G/U/w Enchantress

[Dumpsterac1d]

Currently developing a deck that makes use of Sphinx's Tutelage to deck an opponent with the abundance of draw the Enchantress engine allows.

Current List as of 5/14/17:

MB:
10 Forest
3 Back to Basics
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Mirri's Guile
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Root Maze
6 Island
2 Mana Chains
4 Elephant Grass
3 Sphinx's Tutelage
4 Seal of Removal
2 Seal of Primordium
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant

SB:
4 Pithing Needle
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Static Orb
1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 City of Solitude
2 Chill


About the deck

Thoughts on G/W Enchantress
White allows access to Solitary Confinement, Enlightened Tutor, Sterling Grove, Replenish, and Sigil of the Empty Throne, which are usually thought of as essentials in the deck since they provide recursion, search, protection, and a win condition.

My argument/general feeling about this plan is that it's not aggressive enough and it's not fast enough. Much of the time we are waiting, trying to do our thing, and relying on Solitary AND at least two Enchantress effects to come down to keep the engine going. This is not reliable in the slightest, and good G/W enchantress decks, at least in the current meta, would be well to put 4x Leyline of the Void, 4x Rest In Peace, and 4x Helm because the way the deck protects itself is far too fragile. The removal we have access to in White is either 2-3CMC (Oblivion Ring, Journey to Nowhere) or it's not an Enchantment and doesn't allow us to draw cards (Swords to Plowshares). Leovold, Emissary of Trest is also quite the blowout, and we need something that can allow us to keep some kind of prison around while eliminating their options. I think this deck has the potential to be faster, more effective against a different metagame that might emerge post-top where speed is essential, and gives us far different and possibly better cards to sideboard with.

GU Enchantress:

Normal Enchantress:
Argothian Enchantress
Enchantress's Presence
Wild Growth
Utopia Sprawl
Elephant Grass
Mirri's Guile
Sylvan Library
Green Sun's Zenith


Obviously these are essential, it's the engine, ramp, and useful protection. Mirri's Guile is a little better than Sylvan Library, but Sylvan "Draws" the cards to your hand, which combos with our wincon. Leo sucks with Library, so I'd opt for Guile at the moment.

Blue Prison/Removal:
Back to Basics
Root Maze
Seal of Removal
Mana Chains
Seal of Primordium
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant


The prison here is focused on slowing our opponent down to a level where we can compete.

• Back to Basics hits quite a large chunk of the meta and can be devastating against Eldrazi, Lands, etc.
• Root Maze I've found is faster than one-sided alternatives, and good at nullifying the tempo loss of being on the draw, with the right hand (which would include a ramp spell, an Enchantress, and Maze). It also makes fetches REALLY BAD.
• Seal of Removal can sit in play and allows us to "cycle" the card while still using its effect against the optimal creature. Same with Seal of Primordium.
• Mana Chains is very good at getting rid of problem creatures, a lot of the time, an opponent simply will not pay the upkeep cost and let their creature die.
• Erayo is a great tempo card and it's fairly easy for the deck to generate "4 storm". Doesn't play into the main appeal of the deck, so it's just a 1-of. It's a slot that could be replaced by a Static Orb or a Pithing Needle?

Win Conditions:
Sphinx's Tutelage
Kiora, the Crashing Wave
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
*alternatively*
Psychosis Crawler
Chasm Skulker

• Sphinx's Tutelage is a pretty great wincon for this deck. It doesn't require attacking or blocking, mills very fast, and in very small cases can be used to draw cards and mill on the opponent's turn (probably more useful with Top in the meta, but oh well). One thing I don't particularly enjoy is if an opponent is on Sneak + Show or any of it's variants, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn will undo any mill. I haven't acquired them, but two or three Surgical Extractions in the SB would be great at responding to that trigger should it ever arise. Regardless, there is some bonus that your opponent likely won't have access to the cards you're milling from them, albeit small.
• Kiora, the Crashing Wave is the kind of non-Enchantment spell we can certainly run. It offers card advantage, a win condition, and protection.
• Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is for cycling the deck, almost exclusively, although in long games it can be cast. Emrakul was good as well for this, but without having access to things like Serra's Sanctum, the discount on mana cost matters.
• Psychosis Crawler and Chasm Skulker are both "ok". I like how big the Skulker can get, but if all the opponent needs to do is to block with a token to stop it, it's pretty foul. It also basically dies to Jace's bounce ability. There would need to be a Rancor in order to make either of these creature's inclusion worth it, or some way to sac the Skulkers to generate tokens. Crawler gets around this because it causes loss of life, but I've found that the times where I can safely cast it, the opponent is already down 15-20 cards, and a Tutelage in play would kill just as fast.

Mana and Fixing:
Forest
Island


Yup. No nonbasics.

Sideboard

• 4 Pithing Needle? Yes. Yes, four. There are too many things to name that we can't really answer naturally with what we have access to. Recently used it to stop Liliana, Deathrite Shaman, Jace, Factory, etc etc.
• Carpet of Flowers is too good not to include. Makes our matchup against "fair" decks much better.
• Static Orb is really great. It's almost better than Back to Basics because it can be cast with any color of mana, and we don't need to untap anything except our lands, which will likely tap for 2+ each anyway. If the opponent is on basics, get this card. Not optimal since we like to combo off and need most of our mana available, but it has a very similar effect against monocolored basic land decks.
• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant: not sure if this is good or not. I hardly want to cast it since it doesn't generate cards, and the decks i'd want to side it in for will most likely have an answer to it. Open slot...
• Blue Elemental Blast is a little Meh, but it has killed/countered enough things that it's still in the SB.
• Chill Resolve this and you will win against burn and goblins. Very good card. Good chance that if you died in G1 against a burn spell that this will do enough, regardless if the deck is U/R or whatever.
• City of Solitude is there because if someone knows our game and are playing blue, they will likely ignore every spell except our Enchantresses and possibly our B2B. This will likely get countered as well, but if they let it resolve, we're free to do our thing unimpeded.

More SB notes: Would like to find something that is good against Elves. Was considering seeing how Overburden responded, but I have a feeling it will be easy for them to just ignore it. Dredge is also pretty difficult because they are fast and there isn't always an Elephant Grass. Will see about Grafdigger's Cage. Also would like to try Surgical Extraction. Might be a good thing, 4x Surgical, 4x Pithing Needle game plan? ;) Would also really like to try Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.


Play Notes:

This deck, as formulated above, has been mildly successful in testing, and It's getting much better as I know more about how to play it. It is NOT as "draw your entire deck" as G/W Enchantress, and that is a very important thing to note. The deck is about making tempo plays, keeping opponents from doing much while we assemble the engine and mill them.

The absolute best hand will consist of Forest, Forest, Island, Wild Growth, Root Maze, Mirri's Guile, Argothian Enchantress. The absolute best turn 1 and 2 in the blind is:
Turn1:
Play Forest, Cast Utopia Sprawl or Wild Growth targeting tapped Forest, Pass.
Turn 2:
Play another Forest or Island, tap the enchanted forest to cast Argothian Enchantress (plays around Daze), cast Root Maze, draw a card, Pass.

On the play with this sequencing, by the end of turn 2, we're a total of 2 mana ahead and have already drawn a card from an Enchantress effect. With Root Maze, we will remain 2 mana ahead for the opponent's turn and our next turn. If the opponent kept a hand of fetches, we'll likely be 3 mana ahead by turn 3. If we find Back to Basics in short order, there is little someone playing nonbasics and fetches can do and some will scoop when they see the lock and us drawing cards, playing Seal of Removal, etc. On the draw the plan is the same except we're at mana parity with our opponent (and if their hand is dependent on fetches, we'll likely come out ahead.

[16km]

What's the current list your testing?

After watching the the video you shared in the other thread, it seems cool.

[Weapon X]

I don't see the draw to playing an inferior painter/stone deck by trying to use sphinx's tutelage. If you want to play the rip/helm win con in enchantress I suggest adding black and focusing on the combo. That's a build I have championed/played as access to leylines make it stronger and give it redundancy.

[Dumpsterac1d]

I don't see the draw to playing an inferior painter/stone deck by trying to use sphinx's tutelage. If you want to play the rip/helm win con in enchantress I suggest adding black and focusing on the combo. That's a build I have championed/played as access to leylines make it stronger and give it redundancy.

Tutelage gets activated by just performing the actions of the Enchantress engine, so it can just sit there. It draws us cards when we play it, and it mills for every Enchantment we play. Milling is still a legitimate thing to do for 0-per-turn mana investment, regardless of if there's a two-card combo involved, I can mill away an entire BUG deck's compliment of Abrupt Decays, for example. Tutelage and Sylvan Library just sit there and mill 6 every turn. Mill changes Brainstorm.

Compare that with having one part of a two card combo and spending the rest of the time fishing for it while doing little to stop what your opponent is doing or what they're planning.

As far as the rest of the deck goes, bounce is also very good for us, as well as constricting mana. The G/W Enchantress thread is called "Solitaire" because we are just hoping to land something fast enough that makes us immune to everything, and then we can go on finding our win condition, and I think it is more beneficial to the engine if we try to slow the opponents down while still looking for our win.

Enchantress isn't some kind of super-powered insanely fast deck, it's not as fast as every other combo deck in Legacy. Storm and Show and Tell are 25% of the meta combined, and there is no way GWx Enchantress can compete. Do we just table the deck? I feel like people give up on strategies when the meta doesn't favor them instead of trying new things. New in this case is running Back to Basics (which is the real point of the deck) and constricting the manabases of 90% of the field while proceeding unimpeded.

[WarpWorld]

@Dumpsterac1d. I like the idea and this looks like fun. I would be interested in seeing the numbers of an actual list. I can make some educated guesses based on what I know about enchantress.

[Weapon X]

Enchantress is solitaire because it plays the game by itself. I draw 6+ cards a turn to your 1, I'm probably going to win but that's not the issue.

I agree that tutelage gets activated by the actions of the game but it also stops at land which doesn't make it reliable as rip/helm. Compare this to a traditional enchantress win con in sigil. Both will create a way to win by simply playing the deck but one of them wins the game when you say go after you play it. That immediacy is a big difference especially when you are most likely weighing the merit of 4 tutelage vs 1 sigil. Random mill is just that, random. You can get lucky or you may just do nothing of consequence which is the higher probability.

"Fishing for it" isn't really an argument against here. If you are a combo deck your goal is to fish for it and win anyway.

I still play enchantress from time to time. It is one of my favourite archetypes. But blood moon is a better B2B is most cases and choke is theoretically on par with B2B.

[Dumpsterac1d]

@Dumpsterac1d. I like the idea and this looks like fun. I would be interested in seeing the numbers of an actual list. I can make some educated guesses based on what I know about enchantress.

Definitely. List is coming soon, as I said, I've temporarily sold out of MTGO due to an emergency, but I have the old list I experimented with and will shift around the new cards to what I'd initially like to work with.

Back to Basics plus Root Maze and/or Frozen Aether is much better than Blood Moon, IMO. I thought about working on a Blood Moon variant but there simply isn't enough to do with Red and Enchantress. On the other hand, heavily taxing manabases I feel is where the deck needs to be, we outpace opponents easily given enough time that early game tempo game plays into the strengths of the deck. If you disagree, then don't work on the deck. I think Prison (and not self-protection or aiming toward combo) is the best way to maximize the benefits of a somewhat-durdly but powerful draw engine.

[Weapon X]

The enchantress engine is great, but needing 2 different cards to do what a single card can do is not efficient. When people started adding rip/helm instead of the traditional ways the deck would win that's when the deck needs a change. Rip/helm with redundancy is better then rip/helm with prison namely because you had to force slots away from working with the engine.

That said if you want to win with tutelage I would look more to UW auras where you can still have an enchantress engine, play an aggressive game, and also threaten combo. That's just first impressions with enchantress in mind however.

[Dumpsterac1d]

Here's a list that I put together on Mana Stack. (if you don't have an account, this website is really good to fork decks and see stuff visually, move things around, etc. For some things I prefer Tappedout, for others Manastack is good...)

This list is extremely focused on the prison aspect. You'll notice zero fetches and zero duals. The idea being getting Root Maze down early, and then follow up with Back to Basics which will lock 98% of the decks in the meta out. I don't think I need to explain what a turn 1 or 2 Root Maze will do to a deck that kept a hand full of fetches... Or to Storm.

Obviously the manabase is very fragile without fetches and duals, but we do have the opportunity to fix with utopia Sprawl, and the ratio of Forests to Islands should reflect the need to attach these to Forests.

"Removal" is Enchantment-based bounce in Seal of Removal, if they manage to squeak out a creature or a Leovold before the lock hits. Other things I want to try are based on them being locked out of most of their mana. Mana Chains gives creatures Cumulative Upkeep.

So the plan is, on the play, keep hands with at least two colors of mana available (through Utopia Sprawl+Forest or just through Island), you ideally will want 2 lands as well as a Utopia Sprawl or Wild Growth, and you'll want either Back to Basics or Root Maze on turn 2 after having 3 mana available.

Then just play it as you draw it, a good third turn play is obviously Enchantress followed by one of the many 1 CMC enchantments that are in the deck. So long as you get online with Enchantress slowly after establishing the lock, there should be nothing to impede you unless they draw into basics.

--------------

The deck obviously needs tweaking, the numbers aren't based on much except weighing color, importance, and CMC (along with how they're usually played).

One last thing, if you're milling a deck with Emrakul (which you will) and you have servant + tutelage out, the Emrakul ability goes on the stack once their graveyard is full, regardless of the order in which things were milled. This gives you the opportunity to respond to the Emrakul trigger with the one maindeck Tormod's Crypt. One might not be enough, so an alternate wincon exists in Chasm Skulker, and another Crypt can be added to the SB depending on if one Crypt does it or not.

[Weapon X]

I don't understand why you are playing painter and no rest in piece. Painter non-bos with tutelage which I mentioned earlier.

[Dumpsterac1d]

I don't understand why you are playing painter and no rest in piece. Painter non-bos with tutelage which I mentioned earlier.

Woah, did not catch that.

To be completely honest it doesn't need Painter, but I see what you mean. Running white, green, and blue requires at the very least fetches and without RiP it doesn't do anything against the problem decks that run Emrakul.

Could replace them with Surgical and it would fix the Emrakul problem? Otherwise would be looking to go infinite in some other way in G/U.

[Weapon X]

GU enchantress exits. Ramp and words of wind plus cloud of faeries all within the enchantress engine. The changing of how exploration functions with extra lands weakens this plan though.

If you are so terrified of emrakul that's why there are sideboards.

[Dumpsterac1d]

Cheers

[Dumpsterac1d]

*Updated the main thread with current list and play notes.

[Fjaulnir]

I don't understand why you are playing painter and no rest in piece. Painter non-bos with tutelage which I mentioned earlier.

how is it a nonbo? I mean, it stops at lands but apart from that it does mill more effectively than just Tutelage no? (I thought Painter-Tutelage got played in EDH when it was first spoiled)

[Dumpsterac1d]

how is it a nonbo? I mean, it stops at lands but apart from that it does mill more effectively than just Tutelage no? (I thought Painter-Tutelage got played in EDH when it was first spoiled)

I kind of agree.

There are very few slots I'd be able to dedicate to something that makes Elephant Grass + Tutelage marginally better the way the deck is built. Right now I'm looking for upgrades to cards like Seal of Removal, some kind of way to deal with "target permanent" that can kill/nullify things like lands and planeswalkers, swapping non-enchantments for enchantment-based stuff... Things like that. I already have to dedicate 2 slots to Tabernacle which aren't currently available, so nudging Painter's Servant in there for marginal benefit...

It'd also be nice to find a tutor that can be reasonably cast in blue or green so that I can cut the numbers of some answer cards and try to diversify the MB.

[Dumpsterac1d]

Interesting, but might try Parallel Thoughts? Seems pretty weird and is way above curve, but could definitely solve deck filtering problems in the mid-game, or even getting rid of cards in game 1 that are clearly bad for the matchup? CMC 5 for an expensive blue Doomsday enchantment?

Weird, and probably broken on MTGO.

[Mr. Headshot]

I'm brewing on more or less the same deck-idea. I play more the prison-theme than you and I added white (Trinisphere, Winter Orb, Suppression Field and Ghostly Prison). Perhaps Riptide Chimera?

5 mana for Parallel Thoughts seems a lot to me (No Serra's Sanctum available), but it sets up very nicely...

[Weapon X]

how is it a nonbo? I mean, it stops at lands but apart from that it does mill more effectively than just Tutelage no? (I thought Painter-Tutelage got played in EDH when it was first spoiled)

Efficiency is the name of the game. Painter/stone wins the game win an activation whereas painter/tutelage maybe nets 2 more cards on average. Working harder to do less is not the way to build a competitive deck. Thus nonbo.



Long term plans is probably the most generic tutor you will find. Playing enchantress as a base though you already have sterling grove and enlightened tutor which should be more then ample and benefit the core engine. Enchantress deck are WG(x) for a reason. Any other colour is minimized as they tend to take away from the engine. I'm a firm believer that you can minimize tutors in enchantress due to the card draw. The deck tends to tutor for the engine because once it comes online you will draw into what you need. To even refer to my parfait build the engine numbers are maxed as the idea is to not have to tutor for them. The tutors are their to find silver bullets primarily as the engine lets you draw 10+ cards a turn. Sometimes you need a singleton now though. That's basic design though.

[Dumpsterac1d]

I'm brewing on more or less the same deck-idea. I play more the prison-theme than you and I added white (Trinisphere, Winter Orb, Suppression Field and Ghostly Prison). Perhaps Riptide Chimera?

5 mana for Parallel Thoughts seems a lot to me (No Serra's Sanctum available), but it sets up very nicely...

Nice! How is it going with the list?

Was definitely considering running Static Orb as well as Back to Basics, since most decks will fetch basics and it's hard for this prison deck to deal with creature swarms, especially if you can't find an Elephant Grass or have to pitch it. That and Kismet/Frozen Aether seems good.

Parallel Thoughts is definitely iffy but I've noticed that my build, even with Mirri's Guile, tends to fizzle if I'm playing against BUG or some Delver decks, they'll identify the engine and hold every counter for Enchantress effects or find ways to blow them up.. Being able to spam them or find Ulamog/Emrakul to recycle the yard, or just to thin the deck seems like a pretty powerful effect, the downside being that if it gets removed somehow, all that stuff gets lost in exile (being immune to Abrupt Decay helps). I think it'll be worth a look and not much investment (.04 TIX for two of them for testing).

Just curious. This kind of effect is cool, to me anyway, would be interested in other effects that help selection.