[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[Sprite]

Sorry, this are Leyline of the Sanctities.

=)

[Q 221]

Hey, what do you think about my bulid:
<list>

The biggest thing I don't see in there is Words of War: any particular reason you chose to drop that? As much as I love Sigil, I run into situations where Words of War can wrap games up a lot faster due to opponents suddenly having targets for their otherwise dead creature removal. And the ability to avoid drawing yourself out if you land 2-3 Enchantresses is often quite beneficial as well. The red "splash" is ridiculously easy to pull off with a single Plateau/Taiga, and having some variety in win cons is quite helpful.

Also, are the 4 Ground Seals just because of a heavy loam/reanimator meta?

[addaro]

So I finished 6th in 65 man tourney yesterday in the Czech Republic. Moat was a good investment although it costs 200 dollars for Italian one. After swiss I have hoped for more because I managed to go 5:0 and draw the last two rounds. I lost only one game during the whole swiss so I was kind of expecting to win in Top8 but I had to mull to 5 both games due to no lands at all! and then I played literally nothing until he beat my face in few turns :( But thats Magic and overall Im very happy with my result :)

Hope Enchantress does well at Columbus!

[Wasteland]

Due to the fact that the Enchantress-build sprite posted is mine (to find since more then some weeks on mercadia.de from the user muffinman), here the explications for the choices:
Words of war is a absolutely crap-card in my opinion: You neverever want it in ur starting hand nor draw it in midgame while sigil is an additional enchantress-effect and wins games on its own, while u even have to skip ur draw for dealing dmg with wow. Next sigil has cc5 and avoids cheap deeds and c-balance completely.
For the ground seals: As sprite said, in my build are 3 + the moat he does not have. Ground seal does not only stop loam but also ruins-recursion, witness, retainer on iona, dread return and so on. Next to that it draws 2 cards with 1 enchantress-effect which is amazing. In matchups where u do not face any graveyard-based decks u will board some of them out, putting better specific cards in.
Not to forget the bonus that it stops extirpate on any important card in your deck...
Greetz,
Marius Hausmann

[dontbiteitholmes]

No, Words of War is so clutch. It lets you play more Enchantresses early game without having to worry if having 5 Enchantresses out early game will cause you to draw out your deck later. With Words having 5 Enchantresses is an asset, without Words it's a liability. It's also a much better wincon than Sigil by far and has won me many games on the last turn of extra turns when Sigil would have sucked by making unhastey tokens, and in a pinch it can burn out annoying creatures like Canonist/Meddling Mage/Trygon or even Iona, and yes I have killed an Iona with Words before. Also with Words you will never draw out unless you misplay badly. I've been playing Enchantress for 5 solid years now and I've never drawn myself out, ever.
As far as Counterbalance @ 3 that may be the worst argument I've ever heard considering most Countertop decks run around 2-6 3cmc cards but EVERY Counterbalance deck has 4x FoW which happens to cost 5. I don't think Words sucks, I think your just doing it wrong. For starters your deck only has 1 Serra's Sanctum which makes it 2x as hard to draw the card that generates the most mana for Words to activate with. As far as Words of War being bad in an opening hand I'm not exactly excited when I pick up my opening 7 and see Sigil in there.

[Dark Ritual]

I hate it when I go to time in a round, I NEED WoWar to win, but I'm stuck with sigil. It simply doesn't cut it and seeing as how this deck is primarily control it will go to time quite often. And like holmes said, it can kill annoying creatures especially X/2's pinging those guys to get rolling can be really important. And I once activated WoWar 4 times to kill an Iona as well at a local tourney on white.

CBTop decks countering WoWar isn't an issue; you run replenish as a 3 of between the MD and SB and is one of the best cards in the deck for a reason. It can recur countered win cons and 4 drops are hard to hit off of CB. It is a pretty bad argument like holmes said.

For day 2 I think enchantress had 3 decks make day 2 or something at Columbus it was there but not dominating.

[Wasteland]

The problem with the deck is NOT that u may have too many enchantress-effetcs... the thing is to get them out in time and establishing the confinement-lock. For example: You have 1 enchantress-effect and a sigil - it wins on its own. Or you even have only the sigil and win with random 4/4 beatdown. In BOTH cases, words of war sucks hard, in fact its only good, if you have atleast 2 enchantress-effects online...
I personally would neverever run wow in this deck again, i even would put in a sacred mesa before taking wow...
For the "time" argument: you need 5 enchantments to make 5 4/4 angels which need 1 or 2 swings if ur opponent has any removal. If you have not THIS time left you don't know how to play the deck. In fact, most opponents will concede with the lock online and sigil in play and if not u need 1 turn more... wayne. It's not hard argument for me to play crappy wow (but this discussion is old and has truly not again to be done...)
By the way, Iona is no argument with my list playing 2 karakas main (which help against show and telled emrakul too...)
For the lonely sanctum: 1 was always enough, more basics are much better cause of the growth-effects. Beneath that, i play 2 karakas main, theese are enough legendary lands...

[wcm8]

I went 3-3 in the Grand Prix with no byes. This was also my first GP for Legacy. I'm not a great player and was not expecting to make day 2, however I think I played decently well in my matchups. The problem with Enchantress is that it just really can't consistently (if ever) beat combo decks. For example, I lost to Shelldrazi, and there is really nothing Enchantress can do to respond to a turn 1 Doomsday stack that brings out Emrakul in short order. [edit: unless you are realllllly lucky and drew a Karakas in your opening 7, but I didn't even run that card -- perhaps this should be an auto-include?]

Enchantress beats a large portion of the Legacy metagame, that being just about any deck that relies on turning normal dudes sideways for the win. But in a large tournament, you need to be able to beat the whole swath of Legacy decks, and not just an (albeit huge) portion of the metagame. In other words, your best bet is to typically be playing Force of Wills in some form.

Enchantress will remain tier 2 because of this fact. There are some matchups that it just can't beat with any consistency. I think it is still a great deck to bring to a local tournament with 50 or less people, because you might luck out with your matchups and just stomp face all day. But in a bigger event, at least if your goal is to do extremely well, it's probably a better idea to bring something else.

And FWIW, I think Enchantress is equipped to beat Saito's merefolk list, or any merefolk list for that matter. Getting to that point of a tournament is the problem.

[caiomarcos]

Last Saturday the lucky dudes were playing on the GP and I was playing a local tournament. Went 3-1-1, the tie being a last round ID. Then I conceded for a Zoo on the top 8 since I wouldn't attend the event this tournament was feeding.

The list I ran:

8 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Savannah
1 Taiga

4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Sterling Grove

4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Wild Growth
1 Exploration

4 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Moat
1 Runed Halo
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Choke
1 Ground Seal
1 Karmic Justice
1 Mirri's Guile

1 Words of War
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne

2 Replenish
1 Enlightened Tutor

Sideboard:
2 City of Solitude
1 Choke
1 Ground Seal
1 Null Chamber
1 Rule of Law
1 Aura of Silence
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Karmic Justice
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Blood Moon
1 Lignify
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Replenish


I was very, very satisfied with the list. It has more 1-ofs than most recent lists and many people may think it is too much, but I think it has the right amount to strike a good balance between silver bullets (aka dead cards against some opponents, like Choke or Karmic Justice) and the core of the deck.

For a long time I was reluctant to play the Tutor, but some weeks ago I played a version with 2 Tutors maindeck and liked it, but found too much so I moved down to one main and one side and now I think I'll just play with 1 main since I can't see a situation where I'd board one in. The sideboard is kinda messy because I could't get hold of some cards, like a second WofSaM and a secon Halo.
One thing I still can't decide is if I just try harder to beat combo or just forget about it. I'm leaning more to the fuck it all and just scoop when you see a Lotus Petal or something, but still didn't have the balls to do so, hence the Rule of Law and Null Chamber in the board.

During this last torunament I played aginst Zoo. If historically this has been a very easy match up, now even more because many lists are not playing Fireblast, PoP main and such, therefore they relly more on turning guys sideways, and that Enchantress can handle. I also played some Show and Tell/Emrakul/CB-Top but the guy was mana screwed both games then I had time to take control, with maindeck Choke leading to concessions.

My loss was to SaT/Hive Mind combo. It's much worse than SaT/Emrakul since O-ring does nothing, nor Confinement nor Moat.

Only once I had problem finding a kill condition, but I guess that's how it rolls and I have to get used to it since I've just moved from 3 to 2 wincons. Also, I find WoW a superior win condition than Sigil. In the opening hand both suck, but WoW cantrips for you earlier. As to finishing games, I feel more confident that I can win the game when I drop WoW than with Sigil. As for riding the wincon by itself, without having the engine assembled, I don't see Enchantress winning a game when on turn 5 or later you drop a 5 mana enchantment that has no imediate effect on the board without at least a couple of enchantress in play. The Mesa in the sideboard is just because I can't leave old habbits behind easily, but I'm sure I'll eventually drop it or move it back to the maindeck.

All in all, I've been playing with this list for a long while now and can't see any radical changes that could be made, not counting metagame calls like maindeck Blood Moon, Choke, Wheel etc.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Went 5 wins 3 loses 1 draw at GP. Don't remember the exact order of the matches.

Won vs. Elves combo, Enchantress mirror, Lands, Doomsday, Zoo.

Lost to Team America/w Firespout, Merfolk, Stoneforge Bant.

Drew with Bant Survival.

I'm happy with my list all my losses were game 3 and were all really close and the draw should have been a win, but I won't go into that. After day 1 was over I joined a Legacy win a box and won that. I beat Zoo, Goblins, Landstill and won a box of M11 so I was happy overall with the day.

[anonymos]

Went 5 wins 3 loses 1 draw at GP. Don't remember the exact order of the matches.

Won vs. Elves combo, Enchantress mirror, Lands, Doomsday, Zoo.

Were you the one running dovescape? My friend ran into the mirror match and lost to a dovescape. I picked up a russian one to torment him with it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Were you the one running dovescape? My friend ran into the mirror match and lost to a dovescape. I picked up a russian one to torment him with it.

I played some guy that said he played the mirror 3 times for a 1-1-1 record and I was the loss, and I beat him with Dovescape game 2 so that was probably me. I wish I had played the mirror 3 times, it's actually a really good matchup for me, it was also one of the only 2 matches I finished well before time and the other was Lands, go figure.

[TheSleeper]

Congrats on your finish DBIH, decklist?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm gonna keep it under my hat for the moment. I'm planning on going to SCG in Minnesota at the end of the month and that will be my last major tourney of the year at which time I'll post my list with a comprehensive explanation of all the unconventional choices. Maybe if I'm feeling festive I'll even write a primer.

[anonymos]

Anyone else liking the resurgence of zoo and merfolk right now? I'm moving away from my maindeck blood moon because of it, but I'm sure I'll manage.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Lost to Team America/w Firespout, Merfolk, Stoneforge Bant.

Drew with Bant Survival.

TA is a really rough match-up, and Merfolk can occasionally squeeze out a win, but what happened v. Stoneforge?

[dontbiteitholmes]

TA is a really rough match-up, and Merfolk can occasionally squeeze out a win, but what happened v. Stoneforge?

I just got unlucky vs. Bant. Game 2 instead of drawing one of my many basics or fetches I drew a lot of nonbasics and he hit me with a string of Wastelands and barely beat me out. Game 3 I had him on the ropes, he had Gripped early and Pridemage hit my Grove and he had 2 Wastelands slow me down but I played a Solitary and passed with Replenish in hand to lock the game if he passed back and he rips Grip off the top with no cards in hand. So basically I just got unlucky both games.

[The_Red_Panda]

After realizing that I am completely incapable of playing Countertop-thopters in the prelims for GenCon, I switched to enchantress for the main event, and took it to a 4-2 finish. My losses were to Zoo in round 3, where I mulliganed to 4 game one, and drew thirteen lands in a row game two, and in round 6, where I played Rich Shay with Dreadstill, and realized that I needed Krosan Grips in my sideboard. I haven't been keeping up with the thread much, but if you don't have Kgrip in your board, I suggest it strongly. If the Chokes I had boarded in were Krosan Grips, game two would have (likely) been a victory for me, instead of a loss, and I can only speculate on game three.

[ho_master]

I piloted Enchantress at GenCon's Legacy Champs event and took it to a 6-2 finish for 12th place. I ran the unpopular version of Words of Wind, but got 3 of my opponents to concede with Wind bouncing most of their permanents without finishing the kill with Angels. I'll post a tournament report here if it's still cool to do that later tonight if anyone's interested...

[Zlatzman]

I'd certainly like to read the report. I personally think blue-versions of Enchantress are fine in this thread, but I'm not sure if I'm part of the majority or not. If not you could post it in the Tournament Reports-section I guess?

If you have the time, maybe you could give some thoughts on blue vs. red enchantress in today's metagame? Strengths, weaknesses?