good in non-landstill matchup? They seem quite slow vs thresh and goblins and not that needed vs combo. However, in retrospect, 4/4s maybe good vs goblin's sharpshooter.

I finished testing the Chrome Moxes. They were good, but not overwhelming. Also, a 1 lander is keepable if you have an enchant-land, a 1 chrome mox hand is not keepable evar. So probably 22 lands is right.
Here's my list atm:
// Lands
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
1 [A] Taiga
9 [ON] Forest (1)
2 [MM] Plains (1)

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
3 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
2 [OD] Ground Seal
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
1 [ON] Words of War
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [AT] Sacred Mesa
1 [LG] Moat
2 [UD] Replenish
2 [IA] Wild Growth

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [OD] Ground Seal
SB: 2 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 2 [8E] Choke
SB: 3 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 2 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [7E] Sacred Ground
SB: 1 [7E] Compost
SB: 1 [DIS] Dovescape
SB: 1 [TE] Warmth

[B]@Lonelybaritone. Just read the following part, as it's important for me to have your opinion on that, and i know of your attention-span problems :wink:

Weird choices explanation:
I found that an enchant-land on turn 1 is crucial for the deck. This helps playing an enchantress effect on turn 2 and develop your early mana. I really prefer the enchant lands to a massive amount of explorations. Explorations are good when you're digging faster through your deck, and at this point you're already in a winning position. I also saw that I rarely used all my exploration effects in the first 3-4 turns.

Let's suppose we got a 1 lander (10% of possibility). Maybe it's keepable with an enchant land+argothian. It's auto-mull if got exploration instead.

..or a 2 lander (25% of possibility). Here having an exploration is useless on turn 1 unless we draw a land on turn 2. Wild growth shines instead.

Let's suppose we have 3 lands (30% of the times). Here Exploration does the same job of Wild growth in the first turns unless we draw a land on turn 2, or 2 consecutive lands on turn 3.

A hand with 4 or more lands is quite strange to analyze, as it's difficult to have 4+ lands, an exploration and an enchantress effect on 7 cards. And I would mulligan this hand if it doesn't contain an enchantress effect.

Enchant land effects become even better if you're mulliganing, As the average number of lands in hand decrease.
It's also worth noting that 2xEploration is ALWAYS useless in the first turns.

Sacred Ground: Good vs Armageddon effects. Enchantress can't usually recover from that. Quite good vs Loam with Devastating Dreams, Pikula and Pox too.

Compost: Black decks are reall a problem for me and this card helps. It's quite good vs Ichorid too, though :)

[Zach Tartell]

First things first: Karmic Guide should be read as "Karmic Justice." That would include my inclusion of one in my board. I'll edit that now.

Secondly: the list that I posted is what I'm aplying right now. I'm pretty sure that the Italian meta is slightly different from Syracuse, NY meta, a little. Here, all I am concerned about beating is UWb landstill. So long as my deck doesn't scoop to everything else there, I'm cool with it. At a large tournament I'd revert to the 4 color build, so I could take advantage of black's recuring creature removal and 'yard hate from the board.

I'll respond to your formula (I did read the whole thing - got a gold star or something?) and your list, after my German test.

[crazyroundman]

- Humility. In which matchup is that good? Outside faerie stompy and maybe breakfast I can't see it much different from Moat, except it does bad things to your Argothians.
- Eyes of the Wisent. Never thought of those. They can be good in any counter matchup. Side them in vs Landstill, Solidarity and Threshold? is there any other deck i'm missing?
- 4 Explorations. I found 4 too much. The deck plays 22 lands and i feel like 3 are enough.
- Hoofprints. Are them any good in non-landstill matchup? They seem quite slow vs thresh and goblins and not that needed vs combo. However, in retrospect, 4/4s maybe good vs goblin's sharpshooter.

I'm gonna take a whack at these before LB takes his own. I think that Humility is good in matches where you're more afraid of the abilities of creatures than what your argothians do. In my experience, I can still under Moat against goblins. They just chuck goboos at you and use shapshooter synergy to pwn your face. It's not pretty. Humility hits the following decks, by my approximation:

Faerie Stompy
Goblins
Tarmo-sligh
Ichorid (maybe? I'm not sure if hordes of 1/1's are worse than 2/2's)
Breakfast
Gamekeeper Salvagers (I'm sure that someone plays it)
Survival
Survival (Worth listing twice - how did I forget it?)
Thresh (though it appears that his Eyes tokens might get pwnt by it - I suppose it's a trade.)
B/x Sui (or control) decks - Negator isn't as scary when he's just a 1/1, and I'll let confidant sit on the table all day if he's just half a grizley bear for full price.


So, like, enough decks. It's not amazing aginst Thresh, but it'll do. I found (testing against UG thresh) that I have some mad problems if they have their counters and stifles at the right time.

And, speaking of Spell Snare (and stifle, I guess) is Hoofprints the best idea? It seems like it's cool to just let it sit, but I don't like it replacing any other win conditions. It seems like a nice, slow, win a little at a time card. But does Enchantress need that? Does it shit the bed in the lategame? I have some doubts about it.

-Eyes of the Wisent - The only reason I could see this being good is that it makes card pairity when your shit gets countered. Or advantage, if you have two. But that's sort of moot. I would like it against Landstill fi they don't have deed, or EE. But since City kind of has wicked anti-synergy with eyes, too. I can play a city, either forcing my opponent to bust his shit or leave it, fearing a seal of disenchant.

-Exploration/Land dealio - I'm pretty unfamiliar with the deck in the tournament setting, but on Workstation I've never had an issue with a 20 land, 4 exploration deck. Although I appreciate your numbers and percent signs, I'm skeptical that 22 is necessary. I could see adding a wild growth, maybe (or a fertile ground or whatever from Lorwyn - the one that taps for one of any color - 'scept that it costs two), but LonelyBaritone's list seems kind of tight. I guess he could move his Karmic Justice to the board in favor of one, but where else would he cut shit? Seems like he's playing for the late game, and you're more concerned about winning by turn five or six.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm gonna take a whack at these before LB takes his own. I think that Humility is good in matches where you're more afraid of the abilities of creatures than what your argothians do. In my experience, I can still under Moat against goblins. They just chuck goboos at you and use shapshooter synergy to pwn your face. It's not pretty. Humility hits the following decks, by my approximation:
[LIST]
Faerie Stompy

Humility comes down turn 3-4 and doesn't effect equipment. The price also makes FoW painful, since you had to tap out just to cast that one spell.

I think Elephant Grass would be better here.


Goblins

Humility isn't good at all against Goblins. It costs 4 mana, double white, which can be problematic in the face of Port/Wasteland. It doesn't kill the army of dudes, so you still need an additional way of dealing with them, and finding that way is difficult when you've cut your draw engine in half.

Elephant Grass is miles better in this match-up.


Ichorid (maybe? I'm not sure if hordes of 1/1's are worse than 2/2's)

Arguably. You still need a way to deal with those guys in addition to Humility, and finding that extra piece is made more difficult by cutting your draw engine in half.

Elephant Grass is better in this match-up.


Breakfast

4 mana against a fast combo deck with counter back-up? I'd rather have Elephant Grass or Ground Seal.


Gamekeeper Salvagers (I'm sure that someone plays it)

One point for Humility. One point also for Ground Seal.


Survival

It's better than Grass or Ground Seal here, but it's not actually that strong vs the Burning Wish/Discard builds. They still have Anger, Squee and sorcery disruption.


Thresh (though it appears that his Eyes tokens might get pwnt by it - I suppose it's a trade.)

If you can resolve it against them it'll slow them down. The problem is, again, it can also slow you down. You're taking the gamble that your draws/the board situation will be advantageous to you and not them; if you draw more Argothians than Presences, they can still race you.


B/x Sui (or control) decks - Negator isn't as scary when he's just a 1/1, and I'll let confidant sit on the table all day if he's just half a grizley bear for full price.

Again, I'd rather have Elephant Grass.

[Hoojo]

One thing to remember about Elephant Grass is that Black creatures straight up can't attack you, thus making it far superiour than Humility against decks that like Ichorid, Sui varients, and even Cephalid Breakfast with Sutured Ghoul. These decks must get Elephant Grass off the board if they want to attack.