[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[Pltnmngl]

So how do you guys feel about the build that was mentioned during Worlds? I was thinking of using it as my first skeleton. Is it optimal enough now?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

http://www.wizards.com/magic/samplehand.asp?x=mtgevent/worlds07/legacydecks&decknum=23

That's his list, for reference.

And no, I don't think it's near optimal. Maindeck Sacred Ground is very bizarre. 3 MD City of Solitude? + 2 O Ring, 2 Moats, Mesa, etc. His curve is through the roof. That list is just way too slow to be viable in most metas.

[Pltnmngl]

So how much editing should be done to it before it's a reasonable skeleton to face in an unknown meta?

[Jak]

Go with one of the lists recently posted. Spat's list/mine (they are very similar) or Brehn's.

[technogeek5000]

Does anyone have a post shadowmoor list. Wheel and halo seem like they should atleast be auto includes in the board.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm trying one Halo MD in the Choke slot, plus one and a Wheel in the SB with E. Tutors to fetch them. Nothing concrete to report yet.

[Jak]

// Lands
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [b] Savannah
9 [RAV] Forest (3)
1 [b] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress
3 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
1 [OD] Karmic Justice
1 [WL] Aura of Silence
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [ON] Words of War
3 [UD] Replenish
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
2 [US] Exploration
2 [DK] Gaea's Touch
4 [OD] Ground Seal
1 [SM] Ruined Halo

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 1 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 3 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 2 [TE] Choke
SB: 1 [SH] Sacred Ground
SB: 2 [ON] Gigapede
SB: 2 [SM] Ruined Halo (or 2 Chant)
SB: 2 [SM] Wheel of Sun and Moon (or 2 Chant)

That is my list right now and I have been trying to incorporate the new awesome cards. That is all I have been able to fit in. Do you think Chants are needed with Ruined Halo? I would definitely add more of them maybe up to 4. I love Wheel of Sun and Moon. I thought it affected both players but when I read it doesn't, I was ecstatic. It makes Landstill a cake walk. You won't run out of resources. If I am not mistaken, it doesn't suck with Replenish. When they wipe your board and you have a Replenish in hand, you can choose what order they go to the GY so you can still fill your GY and then Replenish it out.

[Jaiminho]

If I am not mistaken, it doesn't suck with Replenish. When they wipe your board and you have a Replenish in hand, you can choose what order they go to the GY so you can still fill your GY and then Replenish it out.

There is no difference in the order they would go to the graveyard. They just go at once. AFAIK, they all go to the bottom, including Wheel itself. Just like Samurai of the Pale Curtain does when stuff die along with it.

[Jak]

There is no difference in the order they would go to the graveyard. They just go at once. AFAIK, they all go to the bottom, including Wheel itself. Just like Samurai of the Pale Curtain does when stuff die along with it.

Okay. Well you still don't lose any permanents to the GY. It is also hot against GY decks.

[Julian23]

On Saturday I attended our regular Legacy tournament piloting my deck of choice Enchantress to a solid 4-1 finish, placing 3rd out of 21. I just feel like writing a small tournament report out of memory besides providing you with my list.

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress‘ Pressence

4x Utopia Sprawl
2x Wild Growth
2x Gaea’s Touch

4x Sterling Grove
4x Elephant Grass
3x Solitary Confinement
3x Ground Seal
2x Replenish

1x Oblivion Ring
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Karmic Justice
1x City of Solitude
1x Runed Halo
1x Words of War
1x Sacred Mesa
- - - - - - - -
39 spells


4x Savannah
2x Taiga
4x Windswept Heath
2x Serra’s Sanctum
7x Forest
2x Plains
- - - - - - - -
21 lands

SB:
3x Choke
2x City of Solitude
3x Aura of Silence
2x Karmic Justice
1x Runed Halo
1x Solitary Confinement
1x Blood Moon
1x Null Chamber
1x Sacred Ground
-------
15 SB cards

issues I wanna address:

landcount: I used to play 20, then switched to 22 and have been playing with 21 for quite a while now and have to say all of these numbers worked just fine for me. However since I replaced 4 Explorations with 2 Wild Growth and 2 Gaea’s Touch 21 seems like the ideal configuration to me. Regarding the nonbasic/basic quote I have to say that I never really tested with anything less than 4 Savannah 2 Taiga but I can imagine replacing 1-2 Savannah with basic Forests.

Win condition: When I played the deck Words of War was usually the fastest win condition to me, most of the time inflicting lethal damage the turn after I played it. Sacred Mesa is about 2-3 turns slower but still a very viable win condition. While Words of War can shot down creatures threatening your life total (when you dont have the Enchantress effects to „combo“ out) Mesa does this job much better by providing defense AND allowing you to draw into Confinement. I never really tested Hoofprints of the Stag because I don’t thinkg there’s anything to improof in the win-condition slot.

Defense: 4 Elephant Grass is a must! I can’t count how many games it bought me enough time (either against a non-attacking or a mana-disrupted opponent) to establish a Confinement or just win right away. Besides that against certain combodecks I even keep some of it mainboard if there’s nothing more to side in. Solitary Confinement is another card that just makes this deck work (for me). I keep the 4th in the board because 3 seems enough to me to draw into just one. The one Runed Halo is very likely to be put into the SB because I almost never needed it. Ah, and everybody who’s been playing Enchantress for more than a certain amount of time will agree that Sterling Grove while being a good tutor for us is at least just as important as a safekeeper for your confinement, win-condition and / or control-/combo-hoser from the sideboard.

Toolbox: Oblivion Ring ist just to versatile not to include. Seal of Primordium is there because it got a different casting-cost than the Ring thereby providing a third out against Chalice (besides Ring and Replenish). Karmic Justice has to be MD just because of mass-enchantress removal which would otherwise just randomly kill us (even with 2 Replenish md, a good control player will anticipate this and hold back a counterspell for it). City of Solitude is a card I consider moving to the SB but on the other hand it’s my best out against Solidarity game 1. And you won’t say but it once even saved my ass against a Goblin deck porting my lands and thereby almost killing my Confinement, haha!

Misc.: Ground Seal is a great card! It cantrips, it’s cheap and gives a lot of Legacydecks a really hard time. It’s another reason while Enchantress just „can’t“ lose against Cephalid Breakfast.

Sideboard-choices: First of all let me state that an Enchantress-SB is always a metagame call. To me it seemed most importantly to have a good Solidarity/Landstill matchup with a little increased odds against Stax.

Choke + City of Solitude: very solid „combo“ against Solidarity and Landstill. When they tap out on their turn to find an answer to City or just tap out during your turn to counter some stuff you seal the deal with a Choke and watch them getting one-sided „armageddoned“ ;-)
Aura of Silence is included mostly because of Angel Stax and can hit the board asas turn 2. Besides that it provides more Artifact/Enchantment removal against certain combodecks, especially TES.
Karmic Justice: Comes in when you know they board more mass removal
Null Chamber: Against more mass removal and combo decks. Bonus: Most opponents have no idea what to name with it. Most of the time naming a win condition is not a very good call.
Solitary Confinement: To improve our great aggro matchup even more and against certain combodecks
Runed Halo: Another out against combo
Blood Moon: it just rips apart enough decks (especially Landstill) to justify it in the board. Tipp: Don’t enchant Savannah or Taiga with Utopia Sprawl coz it will fall off when the Moon rises.
Sacred Ground: Against Angel Stax and Aggro Loam (who’s only out is Devastating Dreams once you established a Confinement with Sterling Grove)


So let’s kick it right off:

1st round against Aaron with 8 Land Stompy:
G1: First game I’m on a very slow clock as Elephant Grass >>>> 8 land stompy and win almost without the help of Confinement (as he concedes right away once I reveal it from my hand).

-3 Ground Seal –1 Runed Halo –1 City of Solitude +3 Aura of Silence +1 Solitary Confinement +1 Karmic Justice

I know his only outs against me are his Winter Orbs, 4 Naturalize and 4 Elvish Lyrist so I board in more Artifact-hate and one more Justice

G2: Second turn Aura spells „no“ to Winter Orb this game and I proceed to establish total control of his creatures. When he naturalizes my confinement my Justice kills off one of his 2lands ensuring he wont’t be able to pay a way through my Elephant grass.

1-0 Matches // 2-0 Games

2nd round against (?) with 4-color Landstill:
G1: He mulligans down to 5 and keeps 1 land+Brainstorm but doesn’t find a second land. He manages to force one Enchantress-effect but when he eventually hits his next land drops I just win by bord-, mana- and cardadvantage.

-3 Ground Seal –4 Elephant Grass –1 Runed Halo
+3 Choke +2 City of Solitude +2 Karmic Justice +1 Blood Moon

One might argue it's not wise to board out Elephant Grass because of factory beatdown (tap 4 lands for only 2 damage „main“phase) but I’d rather keep my Wild Growths and Gaea’s Touches mainboard as they support Enchantress‘ basic strategy against Landstill which is establishing mana-advantage and then dropping more must counters on one turn (Choke,City,Win-Cond.,Replenish) than they can handle. Factory Beatdown is just way to slow to actually harm me anyway.

G2: He counters two early Enchantress effects but then can’t do sh*t about my City of Solitude. I proceed to develop my board when he manages to drop a deed and blows it because I would have won the next turn. Karmic Justice leaves him with no permanents while I drop City of Solitude and then Replenish for the win.
Fun fact: I didnt play my Blood Moon because I didn’t want his „choked“ Duals to untap when he had an untapped basic Island on the table :-D

2-0 Matches // 4-0 Games

3rd round against Matthis with Crucible/Exploration/Walk the Aeons Combo
G1: Hi @ table 1, long time no see :-D. We both don’t know what deck the other is playing so I trashtalk about how I almost had the 1st turn kill and mulligan. I get my Argothian Enchantress forced while he leads with Exploration and Crucible. After I manage to stablize from his Treetop Village beats he uses good old Parallax Tide/Voidslime aka Stifle to blow up my manabase. Treetop carries it all the way. After the match he tells me how he had almost mulliganed for Force of Will because of what I said about that 1st turn kill ;-) At one point we had to call a judge because he thought I wouldn't be allowed to draw cards of countered enchantments.

-3 Ground Seal –2 Wild Growth +3 Choke + 1 Blood Moon +1 Null Chamber

He’s happy that I didn’t even get to see his combo. I don’t board City because although Parallax Tide (for which I boarded Null Chamber) crushed me I felt rather confident about my chances in this match and didn’t want to trade Elephant Grasses for Cities. I figured I’d win in the long run...I couldn’t be more mistaken >_<;;;

G2: Argothian Enchantress meets Force of Will, nothing new in this department. Again I take some Treetop beats when I manage to resolve the game winning Blood Moon. He’s stuck with 4 Mountains and only 1 Basic Island and conceds pretty soon.

G3: What happens when you put your opponent on not running Wasteland? He kicks your 1st turn Savannah+Utopia Sprawl while accelerating with Exploration, Crucible and Fetchlands. Parallax Tide and Voidslime take care of my next lands and I conced when he Enlightended Tutors for Crucible with 2 Explorations in play and Walk the Aeons in Hand.

2-1 matches // 5-2 games

4th round against Wuaschti playing „Wuaschti’s Zombie Infestation“
G1: He’s playing a really strange deck that leads with Careful Study, discarding 2 Cabal Therapies. His Zombie Infestation meets Oblivion Ring after discarding Squee and Krovikan Horror (!). However that token never finds his way through my black-discriminating Elephant Grass (with 6 age counters on it! Anyone ever had a higher count?).

-3 Ground Seal –1 Runed Halo +3 Choke +1 City of Solitude

We joke around how I was to bring in 4 Elvish Piper against whos beatdown he lost in Round 1. I don’t really know what to bring in but recognize he runs some Volcanic Islands and Underground Seas as well as Force of Will so I go and increase my odds to about >90% I guess ;-)

G2: I keep a nice hand of Acceleration and Enchantress effects but can’t find any mean of defence over the next couple of turns. Making use of the unique opportunity Wuaschti unleashes the wrath of Squee, Goblin Nabob onto my life-total thus dropping it to astonishing 15 ;-) !! Soon Confinement kicks in and once again Words of War justify my deckname „GW Burn!“

3-1 matches // 7-2 games

5th round against Chi-Vi with Solidarity
G1: When pairings are announced he cheers for having to play me and how I shouldn’t even waste time with game1. I stall for some turns with Confinement+Sterling Grove but eventually have to let it die because of only 1 Enchantress Effect on the table. In the end it’s him wasting time when trying to go off during his turn against my luckily drawn City of Solitude (he was using 2 Forces on 2 Enchantress Effects). I’m not suprised at all he fizzles with Reset in hand and we’re off for game2.

-4 Elephant Grass –3 Ground Seal –1 Oblivion Ring
+3 Choke +2 City of Solitude +1 Runed Halo +1 Null Chamber +1 Solitary Confinement


G2: Acceleration + too many must counters at cc 2/3 are just too much for him. He again manages to Force on turn 2 and 3 but when he tries to go off with my Argothian Enchantress on the stack turn 5 he soon runs out of gas because FoW just cribbled his hand way to often. When he announces Brain Freeze for 39 I ask him to name the target. When he tries to target me I remind him off the Runed Halo that’s that I’ve been gifted with the turn before o:-). He then doesn’t even bother to brainfreeze himself as he doesn’t have any mana left for Flash of Insight. Words of War for the win!

4-1 matches // 9-2 games

In the end I place 3rd out of 21 with my only lose the event’s winner and happily pick a TOP mint Cursed Scroll over 1 Savannah (which I already got a playset off) and a totally beaten up Plateau.

Random thoughts: Unless there’s a good reason not to do so always pop a Sterling Grove or Gaea’s Touch before resolving a Replenish. Then sometimes Sterling Grove for Sterling Grove is a very wise move if you wanna establish spot-removal protection for all your enchantments. You might notice I almost always boarded out my Ground Seals which is due to the decks I faced. They’re still the way to go against Cephalid Breakfast, Loam-builds, Dredge, any deck with extirpate and more random stuff like Reanimator, Recurring Nightmare, Eternal Witness etc.

Thanks for reading and thanks to “The most beautiful Deck” for performing so well :-)

[honz]

Congrats on the finish. Just a few thoughts:


Fun fact: I didnt play my Blood Moon because I didn’t want his „choked“ Duals to untap when he had an untapped basic Island on the table :-D

That is why the debate was blood moon or choke, and not how many of each. I would suggest just picking one and going in all the way with it. Because of the insane power of elephant grass + choke, i would suggest running all chokes, and no moons.



He kicks your 1st turn Savannah+Utopia Sprawl while accelerating with Exploration, Crucible

2 things wrong here. First, every deck playing crucible and exploration is playing wastelands. Second, you should almost never enchant a dual. I think part of your problem comes from running too many duals, which may have forced this play.


Elephant Grass (with 6 age counters on it! Anyone ever had a higher count?).

Yah, i got that beat. Against belcher he had 20 EtW tokens, and i had a null chamber on belcher and presence. I musta waited 20 turns before topdecking an argothian, but sanctum > cummulative upkeep.

About the list. I think the biggest imperfection is the mana-base. With 4 fetches, 4 sprawls, and a 2nd win-con in sacred mesa, i see no need to play 2 taigas. I would also cut a savanah or 2 and a plains in favor of forests to avoid wastes and maximize your abuse of gaea's touch. I think 20 lands, 5 enchant lands, and 3-4 land accelerants is about optimal.

Is there a reason you arn't running exploration? I would try out 2 exploration and 2 touch just to see how it feels. I didn't think i would need both, but i have really liked it so far.

MD runed halo and city of solitude seems janky. I would cut halo for exploration, and city for choke.


As a general question, does wheel of sun and moon replace, compliment, or come secondary to ground seal? The way i see it, the only advantage ground seal has is cantripping. Wheel seems far superior in all the following:

Thresh (cut off thresh)
Ichorid (cuts off: ichorid, dredgers, therapy, bridge. If dropped early, stops entire deck)
TES / FT (stops iggy; hampers:rite of flame, cabal ritual)
Survival (squee, anger, wonder, w/e)

In every other MU, it would seem that they both have the same effect, if wheel gets dropped soon enough. I guess loosing the cantrip is a small price to pay...

[Jak]

Ground Seal is there for the cantripping. It also owns some decks as well. Wheel is a lot better as hate, but hate should be in the SB if it doesn't do anything else. I mean hate to be narrow hate, because Grass is hate, but almost every deck in the format runs creatures and we want to crush them.

I really want to play a lot of Runed Halo because it is so awesome. I know here isn't room, but the card is amazing.

[GreenOne]

Why not MD Moat?

[Julian23]

As soon as I can get my hands onto a Moat I wouldn't hesitate to go -1 Runed Halo +1 Moat because it's just such a good card against most aggro decks. Who's the biggest flying threat in Legacy, Tombstalker? haha.. :-)

Wheel of Sun & Moon (which I haven't tested yet) seems like a very interesting card but far from Mainboard material. Ground Seal on the other side is never a dead card and can protect your Win-Conditions from bein extirpated, which is (at least to me) rather important. However if my meta had enough Ichorid I could see myself playing 4 Wheels in the sideboard.

Regarding the Exploration issue we had some debate about that over the course of the last pages. My opinion in this is that Exploration is not needed. I've been playing with it as a 4-of for over one year and liked it but once I dropped it I never missed it at all. With only about 20 lands Exploration rarely accelerates to 4 lands on turn 2. Besides that, I dont _want_ 4 lands on turn two as this would make me invest 5 cards (4 lands+Exploration) into it leaving me with only 3 cards left. The only really good thing about Exploration is how it lets you play a drawn Sanctum and thus enabling you to keep playing enchantments when shifting through your deck.
I much more like the speed granted by Wild Growth which (unlike Exploration, which's acceleraton wears off once you stop playing lands) really works as additional land. Replacing 4 Exploration with 2 Gaea's Touch (which is awesome!) and 2 Wild Growth is something I never ever regretted.

Regarding Blood Moon vs. Choke I don't consider it a real problem unless you need to free up slots in your sideboard, which I don't. Both cards are just a slap in the face to any Landstill player. Choke however also at least "works" to a certain degree against Solidarity by not enabling them to sculp their hand with Impulse/Wish before going off. Blood Moon on the other hand hoses a lot of random crap where Choke would do nothing. I like both but if I ever had to make a decision I would also go for the Choke plan against Landstill.

You're right about the nonbasic count. Although Exploration+Crucible made me believe he was running Wasteland I didnt see any game1+2 (and he drew a lot of cards with Horn of Greed) and I was just hoping for the best when I enchanted that Savannah (Taiga being my only other land in hand) because the rest of my hand was just great.
Over the journey of the last 5-6 tournaments I literally _never_ got mana-screwed so I guess I'll try to remove 1 Taiga and 2 Savannah for a 3 basic forest. I like to keep the basic plains count at 2 because of Runed Halo's double white cost.

Greetz from Germany and thanks for the advice,
Julian

[Julian23]

I'm currently working on an Enchantress Primer and been wondering if someone who already obtained some experienced in the Dredge matchup could delight me with his wisdom... :-) Special interest: How good is Elephant Grass and this matchup and does Wheel of Sun and Moon have to be a 4 of to become effective?

Besides that: Any disagreement that we have a superior Goblin and Aggro Loam matchup?

/edit:
I just found Spatulas Gameplan against Dredge:



It's late. We rock-paper-scissors. Scissors carries the day and I get technical 1st.

;-)

[Aznopium]

Julian -
Good report.
Glad that your enchantress went 4-1~

did u miss running exploration vs. WG/Gaea's Touch?

[Julian23]

Not at all. What I want is 3 mana on turn 2 because most of my "big" enchantments like Presence, Justice, Choke, City and especially Aura of Silence got that casting cost. Wild Growth is more consistent at this.
Besides that, I wouldnt compare Exploration to Gaea's Touch as the Touche's ability to drop an additional land is just a nice addition but what's more important is to be able to sac it for GG -> great at drawing cards and quite good interaction with Replenish.

[crazyroundman]

I have a friend who plays this deck, and he wants to cut the Hoofprints of the Stag (which I think is a poor idea 'cause winning slow still gets the job done) and the Slyvan Libraries. I play the deck on MWS once in a while and I've always thought that Library was huge. Like, it lets you bounce back from discard or LD or just about anything (if not with the drawing cards then with the card choice).

Also, I just traded for a couple blood moons (I'm building the deck real slow like) and I reckon they'd be pretty good in the deck again, too.

[Julian23]

Wise choice of your friend in fact. When I started to play Enchantress I immedeatly included 2 Sylvan Library but dropped them about 2-3 months later. They got interaction with Words of War but that's just soo "win-more". But besides that they're just a better SDT which I think isn't needed in Enchantress. Drawing the extra cards for life usually ain't an option against aggro; and against Control we got much better cards and tactics to go for than Library and even more card advantage. Library on it's own doesnt do anything but "smooth" out your draws which usually is no big problem for Enchantress. We already got great drawing AND tutoring so the problem of finding a certain card is rather small.

Library isn't a "bad" card for Enchantress but is just not needed. As I mentioned you're not gonna pay that extra life against Goblins whom I usually beat at about 5 life. Against those decks you _want_ Confinement which again "disables" the Library.
The other big matchup is Control where Library nets you cardadvantage as your lifepoints are usually less in danger. BUT you already got the big and overall card-advantage plan you're going for. What you REALLY want in this matchup are silverbullets like Choke, City of Solitude and Replenish! In any kind of situation I'd rather have more of these than of a Library.

Cutting Hoofprints is no bad call at all. Enchantress usually runs 2 Win-Conditions (Words & Mesa) that are better than this card. Why do you add a 3rd win-condition in the first place? As I can say I really _hate_ drawing into my win-conditions until the turn I decide to win. I can even see a trend of dropping Sacred Mesa.

[honz]

I have dropped mesa a while back for a MD city of solitude. The only real reason to play 2 win-cons is extirpate, but with ground seal you shouldn't be worried. Most people will extirpate enchantress, or grass or confinement before your words. Also, they will more than likely assume you are running 2-3 win cons, and not even try.

I think we all agree library is jank.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

In an unknown meta, I would probably run 1 Library main. If you have the ability/knowledge necessary to change that into something more useful, do it. But it's solid as far as filler goes.

[Maëlig]

How do you guys feel about this list I'm working on?

// Lands
20 [LRW] Forest (2)

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
2 [5E] Wild Growth
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
4 [DK] Gaea's Touch
4 [VI] Elephant Grass
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
1 [VI] City of Solitude
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [US] Back to Basics
1 [ON] Words of Wilding
2 [UD] Replenish
2 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [ON] Words of War
1 [SHM] Prismatic Omen
1 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
4 [SHM] Manamorphose

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 4 [PLC] Seal of Primordium
SB: 3 [OD] Karmic Justice
SB: 2 [US] Back to Basics
SB: 1 [TE] Choke
SB: 1 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 1 ?

As you can see I'm playing only basic forests, manamorphose and utopia sprawl (as well as the fetchable prismatic omen) providing me my colored mana. Although this choice is partly due to budget reasons, I think it does bring some interesting things to the deck. I'm far from being an enchantress expert, so I'm not sure whether this could be an improvement to the classic build, or even viable.
The most obvious and probably important strength of playing only basic forests is that it makes you much less vulnerable to all the stifles, wastelands and blood moons running around. Secondly, it also makes gaea's touch more effective, which is why I play 4. Thirdly, manamorphose allows you to splash another color much more easily. This plus the fact that I run only basics has pushed me to run back to basics, which is even stronger then choke in the format. For a time, I used to run rofello's gift which is quite nice in such a green-intensive build, but although it allows you to replay the enchantments (for more card drawing), I guess overall it's just inferior to replenish.
On the downside, I guess it make the deck less stable. If you don't run into the 9 cards that allow you to get non-green mana, you'll run into problems. This is one of the reasons why I added a green kill (words of wilding), which can also effectively buy you time. The other problem is that you can't (or shouldn't) rely too much on an extensive use of thos colors. This means cards such as runed halo or aura of silence can't be played. Not running serra's sanctum also means that sacred mesa is not such a great kill anymore, which is the second reason why I replaced it by words of wilding.

What are your impressions?

[Julian23]

Good to see I'm not the only one pondering on Manamorphose. I remeber saying that when I first saw it that every G and/or R deck that doesn't run it would need a really good excuse for not doing so. I think some testing has to be done on this. Manamorphose is not only good because of Mana-Fixing (which the "normal" Enchantress has less problems with) but because its basically a free drawspell once you can generate two mana. I'd love to see how this works out... :-)

Besides that I really want Karmic Justice mainboard. Its just too good not to have it game1.

B2B is a very interesting call that can randomly win you games in Legacy. I'm just wondering if a regular Enchantress with 3 Duallands and 2 Sanctum can support this..my guess would be yes but I can't say for sure. But I'm more than tempted to give it a try >:-] *diabolic laughter*

Just 2 Confinements? Seems a bit low too me. If I could I'd run 3 1/2 ;-) Just 9 off-color sources that compete for three different colors looks everything but reliable to me. Can you actually cast your Sterling Groves/Confinements soon enough?

[Maëlig]

I was a bit reluctant to include karmic MD, since I would think that when you first see deed it is usually too late, and you have no reason to tutor and play karmic otherwise. How do you use it exactly?
My reasons for playing only 2 confinement is that a) you run virtually 56 cards with manamorphose and b) I'd rather play as little non-green spells as possible in my build. The idea being that you can still do a decent bit of play WITHOUT another color, although you will need one to kill/control/lock the game. Is 9 sources really insufficient? Should I play some fertile ground or more prismatic omen?

[Jaiminho]

I don't like Manamorphose, since it's an unknown card plus a horrible topdeck. I know this deck rarely runs out of gas (basically never, except when enchantress cards are countered), but when you need a topdeck and you draw it, it might be draw 1 card, take 2 damage. Still, I might be overreacting.

[Jak]

I don't like Manamorphose, since it's an unknown card plus a horrible topdeck. I know this deck rarely runs out of gas (basically never, except when enchantress cards are countered), but when you need a topdeck and you draw it, it might be draw 1 card, take 2 damage. Still, I might be overreacting.

?

Manamorphose wouldn't be that bad of a topdeck. It fixes your mana when you need it and will still draw the card. I still think it is bad because it is not a permanent source of white or red.

[Jaiminho]

?

Draw a land (or a card you don't want to cast at that moment), take 2 damage, go. That's what I meant.

[Jak]

Draw a land (or a card you don't want to cast at that moment), take 2 damage, go. That's what I meant.

That could still happen if you ran other stuff outside of Manamorphose. It is basically a blank card that color fixes.

I do not think it belongs in the deck at all though.

[Julian23]

I was a bit reluctant to include karmic MD, since I would think that when you first see deed it is usually too late, and you have no reason to tutor and play karmic otherwise. How do you use it exactly?


If I know my opponent plays Deed (or any other kind of Massremoval like Serenity or Armageddon) I try to to Sterling Grove for it as soon as possible, not just once he already dropped Deed because that might be too late.

[Maëlig]

If I know my opponent plays Deed (or any other kind of Massremoval like Serenity or Armageddon) I try to to Sterling Grove for it as soon as possible, not just once he already dropped Deed because that might be too late.

What I meant is that you usually don't KNOW that your opponent is playing deed or EE or armageddon before you see it for the first time, at which point it is usually too late to sterling grove for it. Unless you just guess from what you see of the deck, but isn't that a bit risky?

[Lego]

What I meant is that you usually don't KNOW that your opponent is playing deed or EE or armageddon before you see it for the first time, at which point it is usually too late to sterling grove for it. Unless you just guess from what you see of the deck, but isn't that a bit risky?

What's riskier is NOT guessing, and then getting hit by them. If you have a basic understanding of deck archetypes, you can usually figure out who might be playing these things. Worst case scenario, you wasted a Sterling Grove, and maybe a turn playing Karmic Justice. If they DO end up having the Deed/EE/Geddon you pegged them for, you probably saved yourself the game.

[monopoman]

I also would like to point out that Replenish is the great equalizer to Deed.

Yeah having a karmic justice when they have deed out is insane.

But sometimes I just chuckle to myself and replenish the turn after they deed everything away.

Karmic also has uses against more then just deed or EE. I hear other decks like to blow up land or force you to sacrifice permanents.

Karmic has a problem with that and allows you to get revenge for it.

[Julian23]

Karmic Justice (together with Sacred Ground from the Board) ist just a pure _must_ in the Angel Stax matchup. Besides that its also very important against 4c Landstill because resolving a Karmic Justice pre Boardsweeper is easier to do than to resolve a Replenish after Deed took down all your Cities of Solitude etc.
Never _ever_ cut Karmic Justice from Enchantress - it's one of the most important cards to make the deck work against a wider part of the field.

[Maëlig]

Karmic also has uses against more then just deed or EE. I hear other decks like to blow up land or force you to sacrifice permanents.


Karmic Justice ist just a pure _must_ in the Angel Stax matchup.

Eeeh, just to be clear guys : because of the wording of the card, karmic justice doesn't work against spells/abilities instructing you to sacrifice something, right? So not so hot against (small)pox or cataclysm, for instance.

[hyggli]

hi, I just registered here cause I must tell u an idea of mine.
my deck is a GW, without red. It started just cause I hadn't taiga and no way to find it but now my deck changed adding 4 enlightned tutor instead of sterling groves and 4x guilty conscience+1x Stuffy doll cause my meta is very aggro-oriented.

just think about it. it is working very well to me also cause enlightned+wild growth with an enchantress engine on board is a nice tutor way for the combo.

[Jaiminho]

EDIT - I was wrong. My bad.



hi, I just registered here cause I must tell u an idea of mine.
my deck is a GW, without red. It started just cause I hadn't taiga and no way to find it but now my deck changed adding 4 enlightned tutor instead of sterling groves and 4x guilty conscience+1x Stuffy doll cause my meta is very aggro-oriented.

just think about it. it is working very well to me also cause enlightned+wild growth with an enchantress engine on board is a nice tutor way for the combo.

Aggro players don't care about Stuffy Doll for two reasons: it is too damn slow and you don't deal them damage. Therefore, it sucks.

Enlightened Tutor won't trigger enchantress effects, neither will it come back with Replenish, which, by the way, allow the most broken tricks.

Guilty Conscience won't kill Goyfs ever and won't allow that single creature to strike once more and kill you. It does close to nothing.

[Nihil Credo]

Eeeh, just to be clear guys : because of the wording of the card, karmic justice doesn't work against spells/abilities instructing you to sacrifice something, right? So not so hot against (small)pox or cataclysm, for instance.

You're right (and Jaiminho isn't), "sacrifice" is not the same as "destroy", which is why for example you can sacrifice a Darksteel Colossus. Therefore Justice won't trigger off Smallpox.

[monopoman]

Yeah my bad I should have left sacrifice effects out of it.

But I like how Armageddon becomes a dead card nearly with karmic out. Unless they want to lose there whole board most likely for just my land.

[Zach Tartell]

thew biggest problem that I have right now is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqv8UJc72SU)


are theyieir any good postboard options? or just ground seal?


You could try that new Sun and Moon Wheel thing from Shadowmoor, but I'm not sure that's really any better than Ground Seal at keeping them from doing what they want to, you know? Especially if it's something dirty.

edit - You might ask the Unicorns, they have all kinds of experience with this sort of thing.

Still haven't found a decent board replacement. You think that throwing 4 chant 2 Abeyance would help enough to board? I'm floundering here.

[GreenOne]

I don't understand what are you talking about, lonelybaritone.
Is there some gay soccer that enchantress can't handle?

I suppose you're talking about the stom combo matchup, aren't you?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If your main concern is combo, my SB suggestion would be

4x E. Tutor
1x CotV
1x Chill (for Belcher)
1x Spiritual Focus (for IGGy/FT)

Some combination of those and Elephant Grass work out decently, though it's still an uphill match.

But then, I haven't had a chance to actually test the Orim's Chant idea.

[Jak]

I am having trouble boarding in all my hate. I really want to be able to beat Landstill, MUC, and Thresh pretty easily. I expect a lot of it in the upcoming NW Tourney. Now here is my board.

3 City of Solitude
2 Choke
2 Karmic Justice
1 Dovescape
1 Sacred Ground
4 Orim's Chant
2 Krosan Grip

Against Landstill, I usually go like this.

-4 Elephant Grass
-1 O Ring
-1 Seal of Primordium
-1 Ground Seal
-3 Elvish Spirit Guide

+3 City
+2 Choke
+2 Justice
+1 Dovescape
+2 Grip

Now, Thresh has been a little harder. This is what I usually do.

-4 Ground Seal
-2 Exploration
-1 Seal of Primordium

+3 City
+2 Choke
+2 Grip

Would you side in Justice to combat EE? In testing, I haven't run into the situation much, but it is really hard to test on MWS. If I did side it in, I would probably side out 2 Gaea's Touch.

S, Iwas just wondering if this was correct? It is really hard to test against specific decks on MWS, so your help would help.

[Roputer]

Why tried nobody "Dueling Grounds"? I playing it since many months.

[Julian23]

@Jak:
First: Don't play Exploration! Replace it with Wild Growth and thus gain a permanent advantage over Landstill. Having more mana than them is key against Counter-heavy decks as this will open a window of about 1-2 turns for you where you'll usually be able to cast more stuff than they'll be able to counter. Needless to say that a resolved Replenish might very likely win you the game. Exploration provides no relevant advantage over Wild Growth because you'll rarely be able to play a 4th land on turn 2; besides that, you don't wanna keep a hand with 4 lands and exploration unless the other 2-3 cards are 2 Argothian Enchantress and e.g. Sterling Grove

Regarding your boarding: Don't board out Elvish Spirit Guide or Gaea's Touch against Landstill. Both cards provide additional mana sources (unlike Exploration) against Landstill to set up a "critical turn". You rather wanna get rid off additional Ground Seals.
I always board additional copies of Karmic Justice if I got stuff in my MB that's not helping in the matchup (e.g. Ground Seal vs. non-black Goblins). So if you're opponent runs Deed (like some Landstill variants do!) you just _gotta_ grap more Karmic Justice form the board. Against EE you can bring in additional ones if you find the room mainboard.

@Roputer: Because Solitary Confinement is just plain better! The only actual interaction I see is with Sacred Mesa...which would never make me run Dueling Grounds over Confinement.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Don't take out Seal of Primordium against Landstill. That's one of it's most useful match-ups.

I would take out all Solitary Confinements but one in both those match-ups.

[Jak]

@Jak:
First: Don't play Exploration! Replace it with Wild Growth and thus gain a permanent advantage over Landstill. Having more mana than them is key against Counter-heavy decks as this will open a window of about 1-2 turns for you where you'll usually be able to cast more stuff than they'll be able to counter. Needless to say that a resolved Replenish might very likely win you the game. Exploration provides no relevant advantage over Wild Growth because you'll rarely be able to play a 4th land on turn 2; besides that, you don't wanna keep a hand with 4 lands and exploration unless the other 2-3 cards are 2 Argothian Enchantress and e.g. Sterling Grove

Regarding your boarding: Don't board out Elvish Spirit Guide or Gaea's Touch against Landstill. Both cards provide additional mana sources (unlike Exploration) against Landstill to set up a "critical turn". You rather wanna get rid off additional Ground Seals.
I always board additional copies of Karmic Justice if I got stuff in my MB that's not helping in the matchup (e.g. Ground Seal vs. non-black Goblins). So if you're opponent runs Deed (like some Landstill variants do!) you just _gotta_ grap more Karmic Justice form the board. Against EE you can bring in additional ones if you find the room mainboard.

@Roputer: Because Solitary Confinement is just plain better! The only actual interaction I see is with Sacred Mesa...which would never make me run Dueling Grounds over Confinement.

Hmm I do agree with you about the Wild Growth thing. Exploration doesn't do much against Landstill but speed the deck up slightly. Thay will have counters so that won't matter. I'll try out 2 Growths in place of Exploration and see how it goes.

I don't ever board out Touch. I board out ESG because it was more of a speed thing. I am still feeling the MU because I am unsure if I should bait counters to make sure my Justice or Enchantress or Replenish resolves, or just go all out with it and just cast and cast those enchantments. Both strategies have worked pre-board where I play it slow until I resolve that Justice and then win or I get a fast start and just out CA them. Not sure which strategy is better.

I want to leave Ground Seal in because it digs. Playing it will just allow me to cycle through my deck looking for some bombs. I never really liked ESG against Landstill because it was often dead. I have beaten down with it though so maybe it is better to have.

At Spat:

I agree. I like it against Thresh just because they can win faster and using it as a Fog effect to buy time has been awesome. I'm going to try this plan on MWS (hopefully finding someone decent to play)

Landstill
-2 Confinement
-4 Elephant Grass
-1 Oblivion Ring
-3 Ground Seal

+3 City
+2 Choke
+2 Karmic Justice
+1 Dovescape
+2 Grip

Thresh
-1 Seal
-4 Ground Seal
-2 Accel (Exploration/Growth)
(-2 Gaea's Touch if I board in Justice)

+3 City
+2 Choke
+2 Grip
(+2 Justice if I see a lot of EE)

Now I have been thinking about running Chrome Mox. I have kept a few 1 land, ESG handers with Argothian. Chrome Mox would have been so much better. I can see where it would hurt, though, because there are times where you need the mana and the card. I doubt that happens a lot so I am going to test it. Just wondering, has anyone had any experience with it?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Exploration provides no relevant advantage over Wild Growth because you'll rarely be able to play a 4th land on turn 2; besides that, you don't wanna keep a hand with 4 lands and exploration unless the other 2-3 cards are 2 Argothian Enchantress and e.g. Sterling Grove.

Question; how often does Enchantress win by turn 2?

[Brehn]

Oh come on, don't start this all over again.

Question: How many hands suddenly are keepable if you switch your Explorations for Wild Growths?

etc, etc.
I'm very surprised that after infinite arguments there are still people believing that Exploration doesn't suck. Reminds me somewhat of Mental Note in Threshold.

[Jak]

Oh come on, don't start this all over again.

Question: How many hands suddenly are keepable if you switch your Explorations for Wild Growths?

etc, etc.
I'm very surprised that after infinite arguments there are still people believing that Exploration doesn't suck. Reminds me somewhat of Mental Note in Threshold.

That is because it doesn't suck. There is a turn, probably 4 or 5, where my list goes crazy. Exploration and Touch allow this. That really helps against stuff like aggro and burn to set up a confinement lock. Against Thresh, they are both pretty good. Being able to setup fast before Balance helps. Wild Growth allows the deck to get some more mana but since my list is faster, so does Exploration. Against Landstill, I side out accel anyway. Preboard, they bothare about even. Getting land drops down so you can apply pressure early is probably better than something that gets Deeded away.

[Brehn]

There is a turn, probably 4 or 5, where my list goes crazy. Exploration and Touch allow this. That really helps against stuff like aggro and burn to set up a confinement lock.

Great, a card to help your good matchups. Hey, what about running 4 Ghostly Prison in the board? I heard it's good against Goblins.


Against Thresh, they are both pretty good. Being able to setup fast before Balance helps.
How does Wild Growth prevent you from setting up?


Wild Growth allows the deck to get some more mana but since my list probably plays more than 23 lands, so does Exploration.
Corrected. Otherwise that statement wouldn't be true.


Preboard, they bothare about even. Getting land drops down so you can apply pressure early is probably better than something that gets Deeded away.
Getting extra land drops down = drawing lands = being mana flooded = Not Pressure.


"But Mental Note really helps getting Threshold!"

[Jak]

...

This deck doesn't function without Enchantress Effects. Exploration is better than Wild Growth is you have enchantress effects down. They are both good, I just find Exploration to be better when I really need to keep going with the combo.

[ebbitten]

mental note wasn't that bad in URG tempo thresh pre goyf to be honest.

As far as wild growth v exploration i switched over to growth about a year ago, and while it does make the deck slightly less explosive in the later turns you honostly are rarely racing for an extra mana or 2 turn 4-5+, its the beggining of the game were you want to get keepable hands so your enchantress effects can blow through the late game

[Brehn]

This deck doesn't function without Enchantress Effects. Exploration is better than Wild Growth is you have enchantress effects down. They are both good, I just find Exploration to be better when I really need to keep going with the combo.

True. But don't forget that Wild Growth gets you the Enchantress effects down. With Exploration, way too many 2-land hands are a mulligan. Mulligans don't help getting Enchantress effects down. Getting the engine started in the first place > Working better with the engine online. Maybe you could compare Enchantress with 4 Exploration to Landstill with 4 Factories, 4 Mutavaults, 4 Decrees and 4 Wastelands. Sure you can operate under Standstill much better than the usual lists. But what gives you the blue mana in the first place? Don't you have to take too many mulligans?

Edit:

mental note wasn't that bad in URG tempo thresh pre goyf to be honest.
Exploration wasn't that bad in 2003 Extended Enchantress (http://www.austrian-magic.at/decks/deckstobeat/0306.htm) to be honest.
Both cards just stopped being good.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

True. But don't forget that Wild Growth gets you the Enchantress effects down. With Exploration, way too many 2-land hands are a mulligan.

Only if the rest of your curve is sucky and over-priced.


Mulligans don't help getting Enchantress effects down. Getting the engine started in the first place > Working better with the engine online.

That's ridiculous. What good is getting the engine online if getting the engine online doesn't mean winning?

Exploration speeds you up at least a turn. Turn 3 becomes turn 4, turn 4 becomes turn 5 or 6, turn 5 becomes the kill.


Maybe you could compare Enchantress with 4 Exploration to Landstill with 4 Factories, 4 Mutavaults, 4 Decrees and 4 Wastelands. Sure you can operate under Standstill much better than the usual lists. But what gives you the blue mana in the first place? Don't you have to take too many mulligans?

No you can't.


Oh come on, don't start this all over again.

Funny, I didn't think I was.


Question: How many hands suddenly are keepable if you switch your Explorations for Wild Growths?

I'd rather have games won than hands kept.


The bottom line is that you guys aren't playing Legacy Enchantress, you're playing Parfait with a Draw Engine. I guess if I was playing Parfait with a Draw Engine, I wouldn't see any need for Exploration either. However, in Enchantress, the card is priceless when going off.

[Jak]

Agree. When I get one Enchantress effect down, I want to take advantage of it.

[caiomarcos]

What about a 2/2 split?
Only recently I included a 1 of Wild Growth and yes, it's pretty good, but so is Exploration.
I was playing 4/3/1 (utopia/exploration/growth) and 21 lands, but now I want to lower my land count, so I'll have to let go another Exploration, going for the 2/2 split. Doesn't this numbers pleases everyone?

[Melwis]

Could someone tell me what the most common version of Enchantress looks like? Not card by card but still, just the basic layout and what cards that are auto-includes in most lists.

I just faced a mono green version of Enchantress on MWS and it was sick. He had Exploration, Wild Growth, Utopia and lots of Enchantress cards . When he got low on mana he played Early Harvest and then continued drawing his whole deck (almost atleast). Then he played Concordant Crossroads followed by Taunting Elf and 2-4 Yavimaya Enchantress's and swinged ftw..

He managed to all this with no sweat 2 turns in a row even though I Vindicated his Enchantress effects a few times and such. Very consistent deck it seemed. Do you guys recognize this deck and are there much better versions of Enchantress out there even tough this seemed strong?

[Funky-kun]

The thing you encountered is Turbo Enchantress. I've come across a couple of lists of that build. Basically it is a more combo oriented build using Early Harvest, Exploration and Gaea's Touch to continue playing spells, and usually finishes with Hunting Pack for a lot of 4/4s.

The more common builds of Enchantress are more control oriented, first concentrated on locking the opponent so that he can't do anything threatening (via Sterling Grove, Solidary Confinement, Moat, Elephant Grass and such) and then finishes with singleton enchantments that win the game, mostly Words of War. The draw engine is provided by Argothian Enchantress and Enchantress's Presence. Some lists also include Replenish as a late-game bomb.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Other than budget, there's no reason to not splash white. You get Serra's Sanctum, Sterling Grove, Solitary Confinement, AND Replenish, at the very least, in addition to options like Sacred Mesa, Aura of Silence, Moat, Oblivion Ring, Sacred Ground and Karmic Justice.

The assumed cards are

8x Enchantresses
8-10x Acceleration effects (Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth, Exploration)
2-3x Replenish
3-4x Sterling Grove
3-4x Elephant Grass
2-3x Solitary Confinement
1x Words of War

various other utility spells and kill conditions, with 19-21 lands or so.

[caiomarcos]

How does this deck beat Cephalid Breakfast?

[THEchubbymuffin]

How does this deck beat Cephalid Breakfast?

Ground seal or solitary confinement or moat or humility or elephant grass...

In summary, it does. Nuff Said.

[Jak]

How does this deck beat Cephalid Breakfast?

Ground seal, confinement, CA. Post board it is even better.

[GreenOne]

There's also Wheel of sun and moon and Runed Halo. Yeah, I'd love some more cephalids in the meta.

[monopoman]

This deck rakes dredge over the coals big time.

Unless they can get a turn 1 combo win or something.

So Cephalid Breakfast is good.

I beat a dredge deck 2-0 in the tournament I played on Sunday. Both games I won I didn't even draw enchantress effects throughout the games.

[caiomarcos]

No doubt Ichorid is easy.
I thought Cephalid would be a problem since they pack daze, fow, grip, bounce. Any of those would be a hard blow against enchantress. They can easily counter a Runed Halo/Wheel then bounce whatever for the win. In order to beat that, enchantress should play at least 3 of those cards in the first 3 or 4 turns. Or am I wrong?

[GreenOne]

No doubt Ichorid is easy.
I thought Cephalid would be a problem since they pack daze, fow, grip, bounce. Any of those would be a hard blow against enchantress. They can easily counter a Runed Halo/Wheel then bounce whatever for the win. In order to beat that, enchantress should play at least 3 of those cards in the first 3 or 4 turns. Or am I wrong?

Wrong unless they got a broken hand. Yeah, if they combo turn 2 with FoW protection we can't do nothing.
Otherwise you just need a disruption piece in the first 2 turns to stick. Then you have 1-2 turns to find another. The third one seals the deal, but you can play it on tun 5 to 8, depending on their hand.

So, basically, the strategy is what you described, but you just gotta be fast in sticking the first disruption piece, the others can be slower.

[Lone Signal]

So, I heard Eventide has been spoiled so I browsed a bit. Some interesting things here and there, and then this showed up:

Helix Pinnacle
G
Enchantment Rare
Shroud
{X}: Put X tower counters on Helix Pinnacle.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are 100 or more tower counters on Helix Pinnacle, you win the game.

The common win conditions WoW and Mesa also serves as a defensive mechanism in a pinch, while this card doesn't. However, this is heck of a lot harder to remove or otherwise deal with, and can get past situations where WoW and Mesa can't. And you can do some obscure things with counting 100 counters.

Thoughts?

[Pinder]

So, I heard Eventide has been spoiled so I browsed a bit. Some interesting things here and there, and then this showed up:

Helix Pinnacle
G
Enchantment Rare
Shroud
{X}: Put X tower counters on Helix Pinnacle.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are 100 or more tower counters on Helix Pinnacle, you win the game.

The common win conditions WoW and Mesa also serves as a defensive mechanism in a pinch, while this card doesn't. However, this is heck of a lot harder to remove or otherwise deal with, and can get past situations where WoW and Mesa can't. And you can do some obscure things with counting 100 counters.

Thoughts?

I'm sure someone will build a deck around it in Standard, some sort of mana ramp deal that drops this early, plays some fat, and either beats down or just loads this thing up. And there's that one card that doubles all the counters, too. Is that still legal in Standard?

edit - Holy shit, for some reason I thought this was the spoiler thread. My bad. Helix Pinnacle will never be viable in Legacy,

[Zach Tartell]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74560&d=1215059459

Also, Helix Pinnacle is completely unplayable.

Edit: I lied - thought it said each permanent.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74560&d=1215059459

Also, Helix Pinnacle is completely unplayable.

That picture is hella sweet.

And there's no need to pay 8 times the mana just to avoid splashing, especially with Utopia Sprawl available.

[GreenOne]

Hey, I'd at least test it.

Cons:
- Requires 100G to win the game. Almost 3* times what it usually need to win with our other win conditions.
- It wins on your next turn.
- It's unuseful on its own. It does nothing.
- It's janky. A lot.

Pros:
- It costs just little to play. This could be good when digging for other cards/disruption.
- It's on our main color. It will not sit useless in your hand like WoW sometimes do.
- It has shroud.
- It's a good mana sink, like our other win cons are.
- It doesn't target and it doesn't need the red zone to win.
- It wins the mirror match like no other. :cool:
- It's fun as hell.

I guess it can be useful as secondary/tertiary win condition if someone wants to be straight GW for any reason.

EDIT: errata: 5 times.

[landstill101]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=74560&d=1215059459

Also, Helix Pinnacle is completely unplayable.

Edit: I lied - thought it said each permanent.

Helix Pinnacle is not unplayable and actually it might go in my side or Find a spot in main, its actually pretty good when I play against a couple black decks that run extirpate. I'm deffinitly testing it out.

[Zach Tartell]

Helix Pinnacle is not unplayable and actually it might go in my side or Find a spot in main, its actually pretty good when I play against a couple black decks that run extirpate. I'm deffinitly testing it out.

-Ground Seal
-Elephant Grass
-Spiritual Focus
-Sacred Ground
-(If you're really that worried about Extirpate) City of Solitude + Replenish

There shouldn't be any issue at all with Black decks. And the black decks that will give you headaches pack Deed, so I don't really see where this helps at all.

Light of Day would be a better solution in this narrow situation.

[ebbitten]

well once enchantress starts dominating the meta it will win the mirror :)

[waSP]

I've been watching this thread for a couple of weeks and I can't figure out what you guys do if they have two counterspells (for your first 2 enchantress's). You're only running 8, so it's pretty unlikely you'll see more than 2 in the first 5 or so turns unless you use grove to Tutor up a presence (card disadvantage).

I know that the (very) old type 1 version of the deck (by CooberP) that it appears this is based on ran a lot of disruption spells to deal with drains, etc.

But I know there's a better way to build this deck. It involves infinite combos so you don't lose if the game goes to extra turns.

[Jaiminho]

I've been watching this thread for a couple of weeks and I can't figure out what you guys do if they have two counterspells (for your first 2 enchantress's). You're only running 8, so it's pretty unlikely you'll see more than 2 in the first 5 or so turns unless you use grove to Tutor up a presence (card disadvantage).

You don't bait with Enchantress effects. You bait with Grove (fetching another bait), City of Solitude and anything of the kind. Obviously, game 1 lacks consistency on these cards, but eventually, something will land. You don't care about the few card disadvantage Grove generates while doing this if you are going to be able to set an Enchantress effect up soon.



But I know there's a better way to build this deck. It involves infinite combos so you don't lose if the game goes to extra turns.

This deck locks people by turn 4. Being able to kill the opponent won't happen much after that, so I can't see 50 minutes being a problem that would be solved by you playing another deck.

[GreenOne]

I've been watching this thread for a couple of weeks and I can't figure out what you guys do if they have two counterspells (for your first 2 enchantress's). You're only running 8, so it's pretty unlikely you'll see more than 2 in the first 5 or so turns unless you use grove to Tutor up a presence (card disadvantage).

I know that the (very) old type 1 version of the deck (by CooberP) that it appears this is based on ran a lot of disruption spells to deal with drains, etc.


What we usually do is play some card that slows the game down until we find another enchantress, a replenish, sacred mesa (with lot of mana) or Hoofprints of the stag.
Notice that (not MUC) decks are packing no more than 8 counterspells. Daze doesn't count as Counterspell cause we play around it always. Notice also that there are a discrete number of other cards people have to counter in order to be in the game. Replenish is one. Moat is a must counter if you're not playing or playing few flying beaters. Elephant grass is a must counter too if you're beating with Psychatog, Tombstalkers and the like. Ground seal must be dealt if you are using a loam engine to gain card advantage. Also, Choke and City of Solitude are bad cards for blue decks.

Counterspell is too slow for an argothin/presence played on turn 2 on the play. Counterbalance is just annoying because our good spells are in the 3-4 cc slot.

Counterspells decks are not scary, and I would be glad to test with you if you like. It's storm combo decks we're fearing.



But I know there's a better way to build this deck. It involves infinite combos so you don't lose if the game goes to extra turns.

WoWar wins the game in a couple of turns. Sacred mesa too. We tested the blue version with the WoWind combo till nausea and it just sucked. If you want a combo-enchantress just look this (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=17906)up,
but it's much more reliant on enchantresses than the control version.

[Fuzzy]

Rise of the Hobgoblins
{wr}{wr}
Enchantment
Rare
When Rise of the Hobgoblins comes into play, you may pay {X}. If you do, put X 1/1 red and white Goblin Soldier tokens into play.
{rw}: red and/or white creatures you control gain first strike until end of turn.

What do you guys thinks about this? An enchantment-Decree of Justice!

Just remember: Enchantress has "Tolarian Academy"!

[Lone Signal]

Compared to Sacred Mesa, it doesn't seem to be too good. It needs a huge initial investment to do its job effectively, and is not immediately reusable if your opponent has an answer, which there are a lot of.

[Guy I Don't Know]

i want someone to use helixpinnacle to make the 100 plus counters and then someone engineered explosives it, or better yet, tranquil domain (that card is just bad in general)

[waSP]

Have you guys considered cutting your kills and an Enchantress and going back to Living Wish?

You throw in the infinite combo with Celestial Dawn or 2x Exploration+green mana artifact and you've gained a little more consistency.

[GreenOne]

Have you guys considered cutting your kills and an Enchantress and going back to Living Wish?


I tried this for some time. It sucked. It's just too mana intensive to make your engine get going, and living wish is a card you don't want to see if your engine is already running. It's not an enchantment too.



You throw in the infinite combo with Celestial Dawn or 2x Exploration+green mana artifact and you've gained a little more consistency.

Which slots should the combo take?
And BTW, I see no combos in Celestial Dawn and "2 Explorations + green mana artifact". Can you explain that please?

[waSP]

Board is WoW and 3 Enchantress effects (2 if you have Trade Routes), 2 Explorations and a bunch of random enchantments.

Also, Green mana artifact such as Darksteel Ingot or Talisman of Unity or even Pentad Prism.

Play a random enchantment activating Words twice. Bounce Sanctum and Exploration. Play the Sanctum. First Exploration gets used. Play the second one using your green mana artifact. Bounce the artifact and the used Exploration and Sanctum. Repeat ad infinitum.

The combo with Celestial Dawn is a little hairier but is a little easier to set up. Get a bunch of white mana via Sanctum. Cast Celestial Dawn bouncing Exploration and Sanctum. Cast Exploration bouncing Celestial Dawn and a non-enchantment permanent (artifact or white creature). Play the Sanctum. Tap for white and cast non-enchantment permanent and Dawn, bouncing Sanctum and Exploration.

A third route (the least successful for me) is to run a Cradle in the sideboard and have 2 Argothians out and do the first combo with Cradle instead of the green mana artifact.

In Type 1 it was so much simpler to just play Treva's Ruins or Academy with Fastbond and Trade Routes and Confinement out :-/

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

So you need WoWind, Celestial Dawn AND a kill condition? That seems like a waste of deckspace. For those slots I could run 3 independent kill conditions and not worry about Extirpate, or 1 kill condition, an extra Replenish and, say, a Sylvan Library, and improve the control match-up.

Living Wish sounds good, but it's just too much mana, and requires too much in terms of how you have to alter the list.

[waSP]

Would you run 7 Argothian Enchantress if they were available?

Also, you don't need a kill condition. You need a Living Wish. You'll have at least 2 extra of these and if you don't manage to accidentally draw one before you go infinite, you can do it afterward.

I run Vineyards, so the mana isn't a big issue in getting an Enchantress down turn 2.

[Jaiminho]

Would you run 7 Argothian Enchantress if they were available?

Also, you don't need a kill condition. You need a Living Wish. You'll have at least 2 extra of these and if you don't manage to accidentally draw one before you go infinite, you can do it afterward.

I run Vineyards, so the mana isn't a big issue in getting an Enchantress down turn 2.

4 mana enchantress that won't even draw me a card and gets fucked by Counterbalance? That looks sucky to me.

And of course we don't need a kill condition. We should deck ourselves every game. Much better than playing a real game.

[waSP]

Living Wish is your kill condition. You can run Dimir Guildmage in the sideboard or Flamewave Invoker or something.

[Brehn]

waSP: You've mentioned three infinite mana combos:

2 Exploration + Green mana artifact

- this uses an artifact :/
- to get this going you need:

Board is WoW and 3 Enchantress effects (2 if you have Trade Routes), 2 Explorations and a bunch of random enchantments.
I'd rather have WoW and 3 Enchantress effects and 2 Exploration, when WoW stands for Words of War. That way, I don't even need another bunch of random enchantments to win, just one Enchantment in hand.

2 Exploration + Gaea's Cradle

- you need to run Gaea's Cradle in the board, which is a wasted slot.
- you need to run Living Wish
- you need two Argothian Enchantresses on the board. Engineered Plague exists, Devastating Dreams too.


Celestial Dawn combo

- this is dependant on Serra's Sanctum. Vulnerable to Wasteland.
- Celestial Dawn a blank if you don't have Sanctum.

Most important thing: To get all of these going, you need Words of Wind + Enchantress effects in play. Why is this better than Words of War + Enchantress effects, which wins on its own?


Would you run 7 Argothian Enchantress if they were available?
What Jaiminho said.


I run Vineyards, so the mana isn't a big issue in getting an Enchantress down turn 2.
Run Utopia Sprawls and Wild Growths and maybe Elvish Spirit Guides. Stuff that doesn't help your opponent.



EDIT: Does this combo even work?
*snip*
Second EDIT: Yes, it works. Reading cards ftw.

[Skeggi]

Isn't stuff like Earthcraft + Wild Growth + Words of Wilding much easier to get unlimited mana? And Auratog + Rancor as a draw engine?

A good friend of mine had an enchantress deck with this, and it worked real good, but he dropped it all for a more traditional list because it has more answers to various match-ups. Playing combo in Enchantress makes it Solitaire: you're playing a 1-sided game, and if your opponent jams your cogwork (like the aforementioned counterbalance), you're screwed.

[Illissius]

That's a great plan except for the part where you show up to a tournament and they DQ you for having Earthcraft in your deck. (Which, for the record, deserves to be banned about as much as Land Tax does, but eh.)

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Here's a question:

Why would you need infinite mana?

I can win in one turn with 15. Without running bad cards.

Living Wish =/= Argothian Enchantress, so talking about running 7 Enchantresses is just bogus.

[waSP]

Why would I need infinite mana? I don't. I need 10 mana. And then I have a kill mechanism.

Also, are you killing with Words of War? 'cause you need to draw 10 cards in that case as well.

Bogus means not to your taste, yeah? How can Solitaire be consistent with just 8 ways to get Enchantress. Unless you guys are searching for it with Sterling Grove.

[Jaiminho]

Bogus means not to your taste, yeah? How can Solitaire be consistent with just 8 ways to get Enchantress. Unless you guys are searching for it with Sterling Grove.

Sterling Grove is valuable for being a needed tutor in the early game and needed protection in the late. Else, we should simply run Greater Auramancy. When you want, grove is a 2+1 mana Enlightened Tutor that can draw you cards.

Solitaire is too easy to maintain, be it on Replenishes, Grove tutoring for whatever you need, multiple Solitaires... there is a always a way to keep it going.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Because by keeping the curve low and the enchantment count high, and playing 4x Ground Seal, I can mulligan aggressively for what I need and rely on the explosveness on the deck to make up the card loss. I also have Grove, Library, Grass and Replenish as back up.

And drawing 10 cards isn't a problem.

[Jak]

When has WoW ever sucked? I would always run at least one. Now I do like the flexibility of Living Wish. Grabbing a needed land, a win con, and an engine/combo piece. The problem with it is space and cutting enchantments for the engine. Also, it slows the deck down so I think it would only find a home in a more controlling build with Moats and a high curve.

[Skeggi]

That's a great plan except for the part where you show up to a tournament and they DQ you for having Earthcraft in your deck. (Which, for the record, deserves to be banned about as much as Land Tax does, but eh.)

Well my point kind of was, even if the combo was broken, the other build was better.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Thats just untrue. Rancor is a dead card most of the time, and Auratog is useless because it opens you up to spot removal, in exchange for winning when all ready in a winning position. The combo also takes up more slots.

[Julian23]

Auratog? Rancor? Plain awful! You can't do much worse. People really tend to underestimate the power of spot removal in Legacy. Not only is Auratog VERY vulnerable to just anything it's also not tutorable and got very bad synergy with the occasional Moat. And unlike WoW (which at least draws cards) Auratog does just nothing on its own. And so does Rancor (which can't be casted wo/ Tog)!
My guess is that people advocation Auratog also wanna implement Living Wish which will lead to a _much_ slower and more inconsistent version of Enchantress.

[Jaiminho]

Auratog? Rancor? Plain awful! You can't do much worse. People really tend to underestimate the power of spot removal in Legacy. Not only is Auratog VERY vulnerable to just anything it's also not tutorable and got very bad synergy with the occasional Moat. And unlike WoW (which at least draws cards) Auratog does just nothing on its own. And so does Rancor (which can't be casted wo/ Tog)!
My guess is that people advocation Auratog also wanna implement Living Wish which will lead to a _much_ slower and more inconsistent version of Enchantress.

Enchantress can't get any slower than it already is. We are always on the edge of dying when we lock our opponent down. If you want to slow it further by making draws less consistent by the risk of drawing into non-enchantments and by having to pay 4 mana or 2 mana over 2 turns to get a single an enchantress effect going, you will get overrun by almost every clock in the format.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Exactly what they said. People need to not confuse consistency in terms of getting an Enchantress effect into play, and consistency in terms of winning.

While, generally, the latter requires the former, the former need not guarantee the latter.

[overseer1234]

I've been testing the deck for a while and realy like how it works so well in my meta.
I'm currently playing the following list:

4x Argothian Enchantress

1x City of Solitude
4x Elephant Grass
4x Enchantress’s Presence
2x Ground Seal
1x Seal of Primordium
4x Utopia Sprawl
2x Wild Growth
1x Words of War
1x Aura of Silence
1x Hoofprints of the Stag
1x Karmic Justic
2x Oblivion Ring
1x Sacred Mesa
3x Solitary Confinement
4x Sterling Grove

8x Forest Land
3x Plains Land
4x Savannah
2x Serra’s Sanctum
1x Taiga Land
4x Windswept Heath

2x Replenish

Is this a good starting skeleton for meta finetuning?

[Brehn]

Some choices could be argued over, but it's a good skeleton. Your curve looks pretty high to me, though... and people are thinking that I'm running a list with a high curve. But there's one thing which I really don't like:


4x Savannah

Test against decks with Wasteland. You'll lose far too often because the only lands you draw are duals and you have to put Auras on them. The very very first change I'd make to your list would be -2 Savannah +2 Wooded Foothills.

[landstill101]

Some choices could be argued over, but it's a good skeleton. Your curve looks pretty high to me, though... and people are thinking that I'm running a list with a high curve. But there's one thing which I really don't like:



Test against decks with Wasteland. You'll lose far too often because the only lands you draw are duals and you have to put Auras on them. The very very first change I'd make to your list would be -2 Savannah +2 Wooded Foothills.

I have stayed away fromt his thread because my list has many different views from most of the ppl in here but this reply is completly false, where in your math does 5 duals get drawn more than 11 basics, and you also have fetchland which will get basics, this deck runs more basics than it needs. I run 2 more duals in my build and competly rape decks with wasteland. Really how could this comment have any accuracy to it when most of the format runs atleast 3 colors and only 3 basics to the landstill and ITF builds that run maybe 1 basic and they win all the time. If you have problems with wasteland in this deck, stop playing magic...


overseer, you manabase is just fine don't listen to him keep all 4 savannahs. The one card you might want to test which I love and have 4 in the deck is runed halo.

[loop]

where in your math does 5 duals get drawn more than 11 basics
He never said that.


Really how could this comment have any accuracy to it when most of the format runs atleast 3 colors and only 3 basics
Maybe most of the format doesn't run 8 Enchant Lands.
A 2 lands hand is keepable if you have some Wild Growths / Utopia Sprawls and can enchant a basic. If your 2 lands are, say, a Savannah and a Serra's Sanctum (or even 2 Savannahs for that matter)... well, you're fucked.

Brehn's point is that the deck doesn't need to play so many duals, so why open yourself to such situations?

[Jaiminho]

I've never had a problem with running 2 Sanctums, 2 Savannahs, 1 Taiga, 4 Fetchlands, 1 Plains and 9 Forests (19 total). Aside from rare situations in which I mulligan to 5, I never get color screwed. Like... ever... and I run only 4 land auras. There's really no need to expose yourself to Wastelands, which will happen when you are filled with those Savannahs, Taigas and Sanctums.

About overseer's list, I'd run all 4 Ground Seals, taking out Aura of Silence and Seal of Primordium. You already have 4 Oblivion Rings. I don't think you need all that hate.

[GreenOne]

I've never had a problem with running 2 Sanctums, 2 Savannahs, 1 Taiga, 4 Fetchlands, 1 Plains and 9 Forests (19 total). Aside from rare situations in which I mulligan to 5, I never get color screwed. Like... ever... and I run only 4 land auras. There's really no need to expose yourself to Wastelands, which will happen when you are filled with those Savannahs, Taigas and Sanctums.

I'm actually running 3 savannahs +1 taiga + 2 sanctum + 4 fetch + 9 Forest and 2 Plains with 8 auras. I'll try to go -1 Savannah +1 Forest.



About overseer's list, I'd run all 4 Ground Seals, taking out Aura of Silence and Seal of Primordium. You already have 4 Oblivion Rings. I don't think you need all that hate.

He only has 2xO.Ring.
It's an ok list. I'd go with -1 Plains -2 Savannah -1 Aura of silence +2 Forest +1 O.Ring + 1 ild Growth.

[Julian23]

Completly agree with Brehn: I used to run 4/2 Savannah/Taiga but when I realized I just don't need that much duals I went down to 2/1. This was not done in "fear" of Wasteland but because it's possible and favours our Enchant Lands and Gaea's Touch (which is awesome!) even more!

/edit: I wouldn't run 3 Win Conditions though; Aura of Silence might be a metagame-choice. I really recommend trying 4 Elvish Spirit Guide and 2 Gaea's Touch! The deck works without them but once you pitched a ESG to Daze, Replenished back Gaea's Touch and played additional lands to it etc. etc. you get to love them! In my list I dropped 2 Wild Growth, 1 Ground Seal and a land (running 20 now) for ESG.

[Jaiminho]

He only has 2xO.Ring.
It's an ok list. I'd go with -1 Plains -2 Savannah -1 Aura of silence +2 Forest +1 O.Ring + 1 ild Growth.

How much having lots of targetted permanent hate adds to the deck? I only have 2 O-Ring on the maindeck and 2 Aura and 1 Seal on the sideboard. I don't think I should use more than this.

[GreenOne]

How much having lots of targetted permanent hate adds to the deck? I only have 2 O-Ring on the maindeck and 2 Aura and 1 Seal on the sideboard. I don't think I should use more than this.

I was just speculating that he needed more than the usual permanent hate because he was running 2 O.rings 1 Aura and 1 Seal. Now that I think about it, the list lacks a moat, so -1 ORing +1 Moat.

[overseer1234]

Moat isn't in my list for budget reasons, so that's why I play the 2nd O-Ring.

[Julian23]

I'd rather play the 4th Confinement over Moat if I couldn't afford it.

[falseprophet]

Julian, you've been at this deck (or at least active on this thread for some while)... What is the current list you are using?

Secondly, a question: during playtesting I find myself sometimes needing to keep the Solitary Confinement down, without any enchantments in hand. What is the recommended "out" in this case? (E.g. don't pay Confinement's upkeep, draw a card, cross fingers it's an enchantment and it won't fizzle untill you hit a Replenish or another Confinement...?)

Cheers,

falseprophet

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

You don't have much choice in that scenario, you let the Confinement drop.

I think you guys are going overboard on the defensive enchantment count. The best defense is a strong offense; efficient card drawing (either Ground Seal or "free" enchantments) lets you set up a Confinement-Grove combo more easily, which pretty much answers everything.

[GreenOne]

Secondly, a question: during playtesting I find myself sometimes needing to keep the Solitary Confinement down, without any enchantments in hand. What is the recommended "out" in this case? (E.g. don't pay Confinement's upkeep, draw a card, cross fingers it's an enchantment and it won't fizzle untill you hit a Replenish or another Confinement...?)

IF you have multiple Enchantress effects on board then an out is to tutor for another Confinament with Sterling Grove. No other ways other than topdeck what you need.

[Redlotus27]

I'd rather play the 4th Confinement over Moat if I couldn't afford it.


Or at least maybe Ghostly Prison. It will slow an opponent down possibly long enough to land a confinement. I've even toyed with Island Sanctuary as a poor man's Moat. Its nowhere near moat's power level; but it does shut down the attack phase similar to moat.

[Julian23]

Julian, you've been at this deck (or at least active on this thread for some while)... What is the current list you are using?


4x Windswept Heat
2x Savannah
1x Taiga
2x Serra's Sanctum
9x Forest
2x Plains

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Elvish Spirit Guide (Brehn convinced me and they rock!)

2x Replenish

4x Enchantress' Presence
4x Solitary Confinement (gonna replace 1 with Moat)
4x Sterling Grove
4x Elephant Grass
4x Utopia Sprawl
2x Gaea's Touch (you really gotta try those!)
1x Karmic Justice
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Oblivion Ring
1x City of Solitude
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Words of War
1x Ground Seal
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon

SB:
4x Guttural Response
3x Sacred Ground
2x City of Solitude
2x Ground Seal
2x Runed Halo
1x Replenish
1x Karmic Justice


Especially my sideboard totally is a metagamecall because I got a lot of Landstill/Dreadnought/etc. decks flying around here. You even gotta face the occacional Solidarity which is why Wheel of Sun and Moon is played over Ground Seal. I wish I was able to squeeze in more of the latter, mostly because of Aggro Loam; therefor I got the much needed Sacred Ground as a 3off(!) in the sb because I really really wanna have one asap! Aggro Loam over here now always run Reverent Silence as a wishtarget *cries*.

Guttural Response is kind of an experiment right now but early (but not a lot of!) testing shows good results: Countering a FoW on a turn2 Enchantress really rocks! Splashdamage is done to Solidarity, TES(Dimishing Returns) and MS Paint (like..everything :D). And since I run ESG I can even use it without mana open, how good is that against Landstill? Or imagine being tapped out and still countering Stifle on Phyrexian Dreadnought..nasty!
Maybe someone will proof me wrong some time but right now I really dig those Guttural Response.

I recently dropped 3 Aura of Silence and don't feel very comfortable about it but as it seems noone plays Stax/Affinity over here anymore.

[Jaiminho]

I wish I was able to squeeze in more of the latter (Ground Seal), mostly because of Aggro Loam; therefor I got the much needed Sacred Ground as a 3off(!) in the sb because I really really wanna have one asap! Aggro Loam over here now always run Reverent Silence as a wishtarget *cries*.

Wouldn't lots of Aggro Loam request more Karmic Justice and Replenish? Sacred Ground will only save your non-basics from Wastelands. If someone blows your enchantments away, Karmic Justice will clean their board and Replenish will reset the gamestate prior to that sweeper. Can't see how Sacred Ground helps here. I'd also run more Ground Seals, since they aren't card disadvantage even when its ability won't matter and it owns Extirpate, a card known for screwing Sterling Groves.



I recently dropped 3 Aura of Silence and don't feel very comfortable about it but as it seems noone plays Stax/Affinity over here anymore.

No Chalice Stompy decks either? It's good to have more outs to the different chalice numbers, while being able to use Oblivion Ring to handle other things.



And, finally, is Moat/Island Sanctuary really necessary? Neither will force a concession from any decks in this format, except maybe Moat against Thresh-like decks (that don't run flyers, obviously), since they can't get rid of a 4cc enchantment. I'm talking about game 1 here.

[Jak]

Devastating Dreams hurts a lot by taking out Argothians and hitting our manabase. Sacred Ground is nice in there. Karmic Justice and Replenish work amazing also so I would try to have 3 Replenish, 3 Karmic Justice, and at least 1 Sacred Ground in your 75.

Moat isn't worth it, IMO. Every deck has an answer for it via fliers or MD artifact/enchantment removal. Oblivion Ring is much better.

[Julian23]

Wouldn't lots of Aggro Loam request more Karmic Justice and Replenish? Sacred Ground will only save your non-basics from Wastelands. If someone blows your enchantments away, Karmic Justice will clean their board and Replenish will reset the gamestate prior to that sweeper. Can't see how Sacred Ground helps here. I'd also run more Ground Seals, since they aren't card disadvantage even when its ability won't matter and it owns Extirpate, a card known for screwing Sterling Groves.




No Chalice Stompy decks either? It's good to have more outs to the different chalice numbers, while being able to use Oblivion Ring to handle other things.



And, finally, is Moat/Island Sanctuary really necessary? Neither will force a concession from any decks in this format, except maybe Moat against Thresh-like decks (that don't run flyers, obviously), since they can't get rid of a 4cc enchantment. I'm talking about game 1 here.

Yeah my first impulse was to increase Karmic Justice as well. But here's the problem even with Justice in play:

step1: They blow away your lands (and most of their permanents)
step2: 1-2 turns later they drop Goyf/Terravore;I can't maintain Confinement/got no mana to Replenish

To me, Karmic Justice just wasn't good enough in this matchup. With Sacred Ground Devastating Dreams isn't as painful; I also run 11 bascis and 4 Heath to fetch one (~15).
But even with Sacred Ground/Karmic Justice (at least I) still lose to Reverrent Silence as they will first play Silence for free, float mana and Devastating Dreams all your lands; if they now got a mox they can drop goyf the same turn and drop e.g. Terravore next turn. They run around 26 lands, I got 20.

/edit: Aggro Loam used to be piece of cake with Sacred Ground to combat Dreams but since my metagame now runs Reverrent Silence it got really tough

/edit²: Regarding Aura of Silence: Nope, no Chalice Aggro right now. But still - as I said - I feel kinda uncomfortable about it but during the course of the last tournaments I didn't run into anything where this card was really needed.

[Jaiminho]

For a moment, I forgot about devastating dreams. Silly me.

[landstill101]

Moat isn't worth it, IMO. Every deck has an answer for it via fliers or MD artifact/enchantment removal. Oblivion Ring is much better.

Moat is deffinitly worth it, against goblins its game especially game one and game 2 and 3, just play a sterling grove and your fine plus you have replenish.

Against threshold, they really don't have much to counter it and with the same strat above its really the same for almost every deck in the format that runs creatures other than farie stompy. Just run runed halo to stop their flyers. It works for me no problem and it actually forces them to dig just to get rid of it which gives your more than enough time to kill them.

[Jaiminho]

Moat is deffinitly worth it, against goblins its game especially game one and game 2 and 3, just play a sterling grove and your fine plus you have replenish.

Against threshold, they really don't have much to counter it and with the same strat above its really the same for almost every deck in the format that runs creatures other than farie stompy. Just run runed halo to stop their flyers. It works for me no problem and it actually forces them to dig just to get rid of it which gives your more than enough time to kill them.

What's the difference from Moat to Elephant Grass against whichever deck? Running a singleton Moat is probably not going to give you a Grove + Moat lock early enough to be safe. No one can most likely ever kill you by turn 4 using creatures (save ETW), so you can simply lock them on Confinement after slowing them down with Grass.

No one's saying Moat is useless. It's simply not worth it.

[GreenOne]

What's the difference from Moat to Elephant Grass against whichever deck? Running a singleton Moat is probably not going to give you a Grove + Moat lock early enough to be safe. No one can most likely ever kill you by turn 4 using creatures (save ETW), so you can simply lock them on Confinement after slowing them down with Grass.


Goblins is going to kill you turn 4 using creatures. Solitary confinament happens to work only if you have a couple of Enchantress effects out. This is not gonna work against counter decks.

Let's see what's strong against, and the solutions to it the DTB forum decks have (other than ench removal, which hits any other replacement to it)

Strong against:
Goblins - Siege Gang Commander.
Ichorid - Faster clock and 4 narcomoebas.
Dreadstill - Nothing.
Threshold - Usually nothing. It may have Tombstalker, Enforcer and burn.
Aggro Loam - Seismic Assault
The Rock - Nothing
Survival - Nothing
Landstill - It can only stop Manlands and Goyfs under a standstill. Not huge.

Moat is also un-counterbalanceable and it usually wrecks the opponent board too if deeded.

Confinament without 2 enchantress effects (or 1 if you're really lucky) is just a fog effect, where moat shines. It also let's you draw 2 more cards a turn.
I find moat overall good, and in fact, I play it in 2x.

[Brehn]

I'd like to add:

- Resolving or replenishing Moat + Karmic Justice always leads to a win against 4c (Goyf) Landstill game 1. Resolving Moat alone often stalls enough to stabilize after they've countered / removed your first 2-4 Enchantress effects.
- Standard Dreadstill builds scoop to Moat game 1.
- Against Tempo Thresh it usually hits fast enough (>7 life), so it stalls enough to set up Confinement without getting burnt down.


What's the difference from Moat to Elephant Grass against whichever deck?
Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for UGr Threshold.
Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for UGb Threshold
Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for 4c Landstill.
Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for Dreadstill.
Elephant Grass does not reduce Dragon Stompy's Threat Density to "8 in the whole deck".
Elephant Grass lets Goblins swing for at least 5 damage per round. Unless they're manascrewed.
Elephant Grass requires an upkeep cost, making it less efficient as a "pseudo-fog" that is played to set up Confinement.

But, why are you comparing Moat to Elephant Grass anyway? Usually, lists with Moat also play 4 Grass.

[GreenOne]

But, why are you comparing Moat to Elephant Grass anyway? Usually, lists with Moat also play 4 Grass.

Yeah, the closest comparison to Moat is confinament (excluding Island Sanctuary). Confinament is surely better against combo (but we won't win that game anyway), where moat is usually a must counter even without Enchantresses out.

The good thing about Moat is that instantly nullyfies from 8 to 20 cards (well, about 27 in goblins) in almost every deck, creating a huge amount of virtual card advantage on your side.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'd like to add:

- Resolving or replenishing Moat + Karmic Justice always leads to a win against 4c (Goyf) Landstill game 1. Resolving Moat alone often stalls enough to stabilize after they've countered / removed your first 2-4 Enchantress effects.

Replenishing Karmic Justice and, oh, I don't know, Pyromancy, would pretty much always be game against Landstill.

a) Karmic Justice
b) You resolved Replenish.

Moat is almost entirely irrelevant in that scenario. If you're resolving Replenish against control and losing, something is wrong.


Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for 4c Landstill.

Neither is Moat. 4c always has some sweeper that can hit Moat, if not Wish.


Elephant Grass is not a must-counter for Dreadstill.

However, Moat is 4cc, double white against a deck with Daze and Wasteland and Stifle.


Elephant Grass does not reduce Dragon Stompy's Threat Density to "8 in the whole deck".
Elephant Grass lets Goblins swing for at least 5 damage per round. Unless they're manascrewed.

a) Who cares? You beat both these decks anyway.
b) BS about Goblins. 5 damage per round is the MOST they're going to be doing. Very rarely do they ramp up to 6 mana before they've lost, and attacking for 5 (requiring both a Piledriver and a Warchief/Ringleader/SGC) ties up all their mana, leaving them with only a Vial at most.

If you play Elephant Grass against Goblins and lose, it's because you did something wrong.


Elephant Grass requires an upkeep cost, making it less efficient as a "pseudo-fog" that is played to set up Confinement.

But, why are you comparing Moat to Elephant Grass anyway? Usually, lists with Moat also play 4 Grass.

I think we're debating the necessity of running Moat at all.

The bottom line is that against most decks, Grass and Confinement are enough. Against most others, O Ring and/or Halo and/or Mesa can back you up enough.

Moat shines mostly against Threshold. Unless your deck is predominantly Threshold, I don't really think it's worth it.

[Brehn]

Replenishing Karmic Justice and, oh, I don't know, Pyromancy, would pretty much always be game against Landstill.

a) Karmic Justice
b) You resolved Replenish.

Moat is almost entirely irrelevant in that scenario. If you're resolving Replenish against control and losing, something is wrong.

I've also talked about resolving Moat and Justice. Replenish doesn't have to be involved in this. Also, when did you notice that Karmic Justice is good against Landstill?


Any Landstill player who counters a Justice when you don't have anything worth destroying is a bad player. Plays that beat bad players are not worth arguing about.

:confused:

(Not countering Karmic Justice is always wrong because it only leaves you with Counterspells and Forces to combat opposing threats. Like Moat.)


Neither is Moat. 4c always has some sweeper that can hit Moat, if not Wish.

Great. If they don't counter it, they have to sweep it, possibly taking out Goyfs they've played. Sweeper count in opponent's deck reduced by one. Suboptimal cards like Oblivion Ring or Elephant Grass don't draw a sweeper from your opponent's deck, since they're not too relevant.


Dreadstill:


However, Moat is 4cc, double white against a deck with Daze and Wasteland and Stifle.

I thought we're playing a stable manabase.
And not-4cc cards can get hit by Counterbalance. Out of the last 5 games I've won against Dreadstill, 4 were won with Moat. I won three of them, because I've cast Moat / Replenish->Moat with Balance/Top on the table and 1cc+2cc+3cc on top. 5 games =/= representative testing, but still... makes me think, Moat might improve the matchup just a tiny bit.
Note: Oblivion Ring can be stifled.



b) BS about Goblins. 5 damage per round is the MOST they're going to be doing. Very rarely do they ramp up to 6 mana before they've lost, and attacking for 5 (requiring both a Piledriver and a Warchief/Ringleader/SGC) ties up all their mana, leaving them with only a Vial at most.

Wait. WTF are you talking about with "6 mana"?
And WTF is difficult about getting Piledriver/Wort + Warchief/Ringleader/SGC by turn 4/5?
And W(hy)TF do they care about "ooohhh, Grass ties up my mana" when they can swing for 5 each turn?

Sure, the matchup against Goblins is still positive, if you're not playing Moat. But.... srsly, your arguments are complete nonsense.


Moat shines mostly against Threshold. Unless your deck is predominantly Threshold, I don't really think it's worth it.

Every meta has Threshold in it, and Threshold is not the easiest matchup. Also, you can't deny the fact that Moat improves other matchups:
- Goblins (I know it's good without Moat)
- Dragon Stompy (I know it's good without Moat)
- Ichorid (I know it's good without Moat)
And, unless I'm completely wrong for some reason and all my testing matches are irrelevant, Moat also improves these matchups:
- 4c Landstill
- Dreadstill
That makes me wonder why one would consider cutting Moat (I haven't even mentioned every deck Moat is good against). I'd like to remind everybody of this:


One question you should always ask yourself when designing a list is: You keep a hand with one Enchantress effect. Your opponent forces the Enchantress and plays a 4/5 Goyf. Can you still win this game? What if Goyf is 5/6?

In my opinion, this leads to an inclusion of Moat.



The bottom line is that against most decks, Grass and Confinement are enough. Against most others, O Ring and/or Halo and/or Mesa can back you up enough.

Hm. Some pages earlier you were constantly arguing against playing Oblivion Ring and Sacred Mesa. Have you changed your mind? Any chances that I could see an updated list?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I've also talked about resolving Moat and Justice. Replenish doesn't have to be involved in this. Also, when did you notice that Karmic Justice is good against Landstill?



:confused:

(Not countering Karmic Justice is always wrong because it only leaves you with Counterspells and Forces to combat opposing threats. Like Moat.)

No, that's still untrue. Maybe it was true back when they had slower clocks(probably not, but maybe), but against a Goyf, if they save their counters for the real threats, Justice won't change the equation that much.

Justice is good IF you have other threats out, because it acts as insurance against their only out at that point; sweepers. But it doesn't act as a stand alone threat and never has.


Great. If they don't counter it, they have to sweep it, possibly taking out Goyfs they've played. Sweeper count in opponent's deck reduced by one. Suboptimal cards like Oblivion Ring or Elephant Grass don't draw a sweeper from your opponent's deck, since they're not too relevant.

They also don't cost 4 mana, double white.


I thought we're playing a stable manabase.
And not-4cc cards can get hit by Counterbalance. Out of the last 5 games I've won against Dreadstill, 4 were won with Moat. I won three of them, because I've cast Moat / Replenish->Moat with Balance/Top on the table and 1cc+2cc+3cc on top. 5 games =/= representative testing, but still... makes me think, Moat might improve the matchup just a tiny bit.
Note: Oblivion Ring can be stifled.

Note: I'm not actually advocating O. Ring.

In fact, I'll recant on that sub-point. I would rather run Moat than O. Ring, but I'd rather run neither, unless I knew the meta-game was mostly Thresh.


Wait. WTF are you talking about with "6 mana"?

The amount of mana it takes to do more than 5 damage a turn with an Elephant Grass out.


And WTF is difficult about getting Piledriver/Wort + Warchief/Ringleader/SGC by turn 4/5?

The fact that Elephant Grass can start turn 2.


And W(hy)TF do they care about "ooohhh, Grass ties up my mana" when they can swing for 5 each turn?

Ok, go on record first. Say that Elephant Grass isn't amazing against Goblins, and then I'll respond.


That makes me wonder why one would consider cutting Moat (I haven't even mentioned every deck Moat is good against). I'd like to remind everybody of this:


One question you should always ask yourself when designing a list is: You keep a hand with one Enchantress effect. Your opponent forces the Enchantress and plays a 4/5 Goyf. Can you still win this game? What if Goyf is 5/6?

In my opinion, this leads to an inclusion of Moat.

In that scenario they have (likely) two more turns to dig for answers or a fat flyer. One more theoretical must-counter is nice, but is it worth its investment over all?

In other match-ups;

Goblins - Contrary to the opinions of some, it's basically irrelevant in this match-up. They can't disrupt your engine, and can't deal with Elephant Grass until late game. They can't deal with Confinement at all. The only situation where it matters is where you have to set up an early Confinement, and then it's a hinderance, as its high cc is going to be dangerous if that turns into your only enchantment.

Note also that late game, when Elephant Grass stops being as effective, SGC and Fanatic will often be enough to finish you anyway, if your main Confinement plan has fallen through for some reason.

Ichorid - If you made it to the point where you can cast it and you didn't draw any quicker, more relevant cards, I guess it'll win you the game. How often will that happen though?

Loam - This match is about drawing lots of cards and playing Ground Seals. 4 mana enchantments just slow you down.

Black-based aggro control - 4 mana spells absolutely must win the game here. Replenish always wins, and is only one white. That double white is felt especially in these match-ups, as Utopia Sprawl'd lands have the unpleasant habit of being Sinkholed and Vindicated. Moat only sometimes wins. It stops neither Hyppy, nor Tombstalker.

X Stompy - Look, they have flyers. I don't care if it's "only" 8. That seems like a lot when a SoFI'd Dragon is staring across the board from me and I'm sitting on a Moat.

Moat is supposed to be a defensive card. At 4 mana, it had better win games. Against most decks, it doesn't. There are some match-ups where it does, and it's a good SB option, and in certain narrow meta-games, it may be MD material.

Most of the time, however, it's an inefficient use of a slot.


Hm. Some pages earlier you were constantly arguing against playing Oblivion Ring and Sacred Mesa. Have you changed your mind? Any chances that I could see an updated list?

I wasn't arguing against Mesa per se. In some meta-games, running Mesa as a backup may be preferable. Generally, I think it's unnecessary; people are just uncomfortable with the idea of losing to Extract.

[Jaiminho]

But, why are you comparing Moat to Elephant Grass anyway? Usually, lists with Moat also play 4 Grass.

I'm not comparing. I'm simply saying the deck doesn't need Moat. Given that you have Moat as a singleton (GreenOne has 2 of it, but anyway...), you will have to fetch it with Grove. Then, since you run virtually 5 Moats, 7 Confinements, 8 Grasses and 5+ Whatevers, I can only see Moat being worth its high 4 mana cost when you actually have all that mana to spend and anything else is a worst answer.

Anyway, Spatula said it all.

[GreenOne]

Goblins - Contrary to the opinions of some, it's basically irrelevant in this match-up. They can't disrupt your engine, and can't deal with Elephant Grass until late game. They can't deal with Confinement at all. The only situation where it matters is where you have to set up an early Confinement, and then it's a hinderance, as its high cc is going to be dangerous if that turns into your only enchantment.

False. They got Warren Weirding to fuck your Argothians.

Your hand is Argothian+Utopia+Grass+Confinament+2lands+1white land

The opponent plays lackey turn 1. you play land+aura and pass. He attacks you and drop Piledriver + warchief/matron/whatever.
You play argothian+Grass, he plays Weirding and you're in topdeck mode.
In this case Moat is better than confinament, cause it stalls A LOT better than a single turn fog effect.

Your hand is -1 argothian +1 Presence. Moat is still better, because you can just decide to stall with Grass on turn 2 instead of playing the enchantress. On turn 3 their deck becomes entirely irrilevant but SGC (which is, btw, slow).
You also don't need to hit another enchantress effect (possibly not argothian) to keep the confinament.

Your hand is -1 argothian +1 Sterling grove. This hand is still keepable if you have moat instead of Confinament if you know you're playing against gobbos.

Your hand is -1 Grass +1 words of war/other blank enchantment. You don't know if you can sustain the confinament. Moat is better.

Obviously, if goblin is not starting with Lackey, the game is hugely on your side, and having Confinament or moat usually is the same thing.



Note also that late game, when Elephant Grass stops being as effective, SGC and Fanatic will often be enough to finish you anyway, if your main Confinement plan has fallen through for some reason.


Note also that if you're in the late game it's because something like Moat or Grass happened. Note also that in any game you don't draw an enchantress, or you don't have time to get the full engine going (tutoring for enchantress with Sterling Grove) or have a single enchantress out or your argothian get weirding fucked Moat is a lot better than confinament.



Ichorid - If you made it to the point where you can cast it and you didn't draw any quicker, more relevant cards, I guess it'll win you the game. How often will that happen though?


Quicker, more relevant card such as? Confinament? You want those Elephant grasses in the first/second turn, because ichorid is fast. Maintaining the elephant grass sometime impedes you to play the engine at its full effect.



Loam - This match is about drawing lots of cards and playing Ground Seals. 4 mana enchantments just slow you down.


Moat saves you from 10/10 dudes beating your face. Confinament can't be mantained with 0 lands on board after a DD.



Black-based aggro control - 4 mana spells absolutely must win the game here. Replenish always wins, and is only one white. That double white is felt especially in these match-ups, as Utopia Sprawl'd lands have the unpleasant habit of being Sinkholed and Vindicated. Moat only sometimes wins. It stops neither Hyppy, nor Tombstalker.


Yeah, here moat gets sided out. It's horrible against black.



X Stompy - Look, they have flyers. I don't care if it's "only" 8. That seems like a lot when a SoFI'd Dragon is staring across the board from me and I'm sitting on a Moat.


That also means that they gotta draw a dragon. Or they gotta draw an Arc Slogger with you on < 6/8 life. Sometimes it's just what you need. And in this matchup it's surely a lot better than Elephant grass.



Moat is supposed to be a defensive card. At 4 mana, it had better win games. Against most decks, it doesn't. There are some match-ups where it does, and it's a good SB option, and in certain narrow meta-games, it may be MD material.


A card that usually spells GG in g1 against Threshold, stiflenough and Goblins should seriously get considered in almost every meta.


EDIT. Anyway, i play Confinament in 2x, cause I want to see that card only when I got 2 enchantress effects out. By the time I have them, I'd probably just drew one of those confinaments.

[Zach Tartell]

Perilously drunk:

I hate you all for taking this from fun to bithching.

And not like the Bith from Star Wars.


(yes; I capitolize Star Wars._

At my last tournament I ran 4 Chrome Mox and a split of 3/1 Runed Halo.

It did nothing for me (except saving me like 12 life form Mongoose beats).

EWdit: And turn 1 Argothians.

[GreenOne]

I hate you all for taking this from fun to bithching.

QFT. Yeah, enough on Moat discussion. Let the fun roll again!



At my last tournament I ran 4 Chrome Mox and a split of 3/1 Runed Halo.

It did nothing for me (except saving me like 12 life form Mongoose beats).

EWdit: And turn 1 Argothians.

Split of 3/1 Runed Halo means 3 Confinament / 1 Runed Halo?

I tested 2x Chrome Moxes some time ago, they were quite good in powering out early enchantresses but not a great synergy with either Exploration or the 8 auras (I couldn't keep a 1 Mox hand+Enchantress+Aura without lands).

[Brehn]

Great. If they don't counter it, they have to sweep it, possibly taking out Goyfs they've played. Sweeper count in opponent's deck reduced by one. Suboptimal cards like Oblivion Ring or Elephant Grass don't draw a sweeper from your opponent's deck, since they're not too relevant.

They also don't cost 4 mana, double white.


wat


I think your problem is that you don't realize that Moat helps the Confinement lock, it doesn't make it more inconsistent. With your build you have to accelerate into Confinement against a huge portion of decks and therefore need every enchantment to have a little cost. With a Moat-, Ob.Ring-, Mesa-build you don't need to accelerate into Confinement because you have enough tools to stall the game. This buys you a few turns (and quite often, "a few" has two digits, because digging for an answer or a flyer doesn't always work too well). This means you're playing Confinement 2-20 turns later and your engine is better developed so you don't need crap like Exploration or Gaea's Touch just to prevent Confinement from falling down. It's a different approach.


Ichorid - If you made it to the point where you can cast it and you didn't draw any quicker, more relevant cards, I guess it'll win you the game. How often will that happen though?

Loam - This match is about drawing lots of cards and playing Ground Seals. 4 mana enchantments just slow you down

These comments make me wonder whether you've ever tested these matchups.


Moat saves you from 10/10 dudes beating your face. Confinament can't be mantained with 0 lands on board after a DD.
GreenOne apparently has tested the Aggro Loam matchup. QFT


and in certain narrow meta-games, it may be MD material.

A Threshold+4CLandstill+Dreadstill+Dragon Stompy+Ichorid+Goblins-Meta is not narrow.


And seriously, stop using any argument of "double white". If you can't get double white consistently, rework your manabase because apparently it sucks.

[Zach Tartell]

Split of 3/1 Runed Halo means 3 Confinament / 1 Runed Halo?

(Still drunk in the morning)

No, it was 3 Confinement, 4 Elephant Grass, 3 Runed Halo.

I ran the Halos (without testing them or the moxen) in order to have a better (supposed match) against Tendrils. Shit crushed in testing, 'specially with a Dovescape for backup, but the 3 Halos seemed to be at least 1 too many.

I'll publish my list after I get done letting the devil out.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

wat


I think your problem is that you don't realize that Moat helps the Confinement lock, it doesn't make it more inconsistent. With your build you have to accelerate into Confinement against a huge portion of decks and therefore need every enchantment to have a little cost. With a Moat-, Ob.Ring-, Mesa-build you don't need to accelerate into Confinement because you have enough tools to stall the game. This buys you a few turns (and quite often, "a few" has two digits, because digging for an answer or a flyer doesn't always work too well). This means you're playing Confinement 2-20 turns later and your engine is better developed so you don't need crap like Exploration or Gaea's Touch just to prevent Confinement from falling down. It's a different approach.

And since it's the approach people have been trying for over a year now and utterly failing with, what makes you think it works?



These comments make me wonder whether you've ever tested these matchups.


GreenOne apparently has tested the Aggro Loam matchup. QFT

That's what I love. Tapping out so that they can Burning Wish me out.

Playing Moat means that you're cutting down dramatically on the number of cards you could be drawing. And why? If you have an enchantress out, it should be irrelevant. If you don't, and don't get one to stick, you won't be able to hide behind it indefinitely.



A Threshold+4CLandstill+Dreadstill+Dragon Stompy+Ichorid+Goblins-Meta is not narrow.

Dragon Stompy, Ichorid, and Goblins, are all match-ups where Ground Seal is signifigantly better than Moat. Because they're all match-ups you win unless they manage to race you. 4 mana enchantments don't save you from being race all that well.

If I was really going to MD cards just for Threshold, I'd start with extra Replenishes, then Choke, then maybe Moat.


And seriously, stop using any argument of "double white". If you can't get double white consistently, rework your manabase because apparently it sucks.

In the face of pressure and disruption, getting double white may not be possible. That's not an irrelevant argument. Against decks packing 8+ mana disruption slots, the combination of being double white and 4 mana is a severe liability.

Perhaps you've never had the misfortune of running into such a scenario, but there's this card called "Sinkhole". And it can kill a land, and if that land has Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl on it, it dies too.


False. They got Warren Weirding to fuck your Argothians.

Your hand is Argothian+Utopia+Grass+Confinament+2lands+1white land

The opponent plays lackey turn 1. you play land+aura and pass. He attacks you and drop Piledriver + warchief/matron/whatever.
You play argothian+Grass, he plays Weirding and you're in topdeck mode.
In this case Moat is better than confinament, cause it stalls A LOT better than a single turn fog effect.

What do you mean single turn fog effect?

You just said you played Grass. So...ok. He's not going anywhere for a long time.


Your hand is -1 argothian +1 Presence. Moat is still better, because you can just decide to stall with Grass on turn 2 instead of playing the enchantress. On turn 3 their deck becomes entirely irrilevant but SGC (which is, btw, slow).

Um. Why? What's the advantage of playing Grass on turn 2 in that scenario? They're not going to kill you that turn.


You also don't need to hit another enchantress effect (possibly not argothian) to keep the confinament.

Yes you do. You need multiple enchantresses to win. Unless you win, they'll still SGC you out.


Your hand is -1 argothian +1 Sterling grove. This hand is still keepable if you have moat instead of Confinament if you know you're playing against gobbos.

No enchantress until turn 3 at the earliest?

That hand is terrible. You're never going to win if you keep hands like that?


Your hand is -1 Grass +1 words of war/other blank enchantment. You don't know if you can sustain the confinament. Moat is better.

With one Enchantress?

I know that I can support Confinement, if I have a single Enchantress, because I play a much lower curve that doesn't include crap like Moat.


Note also that if you're in the late game it's because something like Moat or Grass happened. Note also that in any game you don't draw an enchantress, or you don't have time to get the full engine going (tutoring for enchantress with Sterling Grove) or have a single enchantress out or your argothian get weirding fucked Moat is a lot better than confinament.

Not really. Confinement stops Weirding, first of all. Second of all, you still need Enchantresses to win. If you don't win soon, they'll just kill you another way.


Quicker, more relevant card such as? Confinament? You want those Elephant grasses in the first/second turn, because ichorid is fast. Maintaining the elephant grass sometime impedes you to play the engine at its full effect.

This is how much Grass costs.

1st turn 1 mana
2nd turn still 1 mana
3rd turn 2 mana

It takes 3 turns for it to even theoretically tie up your mana the way that Moat does, not even recognizing the difference between staggered cost and straight up.


Moat saves you from 10/10 dudes beating your face. Confinament can't be mantained with 0 lands on board after a DD.

Unless you drew lots of cards, you won't recover anyway. They'll simply play more lands than you from then on, play Burning Wish, and that's the end of you.


That also means that they gotta draw a dragon. Or they gotta draw an Arc Slogger with you on < 6/8 life. Sometimes it's just what you need. And in this matchup it's surely a lot better than Elephant grass.

Grass still holds back early pressure. It can turn an equip->swing into just a swing. And it does it for 1 mana, which means it can work while you're engine is still running drawing cards. Moat's problem is it doesn't work with the engine. You have to take a turn off to play it, and most of the time, it's not worth it.


A card that usually spells GG in g1 against Threshold, stiflenough and Goblins should seriously get considered in almost every meta.

Enchantress beats Goblins ridiculously, with or without Moat. Probably a lot better without.



I don't know how to explain this any more than I've all ready done. Enchantress doesn't work as a control deck; it's not parfait with a draw engine. The deck needs to be fast and aggressive. Anything that slows it down needs to either really pull it's weight, or be tossed. Moat only really shines in the Thresh match-up. And not enough to make up for not shining anywhere else.

[Julian23]

Spatula, I know you've been advocating the more-comboish version of Enchantress for quite a while now and I've seen some of your builds with stuff like Early Harvest. I wonder how it looks right now since I feel like giving it a try :-).

[Obfuscate Freely]

Spatula, I know you've been advocating the more-comboish version of Enchantress for quite a while now and I've seen some of your builds with stuff like Early Harvest. I wonder how it looks right now since I feel like giving it a try :-).

ENGINE:
4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantess's Presence
4x Ground Seal
3x Replenish
3x Sterling Grove
1x Sylvan Library

EXCEL:
3x Early Harvest
3x Utopia Sprawl
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Gaea's Touch
1x Exploration
1x Wild Growth

PROTECTION:
4x Elephant Grass
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Karmic Justice
1x Choke
1x Aura of Silence
1x Moat

KILL:
1x Words of War

LANDS:
1x Taiga
2x Savannah
2x Serra's Sanctum
4x Windswept Heath
10x Forest

SIDEBOARD:
4x Exalted Angel
3x Enlightened Tutor
1x Karmic Justice
1x Compost
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Sacred Ground
1x Aura of Silence
1x Seal of Cleansing(or maybe it was Primordium. I don't remember)
1x Dovescape
1x Early Harvest

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Are you fucking with me, kid?



8x Enchantresses
4x Ground Seal
3x Sterling Grove
3x Replenish

4x Utopia Sprawl
2x Gaea's Touch
2x Exploration
1x Wild Growth
3x ESG

4x Elephant Grass
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Aura of Silence
1x Karmic Justice

1x Words of War

2x meta slots

2x Serra's Sanctum
4x Windswept Heath
2x Savannah
1x Taiga
10x Forest

adjust mana base as necessary depending on meta slots.

[honz]

How has 3 groves been working for you? By only running 2 confinements i have always liked the 4th grove. The 4th grove is also very important post-board, to find your bullets. I never liked running less than 4.

I dont like the MD aura. The card really shines when it comes in early, but the deck doesnt really allow for that to happen. I don't see how your going to find the singleton aura and ww early enough to make a difference. How has that been working out?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I've rarely missed the extra Grove. It's a bit unwieldy to cast in multiples, and 3 seems to allow me to see it enough without clogging on 2 or 3 when I don't need them.

The Aura is kinda iffy. It could be a Seal. The main advantages are against Landstill and Groving for it vs decks packing Deed.

Although with Justice in the MD right now that may be unnecessary.

Another advantage though, is that it dodges Counterbalance a lot better than Seal of Whichever.

[Jak]

I've rarely missed the extra Grove. It's a bit unwieldy to cast in multiples, and 3 seems to allow me to see it enough without clogging on 2 or 3 when I don't need them.

The Aura is kinda iffy. It could be a Seal. The main advantages are against Landstill and Groving for it vs decks packing Deed.

Although with Justice in the MD right now that may be unnecessary.

Another advantage though, is that it dodges Counterbalance a lot better than Seal of Whichever.

I like Seal because Chalice at 3 already screws me over enough. Yeah, it can be cast pre-emptively but shit happens. Especially when Moon holds you off of 2 W. Personally I run 2 Seals and 1 Aura. 1 O Ring also.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That seems a little overboard to me. There are a lot of match-ups where the Disenchant effect is suboptimal; it seems extraneous to pack 3 MD Disenchant effects, especially if you're all ready running O. Ring.

[Nihil Credo]

I heard GreenOne won Nationals with Enchantress. Just noticing y'all until he comes back from the post-tournament debauchery to tell us all about it.

[Brehn]

I heard GreenOne won Nationals with Enchantress. Just noticing y'all until he comes back from the post-tournament debauchery to tell us all about it.

Did he play Enchantress or Parfait With A Draw Engine?

[GreenOne]

I was playing Enchantress. I posted a report here:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10573

Nihil, were you there?

[Nihil Credo]

Nope, I just saw the thread on tipo1.it

[Jak]

Did he play Enchantress or Parfait With A Draw Engine?

Your comments like this are becoming annoying.

Congrats Green! How did you like 2 Confinements?

[GreenOne]

2 Confinaments were enough all day. I suppose they would become handy in the finals against burn, or against storm combo (match loss anyway) if I encountered them, but in the end 2 confinament seemed really enough.

Topdecking Oblivion Ring / Moat / almost any other thing when the opponent discarded your Enchantress (happened 4 times during the day) is so much better. Confinament is also weak against control.

The power of confinament greatly varies with the number of enchantress effects you got:
0 Enchantress: It sucks.
1 Enchantress: It's so-so, maybe I can't mantain it.
2+ Enchantresses: I want it. By that time and with at least 2 enchantress effects up the probability of finding one of your 2 confinaments (or some sterling groves) is quite high.

[Brehn]

Congratulations from my side too, GreenOne.


Your comments like this are becoming annoying.
I'm not the one who started with the annoying comments:

Enchantress doesn't work as a control deck; it's not parfait with a draw engine. The deck needs to be fast and aggressive.

Some parts of the report:


Moat stops his factories and Meddling Mage, while I have time to tutor for Sacred mesa and make a couple of tokens a turn. At some point he has to EE the tokens, but i recover quite fast and kill him.
Who said that this deck can't win without an Enchantress effect? Who said that Moat isn't worth it? This is exactly why Moat is a must-counter for UWx Landstill.


G3: He goes Turn 1 Ritual into Thoughtseize+Hymn, Turn 2 Goyf, Turn 3 Hippy, turn 4 Goyf. Meanwhile i go Turn 1 Land+Aura, turn 2 sterling grove, turn 3 O. Ring on Tarmo, Turn 4 Runed Halo on Hippy, Turn 5 Moat.
Once again, answers win. Try racing this hand with your "fast and aggressive" deck that doesn't contain answers. Note that all your Enchantress effects have probably been discarded on turn 1.

My opinion remains the same: Playing a non-control version of Enchantress is just like playing Cephalid Breakfast, throwing Force of Wills and any other protection spells out of it. A deck with a multi-card combo that is easily disrupted, and no way to back it up.

GreenOne: there are some features in your list which I don't understand very well:
> mainboard Seal of Primordium. I play one in the sideboard, just to combat Chalice of the Void @ 3. Given that you're also playing two Oblivion Rings, was it useful?
> Hoofprints of the Stag: has always been underwhelming for me, because most of the time it's really just a 2cc drawspell and you won't tutor for it. I've seen that you've won one game with it (vs Stax). Was it crucial to have there? Did it show up in other games?
> Dovescape: I've also played this before, as a suboptimal out to combo and as an additional threat against Landstill. But I've ended up cutting it because I've never ever cast it. In the report I can't see you casting it either, would you play it again?

[GreenOne]

Who said that this deck can't win without an Enchantress effect? Who said that Moat isn't worth it? This is exactly why Moat is a must-counter for UWx Landstill.

[...]

Once again, answers win. Try racing this hand with your "fast and aggressive" deck that doesn't contain answers. Note that all your Enchantress effects have probably been discarded on turn 1.


I'm completely with you. Note that the meddling mage was also chanting Enchantress Presence.


GreenOne: there are some features in your list which I don't understand very well:
> mainboard Seal of Primordium. I play one in the sideboard, just to combat Chalice of the Void @ 3. Given that you're also playing two Oblivion Rings, was it useful?


I was playing it over a 2nd Moat I could not find at less than 35€ (Italian Legends). In the games however, it was useful and easier on the manabase than Aura of Silence. Now I'd cut the Runed Halo for the 2nd Moat: we'd lose the combo matchup anyway.
Oh, and Oblivion Ring was busted all day.



> Hoofprints of the Stag: has always been underwhelming for me, because most of the time it's really just a 2cc drawspell and you won't tutor for it. I've seen that you've won one game with it (vs Stax). Was it crucial to have there? Did it show up in other games?

It wasn't great all day because the Tombstalkers, the Exhalted Angels (and the goyfs) were bigger everytime. It's not bad, but not impressive. It's a slot to work on.



> Dovescape: I've also played this before, as a suboptimal out to combo and as an additional threat against Landstill. But I've ended up cutting it because I've never ever cast it. In the report I can't see you casting it either, would you play it again?

Yeah. It's busted any time you want to seal the deal. I could win the game at 2 life with it against EE@3+Cursed scroll, countering the EE. I'd play it everyday, and unfortunately didn't ever show up in games.


EDIT. I did not ever wanted City of Solitude, even against landstill. I'll free this SB slot.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm not the one who started with the annoying comments:

Enchantress doesn't work as a control deck; it's not parfait with a draw engine. The deck needs to be fast and aggressive.

I don't think that antagonizing posts are on an equal annoyance level with strategic conclusions you disagree with.


Who said that this deck can't win without an Enchantress effect? Who said that Moat isn't worth it? This is exactly why Moat is a must-counter for UWx Landstill.

This is a post-board game, note. I'm actually tinkering with a Moat in the SB.

G1 however, almost no list is running Meddling Mage MD. Without a MM on Presence, Groving for Presence is the correct call. In that situation, the list with the lower curve has the edge.


Once again, answers win. Try racing this hand with your "fast and aggressive" deck that doesn't contain answers. Note that all your Enchantress effects have probably been discarded on turn 1.

Note that his Moat = my 3rd Replenish; I still would have won that game.


My opinion remains the same:

No kidding.


Playing a non-control version of Enchantress is just like playing Cephalid Breakfast, throwing Force of Wills and any other protection spells out of it. A deck with a multi-card combo that is easily disrupted, and no way to back it up.

I think you're being ridiculous.

If Elephant Grass, Solitary Confinement, Sterling Grove, Seal/Aura, Ground Seal, Karmic Justice and possibly Runed Halo aren't enough control for you, you need to tighten your play.

He didn't face any match-ups that my list was worse against than his. The fact that he was able to win round 3 was do to fairly fortunate draws. If the Eva Green player had had a Sinkhole to punish him for his high curve, he would have lost that match.



Anyway, congratulations on the win. I think your curve is still suboptimal, but my chief complaint would be the O. Rings, not the Moat. I can understand that Moat helps in certain match-ups, but O. Ring is just not efficient. Pariah would even be better. What those really should be is extra Ground Seals.

Here's the problem; if we take the non-mana neutral cards(that is, everything except lands and acceleration effects), add up the CCs and divide by their number, your deck's "cards that do something" curve is;

2.58 vs 2.17 for my list. That's a little under a 20% increase in the curve. You're also using an additional 2 spots for such effects. Doing so is a gamble that the cards you have will actually impact your opponents gameplan enough to make up for the fact that the engine is running more slowly. In any unpredictable meta-game, that's a bad gamble.

[GreenOne]

He didn't face any match-ups that my list was worse against than his. The fact that he was able to win round 3 was do to fairly fortunate draws. If the Eva Green player had had a Sinkhole to punish him for his high curve, he would have lost that match.

Sure, I had some amount of luck in this game, but nonetheless he had too. If Eva Green could always start this way:
Turn1: Ritual, Thoughtseize, Hymn
Turn2: Goyf
Turn3: Specter
Turn4: Goyf
then it would be definetly be the best deck in the format. It did but still lost. It's also sure that if i drew those Ground Seals instead of O.Rings/Runed Halo/whatever i would have just lost some times cycling a card and then discarded it to Specter. Ground Seal does nothing against Eva Green.

EDIT: Do you also run 19 lands, don't you? This would have screwed you more than me if he had a Sinkhole.



Anyway, congratulations on the win. I think your curve is still suboptimal, but my chief complaint would be the O. Rings, not the Moat. I can understand that Moat helps in certain match-ups, but O. Ring is just not efficient. Pariah would even be better. What those really should be is extra Ground Seals.

Here's the problem; if we take the non-mana neutral cards(that is, everything except lands and acceleration effects), add up the CCs and divide by their number, your deck's "cards that do something" curve is;

2.58 vs 2.17 for my list. That's a little under a 20% increase in the curve. You're also using an additional 2 spots for such effects. Doing so is a gamble that the cards you have will actually impact your opponents gameplan enough to make up for the fact that the engine is running more slowly. In any unpredictable meta-game, that's a bad gamble.

Thanks. There are a lot of matches where Ground Seal does nothing. In fact, it was the most sided-out card in the tournament. In ny matchup where I got Ground Seal with no enchantress effect out I'm just cycling a card, effectively adding 1G to the cost of the next spell I draw. Same thing in matchups where Ground Seal matters, but I already got 1.
Don't get me wrong. I love some number of Ground Seals in the deck, but not 4x cause its effect doesn't stack.

Yeah, I'm doing a gamble in playing Oblivion Ring, but I find it a good deal. Taking 4 life less from a Goyf, not having my spells countered by CB, removing flyers when I have a Moat, removing Deed or EE when the opponent is tapped out, negating Confidant draws, removing pesky artifacts etc. Is worth the +1 card and -1 mana Ground Seal has to offer. I think it slows down your opponent much more than it does for your engine. And it's definetly better (like 10 times better) without an engine out.

I did not ever think of Pariah, but O. Ring is a lot more versatile.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Only on the surface. The number of Enchantments/artifacts that both A) matter, and B) can be hit by O. Ring isn't that high.

Pariah, by comparison, effectively neutralizes two Tarmogoyfs the first turn, and then, if it is to be dealt with, eliminates one of them for good. Same for a Goyf and any other creature.

It may seem as though Sinkhole hurts me more with less land, but with ESG and a lower curve that's actually not the case.

Ground Seal may not be as good in your build, but as you tighten the curve, and especially if you add ESG, I think you'll find it becomes more and more valuable.

And that Eva Green hand isn't actually ideal, especially not vs. Enchantress. Any deck with sweepers can handle hordes; the ideal draw is a good mix of disruption and pressure. He started with disruption, but that was was all he played against you. If that turn 2 Goyf, or that turn 3 Hyppie had been a Sinkhole or Wasteland instead, you'd have had a much rougher time.

[VsTheWorld]

I've been playing a single O Ring in my list (based on Spatula's) alongside 4 Ground Seals and I've never been unhappy to draw the Ring. 3 mana removal in a deck that produces piles of mana has never been a problem for me, and the 3 cost puts it out of normal CB and Chalice range. My main reason for playing it is to combat Deed though. In my testing against 4C Landstill, my opponent is typically forced to tap out or almost tap out for an early Deed. O Ring punishes them for that, and also lets you do techy stuff like remove one of your own Presences knowing Deed is coming next turn and being left with an Enchantress effect post-Deed. Overall it has been quite solid.

[Brehn]

In an unknown meta I prefer to gamble that my answers affect the board. The alternative is your list: Gamble that the engine sticks, otherwise lose.

Going through your calculation, my list currently has a curve of 2.48 with the same number of slots like GreenOne's. Compare my list to your list:

Me/You
4/4 Argothian Enchantress
4/4 Enchantress's Presence
4/3 Sterling Grove
2/3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4/4 Utopia Sprawl
3/1 Wild Growth
0/2 Exploration
3/4 Ground Seal (sometimes I also play 4)
20/19 Lands

Do you really think that your list has a much higher probability of resolving an Enchantress effect and keeping it on the table at least one turn? If you do, on what basis?

If not, ... I don't think you've answered this question yet:


One question you should always ask yourself when designing a list is: You keep a hand with one Enchantress effect. Your opponent forces the Enchantress and plays a 4/5 Goyf. Can you still win this game? What if Goyf is 5/6?

I don't see how you do this with your list. I just have no clue at all. That's why I keep arguing against it. Could you give me some examples from tournament play / testing?

[Jak]

One question you should always ask yourself when designing a list is: You keep a hand with one Enchantress effect. Your opponent forces the Enchantress and plays a 4/5 Goyf. Can you still win this game? What if Goyf is 5/6?

Are you serious? Your opponent would then have 3-4 cards in hand. You would have at least 6. Play an Elephant Grass or Grove. You have plently of time to tutor for an Enchantress or O Ring. If you play Elephant Grass, they are really messed up. Do they apply pressure or set up CB. It gives you so much time and that allows you to win the game.

[Brehn]

Are you serious?

Are you serious?


Your opponent would then have 3-4 cards in hand. You would have at least 6.

Land Aura Land Enchantress = 4 cards. 2 draws = 7+2-4 = 5 cards in hand. No, "at least 6" is not always correct.


Play an Elephant Grass or Grove.

Say you don't have Grove.


You have plently of time to tutor for an Enchantress or O Ring.

1) You don't always draw Grove. Spatula's list has 4 Argothian, 4 Presence, 3 Grove. If one got countered and he has 50 cards left in his deck, there's only a 50% chance that one of the remaining Argothians, Presences or Groves is within the top 3 cards of his library. Also: What do you tutor for if Grove is the third card? Which leads me to:
2) We're talking about SpatulaOfTheAges' list. He decides not to play Oblivion Ring.


If you play Elephant Grass, they are really messed up.

Are you assuming they have less than 2 lands? Otherwise they aren't messed up but able to swing for 4 or 5 every turn.


Do they apply pressure or set up CB. It gives you so much time and that allows you to win the game.

In theory yes. But you still need some kind of business or answer to win.

*Specifying the example so there won't be any misunderstandings in future*:

You mull to 6
Opponent plays Land go.
You draw a card and play Fetch, Utopia Sprawl - EOT Brainstorm.
Opponent plays Fetch, Ponder, go.
You draw a card and play Fetch, Argothian Enchantress. Opponent: Force of Will, pitching a blue card.
Opponent plays Land, Tarmogoyf (4/5), go.

Your hand: 4 blanks which do not include Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence or Sterling Grove. You're at 18. Say your opponent is playing Tempo Thresh, his hand is: Land, Land, Bolt. His next draws: Land, Bolt, Land, Land, Land. What are your chances?

EDIT: Changed Presence to Argothian. As a rough sketch I've calculated a chance of 34% of you losing. I'll check again now if this is correct.

[Jak]

Are you serious?



Land Aura Land Enchantress = 4 cards. 2 draws = 7+2-4 = 5 cards in hand. No, "at least 6" is not always correct.



Say you don't have Grove.



1) You don't always draw Grove. Spatula's list has 4 Argothian, 4 Presence, 3 Grove. If one got countered and he has 50 cards left in his deck, there's only a 50% chance that one of the remaining Argothians, Presences or Groves is within the top 3 cards of his library. Also: What do you tutor for if Grove is the third card? Which leads me to:
2) We're talking about SpatulaOfTheAges' list. He decides not to play Oblivion Ring.



Are you assuming they have less than 2 lands? Otherwise they aren't messed up but able to swing for 4 or 5 every turn.



In theory yes. But you still need some kind of business or answer to win.

*Specifying the example so there won't be any misunderstandings in future*:

You mull to 6
Opponent plays Land go.
You draw a card and play Fetch, Utopia Sprawl - EOT Brainstorm.
Opponent plays Fetch, Ponder, go.
You draw a card and play Fetch, Enchantres's Presence (daze-proof thanks to an ESG in hand). Opponent: Force of Will, pitching a blue card.
Opponent plays Land, Tarmogoyf (4/5), go.

Your hand: Elvish Spirit Guide, 3 blanks which do not include Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence or Sterling Grove. You're at 18. Say your opponent is playing Tempo Thresh, his hand is: Land, Land, Bolt. His next draws: Land, Bolt, Land, Land, Land. What are your chances?

Argothian costs 2. Land, Land, Argothian. So you have 6. I shouldn't have said "at least".

"Say you don't have Grove"... Hmmm, then what are your outs? Are you going to draw that one of Moat or your 1 Oblivion Ring? You can't make a question and then discount my answer with "say you don't draw Grove".

Thresh usually won't have 3 lands on the 3rd turn. They only run 17-18 and Daze sets them back also. Elephant Grass will either Chant them (with no kicker) or will hold off their attack. If you can buy time then you will draw into your Enchantresses, Groves, answers, etc. You then win.

[Brehn]

"Say you don't have Grove"... Hmmm, then what are your outs? Are you going to draw that one of Moat or your 1 Oblivion Ring? You can't make a question and then discount my answer with "say you don't draw Grove".

See, I've expressed myself the wrong way. When talking about "Hands with one Enchantress effect" I'm actually counting Sterling Grove as an Enchantress effect. The example just requires keeping a six card hand, consisting of 2 Fetchlands, Utopia Sprawl, Argothian Enchantress and two blanks and not topdecking another Enchantress effect in 2 draws - not that unusual.



Elephant Grass will either Chant them (with no kicker) or will hold off their attack.
Usually (my experience), it Chants them without kicker. Which does nothing against a swinging Goyf.



If you can buy time then you will draw into your Enchantresses, Groves, answers, etc. You then win.

Ya, well, see?

Answers. Answers. I'm talking about a list without answers here! The only "answers" Spatula plays are: Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, Sterling Grove.

[Jak]

See, I've expressed myself the wrong way. When talking about "Hands with one Enchantress effect" I'm actually counting Sterling Grove as an Enchantress effect. The example just requires keeping a six card hand, consisting of 2 Fetchlands, Utopia Sprawl, Argothian Enchantress and two blanks and not topdecking another Enchantress effect in 2 draws - not that unusual.

Usually (my experience), it Chants them without kicker.

Ya, well, see?

Answers. Answers. I'm talking about a list without answers here! The only "answers" Spatula plays are: Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, Sterling Grove, Solitary Confinement.

I said, "no kicker"...

Elephant Grass is an answer. Spat also has 2 slots open which could be Oblivion Ring, Grove, Confinement, etc. Meta dependent.

You run 2 more answers than Spat (the same as me) that you can really only get with Grove. How are the decks different in that situation?

[Brehn]

I said, "no kicker"...
Me too. I was confirming that is is a Chant without kicker - as opposed to holding back their attack.


Elephant Grass is an answer.
No. It doesn't prevent Goyf from swinging. It's only an answer if the Threshold player is thinking "I really should play Control here after forcing my opponent's engine card".


Spat also has 2 slots open which could be Oblivion Ring, Grove, Confinement, etc. Meta dependent.

You run 2 more answers than Spat (the same as me) that you can really only get with Grove. How are the decks different in that situation?

The number is 5. For GreenOne's list, the number is 7. Having 5-7 more relevant topdecks is a huge difference. Spatula has a 50% chance of seeing a relevant card in his top 3. I have 64%. GreenOne has 69%. Also, if you draw a Sterling Grove shortly before your death and have no answer to prevent a single Goyf from swinging - problematic.

[Jak]

Me too. I was confirming that is is a Chant without kicker - as opposed to holding back their attack.

No. It doesn't prevent Goyf from swinging. It's only an answer if the Threshold player is thinking "I really should play Control here after forcing my opponent's engine card".

The number is 5. For GreenOne's list, the number is 7. Having 5-7 more relevant topdecks is a huge difference.

But now they can't continue playing Goyfs or Geese. It does set them back and provide you with time. If they force your engine card, you need time. Fog them with Confinement or play an ESG to block for a turn. If you can buy yourself a few turns to set up you will most likely win.

Can you post your list for reference.

[Brehn]

It surely does provide you with some time. But it's not going to help if you can't even stop that single Goyf.

This has been my list up to now:

4 Windswept Heath
1/2 Wooded Foothills
2 Savannah
8/7 Forest
2 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Taiga
3 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
3/4 Ground Seal
1/0 Sylvan Library

4 Elephant Grass
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Karmic Justice
3 Replenish
1 Words of War

Right now I consider going down to two Confinement because two people with two very different takes on the deck (Spatula and GreenOne) did so. I don't know yet what to include in this slot - maybe I go up to 4+1 Ground Seal + Sylvan Library, maybe a meta slot like Choke - and maybe an additional answer like Oblivion Ring #2 or Runed Halo. I'd also like to include the third ESG somewhere. When I said 5 and 7 in my last post, I was mistaken, the correct numbers are 4 and 6.

[Jak]

Well, here is mine.

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

4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Wild Growth
2 Exploration

4 Elephant Grass
4 Ground Seal
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Moat
1 Karmic Justice
1 Words of War
1 Sacred Mesa

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress Presense
4 Sterling Grove
3 Replenish

This is pretty different from Spat's list. I still use Spat's list a lot but I have been liking this version a lot. After going 0-2 in the Source tourney, there were a few things that bothered me. Losing to Magus of the Moon on turn one when I ran 11 basics. Not being able to get enough green or enough white. I wanted to set up better then be able to "combo" out by playing a bunch of awesome spells. running Wild Growths help with the green.

I also looked a lot at Zach's list and liked the accel set up.

[GreenOne]

I also looked a lot at Zach's list and liked the accel set up.

Yeah, I tested a version with 2x Chrome Mox and was really happy about it, allowing for an earlier enchantress and like an "exploration" when the engine started. I dropped them when I began playing with 8 auras. Did you test them?

[Jak]

Yeah, I tested a version with 2x Chrome Mox and was really happy about it, allowing for an earlier enchantress and like an "exploration" when the engine started. I dropped them when I began playing with 8 auras. Did you test them?

I played with it, but I never drew it enough for it to really make it worthwhile. It was the same as ESG for me, awesome in the first 2 turns but drawing it later just sucked. I did like how it was nice against Moon, but hopefully my new mana base is a little more stable. Not that it wasn't before because first turn Moons don't happen everytime, but I like having 2 plains.

I am still on the fence about ESG/Chrome Mox. I am leaning towards ESG because it helps against Daze, can be hardcast, and losing 2 cards is not something I really wanted.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I really don't see the validity in trying to go through this situation by situation. Unless you have several hundred hours to spare.


Do you really think that your list has a much higher probability of resolving an Enchantress effect and keeping it on the table at least one turn? If you do, on what basis?

It has a much stronger ability to exploit a single Enchantress effect.


I don't see how you do this with your list. I just have no clue at all. That's why I keep arguing against it. Could you give me some examples from tournament play / testing?

The substantive difference between my list and yours is 1x Mesa, 1x O Ring, and 1x Moat. Of those, the free slots could be either Mesa or Moat, although I would strongly advise against running both in those slots, as that's just too much strain on the curve.

Say those spots are Library and Halo.

Most of the time, Thresh will be able to draw more control. In the case of Moat, they can play a flier. In the case of O. Ring, they can just drop another threat.

Running additional high CC defensive spells improves your odds marginally in situations where things are not going your way. Running a tight curve significantly decreases the odds of slowing down and letting the game slip away to a sweeper or being outraced.


Going through your calculation, my list currently has a curve of 2.48

I count 2.54. Mesa counts as 5 because it does nothing without an extra 2 mana investment, and doesn't even stick around. Grass and Grove at least have an initial effect, and WoWar can be played and forgotten.

[Redlotus27]

I have to disagree about Runed Halo being weak. It just stalls the beatdown until enchantress takes control of the board with either moat or confinement; and then wins at its leisure through Words or Mesa. Runed Halo should IMO be at least a 2 of main and at least 1 SB. Its that good.

[JMG021283]

<--- gonna agree with runed halo being main decked. Sadly only took 10th at legacy champs..... I have to say it was good all day.

[GreenOne]

<--- gonna agree with runed halo being main decked. Sadly only took 10th at legacy champs..... I have to say it was good all day.

It's generally not a bad card, but it was difficult to cast in the early game due to the lack of WW in the first turns. However, I should point that I plain suck at making manabases, so maybe it's my fault.

[JMG021283]

Lol, it's all good. :P Generally I like to think I'm good at it:P If you ask anyone I play with, I am. Although, if you go to the dredge forums. And look at the list that top 8'd last year in legacy champs played by ernest. I'm a horrible deck builder. Although, what do you want when you throw a side board together in 3 mins before tourney:P.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

<--- gonna agree with runed halo being main decked. Sadly only took 10th at legacy champs..... I have to say it was good all day.

Can we get a report and/or a list?

[Odd Mutation]

I'm picking this deck up again and I would love to read that report too!

Thanks in advance,

Robrecht

[waSP]

What's up with you all running 3-4 Sterling Grove?

3 is slightly excessive and 4 can be a little silly.

Is it for tutoring purposes or for protection?

[Jak]

I find that grove is what makes this deck run smoothly at times. Tutoring up an enchantress, getting an answer (confinement, justice, sb tech, etc), or just turning off disenchant effects. I would never go below 4.

[Julian23]

It totally depends on the matchup and gamestate. In the begenning - especially against Aggro - its all about finding Confinement/Moat but gradually turns into a protective card. Sometimes I find myself tutoring for an additional Sterling Grove and bring back the sacrificed one with Replenish to establish spot removal-proof protection. It's hard to give numbers but I'd say its about 45%/55% tutoring/protection for me.

[GreenOne]

Gentleman, we got it. Forget about those Wild Growth, cause now we have the Lush Growth:

Lush Growth G
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Land
Enchanted land is a Mountain, Forest and Plains.

Exactly for our colors, better than Utopia Sprawl. We can now run even less unbasics.

[Brehn]

I admit: I also fell into this trap and wanted to throw out Wild Growths. Then I read the card again.

it doesn't make lands produce 2 mana

[GreenOne]

Fuck Lush Growth. I hated you from the first time.

[TimeFlip]

Hey dudes, this is my enchantress deck. It's got a small Glittering Wish sideboard. It also runs Crop Rotation and Flagstones of Trokair, going for a Dueling Grounds/Kor Haven stall. Other unorthodox card choices include Wicker-Bough Elder, which I find more effective as MD artifact/enchantment removal since it's harder to Chalice against (you'd need a chalice for 4) plus counterbalance against. And, it makes a decent win-con. I also have Words of Worship in addition to Words of War since I wasn't doing too well against burn. A lot of the SB are for combo decks, namely Wheel of Sun/Moon and Runed Halo. Let me know what you think.

Lands
4 Plains
11 Forest
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Mountain
2 Kor Haven

Creatures
2 Yavimaya Elder
4 Argothian Enchantress
3 Wicker-Bough Elder

Spells
3 Crop Rotation
4 Exploration
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Enchantress's Presence
3 Sterling Grove
3 Sylvan Library
1 Words of War
3 Glittering Wish
3 Dueling Grounds
1 Words of Worship

Sideboard
SB: 1 Sterling Grove
SB: 1 Dueling Grounds
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 1 Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 Mystic Enforcer
SB: 4 Runed Halo
SB: 3 Ground Seal
SB: 3 Wheel of Sun and Moon

And for your entertainment--this is a screen shot of one match. This deck is capable of stalling out a game really long. I mean really, really long.
http://i414.photobucket.com/albums/pp224/TimeFlip/Magic%20Screenshots/LegacyMartyr.jpg

[Forbiddian]

Hey, guys, I used to run this deck, back before Solitary Confinement was printed. Oops. Ok, now that you've laughed at me, to business (although I did play it AFTER Solitary was printed and it was... much better to say the least):

It's nice to see that the deck has changed a lot from the versions I ran. When I saw Utopia Sprawl, I decided to start playing Magic again. Still, I'm confused with some of the deck choices you all seem to have decided on. I assume that the main problem with the deck is still doing something on Turn 1. I have some suggestions.


First of all: vs. Timeflip: You HAVE HAVE HAVE to run Serra's Sanctum, especially with Crop Rotation engine (that's cute, I would have never thought of that). Sanctum one of the strongest cards in the deck, especially if you can dig out a 1-of so consistently. I need to ask if Crop Rotation can consistently connect with Ruins of Trokair, and if it's worth lowering your enchantment percentage?

It has strong upsides, but I question the drawbacks:
Getting Turn 2 Magus or something dropped on you, making Trokair much worse than e.g. Plains (the likely replacement, it's also worse than Forest or Fetchlands, most certainly).
Getting x2 Trokair without Crop Rotation, losing you tempo eventually. You don't lose cards, but it costs you W.
Getting Crop Rotation without Trokair, obviously worse than the above.
Getting Crop Rotation countered (especially in the above situation).
Topping into Crop Rotation (this has to do with lowering the Enchantment percentage). You'd pretty much never want to top into Crop Rotation (same as topping into a land only it takes G to use). Wild Growth and such can keep you drawing.





When I played, I used to roll with Pariah as my T3 drop to trip up Gobbos or whatever. I also ran Swords back then (but without Solitary, it was a race to Worship+Enchantress). I realize now that it should have been Kirtar's Desire, especially in the new metagame. If Goblins wants to win, they need to kill you before turn 4. If you Desire their Lackey, they have no chance. Desire also beats Tarmo, obviously, often at 2:1 pace. Obviously it has some drawbacks, like how it doesn't actually remove the creature (so removal can get it back). Also, it doesn't stop ability creatures like Goblin Welder or Meddling Mage or Magus of the Moon (obviously the biggest problem)

Still, it seems like everyone's running Elephant Grass, and Desire buys almost as much time as Grass does for no upkeep. Although I also run Elephant Grass. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash the grass. Swords might be better than both, though. It's not an Enchantment, so topping it midgame kinda sucks, but in games where you don't want to top Swords, you probably don't want to top Grass or Desire, either. I noticed that early game, I rarely Kirtar's Desire into a draw off of Argothian, indicating that Swords might play as the same thing, just it also gets rid of MotM. I noticed, because everytime I try to make a pun about how much Kirtar Desires my sexy elf, but instead goes to party with their creature, and I haven't gotten to do it yet. I do look for opportunities for this to happen:

Me: Play Grass.
Him: What the fuck!?!? Damn I hate that card. SHIT!
Me: Mellow out, man!
Him: Dude, the card just pisses me off. Sorry.
Me: God dammit. Nobody gets my fucking jokes.


I maindeck Ground Seal. There are basically three scenarios: No enchantresses, 1 enchantress, and 2 enchantresses (in play).

So with no enchantress, Ground Seal is a cantrip, bad vs. aggro (not useless, but you'd rather have had something else). But anyway, why would you keep a no-enchantress hand vs. Aggro? It is great against Combo, though. If anybody still runs Dragon or something, it's a ridiculous house. It's strong vs. Ichorid and shuts down Life from the Loam (decks that run it are usually relying on LftL to recur stuff, since it's usually unstoppable except by Leyline, Wheel, and this).

With a single enchantress effect, there's just about no card you'd rather see, because it lets you actually try for Solitary if you have a decent Solitaire hand (like 5+ cards, 4 enchantments, one is Seal, and under pressure to drop it sooner rather than later = Go for it!). Also it lets you flower up from under control if you managed to slip an Enchantress in. This often happens if you both burn out of business spells earlier but then you top into an Enchantress. Following up with Ground Seal I call Accumulated Knowledge for 2.

If you've resolved two enchantresses and your opponent isn't smashing your face in, though, it's probably GG. Still, Ground Seal digs for three at this point (usually you're desperately looking for a Solitary if the game is still under contention at this point).


The last card I want to talk about is Mirri's Guile. I love it. I run 8 fetches. It's obviously not as good as Brainstorm, but it's quite effective. Knowing what's coming is useful as well (if you can remember three cards). Unlike Sylvan Library, Guile is played on Turn 1. Unlike Sylvan, you can never Necro with it or syngergize with Words, but unlike Sylvan, you can run it under Solitary Confinement to optimize draws. It's obviously not the best card in the deck, but it's pretty solid. I can't imagine not wanting to have it, especially where turn 1 drops are so rare.

Of course, drawing two is horse shit. Worse than horse shit, it's like casting Hymn to Tourach on yourself. Well, not that bad. It's like Hurricane Katrina. Not that bad either. It's like Hurricane Gustav, confined only to your side of the board.

It won't like change your life to run it, but I think a single Mirri's Guile would be an improvement in most decks. I'm going to write an article about sucking up the prettiness and running an ugly-looking 1-of (that's not just a tutor target or an obligatory win condition).



Edit: Man, that's tl;dr.

To summarize
tl;dr:

Look into running Kirtar's Desire if you have trouble with Aggro.
Look into running Ground Seal.
Look into running Mirri's Guile as a 1-of, especially if you don't play Library, and *especially* if you already play Library. Actually, that didn't make any sense. But yeah, just look into it. Especially if you play Enchantress!

[TimeFlip]

First of all: vs. Timeflip: You HAVE HAVE HAVE to run Serra's Sanctum, especially with Crop Rotation engine (that's cute, I would have never thought of that). Sanctum one of the strongest cards in the deck, especially if you can dig out a 1-of so consistently. I need to ask if Crop Rotation can consistently connect with Ruins of Trokair, and if it's worth lowering your enchantment percentage?

It has strong upsides, but I question the drawbacks:
Getting Turn 2 Magus or something dropped on you, making Trokair much worse than e.g. Plains (the likely replacement, it's also worse than Forest or Fetchlands, most certainly).
Getting x2 Trokair without Crop Rotation, losing you tempo eventually. You don't lose cards, but it costs you W.
Getting Crop Rotation without Trokair, obviously worse than the above.
Getting Crop Rotation countered (especially in the above situation).
Topping into Crop Rotation (this has to do with lowering the Enchantment percentage). You'd pretty much never want to top into Crop Rotation (same as topping into a land only it takes G to use). Wild Growth and such can keep you drawing.

Me: Play Grass.
Him: What the fuck!?!? Damn I hate that card. SHIT!
Me: Mellow out, man!
Him: Dude, the card just pisses me off. Sorry.
Me: God dammit. Nobody gets my fucking jokes.

The last card I want to talk about is Mirri's Guile. I love it. I run 8 fetches. It's obviously not as good as Brainstorm, but it's quite effective. Knowing what's coming is useful as well (if you can remember three cards). Unlike Sylvan Library, Guile is played on Turn 1. Unlike Sylvan, you can never Necro with it or syngergize with Words, but unlike Sylvan, you can run it under Solitary Confinement to optimize draws. It's obviously not the best card in the deck, but it's pretty solid. I can't imagine not wanting to have it, especially where turn 1 drops are so rare.

Of course, drawing two is horse shit. Worse than horse shit, it's like casting Hymn to Tourach on yourself. Well, not that bad. It's like Hurricane Katrina. Not that bad either. It's like Hurricane Gustav, confined only to your side of the board.


Hey I'm from New Orleans =[

Anyways, I think Serra's Sanctum would benefit more if my deck is geared against control. As it stands, I'm usually tutoring out Kor Haven and getting out Dueling Grounds to have a soft lock against aggro. I have played with Serra's Sanctum before, and tried different things like Decree of Justice and Demonfire. It really depends on your meta.

As far as Crop Rotation, usually with Exploration and Yavimaya Elder combined I can afford to lose a few lands. And even then, you can Crop Rotation at their EOT, and if they counter it, they have less of a chance to counter during your turn. Counterbalance is a different story, and that's why I'm trying Wicker-Bough Elder. Oh! And it shuffles, a definite plus for Sylvan Library/Mirri's Guile

As far as Mirri's Guile, just make sure you can shuffle. A card you may want to try with Solitary Confinement is Elfhame Sanctuary. It'll get you a basic land per turn without drawback.

Oh and lol at the magic jokes.
--------------------------------
A card that looks cute with enchantress is Forbidden Crypt. There's a deck out there that uses Cadaverous Bloom, enchantress, Whip Silk, and Tendirls, but I think I've got some ideas for one with the Crypt. I'll sketch out a list soon.

[Jak]

Hey I'm from New Orleans =[

Anyways, I think Serra's Sanctum would benefit more if my deck is geared against control. As it stands, I'm usually tutoring out Kor Haven and getting out Dueling Grounds to have a soft lock against aggro. I have played with Serra's Sanctum before, and tried different things like Decree of Justice and Demonfire. It really depends on your meta.

As far as Crop Rotation, usually with Exploration and Yavimaya Elder combined I can afford to lose a few lands. And even then, you can Crop Rotation at their EOT, and if they counter it, they have less of a chance to counter during your turn. Counterbalance is a different story, and that's why I'm trying Wicker-Bough Elder. Oh! And it shuffles, a definite plus for Sylvan Library/Mirri's Guile

As far as Mirri's Guile, just make sure you can shuffle. A card you may want to try with Solitary Confinement is Elfhame Sanctuary. It'll get you a basic land per turn without drawback.

Oh and lol at the magic jokes.
--------------------------------
A card that looks cute with enchantress is Forbidden Crypt. There's a deck out there that uses Cadaverous Bloom, enchantress, Whip Silk, and Tendirls, but I think I've got some ideas for one with the Crypt. I'll sketch out a list soon.

Sanctum is amazing with Words enchantments. You will win so much faster. No need for Demonfire or Decree.

Why do you play Dueling Grounds for a soft lock? Why not play confinement for a hard lock? You don't need to add anything extra to make confinement good. This engine is perfect for it.

Forbidden Crypt isn't in the normal colors and is bad in a deck that plays all permanents. I would rather just play more Replenishes.

@Forbidden

This deck crushes aggro already. Kirtar's Desire sucks against aggro. Taking out one creature won't do much against an aggro deck. Now, it is okay against Tarmogoyf so I won't say it sucks completely because it will buy turns. I think it testing could be done. It is not better than Grass, though. Comletely different cards and they shine in different MUs.

Ground Seal is also used against Ichorid. It doesn't lock them at all but slows them down enough for you to get your engine. Just another reason why it's good :smile:

I have to go but I am glad people are posting in here and hope I can finish replying soon.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I've tried Kirtar's Desire in the MD or SB at various times. As Jak said, it's pretty limited to Threshold. It's not a bad call, but I think it's pretty meta-game specific.

re: Lists; I can't really approve of any list with an enchantment count below 30 and without Confinement.

Crop Rotation is kind of narrow; the interaction with Sanctum is potentially amazing, but that's really just win-more.

[TimeFlip]

Sanctum is amazing with Words enchantments. You will win so much faster. No need for Demonfire or Decree.

Why do you play Dueling Grounds for a soft lock? Why not play confinement for a hard lock? You don't need to add anything extra to make confinement good. This engine is perfect for it.

Forbidden Crypt isn't in the normal colors and is bad in a deck that plays all permanents. I would rather just play more Replenishes.



Ok, agreed on Serra's Sanctum. I facepalm myself for that.

As far as Dueling Grounds vs. Solitary Confinement, I put in Dueling Grounds to improve the early game. It takes a few turns to bring out the Enchantresses and Presences so with 6 copies of Dueling Grounds (3 virtual ones from Glittering Wish, considering upping to 7), this will come down early and be able to return more consistently should it get EE'd, Deed'd, etc. Plus, Grounds can come down earlier without slowing down your draws. Late game though, Solitary Confinement is better, so I'll give in and put maybe 2 in.

As far as Forbidden Crypt goes, I was sketching out a B/G version. Looks like it could work in a combo deck with Squandered Resources and Cadaverous Bloom with Exploration and Gaea's Touch. I'll play around with it later.

@SpatulaOfTheAges
Crop Rotation also helps out with Sylvan Library. It's like shuffling for Top. I know most lists run Serra's Sanctum, but I run Kor Haven also, so being able to tutor for it helps.

[Jaiminho]

@SpatulaOfTheAges
Crop Rotation also helps out with Sylvan Library. It's like shuffling for Top. I know most lists run Serra's Sanctum, but I run Kor Haven also, so being able to tutor for it helps.

Worst thing about Haven is that it sucks so much in the early game that it's basically a land that gets Wastelanded and only adds colorless. With Confinement, you are able to get it on the board by turn 4 almost all the time and then stabilize with it right away or at most 2 turns later, while being able to afford some card disadvantage until the 2nd enchantress is set. Haven only gets to be useful when Confinement already is.

And don't play less than an infinite amount of enchantments. You don't want to lose games because you've drawn into Crop, bad creatures (not Argothian Enchantress) and Wish. Even Replenish, with its complete brokeness, shouldn't be filling more than 2 slots in the deck.

BTW, played this today and won 3-0-1 trampling Goblins, RG Beats and Dragon Stompy, splitting with UGr Swans Thresh. After playing out 2 games for then we had to leave, we went 1-1, with me winning post-board. I love to see a stormless meta.

[waSP]

Kor Haven? Not Maze of Ith? Why punish yourself?

[Jaiminho]

Kor Haven? Not Maze of Ith? Why punish yourself?

You need some kind of magic to make Maze of Ith produce mana.

[waSP]

Maze of Ith gives you -1 mana. Kor Haven gives you -3. Unless you aren't using it right away. Then you're just bad for tutoring for Kor Haven.

Can you guys just start running Energy Field, already?

[TimeFlip]

Worst thing about Haven is that it sucks so much in the early game that it's basically a land that gets Wastelanded and only adds colorless. With Confinement, you are able to get it on the board by turn 4 almost all the time and then stabilize with it right away or at most 2 turns later, while being able to afford some card disadvantage until the 2nd enchantress is set. Haven only gets to be useful when Confinement already is.

And don't play less than an infinite amount of enchantments. You don't want to lose games because you've drawn into Crop, bad creatures (not Argothian Enchantress) and Wish. Even Replenish, with its complete brokeness, shouldn't be filling more than 2 slots in the deck.

BTW, played this today and won 3-0-1 trampling Goblins, RG Beats and Dragon Stompy, splitting with UGr Swans Thresh. After playing out 2 games for then we had to leave, we went 1-1, with me winning post-board. I love to see a stormless meta.

Yeah, I took out Kor Haven from my deck. With it being the only nonbasic, and me taking out Crop Rotation and Flagstones as well, it just wasn't doing it. I also bumped down Dueling Grounds to a 2-of maindeck.

Oh, and as far as enchantment counts, I think 30 is a good minimum
number.

@waSP
Energy Field is a good card, but is Wheel of Sun and Moon a total must for it? Seems pretty vulnerable, and it lacks the shroud effect of Solitary Confinement.

Well, this is the new decklist of the GWr Glittering Wish version:
// Lands
8 [UG] Plains
12 [UNH] Forest
1 [UNH] Mountain
1 [US] Serra's Sanctum

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [US] Exploration
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
3 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [ON] Words of War
4 [FUT] Glittering Wish
2 [IN] Dueling Grounds
1 [SHM] Runed Halo
2 [UD] Replenish
2 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [10E] Aura of Silence
1 [SHM] Greater Auramancy
1 [OD] Karmic Justice
4 [VI] Elephant Grass

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IN] Sterling Grove
SB: 1 [IN] Dueling Grounds
SB: 3 [SHM] Runed Halo
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [TSP] Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 [TSB] Mystic Enforcer
SB: 4 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 1 [SHM] Mercy Killing
SB: 1 [TSB] Fiery Justice
SB: 1 [MI] Energy Bolt

Now to explain some card choices:
Runed Halo -- Randomly wins. Sutured Ghoul, Tendrils of Agony, Exalted Angel, oh and Orim's Chant. You name it. The extras in the SB are for the combo matchup mainly.

Karmic Justice -- For the board clearers, like Engineered Explosives, Pernicious Deed, and the various "Destroy all enchantments".

Unorthodox SB choices:
Mercy Killing -- One of the big problems with GW is enchantment removal. Well, this takes out creatures like Dark Confidant, possibly Meddling Mage, and Goblin Welder.

Fiery Justice -- Board clearer mainly.

Energy Bolt -- Wishable finisher with Serra's Sanctum out.

I'll have some matchup results soon once I get some time. So far, in testing it's been doing well.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Energy Field is neat in theory. Except you can't pass with more than 7 cards. And you can't break fetchlands. And if you cast Replenish, you won't get it back, because it will see the Replenish go into the yard.

Confinement is still your best bet.

[waSP]

You run both. And you play Wheel of Sun and Moon to help Energy Field.

In the first ~5 turns you shouldn't have more than 7 cards in your hand in any case. And after that, it's not at all difficult to find and protect a Confinement.

Here's what a build with Energy Field, Living Wish, and a proper combo finish can look like:

Lands (16)
7 Forest
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Savannah

Acceleration (9)
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Exploration

Enchantress Effects (11)
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Living Wish
3 Argothian Enchantress

Stalls (20)
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Seal of Removal
3 Energy Field
3 Seal of Primordium
2 Words of Wind
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon

Randomly good cards (4)
4 Brainstorm

Wishboard
4 Gilded Drake
2 Sterling Grove
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Eternal Witness
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Dimir Guildmage (kill condition)
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Serra's Sanctum


This plays a little differently than you guys are used to. It doesn't try to stall right away with Elephant Grass, but instead tries to set up its engine and then play stall cards. It'll get out Enchantress effects a bit more consistently with 11 of them and 4 Brainstorms. The kill is a little more compact (in that you wish for it). You don't need to run Replenish or Sterling Grove game 1 if you're properly redundant. Just get out Wheel of Sun and Moon and play out your spells however many times it takes. The only times I've lost with this deck have been when my opponent has had an early Goyf and can counter 4 spells (or the equivalent with discard).

My record with this build (or one very similar) is 8-2-1. It should be better, but I didn't have a strong understanding of my role in some matchups (black thresh) and played one match too slow.

[Jak]

You run both. And you play Wheel of Sun and Moon to help Energy Field.

In the first ~5 turns you shouldn't have more than 7 cards in your hand in any case. And after that, it's not at all difficult to find and protect a Confinement.

Here's what a build with Energy Field, Living Wish, and a proper combo finish can look like:

Lands (16)
7 Forest
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Savannah

Acceleration (9)
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Exploration

Enchantress Effects (11)
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Living Wish
3 Argothian Enchantress

Stalls (20)
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Seal of Removal
3 Energy Field
3 Seal of Primordium
2 Words of Wind
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon

Randomly good cards (4)
4 Brainstorm

Wishboard
4 Gilded Drake
2 Sterling Grove
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Eternal Witness
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Dimir Guildmage (kill condition)
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Serra's Sanctum


This plays a little differently than you guys are used to. It doesn't try to stall right away with Elephant Grass, but instead tries to set up its engine and then play stall cards. It'll get out Enchantress effects a bit more consistently with 11 of them and 4 Brainstorms. The kill is a little more compact (in that you wish for it). You don't need to run Replenish or Sterling Grove game 1 if you're properly redundant. Just get out Wheel of Sun and Moon and play out your spells however many times it takes. The only times I've lost with this deck have been when my opponent has had an early Goyf and can counter 4 spells (or the equivalent with discard).

My record with this build (or one very similar) is 8-2-1. It should be better, but I didn't have a strong understanding of my role in some matchups (black thresh) and played one match too slow.

It is different, but I don't like a few things.

You run 16 lands. Even with Brainstorm this is way too few. You will get slowed down just searching for lands. How does this deck win when it can only play a couple spells a turn? How can you effectively use Words of Wind? You run less lands, less cantrips, and you have a higher curve. This deck needs mana. You can not abuse the deck. You run 16 lands and no Serra's Sanctum. The deck wins with its engine and by not abusing that engine you are weakening the deck. You may be able to "combo" out later in the game when you get all your lands out on the table but that is way slower than the normal GWr version.

What don't you like about Elephant Grass? Seal of Removal is cool but won't stop EtW, Ichorid, or a swarm of Goblins.

No Replenish, Justice, Grove, Sanctum MD. I am not saying, "Run my version or anyone else's", but these cards are good for a reason. Sterling Grove allows you to have a small toolbox in the MD and SB, get an Enchantress piece, or turn Grip off. I don't understand people not running it. Replenish + Justice is amazing vs any hate. Deed sucks but this combo beats Deed. Sanctum allows for the abuse. Playing 5 spells in a turn or something to then set up a WoWar kill hand is what it does best. As I said, this deck needs mana.

Now, I think blue has merit, but I would never cut down from the white cards that give so much to the deck. I run 12 Enchantresses to your 11, but you do run Brainstorm. I really don't think you are more consistent at getting an Enchantress down. I also think that if you do ever get one down that you can't abuse it as well as I can. I really do like Blue in the deck, but I think the list needs work.

[waSP]

@Jak
Your post makes a couple of bad assumptions.

1. Your opponent has a bunch of enchantment hate main.
2. In order to win, one needs to something other than cast Enchantress spells on turns 1-3.
3. Playing 5 spells should be a setup turn (rather than a kill turn).

re: your comments on good cards
They are certainly good and powerful cards. There's a problem with all of those cards. They are not consistent. Grove is really good if there's a ton of enchantment hate floating around. Ditto Replenish. Sanctum's really good if you get 2 other lands in the early game especially if your opponent isn't running Wasteland.

All your criticisms belie your assumed authority. You're telling me how to lose less. The goal is to win more. A subtle distinction I hope you get eventually :P

Enchantress may be a combo deck, but it isn't one that relies on speed. I know it's pretty easy to get in that mindset (I did too when I was still trying to make a Sanctum-fied version work). But the faster you are, the easier it is to get disrupted. That's why you're trying to pre-empt them with Karmic Justice and Sterling Grove and Replenish. Because you're not confident you'll be able to go off when you think you need to.

[Jaiminho]

waSP, I think we read different posts from Jak, since I can't see where it's written what you said it's there, but anyways:


1. Your opponent has a bunch of enchantment hate main.

Jak didn't say you need to fight through lots of maindeck hate, but that you need outs against cards that take enchantments from the board and place them on a graveyard, such as Deed, EE and Grip. Those are heavily played and can screw you up if you don't prepare yourself for that prostate exam. Grove makes each card in your deck go up by a virtual amount of 4, is recyclable through Replenishes, meaning you can fetch more than one silver bullet per Grove.



2. In order to win, one needs to something other than cast Enchantress spells on turns 1-3.

I didn't read this one either. If your opponent isn't playing something to disrupt your board, ignore him and play Enchantresses, then play enchantments, then win. It's that simple. Now, if you are facing an opponent that can change your board position, you'd better be able to protect yourself. To do that, you must first stabilish that position, which you do by playing Enchantress effects on turns 1-3. After that, if game 1, party with Groves fetching bullets; if game 2 or 3, you have prolly drawn enough cards to find some anti-hate and your Groves can serve the purpose of targetted removal protection, which is usually there. Obviously, there are situations in which baiting with an enchantress effect is good enough to land that Choke, which will softlock a blue opponent by itself. The general rule, still, is that you need an Enchantress on the board for your deck to be a threat. Without it, you pretty much won't do anything but keep that 1 for 1 ratio.



3. Playing 5 spells should be a setup turn (rather than a kill turn).

This one I kinda read, but not quite. He describes a situation that only Sanctum can provide: you have much mana to play many enchantments and replace lots of draws with death. Sanctum does not only do that, but is the ultimate tempo benefit. Tapping Sanctum for lots of mana means you will not need the next 3-4 turns to play what you can play in a single one. This translates to giving your opponent less time to find answers for your cards, since, as soon as Words of War lands, he's dead. In short, playing 5 spells doesn't mean you are winning, but neither does it mean you shouldn't be.



They are certainly good and powerful cards. There's a problem with all of those cards. They are not consistent. Grove is really good if there's a ton of enchantment hate floating around. Ditto Replenish. Sanctum's really good if you get 2 other lands in the early game especially if your opponent isn't running Wasteland.

They are extremely consistent: we run Groves, we are able to fetch them. Grove's not only a tool against targetted hate, but also a tutor and those bullets are our tools against hate, so we need them. If you decide to ignore hate, you will lose to Aggro Loam's Devastating Dreams eating your Argothians and lands, Landstill's Deed wiping up your entire board except for lands, Thresh's EE @ 3 destroying Presences and all your useful enchantments and so on. All those enchantments give you proactive answers to those cards. Replenish gives you reactive answers. Versatility has always won games and will still keep doing so.

Saying you shouldn't run Sanctum because Wasteland kills it is just like saying you shouldn't run Goyf because STP kills it.



All your criticisms belie your assumed authority. You're telling me how to lose less. The goal is to win more. A subtle distinction I hope you get eventually :P

Do you mean winning a game more or winning more games? If the former, than it's something one shouldn't ever do.



Enchantress may be a combo deck, but it isn't one that relies on speed. I know it's pretty easy to get in that mindset (I did too when I was still trying to make a Sanctum-fied version work). But the faster you are, the easier it is to get disrupted. That's why you're trying to pre-empt them with Karmic Justice and Sterling Grove and Replenish. Because you're not confident you'll be able to go off when you think you need to.

Every deck relies on speed, even Landstill, but not necessarily that speed means killing your opponent quickly enough. Landstill needs to be able to find answers quick enough, or it might scoop to an aggressive deck's speed to deal damage. This deck relies on speeding an Enchantress early enough, followed by a Confinement lock. Sadly, this takes enough time that combo decks pratically ignore us and trample through. Against the rest of the field, our speed is enough to kick them out of the game, unless they actually got cards to stop it. Giving them time to set up into those cards or

[Forbiddian]

There are consistent, earned wins and there are random wins. Everyone throws the term "win more" around ALL THE TIME. It's such a stupid buzzword. But seriously, if you look up the antonym of "win more" you see a picture of me with 1 life and a fistfull of crap, ripping a Sanctum off the deck and taking a game for free. If you want consistency, and no chance to take some games on the back of the sixth best land in the game (and the first five are banned in 1.5, although maybe you can make a case for Wasteland), then don't play Sanctum. If you want to win 10% more games, then play Sanctum. It's really that simple.

Not running it is ridiculous, especially with Words of Wind maindeck. Do you not understand how those two work together? Words of Wind + Serra's Sanctum == Win.


You're right that the faster you go, the easier it is to disrupt, but Sanctum rarely lets your opponent untap. Also, there are loads of times when tempo is actually important. You'll lose a lot of random games to Goblins because you couldn't tap the one land for WWW to shove a turn 3 Solitary into play. Instead you play one early, your opponent untaps, and then burns you out during your upkeep when you're forced to sac the Solitary.


I'll leave you with a famous quotation from some guy.

You're telling me how to lose less. The goal is to win more. A subtle distinction I hope you get eventually :P
The goal is to lose less often by playing better cards that have better synergies and are more effective in all situations. That's why they're called better cards.


Edit: Nm, no I won't. I'll talk about speed. Vs. Aggro, you try to go fast. If you're on the draw, you usually have to get the lock on turn 3 or at least an Elephant Grass. In my deck I cut Elephant Grass for more consistent Confinements, but the principle is still there. If I'm on the play, I can afford to wait until turn 4 for the lock. But the bottom line is that we're playing combo. We should walk over straight up aggro. In order to do that, we need to somehow clock them in. Speed is probably most important in this matchup.

Vs. Control, we have all the time in the world. The game is just about resolving an Enchantress so we can explode. I board out a lot of acceleration like Exploration for Chokes.

Vs. Combo, it's not irrelevant. They'll most certainly be faster than we are, but a turn 1 or even turn 2 Runed Halo on the proper spell can win the game. Turn 2 Solitary is also a possibility.


Still, almost every deck is a crossover like Aggro/Control. Vs. anything with an Aggro slash in it, speed decides the game. And at least 20% of games against combo, you get a turn 3 to try to lock out.

I don't know how you pretend that waiting until turn 4 or turn 5 to win is a viable strategy.

[Brehn]

1. Your opponent has a bunch of enchantment hate main.

Against your (horrible) build, a bunch of enchantment hate in the board will suffice, since you don't play any protection postboard aside from 2 random Sterling Groves. No Replenish, no Karmic Justice. Also, there are enough decks with a bunch of enchantment hate main. Usually this enchantment hate is called "Pernicious Deed" or "Engineered Explosives".


2. In order to win, one needs to something other than cast Enchantress spells on turns 1-3.

Against aggro, you just have to cast Enchantress effects on turns 1-3, true. But some opponents will be trying to disrupt you. In this case you'll have to do other things as well.


3. Playing 5 spells should be a setup turn (rather than a kill turn).

It's a setup turn if you play 5 spells and draw a bunch of cards. It's a kill turn if you play 5 spells, pay :X: more per spell and draw little to no cards. You'll encounter both situations. (Also, with a standard build you can start your kill turn by just Sterling Groving into Words of War. With your build you have to hope to topdeck Words of Wind.)



They are certainly good and powerful cards. There's a problem with all of those cards. They are not consistent. Grove is really good if there's a ton of enchantment hate floating around. Ditto Replenish. Sanctum's really good if you get 2 other lands in the early game especially if your opponent isn't running Wasteland.

Sterling Grove is what makes this deck consistent. Replenish is dead in exactly those matchups where playing some Enchantresses and drawing some cards is enough to win. Sanctum is a) a tempo swing, b) mana fixing, c) a win condition in combination with Sacred Mesa, d) a win condition in combination with Words of X and Enchantress effects, e) early game acceleration and so much more. I'll gladly take some vulnerability to Wasteland. Why? Because I can tap it once before it's wasted.


Enchantress may be a combo deck, but it isn't one that relies on speed.
Not at all. Especially your build, which has more Prison cards than White Stax.


But the faster you are, the easier it is to get disrupted.

Absolutely correct. That's why I don't play Belcher and why I don't play that GW Hunting Pack Enchantress version. Because they are easily disrupted. Instead, I'm conquering disruption:
> with Sterling Grove for added consistency, spot removal protection and anti-hate toolboxes (e. g. Sacred Ground against Loam and Stax, City of Solitude against MUC and Landstill, ...)
> with Karmic Justice as a preemptive answer to the "spot removal", "Armageddon effect" and "sweeper" kinds of disruption
> with Elvish Spirit Guide for early game acceleration, to race discard or Cantrips into more counters
> with Sacred Mesa, which is a win condition without a single Enchantress effect out


That's why you're trying to pre-empt them with Karmic Justice and Sterling Grove and Replenish. Because you're not confident you'll be able to go off when you think you need to.

Well, experiences against Landstill, Rock, Threshold, Stax and Aggro Loam show that you can't go off when you think you need to, because they'll just disrupt it.

Some storm combo decks are "trying to pre-empt them with Xantid Swarm and Orim's Chant". Because they're not confident they'll be able to go off without preemptively cast protection? Exactly. But they're right, they can't.

My piece of advice: take one of the more standard builds (e. g. Jak.'s, SpatulaOfTheAges', mine, GreenOne's, ...) and your build, then test them against Landstill, Rock and CB Threshold, preboard and postboard (your build doesn't even have a real sideboard!). Compare the results.

[slaiter]

My list:

//Lands
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
1 Taiga
8 Forest
3 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
//20

//Creatures
4 Argothian Enchantress
//4

//Spells
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
4 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Wild Growth
3 Ground Seal
2 Replenish
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Karmic Justice
1 Sylvan Library
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Primal Order
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Words of War
//36


Suggestions?

[Jak]

I like it. There is a lot of room in the MD for meta slots and you do have a nice toolbox. I wouldn't really change anything but keep playing it and change it as you test. My build changes all the time by adding another win-con, different accel, adding O. ring or other meta slots. List looks good.

[Jaiminho]

Suggestions?

I wouldn't run Primal Order simply because it's costs too much to be dead or close to dead in some games. I also don't think the deck needs more than 2 win conditions, which are very well estabilished as Mesa and Words of War.

I'd also try to fit 2 Explorations there, since they can get you some boost in speed after you've estabilished your board position. It has always been nice to me.

[caiomarcos]

Does anyone have trouble going to time too often with this deck?
Where I play I think Enchantress could be the deck to beat - lots of aggro, no tendrils combo, maybe one belcher BUT some slow Landstill players. Both times I faced this guy we went to time, once I lost 1-0 and the other time we drew 1-1.
What's the secret? Am I really dumb? Is this guy THAT slow? Or does the deck really have problems when playing against landstill, time wise?

For kicks, the list I play:

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

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress Presence
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Elephant Grass
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Wild Growth
2 Exploration
2 Replenish
2 Ground Seal
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Words of War
1 Blood Moon
1 Moat
1 City of Solitude
1 Karmic Justice
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Seal of Primordium

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Part of it comes from familiarity.

Another part comes from knowing when to scoop and knowing when not to. If it gets to the lategame and Replenish won't bail you out and/or he has a full hand and is playing slow, and you think your SB is strong against him, you may want to scoop G1 when it starts looking bad.

[la loutre]

hello guys

I'm from France,I run the deck since 2 mounths in tournaments,made quite good result.

I don't come here really often,my english not so good and I had a look on the 3 last pages

here is my last list :

http://www.deckcheck.net//deck.php?id=17621

I just cutted 1 words of wilding and 1 moat,
for +1 replenish,+1 humility

I'd like to talk about Garruck Wildspeaker.
this tech' isn't mine,but from a very good french vintage (and also constructed) player."Neonico" here.

in our metagame landstill and "togless"(or intuition control deck) and deck running deed MD rape some of our tournaments.
we already know that our deck will beat the dust (thx Fred^^) because running 2/3 replenish and 1 city of solitude isnt enough against deed+fow.deck

1) the wildspeaker

so I really like Garruck,not because it's a win/pressure condition with 3/3 tokens,not because it's a "time walk" on middle game when you untap sanctum or multi-enchanted-land,and not because it allowed you to play overrun on 1/1 flying pegase and rape the game
BUT because it makes all of this in one card,and resist on deed.

what's your feeling about this?

2) mana boost

and I wonder why some people runs exploration!! Oo!!,the deck already runs 8 sprawl/growth,so I think exploration sux,because if you don't have a land to drop it's a bad card, so it can't take the slot of sprawl/growth.and can't takes the slot of control/lock/tempo cards.

I think mirri's guild is bad too.because it's too slow.running a 1-of could be ok like it's explain on last page with the "fetch effect",can help you on keeping solitary confinement(because upkeep effect,sylvan library may sux,because it's a draw step effects,a step that you skip on confinement :o )

3) win condition

but why the hell do you want to run words of war???
a third color? for a bad kill?
mesa gives you game against aggro-control,with so many blockers and threat,a lot of times you won't need confinement on those MU.
words R is too slow agains aggro to disrupt the creature.
hoofprint of the stag???Oo
really really slow! no more than one 4/4 per turn,when mesa is 8/12 pegasus per turn.then garruck effect is awesome with mesa (With the +1 ability to create many flyers,or with overrun,makes 2 turns to kill).
I don't like opalescence because it would cut your shield against pernicious deed if you have it(I mean justice karmic is the shield,the "no creature" condition of justice karmic is raped by the opal' effects,so it won't allow you to play it if deed is on board,and so you'll run an useless kill......sick)

and what about dovescape? it's GG on a middle game against control.you'll always hace the CA if you have argo' or presence on board.



for the time I try to include more ground seal on MD,because broke some control plan,like LftL,intuition,extirpate, and so good against ichorid in addition of grass.then the cantrip effect is always good.

Why some players here are looking for amazing solution against aggro??? what are the aggro deck on legacy????
GOBS,and? what else?(elves? lÔl)
solitary confinment is already pretty good against aggro(and especially gobs,because you need a shield against sharpy+SGC),some grass in tempo,oblivion ring can do the job on a pili,but that all.
I like humility too,but it's not always MD (always good against Aluren,slow down the "dark confidant solution",own trygoon^^,the gobs combo,and it's the 5th wheel if you'r not allowed to hold confinement,as moat does,but better than moat,because moat sux against aluren, combo life,combo gobs deck,and all other freaking randomn aggro-combo)

that's all for the time
I hope you'll understand my school english^^

peace!

[Jak]

Words of War wins in one turn. A lot of times, attacking isn't available and WoW comes in and just wins. Seriously, I have lost games because I didn't tutor for WoW soon enough. Being able to draw it late and still be able to not deck yourself is a huge plus. With Mesa it gives variety. Having a win condition that can attack or burn is nice for rare instances of a True Believer showing up and also to not get hosed by Pithing Needle.

Garruk is interesting and I do want to try it.

Exploration allows this deck to explode. It really sounds like you have never tested it. It allows the deck to draw it mid combo and then still go crazy. If it was a little better in the early game, I would run 4.

I think you should stick with the Moat MD. Humility shuts off half of your engine. I am testing Humility in the side for stuff like Threshold and then for another boost for aggro.

Everything looks good, but I really think you should try out WoW. It sounds like you haven't tested it.

[TimeFlip]

Does anyone have trouble going to time too often with this deck?
Where I play I think Enchantress could be the deck to beat - lots of aggro, no tendrils combo, maybe one belcher BUT some slow Landstill players. Both times I faced this guy we went to time, once I lost 1-0 and the other time we drew 1-1.
What's the secret? Am I really dumb? Is this guy THAT slow? Or does the deck really have problems when playing against landstill, time wise?


As Spatula says, you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them. There are some games where this deck just flat out loses, like when they pull out an early Scepter/Chant, get a nuts draw with Ichorid or just combo out early.

Your SB is a big help, and I strongly recommend Runed Halos and Wheels of Sun and Moon. Runed Halo forces combo decks to either remove it or use a different card, ie Empty the Warrens instead of Tendrils of Agony. Wheel of Sun and Moon can also help in the combo matchup by stopping them from getting Threshold for Cabal Ritual or taking copies of Rite of Flame from the graveyard.

As far as other uses, Runed Halo takes out Orim's Chant. Get out a Sterling Grove early as well and you're set. Also rocks vs. Mono-Red or Mono-Black decks, taking out cards like Arc-Slogger, Rakdos Pit-Dragon, and Chimeric Idol. Wheel of Sun and Moon shines vs. Ichorid.

@La Loutre
Hey Bonjour.

Exploration - It's an enchantment, early on you can power out your lands and set up, later on it's an enchantment you can use to draw your deck. It's mainly there for speed purposes.

Win condition - For one, Ground Seal doesn't stop Intuition. Alright, really all of the win conditions you mentioned, ie WoWar, Sacred Mesa, and Hoofprints of the Stag can kill in one turn. As Jak mentioned, WoWar can win the turn you play it, however there's always the risk of it getting Needled or destroyed. I also run Glittering Wish which allows me to fetch an Energy Bolt for a Serra's Sanctum powered kill. As long as you have two unique win-cons maindeck, I think you should be fine.

Garruk - Sounds interesting. Seems like you took a page out of standard with the Fertile Ground/Garruk tech there. I think so long as you have 30 enchantments and the base necessities of the deck, you're fine with trying these out. I may just try these out myself.

Dovescape - Not too much of a fan =/.

vs. Aggro - I like the redundancy of having various anti-aggro cards, like Elephant Grass, Dueling Grounds, and Solitary Confinement. They're useful for drawing, plus there's always enchantment removal.

[Jaiminho]

Dovescape - Not too much of a fan =/.

Dovescape is very good. Land it against any non-creature based deck and you just won it. It's mainly against Landstill: you bait properly and then land this for game.

[waSP]

I never said you shouldn't play Serra's Sanctum, I just said you shouldn't play it main. It's probably my second-most common wish target. I'm saying it reduces your consistency if you run 2-3 main.

I'll drop my comments regarding my dislike for Sterling Grove. We're obviously at an impasse there.

Replenish is usually my 15th sideboard card. I've yet to actually want to cast it.

Anyway, I think we're concerned with different matchups in our maindecks. I use Energy Field (with confinement as backup once they figure out how to kill a permanent) to crush aggro. I use a wishboard and outplay decks with Goyfs. I scooooop to combo, but I don't have a problem with that (lots of goyf/counters and chalices around me). I don't think I've seen much Landstill at tournies, but that matchup has never been close to even. Rock has to get up to 6 mana before it can Deed. If they get up to 6 mana and I don't have another set of cards to hit them with, I deserve to lose.

What you guys are failing to notice is that I evolved the deck away from the build that is favored on this site. It's not trying to be a better version of that deck. That build is too fragile.

I will comment that the deck is still seldom enough played that few of your opponents are going to be punishing you for your card choices, so you'll always have that going for you.

[la loutre]

I already tested exploration.
the problem is when you have it in opening hand + land+land+presence.
turn one,land+explo+land pass
turn 2,draw a non land card,2 mana on board,pass....sick
or if you have the same hand,but an argothian,turn 2 you'r not allowed to pay the daze.and I think on this deck you can't have a spell countered buy daze,or you played bad(or you get a double/triple daze^^,or you wanted it,to slow down the land drop of the opponent)

of course exploration is crazy when you have the engine.but it's really necessary?
I think you don't need to draw all your deck FTW,using the grove effect is enough.

now the only reason I see for WoWar killing on turn, is the fear of the deed.
because you don't need to kill in one turn,do you?
the confinement shield,and the pegasus hard blokers allows you to kill on 2/3 turn.
so many deck doen't run any solution against confinement MD.
the problem with words of W is the third color.and I like to play the most basic land I can.
if I would get a splash,that should be for words of winds,wich is the best boards sweepper(doesnt' target,permanents not directly on GY) and back to B.
for the time I don't run words of wild anymore


as I said I think humility is better than moat. because you don't fear the 1/1. but you fear all the aggro combo deck (aluren,life,ornitopter pumped,combo gobs,elves/staff etc...)
cuttting your engine isn't a problem.because when you playing humility means you already are on middle game,or under pressure.you'll easilly find your presence.and slow down the draw can be helpfull.

then ground seal doens't protect form intuition I know. but cut the "recursse tool box". like togless does with intuition targeting,LftL+ruins+cycle land (or wast',man land etc....),or cut the witness effect of aluren etc....

I see some list with living wish and gliteering wish. why those lists doens't run
Holistic Wisdom?,targeting replenish,thoutseize?
in your wish box,have you ever tested the mikokoro's win condition?with words of winds?

[Jak]

Why are you calling my build fragile? Back it up. Seriously, if we are debating and you make statements like this with no support, I will discount everything you say in this thread.

Also, I don't understand whee you get fragile from. If I am better against disruption, wouldn't that make my deck less fragile than yours? Maybe you got confused and meant inconsistent? I run a total of twelve enchantress effects, I run a tutor that can grab any enchantment I need in the md, I have a lower curve and more mana which means I can abuse this deck better than you. I can back these up with actual testing. It seems like you slapped your list your list together to pwn aggro decks on mws and
Played 12 games.

@ la toutre
How would your exploration example be any different if you didn't have it in hand? Are you saying that if it had been a wild growth it wouldnhabe been better?
I don't necessarily disagree with you because you are right but you also need to see how busted exploration is when you are comboing out. I have been like growths and won't go under two, but just two explorations make a difference.

I run into situations all the time where I need to win now.
When I am about to deck myself, when I don't want my opponent to get 3 more draws to rip the deed, etc. I don't get why you would want to wait four turns to win when you could just do it in one.

[Dark_Cynic87]

I think humility is better than moat. because you don't fear the 1/1.

Ehh...Enchantresses have abilities, for 400? A 0/1 Enchantress that draws cards is better than a 1/1 vanilla enchantress...

Probably an irrelevant point...:rolleyes:

/sarcasm

Pce,

--DC

[Jaiminho]

I already tested exploration.
the problem is when you have it in opening hand + land+land+presence.
turn one,land+explo+land pass
turn 2,draw a non land card,2 mana on board,pass....sick
or if you have the same hand,but an argothian,turn 2 you'r not allowed to pay the daze.and I think on this deck you can't have a spell countered buy daze,or you played bad(or you get a double/triple daze^^,or you wanted it,to slow down the land drop of the opponent)

of course exploration is crazy when you have the engine.but it's really necessary?

Exploration isn't there for replacing auras, since these accelerate into a turn 3 Presence or turn 2 undazeable Argothian by themselves. Both kinds cards fill different roles: Exploration boosts tempo in the mid game; land auras boost tempo in the early game. You can even say auras won't let you get card disadvantage (disconsidering enchantress effects), since they will virtually count as a single land on the mana production matter, until it's placed in your graveyard by SBE after you got that enchanted land destroyed. Exploration won't make your mana count get higher without the expense of another card, but will make those cards come down faster, which is why it's no good at the early game, as you have something like zero excess lands.

[Forbiddian]

Exploration is a free dig.

A lot depends on how you run your deck (especially how many lands you run and how many other digs), but the free dig is really useful. You tap for it, play it, dig 1 more, play a land, play another, dig again, dig onto Wild Growths, etc.

It's very weak in the early game unless you have a hand that just abuses it (like 4 land + exploration and two enchantress effects). Still, it's one of the strongest possible cards in the midgame, allowing you to continue comboing off.

I'd also point out that you run 4x Wild Growth AND 4x Utopia Sprawl already. Most builds run that, plus 2x or 3x Exploration, not cutting into the Wild Growth slots, so the comparison is irrelevant. I think Argothian is better than Presence. I'd rather have Growth 9-11 than Exploration, but Exploration is still a great card.



I see a lot of Karmic Justice in the maindeck. One of my friends (although this was pretty oldschool the last time we bumped heads Enchantress vs. Psychatog) said it was THE card he feared the most in my deck, and that if he had a turn 1 Thoughtseize, he'd take Justice over Argothian, even if he didn't have a Deed in his hand, knowing that if I combo'd off he'd still have a clear shot to get a sweep.

I always ran Karmic Justice in the sideboard and boarded in three copies (unless I was squared off against combo, then I'd board in the Karmic Justices). I found that 2W is far too expensive for dead weight in game 1, although the game has changed a bit since I played this deck.

How much success do you guys have running a single copy?



I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Mirri's Guile. So much.

It's obviously card disadvantage (like Exploration), but it gives so much back. For one, you see all your draws and you can plan them out, during your upkeep. You know where you stand. You know whether you can combo out right now, whether your Solitary can stick, etc. For two, it alleviates mana screw or mana flood. Obviously a good thing, I'd give up a card and a G for that any day.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, it turns your deck into a topdecking beast. Remember, vs. Control, cards in hand mean almost nothing (assuming that you don't just go on a casting spree). All that matters is resolving an Enchantress (we're playing combo here), and Guile helps get out an Enchantress better than any other Enchantment.

Anyway, enough about a 10c rare from Tempest.




Lastly, what are the three decks you meet in hell and the three decks you meet in heaven?

I can't win at all against Suicide Black/Goyf. Thoughtseize and then Hymn to Tourach is like scoop town already. Sometimes they land that turn 1. Other than boarding in Karmic Justice to deal with Landkill (way too little too late), I can't really think of anything to do to shore up that matchup other than hope they don't open with a Thoughtseize AND that I have an Argothian AND that they'll let me get two land into play.

[caiomarcos]

Lastly, what are the three decks you meet in hell and the three decks you meet in heaven?

I can't win at all against Suicide Black/Goyf. Thoughtseize and then Hymn to Tourach is like scoop town already. Sometimes they land that turn 1. Other than boarding in Karmic Justice to deal with Landkill (way too little too late), I can't really think of anything to do to shore up that matchup other than hope they don't open with a Thoughtseize AND that I have an Argothian AND that they'll let me get two land into play.

I have a hard time against Landstill too. I rely heavily on Replenish, but when my opponent started dropping 0 turn Leyline, there's not much I could do.

Another match up that is a race that I usually lose is against Burn. They're so fast and the only thing I can do is to drop an early Confinement, and I usually can't hold on to it for a long time. As soon as it is out, I'm dead on my own upkeep.

Discard has never been a problem, maybe because it comes together with black creatures that can't attack.

[la loutre]

Ehh...Enchantresses have abilities, for 400? A 0/1 Enchantress that draws cards is better than a 1/1 vanilla enchantress...

Probably an irrelevant point...:rolleyes:

/sarcasm

Pce,

--DC

you didn't understood ,or didn't read well.

THE shield of the deck is solitary confinement.preventing from opponent win condition on targetting you (blast,combo,lock effects)

because sometimes keeping confinement on board isn't possible,including a 5th whell on MD could'nt be bad.
as this 5th wheel I see two choice,moat and humility.

Moat:
+ protection against multiple non flying creature
- sux tombstalker,trygoon,exalted,FS,pumped ornithopter,disciple of vault.....
-sux against SGC+sharp-shooter
-sux againt aluren (the flying creature on aggro mode, OR/AND the combo mode)
-sux against eternal life,because you can conceed if your opponent has 100000 life
-sux against random survival+frog aggro/control/combo deck
-and all crazy randomn deck with creature/combo (flashless,combo elves/staff,etc....)

that makes a lot of sux

humility:
-instead of protection against non flying creature,you will take damages 1 per 1 X number of creature your opponent control
-will cut your argothian engine.
+ broke all the negative points of the moat.

so analysis:

-moat is good against aggro deck without alternative finish/safe mode AND deck without fly kill.
so men what deck it is??????
gobs? no sick,one of the most played deck
affinity?no
aluren? no, the best deck ever,but "underplayed"
+ a lot of other

so moat is better only against randomn jerk aggro deck.yup! so strong wahou!

humility:
preventing from all alternative solution of all decks.
the only negative point is the argothien.this is really a ridiculous argue.because you run 4 other engin(+4 grove),and if you don't play the deck like a horse you'll find it easily,when you will be allowed to play the humility(and argo often made the job before)

so you will say 'but if your opponent ahve an army of 1/1 your dead"
I'll answer that NO deck tier 1 on legacy runs army of creatures unless gobs.but those 1/1 would have to pay 2 to attack......^^ so what the hell?

thresh and loam will have very strong tarmulity 1/1,countrysumility 1/1,and terramility 1/1,waow I'm scared
then your enchanteresse become a 1 for 1 creature

;)

about exploration.
If you think it's better running 2 instead of 8 sprawl/growth,means you tested it and approuved it. I made the same and I really disagree. because I always want 3 mana on board turn 2 for argo undazable,or presence.
exploration is better in combo mode I aggree.but when you are on combo mode you already won... so I don't understant why you prefer running a dangerous cards for early game(when the deck is strongless sorry I can't remember the good word )and awesome on late game(when the deck is already strong).
so I think it's gonna be a non-ending discuss.

the kill:
I don't see the problem with waiting 3/4/5/6/10/more turns to win.when you have your confinement+ karmic you don't fear the deed or the DD, or the reverent silence,disk and co...., because you will boardsweep all permanents and lands of your oppoent.and you run 2/3 replenish.
actually I really fear wasteland. I already lost games against LftL with opening a "perfect hand" sanctum+savannah+growth+presence+groud seal+other stuff.
turn 1 no choice,growth on savannah pass
Him Turn 1 wast...sick...
(should be the same against gobs)
so I don't want to include a third color


and I don't understand why do you fear the needle?!
I run oblivion ring especially against needle,meddling,and all other opponent's solution.this is a creature removal only if I have no choice,and only if I'm sure to loose the game next turn

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

the kill:
I don't see the problem with waiting 3/4/5/6/10/more turns to win.when you have your confinement+ karmic you don't fear the deed or the DD, or the reverent silence,disk and co...., because you will boardsweep all permanents and lands of your oppoent.and you run 2/3 replenish.
actually I really fear wasteland. I already lost games against LftL with opening a "perfect hand" sanctum+savannah+growth+presence+groud seal+other stuff.
turn 1 no choice,growth on savannah pass
Him Turn 1 wast...sick...
(should be the same against gobs)
so I don't want to include a third color


Rounds have 50 minute limits.

Therefore, kills that win in one turn are better than kills that win in 2-3 turns, because if time is called, you're working with limited rounds.

The downside is that you have to splash; but with fetch-lands and Utopia Sprawl, this should be a non-issue.

The upside of Mesa is that sometimes it'll win you a round against Landstill.

[waSP]

Jak:
You want me to back up my criticisms?

I've been playing this deck since early 2003 as you can see in this thread (it's an interesting thread, too):
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=11460.0

(note this was pre-Judgment, my response to the printing of Enchantress's Presence)

Like Smennen said in the above thread, your opponent only needs to counter like 6 spells to totally take you out of the game. 1.5 currently being counter-lite, I don't think this is an issue. Someday it could be, though.

Very different metagames, though. The pre-eminent aggro-control deck of the time was probably Sligh (I'd like to think R/G Beatz but...it's hard to remember). I think maybe Chapin had played Gro at Gencon the year before, but everyone kind of ignored him 'til winter.

[Forbiddian]

How does that back up your criticisms?

1) You played some version of this deck back in 2003.
2) ???
3) Everything you say about the deck is correct.

That's not evidence, that's specifically what Jak. is accusing you of. You're saying, "This is how it is because that's what I say." We're not rejecting your claims, we're asking you to substantiate them.


Obviously 6 Counters would take any combo-control deck out. In a typical game, you draw like 15 cards. A little under half the draws are land, so you're saying that of their 8-9 business spells, 6 are hard 1:1s? I really hope that 20counters30land10draws.dec doesn't survive in your metagame.

[Jak]

Jak:
You want me to back up my criticisms?

I've been playing this deck since early 2003 as you can see in this thread (it's an interesting thread, too):
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=11460.0

(note this was pre-Judgment, my response to the printing of Enchantress's Presence)

Like Smennen said in the above thread, your opponent only needs to counter like 6 spells to totally take you out of the game. 1.5 currently being counter-lite, I don't think this is an issue. Someday it could be, though.

Very different metagames, though. The pre-eminent aggro-control deck of the time was probably Sligh (I'd like to think R/G Beatz but...it's hard to remember). I think maybe Chapin had played Gro at Gencon the year before, but everyone kind of ignored him 'til winter.

Oh! Since 2003! Oh dang. You must be right. :rolleyes:

All I got out of that response is that you have a lot of must counters and that Landstill can't even come close to stopping all of your Oblivion Rings, Energy Fields, and Confinements.

Are you even reading what I am writing? Counters are not what I am saying your deck is weak to. Enchantress should never lose to a deck with just counters. They trade 1 for 1 and we draw 4 cards. No, what I am talking about is enchantment removal. Deed, EE, and sometimes even Disk are common MD cards in control and aggro control decks all around. These not only give them massive amounts of CA but also destroy your only way to get that CA back. Replenish and Karmic Justice fix this. I can't believe I have to tell this to someone that claims to have played this deck for about 5 years.

Your build removes all cards that deal with hate and plays more cards to defeat aggro. Enchantress already destroys aggro. I have only lost a match to an aggro deck when he got a first turn Magus both games on the play. My hand had 4 nonbasics. The deck is strong against aggro. Why would you ruin other MUs like Threshold and Landstill to beat goblins more?

Now you elect to play Living Wish as your win condition and a way to get an engine card. That is great, but why not play Sterling Grove? It can grab a Words of War MD, an Enchantress Pressence, or something like karmic Justice out of a small toolbox. Oh, and it also shuts of Krosan Grip, another commonly played hate cards in SBs. All I would like to know is, what are the benefits of playing Wish over Grove?

So I ask you this again because you seem set on your belief that my deck is fragile, why is my list fragile? Is it the ability to recover after a Deed faster? Is it the ability to play through hate? Is it the ability to win in more efficient ways? Is it the ability to turn off the most commonly played SB card, Grip? What exactly?

Edit-
you didn't understood ,or didn't read well.

THE shield of the deck is solitary confinement.preventing from opponent win condition on targetting you (blast,combo,lock effects)

because sometimes keeping confinement on board isn't possible,including a 5th whell on MD could'nt be bad.
as this 5th wheel I see two choice,moat and humility.

Moat:
+ protection against multiple non flying creature
- sux tombstalker,trygoon,exalted,FS,pumped ornithopter,disciple of vault.....
-sux against SGC+sharp-shooter
-sux againt aluren (the flying creature on aggro mode, OR/AND the combo mode)
-sux against eternal life,because you can conceed if your opponent has 100000 life
-sux against random survival+frog aggro/control/combo deck
-and all crazy randomn deck with creature/combo (flashless,combo elves/staff,etc....)

that makes a lot of sux

humility:
-instead of protection against non flying creature,you will take damages 1 per 1 X number of creature your opponent control
-will cut your argothian engine.
+ broke all the negative points of the moat.

so analysis:

-moat is good against aggro deck without alternative finish/safe mode AND deck without fly kill.
so men what deck it is??????
gobs? no sick,one of the most played deck
affinity?no
aluren? no, the best deck ever,but "underplayed"
+ a lot of other

so moat is better only against randomn jerk aggro deck.yup! so strong wahou!

humility:
preventing from all alternative solution of all decks.
the only negative point is the argothien.this is really a ridiculous argue.because you run 4 other engin(+4 grove),and if you don't play the deck like a horse you'll find it easily,when you will be allowed to play the humility(and argo often made the job before)

so you will say 'but if your opponent ahve an army of 1/1 your dead"
I'll answer that NO deck tier 1 on legacy runs army of creatures unless gobs.but those 1/1 would have to pay 2 to attack......^^ so what the hell?

thresh and loam will have very strong tarmulity 1/1,countrysumility 1/1,and terramility 1/1,waow I'm scared
then your enchanteresse become a 1 for 1 creature

;)

about exploration.
If you think it's better running 2 instead of 8 sprawl/growth,means you tested it and approuved it. I made the same and I really disagree. because I always want 3 mana on board turn 2 for argo undazable,or presence.
exploration is better in combo mode I aggree.but when you are on combo mode you already won... so I don't understant why you prefer running a dangerous cards for early game(when the deck is strongless sorry I can't remember the good word )and awesome on late game(when the deck is already strong).
so I think it's gonna be a non-ending discuss.

the kill:
I don't see the problem with waiting 3/4/5/6/10/more turns to win.when you have your confinement+ karmic you don't fear the deed or the DD, or the reverent silence,disk and co...., because you will boardsweep all permanents and lands of your oppoent.and you run 2/3 replenish.
actually I really fear wasteland. I already lost games against LftL with opening a "perfect hand" sanctum+savannah+growth+presence+groud seal+other stuff.
turn 1 no choice,growth on savannah pass
Him Turn 1 wast...sick...
(should be the same against gobs)
so I don't want to include a third color


and I don't understand why do you fear the needle?!
I run oblivion ring especially against needle,meddling,and all other opponent's solution.this is a creature removal only if I have no choice,and only if I'm sure to loose the game next turn

First, maybe you should write your posts better and people can read them better! Just a thought.

The only relevant point you have against Moat is that it is bad vs creatures with flying. Nice catch!

SGC is slow and if you can't set up a Confinement lock by then, you deserve to lose the game. If you are able to stop them from attacking, I think you can take 4 dmg over a couple of turns.

Aluren and Life... How often do you see those over decks like Goblins, Thresh, and to some extent, Landstill?

What creatures in Survival fly other than the ones with a power of 0?

Elves combo usually attacks for the win. Moat would stop that.

Now Humility is good, but running a MD card that will shut off half of your engine is bad. It is worse against goblins and affinity because, guess what, they can still beat you down with their horde of 1/1s and you won't be able to dig for that Confinement when you shut off your Argothians. Moat will at least stop them from attacking until they can find that Plating plus Ornithopter. Hopefully, again, you can find Confinement. Humility doesn't even stop Plating.

As Spat said, waiting 6 turns is stupid when you can do it in one. Just throw in one (yes I said ONE) Taiga and you are running a win condition that is easily better than Words of Wilding or Sacred Mesa.

[Forbiddian]

Dude, lay off him, he already explained about his English, and I'm pretty impressed he got through my walls of text. If I had to make a post on French forums, I'd be fubar.


I used to run Humility back in like 2003. I found that it was a weak choice then and I can't imagine how it'd be a stronger choice now. Worship was my replacement for Humility, because Worship was stronger in almost every matchup.

My logic: If a deck can deal with Worship, it can deal with Humility. I'd rather be at 1 hp but with time to draw out with Argothians than at 20 hps but no Argothians and no improvement in my board position since I desperately threw the Humility on the table wishing I could support a Solitary.

When compared to Moat, it's decent. I think it's weaker, but maybe it's within the realm of a metagame decision. When compared to Solitary Confinement or even Worship, though, Humility looks a *lot* worse. But the bottom line is that I wouldn't even play Moat. It's about the same speed as Solitary and so much more conditional.

Of course, if you run Humility and Opalescence, you can do cool shit like give noobs headaches. I'm not sure if the 2003 ruling still stands, though, have to look it up.

[Redlotus27]

The biggest >and obvious< difference between Moat and Humility is that moat all but shuts off the attack phase, where humility "slows" it. You will still need to find the "answer" (confinement or whatever) and Moat in most cases will better allow the Enchantress player to do that. While the moat is in play, O-ring and Runed halo are generally used to remove flying attackers.

The other difference is the availablilty/cost which might be coming into play here as well.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

IT IS TIME FOR TELETUBBIES!!!

You can get the general gist of his post. I don't think it matters that much that his English is poor.

Humility cuts your draw engine in half. That's pretty rough. There aren't a lot of decks that are hurt enough by Humility to justify that. Remember that 1/1s can still kill you, especially if you have a crippled engine.

[waSP]

I didn't just play it in 2003. I've been playing it since 2003. Anyway, I've had these same arguments a bunch of times with people. I'm not going to re-hash arguments from 5 years ago just because you weren't around then.

You run a style more like CooberP's T1 version of Enchantress. Big costly spells that make you not lose the game and a slow win condition. He ran BGW and put up pretty good results with it. I'm not saying you can't win with the kind of build you espouse. Certainly it is strong. What I am saying is that it doesn't have the robustness of other builds. If you want to get your silver bullet, you have to spend 3 mana and skip a draw. That makes you fragile. You're giving up tempo and information.

Instead of running Moat and Runed Halo (and whatever the other card is), I run Energy Field. Admittedly, this doesn't shut down tendrils, but I don't actually see that card played. So you could make the argument that your build, running 4 tutors and a Runed Halo has a much better shot at beating decks with Tendrils than mine. In the same vein, I run much better graveyard hate main.

Approximately 1/4 of my opponents have no answer for Energy Field/Wheel of Sun and Moon main. They scoop very quickly and I'm able to complete my matches on time. This is a bonus to running those cards.

I've never had a problem beating Landstill and Threshold has been fine for me. If they counter 2 Enchantress effects they'll probably win (even if I have 4). If they don't, I probably will win. Stealing Goyfs from Thresh players is fuuuuuuun.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That's a horribly elitist attitude. If you don't feel like backing up your claims, don't make them. Having argued them years ago doesn't matter to anyone.

I don't like Moat. Rune Halo is a very different story. It's not a silver bullet, because there's no deck it's bad against(the closest is Ichorid, but it can still shut down the Ichorid path).

Sterling Grove isn't just a tutor. And talking about it like it is and talking about silver bullets indicates to me that the people you've been playing with have been playing their lists wrong, if they're anything similiar to mine.


I've never had a problem beating Landstill and Threshold has been fine for me. If they counter 2 Enchantress effects they'll probably win (even if I have 4).

That would be different if you ran Replenish.

[Jaiminho]

What I am saying is that it doesn't have the robustness of other builds. If you want to get your silver bullet, you have to spend 3 mana and skip a draw. That makes you fragile. You're giving up tempo and information.

Wish spends 2 mana, instead of 3, and also gives information. It also won't draw you cards and neither will the fetched card. This means that Grove will usually draw us a card or two, while the fetched card will also draw us a card or two and we can draw into that card by using any other enchantment we have. You don't skip draws by playing Wish and we gain draws by playing Grove. Splitting tutor + activation on two different turns gets us almost the same tempo hit as Living Wish (the same if there's spare mana for activating, which means you are not holding a card back to activate), without being susceptible to discard, which is way more played than forced shuffling or Predict-like cards.



Instead of running Moat and Runed Halo (and whatever the other card is), I run Energy Field. Admittedly, this doesn't shut down tendrils, but I don't actually see that card played. So you could make the argument that your build, running 4 tutors and a Runed Halo has a much better shot at beating decks with Tendrils than mine. In the same vein, I run much better graveyard hate main.

The main problem with Field is that you can't reach the clean up step with more than 7 cards in hand or break a fetch or whatever. It also dies to Duress. It's slowing you down, as you won't be able to get 10 cards in hand and filter the 3 worse ones for a faster play into draws and more draws. You are giving the opponent time to find hate.

I don't see Field working out without Wheel.



Approximately 1/4 of my opponents have no answer for Energy Field/Wheel of Sun and Moon main. They scoop very quickly and I'm able to complete my matches on time. This is a bonus to running those cards.

Same for Confinement. Instead of getting card redundancy for Confinement (it + Groves), you are running a 2nd lock peice, which is way more fragile.



I've never had a problem beating Landstill and Threshold has been fine for me. If they counter 2 Enchantress effects they'll probably win (even if I have 4). If they don't, I probably will win. Stealing Goyfs from Thresh players is fuuuuuuun.

Do you rely on enchantresses hitting the board against them on luck or do you actually have good enough baits, such as Choke, Moon or City of Solitude, to make them enter play and ways to make them come back, named Replenish? If they have the counters, you lose, else you have the chance to win?

[Jak]

I didn't just play it in 2003. I've been playing it since 2003. Anyway, I've had these same arguments a bunch of times with people. I'm not going to re-hash arguments from 5 years ago just because you weren't around then.

You run a style more like CooberP's T1 version of Enchantress. Big costly spells that make you not lose the game and a slow win condition. He ran BGW and put up pretty good results with it. I'm not saying you can't win with the kind of build you espouse. Certainly it is strong. What I am saying is that it doesn't have the robustness of other builds. If you want to get your silver bullet, you have to spend 3 mana and skip a draw. That makes you fragile. You're giving up tempo and information.

Instead of running Moat and Runed Halo (and whatever the other card is), I run Energy Field. Admittedly, this doesn't shut down tendrils, but I don't actually see that card played. So you could make the argument that your build, running 4 tutors and a Runed Halo has a much better shot at beating decks with Tendrils than mine. In the same vein, I run much better graveyard hate main.

Approximately 1/4 of my opponents have no answer for Energy Field/Wheel of Sun and Moon main. They scoop very quickly and I'm able to complete my matches on time. This is a bonus to running those cards.

I've never had a problem beating Landstill and Threshold has been fine for me. If they counter 2 Enchantress effects they'll probably win (even if I have 4). If they don't, I probably will win. Stealing Goyfs from Thresh players is fuuuuuuun.

Big costly spells? My curve is lower than yours.

WoW wins in a single turn. Most of the time being turn six.

Living Wish doesn't give up information? I won't even get into the fragile issue because you obviously don't know what the word means.

Energy Field is bad. Running a two card combo that makes it so, as you say "not lose the game" is bad. Especially when you could run maybe Moat, or Runed Halo. Stuff that doesn't suck on their own.

[la loutre]

IT IS TIME FOR TELETUBBIES!!!

You can get the general gist of his post. I don't think it matters that much that his English is poor.

Humility cuts your draw engine in half. That's pretty rough. There aren't a lot of decks that are hurt enough by Humility to justify that. Remember that 1/1s can still kill you, especially if you have a crippled engine.

^^

no more than 2 or 3 1/1 creatures against aggro/control decks.with elephant grass,isn't it a good tempo for confienement+presence?addition to grove?
moat is seriously better on strictly agro control deck.not in a 100+ players metagame.
preparing for this kind of event....

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If you have Presence out, Humility is fine.

The problem comes when you have Humility and no Presence. You either have a dead card or you cripple your engine.

[TimeFlip]

Hey dudes, seeing as how some people are concerned about getting their Serra's Sanctum Wasteland'd, I'd like to suggest Mana Reflection as a 1-of. It's mighty expensive, but it has the massive mana boost Serra's Sanctum. It also does not restrict the mana to just white.

On a side note, I'm 99% sure that with Mana Reflection out, Utopia Sprawl'd lands and Wild Growth'd lands produce 3 mana.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I think that would depend on timestamp.

Also, a 6 mana solution to Wasteland seems a bit impractical.

[TimeFlip]

I think that would depend on timestamp.

Also, a 6 mana solution to Wasteland seems a bit impractical.

It's really not just a solution to Wasteland. When I'm going off drawing with my enchantments, sometimes I'd just run out of green mana. That'd be another turn back and I'd discard cheap enchantments like Exploration and Elephant Grass. It's an accelerant for all mana as compared to only white mana with Sanctum.

Oh, and Mana Reflection + Serra's Sanctum is sick.

[Brehn]

Are you actually suggesting a 6-mana card that isn't even a threat on its own? I mean, I've always argued against Exploration, since it's only good with Enchantress effects out. And that's cc1, making it the cheapest "cantrip" (with engine online) possible.


Oh, and Mana Reflection + Serra's Sanctum is sick.

So is Serra's Sanctum sans Mana Reflection.

[TimeFlip]

Hey Brehn, yes I am actually suggesting a 6-mana card that isn't even a threat on it's own.

It may be just in my case that in my wishboard I run Energy Bolt, so I'd need an excessive amount of mana for a 20 point x-burn. I think doubling the amount of green mana available quickens the game significantly by letting you play pretty much all the enchantments you draw.

Ok and take that back Mirari's Wake is better than Mana Reflection. It costs one less, and still accels the green mana. Plus, if you run Sacred Mesa, it pumps your pegasi.

I tested Mana Reflection and I was pretty satisfied with the results. I'll try replacing it with Mirari's Wake MD and see how it goes.

[Jak]

Sacred Ground is soooooooo much better at stopping Wasteland, Armageddon, Sinkhole, Pox, and Wildfire. It will actually come online before the disruption that can cripple you will come. It is only a one of in my board but if you do expect a lot fo Sui black, pox, anything with wasteland run more in the board.

[Jak]

This is for Tartell or anyone that has run Chrome Mox. Do you like it better than ESG? Have you had instances where it was better having the mana source stick around? I like ESG but I do like the idea of being able to actually keep a 1 land god hand. I think it would help where the deck really needs it and that is turns 1-3. However, it does take another card out of your hand with it which may matter too. I just sold my 2 sets before I had the chance to play with them so I'm wondering how they have been for people. Most of the time for me they have been no better than ESG.

[Forbiddian]

Sacred Ground seems like a Waste.

No, really, for 1 more you get Karmic Justice which is strong everywhere instead of just vs. landkill. Sacred Ground is rarely completely dead (usually it stops a Wasteland, although 1W for a land is not too good of a pick, especially when you lose your enchantments on it anyway), Karmic Justice just seems so much stronger in virtually every matchup because it stops a host of other cards that all rape us.

And as a 1-of in the SIDEBOARD? What? When are you going tutor for a Sacred Ground over a Karmic Justice? Actually, when are you going to tutor for a Sacred Ground at all?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Well vs. Stax (Smokestack), Loam (Dreams), Pox?

Also, against a lot of the decks that do run mana denial, that one mana can be important.

[Jak]

Sacred Ground seems like a Waste.

No, really, for 1 more you get Karmic Justice which is strong everywhere instead of just vs. landkill. Sacred Ground is rarely completely dead (usually it stops a Wasteland, although 1W for a land is not too good of a pick, especially when you lose your enchantments on it anyway), Karmic Justice just seems so much stronger in virtually every matchup because it stops a host of other cards that all rape us.

And as a 1-of in the SIDEBOARD? What? When are you going tutor for a Sacred Ground over a Karmic Justice? Actually, when are you going to tutor for a Sacred Ground at all?

I do run Karmic Justice, but sometimes you kind of need your lands to opperate. Justice doesn't stop them from destroying your lands which some will still do. Three mana is more than two, also.

[slaiter]

splash U for Words of Wind is viable?

[Jak]

Why not just aplast red and win?

[Redlotus27]

Quick aside referring to DDreams and Karmic Justice.Dreams makes each player sacrifice X lands, where Karmic Justice says stuff destroyed triggers the justice. Important. Trust me!

Also splashing blue makes you win by concession rather than just winning with words of war and mesa. You bounce the board then some stubborn players may make you find your wincon just so they can see what it is.

[Jaiminho]

splash U for Words of Wind is viable?

Words of Wind won't target, so you'll need lots of draw skips to make it have your opponent's threats be affected by it at all. If this is your wincon, you should be replacing draws with damage, not bounce. If this is a controlling measure, how in hell does it work?

[Forbiddian]

Words of Wind + Ground Seal for massive board advantage.

Words of Wind + Exploration + 1x Enchantress + 1x Enchantment in hand + a few enchantments on the board and a Serra Sanctum = Win.

Words of Wind + 2x Enchantress effects + 1x Enchantment in hand (or 1x Enchantress effect + Ground Seal) + Enchantment on the board = Win

Words of Wind + Exploration + Enchantress Effect + Sanctum = Massive mana

Words of Wind + Enchantress Effect + Sanctum = Lots of mana



I've been playing around with it for a while. It massively speeds up the goldfish of the deck (down to like turn 4 consistent kills), but I haven't really found that it's worth the cards. The engine pretty much requires running 3x Exploration, 3x or more Words of Wind, and 3x Serra's Sanctum. This really cuts into the toolbox (losing critical cards like Karmic Justice and additional Seals really hurts a lot of matchups).

It's really cool to go off (the combos seem complex, but basically Enchantress Effect + Words of Wind = GG), but honestly, I don't think the deck is better. Words of Wind is quite weak against combo and fast aggro (esp burn), and its only strong MU is control where it relies extremely heavily on having resolved Enchantresses working (which are pretty much GG anyway).

I find that I'd rather have Karmic Justice 99% of the time that I see Words of Wind (or they're both pretty dead like vs. Goblins).

It's unbelievably strong against Thresh, though. Like unbelievably strong.

[Solpugid]

Let's not let this get to page 3.

Forbiddian, why would the inclusion of words of wind require 3 maindeck slots? Obviously when it's good you want to find it, but if the matchups where it is actually powerful are so few, why not stick it in the sideboard as a one or two of? The deck has enough draw and tutors to locate one in a timely fashion.

To those who played this deck in the Source tournament (Zach and Matt, I believe):

I'm sorry if you've already posted an answer to the following questions somewhere, but I was wondering why the deck didn't perform as expected (assuming you expected it to win, which I can only imagine you did). Was it a matter of play mistakes, or was the deck simply outclassed? If the former is the case, what lessons can be learned? If the latter is the case, what needs to be fixed? Thanks.

[Zach Tartell]

To those who played this deck in the Source tournament (Zach and Matt, I believe):

I'm sorry if you've already posted an answer to the following questions somewhere, but I was wondering why the deck didn't perform as expected (assuming you expected it to win, which I can only imagine you did). Was it a matter of play mistakes, or was the deck simply outclassed? If the former is the case, what lessons can be learned? If the latter is the case, what needs to be fixed? Thanks.

I definitely did not play Enchantress at the source tournament. I expected ridiculous amounts of Ad Nauseam Combo (and was relatlively sure that 4 chant in the board wasn't nearly enough to beat it). It turns out that 4 Trinispheres and 4 Chalices weren't enough either.

Anyway, I think that Enchantress just isn't justifiable anymore. Like, combo is getting faster (although that isn't much of a change - we'd lose on turn three just as often as on turn two) and, as a result, the decks that could beat combo (that we could beat, like Landstill) just aren't being played anymore.

Aydunno. I prolly won't be rocking my Savannahs anytime soon.

To answer the questions that I neglected like two months ago, Chrome Mox is amazing. For a deck that isn't worth playing right now. Like, really good.

[Mayk0l]

Zach played DS,
Matt ran into some bad luck. I beat him with Ichorid solely on luck.

[Deep6er]

Well, some of these I can answer.

Zach played Dragon Stompy. Even though I desperately tried to get him to play Enchantress (Matt was there! This could have been the time to prove your dominance! Well, they were pretty persuasive to me at least), he wouldn't budge.

I know that Matt played against Matt McNally playing EPIC Painter in round two.

Game one, Matt's hand was awful, even after he mulliganed.

Game two, Matt (McNally) walks into Choke.

Game three, Matt (Elgin) mulligans to three.

:(

Since his hand wasn't; Forest, Utopia Sprawl, Argothian, Matt (Elgin) lost.

Matt had some awful luck in the rounds. I saw some of them.

EDIT: Damn, I got super sarnath'd. :(

[Solpugid]

Anyway, I think that Enchantress just isn't justifiable anymore.

That's...really depressing. If chant isn't enough out of the board, is there any way adding abeyances or teegs or something could make the matchup at least decent without ruining other matchups?

Edit: Thanks for the rundown Deep6er. Do you think the poor record had more to do with bad luck, then?

[Jak]

Meh, I'll still play Enchantress because itstill hasawesome MUs against other decks. I would totally just disregard the combo MU and focus on beating Aggro (gobs and goyf sligh mostly), control (landstill, ITF, decks with sweepers), and Thresh. Karmic Justices, additional Replenishes, Choke, Humility, Runed Halos, etc will all increase those MUs. Hopefully combo gets bogged down by all the counters out there and Enchantress can focus on beating those decks. Have faith guys :)

[Forbiddian]

Yeah, TES is a pretty big bummer for Enchantress.

It beats everything Enchantress does better and Enchantress loses to everything TES loses to (other than specific TES hate, but in general Counterbalance, lots of countermagia).


I've gone back to the absolute grassroots of Enchantress in T1.5, when it was a port of the four-color Vintage Enchantress back in 2002. GWB.

I cut WAY back on the Enchantment count in exchange for maindeck Duresses/Thoughtseizes. The aggro MU is a little worse game 1 (mainly because you the Enchantment count is lower, so it's harder to resolve Solitary safely on T3). Still, if anything the control MU is better as is the Aggro Control MU.

It's WAY more susceptible to nonbasic hate (but Epic Painter and Dragonstompy will hopefully be forced out of the meta by TES).

GWB Enchantress still has a bad MU against TES (horrible, actually), but it's a little bit better and it's a little bit better at stopping the countermagia. Even with only 30 Enchantments, a resolved Enchantress is almost always game against control.


I don't see how the GWr version can survive, though. The new meta has way more countermagic and it's much faster (the two banes of Enchantress). The only way I see Enchantress surviving is getting under the countermagic and under the combo clocks by throwing out disruption.

[GreenOne]

I don't believe enchantress has the same bad matchups than TES. Enchantress has, in fact, not that bad matchup against counterdecks*. Actually, some thresh (and thrash) versions are quite good matchups. Dragon stompy is not that bad as a matchup, too.
Enchantress has IMO fair parings almost against anything in the control and aggrocontrol range, a horrible matchup against combo and a nice/fantastic matchup against aggro. It's sure still a good option for some metas (I'm thinking about the EU) where combo is particularly unplayed, and an overall fair (not fantastic nor horrible) game in almost any meta but combo.meta.


*counterbalance is not the bitch that is for combo decks, when you're playing a deck that has its bombs in the 3cc and 4cc range.