[Deck] U/G Enchantress

[benthetenor]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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