[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress) - Former DTB [Archive]

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-09-2004, 01:35 AM

This is the currently legal decklist as of 4/5/05

Engine:
4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence

Acceleration:
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration

Security and Stabilizers:
3x Sterling Grove
3x Ground Seal
4x Elephant Grass
2x Sylvan Library
3x Solitary Confinement
2x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence

Kill:
1x Words of War
1x Words of Wilding
1x Sacred Mesa

Mana base:
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
7x Forest
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
2x Plains
2x Serra's Sanctum
2x Taiga

SB:

Anti-control:
2x Choke
3x City of Solitude
3x Multani's Presence
Disenchant effects:
2x Aura of Silence
Insurance:
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
1x Null Chamber
Anti-aggro:
1x Parallax Wave

Card choices:

Enchantresses: The deck's core. It really doesn't require much explanation; 4 of each is obvious and necessary; Verduan is too vulnerable and slow to be played.

Sylvan Library: Almost as good as an Enchantress against some decks; I'd rather drop it than Argothian against <s>Dragon</s> Solidarity turn 1/2. The deck has 7 reshuffle effects to work with the Library.

Wild Growth/Exploration:1-drop enchantments that accelerate early game, and cantrip afterwards. The goal is to cast at least 1 Enchantress by turn 2, these are the cards that get it done

Elvish Spirit Guide: See above. The only drawback is that it's not an enchantment. However, provided you can draw other enchantments, it continues to be of use mid-late game in "going off".

Ground Seal: Critical against Dragon and Mud, and has great synergy with the Enchantresses and Solitary Confinement. I replaced many of the deck's "silver bullets" with them. Even without an Enchantress, the ability to cantrip is of more use than an expensive and often dead reactive card that relies on Sterling Grove to tutor.

Sterling Grove: Serving both as protection from targeted disenchant effects and as a tutor for critical spells; it also makes the kill condition a one-slot commitment.

Seal of Cleansing: Deals with random things like Disk, Tanglewire, Winter Orb, tapped out to play Pernicious Deed, and other such obstacles the deck can run up against.

Elephant Grass: It's Propaganda/Light of Day for a one mana investment. The cumulative upkeep doesn't generally need to go past 2, at most.

Solitary Confinement: A thousand times better than Worship, it stops pretty much every kill condition in the game. The drawback is counteracted by the deck's draw engine.

Words of War: The red splash is worth the incredible reliability, flexibility and speed of the improved main kill condition that doubles as board removal.

Sacred Mesa: Reasonably strong kill condition that also makes chump blockers.

Words of Wilding: Usually the secondary kill; stronger on its own than Words of War, but weaker without than Sacred Mesa.

Mana base:

The single red mana source really doesn't come up that often. A single Serra's Sanctum is questionable; two would be nice, but they're almost always dead in the opening hand, so they're high risk.

Update: Recently I've added number 2, but might want to find room for another non-conditional mana source.

Sideboard:

Multani's Presence: It comes down turn 1 and turns every counter into Arcane Denial. One game against TeenieBopper he had to Force of Will a spell with two Multani's Presences out. Crazy card advantage and the price is right.

Aura of Silence: Same as Seal of Cleansing, but a lot better against Pernicious Deed, Landstill and Enchantress.

Karmic Justice: Anti-hate and anti-LD.

City of Solitude: Good against control, and ATS.

Seal of Cleansing: Because it's better than Aura against a lot of decks, and against other decks, 5 disenchant effects are good.

Sacred Ground: Anti-LD. Not very prominent, but LD is such bad news for this deck I feel it's worth it. Good against Sundering Titan and Armageddon.

Null Chamber: Anti-combo, serving dual time against random hosers like Pernicious Deed, Armageddon, Tempest of Light and Tranquil Domain.

Other SB Options:

Exalted Angel, Genju of the Fields, Gaea`s Blessing, Spreading Algea, Compost, Night Soil, Sphere of Law, Ghostly Prison, CoP:Red, Rule of Law, Chalice of the Void, Spiritual Focus, Moat, Humility.

Testing:

I haven`t recorded specific results since the bannings, so these are estimates that are based on mine and Mad Zur`s experience, so they can be taken with a grain of salt and aren`t error-proof. Estimates are pre-SB.

v. Landstill - 45%-55%

Previously this was a heavily favorable match. Since the bannings, the deck has moved more towards Trenches. WoG is an answer to Argothian that the deck lacked previously(not including Disk). They also MD Disenchant now. I think in a meta where Landstill is succesful, it`s priority #1 in the SB, and I would consider having 12 cards to side in. Included are Multani`s Presence, City of Solitude, Choke, Aura of Silence, and I would like to include either Exalted Angel or Genju of the Fields/Cedars. Your best bet is to overwhelm with threats; take out Elephant Grasses, Ground Seals, 2 Explorations, 2 Solitary Confinements, 1 Wild Growth, and the other Confinement only if you have Exalted Angel/Genju of the Fields. I wouldn`t usually suggest playing more than one Argothian at a time.

v. ATS - 65%-35%

You play the beatdown here. The only real way they can win is through countering your early Enchantress or having a particularly explosive Survival hand and you having a slow hand. Exploration, Sterling Grove, and Ground Seal all play roles here, in addition to the normal threats. SB you have the option of Humility, but it shouldn`t be needed unless you have a lot of ATS in your area. If you`re playing first, you can bring in Aura of Silence, otherwise, leave it.

v. Welder Survival - 75%-25%

See ATS match, except they don`t have FoW and Ground Seal is even better. They usually can only win through a third turn Titan. SB you bring in Sacred Ground, Karmic Justice, and Aura of Silence.

v. R/G Survival - 80%-20%

See ATS match, except they have no disruption at all. Their usual strategy of attrition isn`t very relevant, since Solitary Confinement with a Sterling Grove is ultimate card advantage, making their deck useless.

v. Solidarity - 10%-90%

This is basically an auto-loss if they have Cunning Wish and Hibernation in the board. If they don't it's probably 35%-65% in their favor. SB option include Gaea`s Blessing, Null Chamber, and Chalice of the Void. Blue builds can access In The Eye of Chaos, but it has poor synergy with Null Chamber. Currently I have Choke and City of Solitude.

v. 2-Land Belcher - 40%-60%

Your Confinement actually does something in this match, but you need to drop it quick. This is one of those match-ups where you hope to go turn 2 Library, draw 3 cards, drop a Confinement, and be able to keep it up. Aura of Silence comes in, with Null Chamber.

v. U/G Madness - 60%-40%

They have to hit you with early disruption and have pressure; sometimes they have both, more often than not they don`t. This is still a thinking match; always play it safe with your Confinements. One of the oddities of the aggro-control match is having to worry about a Confinement resolving reasonably quickly after an Enchantress has resolved. Elephant Grass is also strong in this match-up. City of Solitude and Parallax Wave come in for Seals of Cleansing and a Ground Seal. If you play in a combo-heavy meta, you might want to leave one SoC in in case of Arcane Lab.

v. Goblin Sligh - 65%-35%

Elephant Grass and Solitary Confinement dominate this match-up; they lack answers to your threats. You have to be more carefu games 2 and 3, but this is usually just a matter of finding a Confinement before they can kill you.

v. Vial Goblins - 70%-30%

Above, but less able to race. Like R/G Survival, you don`t care about their card advantage at all. Post board they might access any combination of Anarchy, Flaring Pain, and Pithing Needle. Anarchy and Flaring Pain both mean that you want to keep Elephant Grasses up, even under Confinement.

v. Hulk - 35% - 65%

Counters, Duress, and Pernicious Deed make this a losing battle. There`s really not that much to be said about it; similiar SBing as Landstill, but take out two SoC for Karmic Justices.

v. WWW/Angel Stompy 70%-30%

This isn`t really hard or complicated; they have a few MD Disenchant effects, and a usually slow clock. SB they have Armageddon, so play with that in mind and you should be fine; you have 4 SB options with the above list for that, plus you can hold back a bit on land. Justice also covers any Weenie lover who brought Tempest of Light.

v. Gro 35-65%

What, like 9 counters, plus Naturalizes/Disenchants/Duress/Pyroclasm(depending on build)? This is hard as hell. CotV for 2 post board is sweet though.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1132028221

Garbados

08-09-2004, 10:49 AM

gaypron

08-09-2004, 11:18 AM

i would say, -2 heaths and +2 foothills, and replace 1 of the plains for a mountain

CavernNinja

08-09-2004, 01:22 PM

@ Spatula - Hey, I can actually Domain and with the Justice trigger(s) on the stack win the game...or I can Domain let all my shit die and use Caller to spank you with lots of bears. Tranquil Domain I have found is the only card worth boarding in the matchup because he packs so much hate that naturalize isn't going to do anything but delay the inevitable lock with seals and auras and night soil and seals and everything else in his deck apparently.
@ Garbados - Replenish is actually the way that Words gets into play. With Solitary confinement to protect your graveyard from crypt it is a reltively safe thing to do. You discard it at end of turn when you're holding your deck in your hand and then replenish the next turn. I don't think that there is much fragileness with Words of War as Wipe Clean won't hit it. Sterling Grove does actually do stuff BTW.

EDIT: I missed the ATS comment the first time through...ATS has a really hard time keeping up with the number of permanents, especially the number of land, that Solitaire likes to play. I would actually think that the results were a little further in Solitaires favor.

Zilla

08-09-2004, 02:28 PM

I want to give you props, Spatula. I'm really pleased to see an optimized decklist with thorough card explanations and matchup results. Given people's interest in the archetype, it's nice to have a solid foundation for them to work from when discussing it.

One clarification though... I'm confused about the results listed for Zilla Stompy. If I'm reading it correctly, Zilla's performance got worse after boarding in Tranquil Domain. The results for all the other matchups were listed as Solitaire/Opponent. Were they transposed for the Zilla matchup, or am I just missing something?

ns2973

08-09-2004, 03:37 PM

I would like to join godzilla and give you props. Great card by card analysis and an optimized decklist with what seem to be realistic results. It is indeed nice to have a base from which to work. It must have been a typo that the match went up in zilla.

overlord95

08-09-2004, 04:24 PM

@elgin(spatuala)
what happen to gaea's touch i thought it was working pretty well last time i saw the deck. also on the data for hulk we tested this match up it was about 60-40 in favor for hulk but if you need more data we can test it out. also congrads on the win yesterday

Mad Zur

08-09-2004, 06:01 PM

There's a limit to how much acceleration one can fit in the deck. Gaea's Touch could only possibly go in for ESG, and Touch can't get you a first turn Argothian ever or a second turn Presence without a basic forest.

I must not have been there for the Zompy testing (It is different from what was posted on the other thread, probably a compilation though), but I would be quite amazed if it was not a typo.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-10-2004, 12:35 AM

I'm still sketchy about the lone taiga. It's just begging for a wasteland. And without holistic wisdom, cards besides rootwater thief that have that same sort of effect will continually ruin your day. It'll be a sad day when you get beaten by a kid running Soldiers with Wipe Clean. However, SB'd Sacred Mesa helps, but I still favor Opalescence. It might be slower, . I wonder if switching the Taiga with a mountain wouldn't be a bad idea. You'd have to throw in g/r fetches, but atleast you wouldn't fall on your face to any punk running land hate.

I'm kicking around ideas for a more control-based Enchantress, or atleast a build with a better game against Zilla Stompy (there's 3 of them in my meta! Three!! And the rest of my meta, expect for a deck or two, falls into the category of things that Enchantress just flattens. Namely sligh).

My opinion: So long as your meta is sligh-heavy or Landstill dominated, this deck is a solid choice. Unless your meta is more developed (more MUD, Dragon, Zilla, Landstill, FCG, Angel Control), in which case your chances get reduced to about 1/3 on average. Atleast that's better than zero, I'd say. Solid build, several thumbs up. If we can resolve the issues surrounding WoWar's fragileness, I'd say it'll be optomized.
To address the point, it was a typo, I'll edit and fix it.

But to addres Garbados's points; Enchantress only has unfavorable match-ups against two of those decks; MUD and Angel Control. And I disagree on the quality of Angel Control, we've not been impressed with it in testing, but that might be a meta-call.

If the three Zompy decks in your area *aren't* playing Tranquil Domain, then the post-SB looks even better than the pre-SB, bringing in Sacred Mesa for chump blockage.

@Gaea's touch: Unless they restrict Workshop and errata Dragon, I think focusing on Enchantress as a combo deck is a mistake. No build can match Dragon's speed or a Workshop-powered opening. Gaea's Touch would further improve aggro match-ups, but would be situational against control as well. I prefer having Ground Seal; at the least it will cycle, at the most it wins games *and* uber-cantrips.

Garbados

08-10-2004, 01:12 PM

@ Spatula
1.) I didn't mean to imply that Solitaire has a bad game against all those "higher developed" decks, only to say that they tend to appear more often in more developed metas. Like your initial explanation stated, 'chantress stomps landstill. Period. Not to mention having a fair game against Zilla (60-40 is fair, I'd say. A little unfavorable, but certainly not unwinnable) and even moreso against FCG and other sligh-styled decks. I think I said 'your chances drop to 1/3' because I was paranoid of Zilla, having never tested out the two decks against eachother myself.

2.) If Solitaire only has a bad game against 2 of those "higher developed" decks, then I have a feeling my experimentation with a control-chantress would be time wasted. I'll just get back to trying to build this version.

@ Cavern Ninja
Oh. I didn't realize that was how you normally did it. In my playing of the deck, I would go off and draw into WoWar, play a (hopefully) found Taiga and get it on the board, then prevent the drawing of the rest of my deck with WoWar and win the game. Silly me. Thanks for pointing that out, though.

Zilla

08-10-2004, 11:04 PM

08-10-2004, 11:40 PM

I just realized something. Although the deck is incredibly fast and provides a great engine, as I've done work with it as well as reported it, I noticed that a control deck only technically needs to counter 3 cards game 1, the 2 Replenish and the Words of War, and then Solitary Confinement if it comes to it. With so few threats in the game 1, are you sure that the matchup against control is so favorable?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

08-11-2004, 12:05 AM

Spatula:

I'm curious what makes you say Angel Control is so unfavorable, when you say your game against Landstill is so solid. The truth is that the two decks aren't that different in terms of strategy. Particlarly after SB, the decks have almost identical threats/answers, differing essentially only in draw engines. Is it Angel Control's ability to run Edict? I'm confused.
I think it's Edict + Duress that he's afraid of mainly.

To Diablos: I've said the same thing to him five thousand times. He switches between his "They don't know they only have to counter those spells" defense, and his "Then I just have to wait to cast all three in the same turn and they probably won't be able to counter" defense. Apparently it's worked for him so far... I'd still like to see 1x Words of Worship in the main, though.

Also, Solitary Confinement doesn't ever need to be countered if the goal is to target his kill conditions, since he has no way to keep up the Confinement indefinitely.

Zilla

08-11-2004, 12:53 AM

Two enchantress effects on the board is a pretty likely way to keep the Confinement lock going indefinitely. Thus, Confinement might need to be countred if there are two or more enchantress effects on the table. Of course, if it can be killed with mass removal later on, it may not be necessary.

08-11-2004, 01:13 AM

Yes, which is why I said, "and then Solitary Confinement if it comes to it." If you have to, then counter it. Also, it's very, very easy for Enchantress to deck themselves. While doing coverage for the top16 at Big Arse, I remember game 2 Spatula only had like 12 cards left on turn 6. It's very easy for you to just deck the enchantress player, so countering a Confinement might not be all that necessary if they will be dead in a couple turns.

Garbados

08-11-2004, 01:26 AM

We cannot assume our opponent is stupid. Even if you're constantly running into stupid players, you're just intentionally ruining your deck should your opponent decide hardcasting squee is a bad idea. There are a lot of threats in the deck that will make a control player nervous anyway, so I'm not /too/ surprised Spatula has gotten away with it so far. However, if your meta isn't mandating 4x Ground Seal, you could probably squeeze in some Holistic Wisdoms (If it hits play, all further counterspells are suddenly next to useless) and maybe another kill condition or such thing MD'd. I know for my meta, 1-2 Ground Seals is max, as there's one unpowered Dragon deck and a MUD deck that shows up maybe once every 3 weeks, so i'll be making these changes. However, Ground Seal is 1G, and Holistic Wisdom is 1GG and costs 2 to use and another kill condition would normally score a cc of 3 or so, depending on which card you'd put in. In any case, the potential loss of tempo might be worth its weight in gold if your meta is more control heavy.

Basically, the issue in question is "how do we up the number of things our opponent /must/ counter?" or atleast "how do we prevent our opponent from countering our threats (without watering down the deck)?". the top answers are...
1.) Up the number of threats. (More kill conditions.)
2.) Up the number of ways we keep our threats in the game. (Holistic Wisdoms to act like auxillerary Replenishes and other such effects)
3.) Up the number of ways we can prevent our opponent from killing us. (WoWorship or Confinement-like effects)

I would write more, but I gee-two-gee, so...

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-11-2004, 02:05 AM

If they don't interfere with the draw engine they need 3 counters in hand and castable by fourth-fifth turn. It seems unlikely, as most control decks only run 8x counters.

Post-SB eases this situation should it arise, adding 2-3x must-counters. But if anything, maindeck I would probably cut 1x Elephant Grass for either Sacred Mesa or Words of Worship.

And yes, against Angel Control, Edict is a pain, and Duress is another 3-4x counterspells.

Mad Zur

08-11-2004, 05:00 AM

The only time that you can deck someone with Confinement is if the number of cards in your deck + the number of cards in your hand > the number of cards in his deck. That's extremely unlikely unless you're playing the mirror... and that doesn't really matter because I wouldn't expect to have much countered there (although Null Chamber could make things interesting :p). No amount of card drawing in the world can keep Confinement going once you run out of cards in the deck.

The control match is usually won or lost by one or two counterspells, so them having four extras makes things considerably closer (remember that less than a third of each deck consists of relevant spells). Scrying is probably better than Standstill, since an early Standstill is rarely correct, and Scrying draws more cards in the late game. U/B has both, though (and Edicts in place of StP), so it's probably worse than Angel, depending on how many Disenchants the Angel player brings in.

I usually run a third Replenish, another kill, and/or City of Solitude, which all make the "counter your win conditions" plan seem poor.

Garbados

08-11-2004, 09:49 AM

60 cards.
8 Counters. (3 to be needed)

The individual chance of any given card in the deck being a counter is about 13%. Given that they'll need 3 in their hand by turn 4, they'll have drawn atleast 10 cards of their deck, and it's highly likely they'll have some form of draw. If I remember my algebra correctly, the chances of having 3 counters out of 10 cards is a little over 36%. Of course, I think that's wrong because I always hated algebra. Regardless, 13% is still a fair chunk of that 100.

In any case of how likely your win/non-loss conditions getting funkafied is, it would seem that what you take out for any countermeasures is a meta call. In a MUD/dragon heavy meta, ground seal is simply invaluable and seriously outweighs any and all anti-control things like Holistic Wisdom. However, if your meta (like mine) is almost devoid of MUD and Dragon, then Ground Seal could probably keel over and die in favor of various anti-control measures. Even so, the matter of Enchantress's disruptability is a matter much needed to discuss, regardless of whether the answers are meta calls.

EDIT: Spatula made good points concerning what control players will often counter. While the number of things they /must/ counter is few, the things that make them nervous enough to counter anyway (enchantress effects, namely) are just as viable in this situation. One will eventually run into someone who will let you have your enchantress effects in order to save their counters for that replenish or hardcasted WoWar, and in this case you side in more must-counters. I hate to be assuming my opponent will be less than perfect, but there's two factors saving one's butt from getting pwn'd.
1.) Cards that make opponents very very nervous, namely the namesake of the deck. This will often be countered simply because it's the namesake of the deck. The semi-worthy logic behind it is "if an entire deck can be made around a single card and still be good, then that card must be good/worth countering!" like i said earlier, however, there are those who /will/ see through their nervousness, but only after having played against/with the deck many times.
2.) As I mentioned in the other /closed/ enchantress thread, there are so many enchantress variants running about that knowing exactly what to counter beyond the seemingly obvious is very unlikely. So while you might get a lot of counters hurled at your draw engine, your kill will be relatively safe. Unless you decide, for whatever reason, to hardcast WoWar.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-11-2004, 01:53 PM

That depends on what deck they're playing; also bear in mind that good players won't let you resolve Enchantresses so they can cast draw spells, hoping to draw the second or third counter and the mana to use them all the same turn. If you're speaking specifically of Landstill, remember that you have the ability to stop their draw with Seal of Cleansing and Aura of Silence. In my time playing the deck, the only time I ran out of kill conditions was once when I was playtesting against Fish, and at the Big Arse against Jander. If they try this and it succeedes 1/3 of the time, that's fine, they'll still lose the other 2/3. Post-SB it's not even a viable strategy, so if that's the entirety of their game-plan, then by all means, let Enchantresses resolve.

Relevant cards against control:
8x Enchantresses
3x Library(if a Library resolves, WoW itself becomes relevant)
3x Grove(tutors Enchantresses)
2x Replenish
4x Ground Seal
(2x Seal of Cleansing, 1x Aura of Silence)

Ground Seal by itself only cycles, however, with a single Enchantress or a Sylvan Library, that effect is considerable. Even by itself, with more relevant cards in your deck and you being the deck on the offensive, cycling Ground Seal is more effective than them cycling Ice or DoJ.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1092247381

Mad Zur

08-11-2004, 05:00 PM

ns2973

08-12-2004, 11:59 AM

The thing is, if they have two counters and they play a second turn Enchantress, do they let it resolve in hopes that they'll draw a third? Sounds like a bad gamble to me, but if they do counter the Enchantress, they'll need two more counters to get rid of the kill. For them to choose that strategy, there would probably have to be three counters in the top eight.
Not really true. If I counter your second turn enchantress, I'm buying myself plenty of time that you aren't comboing. That stalls you at least two turns. (Turn three play enchantress, turn four play enchantment) That also assumes that the contol deck won't play a standstill or draw any cards w/ brainstorm or anything else. Then you need to effectively draw and play words of war, replenish, replenish on turn 5 (which you won't be able to do) or else they have gone through 20% of their deck minimum (assumng they draw nothing from spells). The thing is I've played control vs. solitare and had nothing but success. All forms of control too. Landstill beat it in my testing, so did my u/w control, so did angel control. Control doesn't gamble really, they stall you till they can draw enough to stop your three threats.

Garbados

08-12-2004, 12:05 PM

Was your testing pre- or post- sb? I'm intrigued as to how your testing results were so different. Could we get some details or something?

ns2973

08-12-2004, 12:12 PM

Pre. I don't remember the exact stats as this was quite a while ago I do remember we proxied this up and tested it when the VA peeps started talking about this deck. Landstill just drained into disk and wiped the draw engine. U/w drained into or countered untill they could play a scepter w/ orims chant. I know you guys play disenchant effects but it just never worked out. I found this deck stalled often and just wasn't as consistant as it would need to be. Post board i have only done testing online, but again the board sweeping effects kill the hell out of your draw engine, then you don't counter the early draw, you counter shit that kills artifacts, drain into disk then sweep the board and make them start over. Just my internet testing, if you would like more, I'm sure i can convince a team mate to test this further for you guys.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

08-12-2004, 12:52 PM

How did you ever get a Disk off against Enchantress? That seems indicative of testing with a bad Enchantress player. They're running more than enough Disenchant effects that Disk should be a sitting duck.

__

Quote (Garbados @ Aug. 11 2004,11:49)
60 cards.
8 Counters. (3 to be needed)

The individual chance of any given card in the deck being a counter is about 13%. Given that they'll need 3 in their hand by turn 4, they'll have drawn atleast 10 cards of their deck, and it's highly likely they'll have some form of draw. If I remember my algebra correctly, the chances of having 3 counters out of 10 cards is a little over 36%. Of course, I think that's wrong because I always hated algebra. Regardless, 13% is still a fair chunk of that 100.

The math seems wrong. Also keep in mind that each of those 8 counterspells has a 50% chance of needing another Blue card to work- and if you have three Counters in hand, it's very likely that you don't have any other Blue cards except more counters, in a three color deck.

EDIT: Merged 3000 posts together. -Di

Garbados

08-12-2004, 01:44 PM

@ bearassassin
The math probably /is/ wrong, but your point on FoW's is well noted.

Possible 3-counter combos

1 manadrain; 2 FoW
Probably the most favorable hand, unless the control player has been hucking blue answers at Solitaire for whatever reasons.

2 manadrain; 1 FoW
Unless you can afford 4 blue mana, this is much less favorable. However, if you can afford the 4 blue mana, then it's probably the best combination.

3 FoW
Would require three blue cards besides the FoW's themselves. Very unfavorable, as even having a six card hand this late in the game is hard/unwise to do.

3 manadrain
6 blue mana required. Eek. Of course, if they can pull it off, they could easily pour it all into an uber decree. Oh boo.

Regardless of the combo, pulling off 3 counters in one turn is hard to do. if they can do it, you're screwed. If not...

@ns2973
I would have thought people would have noticed that disk is rarely played without backup of some kind, commonly Stifle. However, disenchant effects are common enough in Solitaire, especially post-sb, that the entire situation will probably end up at around 50-50 or somewhere thereabouts. However, that's often enough to make someone like me wary enough to keep an enchantress effect in hand at all times.

Peter_Rotten

08-12-2004, 02:20 PM

I think your positive match against control is indicative of VA having no control players, not us having no enchantress players.
Well, I have to agree with both sides. Good Albany Enchantress player? Doesn't exist. VA member with a rep for being a great control player. Don't know him.

I was part of the testing for the Enchantress deck vs UW Scepter and it wasn't pretty for Enchantress. Luckily for Enchantress and other decks, UW Scepter is not much of a meta concern.

When I played Landstill against a VA Enchantress player (can't remember if it was Spat or Zur), it was not pretty for me. I won game one (which I should have lost) simply because of his play error and then lost game two without really having a chance. No time for the third. I don't see Enchantress having a tough time with Landstill.

ns2973

08-12-2004, 02:40 PM

Also for the sake of truth here, understand that the u/w deck plays 12 counter and 3-4 stifle so the match is inherently differnt there. I have not played against enchantress in tourney, but would test it further if Peter were willing.

Mad Zur

08-12-2004, 02:57 PM

Not really true. If I counter your second turn enchantress, I'm buying myself plenty of time that you aren't comboing. That stalls you at least two turns. (Turn three play enchantress, turn four play enchantment) That also assumes that the contol deck won't play a standstill or draw any cards w/ brainstorm or anything else. Then you need to effectively draw and play words of war, replenish, replenish on turn 5 (which you won't be able to do) or else they have gone through 20% of their deck minimum (assumng they draw nothing from spells). The thing is I've played control vs. solitare and had nothing but success. All forms of control too. Landstill beat it in my testing, so did my u/w control, so did angel control. Control doesn't gamble really, they stall you till they can draw enough to stop your three threats.
Expecting to have more counters than Enchantress has draw spells is a big gamble; just look at the numbers. Spatula's list has 8 Enchantresses, 3 Sylvan Libraries, and 4 Groves to fetch them. Landstill has 8 counterspells. It's extremely unlikely that there will be a point in the game where, after successfully countering all the draw so far, the control player is going to have a buffer of three counterspells.

My real worry about this issue comes from midgame Replenishes; running only one kill forces you to hold them against control, where they particularly shine at bringing you back into the game, until you're winning.

I haven't tested U/W. Theoretically, the additional counterspells make it closer, and the percentage of games where they win with a random Chant-lock might tip it in U/W's favor, though how much so I don't know.

Disk is just like Null Chamber, btw: Great to seal the game if you're winning, but absolute crap if you're losing. Stifle backup makes it good if you're barely losing, though.

ns2973

08-12-2004, 03:07 PM

Mad Zur

08-12-2004, 03:35 PM

Why does countering the first one stunt them 2 turns? If they play another next turn, it's really only stunted them one.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-13-2004, 04:03 AM

In order for control to win it has to a)be able to tell when the objective has switched from countering the draw to countering the kill(which isn't a favorable position in an 8-counter deck), and b)have the necessary counters to do so. Control can be a hard match-up, with the exception of Landstill; I don't think Mana Drain + Disk is a good argument, because they need to have those and protection for the disk or they lose anyway, and even then, letting Enchantresses resolve is a bad idea, as the Enchantress player will simply find more answers, or Replenish, or another hand of card-drawers to lay down post-Disk.

I don't think you can just blame it on the control players; I've played against Landstill piloted by TeenieBopper and peter_rotten and won every game with the exception of the time I miscounted and decked myself. Testing wasn't a fluke, the deck beats U/W/® Landstill. U/B is signifigantly harder, but is at least 50-50.

If there were any really viable control deck besides Landstill right now, it might require the deck to change(+1 Sacred Mesa, I think), but in my opinion, U/W scepter and Angel Control shouldn't mandate a change to the decklist unless they're prominent in a specific meta-game.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1092384839

TheInfamousBearAssassin

08-15-2004, 04:58 PM

FyndhornBrownie

08-15-2004, 05:41 PM

Split for first at two major tournaments (yes, I realize that both the 8/8 and 8/14 had less than 32 people, but considering the highly competitive level of most of the decks at both tournaments, I still consider them major in terms of quality of turnout, if not quantity). I think this warrants a forum change.
I don't think it is popular enough of a deck to be in the evr. This deck is probably good, ill give you that. But it doesn't seem widespread enough to be in the evr.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

08-15-2004, 06:15 PM

Popular where? There are probably six or seven different people who've built the deck in Virginia. Granted, about half of those were slightly inferior builds (Gribble actually put in 1x Pandemonium and Saporling Burst o.O), but that seems about as popular as, say, ATS is in New York.

Also, 7/10 is in the EVR, and I'm not aware of ANYONE besides Jander who's played that deck. It's simply in there because it's very good.

troopatroop

08-15-2004, 06:53 PM

look... we dont want it in the EVR because as nich sennet properly stated, enchantress is the new stasis. Everyone hates it becasuse enchantress ALWAYS goes to time. Noone wants to see it played.

Peter_Rotten

08-15-2004, 06:59 PM

I don't mind discussing the possibility of moving this thread to the EVR, but I don't want to do it in this thread. This thread should be for improving the deck and discussing its match ups.

If people want to discuss moving the deck, create another thread in the open forum.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

08-15-2004, 07:31 PM

I did, and then it were deleted. o.O

08-15-2004, 07:33 PM

I made a poll instead.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-16-2004, 03:58 AM

Okay, issue of Mud, the two options right now seem to be:

Energy Flux(drawback:requires two maindeck card slots for the changed kill condition, might not always have blue mana even with 2-3x trop, and adding more non-basics than that is bad with Wild Growth. Also can be played around. They could maintain Winter Orb and a Trisk and ride them home, and if Metalworker is in play with a couple cards in hand, they can maintain more.-- benefit: stays around, clears pretty much everything if there's no Welder )

Serenity(drawback:Hits your stuff. Realistically this doesn't seem so bad against Mud - if they're winning, you can't have that much to lose. A more realistic concern, I think, is that Chalice is usually named for 2.--Benefit:Makes everything deader 'en dead. Also 1 cheaper.)

So I'm of the opinion that Serenity could be Enchantress's answer to Mud. Enchantress has the ability to recover more quickly than Mud does, with card drawing, more cards in hand, and Replenish.

Zilla

08-16-2004, 05:01 AM

I'd like to see some testing results. Both with Serenity and alternately with Sacred Ground. You ought to talk Nick or Norm into doing some testing with you.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-16-2004, 05:05 AM

Well the SB all ready has 1x Sacred Ground that comes in; how many are you talking about?

Zilla

08-16-2004, 05:08 AM

My bad, I missed it. I guess I just want to see some solid testing results against a competent MUD player to get an idea what the matchup looks like with Serenity. As I told you via PM, I foresee Chalice set at 2 being a pretty huge problem, but I could be wrong. I'd like to see what your testing shows.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-16-2004, 05:27 AM

Granted; but a turn spent casting Chalice for 2 means a turn I can throw shit on the board, and that seems bad for them; if Enchantress can develop it's mana the first 3 turns, it will out-permanent Mud.

I'll PM them tomorrow, unless one of them reads this before I wake up and wants to PM me for testing whatca-call-it, purposes.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1092648559

Garvman

08-16-2004, 08:15 AM

Congrats to Jesse on the Amrod split! (congrats to JP too, but he wasn't playing Solitaire so we'll discuss that in another thread). Those maindeck Ground Seals were savage against dragon!
Did you use Spatula's list, or was yours a little different? I am just curious, because this deck just won 2 major tournaments in a row, and although it went to time in the round almost every round (you should work on that :p ) I think we should give this VA deck a little more consideration then we have been. As of now, not a single person around here plays anything remotly like it. I have thought about trying a version of this out myself, and I may, even though it isn't really my cup of tea (lack of things that turn sidways). I wouln't play it on tuesdays, though, as I don't like staying at altered all night :)

Mad Zur

08-16-2004, 03:57 PM

I have posted a report that includes my list, so you can find that here (http://grexin.shonic.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=10;t=184;r=1). Aside from the manabase, the differences are:

-2 Sylvan Library
-1 Elephant Grass
-1 Aura of Silence
-1 Words of War

+1 Trade Routes
+1 Sacred Mesa
+1 Solitary Confinement
+1 Seal of Cleansing
+1 Words of Wind

I don't know Matt's current sideboard so I can't say how it's diffferent.

You get to turn Pegasus tokens sideways with my build, but you have to do a lot of other things first. :p

Garbados

08-18-2004, 01:06 PM

I take it there's something about trade routes i just don't get. Do you discard extra land you have or something? Do you bounce serra's sanctum? I hate to be the noob, but could someone explain?

EDIT: While playtesting, i ran into a little problem. In playing /too many/ enchantress effects, I decked myself repeatedly. Maybe it was just bad calculating, but is there a limit to the number of enchantress effects I should have on the board?

Speaking of playtesting, I was playing around with Mad Zur's build and found it much more different than i had expected. Due to the different kills, it's slower by a turn or two. But because it has more things your opponent /needs/ to counter, it's more resiliant to counters and spot removal and things. Not to mention that the kill generally has to happen in one turn, while Spatula's build can sustain a kill which happens over several turns. I guess which deck you favor depends on your playing style and basic meta.

Another EDIT: I think the actual combo is Trade routes + Sanctum + Exploration. In one game I had around 150 mana floating.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-18-2004, 02:03 PM

I guess you bounce Sanctum with it, but it seems a lot like win-more to me.

Mad Zur

08-18-2004, 03:25 PM

Trade Routes doesn't have any good effects, but it does have several crappy ones:

1. Bounce Sanctum and replay (This can be done otherwise with WoWind, but it takes longer to set that up). This can be done under B2B.
2. Cycle extra lands.
3. Save lands from Wasteland or even Armageddon.

It may be going out in the near future, I dunno.

As for the other differences, the main reason for blue was SB Energy Flux, which seems in testing to be rather ineffective against MUD. I figured it was better than nothing, though. The Words change was a result of the color change, but since WoWind doesn't do any damage by itself, I needed a real kill, so the Mesa went in. The extra Confinement and Seal are preference things; I like having several Confinements and I think Aura is too clunky for the maindeck (but we agree that the total number of Seal effects should be three and the total number of aggro hate should be five).

Remember when testing that the kill doesn't matter so much as the WoWind; you can empty their board in one turn which leaves you free to kill them at your leisure (though you can sometimes make twenty Pegasi in the process).

goldenj

08-19-2004, 11:07 AM

Trade routes is better in the GWu version, as bouncing sanctums fuel Words of Wind and Sacred Mesa. It also has good synergy with solitary, as sometimes you're playing solitary with only one enchantment in hand, which you need for drawing, or you can bounce and discard a land to draw. It also provides that incidental wasteland protection, and I've even used it for extra draw when you're digging for a kill or answer. By bouncing explorations, you can get a silly amount of W in the mana pool. I prefer this list to the War kill, as the words of wind has more synergy with the confinement.

My GWu list
//NAME: windchant
3 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
1 Plains
1 Forest
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Exploration
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Sterling Grove
4 Wild Growth
2 Trade Routes
3 Seal of Removal
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Words of Wind
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress

The seals of removal are anti-dragon -- could be ground seals. The seals seem to be more general purpose, but we don't see much graveyard stuff locally. The Multani is a nice surprise and typically a one turn kill under words of wind.

Control is a tough matchup if they know to just counter enchantresses. If I wasn't a chicken, I'd cut two words of wind for two sylvan library to help that matchup.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-19-2004, 11:56 AM

Trade Routes - It seems like either win-more, or only good if you're extremely mana-flooded. In and of itself it has a minimal effect, because normally you want your lands, and bouncing is only effective with Sanctum.

In regards to 2x Sanctum, I decided that it wasn't really worth it unless you run more mana-sources, which I see you have, but I don't like having so few business spells.

Ground Seal isn't *just* good against Mud and Dragon; it's good against everyone, because at the point in the game where every other spell cycles, it nets you a card.

What I don't like about the heavy blue splash is the susceptibility to non-basic hate that it opens up; my version runs only 6 non-basics not including fetches. This is compounded by Wild Growth.

goldenj

08-22-2004, 01:49 PM

I played blue solitaire in the 1.5 this Friday to 3rd/4th -- losing to my own mistakes.

The field of 16 included multiple ravagers, suicide black, straight burn, FCG, goblin sligh, my blue solitaire, a landstill and some randomness.

My two losses were to straight burn and FCG. In game 3 vs SRB I was greedy with fetches and lost to blood moon (a definite weakness of the blue solitaire). I hadn't seen it in game 2, and never fetched a basic. Then digging for answers was slower, and I got wrecked by triple ankh of mishra when I had to let confinement go. In game 3 vs FCG (Carlos El Salvador) I had to choose between laying a turn 2 seal of cleansing or argothian enchantress. His turn 2 play led me to believe he didn't have the combo -- but he did. I was playing for turn 3 solitary confinement. Oh well.

The auras of silence were excellent in the SB. I played mostly against aggro so I didn't have a chance to test the anti-control or anti-dragon sides. (No dragon there at all.)

I had a colossal oversight pointed out to me last night. The enchantress variant player (Rocky, unreg'd) pointed out that Words can trigger from sylvan library draws. And this to a guy whose favorite combo for years was sylvan/abundance. Sigh. So Trade routes are out, and sylvan libraries are in. The seals of removal were still in because I discovered I had no ground seals! But the seals were good vs. ravager.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-22-2004, 01:59 PM

Have you tested Elephant Grass? In most situations, it has the same end result against aggro as Seal of Removal, but it can stay around for a while. I can see it being inferior late game against Ravager(whereas Seal of Removal is obviously exceptionally good in that particular match-up), but then I've never had much trouble against Ravager, since they have no answer to Confinement.

goldenj

08-22-2004, 02:53 PM

When I've tested elephant grass, the upkeep has really been a problem. Early on this deck taps out every turn. It's like an escalating self-inflicted time walk, when I've had more success digging for confinement. That's why I'm back up to four sterling groves. The seals were originally in for dragon as a turn 1 play (can't be duressed or therapied or swarmed even) but there's so much ravager locally that I'm considering keeping it in. It's good for one or two turns sometimes just as a threat.

Doh! The other thing I tried last night that's moving to maindeck is 2 Ancestral Knowledges. They are phenomenal digging, as you can wind them back, get an auto shuffle and dig again. Sylvan Library meet impulse, here are your steroids.

List I'd play now:

Draw -12
4 A.Ench.
4 Ench. Pres.
2 Sylvan Library
2 Ancestral Knowledge --> both may be overkill

Kill - 5
2 Words of Wind
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Other (Currently Multani, Maro Sorcerer, could be words of Wilding = current crazy thought - or 3rd Words of Wind)

Utility/Defense - 14
1 Replenish
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Seal of Removal/Ground Seal (I can't decide: Removal for now.)
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Sterling Grove

Mana - 29
2 Serra's Sanctum
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Wild Growth
4 Savannah
4 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Forest
2 Plains
6 Fetch (Heath/Strand)

Side should include:
3 Aura of silence
2 COP: Red (don't like, but do buy time)
1 City of Solitude
1 Seal of Cleansing

I also have:
2 Ground Seal
1 Compost
1 Light of Day (Suicide Black is def'ly played here)
1 Masticore
2 Sacred Ground

I need more thought on this since ancestrals and sylvans are main deck now.

Double posting is frowned upon. :( Use the edit function next time. I merged the posts for you.

Peter_Rotten

Mad Zur

08-22-2004, 03:47 PM

Definitely keep us updated on how Ancestral Knowledge works out. That's something I've been thinking about recently but haven't had the chance to test very much.

Garbados

08-22-2004, 08:06 PM

Out of curiosity, why the abundance of kills? So far as i knew, most Solitaire decks ran 1-3 kill cards. Just curious.

CavernNinja

08-23-2004, 12:32 AM

I think that the reason you're running the extra words of wind is because you're running one fewer replenish. In many games against Spatula I've very rarely seen him cast WoWar he normally will replenish it against any sort of aggro deck as he isn't worried about the replenishes being countered. I really like that someone outside of VA has started messing around with the deck successfully. I think that Sphere of Law is better in the board than CoP as you normally want to tap out and Sphere doesn't require the continued mana investment. If you fear Dragon then the best thing since sliced bread has to be Night Soil, it completely shuts down the draw that wins games.

Carlos El Salvador

08-23-2004, 02:09 AM

John has been playing the deck for months, it's good and it makes me want to pwn up our meta with enchantress, I just cannot remebr where in this room all my enchantress stuff is, I mean it's 30 cards all piled together someplace. The deck is extremly fun, and I started playing it back when it was called "eternal wind". I had a cute kill card in storm seeker + Gaea's blessing + Words of wind + a bajillion other cards, but enchantress is allowed to do that. Whenever john plays the deck, he almost always t4s or t8's with the deck. I agree that he should run another Replenish, as there is quite a bit of control out here (My usual archtype of choice, andy's former usual, Lewis, rocky all play control regulerly.) I think wiht FCG though, I shifted the meta back to goblins, of the food chain variety.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-23-2004, 01:17 PM

I agree with Garbados's sentiments; you don't need more than 4 kill conditions at most, and they should either be enchantments or Replenish. Multani is far too situational to be good.

CavernNinja

08-23-2004, 05:57 PM

And if control is heavy in the environment you should be running atleast 2 replenish MD and another SB maybe bumping it to a total of 4 between the two. Replenish is what lets you push through the late game against control.

ndennis

08-30-2004, 10:14 PM

Could I get a quick comment about how this deck works? I've been reading a few of these threads but seam to have missed out on this.

I assume you get several enchantress effects out. Then start casting enchantments with a Words of War out. Then just skip the draw effects and "shock" your opponent to death.

My question is: Does this all happen in one turn? Is it some sort of infinite combo? If so what has to happen and how does it happen? Do you keep bouncing an enchantment some way?

Or does it happen over the course of a few turns..doing 6 or so damage each turn (or all that your mana will allow)

I'm sure this is pretry silly to some of you, but I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks, in advance.

-nd

finley

08-30-2004, 10:18 PM

with serras sanctom u gets lots of mana and then it doesnt take long to do 20 dmg to them when u do like 8 dmg with 1 enchantment

FakeSpam

08-30-2004, 10:19 PM

It's finite.

You do generate enough mana to kill in one turn, however.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-01-2004, 01:02 PM

Words of Wind can potentially generate infinite mana, however, Words of War typically relies on 12 mana/5 Enchantress/Ground Seal.

Mad Zur

09-02-2004, 08:46 PM

So, we need to somehow survive Replenish going away.

Redundancy is the answer. Can a Storm-based Enchantress deck work? No, because compared to other combo, it is horrendously slow. Why? It can't run more than eight of the sixteen artifact accelerants. Can it run some means of control for those decks, or disruption to make it better against the decks packing hate? No, because the enchantment count is at its minumum with just three Tendrils/Duress. The deck appears to simply be worse than Belcher.

Solitaire is probably the best way to abuse Enchantresses for now, largely because a first turn Enchantress followed by a second turn Confinement has the potential to be really cool.

You want Moxen, probably at least a set of Chromes. After that, I think it needs Diamond, Petal, or ESG (ESG's advantages being that it dodges Null Rod, and it can make a good blocker :p). Confinement is definitely a three of (Four might actually be good, I dunno). Elephant Grass might actually be SB, depending on the prevelance of aggro. The Seal/Aura configuration will need tweaking, depending on the control decks that pop up (Seal is good for Disk, and Aura for Deed).

You need lots of win conditions, which is unfortunate, but can't be helped. No more quivering about Rootwater Thief, which is good, since some silly people will probably want to play Fish. Words of War/Wind, Sacred Mesa, Words of Wilding, and City of Solitude are all candidates. The third color doesn't matter as much anymore, since you need more win conditions than before even without Words of Wind. Blue has some sideboard options (And FoW, but I doubt that would work), but I don't know if any of them will be used. Speaking of sideboard, Serenity is no longer usable. Titania's Song is the enchantment Null Rod for twice as much, but the usual Null Rod might be better.

With four Argothians, and eight Moxen/Petals/ESGs, there is room for eighteen land and thirty enchantments. This is a good starting point for testing purposes, but doesn't leave room for any Regrowths, Crop Rotations, or Enlightened Tutors, so my answer is "probably not" as far as those go.

So after some tuning, the deck will hopefully be back to winning game ones all over the place. The question is sideboard. How do we deal with Tranquility without the white Will? Karmic Justices in multiples (backed up by Femeref Enchantress if necessary) is a possible answer, or we could try a non-enchantment based strategy of some sort. I'll see if I can come up with any.

Hey, I just realized that Tranquil Domain followed by Time Stop owns this deck. :p

edgewalker

09-02-2004, 09:00 PM

Just play a parfiat esque build but with your draw being enchantress ass opposed to tax/rack.

Zilla

09-02-2004, 09:03 PM

Ummmm... that's the very definition of Enchantress. Enchantress originally evolved from Parfait into what it is now. What you basically just said is: "Just play the deck you're playing." That's some... kick ass advice.

Mad Zur

09-03-2004, 12:07 AM

It's actually more like "play a two year old version of the deck your playing," the version that has always lost to combo. I don't expect combo to dominate in FitA, but it'll be pretty damn popular. I do not want to enter a tournament with a deck as slow as Parfait, especially if I'm restricted to a card type that doesn't include the majority of cheap combo hate.

Also, the T1 deck ran four Replenish and was tier two. That doesn't bode well for its chances in FitA.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-03-2004, 12:26 AM

-2 Replenish
+1 Words of Worship
+1 Sacred Mesa

I think Ground Seal stays. I don't think 8 Moxen are necessary, probably some combination of 5-6 ESG/Chrome Mox would be sufficient. SB, Titania's Song seems like a solid option all of a sudden. Crystal Chimes might be worth testing.

The changes don't appear to hurt Aggro or Combo match-ups at all, they hurt the control match. Adequete SB preperation should deal with this.

XOM_Dragon

09-03-2004, 12:54 AM

Locally, we've seen some descent combo enchantress builds... Kill mechanism revolves either around a nasty biorhythm or huge brain freeze. As everyone pointed out, these mechanisms become one trick ponies when the combo is disrupted by control or the ever funny, stifling the storm on the freeze.

CavernNinja

09-03-2004, 01:26 AM

Is it worth talking about the old U/G combo with Palinchron? We've regained Stroke so it might be feasable again.

XOM_Dragon

09-03-2004, 01:33 AM

Is it worth talking about the old U/G combo with Palinchron? We've regained Stroke so it might be feasable again.
High tide? I think there's a link on here somewhere of a high tide deck with the palinchron....

Nocturnal

09-03-2004, 01:59 AM

You could keep 1 Words of War and add some number of Regrowths

CavernNinja

09-03-2004, 02:01 AM

But Regrowth doesn't have the strength that Replenish did. It allowed you to recover after a Tranquility, Regrowth lets you bring back the win condition.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-03-2004, 02:05 AM

Ground Seal > Regrowth.

Any such storm based blue plan, would, as Mad Zur said, be an inferior Solidarity, and would take away the deck's consistency, which may be it's greatest strength in the new enviroment.

finley

09-03-2004, 01:26 PM

How does enchantress fair against control now? How do you plan to beat them without Replenish? I've noticed youve added more win conditions but is that enough? Can the control player play differently against this enchantress then the one with Replenish?

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-03-2004, 04:05 PM

It makes game one against any control deck pretty unfavorable, and will require more SB room against control.

Mad Zur

09-03-2004, 07:52 PM

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-04-2004, 12:44 PM

The changes don't appear to hurt Aggro or Combo match-ups at all, they hurt the control match. Adequete SB preperation should deal with this.
The thing is, the combo matchups are totally changed. Instead of a turn two deck that we have a good nine maindeck answers for, there's a turn two combo deck that we have no maindeck answers for and little to board in. Belcher is going to be a real problem.

Aggro, too, might actually get worse. Without Replenish, the only way to recover from a timely Tranquility effect is to draw into multiples of the stuff, and this is assuming Karmic Justice is on the board. Multiples of those are going to become necessary.

Any such storm based blue plan, would, as Mad Zur said, be an inferior Solidarity, and would take away the deck's consistency, which may be it's greatest strength in the new enviroment.
It doesn't lose consistency; it loses speed.

Palinchron/High Tide seems worse than Celestial Dawn/WoWind as far as infinite combs go.

I've often looked at Crystal Chimes and said, "If only you weren't worse than Replenish..." It seems that this could be their moment in the sun.
Aggro doesn't really become that much worse; if they pass after a tranquility effect, you're going to recover with the cards in hand; Tranquil Domain with damage on the stack still hurts you, but Replenish didn't answer that, Karmic Justice/Elephant Grass did.

Seal hurts Belcher more than you think, and Aura of Silence completely wrecks them. And Confinement still wins.

When I say consistency, I think speed is implied; every bad combo gains consistency over time, simply because they'll run into the cards they need eventually.

Crystal Chimes should be tested.

Happy Gilmore

09-04-2004, 03:56 PM

I havn't checked but enlightened tutor seems like a must.
:cool:

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-04-2004, 11:14 PM

It would seem like that at first, but I have strong doubts about it's inclusion at all. Sterling Grove appears to all ready serve it's role better.

Zilla

09-05-2004, 03:29 AM

It would seem like that at first, but I have strong doubts about it's inclusion at all. Sterling Grove appears to all ready serve it's role better.
I don't know the deck nearly as well as Spatula does, but it's my inclination to agree with him. Grove is both a tutor and defense for your threats, and the additional mana is easily covered in a deck with this kind of accelleration.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-05-2004, 02:56 PM

Here's a list I'm thinking of for post-banning

4x Argothian
4x Presence
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration
4x Elephant Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Grove
2x Library
2x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Words of Worship
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Serra's Sanctum
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
1x Taiga
2x Plains
8x Forest

SB:

3x Multani's Presence
2x Choke
1x City of Solitude
1x Parallax Wave
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
2x Spreading Algea
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
1x (Titania's Song?)

09-05-2004, 03:01 PM

Just a question, but with Dragon completely out of the picture, why still run 4x Ground Seal maindeck? I've seen it's great cantripping ability, but other than that it's more of just a useless card, only stopping Genesis now.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-05-2004, 03:05 PM

That's a really good question, since most people I talked to assumed they would go out now, but the cantrip is *extremely* important when you have one Enchantress out, since it nets you a card at the stage where every thing else cycles, making it much less likely you'll fizzle out. This is especially important if you're forced to play a Confinement with only one Enchantress; if I have a Ground Seal in hand, I'm not as afraid to cast the Confinement.

Mad Zur

09-05-2004, 07:57 PM

It still stops Welders! But yeah, it draws more cards than anything we could put in the slot. Anything the least bit synergistic, anyway.

4x Argothian
4x Presence
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration
4x Elephant Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Grove
2x Library
2x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Words of Worship
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Serra's Sanctum
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
1x Taiga
2x Plains
8x Forest

SB:

3x Multani's Presence
2x Choke
1x City of Solitude
1x Parallax Wave
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
2x Spreading Algea
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
1x (Titania's Song?)
Honestly there doesn't seem to be much of a point trying to come up with lists until we actually do some testing. Start with what we have, swap Replenish for win conditions, and test against various decks to see if it functions optimally. It's a sort of control deck, after all, so we need a sense of metagame before we can start making changes.

Man, there are so many humurous questions involving Replenish that we may never hear again. "So how many cards do you draw? Don't you deck?" "Doesn't that target them?" "Do you really draw a card with Ground Seal?" "Wait, what does that card say again?!?" It's quite sad.

Happy Gilmore

09-05-2004, 08:01 PM

isn't sacred mesa your best win condition now?
???

Edit: I just remembered, how about crop rotation for the sanctum? Alot of mana really seems neccessary, now more than ever.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-05-2004, 10:28 PM

Crop rotation would be over-kill and useless on it's own.

Sacred Mesa takes 3 turns to win.

Honestly there doesn't seem to be much of a point trying to come up with lists until we actually do some testing

Um...a list to test? ???

And you forgot "doesn't that deck you?"

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1094437745

Mad Zur

09-06-2004, 12:43 AM

Well, we already have a list to test... what I mean is, any changes that need to be made (other than -2 Replenish +2 win) will be direct consequences of the metagame; it's silly to worry about whether we want three or four Elephant Grasses or talk about how many Aura of Silences we need right now. Trying to predict the metagame this early isn't particularly productive. There's little point building control decks full of potentially wrong answers until there is a metagame to deal with.

And yes I do realize that makes me a hypocrite of the most svg variety.

EDIT: By the by, for anyone who's interested, the format being totally turned on its head is going to significantly delay the primer-writing process. I do still intend to do it (and have some written already), but we'll have to figure out many matchups first.

Here's something that won't be in it anymore:

Replenish

Replenish is the strongest bomb in the deck against control and discard, undoing every counterspell or discard spell they've played so far if it resolves, but also a solid utility spell against any deck. It gets back every used Grove, every used Seal (which has the capacity to wreck their board all over again if you've Groved for all of them), and the Confinements and Grasses whose upkeeps weren't paid. If you stall out on a Confinement, it's common to let it die, Grove or Sylvan for an enchantment, and then Replenish it. In addition to all of this, it is necessary to have some form of recursion because otherwise only the one kill would have to be countered.
:(

I just felt like posting that. I know it wasn't very interesting. It is the only obsolete section of the currently unfinished first draft. I'm lucky I was saving matchups for last, eh? :p

goldenj

09-07-2004, 10:33 AM

I played the blue solitaire again this week, with 2 maindeck ancestral knowledge. They might be a good replacement for ground seal -- although they are especially good with words of wind. Look at 10, pick up, shuffle, look at 10. Two games it found me the solitary on the turn I needed it.

I lost T4 to B/R aggro. First turn hippie in games 1 and 3. Game 3 the hippie hit 2xsanctum, 3xconfinement, 2 other mana sources. Brutal. (Missed my obsolete seal of removals) Otherwise I beat FCG, randomness, and drew with Carlos El Salvador playing ATS. Trade Routes got me out of a B2B lock for a Replenish win Game 2, and I had control game 3 but got timed out.

I'm going to try one crop rotation and one enlightened tutor main deck. The grove is good enough that trying five effects seems worthwhile. And haven't you all found occasions when you're hesitant to blow the grove for confinement b/c you're sure the opp. is holding a naturalize? Then, Etutor is better. But I can't imagine fitting even 2 in. The Crop Rotation will be nice vs B2B or Blood Moon or when you need a Sanctum.

Can someone explain how elephant grass tests for you? I must be misusing it, because when I test it, it just eats mana and keeps me from digging for Solitary Confinement.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-07-2004, 11:52 AM

The point of Elephant Grass is to buy time until you can set up a supportable Confinement. You didn't find one against the Hypnotic Specter?

Okay, so here's a card I've been thinking about either SB or MD: Chalice of the Void. As an answer to combo, and Enchantress would be able to cast it for pretty much anything at some point in the game.

Yeah, I know, but no one was posting.

I'll edit this one in; initial testing with CotV very positive, testing against Pox, Belcher, BBS, random Future Sight combo deck, and (GDW?). -1 Words of Worship, -2 Elephant Grass, -1 Exploration; new enchantment count: 29. I think I might switch 1 Ground Seal for another Seal of Cleansing.

Not really happy with the enchantment count, but I think CotV is worth it; name for 0 against combo, 1 against aggro, and name for 5 and then 2 against control for an additional 4x must-counters if they opt for letting your engine resolve and trying to counter your kill.

Double posts make baby Jesus cry. Merged. -Zilla

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1094723125

currence

09-12-2004, 02:52 PM

Is there a reason for no Mox Diamonds, just like the reason for no Crop Rotations? I've never played this version of Enchantress before, but with my older, more typical Enchantress builds I always faced the problem of having land being useless in my hand. Is this not a problem with the "Solitaire" version?

When the new b/r list came out, I was quite anxious to use multiple Diamonds, but now I'm thinking it may not be such a good plan.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-12-2004, 04:52 PM

You really need 22+ lands to support Diamond, and then Diamond on top of that, and it's too many non-enchantment slots that don't do enough to warrant their inclusion. Crop rotation is even worse because it's effect is even more narrow.

Carlos El Salvador

09-12-2004, 07:39 PM

The loss of wake can easily be replaced by 2 cards... one of whcih is Hostolic Wisdom, the other one being Regrowth... I think the wisdom is a better call here, as it allows for a fast recovory after tranqual domains. I would personally run chalices in the side, due to the fact that they are not enchantments. Plus, isn't solitary Confinement engouth hate on combo decks?

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-12-2004, 09:36 PM

Carlos El Salvador

09-12-2004, 10:29 PM

The problem is that Holistic Wisdom and Regrowth are both much slower than Replenish and don't work with Ground Seal in play. Ground Seal improves the deck's consistency amazingly, and the idea of dropping them doesn't sit well with me. If only Wizards would print another cantrip enchantment.
The thing is, Sure, they both work slower, but they work, and if Aggro goes out of the way to set you back maybe two turns, that's fine, you can build back in that time. Disk isn't going to be played nearly as much as it was pre-bannings, so you will still draw 1 or 2 cards for each enchantment you recur. And I truely think that Ground Seal can leave the deck. Wihtout WGD casting a shadow on this deck, You should be cocentrating on some other of the upper teir decks. I still feel that if you want to play chalice, move them to the sideboard, because you can win game 1 VS belcher if you set up an early confinement.

Mad Zur

09-12-2004, 10:45 PM

Plus, isn't solitary Confinement engouth hate on combo decks?
Not nearly enough. Belcher wins on turn two or three; Confinement usually comes down turn three or four. I can count on one finger the amount of times a second turn Confinement has won me the game. (It wouldn't have against Belcher, though.)

The thing is, Sure, they both work slower, but they work, and if Aggro goes out of the way to set you back maybe two turns, that's fine, you can build back in that time.
Getting stuff back with Holistic Wisdom is hardly superior to just drawing into more stuff (with the help of Ground Seal). The only huge advantage is that it's a must counter against control, meaning it might be a good sideboard option.

dad

09-16-2004, 01:43 PM

I still think Worship, Moat, and Ivory Mask are essential one ofs. I would consider putting them in for the E. Grass. Also Hidden Gibbons is excellent in the board vs. control.

B is for Big Job

09-16-2004, 06:40 PM

I still think Worship, Moat, and Ivory Mask are essential one ofs. I would consider putting them in for the E. Grass. Also Hidden Gibbons is excellent in the board vs. control.
They are good, but removing elephant grass stops early on aggro in its tracks, like gob sligh, zompy, and others.

Grollub

09-16-2004, 07:29 PM

4x Argothian
4x Presence
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration
4x Elephant Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Grove
2x Library
2x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Words of Worship
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Serra's Sanctum
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
1x Taiga
2x Plains
8x Forest

SB:

3x Multani's Presence
2x Choke
1x City of Solitude
1x Parallax Wave
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
2x Spreading Algea
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
1x (Titania's Song?)
How does it beat anything with counterspells? You only have to counter two cards: Words of War and Sacred Mesa.

After that it's only a matter of time till you setup the win and go Cunning Wish->Disenchant/Wash Out and clear the Confinement... Post sideboard there's only one more bomb you really have to worry about; City of Solitude. Choke isn't that big a threat...

I don't know if there's something I missed, but I can't see how it wins against control. But I'd love to hear if I'm wrong, I've always loved Enchantress decks.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-16-2004, 08:06 PM

Well most control decks were running 8 counters in the old 1.5, but with the advent of BBS, I think 1 Choke SB becomes another City of Solitude, and Words of Worship MD can become Mobilization.

But keep in mind that if control opts to save it's counters for the kil and not the draw engine they'll be forced to counter all the kill conditions in the same turn, turn 4 or 5. Soooo it's really not as bad as it seems.

Grollub

09-16-2004, 08:39 PM

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-17-2004, 12:00 AM

With only two real threats in the maindeck, it shouldn't be too hard for a control deck to be able to cast two counterspells turn four to five - 1 Force and 1 regular, even two regular is easily archieved at that state.

Perhaps more red mana, and be able to side in a Blast plan? I think it'd work alot better than Multani's Prescense given the decks threat-light nature, plus it'd help against Solidarity/Tide. ;)

CotV might be another viable solution, as it can shut down all the 2cc counterspells pretty fast, turn two isn't far fetched. Personally I don't think Choke is a good sideboard option, as the spells you need to counter most likely will be cast the same turn (else they wont be able to get through a counterwall), so Choke will be effective after it should be working. Mayhaps one more City of Solitude, or Sacred Mesa (Word of Wilding could work too?) etc.

EDIT: I haven't played this version of Enchantress, so I'm talking without any experience with this deck - take my ideas/concerns with a grain of salt.
Technically Words of Worship is a kill condition against control, and you're right about CotV, when I was testing it I used it towards that end against control, but generally it becomes such a poor game plan post-SB. Choke is more effecitve than you might think, stopping them from drawing cards if it resolves. I really think 3 kill conditions is enough pre-board, and probably 5 must-counters post-board. Given that, Multani's Presence fits a better role post-SB than excess kill conditions, as it fits the mana curve better.

goldenj

09-17-2004, 09:53 AM

Ghostly Prison - W2 (Uncommon)
Enchantment
Creatures can't attack you unless their controller pays 2 for each creature attacking you.

Good bye Elephant Grass? Weaker vs Lackey, should still stop most aggro till the Confinement falls.

2W Cleanfall Sorcery - Arcane (White Uncommon)
Destroy all enchantments.

Ugh. Good thing no one plays white. Except control. And us. Ugh.

BTW -- has anyone experimented with Cleansing Meditation side for the mirror? I can't imagine it being better than Aura of silence, but...

AlexH

09-17-2004, 01:16 PM

White already has Tempest of Light, which does the same thing only at instant speed.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-17-2004, 06:16 PM

I did run Calming Verse a couple of times in the SB, but never got a chance to use them.

Anywho. Elephant Grass has a couple advantages over the white propaganda. A) It's 1 mana. That's really big. It means that you can dig until you find one then cast it if you're tight on mana, or ESG it out, or just use it to cycle through cards against control or combo where it's ability doesn't actually come up. B)It's in the primary color. This isn't as big of an issue, but worth noting. C)It's also Light of Day. This is notable against Psychatog, Hypnotic Specter/Mindstab Thrull, and a couple other random fatties like Negator.

hellfire1134

09-26-2004, 11:03 AM

currence

09-29-2004, 04:22 PM

With all the talk of fast new combo, what is the status of Null Rod? SB worthy?

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-30-2004, 02:33 PM

i used to play enchantress in a very aggro heavy meta and there is a combo that works wonders. maze of ith and dueling grounds they can't attack you. my meta was alot of decks like goblins and affinity so i don't know how well it will work but it's worth a try.
What advantages does that have over Solitary Confinement, except possibly the Hulk match-up?

With all the talk of fast new combo, what is the status of Null Rod? SB worthy?

Possibly, though I like Chalice more due to its flexibility. Null Rod can only be used against certain combo decks, whereas Chalice can be brought in against any deck with a critical mana cost, such as Solidarity, Pox, and Goblins. It could even be useful against control.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1096569558

CavernNinja

09-30-2004, 04:10 PM

Something worth noting with Chalice is that it will never stop your draw engine because you can still play an enchantment and draw cards even though it got coutered by Chalice. All the Enchantresses have had errata to say "Whenever you play an enchantment..."

SpatulaOfTheAges

10-03-2004, 11:36 PM

A few notes, as possibly one of my last post on this site; testing has shown predictable weaknesses to board sweepers in the absence of Replenish; also, increases in the popularity of the WW and Pox arch-types have led to increased land destruction. Changes to sideboard to combat these factors include possibly; extra Karmic Justice, which is a good catch-all answer, but sometimes a moot point. Second Sunrise, which requires mana open, but deal with "With combat damage on the stack..". Extra Sacred Ground, which deal with Armageddon from WW and 12 Pox spells.

Specifically dealing with the Pox arch-type, Spreading Algea has proven very effective; it has excellent synergy with even a single Enchantress, hurts their disruption considerably, and protects you from Dystopia.

Night Soil has come out without Dragon, but if any specific Survival deck becomes too powerful, it might be another good option.

As far as Belcher goes, there's no really effective enchantment option, so CotV or Null Rod are still probably your best bets. CotV can also theoretically be sided in against Goblins, though it has certain disadvantages when trying to maintain a Confinement.

Against control, my general gameplan is -4 Ground Seal, -1 Solitary Confinement/Elephant Grass(depending on build) +2 City of Solitude, +2 Choke, +1 Holistic Wisdom. If Solidarity weren't an issue, the CoSs and Chokes would be 3x Multani's Presence and 1x City of Solitude.

In summation, the loss of Replenish probably makes the deck tier 2, but it still maintains certain advantages in metas not dominated by faster combo, it's biggest weakness by my testing.

Kundalini

10-04-2004, 05:18 PM

My 5-color version is:

4 arg. enchantress
4 ench.presence

4 windswept heath
2 city of traitors
2 serra's sanctum
4 savannah
3 tropical island
3 bayou
2 taiga
2 scrubland
1 tundra

4 exploration
2 eladamri's vineyard
4 sterling grove
2 cadaverous bloom
1 squandered resources
3 birds of paradise

2 solitary confinement
2 seal of removal
1 seal of cleansing
1 feldon's cane
1 city of solitude
1 trade routes

2 words of war
1 words of worship
1 words of wind
1 pursuit of knowledge

//sideboard
0-2 gaea's blessing
3-4 multani's presence
0-1 solitary confinement
2 seal of cleansing
1-2 ground seal
2 compost
2 insight

currently testing

Edit: The main combo of this version is through cadaverous bloom. It is an unlimited source of mana, once your main draw engine is estabilished. Remove 1 card in your hand for GG, spend G for the activation of words of wind, return an exploration/vineyard to my hand, use G to cast exploration again and draw x-1 more cards (x is the number of enchantress-effects in play). So , each card in hand is worth x-1 more cards, PLUS a rebounce effect on an opponent's permanent. This rebounces everything and draws as many cards as you wish (whenever x >1). If words of wind is not in play, just play enchantments, draw tons of cards, play more enchantments, and go on...

Other cards:
4 sterling grove: is an enchantment, protects enchantments, and fetches whatever you need...
squandered resources: since you run 5 color, this is a vital mana source when you go off with the combo, for U/R/W mana
solitary confinement: main defense, but not sufficient, complement it with words of worship and city of solitude
feldons cane: you need a graveyard retrieval really bad, and gaea's blessing and regrowth are conflicting with confinement
words of war: kill condition
pursuit of knowledge: draws 7 with little effort, plus it is a way not to die by decking in desperate times. Differently from "words of..." it costs no mana: you can activate it whenever you are drawing "too much" (and store that for drawing much more, later).

Seriously thinking about naturalizes/disenchants in the sideboard, because seal of cleansing can do nothing to the awful Presence of the Master

SpatulaOfTheAges

10-05-2004, 02:56 PM

I don't think I'd go 5 colors just for Words of War, since your mana base is all ready going to have problems. Also, you might want to try Lotus Petal instead of BoP.

Kundalini

10-19-2004, 08:00 PM

Ok, I've developed a completely different variant... it could eventually be a completely different deck. It's basically G/B with (optional?) a little red into it.

//Cadaverous Enchantress
//mana
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire
4 bayou
4 taiga
2 badlands
2 forest
2 lotus petal
3 birds of paradise
2 dark ritual

//enchantress effects
4 argothian enchantress
4 enchantress's presence
2 verduran enchantress

//combo
4 cadaverous bloom
4 whip silk

//kill
2 consume spirit
1 words of war

//other spells
2 thunderscape familiar
4 exploration
2 gaea's blessing
2 city of solitude
2 elephant grass

//sideboard
2 null rod
2 elephant grass
1 night soil
1 sylvan library / squandered resources
1 lifeforce /deathgrip
1 pernicious deed
4 oxidize/naturalize
1 city of solitude
1 yawgmoths edict
------------------------

Basically this is a ProsBloom deck which is fueled by enchantress draw: play it as an ordinary enchantress deck until you drop a cadaverous bloom: then trade a card from hand for GG, cast whip silk, draw X cards (X = # enchantress effects in play) and return it to your hand, then repeat until you have enough cards in your hand to cast a huge consume spirit and win.

Card choices:
BoP/T.familiar/Verduran: apart from their obvious funcions, they are whip silk targets, also
Words of War: alternate kill condition, in the case I haven't enough cards left in my deck
City of Solitude: main defense against control
Elephant grass: main defense against aggro
Gaea's blessing: I don't like these in my deck, but simply I can't do without them... any idea about replacing with...?

SB choices:
night soil: against survival/reanimators
lifeforce/deathgrip: easily fueled by cadaverous bloom

SpatulaOfTheAges

10-20-2004, 04:04 AM

You're only running 21 enchantments; Whip Silk is a local enchantment; that's 17 global enchantments; of those, 4 cost 5 mana, and half of the others cost 3. I think you need to streamline your mana curve; you should consider Wild Growth, Gaea's Touch, and Fertile Ground as option; you might also want to try Squandered Resources.

hellfire1134

10-22-2004, 04:40 PM

this is my list. It has a few differences in what i ahve seen but here goes.

4 Argothian Enchantress
2 auratog
4 Enchantress Presence
4 Wild Growth
4 Exploration
3 dueling ground
4 Ground Seal
2 Library
3 mask ( you know the one that gives a creature +2/+2 for each enchantment you control)
2 Aura of Silence
1 Words of wilding
4 birds of paradise ( or llanowar elves if you are really a budget player)
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah ( or brushland for the budget player)
2 maze of ith
3 Plains
5 Forest

mainly i like birds of paradise and the mask the pumps the crap out of one of your creatures. *cough birds of paradise cough* this is the version i have seen at my local tornament before the changes. There was a few differences but i think this version is up to par. dueling ground and maze of ith makes it so your opponent can't attack. What do you guys think. The person who normally runs this fits swords of plowshares in there but i can;t figure out where.

edit: i forgot to change some things to add in auratog which really did help last tiem i plaeyd this deck. also changed words of war to words of wilding cause i want to make the manabase work a little bit. also added what to use if building on a budget.

waSP

10-23-2004, 04:58 AM

If you try going the aggressive route with this deck, you'll be naught but disappointed. You have to go Control or Combo (the deck is more naturally a combo deck..).

I'm ironing out a new list that will run a little more effectively than my old one did. Elephant Grass is a card everyone will have to let go pretty soon. Constant Mists is why. Unlimited Fogs for this deck will be amazing, especially when dealing with cards like Tranquil Domain. As soon as I'm confident in my list, I'll post it.

SpatulaOfTheAges

10-23-2004, 05:21 AM

Sacraficing permanents and having to leave mana open to not draw cards isn't generally what the deck wants to do. I played Constant Mists for a short time, but Elephant Grass has far more synergy with the deck, and costs less.

hellfire - Why not run Solitary Confinement over Dueling Grounds/Maze of Ith?

How effective have the Masks been? I would imagine they get stuck in your hand a lot or fall to target removal.

Mad Zur

10-23-2004, 10:55 AM

I started out a long time ago playing aggro-enchantress, but after a while I realized it was a control deck with a suboptimal kill. The plan against aggro was still reliant on the control cards (Worship and StP at the time); you could never hope to outrace anybody. Against control, creature removal was good for them when it didn't need to be. And of course creatures naturally have bad synergy with the draw engine. Now the removal sits dead in their hand and I have more slots to devote to the draw and acceleration.

Constant Mists seems okay, but Elephant Grass is okay too... and when in doubt, go with the enchantment (until you can do sufficient testing to make an educated decision).

That's not even what we should be worried about. The deck should beat aggro all the same; what we need is anti-control tech now.

hellfire1134

10-23-2004, 11:05 AM

actually the mask really did help. There wasn't really alot of spot removal in my old meta. This is an old type 1.5 deck because my local store closed. This deck rocked.I liked maze of ith and duieling ground becuase it just seemed to work well. maze of ith alone and dueling alone both are good cards. i used the confinements in the sidebaord but i forget the rest of my board.

currence

11-08-2004, 09:03 PM

Has anyone found a working/optimal sideboard for this deck yet?

My local meta isn't as high tier as it could be, so there is still a bunch of random R/G Beats and dumb aggro decks (so much so that Ghostly Prison may be an option for me, but I don't recommend it to others, unless they are in aggro heavy meta). But there are a few ATS players, and control/Landstill is always strong, along with the ever-present Goblin/Burn (and possibly a few affinity decks, which probably don't even deserve board hate)

This deck has many good looking options for the latter two; it's not hard to hate when you can have Choke, Multani's Presence, City of Solitude, Sphere of Law, etc. I haven't seen any Belcher at all, which is odd, but obviously Rods can come in for that (maybe I should just run Belcher, hmm...).

ATS/Any-Survival-variant seems to be the worst. Try to take care of the SotF, obviously, but Advantage can win without it. Damping Matrix might be an option against ATS. I'll have to play more against Advantage (or the Welder type) for a reasonable idea. Basically, what the heck do we do about Survival?

Edit: I just realized how nice Ground Seal is against Advantage, in particular: no Genesis action, no Witness craziness. Of course this is only against Advantage, but it still is pretty cool.

Edit2: I'm going out on a limb here, but I think that Humility could be a good board card. It only affects Argo and the Pegasus tokens; obviously one wouldn't cast it early game if there was only an Argo for drawing. Any thoughts?

disrupted

11-25-2004, 10:57 AM

Regarding Ground seal VS Advantage. Night soil can also be very fun and can be good VS Reanimator Obviously.

Mad Zur

11-25-2004, 01:11 PM

Survival shouldn't be too much of a problem, certainly not the worst. Advantage's average goldfish is slower than your average Confinement, and they have exactly one way to get rid of it. By the time they're able to Genesis the Zealot, it shouldn't be hard to get double-Grove lock, especially if you're running some form of recursion. ATS has considerably more disruption, but is also slower. They'll eventually Tradewind lock you if you don't get Groves down to protect your enchantments and Explorations down to protect your lands, so if you see a Survival you can't deal with, start digging for those.

Humility is a great sideboard card for these matchups, assuming you can find a slot, since it effectively replaces either of those strategies with one card. Spatula was actually maindecking it for a while, and it wasn't even so bad there (of course, it doubled as an answer to Dragon at the time), but the fact that it halves your draw engine makes it almost completely dead against control. We have both sideboarded one for a while now. It's also a nice catch-all answer to the kinds of creatures that don't get stopped by Elephant Grass (Aluren, Slavebringer, Reanimator).

disrupted

11-28-2004, 11:57 AM

Thanks for your thoughts Mad Zur.

I agree with everything you said except the part about Genesis and Zealot. After sideboard many ATS/ R/G Advantage have Naturalize/ Witness/ Genesis/ Zealot.

And Genesis/Anger/Zealot/Rofellos is very fast. I do not know that there is alot to be done about this. Humility is an excellent answer, I maindeck one. I however think that removing Squee+Genesis or Squee+Anger, with Night soil improves the matchup.

But then you still have to worry about Shaman/Naturalize and Just getting beat down.

Ultimately the Survival matchup seems to be very much one of agressive mulliganing on either players part for the most explosive possible start. With Reanimator being a much easier
matchup, which night soil is not dead in. I just cannot count on Ground Seal or anything else hanging around in the Survival matches where Night soil does its thing for GG+1 for activation and gives me a stupid token to boot.

Chalice of the void proved to be a major problem for Enchantress in my last tournament. Chalice for two cuts off Seal of Cleansing and so much of the deck that it can completely cripple you. Oxidize is an option to diversify removal cc. Aura of Silence another cc. Don't laugh too hard, but I have often thought about Woodripper in anything green with acceleration as his casting cost is easy enough many times, again as a possible alternate cc.

Any thoughts??? on dealing with Chalice would be much appreciated!!

You have to understand that I can expect one Affinty deck in my meta every tournament. Elephant grass is not enough to stop affinity I have to get to Solitary Confinement and then a Groved up Energy flux brought in from the side usually ends the game. So additional Artifact hate is not lost in my side to smoke Cranial Plating and buy me time to get to Solitary.

As one additional thought I have been trying one Rude Awakening in my maindeck. It has been solid. Its value to just kill with an attack or untap lands to fuel Words of War or help me get where I need to go as massive mana acceleration seems to be a good fit in this deck.

Mad Zur

11-28-2004, 02:09 PM

Thanks for your thoughts Mad Zur.

I agree with everything you said except the part about Genesis and Zealot. After sideboard many ATS/ R/G Advantage have Naturalize/ Witness/ Genesis/ Zealot.
Yeah, I was talking about game one. You can usually expect four Naturalizes in game two.

And Genesis/Anger/Zealot/Rofellos is very fast. I do not know that there is alot to be done about this.
Well, if they play a second turn Survival with a Birds, they can have a Zealot as early as turn three, and they can start recurring it every turn. However, that also means they're not doing other important things like killing you, so you can just shrug and look for the double-Grove lock (or Humility post-board).

Humility is an excellent answer, I maindeck one. I however think that removing Squee+Genesis or Squee+Anger, with Night soil improves the matchup.
It could, but do you really need to spend the sideboard space? Ground Seal stops Genesis too, and it is significantly better against Welder Survival and Reanimator, as well as being a wonderful maindeck choice if you aren't playing any recursion. It is the deck's strongest graveyard hate.

But then you still have to worry about Shaman/Naturalize and Just getting beat down.
Survival decks typically beat down considerably more slowly than Solitaire gets the lock down.

Ultimately the Survival matchup seems to be very much one of agressive mulliganing on either players part for the most explosive possible start.
Aggressively mulligan for Enchantresses, just like you would in every matchup. An atypically explosive start isn't necessary against Survival. Your average lock beats their average win.

With Reanimator being a much easier matchup, which night soil is not dead in.
It actually is if they properly play around it. If they dump one creature at a time, there's nothing Night Soil can do.

I just cannot count on Ground Seal or anything else hanging around in the Survival matches where Night soil does its thing for GG+1 for activation and gives me a stupid token to boot.
Three mana is more than one mana, a Saproling is worse than a random card from the top of your deck, and a Survival player killing your Ground Seal is just giving you time to play Enchantresses, Groves, and Confinements.

Chalice of the void proved to be a major problem for Enchantress in my last tournament. Chalice for two cuts off Seal of Cleansing and so much of the deck that it can completely cripple you. Oxidize is an option to diversify removal cc. Aura of Silence another cc. Don't laugh too hard, but I have often thought about Woodripper in anything green with acceleration as his casting cost is easy enough many times, again as a possible alternate cc.

Any thoughts??? on dealing with Chalice would be much appreciated!!
Extremely few decks are able to comfortably play Chalice for two. What particular decks are you talking about?

You have to understand that I can expect one Affinty deck in my meta every tournament. Elephant grass is not enough to stop affinity I have to get to Solitary Confinement and then a Groved up Energy flux brought in from the side usually ends the game. So additional Artifact hate is not lost in my side to smoke Cranial Plating and buy me time to get to Solitary.
Your Confinement is again faster than their goldfish. If you're running blue and Energy Flux, it should be even better.

As one additional thought I have been trying one Rude Awakening in my maindeck. It has been solid. Its value to just kill with an attack or untap lands to fuel Words of War or help me get where I need to go as massive mana acceleration seems to be a good fit in this deck.
I'm not really a fan of expensive sorcery win conditions, but I'll admit that it's better than Biorythm.

currence

12-01-2004, 09:51 PM

@ 1 Humility in MD:
I can't think of a situation where Humility wouldn't be better off in the SB, especially considering Humility is best against Survival, and Survival (pre-board) is too slow for Solitaire's lock anyways.

@ Rude Awakening as win:
This seems interesting. A friend of mine plays an Extended legal version of Control-Enchantress (WoWind) and he uses Early Harvest for a great accelerant/win.

However, WoWar and Sacred Mesa still look better. They allow you to draw (even if countered) off of your Enchantresses, and they are Sterling Grove-able, when you have the lock down. If you cast an RA and your land-men run into a Pyroclasm, Decree of Pain or if you tapped out and the RA is countered, you are are in a bad position.

Concerning win conditions in general:
Solitaire used to run 3 wins but it also had Replenish; I think that 4 should be sufficient now.

Concerning Solitary Confinement:
How many of these should be MD? I used to have 2, but I have a pretty control-heavy meta, and people are learning that early-to-mid-game Confinements end the game, so I now run 3.

Also, Holistic Wisdom was offered as a solution to counter, but Rofello's Gift costs less, both in mana and in card advantage.

SpatulaOfTheAges

12-02-2004, 01:11 AM

I've currently upped Solitary Confinement to 3 as well; without Replenish, Groving for it is more dangerous, and it just seems more necessary to draw it these days.

Other notes:

I played with 3x Gaea's Blessings MD for a while, replacing Ground Seal, obviously. While extremely helpful against the control match-up, and obviously Solidarity, I found it infinitely worse against aggro. The ability to generate card advantage with only one enchantress is just hugely important.

Humility MD - perhaps in a Survival-heavy meta. Shutting down half your draw engine is actually quite annoying.

Rude Awakening might merit testing, as it's not completely dead when going off.

ForceofWill

12-02-2004, 03:51 AM

What is the current list look like.

SpatulaOfTheAges

12-02-2004, 05:44 PM

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration
3x Sterling Grove
3x Ground Seal
3x Elephant Grass
3x Sylvan Library
3x Solitary Confinement
2x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
1x Words of War
1x Words of Wilding
1x Sacred Mesa
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
8x Forest
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
2x Plains
2x Serra's Sanctum
1x Taiga

SB:

2x Choke
2x City of Solitude
3x Multani's Presence
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
1x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
1x Null Chamber
1x Parallax Wave
1x Night Soil
1x Humility

CavernNinja

12-02-2004, 07:44 PM

Can you edit the first page post with your most recent list so that it is easier to find. It would be nice to be greated by a deck that is currently legal in Legacy rather than Vintage Restricted.

currence

12-03-2004, 05:53 PM

One topic that hasn't been thoroughly discussed is Solitaire and the mulligan. After goldfishing I've found a number of unkeepable hands and my basic philosophy of Solitaire's opening hand: two land (one source of green at least) and an Enchantress effect, or I toss it back. I'm a bit more lenient if I have a Library and a multitude of other enchantments (maybe a Grove and Exploration, or depending on the match I might need a Grass).

This creates the need to mulligan aggressively, sometimes, but I think that (as stated in another thread) the ability to mulligan effectively is one sign of a better player.

Thoughts?

Edit:
After playing in a tournament today, I found that aggressively mulliganing is a great strategy. I was able to come back from 6 and 5 card hands to do just as well or better than some full hands I've had. The right cards are more important than more cards.

SpatulaOfTheAges

12-07-2004, 05:04 AM

I agree; I generally toss back any hand that doesn't give me the chance to cast a turn 2 enchantress or a Sylvan Library, preferably with shuffle effects. Exceptions occur for specific match-ups(a Seal of Cleansing and an Elephant Grass would be pretty good for going against Ravager, for example, or certain hosers post-sb).

Mad Zur

12-07-2004, 04:54 PM

Yeah, that's pretty much correct. You need an Enchantress and it needs to come down early. Library hands can backfire against fast aggro like Goblin Sligh, so whether I keep it usually depends on the rest of the hand (Obviously something like Library, Grass, some acceleration, and some fetchlands is good). Against control, all that really matters is that Library is a must counter for two mana, so most Library hands are good as are hands with other must counters (though at least on card in the hand should preferably say something about drawing cards).

The bottom line is, you can't be afraid to mulligan with this deck. Its total lack of redundancy means that it's power isn't spread out over many cards (as is that of Goblin Sligh or Pox); it is focused in a select eight (somewhat like Survival decks, but perhaps more so). That means you'll have to mulligan more, since you'll have weak hands with no Enchantresses, but it also means you don't have to worry about it, since a hand with an Enchantress is strong even if you have one less cycling card. With something redundant like Goblins, an average five card hand is two less business spells that are important to the strategy. With Solitaire, all you need is the Enchantress, the mana to play it, and an enchantment or two to get the engine going (this is where Ground Seal shines). As long as you have that, it's a good hand. Solitaire is probably one of the most mulligan-friendly decks in the format right now. That's not really a good thing or a bad thing, but you always need to keep it in mind while playing the deck.

By the way, a build of Solitaire splashing black and running Duress and Regrowth in the maindeck was doing well against BBS before sideboard. Having the two of them essentially solves the win condition issue, since you've got 2 win conditions, 3 Regrowths to get them back, and 3 Duresses for the counters. Of course, Duress and Regrowth are often played in the early game, but Duress usually takes a counter and Regrowth only has good targets if they already spent a counter. Duress should help somewhat against combo, though it'll still be a pretty bad matchup. I only tested it a little against aggro, and it performed pretty well, though the inability to maindeck Ground Seal would hurt somewhat. I was also testing Chrome Mox, and I'm undecided on it right now - it speeds the deck up considerably if it's in the opening hand, but is a lousy topdeck.

Has anybody else tried these cards? What are your opinions? Any other ideas for the control matchup?

currence

12-08-2004, 09:56 PM

@ Duress

I would think spashing black solely for Duress, which, in the aggro-dominated field, is hardly the tech it used to be, would create more problems than it would solve, but if testing has been positive, then I don't know. I certainly haven't done any testing to the contrary. I still think Choke/Multani's Presence/City of Solitude are better.

@ Regrowth

I feel that Rofellos's Gift is a better card for a few reasons. First of all, it is cheaper; yes, I know with only a 1 mana difference and Solitaire getting an obscene amount of land, it isn't that much of a big deal, but it could be the difference between an activated Grove or another Exploration, etc.

Second, Regrowth destroys synergy with Ground Seal, which I consider one of the best spells in the deck. True, Dragon is gone, but in my meta Genesis abounds and there are a few lone Reanimator decks against which Seal is game over; even if Seal isn't particularly useful in a specific match-up, it starts the engine in the time of need like no other enchantment can. RG only grabs enchantments (ok), requires you to reveal cards (if you need to take back your win, what is in your hand hardly matters), can grab more than one win (yipee), and does not target.

The only problem with RG is that you must have a green card, and this could *sometimes* cause difficulty. If you do run RG over Regrowth, though, one more reason not to run Duress is that you'll be more likely to have green cards in hand without it.

As for my current meta, it is so full of Survival (non-ATS, mostly), Madness, Survival-Madness (does this only exist in MN? I haven't read about it at all on The Source), Fish (!), Sligh, and random dumb-beats I think I'm going to try Constant Mists in place of Aura of Silence and possibly Seal of Cleansing (I'll keep one, just in case). I've heard of other people running it before, so it might not be horrible.

Mad Zur

12-10-2004, 01:41 AM

Interesting, I had assumed Gift targeted. Apparently not, so it seems it's the best recursion option. I'll give it some testing.

You're probably right about Duress, though I think it is one of the best anti-control cards available. It might be worth it if the format was more control/combo oriented, but for right now it's probably unnecessary.

currence

12-13-2004, 11:09 PM

I know this is a wild idea, but give it a thought.

I recently found (in a common/uncommon bin) a neat enchantment: Gossamer Chains.

I know that Solitaire already has a solid matchup against aggro, and the main problem is with control, but this card has a few things going for it. First, it stops one creature, that's good. Second, it returns to your hand, allowing a recast for more cards. Third, I think against some decks like BBS and U/W control, it becomes another must counter.

Let me explain this last part. I have not actually played against BBS, but I understand its basic strategy, and I have played a lot against a U/W control deck built by my friend. Decks like these counter all your stuff then beat with one crit for the win (Morphling, Angel, etc.). Gossamer Chains stops that possibility for them, making itself another "must-counter", and allows you to draw into more wins or recursion (Rofellos's Gift, Regrowth, whatever you play). It's really too bad you can't return it without an unblocked creature (I double checked the rules... lame).

It's probably not MD material, but in the SB it could be an option if those one-crit-for-the-win decks are big in the meta. There is always the question, what to take out, and honestly I can't figure that out. I think everything else in the sideboard against counter is probably better, so I'm puzzled. GC might be another one of those cool but not good enough cards for Solitaire.

I'll do some testing soon and reply with results. Any ideas?

Mad Zur

12-14-2004, 01:13 AM

Well, there just aren't many decks that care if you stop one creature every turn, especially if you're tying up mana to do it. Especially the kind of decks running Morphling. The only time the bouncing effect will be good is if you've got at least one Enchantress on the board, in which case you'll be digging through the deck more slowly than if you didn't have to pay two white every turn. The case of one Enchantress and no enchantments is a pretty rare one against aggro, and the only one where I'd rather have Chains than something like Kirtar's Desire. But that brings us back to the first point; what decks do we need spot removal against?

As for Rofellos's Gift, I tried it out on Saturday and it seems promising. Getting back Confinements, Grasses, Groves, and Seals, it's far from dead against aggro. It does the one thing Replenish neve did - draw cards. This is the list I ran:

Draw
4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
1x Sylvan Library
4x Ground Seal

Search
3x Sterling Grove

Control / Lock
3x Elephant Grass
2x Solitary Confinement
2x Seal of Cleansing

Win Conditions
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa

Recursion
3x Rofellos's Gift

Acceleration
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration
4x Gaea's Touch

Land
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
1x Taiga
9x Forest
1x Plains
2x Serra's Sanctum

The build is quite fast, due to twelve acceleration spells/free enchantments - I haven't really been missing ESG. Touch and Gift have amazing synergy, obviously. There are a few things missing, however; most importantly I'd like to add Words of Worship and at least one more Sylvan Library. Another Taiga might also be optimal since there's no other way to get the WoWar into play.

I'll try to do some more testing; I'm pretty happy with Gift so far.

CavernNinja

12-14-2004, 02:27 AM

It used to be feasible to run the Taiga/WoWar plan because of Replenish, is it maybe better to just run Words of Wilding now? It lets you get rid of the Taiga and keep more basics in the deck, which is always good, and also makes it so that the Words is less dead early.

goldenj

12-14-2004, 11:56 AM

@Zur
Wow. Never ever thought of Gaea's Touch or Rofello's Gift. Are the 8 exploration effects worth it? Are 9 forests enough to make the touch hum? In my blue based Enchantress, the extra land play could be good (for words of wind) -- though I don't know if I could run 4. Does the touch allow you to replay duals? My guess is no. Is the sac ability what makes it worthwhile? Are they basically in the Elvish Spirit Guide slots?

What kind of action do you usually get with the Gift? Usually returning how many enchantments? I know it's no replenish, but...

I'm also curious about how the minimalist grove/confinement is working out. Those slots would be great to get back, but, wow is that skinny.

Could you run one fertile ground over a touch for the other way to get WoWar into play?

Mad Zur

12-14-2004, 01:55 PM

Cutting WoWar: Only if I find room for WoWorship. Otherwise, the deck would be vulnerable to sweepers for at least a turn longer than it needs to be.

EDIT: To clarify, if WoWar is replaced, it'll be for a win condition, probably WoWilding. Room for WoWorship would have to be found elsewhere.

Touch: It's in the deck because it pays for itself. Free enchantments make the deck run insanely smoothly. Without Gift in the deck, the other free enchantments (Wild Growth, Exploration) are better because as acceleration, they're less conditional - and because there's only so much room for non-business spells, the worst one got cut. However, Gift makes the Touch much better, so that might change (I'm not sold on the 4 Touch, 3 Gift thing yet, just testing it). The free enchantments, Touch included, really do a lot for the deck's speed, but the early game acceleration aspect isn't the half of it. They let you dig deeper more quickly, so they make it more likely you'll find what you need in time. The Forest thing isn't really the main reason to run Touch, but squeezing more basic forests (doesn't work with duals :() wherever possible just maximizes its usefulness. The Touches are competing with ESG for that slot. Four is probably not necessary and may not be possible.

Gift: What it does varies depending on the gamestate, but it's got something for almost any situation but "empty hand." If you're digging for the second Enchantress to support confinement, get Groves, Seals, and the Confinement itself if necessary to draw cards. If you're trying to set up an invulnerable Confinement, blow up your Grove to get it, then Gift the Grove to protect it (or chain two Groves off if you can, thereby getting double-Grove lock). If you got something countered, get it back. If you want to reset a Grass's upkeep, lose it and replay it. If Seal of Cleansing has targets, reuse it - or kill your own enchantments just to draw more cards off of Gift (i.e. Ground Seal). If at all possible, get Touch and draw cards for free.

In the early-mid game, you can expect it to get you some 2-3 cards, and while going off, it'll get you many more.

Confinement: I'd like to add the third, as it's so much easier to draw into them than go through the work of Groving for them (and leaving Groves on the table is always ideal). It's the next thing I'd want to add after the WoWorship and Sylvan Library #2.

Grove: Having four would be nice, especially due to the synergy with Gift, but it's after Confinement and probably after Seal on the list, competing with Sylvan Library #3. That makes it about the 5-6th card I'd like to find room for, which means I probably won't be able to in the near future.

Fertile Ground: Possibly, but I'm thinking that CavernNinja might be right if WoWorship ends up in the deck. It can effectively end the game against aggro just as early as WoWar can, putting you out of reach and letting you kill over the next two turns or so. There's really nothing anyone can do once you've gained 50 life, dropped Karmic Justice, and even Null Chamber if necessary (aside from Brain Freeze you out, but I've never seen Solitaire effectively race Solidarity anyway).

goldenj

12-14-2004, 04:55 PM

A guy (Rocky) at our store who plays a variant plays Pursuit of Knowledge (and swears by it), instead of extra libraries. I'm not sure what matchup the Words of Worship helps with, but I can see PoK as it combos well with sylvan, gives some drawing if the engine/enchantresses are out, can serve as brain freeze protection in a pinch (in the same way a Word of Whatever can).

My experiment has been with 1 or two Eternal Witnesses (in the post replenish era) as they can be excellent with WoWind and are good for the elephant grass. I like the idea of the gifts though, and am going to give that a try.

Typically I keep a Blessing SB to help with random milling decks.

IndyTerminator

12-14-2004, 07:30 PM

Even with Gaea's Blessing, Solidarity can kill you with the trigger on the stack. I guess that's the advantage of having every card except land as an instant in a deck.

currence

12-15-2004, 11:49 AM

@ Mad Zur

I had never expected you to test Gift MD, but I can see what you are doing. Recursion would seemingly work very nice with Gaea's Touch, and, basically any of the others that you listed that go away (Seal, Grove, Grass, Confinement, etc.).

The main changes appear to be: swapping in Touches for ESGs, and Librarys/Confinements for Gift. The enchantment count is the same as Spatula's Page 1 list (33).

I have to agree though. I want at least two Librarys and one more Confinement. I think this is what I will try: swap out one Ground Seal and one Seal of Cleansing, and change the remaining cleansing to an Aura of Silence.

Ground Seal is awesome (MVP sometimes), but I've been satisfied with 3. I feel safe if I change the one remaining Seal of Cleansing to an Aura because I don't run up against too many decks that are crushed by Seal (Survival just keeps playing, usually) and if I need it, making the Deed, Disk, Cursed Scroll (yeah, yeah, if they don't play it first turn), or other random-artifacts come out a bit later is always nice.

I had presumed that Touch had no business in Solitaire, because it seems to be reserved for the more combo-esque enchantress decks, but it seems like it warrants testing.

Also, Mad Zur: did you notice any differences in match-ups at the tournament?

SpatulaOfTheAges

12-18-2004, 01:35 AM

In testing I've been running 2 Sylvans and have been unhappy with it. I would advise keeping it at 3.

SpatulaOfTheAges

01-10-2005, 02:51 PM

Went 4-1-1 at Amrod's 1-8-05, losing to the Rock, and drawing because I'm stupid and forget that Elders have this neat thing of untapping Goblin Sharpshooter. I lost to the same Rock deck in top 8, but at least take down a game that time.

Round 1 against R/G Survival(John Lacasse) - Win game 1, but draw because of above mistake and thinking it was safe to grab an extra card off Sylvan to help support the Confinement I was going to cast that turn. 0-0-1

Round 2 against Black Weenie(Hollywood) - I recover at 1 life and win game 1 thanks to Confinement, game 2 I lose an Enchantress early, so just go to town with Words of Wilding/Sylvan Library, which he is unable to answer. 1-0-1

Round 3 against White Weenie(ObFreely) - He doesn't cast Armageddon or an inane amount of disenchant effects. 2-0-1

Round 4 against Welder Survival(CavernNinja) - Getting paired two rounds in a row against other Virginians sucks. Ground Seal is huge in this match-up, as is Seal of Cleansing. I get bitched at for not being willing to draw, but I think Seth making 9th after drawing with IBA the same round vindicates me. BTW, I again go to town with Libraries and Words of Wilding game 2, and my new favorite Magic term is "I have 9 bears floating".

Round 5 against The Rock(Stephen in top 4) - He's talking about what cards are in my deck because he saw me playing earlier, so I figure either Dumptruck for Mages or Rock for Therapy. Unfortunately, it's Rock, the deck I don't have 7 SB slots for. He draws too much disruption for me to deal with with my poor hands.

Round 6 against MacGuyver(Scrummdog) - Game 1 he gets crazy mana-screwed, and I have a first turn Argothian. Game 2 he has a better hand, and I still have a turn one Argothian. I don't know why there's so much hostility between our metas, as I enjoyed this match a lot, Alan was a very good sport and seemed like a nice guy.

Top 8 against The Rock(see previous) - Game 1 involves a Therapy for double Presence, so yeah, he wins that one. Game 2 I pull through and even though he doesn't draw a Deed, I draw the anti-Deed cards anyway, so it wouldn't have really mattered. Game 3, there's a critical moment where he top-decks a Deed that basically decides the match. This is one of those match-ups that was seriously hurt by the loss of Replenish.

Overall I feel the deck has still performed pretty well since the bannings; I was a little disappointed that much of my SB was dead, never seeing a control deck or Solidarity, whereas I faced two decks that Spreading Algea would have helped in those slots.

currence

03-25-2005, 04:50 PM

I figure some people out there must still be playing with the enchantment lovin' gals besides me, so...

On Wednesday night I went 3-0-1, tying with a lame quick zero-cc artifact/affinity-esque deck. If we had longer-than-30-minute rounds, I would have gone 4-0-0.

First round, I was against some black deck, which is always frightening. Early Sinkholes, discard, Hippies, and later Deeds are scary... luckily he wasn't running the Sinks, discard, or Deeds. But, he did have an early Howling Mine (very nice, methinks), followed by an Underworld Dreams (!!!). I was scared, but I topdecked a Seal of Cleansing, and proceeded to win both games.

Second round tied to affinity guy... should have flipped for the win, he offered to flip for it. There were about 35 people there, and the extra 1 point from tying didn't help me at all. I'm confident I would have gone 4-0 if I would have won the flip. Well, I'll just remember it for next time.

Third round against Salvagers combo. Game one was very nice... many early ground seals, he called Rancor with Meddling Mage, and I made sure the first game took all but five minutes. I won, and as game two started, the five turn limit was called. I love long first games.

Fourth round against WW (not Angel Stompy). An easy win, though Disenchants slowed me down, a bit.

One question... how do ya'll other fine Solitaire players beat Belcher? I've been thinking, right now I have a few slots devoted to some maindeck hate. 1 Humility if Survival gets uppity (especially ATS, because RGSA can't really touch me), 1 Karmic Justice for those Deeds and Disks out there (which are pretty prevalent in my meta), and 2 Seal of Cleansings for random stuff.

I'm thinking of making 1 Seal into an Aura of Silence (which I previously had in board), and possibly putting in a Rule of Law. Yes, yes, I know Rule of Law in Solitaire = what am I smoking? But honestly, if you drop Rule of Law against Belcher OR Aluren (which for some reason about 4 different people or more are playing in my meta) it is game over. Also, Rule of Law helps against Solidarity (which there is none of in my meta).

Any thoughts on beating these crazy combo decks?

Also, I'm playing Solitaire at a giant tournament this weekend. First prize is one of every dual land, second is a play set of Forces, third is a set of Survivals, fourth is something good also, etc. etc. I'll post results on Saturday, probably, after the tournament.

GRAH

03-25-2005, 05:29 PM

Solitary Confinement tends to shut down Belcher and Solidarity pretty well, and you should have at least 1 Seal maindecked to blow up the Belcher.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

03-25-2005, 06:28 PM

Solidarity tends to pick up your Solitary Confinement, look at it, laugh at it, fall to the floor laughing for ten minutes, stand up, pick Solitary Confinement back up, spit on it, throw it on the ground and do a Mexican Hat Dance all over it.

Anyway. I always liked more Disenchant effects in the deck myself, which improves game against Belcher a lot. I've never found straight Aggro to be much of a threat, so when I've played the deck I've cut room to fit in 3x Seal of Cleansing and 2x Aura of Silence.

Mad Zur

03-25-2005, 08:27 PM

Personally, I haven't tested the Belcher matchup at all (no one plays it around here), but in theory it's pretty scary. They can win before the draw engine starts to matter, so cheap and plentiful answers are the only way to win. The best enchantment options against Belcher are probably the fourth Confinement and as many copies of Aura of Silence as you can find room for, with Seal of Cleansing being a lesser obstacle but still important. But if you don't see any Solidarity, you should have quite a bit of space for the other bad matchups, and unless you see high numbers of Pox and Hulk, you could try to find room for Null Rod in the board. It's pretty narrow, but I can't think of anything more effective.

Good luck at the tourney.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

03-25-2005, 09:51 PM

Chalice of the Void would be tech. I know Matt tried it out at least briefly and seemed to have a burgeoning love for the card, even though he eventually cut it. But with the mana acceleration the deck provides it's not unreasonable to drop it for 2 fairly quickly, and in this deck it can be dropped for both 1 and 0 on turn 1. Chalice for 1 shuts down Belcher and Solidarity for several turns at least.

currence

03-27-2005, 05:38 PM

Well, the tournament was great. The turnout was better than any we've had here before, it was 86. I was the only Solitaire player, which was cool. It was 7 rounds, then top 8. $7 entry. Prizes: first, one of each dual; second, playset of Forces; third, playset of Survivals; fourth, playset of Polluted Deltas; fifth through eighth, store credit ($15 or so); ninth, 17 Grim Reminders, heh.

A note about my meta. There is definitely Landstill present (2 in top 8, and my friend got 9th with it), Survival (split for first with Landstill, and many others), Goblins/Burn (top 8, random kids), and other stuff. A note about the combo here. I think there was one Solidarity deck; there was one top 8 Belcher, at least one more Belcher, and at least 4 or 5 Auriok Salvager decks that I saw. So, we have some weird stuff, but some normal stuff too.

Game 1 - raffinatog (raffinity with atog). This was pretty easy. Both games I would have been dead on his turn after I dropped my Solitary, had I not dropped it; of course that's what they always say, "Good thing you had that, or you would have been dead." Anyhow, I was a bit scared of some Disciple madness so I got rid of his only Vault of Whispers, and he conceded as I put out many, many 1/1 Pegasi.
R: 1-0, G: 2-0.

Game 2 - madness. This was more difficult. He countered early enchantress effects, but I had them in redundancy and I won. Second game I brought in Choke and some Rofellos's Gift, and he spent all his counter making sure Choke didn't resolve. He had lots of crits but I had the Solitary with Sterling Grove and Karmic Justice (maindeck) support, just in case of Naturalize or Tranquility.
R: 2-0, G: 4-0.

Game 3 - reanimator. He had minimal disruption, Duress. I didn't see any Cabal Therapy, though he was playing with Putrid Imp. This match is pretty much the easiest thing for me, what with MD Ground Seals and Elephant Grass (he had Spirit of the Night, among others). I got many permanents very quickly, and I tried to win as quickly as possible; I didn't know if his build was running boarded Deeds or not.
R: 3-0, G: 6-0.

I think at this point I'm ranked 2nd, based on my round, game, and opponent records.

Game 4 - hulk. Yes, MD Deed. Oh my god, this card is absolutely nuts against this deck. He removed a Tog to an early Force, and the game went on forever, him getting Intuition - AK, and three Deeds. He got rid of my Humility (maindeck) with his last Deed, and then Berserked the Tog. Game 2, we didn't finish. If I would have had two more draw steps I would have killed him (double Sylvan Library + Words of War), but we went into 5 turns after 50 minutes, and no one won. Again, Deed slowed me down majorly, along with flashbacked Chainer's Edict to remove Argos.
R: 3-1, G: 6-1.

Game 5 - WU landstill (my teammate Mike, meggleston3). I wanted to draw because I'm fairly confident I could have won my next two rounds, but he was unsure if a 5-1-1 would make top 8 (it would have) and was probably unsure if he would win his next two. We played it out, though I knew I had no chance (which is why I wanted the draw). I couldn't beat 3 Disks, or 3 Cunning Wish for Enlightened Tutor for one of three Disks... basically he has a Disk whenever he wants. He popped two of them, none of my hate resolved, and he won two games in basically the same way.
R: 3-2, G: 6-3.

So, now I'm almost certain that I won't top 8. In the end no one with a 5-2 made top 8, but at the time I wasn't sure so I played it out (plus Mike was my ride home, so why not).

Game 6 - stompy (with 1 Berserk only, I think). The first game he was just too quick, and I admit I underestimated the speed of the deck. It was way too quick for me to get a solid drawing engine in place first, which is what I tried to do, so I lost game 1. I only boarded in 1 Seal of Cleansing because Winter Orb is lame. I won games 2 and 3, even though he got out a later Winter Orb... Orb doesn't really stop a Sanctum (I run 2 md) that taps for 10 every turn with a Sacred Mesa out.
R: 4-2, G: 8-4.

Game 7 - WUr landstill (Lenny, I don't think he is on here though). Pretty much same story as my game against Mike, but Lenny ran less creature kill and more Disk/enchantment hate. Three disks popped on first game. The second Disk was interesting; I had a Karmic Justice out, and he lost 6 land... but he floated 4 mana for another Disk and played his land for the turn. I gave him game 2, because he would have won (I think, he wasn't sure), plus he says he'll give me some cards now, which is cool.
Final, R: 4-3, G: 8-6.

Thoughts: when this deck wins it WINS. When I get the upper hand, I out and out crush the opponent. But Disk and Deed spell doom. I couldn't believe that a Karmic Justice acting as one-sided Armageddon didn't even allow me a win. I'm confident of my game on Survival, Goblins, Madness, and other stuff. Against Landstill and Tog, and to an extent Belcher (though I have Seals, Aura of Silence, and Rule of Law for that), there is no certainty at all.

I'm thinking of the card Remove Enchantments, just for the worst matchups. I'm not sure though. Overall, I give two thumbs up to Solitaire, and two thumbs down to Disk and Deed.

Also, my team stayed to watch the top 8 rounds. The one guy who plays his own version of Survival is also the best eternal (type 1/1.5) player in the state, and he always takes a long time to play... but we witnessed a two hour Survival on Landstill round that was just insane. Ah, tournaments are great.

Mad Zur

03-27-2005, 07:48 PM

That's an insanely good turnout! It sounds like a really cool tournament.

In my experience, Landstill was a good matchup in the old format (no MD removal for Presence or Argothian, and only eight counters), but now that UW plays Disenchant and Wrath (not to mention Solitaire doesn't have Replenish), game one is about even. Honestly I've never found Disk to be much of a problem - if you're honestly winning, like with Enchantresses on the board, it shouldn't be hard at all to find either Seal or Justice to stop it, especially in game two. If they're already in control (i.e. if you don't have a board), Disk is a preemptive answer to the next Enchantress that resolves, but that's about the best it can do. This is the kind of matchup that depends heavily on draw and build, but that means that a little bit of sideboard will make it favorable (on either side, granted, but Solitaire's options are much less narrow than Tempest of Light is).

Deed, on the other hand, is much worse, since it gives you no warning and can't be effectively Sealed. Of course, it needs to be properly backed up in order to win the game - but that's the problem with the Hulk matchup, which I've always found to be pretty bad: Everything they have is relevant. Duress, Edict, Deed, eight or more counters, Wish... they don't have dead cards like most control decks do and like Solitaire does.

Loosely in order of relevance, the bad matchups in my opinion are: Solidarity, Belcher, Pox, Hulk, and Scepter Control, with Landstill being a close matchup that could use some reassurance to make definitively favorable. Based on that, we should be able to construct an optimal sideboard.

I am coming to believe that running any less than four City of Solitude is a mistake in most well-balanced metagames. It is either the best or second best card against four out of the six matchups we want to improve. Something to deal with hate is also required; right now I have one Justice, one Null Chamber, and one Aura of Silence. Combined with two Seals and two Gifts in the MD, I think that's enough artifact/enchantment removal right now. Graveyard hate is just unnecessary because of Ground Seal and the fact that most graveyard-based decks are positive matchups at the moment. This is what I'd say is necessary, or at least what I'd be most reluctant to change:

4 City of Solitude
1 Karmic Justice
1 Null Chamber/2nd Justice
1 Aura of Silence

That leaves eight slots that I see as pretty flexible. Here are the next best options for those six matchups in my opinion, in order of preference:

Solidarity: Boil, Chalice, Rule of Law, Choke
Belcher: Null Rod, Chalice
Pox: Compost/Spreading Algae, Regrowth/Holistic Wisdom, Chalice
Hulk: Choke, Boil, Regrowth/Wisdom/Gift
Scepter: Boil, Choke, Seal/Aura, Regrowth/Wisdom/Gift (Naturalize? Chalice?)
Landstill: Regrowth/Wisdom/Gift, Choke, Boil

And the best cards to bolster aggro and aggro-control matchups would be Humility, Grass, Confinement, Parallax Wave, Sphere of Law, and COP: Red. But honestly, I think that stuff should be kept to an absolute minimum, because we want to make matchups favorable, not dwell on those that already are.

I think Boil is great because it hits four out of those six matchups, and pretty high up on most of them (Landstill being the exception because of the high non-Island count, but luckily it's the easiest matchup of all of them and we've already got City). Choke is good for those same four, Chalice is good to hit Belcher and Solidarity, and Regrowth/Wisdom come in against Pox and control (another four matchups). This area sees pretty much all of those except Belcher and Hulk, so my current sideboard is as follows:

4 City of Solitude
4 Boil
2 Regrowth
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Karmic Justice
1 Null Chamber
1 Aura of Silence
1 Humility

As it turns out, this sideboard is pretty good against Hulk anyway. The only major change would probably come from Belcher showing up and doing well, in which case I would try to find room for Chalice, probably cutting the recursion (which would weaken the board against control, but I think the Cities and Boils should be enough, considering that Landstill is the best control deck right now and the deck doesn't need that much help against it).

(Oh, and before anyone says anything, I realize that some builds of The Rock are bad matchups too, but there's nothing remotely close to an accepted list for The Rock, so I can't say much about it. I guess Spreading Algae is the tech, because they have to run some amount of swamps.)

goldenj

04-04-2005, 10:58 AM

Peter_Rotten

04-05-2005, 12:28 PM

This deck is now considered a DTB.

ho_master

04-06-2005, 04:10 AM

Newbie here, trying to avoid breaking the cardinal rules listed in the sticky. Here goes:

I've experimented with this deck against belcher, and believe me, it just really isn't pretty. My friend maybe just got lucky and got the 2nd turn kill everytime, but I wanted to be sure to stop this silly deck, so I dove into the list of all green and white global enchantments to find an answer.

My best find was Root Maze : G, All artifacts and lands come into play tapped.

I didn't try the Chalice or Null Rod SB yet because I wanted to keep within the theme of enchantments, but how does this sound? Belcher gets delayed hard (Chrome Mox is tapped, belcher comes into play tapped) so it can be dealt with (Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, Solitary Confinement lock, etc). Might affect other decks too? (Landstill? Others?) I don't see Root Maze affecting Solitaire's board too badly with all the acceleration (Gaea's Touch would work wonders I'm thinking). Thoughts? Chalice/Null Rod still a better choice?

Slay

04-06-2005, 10:26 AM

You've gottaremember that altough it will slow then down about two turns, it will also slow you down as well. What's your average Confinement turn with a first-turn Root Maze in place? I bet it's not pretty. And not to mention it's got absolutely _awful_ synergy with fetchlands.

That being said, if you see a lot of Belcher predominantly in your meta, it would be worth it to throw 3 of them in there, just to set up the turn 3 Null Rod. Otherwise, it's a very narrow sideboard card that might hurt you a lot. I'd alos play 4 ESGs in MD if that was the case.
-Slay

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-06-2005, 11:10 AM

CotV is preferable IMO

-Being an enchantment is in this case somewhat irrelevant, since it comes down too early to benefit from an Enchantress.

-CotV for 0 doesn't hurt you at all, and CotV for 1 only hurts a little.

-Root Maze hurts this deck a lot.

-CotV is more general use.

Braves54321

04-06-2005, 11:34 AM

Could this deck make some more room for win conditions?

I still see versions running 3-4 ground seal mainboard, and they never seem to be effective unless your opponent is playing welder survival or reanimator.

I know, "it cycles" in addition to the draw off enchantresses, but it seems like a card such as holistic wisdom would benefit this deck more as it can be a bomb vs control, and it can get back a key confinement or elephant grass to help sustain yourself vs aggro.

With sterling grove I can see the deck moving down to 1 ground seal mainboard, sneaking in another win condition as well as a holistic wisdom. Jay P did this in Albany and made finals for a month straight while Fyndhorn Brownie and peter_rotten played the "approved version" and didn't make finals once.

These changes would make game 1 much better vs control imo as in the current build they only need to counter 3 enchantments to win game 1.

Thoughts?

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-06-2005, 11:39 AM

Ground Seal is actually also good against aggro; the ability to generate card advantage under a single Enchantress is huge. I supposed if you have a lot of control in your meta-game, running a City of Solitude MD would be an option; I wouldn't run Holistic Wisdom at all MD, as it can't do anything with a Ground Seal in play. Realistically, I don't see the problem come up very often. Most control decks can't manage 3 counters in the same turn.

Braves54321

04-06-2005, 11:53 AM

Alright, not quite sure I understand your points here:

Ground Seal is actually also good against aggro

How so? I understand you get another card, which is card advantage, but that alone doesn't help you vs aggro.

supposed if you have a lot of control in your meta-game, running a City of Solitude MD would be an option; I wouldn't run Holistic Wisdom at all MD, as it can't do anything with a Ground Seal in play.

This is why I would reduce the ground seals to one. Obviously vs control if I had holistic wisdom out I'd remove the ground seal to get back, say a win condition or some other enchantment, so you avoid making holistic wisdom suck. Having a holistic wisdom in play is GG vs a control deck and its better overall to run mb than city of solitude, which sucks in non control/solidarity matchups.

Most control decks can't manage 3 counters in the same turn.

I find this statement to be false. Solitaire usually doesn't go off until turn 4-5, usually a counter deck has a good possibility(via card drawing and such) to have a fow+blue card and a couple counterspells, or some combination with the ability to counter that stuff in one turn.

This is all game 1 discussion of course, post board you can bring in alot of things vs control and prolly win, but I would rather have a shot at winning game 1 than having drawn 1 extra card. When I play control vs the "proper build" I let my opponent draw a million cards anyways before he tries to play a win condition, 1 card isn't gonna make a huge difference.

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-06-2005, 12:11 PM

Well, yes, if a meta-game were entirely control, or predominantly.

In a balanced meta-game, Ground Seal is a better fit;

Against aggro, you need to drop and support a Confinement early. This means having two Enchantresses. Ground Seal's ability to dig helps you find a second Enchantress and/or drop a premature Confinement with a better chance of supporting it.

Against Survival based decks, it stops Witness and Genesis. It also stops Welder and Reanimator.

Against control, it draws a card.

Conversely, Holistic Wisdom

Against aggro, it's a dead and very expensive enchantment.

Against Survival based decks, the best you can do is recur a Seal of cleansing for 4 mana and card disadvantage.

Against control, it's a must counter. Playing only one means that you only benefit when the opponent has 3 answers and not 4, so you should play at least 2. I really see no benefit over Rofello's Gift or City of Solitude if you're that worried about control. CoS is also marginally useful against ATS, and effective against Solidarity.

Mad Zur

04-06-2005, 12:36 PM

I played the blue version again last weekend in an FNM with a terrible turnout. The deck went 5-0 against weak competition. The usual strong players were absent.

I think the blue version is stronger vs. control, hulk and landstill in particular, because of the strength of words of wind. It becomes a must counter threat.
It doesn't seem like that's true; it only does anything with your other must-counters in play.

It is also a way out of tough jams, as you can pick up the table and win in one turn with Multani or multiple turns with hard cast ESG. (Had to do that once Friday vs a wizard deck, where I surprise got Supreme Inquisitored for all my win conditions and confinements). The Rofellos gift SB has helped with heavy enchantment destruction decks. I've been considering green or blue genju, too. Has anyone experimented with those?
I could see the Genju being useful as cheap MD threats against control, but the only way to find room for them would be to cut Ground Seal IMO. It would be either Cedars for a beater that gets through manlands or Fields for a huge life gain spell if you have the mana to activate it a lot.

My best find was Root Maze : G, All artifacts and lands come into play tapped.

I didn't try the Chalice or Null Rod SB yet because I wanted to keep within the theme of enchantments, but how does this sound? Belcher gets delayed hard (Chrome Mox is tapped, belcher comes into play tapped) so it can be dealt with (Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, Solitary Confinement lock, etc). Might affect other decks too? (Landstill? Others?) I don't see Root Maze affecting Solitaire's board too badly with all the acceleration (Gaea's Touch would work wonders I'm thinking). Thoughts? Chalice/Null Rod still a better choice?
I like Chalice better than Root Maze in the board mostly because it works against every combo deck, and because I've played against Root Maze with Solitaire enough to know it isn't very fun... If you really wanted to pile on the Belcher hate, Root Maze might be the secondary one, or Null Rod might be better, I'm not sure.

This is why I would reduce the ground seals to one. Obviously vs control if I had holistic wisdom out I'd remove the ground seal to get back, say a win condition or some other enchantment, so you avoid making holistic wisdom suck. Having a holistic wisdom in play is GG vs a control deck and its better overall to run mb than city of solitude, which sucks in non control/solidarity matchups.
It's quite arguable that City of Solitude is better than Holistic Wisdom regardless of Ground Seal, because MD Solidarity hate is tech.

I find this statement to be false. Solitaire usually doesn't go off until turn 4-5, usually a counter deck has a good possibility(via card drawing and such) to have a fow+blue card and a couple counterspells, or some combination with the ability to counter that stuff in one turn.

This is all game 1 discussion of course, post board you can bring in alot of things vs control and prolly win, but I would rather have a shot at winning game 1 than having drawn 1 extra card. When I play control vs the "proper build" I let my opponent draw a million cards anyways before he tries to play a win condition, 1 card isn't gonna make a huge difference.
I'm really curious about the way you're playing here. When your opponent plays a second turn Enchantress, how do you decide whether or not to counter it?

Against control, it's a must counter. Playing only one means that you only benefit when the opponent has 3 answers and not 4, so you should play at least 2.
You're gonna have to explain that one. We can either not worry about it an only run three win conditions, or we can worry about it a lot and run five, but we can't run four? It's noticably mroe likely for the control player to have three coutnerspells than it is for him to have four.

Anyway, this is ineed where Rofellos's Gift comes in. I've cut a Seal and Words of Wilding for a pair of Gifts MD and I've been pretty happy about it; they're win conditions that get Grass, Confinement, Grove, and Seal back against aggro, without worrying about Ground Seal at all.

Braves54321

04-06-2005, 12:53 PM

I find this statement to be false. Solitaire usually doesn't go off until turn 4-5, usually a counter deck has a good possibility(via card drawing and such) to have a fow+blue card and a couple counterspells, or some combination with the ability to counter that stuff in one turn.

This is all game 1 discussion of course, post board you can bring in alot of things vs control and prolly win, but I would rather have a shot at winning game 1 than having drawn 1 extra card. When I play control vs the "proper build" I let my opponent draw a million cards anyways before he tries to play a win condition, 1 card isn't gonna make a huge difference.

I'm really curious about the way you're playing here. When your opponent plays a second turn Enchantress, how do you decide whether or not to counter it?

Well in game 1 I let the enchantress player play whatever they want. If you want to draw X cards thats fine. Game 1 the only threats the deck packs is the win conditions, so just counter them and you win. This is what I did to Spatula at the last Amrods, Game 1 is pretty easy for control if they know what they are playing against, games 2 and 3 are obviously a different scenario, but thats not what I was referring to.

Anyway, this is ineed where Rofellos's Gift comes in. I've cut a Seal and Words of Wilding for a pair of Gifts MD and I've been pretty happy about it; they're win conditions that get Grass, Confinement, Grove, and Seal back against aggro, without worrying about Ground Seal at all.

Well, at least you're running some form of recursion. Zur, how many kill cards do you run now, are you down to 2? I think 3 is the righ number with some form of recursion, if gifts is better for you guys, go for it, I've just seen wisdom do some pretty nice stuff.

Peter_Rotten

04-06-2005, 03:00 PM

while peter_rotten played the "approved version" and didn't make finals once.
Hey, not true. I've the deck twice. Once, I took first place. Second time I went 3-1 - I'd hardly consider that a failure. Also, keep in mind that we are 50/50 in our Landstill/Enchantress battles. One game, I had some really crappy luck - land screw from hell. Another game, I'm still being cranky about. If I had drawn another Spirit guide, I would have won. :(

Ultimately though, for game one, I do agree that running more win conditions is not a bad idea against control. Games two and three, Enchantress simply has more must counters, namely Choke.

I guess that at the heart of this discussion is this question: "what do you counter?" It has been generally accepted that you should counter draw effects - from Presence, to Argothian, to Library. But is it truly more effective to let those things resolve and only save counters for win conditions?

Mad Zur

04-06-2005, 03:09 PM

So if you've got a hand of one counterspell, and you decide to let Enchantresses resolve, you'll need to find two more counters by the time the win conditions come down, right? That means you've probably seen nine cards already (being the opponent's second turn when you have to make the call), so we're looking at a seven-of in a 51 card deck. In the next eleven cards, you are expected to see either zero or one counterspell slightly more than half the time (52.5% total). Therefore, not countering is probably a bad play if you don't expect to draw twelve cards (53% chance of finding at least two counters) by the time the win condition comes down.

If you're holding two counters already, it's different; you want one of a six-of. The odds are slightly in your favor (55%) if you are going to see six cards, so if you're holding a Standstill or a Brainstorm + fetch, it may be the correct play to let the Enchantress resolve.

The point is that if you decide to hold counters for win conditions with only one counterspell in hand on the second turn, you will probably lose. If you do so with two counters, you are either likely to lose or slightly favored to win. The latter doesn't make it the correct play; you may be more likely to win by countering the draw.

Of course, what worries me is the option of having three counters in hand already. Seeing three counters by the ninth card is something of a 9% chance, and the bottom line is, that's one out of ten games I'd rather win than lose if I can do so without significantly hurting the way my deck functions.

Currently I've only got WoWar and Mesa as real win conditions. I like keeping the amount of exclusively late-game cards to a minimum; the only things that make the number of actual win conditions matter are Meddling Mage and Rootwater Thief, which don't see enough hate to justify running WoWilding in my opinion.

Braves54321

04-06-2005, 03:55 PM

The point is that if you decide to hold counters for win conditions with only one counterspell in hand on the second turn, you will probably lose.

This also depends on the deck. Odds are a control deck is running brainstrom, and if we are talking about the landstill matchup then there is also standstill. It is not too uncommon to have either a brainstorm and a standstill with the deck in your opening hand, thus you see 3 more cards. Solitare usually doesn't go off until turn 6-7, I know it can go off on turn 4 but odds are if you're doing that you will be unable to save yourself from possibly losing your win conditions to disenchant or being able to produce enough mana to produce a kill. Basically between the draw in landstill and the 8 counters in the deck, it would not be uncommon to have 3 counters available as well as the ability to cast them by the time you win.

Rofellos' gift may be enough to push you over the edge, I was just saying the build with only 3 win conditions and no recursion does not have a good game vs Landstill(only control deck I've tested vs) game 1.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

04-06-2005, 05:32 PM

On the nature of more threats; I have been experimenting somewhat in testing in cutting Elephant Grass for Genju of the Cedars. Aggro is really becoming the weakest of the three archetypes, and it's the only archetype against which Elephant Grass is actually good, barring absolute crap like Reanimator that you do the dance of death on anyway. It's also completely unnecessary with a Confinement in play. The only advantage to it is the Green Ancestral Recall thing, which Genju also has going for it. However, unlike Elephant Grass, Genju is a threat and a powerhouse all by itself, and also makes an excellent blocker, fulfilling much of the same function as the Grass. I know we all love our obscure Mirage cards, but it might be time to let them go.

I haven't actually seen this happen in play yet, but Genju also provides a theoretical out against Edicts when you have an Argothian to protect, while garnering card advantage (You can play the Genju againa nd draw a card).

Mad Zur

04-06-2005, 06:36 PM

This also depends on the deck. Odds are a control deck is running brainstrom, and if we are talking about the landstill matchup then there is also standstill. It is not too uncommon to have either a brainstorm and a standstill with the deck in your opening hand, thus you see 3 more cards. Solitare usually doesn't go off until turn 6-7, I know it can go off on turn 4 but odds are if you're doing that you will be unable to save yourself from possibly losing your win conditions to disenchant or being able to produce enough mana to produce a kill. Basically between the draw in landstill and the 8 counters in the deck, it would not be uncommon to have 3 counters available as well as the ability to cast them by the time you win.
It's certainly a strong possibility, maybe likely, that you'll see those twelve cards, but when you aren't even assured of a 55% chance, it seems like an extremely weak gamble. If you don't find the counters you need, you will lose. If you try to counter the Enchantresses, however, you won't be in such a risky position - It's highly likely you won't need three counters in the next few turns, but if you do find them, you're still in a great position. Also, if one of them resolves, you've got Wrath and Disenchant to get them off the table before they beat you.

This is even ignoring the possibility that the opponent has more than three win conditions; even if you think you know his decklist, you risk losing to last-minute changes.

As for swapping Grass out for Genju, I could see that, but would worry about the impact on the Vial Goblins matchup, which seems to be picking up in popularity.

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-07-2005, 09:54 AM

A few points -

1 - If the draw isn't countered and you don't have to worry about supporting a Confinement, you should be in a position to cast all your kill conditions turn 4-5. Turn 6 should be the latest you can go off, with a bad hand.

2 - Specifically against Landstill, if they're trying to counter all your threats, you can mess with their draw by SoCing Standstill.

3. If I were to really run an extra kill condition strictly because of control, I would run Mobilization or Rofello's Gift. Mobilization is a stand alone threat against control, and Gift recurs Enchantresses should they be countered.

PS - brave - At the last tournement, you didn't counter all three threats, you Wastelanded my Taiga, which I was in the unusual position of having to drop early, and then countered two more. I also still got you down to three with ESGs, which you didn't have counters for, so if I had had another Taiga or been able to not play it, it's reasonable to assume I would have won that game.

It's also worth noting that this is somewhat of a suboptimal strategy in the sense that it requires a complete gameshift games 2 and 3, where trying to counter the kill conditions is a huge error.

Caligula Superfly

04-07-2005, 12:31 PM

Im sorry to interupt the discussion but I was wondering if I could see a build containing blue. There seems to be talk about it but I couldn't find a list.

ho_master

04-08-2005, 04:55 PM

I was wondering a few things:

1. If one were to go splashing in black for Duress and adding in Regrowth/Holistic Wisdom MD, what cards would be cut/would no longer be necessary?

2. In the solidarity matchup, if the Solitary Confinement hits the board, is that not sufficient to stop solidarity from going off?

quicksilver

04-08-2005, 05:43 PM

2. In the solidarity matchup, if the Solitary Confinement hits the board, is that not sufficient to stop solidarity from going off?

Like most permanent hate for solidarity, they can just wish for a bounce spell and bounce it, then brainfreeze you. Solitary confinement is probably worse than others like pyrostatic pillar and arcane laboratory because they can go off and then bounce it at their leisure, which allows them to dig through most of their deck, so the chance of them not finding an answer is very small. So the solitary confinement will probably do nothing to them.

Edited By quicksilver on 1112996641

TheInfamousBearAssassin

04-08-2005, 06:57 PM

The thing you really want to do is get a Sterling Grove or two down to protect the Confinement, but even then, if they're playing Hibernation in the side, you're pretty screwed. You generally want to have G. Blessing in the side and just move on to game 2.

currence

04-08-2005, 07:23 PM

@ Solidarity match-up:
As people have already said, Confinement does nothing but slow them down, and then only marginally so until they get bounce. City of Solitude, Blessing (possibly), an early Choke, Chalice, etc., all of these are much better options.

@ Black splash for Duress:
!!?? What cards wouldn't be necessary? Hmm, versus Duress all of the cards are infinitely necessary. Ok, I jest, but surely, you'd have to revamp the deck a bit; off the top of my head, maybe take out ESG. Sure, it'd be slower, but with Duress to grab bad stuff, if that is the reasoning. Though I consider it pretty poor reasoning and a bad idea, in general. I'm open minded though, let me know how it works/doesn't work.

@ Genju idea:
I honestly hadn't considered this (and I call myself a Solitaire player... *bows head in shame*). Of course, which would be the best Genju? Cedars or Fields, most definitely. Cedars = beats, but Fields is nice, gaining that nice life, especially against control over the long games. Fields is in W, which is the less dominant color, so that might be a slight issue, but probably not too big of a problem. I don't know, I'll test both.

@ Ground Seal and Elephant Grass:
The discussion of cutting GS isn't new, but I think Mad Zur and Spatula have shown it to be the hidden MVP of the deck, and I agree. Having a cantripping enchantment that might shut down some cards in their deck is fabulous; better with Dragon in the field? Absolutely. Still playable MD, now? Absolutely; it has won me games by itself against Reanimator, frightening Genesis tricks in Survival, "Welder.dec", and Auriok Salvagers combo (heh).

Elephant Grass is what I would take out for Genju, against Control. EG is still great though, against Goblins, broken Raffinity draws, and any menace of a black deck packing Hypnotic Specters with other discard effects (which is harsh on this deck, early game).

Question on Genjus:
If my opponent Deeds or Disks, can I make my land a crit and have my land go to the 'yard before the Genju, thus saving my enchantment? If so, the prospects of future games against Hulk are looking that much more delicious.

Last but not least, w00t on making it a DTB. Someone finally realized the power of the little green women who give you lots of cards.

cdr

04-10-2005, 01:16 AM

Question on Genjus:
If my opponent Deeds or Disks, can I make my land a crit and have my land go to the 'yard before the Genju, thus saving my enchantment? If so, the prospects of future games against Hulk are looking that much more delicious.
I was reading the thread since I'm a fan of Enchantress...

You can make your land into a spirit in response, but they would both still be destroyed by the Deed/Disk at the same time, not "before". Luckily for you, permanents that enter or leave play at the same time "see" each other, so the Genju will trigger and you'll get it back.

Not sure how much this helps you against Hulk, though.

410. Handling Triggered Abilities

410.10d Abilities that trigger on one or more permanents leaving play, or on a player losing control of a permanent, must be treated specially because the permanent with the ability may no longer be in play after the event. The game has to "look back in time" to determine what triggered. Each time an event removes from play or changes who controls one or more permanents, all the permanents in play just before the event (with continuous effects that existed at that time) are checked for trigger events that match what just left play or changed control.
Example: Two creatures are in play along with an artifact that has the ability "Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from play, you gain 1 life." Someone plays a spell that destroys all artifacts, creatures, and enchantments. The artifact's ability triggers twice, even though the artifact goes to its owner's graveyard at the same time as the creatures.

MarkPharaoh

04-14-2005, 10:02 AM

What is a general accepted decklist/skeleton of the deck at this stage of development?

Peter_Rotten

04-14-2005, 10:52 AM

Page one contains the generally accepted deck list. Spatula updates it occasionally.

ho_master

04-17-2005, 06:39 PM

I took part in the Austin Mana Drain tournament this part weekend with this deck and thought I should post my results to contribute to the deck's performance. I made Top 8, but died in the first round of T8 (but it was terrible! Read on to find out...).
My decklist is as follows (and it lacks Rofellos's Gifts, but I'll explain about that later...)

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
3x Exploration (didn't get last one in time)
4x Wild Growth
4x Seal of Cleansing
3x Elephant Grass
3x Sterling Grove
3x Solitary Confinement
3x Ground Seal
3x Gaea's Touch
3x Sylvan Library
1x Words of War
1x Words of Wilding
1x Sacred Mesa
4x Windswepth Heaths
2x Serra's Sanctum
3x Savannah
2x Taiga
1x Plains
8x Forests

Sideboard:
3x City of Solitudes
3x Choke
3x Chalice of the Void
2x Spreading Algae
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
1x Humility

1st Round: Solitaire (2) vs. ATS (1)
First game: I play a hand with an argothian which gets FOW'd, and he goes on to win by tradewind rider + mystic snake denying me the rest of the way (I couldn't find another enchantress effect, and my sylvan library/words of war kept getting bounced). I notice that he doesn't maindeck elvish lyrist but does maindeck dwarven miner, which works 2-3 times.
2nd game: I side in 2 karmic justice, 1 sacred ground, and 1 humility. This game, I get 3 enchantress effects in my hand by turn 2, so I play them one at a time, and after getting FOW'd twice, the 3rd one resolves. I go on to drop a resolved Ground Seal, and then a Karmic Justice, so I feel pretty happy. He uses Dwarven miner to toast my Sanctum, but I destroy his Survival and play my 2nd sanctum in my hand next turn. A Ground Seal and a Sterling grove come out at some time, I think. He attempts to go to town by hitting me with critters, and I make some mistakes in not activating words of war instead of drawing cards, but I get lucky during a turn while I'm going off and find a humility and play it. The next turn while I'm in mid-drawing/WoW'ing, he scoops.
3rd game: Same side, I get a 3rd turn sterling grove that searches out a humility, and the game ends without consequence.

2nd round: Vial goblins (2) vs. Solitaire (1)
First Game: I completely dominated him with a 2nd turn elephant grass followed by an elephant grass played later, dropping the original one. No fear of counters = enchantress effects + solitary confinement + words of war lock.
Second Game: I side nothing in. It didn't register to me that he played a plateau in the first game, so I forgot he was playing white. I have a solitary confinement, sterling grove, and argothian enchantress out, and I sac the grove to find a second enchantress effect so I can start going off with my Words of War in my hand. He plays disenchant, smacks me, lackey lets him drop skirk fire-marshal, and whaps me next turn.
Third Game: I get overrun before I can find either a solitary confinement or an elephant grass, which is highly disappointing. My enchantress got out, but every enchantment I played made me hit land, so I quickly ran out of steam and missed everything.

Third Round: White Weenie (2) vs. Solitaire(1)
First Round: I play a hand that has two ground seals, exploration, wild growths, and lands thinking that I could eventually draw an enchantress effect/elephant grass/solitary confinement with a good mana base, but I missed, and he overran me by turn 4.
Second Round: I side nothing in. I have two enchantress effects this time, and I get both out backed up by two sterling groves by the next turn. He scoops after I play words of war.
Third Round: I am forced to mulligan down to 4 because of no-land hands, and my presence gets disenchanted. GG by turn 5/6.

Fourth Round:
Mono-green Untargetable (0) vs. Solitaire (2)
First Game: He forgot to unsideboard so he scoops.
Second Game: Enchantress + solitary confinement comes out by turn 4 and he scoops because he has no answer.

The final standings get posted and I'm 8th, which makes me pretty damn happy.

Top 8, 1st round: U/W control (2) vs. Solitaire (1)
First round: One of my enchantress's gets forced, but the other makes it through. It's this game that I get to break out the errata that says enchantress effect goes off even if spell gets countered (don't ever forget this!), but it doesn't matter because my enchantress draws yield land everytime, and his eternal dragon owns me.
Second round: I side in 3 city of solitudes, 3 chokes, 2 karmic justices for my elephant grasses, sacred grounds, and gaea's touchs. By 4th turn, city of solitude and choke come out and lock him down. I get 2 sylvan libraries out + words of war, which start hurting him like crazy. I'm not sure if a words of wilding comes out, but I remember a wrath of god destroying my enchantress, but my enchantress's presence lives and I finally get him to 0 eventually.
Third round: This is a pretty damn disappointing match and a match where the lack of Rofellos's Gifts was felt. I was supposed to have them in time for the tourney, but the site where I ordered the cards sent me 4 ROFELLOS's instead of 4 Rofellos's Gifts in my package...yeah. A pleasant surprise, but a not-so-pleasant result in this match. I have a 4-5th turn City of Solitude + Choke again. He Peer Through Depths 2-3 times and finds disenchant, scour, and Scours my chokes. I hit him with words of war until he casts akroma's vengeance and toasts the board. I still have an enchantress in my hand though, so I come back with a words of wilding and sacred mesa and start creating tokens. Eventually after a bit of smacking, he goes down to 1 life, but has wrath of god'd so I recreate my tokens and pass the turn. He then top decks akroma's vengeance, and he plays it, passes the turn. I start to pick up my draw and play an enchantress, but I stop, and think. I have no win conditions left. I have no recursion. I state as such, and then get eternal dragon'd to death in the end with him still at 1 life.

I admit I'm a noob with this deck, and shouldn't have played both win conditions at once and should've put recursion inm y side...*groan*. I also made tons of mistakes getting caught up in drawing and not activating words of war/words of wilding enough. I didn't get to play landstill, and I still hope I can prove this deck's worthiness again (with a better understanding of the deck, for sure).

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-18-2005, 11:05 AM

Congratulations on making top 8, and my commiserations on not getting further. I had a similiar experience this past Saturday; partially due to play error, and partially due to bad fortune, but I think it may be necessary to run a fourth kill condition MD anyway. What finally convinced me is that this happened against ATS. So everyone who said that 3 was too few was right, and I was wrong.

I think +1 Rofellos's Gift, -1 Elvish Spirit Guide might be the best compromise right now; the other options are either Elephant Grass, Sylvan Library, or Ground Seal. Right now I would like to maintain the enchantment count.

Mad Zur

04-18-2005, 02:58 PM

You don't consider cutting Seal of Cleansing an option? At least Gift can recur the first Seal and function somewhat as another, which it can't do with Ground Seal or Library and can only sometimes do with Grass. Of course, the notable drawbacks to this are that it can't be a Seal if you draw it first, and that it often can't be an early Seal if you need to hold it as a win condition (i.e. against Landstill).

Cutting down to two ESGs may indeed be the better call. ESG is usually only better than Seal in favorable matchups. Plus, that would mean the deck could Seal something six times. :p

I do still think the second Gift is better than the third actual win condition, though whether Mesa or WoWilding should be cut I'm not completely sure.

Enjoy those Rofellos's, ho_master. :D

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-18-2005, 03:11 PM

I do still think the second Gift is better than the third actual win condition, though whether Mesa or WoWilding should be cut I'm not completely sure.
I thought about that too, actually. I think I'd rather have WoWilding for two reasons; 1)if you upped it to two Gift, the fact that it's green is a plus, and 2)Goblin Sharpshooter.

impulsecontrol

04-19-2005, 04:33 PM

[color=#000000:post_uid1]Since it does not say target does it mean that you can use Rofello's Gift with Ground Seal in play? I was playing with someone and they said they changed the oracle text. I dont think they did, so i'm just asking to make sure I am right. Thanks.[/color:post_uid1]

SpatulaOfTheAges

04-19-2005, 04:40 PM

Rofellos's Gift works with Ground Seal in play, yes.

CavernNinja

04-19-2005, 08:54 PM

To be more exact on Spat's answer here is the current oracle text:

Reveal any number of green cards in your hand. Return an enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand for each card revealed this way.

There is no mention of target in the text, and this way the spell cannot be fizzled through any targetting means either. As for the debate between words and mesa, I would definately choose Words. Not only for it's greeness and it's ability to avoid sharpshooter but it also can be used with Library to some fairly cool effect. There are a large number of decks that cannot answer the number of bears that can be churned out each turn with Library.

SpatulaOfTheAges

05-02-2005, 02:12 AM

As a matter of interest I sat down on MWS and drew 100 opening hands to see how often the deck really needs to mulligan. My criteria for a mulligan were:

A no-Enchantress, no Library hand.
A no-land(not counting Serra's Sanctum as land for this purpose) hand.
A one-land, non-basic hand unless the potential payout was signifigant.

This was the criteria for a 7 or 6 card hand. At 5 and below, things became tighter.

Hands with a combination of Ground Seal/Seal of Cleansing/Elephant Grass could be kept, as could any hand that relied on non-basics for mana, as long as they weren't Sanctum. These compromise hands are marked as weak.

No mulligan - 59
One mulligan - 26
Two mulligan, strong - 6
Two mulligan, weak - 4
Three mulligan, strong - 1
Three mulligan, weak - 3
Four+ mulligan, SCOOP - 1

currence

05-06-2005, 03:12 PM

Just for the sake of clarification, Spatula, was that testing done with the ESG, three win condition "standard" version of the deck, or was that with Mad Zur's Rofellos's Gift "main deck mania" (heh) version?

ho_master

05-06-2005, 04:01 PM

I'm currently enjoying a build that takes out Words of Wilding in favor of Words of Wind (I think this was mentioned earlier). I usually ruin any opponent when I bring out Words of Wind if I have two enchantress's with explorations out/in hand, serra's sanctum out, and lots of patience tapping and returning stuff back and forth. Also, the ability to bounce ground seals, elephant grasses, any other cheap enchantment to replay to draw farther has been invaluable in keeping my combo going.

So, I have

-1x Words of Wilding
+1x Words of Wind

-2x Forest
+2x Tropical Island

with
Win conditions:
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
2x Rofellos's Gifts

I'm not sure if this is a case of win more, but to me, the words of wilding is just too slow to generate enough tokens while the sacred mesa, with the added ability to bounce serra's sanctum back a few times to re-tap for absurd amounts of mana while bouncing their entire board with Words of Wind, has become my favorite.

Sorry for the edit; another thing just came to mind:

I'm still not sure how this deck deals with the opponent holding counters until the win conditions start being played. I read the discussion earlier in the thread, but maybe I'm still not getting it. So, with 4-5 win conditions and your opponent saving all counters until a direct threat comes down, are you guys saying that the uncountered enchantresses will allow us to draw into every win condition and thus overwhelm his ability to counter every single one?

CavernNinja

05-06-2005, 04:14 PM

Yes, that is exactly the plan. Or atleast draw more win conditions than they have counters. Look at the math that was presented, the chances of landstill drawing 3 counters is tough, drawing 4-5 is nearly impossible, and I have seen Enchantress goldfish turn 5 with incredible consistency, and by goldfish I mean draw their deck. Here is the thing to remember about control, even if they counter the enchantment you still get to draw for it. Argothian has been errata'd to read exactly as Prescence reads, mostly due the fact that the game no longer has a way to check for successfully cast.

ho_master

05-06-2005, 05:19 PM

One of the growing problems I've also seen is my friend siding Tormod's Crypt against me when playing landstill. That pretty much assures that my rofellos's get ruined. So, post side, if I can't rofellos's gift that turn after my win condition gets countered, he's going to play his held tormod's crypt and dump my graveyard.

Is it worth it to play golden wish against this =/
(I'm not really serious, but I'm just noting that I'd almost rather run more win conditions than get crypted, but maybe I'm not playing it right and should only cast win conditions when I have a Gift in my hand...)

SpatulaOfTheAges

05-06-2005, 05:52 PM

Post SB, this shouldn't be a problem, as you bring in City of Solitude, so them trying to counter all your kill conditions will usually fail. Also remember that Solitary Confinement stops Tormod's Crypt.

Currence - That was 3 ESG.

I should have mulliganing results for -3 ESG, +2 Forest, +1 Rofellos's Gift some time later this week.

ho_master

05-11-2005, 03:16 PM

Another quick rules question:

Suppose I have two sylvan libraries out and a Words of War. I choose to replace the draw effects with the Words effect and deal 8 damage to my opponent, skipping the possible 4 extra draws that I could've had from the libraries. Do I have to put cards back on top of the library or else take 4 life for each card I should've drawn?

Also, do people take the plunge and go 8 life do dig deeper in the library much? It never really occurred to me because taking that big a hit makes me cringe.

quicksilver

05-11-2005, 03:50 PM

At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library.

Yes if you activate words at least once, then you will have to pay 4 life for each card you actually want to draw this turn. So the best plan if you have two libraries out is just to hit them for 10, or to draw one card. Unless you have life you want to spend drawing cards. And you never have to put cards back from your hand that you didn't draw this turn and you only pay life if you want to draw cards this turn. So if you draw no cards, your hand and life stay as is. And if you want to hit them for 8 and draw one card it will cost 4 life.

Edited By quicksilver on 1115841284

Solomox

05-11-2005, 09:53 PM

Whats stopping you from drawing the initial card and then skipping the 4 subsequent draws?

quicksilver

05-11-2005, 10:00 PM

Ewokslayer

05-12-2005, 08:59 AM

You can do that but then you have to pay 8 life to do that.

Ok you draw a card, then you skip the next 2 to do two damage. Now the card says you have to put two cards drawn back this turn or pay 4 life for each one you want to keep. So you can either pay 4 life to keep it, or you can put it back. Then after that is done you can skip the second two from the sylvan library, but if you already drew that card to start, now you would have to pay 4 life again to keep it if you skip the next two draws.

So what you can do is skip your first three, then pay 4 life to draw one off the second.

The key to this is that it makes you put back cards drawn this turn no matter how you draw them.
That isn't right.
From StarCityGames
Q: First up, what happens when I have two Sylvan Libraries in play? I understand that my normal draw will happen first and that Sylvan Library can put back any draws so far this turn, but I'm confused as to what will happen: will I draw my normal card, then draw four, then put four back, or will I draw my normal card, draw two, put two back, then draw the same two and put two back? Or, in other words, do Sylvan Libraries stack and dig deeper or do they just keep looking at the same couple cards?

Next up, I've a question on the interaction between Sylvan Library and Words of War. From your previous answers, I know that if I replace my first draw - the normal one - I'll have to put back both Sylvan Library draws, so I might as well replace all three. Is it possible, though, to let my normal draw resolve, then replace both my Sylvan Library draws, effectively letting me draw one card a turn and still activate the Words of Whatever twice?

A: I specifically waited to answer your question until the 8th Edition rules were published. Under the new rules, your "normal" draw happens at the beginning of your draw step before anything else. Then each Sylvan Library triggers, and you resolve them in order. That means you draw two, put back two, then draw two and put back two. The only way to dig deeper is to lose life.

If the draws are replaced (like with Words), you don't suffer the consequences of not putting back the cards because of Sylvan Library's "If you do..." wording. So yes, you must draw a card, then, after the Library (or Libraries) go on the stack, activate the Words. You'll get the Words effect without paying the life.

quicksilver

05-12-2005, 10:52 AM

Ewokslayer

05-12-2005, 12:25 PM

From Saturday School #18 by Rune Horvik, Saturday, March 8, 2003:
Q: According to its Oracle text, Sylvan Library's effect is: "At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library." If I use Sylvan Library, but activate Words of War three times (thus drawing no cards), what happens? If I have not drawn any cards I cannot choose any, and it seems that since I can't choose any cards the clause "for each of those cards..." has no effect. Will I still have to pay life?
--David Sealy

A: If you haven’t drawn any cards this turn, you don’t have to pay any life. Words of War replaces the “draw” with another effect, so Sylvan Library won’t see any cards being “drawn”, and you won’t have to put any cards back or pay any life. Note that if you don’t replace all the draws, but actually draw some cards, you will be forced to put back the cards you have drawn, or pay life to keep them.

Doh

Why does starcity have to be wrong the one time I only check it and not both sites?

ho_master

05-12-2005, 12:29 PM

Recently played against a Stax deck and cringed as I got locked down by winter orb, sphere of resistance, etc. Is the best play here just to use Seal of Cleansing/Aura of Silence to handle his trash?

cdr

05-12-2005, 12:48 PM

I was asked by PeterRotten to put an end to the "debate". Easy:

419.5b: Some abilities read, "Whenever [X], you may [Y]. If you do, [Z]." The "if you do" clause refers to choosing to do the event Y, regardless of what events actually occur as a result of that decision. If Y is replaced entirely or in part by a different event, the "if you do" clause refers to the event that replaced Y.

The wizards.com answer was correct; the starcitygames.com answer was incorrect. If you read the SCG answer closely you'll notice that it doesn't answer the question very clearly, if at all.

SpatulaOfTheAges

05-15-2005, 08:24 AM

Recently played against a Stax deck and cringed as I got locked down by winter orb, sphere of resistance, etc. Is the best play here just to use Seal of Cleansing/Aura of Silence to handle his trash?
Yes. Figure out which of his permanents are the real threats and deal with those. Keep in mind that he can't apply much pressure.

ho_master

05-16-2005, 11:15 AM

Alright, sorry I keep attacking this thread with n00b questions about deck play. I have some deck thoughts to contribute now.

Currently my build runs neither gaea's touch nor elvish spirit guides. I feel that the slots that they might replace are too invaluable; the way I see it, they can only go in for Seals of Cleansing, Ground Seal, Sylvan Library, Elephant Grass, or Solitary Confinement. I'm running 3 each of those (I think), and I wouldn't go less for any reason. Seal of Cleansing is just too invaluable against a number of enchantments and artifacts out there (Stax components, Crucible, Disk...), and Ground Seal is the MVP (drawing out of a land clump with it is too nice), while Sylvan Library I keep at 3 so I can Words with it. Then there's Elephant Grass, where 3 of keeps aggro decks at bay; with only 2 or 1 (yikes), my goblin toting buddy whacks me if I can't fetch for it in time with Sterling Grove or draw it straight up in my first hand/1st mulligan/2nd mulligan. Solitary Confinement has always been a 3 of for me due to its combo prevention, its lock, and its mini-fog ability -- another invaluable card.

Basically, I can't justify sacrificing slots for the cards, and I feel that this deck can do without the acceleration. As it was, I was only running 2 touch's, and they were only incidental rather than integral cards that got played as I was going off. What would you guys say to axing both touch's/guides?

Another thing is Sterling Grove. I rarely feel safe blowing it open against any deck unless I have 2 out so that 1 can remain as backup. Basically, I never fetch with Grove because as soon as it goes down, my solitary confinement/enchantress's presence/etc just gets toasted EOT. The only deck I thought I could go against safely was say goblins, but if they're running plateaus, I'm definitely not about to pop the grove. It's a great defensive card, I just wish I could fetch, and I'd rather put in 1 or 2 Enlightened Tutors instead so I don't have to break my Grove.

(If you can't tell, this is my favorite deck, since I only post here =D)

Obfuscate Freely

05-16-2005, 07:29 PM

Why would you run ETutors instead of Groves if you always want a Grove in play? That doesn't make sense, so I will assume I'm misunderstanding. You did complain about all of the slots being taken, though.

As for ESG, I like it in this deck quite a bit, but if you want acceleration that doesn't take up deck slots, try Chrome Mox. You can easily swap out 3-4 basic forests for them, and the card disadvantage is easily compensated for with the Enchantress draw engine. The only problem with Mox is that it can make an already mulligan-prone deck even more so, since a 5- or even 6-card hand can look a lot worse with Mox in it.

In general I feel that acceleration really helps this deck, as getting the draw engine online quickly is crucial in this format. This is most obvious against aggro or combo, when every turn counts and you're simply racing for the lock, but the ability to sneak an Argothian under a control deck's counterwall on turn 1 should not be underestimated. Solitaire is also uniquely suited to abuse acceleration into the midgame, since getting a few extra mana while "going off" can be the extremely useful. Again, the card disadvantage (from either Mox or ESG) will hardly ever matter.

ho_master

05-17-2005, 11:02 AM

I meant that I'd rather find slots elsewhere for Enlightened Tutor and have Sterling Groves be shield duty instead, despite the fact that I can't seem to find slots. Contradictory, but meh.

I'll try out chrome mox, but I wasn't too hot on it when I was considering what else to run instead of guides/touches.

Ugh, also I played against Ravager Affinity yesterday night and was frustrated by meddling mage for solitary confinement =/ I don't think that deck's ever gonna be legacy-worthy, though, but the disruption with cabal therapy and meddling mages is pretty significant.

Rivs

06-04-2005, 11:21 AM

i've been following this thread in the last weeks and have been giving thought to the subject of what win condition to play against control. I was wondering if you have tested decree of justice in the slot. It's hardly counterable, it will get huge due to serra's sanctum and it can be cast eot and go unanswered by landstill or most others control decks.
I thought ATS with sharpshooter would be able to hinder this strategy, provided it were in play when you cycle decree, but then i remembered you can play it regularly and also have a 1-2 turn clock.
What is your opinion, could this be viable? It seems to shore up the weakness against control since recent landstill decklists eem to eschew stifle in favor of manaleaks and even then you outdraw them brutally, so you should be able to find your 3 decrees before they find their at best 3 stifles, plus the added strength of cycling decree under standstill.
Hope you find it useful, cheers.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-05-2005, 04:05 AM

Zilla

06-09-2005, 07:25 PM

Moved by popular vote to Open. While the deck is perfectly viable and in fact very strong, it simply isn't seeing enough play to warrant its DTB status at the moment. Should it start placing consistently in T8's, it will return to the LMF. -Zilla

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-09-2005, 08:02 PM

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Yeah, fair enough.

Ray D 3

06-11-2005, 04:54 PM

What is the general consensus on Gaea's Touch? I haven't read through to see if it was mentioned, but it seems pretty good.

Btw, it was really sad to see this leave the LMF ;_;

Slay

06-11-2005, 06:08 PM

Gaea's Touch I've found to be near-unplayable. It's acceleration on the second turn, and Enchantress needs it on the first turn, so it can play redonkulousness second turn. Plus it's really limited acceleration. I'd much rather have it as another kill condition or something similar.
:Slay:

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-12-2005, 02:03 AM

I found it so-so. Like Slay said, it doesn't accelerate you into a second turn play, and it's more fluff against control. It is another free spell when comboing, and it can even net one mana the turn you play it, but overall I would recommend ESG or Petal over Touch, despite not being enchantments. The ability to speed up your game is pretty important.

ho_master

06-13-2005, 03:58 PM

Wow, this deck got downgraded? Man...I need to find more tourneys and t4 with them like crazy...

Anyways, I like DoJ as a kill, but I would think the opponent would think it's kind of fishy after spending 4-5 turns going nuts on mana, enchantments, and cluttering the board to go on turn 5-6 "Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Go." Not that the lack of surprise would mean anything to most decks, but if I was landstill with a stifle somewhere in my deck, I'd brainstorm/petals of insight into it pretty damn fast. Plus, with City of Solitude in the sideboard, you'd lose the ability to cycle and give them time to Wrath.

I still stick by my Words of Wind approach in making them watch their whole board get scooped and forcing a concession.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-13-2005, 10:46 PM

Well I would prefer to have 4-5 kill kill conditions MD that don't require going into more than 3 colors. While it's easily possibly to simply run another Words of Wilding/War/Wind/Whathaveyou, for the sake of avoiding Meddling Mage and other such nonsense, I think DoJ is worth testing.

I was running a pair this past Saturday, but never came against a match-up where they would matter.

PunkRocker1134

06-13-2005, 10:49 PM

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-13-2005, 10:51 PM

Words of War speeds the clock up a turn. That's why it's run. You could of course run, Words of Wind, the only disadvantage is that it's weaker to Madness and less useful in short bursts versus creature based decks..

lyle h

06-13-2005, 11:57 PM

Has Words of War ever been annoying in this deck. really I see no reason that this card alone deserves a splash. i think this can be something much better. If your worried about aggro I think Words of War should really be DoJ becuase cycling and making alot of tokens has helped me out alot more then Words of War and it should make the deck less weaker to wasteland.
WoW, actually has good synergy with the deck though. It is an enchantment so it acts as a card drawer, it kills off utility creautres that might be keeping you from winning, it dumps mana, can be used in spurts against aggro as Spatula already covered. I see no reason to drop a very powerful win condition for one that only matters in very rare instances, you do realize you can wait until you need it to fetch for that Taiga? And serously enchantress is not all that horrid to play against Wasteland it plays so many land and draws so many cards to replace those land, it should be no problem.

ho_master

06-14-2005, 02:51 AM

Not early on, and especially not to turn 1: windswepth heath-->savannah + wild growth, go followed by turn 1: wasteland, destroy savannah, go.

It's painful to keep hands where I have only non-basics -_-

But yes, wasteland won't matter unless you misplay and drop a taiga midway through and pass the turn, allowing them to wasteland your lone (or 2nd) taiga and nerfing a win condition.

currence

06-14-2005, 03:18 AM

@ Words of War as win:

I've found Words of War to be tied with the Mesa as my win condition, most often Words of Wilding is just completely unused, but I only play it for the diversity of win conditions. WoWar is great for winning all in one turn, which prevents any Vengeance-esque nonsense and allows you to not pass the turn to any combo (though any combo like Belcher or Nausea that has not won by the time you've set up a WoWar kill is in *really* bad shape anyways).

Also, this may just be a factor for me, but the cardshop where I play most often has 30 minute rounds (yes, I know, it is insanely horrible) and there have been many, many times when time has been called, I'm been on turn 4/5, my opponent is at ~20 life, and I have somewhere around 4 Enchantress effects, a Sanctum, a WoWar, and I cast 2 Ground Seals for GG. The WoWar gives the deck a bit more speed.

Another plus for WoWar: when your opponent sees a Library and an early WoWar, s/he is now under major pressure because at any time you could start "smacking" for 6 a turn (though this is rarely the proper play). Even in the rare chance that it occurs, when your opponent sees WoWar and Library s/he has to start making difficult decisions: does s/he try and win in three turns or try and stop the mini-combo, either one means less disruption for the main draw engine and the inevitable Confinement win. Forcing your opponent to make the tough decisions also creates a higher probability that they will screw up and let the wrong card through, or something similar. Enchantress can go beat down, and when it does, it is pretty frightening.

A Note on a Sideboard Choice:
For the past three tournaments or so that I've ran Solitaire, I've boarded 3 Genju of the Cedars against Landstill rather than any Rofellos's Gifts (I also bring in Choke, Blood Moon, City, and possibly Karmic Justice - the anti-control suite, heh) and I've been somewhat pleased with the results. An early Genju makes early Standstills almost untenable - in fact, that is one of the purposes of the Genju, it halts their draw engine and forces them to deal with him, because he could swing for 4. This diversion of their resources allows you to continue your Enchantress engine with more confidence: if they counter the early engine pieces, then they face the wrath of a 4/4, and they are unable to do anything but Brainstorm into more solutions, that is, the Genju may be able to prevent any card advantage for them. If they don't counter the early engine pieces, then you gain massive card advantage, and you still have the anti-Standstill Genju.

Take it for what it is worth, I'm not 100% sold yet, but I think that more testing would be fruitful.

ho_master

07-22-2005, 02:15 PM

This past Sunday, I got 2nd place with this deck. Just thought I'd share the results though this deck looks mostly dead =/

4 Matches, top rec gets 9 packs, 2nd gets 6 packs:

1st Match vs. Vial Goblins
Game 1: I go first, first turn exploration wild growth, 2nd turn enchantress elephant grass. Eventual Solitary confinement, win.
Game 2: Lackey breaks out Warchief and my lack of Elephant Grass/Solitary Confinement leads to eventual loss
Game 3: I produce approximately 100 mana in one turn due to Words of Wind bouncing Exploration + Serra's Sanctum and bounce his whole board. Attack with 50 pegasus tokens next turn (Before that, I stalled with 2 elephant grasses, which were both recurred with rofellos's gifts, then I found a Humility with sterling grove and shut him down)

2nd Match vs. U/R Fish
Game 1: His dazes are no match for my Words of Wind bouncing, he scoops after his whole board is toast
Game 2: He sides in about 10 cards, I learned later it was engineered explosives, Pithing needle, and more counters (dangerous), but he has to mull to 5 and eventually loses despite having a cloud of faeries with SoFI equipped. Was down to about 2 when I scooped his whole board again and went pegasus crazy.

3rd Match vs. Death Spark/Krovikian Horror deck (Reanimator ping I guess *shrug*)
1st game: I win handily as I bounce his whole board and he scoops
2nd game: This one went to time, but since I Won the first game, I won the whole match. What essentially happened is he had 2 cranial extractions in his hand and 2 dark rituals to open with. He cranialed solitary confinement and sacred mesa and looked very smug as he waited for me to concede. I obviously didn't, proceeded to combo through my WHOLE deck until I was literally out of cards, but got words of wind in play before my library was in play/in my hand. I proceeded to explain to him that no matter what he did, he'd never be able to cast anything more than 1 mana for the rest of the game since I was going to bounce everything he owned back to his hand. Unfortunately, he was convinced he could still win. The judge said that my explanation was good, but his insistence made the judge concede that there was a chance for victory, so we played the next 15 minutes something like this:
Me: I pay for the elephant grass upkeep (he only had black creatures), replace my draw effect with words of wind, bounce your only land, go.
Him: Replay land, go.

Game 4 (Finals) vs The Rock w/ Gifts Ungiven
Game 1: No white mana = no win
Game 2: Even after siding in ground seals, sacred ground, karmic justice, rofellos's gifts, I lose after he gifts twice for deed/witness/volrath's stronghold/cabal therapy or whatever, and my hand/board is decimated. Karmic justice DID come out though, but his pernicious deed only left me able to destroy 4 of his 7 lands. Whoopie. He wins handily.

Overall, I didn't expect The Rock, but that's what might happen at the Philly Grand Prix. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the proper sideboard is, but I'm going to squeeze a few slots for it this weekend.

Personally, the reason why I don't go with Words of War is because damage isn't as mind-crushing as scooping your whole hand. As I stated above, the people immediately quit when they scooped their board, despite my lack of a "real" win condition on the table. Both have their merits, but I don't recommend running both at the same time as I did in a previous build. Dropping 2 forests for 2 Taigas and adding words of war made me way too vulnerable to Wasteland =/.

Maindeck humility has absolutely ruined decks, also, so it's worth a slot to put it in. I've also added Decree of Justice as a Win condition, so I'll see how that goes this weekend.

scott2

08-08-2005, 11:14 PM

i am begining to think what the grand prix is going to look like and i have decided to either play this or affinity. I have decided this on the fact that both these decks don't have any horrible matches. both decks can legitimately win everything. and their biggest downfalls are the fact they can be easily hated out. but this, being the more roguish of the two, has caught my eye.

this is my build
8 Forest
1 Plains
2 Taiga
3 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
1 Humility
1 Decree of Justice
1 Words of Wilding
1 Words of War
3 Sylvan Library
3 Gaea's Touch
2 Ground Seal
3 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Elephant Grass
3 Seal of Cleansing
4 Wild Growth
4 Exploration
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress
SB: 1 Holistic Wisdom
SB: 1 Null Chamber
SB: 2 Humility
SB: 4 City of Solitude
SB: 3 Aura of Silence
SB: 2 Decree of Justice
SB: 2 Choke

couple of choices i made:

humility: two very popular creatures can still beat this deck with a solitary confinement in play, they are tradewind survivor and disciple of the vault. this remedies those two.

decree of justice: counters are harsh for this deck, this is a win condition that will not be countered

words: war and wilding fit the metagame better. if there was a more controlish metagame instead of aggro, i would go with words, but needing the ingame creature removal and blockage words of war and wilding are the better option

the sideboard is a little thrown together, giving me many options for standstill and tog no matter what you do, decks that counter will be at an advantage against you

JavaJacker

08-09-2005, 04:21 AM

...and disciple of the vault...
Quick note.

DotV says 'target' opponent.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-09-2005, 11:25 AM

humility: two very popular creatures can still beat this deck with a solitary confinement in play, they are tradewind survivor and disciple of the vault. this remedies those two.

The deck also has a strong match vs. ATS; Sterling Groves make Tradewind Rider useless if there are two in play, and weaken his effectiveness overall. Argothian can't be bounced or removed in any way by their deck if it resolves, Exploration is good against the Rider, and you have Ground Seal and Seal of Cleansing.

don't have any horrible matches.

Solidarity. You need to have a lot of SB hate in order to beat Solidarity, first among them Gaea's Blessings and Null Chamber(naming Cunning Wish, most of the time).

ho_master

08-09-2005, 01:54 PM

Yeah, I've got 3 Chalice of the Voids and 2 Gaea's Blessing in my side for the solidarity matchup. Admittedly, I've taken Ground Seals more or less out of MD/SB because no one in Austin seems to be playing ATS, but as Spatula has mentioned, enchantress is untouchable, and your lock is faster than their lock. Plus, humility is dirty.

I'd cut the Words of Wilding as it is suboptimal. And the extra Decrees in the side can probably be put to better use to shore up other matchups, you really don't need that many kill conditions because the deck is so rogue that peopl eend up countering Exploration or Sterling Grove as opposed to the real threats.

ho_master

08-15-2005, 04:37 PM

After running into jank after jank after jank around Austin (I guess there is some basis behind how underdeveloped the meta is in Texas...oh wait is solitaire jank too?) I've altered my deck slightly. For condensing purposes (and because I'm lazy), I'm going to do the decklist horizontally instead of vertically:

6x Forests
4x Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, Wild Growth, Exploration, Seal of Cleansing, Windswept Heath, Savannah (added the 4th)
3x Sterling Grove
2x Elephant Grass, Solitary Confinement, Sylvan Library, Rofellos's Gift, Plains, Serra's Sanctum, Tropical Island
1x Words of Wind, Sacred Mesa, Decree of Justice, Humility, Ground Seal
and
4x Enlightened Tutors

Sideboard:
3x Chalice of the Voids
2x Aura of Silence, City of Solitude, Choke, Gaea's Blessings (want to cut these)
1x Ground Seal, Karmic Justice, Sacred Ground, Spreading Algae

Basically, the major changes is I've chopped 1 each of various 3 of's in order to make room for 4 Tutors. No one here is running Predict (at least, not yet), so I feel safe from that hate, and this deck relaly needs to hit the silver bullets as fast as possible against certain decks, whether that is Humility against ATS/aggro, Confinement against combo/aggro, or any of the sideboard cards for any of the bad matchups you could run against. As of now, I have 2 Gaea's Blessings in the side, but I really want to take them out, replacing one with In the Eye of Chaos, which will not only stop Solidarity, but also any tendrils deck or any blue deck and their instant speed shenanigans. This would leave room for one card, which I am having trouble deciding on.

My new strategy is to win via the same methods as before by generating a ton of mana with Serra's Sanctum via the Words of Wind/Exploration trick and create enough tokens to make the opponent scoop, and then post side, after avoiding possible hate in the form of Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle, Arcane Laboratory, etc., I would cycle Decree of Justice for the win. So I could use the last sideboard slot to take out Sacred Mesa and put in another Decree, or use the last slot to shore up any matchups I missed (like putting another Humility in, or a Compost, or a Null Chamber or something).

Anyone have any comments?

Ah, also sorry for the double post

Lego

08-24-2005, 11:26 PM

Hey Guys,

I know that no one has posted here for a long time, and I'm assuming that's because Solitaire is a bad deck, but I'm going to ask for help anyway.

I'm playing a pretty standard build now, with no Ground Seals because Jay P told me they suck. I've got 2 WoWar, 1 WoWilding, and 1 Hollistic Wisdom as my win, and Jay P made me put in Story Circle, but I haven't used it yet.

My board sucks, and I need help with that.

And lastly, I want to splash blue for WoWind, and I have two questions about that. Will my mana base suck too horribly, or does it warrant cutting WoWar, and if I bounce Exploration and replay it, can I play *another* land, or does it not change my count?

-Lego

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-25-2005, 12:44 AM

It's more that the enviroment has become less suited to the deck without Survival around for it to beat.

Ground Seal I've found to be extremely valuable despite people's misgivings; it's not really the card's first effect so much as the cantripping that makes it powerful. I suggest trying them for yourself for a little bit before making up your mind.

I don't like Story Circle. Why would you use it over Confinement or Worship?

Holistic Wisdom is strong, but I really think Ground Seal is stronger.

4 colors is too many; go with either blue or red; Exploration will allow you to play another land if you bounce it and play it again.

For your SB, what's your meta like?

Lego

08-25-2005, 06:42 PM

I thought I liked Ground Seal too, until Meyers told me it sucked, so I'll try it for a while. And yeah, Story Circle was Meyers too, it's already gone ;)

I'm going with the Red version for now, because I like that Words of War can win this turn, although if I have trouble with stalling out a lot, I might take out the War for Winds.

As for my Meta, there isn't really one, which makes it hard for a board. I don't play in the same place all the time, so my question would basically be, "What should I bring into an unknown meta" other than 'Not This Deck' It would probably be too much to ask you to give me a rundown of the top decks in Legacy and what I should side against them, right? I don't know what the good and bad matchups for this deck are, so I don't know what I need to dedicate space to, except for the basic 2 Choke, 2 City of Solitude, 3 Multani's Prescence plan.

Lastly, have you guys seen the new duals from Ravnica? There's room to talk about them in another thread, but the Guild lands seem fun. Selesnya Sanctuary: Comes into play tapped. When you play it, return a land. Tap: Add GW to your mana pool. Basically turn 1 Forest, Exploration, Sanctuary, return Forest. Turn two Forest, Enchantress's Prescence, or Arghotian Enchantress and Elephant Grass, maybe draw another Guild land, play it, bounce your forest. Heck, you can have 7 mana on turn 3 without Serra's Sanctum :-P Sorry, that was really random.

Slay

08-25-2005, 06:43 PM

Without a Exploration, Guild Lands blow. Imagine how sucky it would be to topdeck one.
-Slay

Lego

08-26-2005, 01:40 PM

Imagine how sucky it would be to topdeck one.
I agree totally, I was thinking the same thing, I was just mentioning how cool they were ;)

In other news, I'm toying with the idea of a GUw version of Solitaire that relies heavily on Words of Wind. The idea being that if you have a Words in play with just two Enchantress effects, and a couple of lands that tap for two mana, you've got infinite mana with Cloud of Fairies. Add another enchantress effect, you can draw your whole deck until you get Serra's Sanctum, and then bounce your opponent's permanents. I don't have a list yet, but I'm thinking

8 Enchantress Effects
8 First Turn Accelerants plus
2 Fertile Ground (this allows your forests to become Tropical Islands for Cloud of Fairies, and greatens the chance that you have lands which tap for more than one)

The combo:
3 Words of Wind
3 Cloud of Fairies

And fill out the rest with your base of normal enchantments. The mana base probably has to become more Wasteland-able, but not much, since you're removing Red. I'm thinking the primary win condition becomes Decree of Justice and Sacred Mesa, but Words of Wilding seems to work just fine. When you've bounced all their permanents, just bounce all your enchantress effects except for two, and replace the two with Words of Wind every time, generating infinite mana, then make an arbitrarily large main-phase Decree (if they didn't float blue mana) or cycle it if they did :)

If you guys don't immediately have a huge problem with this build that makes me realize I'm an idiot, I'll put something tentative together and test it a little. It seems like it would combo out in the beginning much the same as normal Enchantress, and the only difference would be once the combo gets humming. I feel like the blue deck is less likely to stall, and often won't even have to go through the formalities, a lot of opponents will just scoop.

EDIT: Guild Lands with Cloud of Fairies? I didn't even think about it ;)

Mad Zur

08-26-2005, 02:28 PM

Improving the deck's efficiency and power with two Enchantresses in play is not at all necessary, even if it is possible. Running cards that are sub-par or even dead in every other situation (like Cloud of Faeries, Words of Wind, and Fertile Ground) just to accomplish this will weaken the deck overall.

You're taking at least five slots away from cards that help you when you're not already winning. What is it that you gain in return? In what matchups or situations will having access to an infinite combo change the outcome of the game? The only thing I can think of is the mirror match - but that's almost completely irrelevant (not to mention their Null Chamber will shut you down).

A blue splash is a viable option, but I think Words of Wind is far more appropriately used as a late-game bomb than a main strategy. If you want to include an infinite combo, just one or two Faeries or green Talismans will give you the option. However, I can say that in the time I played the blue splash over the red one, I never ran into a situation that made me put the Talisman in.

psymunn

08-26-2005, 02:29 PM

I think guild lands do a lot of things people don't appreciate. A two land hand wouldn't be that bad, because, you can get 3 mana in 3 turns out of them. They have super nice synergy with Gift of estates and tithe (first turn land, second turn guild land, tithe, third turn gift of estates, and now play your 40 million lands). Could work well with armageddon EXCEPT they die like a dieing thing that dies to wasteland, so they aren't viable in any format with said card (i.e. every format with armageddon). Not that good for solitaire though because, you rarely have less lands than your opponent, and you can't use them the turn you're going off (barring faearies).
Also, two of these (and no basic) in your hand sucks all kinds of balls. Not just donkey balls. Horse, monkey, antelope, the whole lot... a 2 guild land hand would make a double Cradle hand look like lotus/channal/fireball with force of will backup.

Lego

08-26-2005, 07:28 PM

We should move this guild land descussion to a new thread. I was just talking about their usefullness in Solitaire.

I'm not sure that Cloud of Fairies always are useless in every situation. They can potentiall create extra mana on any turn that you play them. With 4 Wild Growth, first turn Forest/Growth is really easy, right? The Fairies then act as another ESG. Late game, they act as another Serra's Sanctum.

As for Words of Wind, here's what I'm thinking: I usually begin to combo out on turn 3 or 4, with two Enchantress effects in play. The first couple of turns I use trying to find those enchantress effects. Then I really go off a turn after that, because I don't have enough mana to go off the turn I "start" to go off. Words of Wind, it seems to me, would turn your turn 3 or 4 "Mini Combo" into your game ending combo by resetting all of your lands. I'm just saying this from speculation, and would actually have to goldfish a little to find out.

I can see how, on the surface, it seems like it would be a really bad idea, taking out useful stuff for potentially useless stuff, but if you don't test it, how can you know if it would be good?

ho_master

08-27-2005, 03:35 PM

I personally don't see how you can cut 7 metagame tuned cards to further out the combo, just as Mad Zur says. Spatula runs the Words of War version of this deck while I run the Words of Wind version of the deck, and though it's tempting to combo out 3rd/4th turn as you say with Faeries going nutso, it's just not worth it. When I play Words of Wind, it's usually for the win that turn; i'm going to make them scoop their entire board. That means turn 5/6 (before I can get Akroma'd), where I have plenty of mana to do exploration shenanigans. I cringe to think of cutting any elephant grasses, solitary confinements, sylvan libraries, sterling groves, or any other utility cards to fit in these cards. No matter what, you'd end up cutting cards that would weaken matchups. Also, another major thing is that they are not enchantments. It's already gruesome enough when you play an enchantress effect and draw into land, but what happens if you play one and then draw into a cloud of faeries? Your comboing just stopped because you added non-draw cards. You'd probably cut sylvan library to fit in the faeries too, so you'd have to topdeck an enchantment with no way of digging deeper if you miss.

On a side note, why the hell is golden wish 5 mana?

Another side note: I'm very curious to know what the 2 g/w g/w g/w enchantment is in ravnica.

Lego

08-28-2005, 10:33 PM

You're right, blue version scrapped.

I'm also quite excited to see the Enchantments coming out of Ravnica, especially the G/W one. Maybe we'll get another cantrip ;)

Golden Wish is 5 mana because it can find a silver bullet versus any deck... I think... or maybe Wizards was just wrong on that one ;)

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-31-2005, 01:52 AM

Does anyone have a link to these enchantments from Ravinica? It'd be nice to get something, since the deck hasn't recieved shit since Onslaught.

Zilla

08-31-2005, 03:00 AM

http://mtgsalvation.com/?page=spoiler... but at the moment they only know that there's an enchantment that costs 2(g/w)(g/w)(g/w). (g/w) can be paid with either green or white mana. The enchantment's actual mechanic is currently unknown. If it's like most of the other cards in Ravnica, it's probably overcosted for what it actually does. That appears to be the set's theme.

SpatulaOfTheAges

08-31-2005, 04:12 PM

That theme has poor synergy with competitive enviroments.

I don't know if that's true though. Dark Confidant is a hottie, and Dimitri Cutpurse and that new Baloth guy look fairly efficient. Of course, at 4 mana, it would have to be really spectacular to fit into Enchantress, but I'm hoping there'll be some other neat stuff. Like a G enchantment that cantrips and isn't Frog Tongue.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1125519215

Lego

09-01-2005, 10:44 AM

I'd be happy with G-Enchantment, When this comes into play, draw a card. I'd play 4. Too bad card drawing isn't in Green's flavor.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-01-2005, 03:22 PM

They can stick some irrelevant ability on it and just add the cantrip to make it suck less. Like G enchantment, creatures you control can block as though they had flying, draw a card.

Slay

09-02-2005, 10:42 AM

Privileged Position 2(GW)(GW)(GW)
Enchantment
(GW can be paid with either G or W.)
Other permanents you control can't be the target of spells or abilities opponents control.

Youch.
-Slay

Nightmare

09-02-2005, 11:10 AM

In this deck, strictly worse than Sterling Grove.

ho_master

09-02-2005, 03:01 PM

That's the new card?

...

Damn, all that expectation for nothing. Give me sacred ground/sterling grove anyday.

Zephyrus

09-23-2005, 03:24 AM

Has anyone noticed the Ravnica card, Leave No Trace?

Leave No Trace- 1W
Instant, Common

Radiance- Destroy Target Enchantment and each other enchantment that shares a color with it

Ouch?

MattH

09-23-2005, 04:08 AM

It's only ouch if people actually bother to play it. And it's hardly much better than Tempest of Light or Tranquility.

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-23-2005, 10:45 AM

It's much worse than Tempest of Light because a) it doesn't get through two Groves, b) it doesn't get through one grove with one mana open, c) it can be mitigated with Seal of Cleansing.

Slowbad

09-27-2005, 09:42 AM

Is anyone still working on Solitare? I've been checking it out some and I like how it has a pretty good matchup against agro decks in general running the Word of War version. I've read the majority of the thread and it looks like the its a matter a of preference between War and Wind. Though does anyone really think one is better than the other? I believe I'll be playing this on this saturday in a local Legacy tournament. The top 4 get a FoW each and maybe more. If I can make it I'll try to take notes and put up a tournament report.

MattH

09-27-2005, 12:16 PM

ho_master

09-27-2005, 01:48 PM

If you're up against a heavy aggro field/survival field, solitaire is golden. But, if you're up against decks that have:
1. discard
2. wasteland and recursion
3. heavy counters
4. combo

you're up for a tough time. Post-board, you can improve your game, but discard still bites your face off. I still play this deck from time to time, but it's really not a robust deck against a varied field.

74-1123039401

09-27-2005, 02:10 PM

I've been playing solitaire for about two months now, and it's been playing really well. In the three or four times I played it in a tournament, I've won about $80.00, so I'm happy.

//engine 8
4 argothian enchantress
4 enchantress's pressence

//tools 26
4 exploration
4 wild growth
3 elephant grass
3 sterling grove
3 seal of cleansing
3 sylvan library
1 ground seal
2 solitary confinement
3 enlightened tutor

//win 3
1 words of war
1 words of wilding
1 sacred mesa

//mana 23
3 elvish spirit guide
2 serra's sanctum
4 windswept heath
4 savannah
2 taiga
5 forest
2 plains
1 tree of tales (saved my ass so many times with an oppening hand of a tutor and no green mana)

SB:1 night soil
SB:1 karmic justice
SB:1 city of solitude
SB:1 chalice of the void
SB:1 null chamber
SB:1 pithing needle
SB:1 solitary confinement
SB:1 sacred ground
SB:1 dampning matrix (real fun against fish)
SB:1 aura of silence
SB:2 decree of justice
SB:3 Rofellos’s Gift

The MD is pretty much the standard build, but I cut, some seals and a confinement, to make room for tutors, which are worth their weight in gold, grabbing me whatever card I need to go off, and allowing more answers in the SB.

Slowbad

09-27-2005, 03:28 PM

Well at the last event I was at (GPT here locally) there was a ton of burn and a smattering of other stuff (goblins, rgsa, u/r fish). I'm expecting most of that again this weekend and at the next GPT in Charlotte on the 15th of October. Also would this be a wise choice to take to GP: Philly?

SpatulaOfTheAges

09-27-2005, 03:45 PM

The second Sanctum has been bothering me. I really want to take one out for Crop Rotation/Sylvan Scrying. That way you still have just as many chances to draw it, but you won't ever have a dead Legendary Land. You also get another shuffle effect for Sylvan Library, and if you wanted you could include a Treetop Village or Maze of Ith or some other specialty land to tutor for.

Also, has anyone given any thought to using Ghostly Prison over Elephant Grass? I know, I know, 1cc is HOT...but you end up spending so much, so fast. Also, it's not like you should have any problems getting to 3 mana by turn two. And of course, the black creature thing is totally useless.
The problem is that that means that a single Wasteland can mean no more Sanctum for the rest of the game. Sanctum is cumbersome and irritating in the early game, but it's power in the mid-late game makes that a necessary evil.

Note; if you aren't running Ground Seal, Holistic Wisdom is a good way to get away with one Sanctum.

I *have* thought about Ghostly Prison, but Elephant Grass is just so much better at saving your ass. It's not just a matter of getting to 3 mana, but when you're digging for a Grass, you often have just enough to cast it, or one more, and in situations like those the 3 cc is too much. Then there's the issue of white mana; when unable to find white, Grass can buy you time to find that Plains or Savannah. Lastly, the Light of Day effect isn't so irrelevant as it appears; while black isn't widely played by competitive players right now, random Pox or Sui decks can be a bitch; the ability to halt their clock while you recover, especially against Sui, is critical.

I also wanted to throw out an idea I'd been toying with;

-4 Windswept Heath
-3 ESG
-3 Seal of Cleansing
-2 Sylvan Library
-1 Words of War
-1 Words of Wilding
-1 Sacred Mesa

I know that some of you see where this is going.

+1 Savannah
+2 Bayou
+1 Forest
+3 Lotus Petal
+4 [b]Suppression Field[/card]
+1 Honden of Infinite Rage
+1 Honden of Life's Web
+1 Honden of Cleansing Light
+1 Honden of Night's Reach

Obviously this puts somewhat of a strain on the mana base(thus ESG -> Lotus Petal(perhaps Fertile Ground is worth testing as a 2x?)), and I'm assuming it will need more tinkering in that department; however, the idea, I feel, has a lot of advantages; first, it pushes it more into a control role; the Hondens are far more useful by themselves than the Words, and situationally more than the Mesa. The Suppression Fields are there to basically fuck with every other deck; I think that the strength of the card is enough to run a slower kill condition in the Hondens. Suppression Field wrecks Landstill(especially with most people seeming to move to Disk over Vengeance), any deck running large numbers of fetches(if dropped early), including Gro and Solidarity, MWC(cycling), random shit like Gat(Deed and Tog), and another important point is that it shuts down the Time Vault - Fusillade combo that I think will prove to be a contender. The card becomes all the more ridiculous when you combine it with the Enchantress draw engine and realize that the Fields stack with each other. The black is there to a)push the Hondens to 4, to increase the clock, and b) as an anti-control/Solidarity card.

@ Solitaire for GP Philly; at this point, I'd answer a resounding "maybe". The problem isn't control, as that's easy to sb into favorable post-board, and isn't all that bad g1. The problem is what happens when you run into Solidarity.

I'd also at this point advocate the 4th Elephant Grass, whatever the other specifics of your list.

Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1127851274