[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[wcm8]

Enchantress mirror matches are really stupid games, and depending where you are in a tournament, you should probably just ID.

[Gibbie_X]

Oblivion Ring does eat it. Colored spells is what it has protection from. It is a triggered ability, not the spell itself that targets the Emrakul.

Dovescape would also throw a monkey wrench in your plan the same way.

Ofcourse, if you are a bad player and aren't sitting behind a Confinement. Aura really is the card that makes the mirror.

ID? why?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I think he's saying ID because if both players are good game 1 will end with one player drawing themselves out and g2 & g3 will be decided by either sb/mirror match skill or who draws themselves out first. I'd have to say anyone who MD's mirror match hate for Enchantress either is in a really warped meta or I'm not going to have to worry about facing in the mirror after round 3 if you catch my drift. I've given the mirror match much thought though. I don't SB specifically for the mirror but I know how to use my sb to the best of it's abilities in the mirror. I wouldn't ID most likely just because I'd expect myself to win.

[wcm8]

The mirror match really comes down to deck choice. A choice that is optimized for consistency and speed vs. most other types of decks will typically lose to an [otherwise arguably inferior] build that has more toolbox answers. For example, I think Aura of Silence is a great sideboard card, but I don't think it should be in the main deck. However, if your mirror opponent has that in there and gets it out earlier enough, you are likely to lose simply to that one card. Or perhaps they are packing more O Rings or something.

As holmes said, you'd have to be in a pretty warped meta for Enchantress to be considered a likely or common matchup. If you know your opponent is playing it before game one, IDing might be better overall than risking a loss. This isn't a typical mirror match where playing skill is the main deciding factor, it's going to come down more to deck construction in my opinion.

[dontbiteitholmes]

The mirror match really comes down to deck choice. A choice that is optimized for consistency and speed vs. most other types of decks will typically lose to an [otherwise arguably inferior] build that has more toolbox answers. For example, I think Aura of Silence is a great sideboard card, but I don't think it should be in the main deck. However, if your mirror opponent has that in there and gets it out earlier enough, you are likely to lose simply to that one card. Or perhaps they are packing more O Rings or something.

As holmes said, you'd have to be in a pretty warped meta for Enchantress to be considered a likely or common matchup. If you know your opponent is playing it before game one, IDing might be better overall than risking a loss. This isn't a typical mirror match where playing skill is the main deciding factor, it's going to come down more to deck construction in my opinion.

At the same time if one person is not familiar at all with the factors that decide the mirror match a skillful opponent could easily outplay them and force the G1 loss. Unless one person runs cards that I would usually consider subobtimal card choices MD (example Holistic Wisdom, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Dovescape) game 1 really is a hellish war of second guessing yourself and holding back or going balls out to combo out before the other player can set up a lock. Most likely G1 would be decided by several play errors or bad guesses in the majority of matches and end either in a draw on time or with not enough time left for g2.

[JrGman2004]

Re: cool things, to some extent that's how the whole deck is. You have a rigid skeleton that works, and then around 8-10 "cool" slots to play around with based on your meta. I mean there was someone that was playing Concordant Crossroads, and that seems far more situational than Land Tax and more of a win-more type of card.

That would be me that runs Concordant Crossroads. It's my one piece of super secret tech... ;) Actually... I have a very good reason for running it. Because I was doing so well in my local meta, I was getting hated against very hard in the sideboards. Any deck that could run it, was running Fracturing Gust, though strangely no one was running Reverent Silence. Go figure. Anyways... their strategy was usually to wait until I was set up and had a bunch of stuff on the board, meanwhile building up their board while I had them locked down. Then when I dropped Sigil of the Empty Throne and made a bunch of tokens, they would hit me on their turn and gain a ton of life and swing in and take me out. So I looked for a way to win the turn I go off and make my angels, and Concordant Crossroads was one of those ways to win the turn I go off. It's not really a "win-more" card... it's a "win-now" card... BTW, it has won me no less than 3 rounds between two different SCG Open events, including one game where we went to turns and I won on the very last turn by fetching up the Crossroads. Otherwise I would have tied that round.

Why is it that we have to completely brokenly abuse Land Tax before ordaining that it should be played in Enchantress? Is O.Ring broken? How about Ground Seal? Sure, in certain matches it is... but we run stuff that is utility that's not broken. Some people run Exploration, is that broken? I think Land Tax as a 1 of can be a great T1 play. It let's you keep a 2 land hand that you would normally pitch. Even if it activates once, it's done it's job. I've also had times where it would have saved my ass because I had to drop an early Confinement before being completely set up.

Case in point where it could have been helpful. I was playing against Todd Anderson in Atlanta (thus why he complained about Moat and Solitary Confinement in his article on SCG) and he was playing Goblins. 3rd game, he gets off to a fast start and I have to drop the Solitary with 2 draw effects and 2 cards left in my hand. I was stuck at 3 lands with a Wild Growth on one. If I had had a Land Tax, it would have made me sweat a LOT less. 3 turns in a row, I played an enchantment, drew my two cards and pass turn because I kept drawing 3 drop and greater enchantments, so I could never play 2 on the same turn to get ahead. If I had drawn 2 lands in any of those draws, I would have been sunk. But if I had had a Land Tax, I would have gotten 3 cards into my hand and discarded a land to Solitary and still had 2 enchantments and 2 lands in my hand. I would have been in a much better position.

Sure, it's not broken and it can't be abused too badly... but, it's still a card that can be really helpful when you see it.



Also, to the people talking about Emrakul eating an ORing. Does it matter a whole lot? It's the whole "Tarmogoyf dies to Swords" argument... it's ridiculous. How good of a position is your opponent going to be after you've swung in for 15 and he had to sacrafice 6 permanents? How many decks are going to have 3 lands left to play that ORing? Not many, I must say.

Also, if you have a Karrakas on board, game over. Cast Emrakul, take extra turn, swing, bounce, replay, swing again, game.

[wcm8]

Yeah Emrakul wins games, but then so does having 15 mana (usually). The advantage of other win conditions is that they have utility earlier in the game. I mean I do think it'd be fun to win with Eldrazi, but from a purely competitive standpoint, this is danger of cool things. Has anybody actually tested this out in a tournament environment?

Advantages:
-basically will win you the game
-can typically get you out of stall locks, making tie rounds into wins
-the only typical legacy answer to it is Oblivion Ring and Diabolic Edict (in which case you'd typically have an Enchantress out)
-Completely out of left field. You aren't cheating it into play. Could be a good sideboard card in this regard.

Disadvantages:
-15 mana. Come on. Horrible, horrible top deck.
-Other win cons can really help out earlier in the game.

[NihilObstat]

Hi guys I haven't read the whole thread because I don't play the deck, but a friend does.

I've read that some people think it's stupid to run MD aura of silence, but I have seen my friend gain 3 rounds, the first game, against Belcher thanks to running that card MD. Going the usual land + growth / Mox or both, to sterling grove, tutoring, win. Turn 3 should usually be enough.

It also works against Mirror, although it is not 100% necessary, but increases your chances or makes winning easy.

Makes Stax easier, and I mean, the thing is she runs it because it's only 1 card, it's destroy effect is always good, and it's +2 effects can sometimes be awesome, and what could that single slot be? Another oblivion?

Enchantress is about versatility and being able to do anything, right ??

[dontbiteitholmes]

That would be me that runs Concordant Crossroads. It's my one piece of super secret tech... ;) Actually... I have a very good reason for running it. Because I was doing so well in my local meta, I was getting hated against very hard in the sideboards. Any deck that could run it, was running Fracturing Gust, though strangely no one was running Reverent Silence. Go figure. Anyways... their strategy was usually to wait until I was set up and had a bunch of stuff on the board, meanwhile building up their board while I had them locked down. Then when I dropped Sigil of the Empty Throne and made a bunch of tokens, they would hit me on their turn and gain a ton of life and swing in and take me out. So I looked for a way to win the turn I go off and make my angels, and Concordant Crossroads was one of those ways to win the turn I go off. It's not really a "win-more" card... it's a "win-now" card... BTW, it has won me no less than 3 rounds between two different SCG Open events, including one game where we went to turns and I won on the very last turn by fetching up the Crossroads. Otherwise I would have tied that round.

Why is it that we have to completely brokenly abuse Land Tax before ordaining that it should be played in Enchantress? Is O.Ring broken? How about Ground Seal? Sure, in certain matches it is... but we run stuff that is utility that's not broken. Some people run Exploration, is that broken? I think Land Tax as a 1 of can be a great T1 play. It let's you keep a 2 land hand that you would normally pitch. Even if it activates once, it's done it's job. I've also had times where it would have saved my ass because I had to drop an early Confinement before being completely set up.

Case in point where it could have been helpful. I was playing against Todd Anderson in Atlanta (thus why he complained about Moat and Solitary Confinement in his article on SCG) and he was playing Goblins. 3rd game, he gets off to a fast start and I have to drop the Solitary with 2 draw effects and 2 cards left in my hand. I was stuck at 3 lands with a Wild Growth on one. If I had had a Land Tax, it would have made me sweat a LOT less. 3 turns in a row, I played an enchantment, drew my two cards and pass turn because I kept drawing 3 drop and greater enchantments, so I could never play 2 on the same turn to get ahead. If I had drawn 2 lands in any of those draws, I would have been sunk. But if I had had a Land Tax, I would have gotten 3 cards into my hand and discarded a land to Solitary and still had 2 enchantments and 2 lands in my hand. I would have been in a much better position.

Sure, it's not broken and it can't be abused too badly... but, it's still a card that can be really helpful when you see it.

Also, to the people talking about Emrakul eating an ORing. Does it matter a whole lot? It's the whole "Tarmogoyf dies to Swords" argument... it's ridiculous. How good of a position is your opponent going to be after you've swung in for 15 and he had to sacrafice 6 permanents? How many decks are going to have 3 lands left to play that ORing? Not many, I must say.

Also, if you have a Karrakas on board, game over. Cast Emrakul, take extra turn, swing, bounce, replay, swing again, game.

So what your saying is you started running Crossroads MD because the people at your local shop fail super hard at both playing and building Legacy decks. I'm not trying to be a dick I'm just saying I could drive a truck through the list of holes in that argument. #1 if it's a very specific answer to SB cards why is it MD. #2 why don't people in your meta play better cards, even a regular Tranquility is better than a 5 mana answer to a deck that commonly combos out turn 4? #3 How do people plan to kill you if you have Sigil tokens to block and Replenish and why would life gain matter since if you've combod out and assumedly have drawn into Replenish and can relock the game next turn if they don't kill your during theirs? #4 Any 1/2 way decent card you put into Enchantress will win you games given enough time. You basically draw your entire deck in any game you win. I could probably win 5 games in a SCG open with Opalescence, that doesn't mean it's a good card for the deck. You are playing a card that is not only a two card combo that does nothing on it's own to help you, but it also has the unfortunate side effect of being the worst card in your deck by a long shot until you are literally about to win the game 95% of the time. I say literally because I'm guessing atleast 2/3 times you win with Crossroads you would have won anyways. The real test is how many times you are holding Crossroads in grip and don't wish it was something else. You're sitting there looking at Crossroads and the board and thinking, "Damn, I wish this was Wild Growth so I could play it and draw 2 cards and have an extra mana instead of drawing 2 cards and giving my opponent 2-3 turns of hasty attackers." Really I don't care. The worse everyone else does with Enchantress the better it is as a metagame choice since it marginalizes the threat so I support any cards you want to play. Oh and for the record #5 another Karmic Justice or Replenish SB is a better call for the meta you described about 10x over.


Hi guys I haven't read the whole thread because I don't play the deck, but a friend does.

I've read that some people think it's stupid to run MD aura of silence, but I have seen my friend gain 3 rounds, the first game, against Belcher thanks to running that card MD. Going the usual land + growth / Mox or both, to sterling grove, tutoring, win. Turn 3 should usually be enough.

It also works against Mirror, although it is not 100% necessary, but increases your chances or makes winning easy.

Makes Stax easier, and I mean, the thing is she runs it because it's only 1 card, it's destroy effect is always good, and it's +2 effects can sometimes be awesome, and what could that single slot be? Another oblivion?

Enchantress is about versatility and being able to do anything, right ??
Stax is a very rare matchup and favorable already and Beltcher wins G1 before you can play a 1x 3cc card in your deck unless you are really really lucky. Not a terrible MD card choice, but I'd rather keep Aura on SB status for now.
Side note on really lucky + Beltcher MU.
Played in a very small Legacy tournament last weekend. Last round was vs. Beltcher, if I win I get $30 if I lose I get nothing. G1 on the play my opening hand is Runed Halo, Chome Mox, Elephant Grass, Sterling Grove, Fetch, Fetch, Mirri's Guile. Really I could not have picked a better hand if you asked me to. First turn Halo naming Beltcher he had win in hand, instead he makes 10 Goblins. Turn 2 I play Elephant Grass and win. Game 2 he's on play, my opening hand Mirri's Guile, Runed Halo, Land, Land, Mindbreak Trap, Enlightened Tutor. Score, he tries to cast Beltcher I Mindbreak, 2nd turn Halo on Beltcher, I start to combo out, he makes 14 Goblins, bam another Mindbreak Trap.

[wcm8]

Enchantress is about versatility and being able to do anything, right ??

To an extent. If you want more of a toolbox type of deck, look at playing Quinn. There you run 4 Enlightened Tutors and multiple targets that completely hose certain decks.

Enchantress has some leeway with silver bullets, but with the way I build it, there really isn't too much room in the main deck to run something that isn't at least somewhat multi-functional. For example, Oblivion Ring hits just about anything, Ground Seal cantrips, and City of Solitude shuts down SDT, Brainstorm, and other tricks in addition to hosing blue counterspells. These cards might be dead in some matchups, but their usefulness in others warrants their inclusion.

Something like Aura of Silence seems like a bad main deck slot, I'd rather run an additional O Ring, or maybe even another Solitary Confinement. Or if you are really worried about artifacts/enchantments game 1, play Seal of Primordium. Usually just sustaining a Confinement is enough to prevent threats from problem cards until you manage to burn them or swing with an angel army.

I DO think Enlightened Tutor(s) should be run, because there are quite a few decks that literally fold to a successful Moat game 1. And sometimes it can get you out of a tough spot when you get something highly specific. I run 1 in the main and another in the SB.

[Nicote]

I DO think Enlightened Tutor(s) should be run, because there are quite a few decks that literally fold to a successful Moat game 1. And sometimes it can get you out of a tough spot when you get something highly specific. I run 1 in the main and another in the SB.

I run 2 main and they are always useaful and I never wish they would be something else. They are a potential answer to anything and with the amounts of Trygons/Qasali or any other thread that are nowadays in the decks I think ET are a must.

[TheSleeper]

I've had this deck for years but only recently picked it up again (as everyone I know is playing Aggro). Couple of thoughts:

-> There's been a few anti-Humility comments in the last few pages. I plan on using it in my 'Moat' slot (because I have no Moat). As a side benefit however, it does stop a number of creatures Moat doesn't:
-Trygon Predator
-Tombstalker
-Iona (before she hits play)
-Marit Lage
-Emrakul
-Rakdos Pit Dragon
-Painter's Servant
-Qasali Pridemage

Most of these see play in my meta so it probably deserves its place.

-> In testing a 3-Chrome/19-land manabase which has been working well. My theory is with Chrome you want a higher spell count so imprinting is less of a drawback.

-> Its been discussed before but is Carpet of Flowers win-more or worth it? Bringing in 3 CoF for Wild Growth vs. Blue is insane, but do we have the SB slots for it? I'm torn because on one hand it looks great and I want to run it, but if we're already favoured with replenish/city and/or choke I'm not sure it shouldn't be something else. Here is an example SB I've been messing with:

2 Lignify
1 Karmic Justice (1 MD)
2 Runed Halo (1 MD)
2 Aura of Silence
1 Oblivion Ring (1 MD)
1 CoP: Green
1 CoP: Red
2 City of Solitude
3 Carpet of Flowers

Any feedback appreciated :)

[Pienterekaak]

I am thinking of testing 1 Drop of Honey in the sideboard.
Its good against reanimate and heavy agro (merfolk,goblins,elves)
the downside would be that argothian enchantress cant be played.
what are your thoughts about this?

[wcm8]

Humility can work, the problem is that it will shut off your own Argothians and primary win condition (angel tokens). Also, 1/1s can be a threat over time since you might take awhile to set up and Humility typically will be dropped later in the game. Moat is better and ideal, but in that slot I'd use another Solitary Confinement over Humility. Heck, maybe even Wrath of God to wipe the board.

I like the idea of Carpet of Flowers, but I'd rather be playing City of Solitude/Choke vs. blue decks.

My sideboard has been like this:
2 Runed Halo
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
2 Choke
1 Aura of Silence
1 Replenish
1 Karmic Justice
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Lignify
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Faerie Macabre


A list I would like to discuss is the one here: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35935

This guy runs Living Wish with a whole bunch of targets in his sideboard. I'm not so keen on this one, because while it has many potential answers in the board that will help out game 1, it seems to slow the deck down by at least a turn in many cases. What is interesting though is that he runs a whole bunch of fetch lands to help make Mirri's Guile better, essentially making it function like an SDT in other decks.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Humility can work, the problem is that it will shut off your own Argothians and primary win condition (angel tokens). Also, 1/1s can be a threat over time since you might take awhile to set up and Humility typically will be dropped later in the game. Moat is better and ideal, but in that slot I'd use another Solitary Confinement over Humility. Heck, maybe even Wrath of God to wipe the board.

I like the idea of Carpet of Flowers, but I'd rather be playing City of Solitude/Choke vs. blue decks.

My sideboard has been like this:
2 Runed Halo
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
2 Choke
1 Aura of Silence
1 Replenish
1 Karmic Justice
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Lignify
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Faerie Macabre


A list I would like to discuss is the one here: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35935

This guy runs Living Wish with a whole bunch of targets in his sideboard. I'm not so keen on this one, because while it has many potential answers in the board that will help out game 1, it seems to slow the deck down by at least a turn in many cases. What is interesting though is that he runs a whole bunch of fetch lands to help make Mirri's Guile better, essentially making it function like an SDT in other decks.

Yeah Moat is ideal, but if I didn't own one, aside from playing a different deck the best option is probably Humility as a replacement. Living Wish is really bad idea IMO. First off, it's not an enchantment and it doesn't get enchantments, why not E. Tutor instead? Second the SB for Enchantress is already packed with tutorable silver bullets, running Living Wish loses you MD slots and SB slots, both of which are not things I want to do. Third, it's a tempo loss since most of the time if you're comboing out you'd rather have even a Wild Growth in that slot compared to a Wish. Mirri's Guile tech is interesting, but I've been trying to talk about that since 3-4 years ago and no one has taken the bait yet. I run 3x Guile and the same mana base +2 Karakas, +1 Plains, +1 Taiga, -4 Forest. Beyond Living Wish being in the deck not being that great he has some really Timmy targets and no Vexing Shusher (which would be the first card in if I went that route). Seriously it looks like his sideboard was made by a 12 year old.

[anonymos]

-> Its been discussed before but is Carpet of Flowers win-more or worth it? Bringing in 3 CoF for Wild Growth vs. Blue is insane, but do we have the SB slots for it? I'm torn because on one hand it looks great and I want to run it, but if we're already favoured with replenish/city and/or choke

Any feedback appreciated :)

Carpet of Flowers is interesting in my opinion. It competes with Choke/ City of Solitude slots in my sideboard. I am currently running 2 Carpet, 1 Choke in my list.

They provide different functions for the deck. Choke/City shuts their deck off. I cannot argue that this is not good for the deck. Carpet changes the rules of the game. Carpet basically gets us a reusable Dark Ritual for whatever color we want. This puts us out of range of Daze concern turn two the same way that Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl do on turn 2, but grows a larger advantage as the game goes on. It is also an improved draw later as multiple copies of Choke/City are redundant. We already have a respectable tutor package and draw engine to enable finding 1 ofs. Having an opponent with multiple islands in play allows you to overwhelm them with threats, forcing them to think about what they are Forcing (ha ha...), especially wth Daze being rendered irrelevant by the amout of mana you are generating.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Humility is awful because it cuts your draw engine in half. There are very, very few decks that get hit hard enough by the card to justify that.

[wcm8]

I played in a GPT over the weekend, going 2-2-1. I'm not going to go too in depth, but the experience did give me some ideas about changes I'm making to the deck.

Won 2-0 vs. Zoo. Pretty much just steam rolled the guy. There are times when you won't get your engine rolling, but in general this should be an easy matchup.

Lost 2-1 vs. a Counterbalance deck that splashed black for Confidant. The guy had boarded in quite a few things since I guess he considered Enchantress a difficult matchup for his deck. The reason I lost game 3 was actually my own fault, as I had been forgetting to trigger Karmic Justice for the Wastelands. I was concerned with the Engineered explosives, and simply forgot that it applies to other things as well (I was also very tired, having worked an overnight shift). Lesson learned.

Lost 0-2 to Armageddon Stax. The guy managed to get his Trinisphere/Chalice at 1/Smoke stack combo out with Armageddon backup early both games. This is rather difficult matchup in my opinion, but I think will become more manageable with some MD changes. Also, I think Stax players must be into sadism or something, because this is perhaps the most annoying matchup ever.

ID vs. a Show and Tell/Doomsday Shelldock combo deck. I saw a turn 2 Progenitus but was able to fetch Elephant Grass in time. Game 2 I lost to Emrakul coming down on turn 3. We decided to ID though because there were some errors in the match points (in his favor) from earlier in the tournament, and also because game 2 I let slide a misplay (illegal/incorrect triggering of Doomsday -- I could have been a jerk and called for a judge, but whatever). As with most combo decks, this is a bad matchup and the only thing I can think of that would help G2/3 would be to include Karakas and mulligan (and pray). Probably an auto-lose in most situations.

Won 2-0 vs. a janky black/white deadguy ale type deck.

The thing I've been realizing is that we (or at least for my build) need to include more spot removal in Enchantress. Just because we can tutor for some of our answers, doesn't mean we should sacrifice consistency. I think 1 Oblivion Ring is far too low, and that 3, possibly 4 is the correct number.

I'm going to drop Horizon Canopy for 2 basics. I like the optional draw effect, but it seems to just serve as a Wasteland target early in the game (when you actually need to use it for mana), and later on with an engine established it's not really needed. I also found Chrome Mox to be pretty much worthless. Turn 1 Argothian is nice, but 8 land auras should be enough acceleration. Tends to be a really bad top deck as well.

Also, I think I need to devote more slots in the sideboard for the blue matchup. I'm upping my MD Replenish count to 3 and then going to have some mixture of Choke, City of Solitude, and Carpet of Flowers to bring in. I'm not going to maindeck those simply because they aren't useful against most other decks, and with some luck Replenish will pull you through game 1.

I'm still back and forth with Ground Seal. I think 1 MD should be enough to handle a LftL engine.

[GiantGrowth]

Hey, I just had an idea for a great living wish target, squee. Gives you a random "oops I win" g1 against anyone not running md hate.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Hey, I just had an idea for a great living wish target, squee. Gives you a random "oops I win" g1 against anyone not running md hate.

Living Wish is not that good and a lot of decks have MD disenchant effects or Explosives. On a different note I've noticed very late in the game that I sideboard out Elephant Grass roughly 70-80% of games and that the meta on the East Coast is like 80% blue decks. So long story short I'm going to MD Carpet of Flowers and try to steal more games. Last weekend at the GPT I faced 100% blue decks and Elephant Grass was crap every game. I think it's about time to put it on official sideboard status. My super secret tech was stronger then ever and won me 3 games out the sideboard. Not going to blow up my own spot but if you were there you probably saw it since almost every game went over time. Now I'm sure to face 3-4 Zoo matchups next tournament. Still have only played one Zoo player in 5 tournaments, zero Goblins, and one Merfolk. Not sure if my deck hates me or just my luck in general (Last tournament I mulled to 5 six times in 7 rounds and I run 8x Enchantress 4x Guile). Cutting out Lignify since everyone has realized Reanimator is a bad deck and it's worse than O. Ring vs. every other deck.

[Gibbie_X]

I have been running 1 Choke main since GP Chicago, and now is even more of a reason too. I may have stated this in an earlier post, at least 1/3 of the decks had blue in them. If I am reading the meta as well as I can, Reanimator and decks that beat said deck willl be the popular ones, therefore most prevalent. Preparing for a heavy :u: environment is a good strategy, Sorry if I'm looking into the expect meta, but I am preparing for Columbus, which will top previous North American Grand Prix's, and I need to focus on what this will entail. There will be a lot of randoms, some with some sick shit, but I really expect Top 16 to have Zoo, Merfolk, Fairies, Reanimator, UGxxxl(of 1 form or another that has goyf, Force, daze, Brainstorm, Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top, etc...) Goblins, New Horizons, Dredge, ANT, and my Enchantress. So anyone one who is playing in the Tournament should pool with what we have so far and come up with a good way to neutralize most of the meta. Choke far surpasses City of Solitude, because it locks them down instead of hindering their counter magic. Counterbalance doesn't care who's turn it is, it just stops you from casting. Choke stops them from activating Top, holds Reanimator from attacking with Iona on white, as long as you have a Grass out with said Choke.

[anonymos]

Still have only played one Zoo player in 5 tournaments, zero Goblins, and one Merfolk. Not sure if my deck hates me or just my luck in general (Last tournament I mulled to 5 six times in 7 rounds and I run 8x Enchantress 4x Guile). Cutting out Lignify since everyone has realized Reanimator is a bad deck and it's worse than O. Ring vs. every other deck.

I'll trade you metagames! Locally I'm seeing 2ish zoo, goblins is making a comeback and merfolk is nowhere to be seen. Reanimator has two guys playing it more or less constantly.

I've actually switched for the moment to New Horizons, but still like this a lot. I'm currently 2 cards from an all foreign enchantress. Anyone want to swap me an italian moat and stuff for an english one?

[wcm8]

I have been running 1 Choke main since GP Chicago.....

I have a similar meta. Would you mind sharing your list?

[dontbiteitholmes]

What happened to all the Merfolk? Seems like it crushes most U decks and the meta is well over 50% blue decks yet it seems like less people play Merfolk every week even though it was all over T8 for a hot minute.
*edit* yes I also added a Choke MD and neglected to mention it. City of Solitude is <<<<< Choke for hindering blue and if you don't want your stuff countered Shusher >>>>> City. Choke slows them down, Shusher cuts off counters and splashing 1 Trop for In The Eye of Chaos is better than City and relevant vs any deck that brings in Grips as well as combo, counters, and burn. I see no reason anyone should ever run City when there are 3 better options.

[aznepyon7]

Maybe a silly question, but isn't it possible to run 2 or so copies of Mystic Remora as a deterrant or just as a draw source? I'm planning to run 2-3 copies with Words of Wind to bounce back Elephant Grass or the Remora if need be.

[anonymos]

Maybe a silly question, but isn't it possible to run 2 or so copies of Mystic Remora as a deterrant or just as a draw source? I'm planning to run 2-3 copies with Words of Wind to bounce back Elephant Grass or the Remora if need be.

Not a silly question. Different deck. You're looking for "Eternal Wind".

[TossUsToLions]

How many chokes do you think should be played main? Im thinking two. I am also going to GP Columbus and i am expecting a lot of blue. Right now i am playing one choke but i am thinking about taking out my lone karmic justice for another one. Choke is better than justice against about 90% of the current meta. I was playing city of solitude but i realized that it is only good against blue (and i sided it out every game that i wasnt facing a blue deck) and choke is much better than city. I feel like sooo many of the top decks have blue right now, and the ones that dont (like zoo) city of solitude doesnt help that much.

[Pienterekaak]

The thing I've been realizing is that we (or at least for my build) need to include more spot removal in Enchantress. Just because we can tutor for some of our answers, doesn't mean we should sacrifice consistency. I think 1 Oblivion Ring is far too low, and that 3, possibly 4 is the correct number.

I personally play 2, which i feel is enough



I'm going to drop Horizon Canopy for 2 basics. I like the optional draw effect, but it seems to just serve as a Wasteland target early in the game (when you actually need to use it for mana), and later on with an engine established it's not really needed. I also found Chrome Mox to be pretty much worthless. Turn 1 Argothian is nice, but 8 land auras should be enough acceleration. Tends to be a really bad top deck as well.

Full agreement here, you do NOT want to enchant your non basic lands with enchant lands, and you usually do not need the 1 extra draw. Furthermore, mox is nice for a turn 1 enchantress, or a turn 1 runed halo vs combo, but the card becomes a dead draw around turn 2-3 (since it also creates card disadvantage)



I'm upping my MD Replenish count to 3

I dont think this is nessecary, but then again, i play a very strange enchantress list atm :P ill share it soon

[wcm8]

I've been having great success playtesting with 2 Carpet of Flowers and 2 Choke main deck. Versus some decks they are entirely worthless, but when they help, they can essentially secure the game. In the same way that resolving a Moat means GG against some decks, Choke can also lead to opponents scooping (or at least putting them back multiple turns while you stabilize).

I'm glad for the suggestion on this, the aggro matchup is still fine even with 4 dead slots... and now with the recent banning on Mystical Tutor, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a metagame shift towards blue decks. This works in our favor for two very important reasons: 1) some of our worst matchups will now either not show up at all, or at least be far less consistent, and 2) maindecking strong blue hate will become even better/relevant.

I'd still consider a couple sideboard slots for Combo, but damn, Enchantress just got what I think is a HUGE boost in competitiveness.

[anonymos]

I'm glad for the suggestion on this, the aggro matchup is still fine even with 4 dead slots... and now with the recent banning on Mystical Tutor, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a metagame shift towards blue decks. This works in our favor for two very important reasons: 1) some of our worst matchups will now either not show up at all, or at least be far less consistent, and 2) maindecking strong blue hate will become even better/relevant.

I'd still consider a couple sideboard slots for Combo, but damn, Enchantress just got what I think is a HUGE boost in competitiveness.

I halfway agree with this. I think it's going to cause me to swap my personally championed Blood Moon over to Choke. I think that 'geddon Stax just got potentially playable with Grim Monolith coming back. I'm not OMG! yet, but I think it could have the speed it needs to hold up to aggro now and combo is less threatening also. We may need to look for something for this also.

[Hanni]

I'm glad for the suggestion on this, the aggro matchup is still fine even with 4 dead slots... and now with the recent banning on Mystical Tutor, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a metagame shift towards blue decks.

Wait, what? How does combo getting neutered, a positive matchup for blue decks, make blue stronger? Combo getting neutered makes aggro stronger, which makes blue weaker. You have it backwards...

[anonymos]

Wait, what? How does combo getting neutered, a positive matchup for blue decks, make blue stronger? Combo getting neutered makes aggro stronger, which makes blue weaker. You have it backwards...

The reason I think there is going to be a shift toward control now is me thinking about this. The control decks were almost able to work before with combo and aggro pulling them in opposite directions. With combo being reigned in, it makes them more able to focus on the aggro matchup. I think this will cause it to come back a bit in popularity.

[Honoluluicecaps]

I agree with Hanni... the Mystical Tutor banning is going to cause an even BIGGER surge in aggro, since combo is the main weakness for decks such as Zoo and Goblins. 4 MD blue hate is going to be way too much, IMHO, although I do like the shift towards Carpet of Flowers, as I feel that it's early acceleration plus a better cantrip once you start comboing off. I might run 2x Carpet of Flowers, move Choke to the board, and have already scrapped CoS from my 75.

And not to be a selfish Enchantress player, but Mystical Tutor banning only helps us. I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to tweak my list in anticipation for Columbus.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

Borrowing from the Elf Combo thread, a card that I can't believe I've overlooked all these years: Crop Rotation

How sexy is that? Rotate Forest for Sanctum, Rotate tapped Sanctum/ Cradle for untapped Sanctum/ Cradle for a burst of 5-10+ mana when you draw it. Draw extra Sanctums/ Cradles, rotate the one in play out, play the new one from your hand. Cradle getting hit by Wasteland- rotate.

[GiantGrowth]

Borrowing from the Elf Combo thread, a card that I can't believe I've overlooked all these years: Crop Rotation

How sexy is that? Rotate Forest for Sanctum, Rotate tapped Sanctum/ Cradle for untapped Sanctum/ Cradle for a burst of 5-10+ mana when you draw it. Draw extra Sanctums/ Cradles, rotate the one in play out, play the new one from your hand. Cradle getting hit by Wasteland- rotate.

one potential problem I see with crop rotation is that sometimes you are going to need it and not have it, and other times you are going to have multiple copies with nothing to do with them, essentially making them dead cards potentially a lot of the time. Since they aren't enchantments I think they would have to help every time you see one in your hand, since they dont draw off of enchatnress effects and aren't tutorable. It seems to me that crop rotation helps the most when you have several enchantments out and you can abuse sanctum, but by that point you are already in pretty good shape, IMO this deck needs more help in the early game, consistenly getting enchantress effects to stick, which crop rotation helps almost none with. Although if MBA or lots of wastelands are prevalent in your meta, I can see how crop rotation would be really hot even early game against those, although it requires you to hold back from using your mana, slowing you down, potentially fatal.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

one potential problem I see with crop rotation is that sometimes you are going to need it and not have it, and other times you are going to have multiple copies with nothing to do with them, essentially making them dead cards potentially a lot of the time. Since they aren't enchantments I think they would have to help every time you see one in your hand, since they dont draw off of enchatnress effects and aren't tutorable. It seems to me that crop rotation helps the most when you have several enchantments out and you can abuse sanctum, but by that point you are already in pretty good shape, IMO this deck needs more help in the early game, consistenly getting enchantress effects to stick, which crop rotation helps almost none with. Although if MBA or lots of wastelands are prevalent in your meta, I can see how crop rotation would be really hot even early game against those, although it requires you to hold back from using your mana, slowing you down, potentially fatal.

If I need it then it means I have a Sanctum in play, which means I will draw into the Crop Rotation soon anyway.
I can't think of any realistic situation where Crop Rotation is a dead draw and pretty much 95% of the time it's going to make free mana.

If you run Gaea's Touch or ESG then you don't need to hold back mana (on Wasteland). Gaea's Touch means they can't even Disrupt your Rotation...

I'm not sure how good or bad it is early... other than E Tutor, there's nothing you would feasibly run at 1 mana that is helping you find or stick Enchantress effects.

I don't see why you wouldn't start drifting this deck into an Enchantress/ Lands hybrid, Crucible to start playing Sanctums out of your discard, multiple times per turn due to Explorations/ Summer Blooms.

Enchantments that sacrifice lands are Aura Fracture and Overgrown Estate. Artifacts there's Zuran Orb off the top of my head.

[wcm8]

I don't see why you wouldn't start drifting this deck into an Enchantress/ Lands hybrid, Crucible to start playing Sanctums out of your discard, multiple times per turn due to Explorations/ Summer Blooms.

Enchantments that sacrifice lands are Aura Fracture and Overgrown Estate. Artifacts there's Zuran Orb off the top of my head.

But the reason this doesn't seem feasible is that you are splitting it into two decks. Enchantress works so well because there are so many enchantments, when you start putting slots towards artifacts, sorceries, instants, you lose a lot of consistency. Serra's Sanctum is only amazing after having a good board position, and if that is achieved you're either doing fine without it or have drawn into it.

[GiantGrowth]

That's why I think that 4 E tutor main is a good idea.

[Antonius]

I get the feeling that the banning of M. Tutor has made this deck the format's Heir Apparent.

also, if they ever printed an enchantment that even came even remotely close to the same functionality as Crucible, then the Lands/Enchantress hybrid would be absolutely baller. Mox Diamond > Chrome Mox, tabernacle dominates with elephant grass...

[ESG]

I sidelined Enchantress a couple of months ago because I wasn't able to improve my CounterTop matchup.

The win-loss results are in games, and the matchups are organized, roughly, from most favorable to least favorable.

Goblins (Mono-Red version) 2-0
Goblins (RBG version) 2-0
Dragon Stompy 2-0
Canadian Thresh 4-0
Merfolk (Mono-Blue version) 2-0
Merfolk (UW version) 2-1
Dredge 8-3
Mono-Brown Stax 2-1
Mirror match 1-1
Reanimator 3-3
Zoo 4-7
CounterTop (Progenitus version) 1-2
CounterTop (Dark Depths version) 1-2
Tempo Bant 0-2
CounterTop (UWB Thopter version) 1-2
43 Land 1-2
Blue Lands 1-2
CounterTop (UBW Stiflenought version) 0-2
CounterTop (UBW mill version) 0-2
Deadguy Ale 0-4
ANT 1-4
CounterTop (Firespout version) 1-8

I'm curious what has been working for other people when facing CounterTop. These are the main countermeasures I have tried: City of Solitude, more Replenishes, Seal of Primordium, Choke. Of these, the best have been Seal of Primordium and Choke. My main problem is that I can't trump multiple copies of Force of Will backed up by either Firespout or an assembled Counterbalance-Top. I need to stick an Enchantress or an Enchantress's Presence to win; if I can't start drawing cards, I lose.

[Antonius]

hmm, how are you 2-4 vs lands? As a longtime lands player, I can say that the only way lands can really beat enchantress is with gimmicks like Burning wish > upheaval > manabond (I think I'm the only person thats actually ever played that) or with some hardcore mind-fucking. It's a bad matchup for the land player. We have no real way to get past the defenses.

also, wouldn't O-Ring and Aura of Silence be the best answer to Counterbalance? Getting 3 seems pretty hard for them. early Pithing needle naming top could work as well. Null Rod would be pretty BAMF, too, seeing as how it has multiple applications, shutting down LEDs and Lotus Petals in the storm matchup.

[GiantGrowth]

ESG can you post the list you used for testing, and what modifications you tested?

[ESG]

@ Antonius: Hitting a 3cc spell isn't that hard if they're running Rhox War Monks and some number of Vendilion Clique. Especially post-board if they bring in Krosan Grips. I've lost at least two matches to blind flips at crucial moments. They only really need one, and at that point, they can just keep it on-call with Top. There are ways to break out of it, but it's worse than 50-50 at that point, in my experience. In the Thopter version, Enlightened Tutor is very good for them. The black-splash version has a lot of game via Force of Will ---> Extirpate.

This was my list at the time:

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress’s Presence
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Wild Growth
3 Utopia Sprawl
3 Lotus Petal
3 Exploration
3 Elephant Grass
3 Seal of Primordium/Choke/City of Solitude
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Lignify
1 Words of War
3 Replenish

14 Forest
4 Plains
2 Serra’s Sanctum

Sideboard:

4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Pithing Needle
2 Karakas
1 Lignify
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Mindbreak Trap

My list has the most in common with SpatulaOfTheAges' build, playing more like combo. When I get out two Enchantress effects, I usually draw up about a third of my deck, thanks to the Explorations, Petals and Sanctum, which keep feeding me mana, enabling me to continue playing spells. This launches me from having barely any board position to having the game locked up and safeguarded with all my replacements in hand in case they can somehow sweep my board on the next turn.

I run all basics (with the exception of Sanctum, obviously) because my meta is hostile to nonbasics, and I found that switching to basics didn't greatly increase my risk of color-screw. Lotus Petal and Utopia Sprawl usually provide sufficient mana-fixing. If you go the basics route, you just have to be more careful when picking a color with Utopia Sprawl. Because I run basics, I run Lotus Petal over Elvish Spirit Guide or Chrome Mox. I can't deny that it pumps Tarmogoyf, but it's an MVP in this deck, providing acceleration and color-fixing and making me virtually Daze-proof.

I haven't needed to run Karmic Justice, since I always keep Reverent Silence in mind. I've had my board wiped only once, by a Reanimator player who fetched a Bayou and then used Mystical Tutor to grab a boarded-in Reverent Silence, but I ended up winning that game.

I play only one kill condition. I used Sacred Mesa as an additional kill for a while, but it was generally slow and unimpressive. Sigil of the Empty Throne didn't even make the second cut: It was horrible in testing, often decking me or greatly increasing my risk of decking. I believe Sigil has a place in the slower, Whiter builds, but it does not work in my build.

Runed Halo, while a strong card, is too difficult to support in as Green a manabase as I run. I cannot say I've missed it.

Pithing Needle is my go-to card in the Lands matchup. I used to run Blood Moon, but I lost two games in a row with Blood Moon in my opener. It's too slow. Having Blood Moon is useless if Rishadan Ports keep you tapped down from Turn 1, which is what has happened nearly every time I've played against the deck.

When I pick up this deck again, I'm going to redo the sideboard, since Reanimator and ANT's numbers are likely to wane, which will leave more room to devote to fighting CounterTop.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

The SB might be the problem. I generally run 8-10 slots that can be brought in against blue decks; right now, some combination of Choke/Carpet of Flowers/Baneslayer Angel is what I'd recommend.

How detrimental would it be to run a couple more fetchlands? Is it worse than Lotus Petal pumping Goyfs (as opposed to running ESG in that slot)?

[ESG]

@ SpatulaOfTheAges: The value of fetchlands is largely determined by how many of my opponents are running Stifle. At the time I was playing this deck regularly, Stifle was fairly common in my meta, showing up in Canadian Thresh, Dreadstill, some Merfolk lists, some Bant lists, a CounterTop Dark Depths deck, and the then-new Reanimator. I think its presence has dropped somewhat, so I might try adding the fetches back in. I wouldn't use them as a replacement for Petals, though. Petals are way more stable than, say, a Taiga. No one pops a Pridemage to hit them; no one chooses them when resolving a Duress; no one counters them. Nonbasic lands, though, get blown up on sight. In over half my games with this deck, I've lost my first Sanctum. That's fine, 'cause I play two, and because I usually only need one or two activations out of it before I take over the game, but my basic lands have won me a lot of games by blanking opposing Wastelands long enough for me to go off.

Baneslayer Angel is interesting, although I suspect I might have as much luck with Sigil of the Empty Throne: same casting cost. I had avoided Sigil before based on manabase considerations and the fact my results showed that the Words of War combo was the most effective route, but I think it could prove useful in the CounterTop matchup, since if they counter my Enchantresses, I'll at least have a good chance to resolve Sigil. Then those enchantments in my hand won't just be waiting on me to draw a tutor or another Enchantress. I'll redo the sideboard and try the deck at some events next month.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Baneslayer's advantages are actually quite different than Sigil; one, there should be no spot removal in the opponent's deck G2, leaving the Angel basically unanswerable, and two, it's a standalone threat, something not really true of Sigil.

[Vacrix]

Isn't Luminarch Ascension worth running as a win-condition over Words of War? I've tested it in multiple decks and I've never lost when its online.

[Oiolosse]

Maybe ppl were running another wincon due to Iona? I never really understood Words of War. I mean, we have multiple ways of pwning aggro as it is. WoWar is instant speed, maybe that's why?

[Nonex]

Since both Argothian and Presence force you to draw, you need something to avoid decking yourself. Any Words from the cycle is ok, but Words of War is the only win condition among them. You can use other Words or enchant yourself with Wheel of Sun and Moon, if you prefer that.

[anonymos]

Since both Argothian and Presence force you to draw, you need something to avoid decking yourself. Any Words from the cycle is ok, but Words of War is the only win condition among them. You can use other Words or enchant yourself with Wheel of Sun and Moon, if you prefer that.

Words of Wilding can also be a win condition. It makes 2/2 bears. I played it before Sigil was printed when I still didn't have a Moat for my deck.

You did hit my reason for running WoWar though. It stops me from running myself out of cards when I start digging and it takes forever to find a win condition.

[Honoluluicecaps]

Ugggh Words of Wilding is so brutally bad in comparison to Words of War. Words of Wilding is a turn slower than Words of War, cannot target opponenet's creatures, and every one of those lame bear tokens can get blasted by firespout/pyroclasm/etc. War is so strong to the point that some lists (not mine, but others) use it as it's ONLY win condition because their deck plays more combo-esque and thus does not utilize Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Unless everyone in your meta run CoP:Red... :laugh:

[Sevryn]

Unless everyone in your meta run CoP:Red... :laugh:
No, but enough people in mine run Pithing Needle that its worth it to me to have one win condition that cannot be needled.

[GiantGrowth]

Personally I have almost never had a problem with decking myself using sigil as my only win con. As long as you don't over extend you're enchantress effects, meaning try to avoid having 3 on the field unless you are in the process of winning, and definitely almost never have 4.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Words of War wins now, which is relevant for going to time. Any kill condition running creatures can go another turn or more, depending on if the opponent can stall with Explosives, etc.

[Ando]

Words of War wins now, which is relevant for going to time. Any kill condition running creatures can go another turn or more, depending on if the opponent can stall with Explosives, etc.

Agreed on both levels. I've seen an enchantress player go into turns and on turn 5 do the 16 damage or so he needed to with WoWar to win the match. As for the second thing, I was playing enchantress Friday, and against The Rock I had my angel tokens Deeded away I believe 5 times (2 Deeds, 3 Eternal Witnesses) before I finally won. Wouldn't have been an issue with WoWar, which I was having trouble drawing (didn't want to pop my only Grove because of Vindicate).

[Sevryn]

In almost all cases, WoWar is superior to Sigil. However, they are different enough in what they do and how they win that I find it worthwhile to run one of each.

WoWar:
-red
-CMC 3
-skips draws
-wins now
-kills small creatures
-activated ability

Sigil:
-white
-CMC 5, makes CMC 0 creatures
-does NOT skip draws
-can block profitably
-triggered ability

So while WoWar can help you avoid drawing yourself to death, Sigil lets you keep drawing threats. WoWar gets hit by Chalice and Explosives at 3, Sigil only gets set back by Explosives at 0. WoWar gets hit by Needle, but Sigil gets hit by Iona on white. I like having my win conditions be slightly diverse; I will never run only one win card.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Isn't Luminarch Ascension worth running as a win-condition over Words of War? I've tested it in multiple decks and I've never lost when its online.
Umm, no. Luminarch Ascension takes 4 turns undisturbed to do anything, by the time I don't take damage for 4 straight turns I usually won 2 turns ago.


Words of War wins now, which is relevant for going to time. Any kill condition running creatures can go another turn or more, depending on if the opponent can stall with Explosives, etc.
This. Happened many times where no other wincon would have gone the distance.

[wcm8]

The question then becomes, if you do decide to run Words of War and Sigil, should you just run 1 of each or go with 2 Sigils in addition to War?

[JrGman2004]

Agreed on both levels. I've seen an enchantress player go into turns and on turn 5 do the 16 damage or so he needed to with WoWar to win the match. As for the second thing, I was playing enchantress Friday, and against The Rock I had my angel tokens Deeded away I believe 5 times (2 Deeds, 3 Eternal Witnesses) before I finally won. Wouldn't have been an issue with WoWar, which I was having trouble drawing (didn't want to pop my only Grove because of Vindicate).

This is a great reason why I run a Concordant Crossroads. So far, I've been ridiculed for my choice of CC in the deck, and been called a bad player (which I find funny, since I've been the top Enchantress player in the Orlando and Atlanta SCG Events), but a CC in the deck could have let you win before he could drop a Witness and return it. You make angels, he drops Deed and pops it on his turn. He's probably not able to Witness and put it back down that same turn, so you make angels again, and his next turn he drops deed and pops it again before you can attack. If you have CC, you make Angels, drop the Crossroads and swing in for game.

I have had it go both ways with winning on Turn 5 of turns winning by dropping a Crossroads to get in with my angels and winning by doing WoW damage and one round where I had to use a combination of Words of War and Concordant Crossroads to get my Angels in for the win.

I do not think it wise to run one or the other, and should really run both. They both have good uses, and in a pinch with WoW, you can take out that Iona naming white on you.

And I run 2 Sigils and 1 Words of War.

[Dark Ritual]

I have found myself going to time with enchantress so I do use WoWar as a wincon. Also helps you not deck yourself whereas sigil, if played with little cards in your library, isn't a wincon, but one step closer to decking yourself. I actually did one time achieve 4 enchantress effects on board and got to play WoWar and was able to kill Iona with it. This was hilarious because I turn 2 ground seal'd against the reanimator player and he didn't have exhume so he waited forever to show and tell eventually when he drew into it and got Iona out naming white. Was just incredible being able to shock Iona 4 times to get access to my white stuff.

Sacred mesa is a fine win condition IMO because you don't have to play enchantments to make it work like you do sigil. And if you have lots of mana you can pump out so many dudes its unbelievable how many pegasi you can make and its hilarious when you beat down with them. Most lists don't run it though since sigil was printed.

I go with 2 sigil's and 1 WoWar in my list for win cons.

[waSP]

How often are you guys seeing that you have 1 or 2 mana left over after you've played what spells you are able to for the turn?

[Ando]

How often are you guys seeing that you have 1 or 2 mana left over after you've played what spells you are able to for the turn?

In the beginning, rarely. I'm setting up and that definitely takes all my mana. Later on, it depends of the match. If I'm trying to draw something in particular, then I'm using up all my mana playing enchantments, trying to draw that card. If I'm in a pretty good position as far as protection goes, I'm usually just chiling and playing an enchantment or two so I can pay for Solitary Confidement. I might have some extra mana then. If I have WoWar or Sigil out, there's a pretty good chance I'm trying to spew every enchantment I can onto the board so I can trigger my win cons. In that case, no extra mana.

[dontbiteitholmes]

How often are you guys seeing that you have 1 or 2 mana left over after you've played what spells you are able to for the turn?

Happens pretty often when I'm drawing through my deck with Enchantress triggers and then end up with WW in my mana pool or something like that at EOT or play all my 1cmc spells and have 2 mana left over. The end to mana burn was the best thing to happen to Enchantress since the unbanning of Replenish.

[JrGman2004]

Happens pretty often when I'm drawing through my deck with Enchantress triggers and then end up with WW in my mana pool or something like that at EOT or play all my 1cmc spells and have 2 mana left over. The end to mana burn was the best thing to happen to Enchantress since the unbanning of Replenish.

Very much so. When you get those long terms, you have to be careful with managment of your green mana, especially if you have a Sanctum out. I've had several times where all I had left was white mana and only green spells to play. But I was also usually behind a Solitary at that point.

[Sevryn]

Sacred mesa is a fine win condition IMO because you don't have to play enchantments to make it work like you do sigil. And if you have lots of mana you can pump out so many dudes its unbelievable how many pegasi you can make and its hilarious when you beat down with them. Most lists don't run it though since sigil was printed.

I go with 2 sigil's and 1 WoWar in my list for win cons.

I no longer run Sacred Mesa, but I agree that it is a fine card. However, I would never run Mesa and WoWar without Sigil, because then both of your win conditions are susceptible to Pithing Needle. This might come up once in a lifetime, but I sure as hell don't want to lose a match because my opponent brought in 4 Needles and caught me unprepared.

For a while, I was running a 1/1/1 split of Mesa/Sigil/WoWar. I think a 2/1 split of Sigil/WoWar would be fine too; however I do dislike seeing win conditions in my opening hand so I have opted for 2 win conditions over 3.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Very much so. When you get those long terms, you have to be careful with managment of your green mana, especially if you have a Sanctum out. I've had several times where all I had left was white mana and only green spells to play. But I was also usually behind a Solitary at that point.

It happens pretty often but it rarely is because of an error in judgement on my part and usually has more to do with just having way more white mana than green and way more green spells than white. Not the biggest deal really, thanks to WOTC for getting rid of mana burn.

[mattguy]

Out of curiousity, anyone uses Dovescape as a 3rd wincon? You will generate more bird tokens than opponents and if Sigil is online, both birds and angels. Once you have Dovescape, it is a control element as well against the opponent's non-creature spells :)

[GiantGrowth]

Out of curiousity, anyone uses Dovescape as a 3rd wincon? You will generate more bird tokens than opponents and if Sigil is online, both birds and angels. Once you have Dovescape, it is a control element as well against the opponent's non-creature spells :)

I have a dovescape in my sb for the control matchup, it's really unessesary against aggro

[dragonstout83]

So what do we do against stuff like Reverent Silence? I understand that we've got Replenish, but since Replenish isn't an instant it seems like it'd be too late vs. "Reverent Silence your Moat/Grass/Confinement, swing for 20".

[dontbiteitholmes]

So what do we do against stuff like Reverent Silence? I understand that we've got Replenish, but since Replenish isn't an instant it seems like it'd be too late vs. "Reverent Silence your Moat/Grass/Confinement, swing for 20".

Much less relevant now. 90% of the time it was EOT Mystical Tutor for Reverent Silence, next turn combo win. Doesn't go as well in Aggro decks as combo because they give you 4 life, then they have to win that turn or risk you just playing Replenish and they are back to square one. Also if there is any chance they will be destroying any permanent you bring in Karmic Justice and they blow themselves away. Until Enchantress is such a threat that it demands dedicated hate from aggro they are better off just hoping to win regardless and SBing all around good cards like Krosan Grip then wasting precious SB slots on what is currently a fringe deck.

[dragonstout83]

Much less relevant now. 90% of the time it was EOT Mystical Tutor for Reverent Silence, next turn combo win. Doesn't go as well in Aggro decks as combo because they give you 4 life, then they have to win that turn or risk you just playing Replenish and they are back to square one. Also if there is any chance they will be destroying any permanent you bring in Karmic Justice and they blow themselves away. Until Enchantress is such a threat that it demands dedicated hate from aggro they are better off just hoping to win regardless and SBing all around good cards like Krosan Grip then wasting precious SB slots on what is currently a fringe deck.

I was just worried because I think it's about to NOT become a fringe deck...but I think Karmic Justice will be the secret if that (or the new M11 card) becomes popular in sideboards.

[TossUsToLions]

Yeah i am worried about that new card that was spoiled in m11. A lot of people think that Enchantress will be a lot more powerful with the banning of Mystical Tutor and i just hope that it doesn't get so popular that people begin sideboarding against enchantress

[dontbiteitholmes]

The thing is unless Enchantress is a sizable potion of the meta, like at least 1/10 of the meta, it's barely worth throwing in the cards that are ONLY good vs. Enchantress when in Zoo attack until until locked down and finish with burn and 4x Pridemage 3-4x Krosan Grip is not exactly a bad plan. I mean if you SB 3 cards that are win vs. Enchantress instead of cards that are good vs. Enchantress and good vs. 90% of the rest of the meta (Basically Krosan Grip) and because of that you lose another match you might as well have just made a normal SB and hoped for the best. Also the cards that are the best vs. Enchantress are Harmonic Convergence and Wash Out since they don't fall to Karmic Justice triggers untap Replenish and both of those cards suck vs. every other deck. Enchantress beats Zoo for sure, but it's not a 100% blowout type of thing like ANT vs. Enchantress was where it's basically impossible to win a whole set. Zoo can still easily win the game if the Enchantress player hits any snag and when they side in 3-4 Grips they have 7-8 Disenchants and that is far from a lost cause. Not to mention aggro decks now have to sideboard more than before for the aggro mirror and putting Jittes in instead of Tranquilities will probably win them wayyyy more games in the long run. Enchantress is a hard deck to play to it's full potential also, so if I was a Zoo player I would just run normal SB cards, Grips, anti-aggro, anti-Graveyard, and not worry too much about Enchantress. Overreacting to a perceived threat is the best way to fuck up a good SB.

[TossUsToLions]

I know that merfolk is considered an easy matchup for us, but I don't really understand how. 4 dazes, 4 FOW, 4 Spellstutter Sprites, 2-4 Spell Pierce (after sideboard) are tough to deal with. They all counter early game and I can't even get part of my engine out. I play choke/city of solitude main and sb (1 of each main and 1 of each sb) but they either get countered or don't do enough without my draw engine running. I also play two ESG for daze protection and first turn argothians. Maybe I just get unlucky but how do you beat all of these counters? I literally can't play anything early on in the game.

[Nonex]

I didn't know Merfolk play Spellstutter Sprite now. Anyway, although it sounds too simple, just keep dropping bombs. The draw engine itself, City of Solitude, Moat, Sigil of the Empty Throne, all of them must be countered, or else 50% of the game is already yours. Then there's Replenish.

[anonymos]

It's mostly an attrition war. They realistically have 4 real counters and 4 counters that get there if you walk into them. Put out more threats faster than they can draw their counters. Don't sit back on their standstills if you can avoid it. I usually charge right into them.

I know that a lot of the lists I've seen have NO answer to Moat or Confinement. Elephant Grass hurts them like you wouldn't believe just because it brings them to a near crawl.

We have lots of tools, just have to use them aggressively.

[GreenOne]

Don't sit back on their standstills if you can avoid it.
Well, I think you should just walk into them only if facing a relevant clock.

If I'm taking 2 a turn, I'm glad to make another land drop (making me not riding directly into Daze), and buy a couple of turns for 4 damage.
This, obviously, only if I have some land drops to make.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If they draw 3 with Landstill, and they have to spend 2 cards to FoW whatever you broke it with, they're generally breaking even or worse.

Elephant Grass hits them pretty hard, and they have very few hard counters; as long as you don't walk into Dazes, which is easy since they have low pressure, you'll be fine.

[wcm8]

In addition to Chokes, try running Carpet of Flowers in your SB. It doesn't really have as dramatic of an effect as Choke or CoS, but landing it early on makes it so that Daze/Sprite/Spell Pierce very quickly become irrelevant and with all the extra mana you'll be able to accelerate past their gameplan. I run 4 of these and 2 Chokes in the SB (in addition to 1 in the main) simply due to the blue matchup being very important. CoS is nice but doesn't seem as gamebreaking to me, although maybe 1 vs. Counterbalance decks is nice -- if you can land it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

In addition to Chokes, try running Carpet of Flowers in your SB. It doesn't really have as dramatic of an effect as Choke or CoS, but landing it early on makes it so that Daze/Sprite/Spell Pierce very quickly become irrelevant and with all the extra mana you'll be able to accelerate past their gameplan. I run 4 of these and 2 Chokes in the SB (in addition to 1 in the main) simply due to the blue matchup being very important. CoS is nice but doesn't seem as gamebreaking to me, although maybe 1 vs. Counterbalance decks is nice -- if you can land it.

I don't know if it's a plan worth sticking with, but for the time being I'm going with 3 MD Carpet of Flowers because the last 10 matches of Legacy I've played 100% had blue in them and for the last 5 tournaments this year since I started playing MTG again it's been well over 75% blue decks. I can still beat Aggro by comboing out before they go critical without 3x Elephant Grass MD game one and if I lose G1 I can still win G2/G3 with a fairly high consistency. Against blue though if I lose G1 it's normally really hard to swing G2 and G3 since they usually pack Explosives, Counters, Grips, and card filters.

[PunkRocker1134]

I don't know if it's a plan worth sticking with, but for the time being I'm going with 3 MD Carpet of Flowers because the last 10 matches of Legacy I've played 100% had blue in them and for the last 5 tournaments this year since I started playing MTG again it's been well over 75% blue decks. I can still beat Aggro by comboing out before they go critical without 3x Elephant Grass MD game one and if I lose G1 I can still win G2/G3 with a fairly high consistency. Against blue though if I lose G1 it's normally really hard to swing G2 and G3 since they usually pack Explosives, Counters, Grips, and card filters.

What does your current list look like?

[dontbiteitholmes]

// Lands
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum
5 [M10] Forest (1)
2 [SHM] Plains (2)
1 [LG] Karakas
2 [A] Savannah
1 [B] Taiga
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
1 [SHM] Runed Halo
4 [TE] Mirri's Guile
1 [LG] Moat
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [US] Carpet of Flowers
1 [CFX] Sigil of the Empty Throne
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
2 [JU] Solitary Confinement
1 [ON] Words of War
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
1 [TE] Choke
3 [UD] Replenish
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
2 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
1 [VI] Elephant Grass
2 [6E] Enlightened Tutor

It's still a work in progress, Probably should throw the E. Tutors back into the SB and replace them with more Grasses since Tutors are really bad vs. counterspells.

[Neuad]

How well does enchantress do without Moat and add in Humility? I really like the deck on MWS but Moat puts it out of my price range if I were to build the deck.

[anonymos]

Without Moat it is still playable, but I would look at an extra Confinement instead of Humility. Humility is something I'm still not keen on because it shuts off your Argothians.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Every 5th page on here is someone asking about Enchantress without Moat for the record.

[Neuad]

Every 5th page on here is someone asking about Enchantress without Moat for the record.

Went back 3-4 pages and didn't see anything, sorry =p

[dontbiteitholmes]

Went back 3-4 pages and didn't see anything, sorry =p

Really it's our fault, this thread could use a reboot and and an epic first post to summarize the same 5 things we keep talking about.

1: Sigil vs. Sacred Mesa vs. Words of War, 1 win condition vs. 2 vs. 3.
2: Lotus Petal vs. ESG vs. Chrome Mox
3: Humility good/bad.
4: City of Solitude vs. Choke vs. Carpet of Flowers vs. Vexing Shusher
5: Will Enchantress work w/o Moat.
Bonus: How bad Land Tax would be if it were unbanned.

[mattguy]

Really it's our fault, this thread could use a reboot and and an epic first post to summarize the same 5 things we keep talking about.

1: Sigil vs. Sacred Mesa vs. Words of War, 1 win condition vs. 2 vs. 3.
2: Lotus Petal vs. ESG vs. Chrome Mox
3: Humility good/bad.
4: City of Solitude vs. Choke vs. Carpet of Flowers vs. Vexing Shusher
5: Will Enchantress work w/o Moat.
Bonus: How bad Land Tax would be if it were unbanned.

It will be great as well if we include a 'poor man' land version that does not use expensive dual lands and fetch lands, which I think it is doable as Enchantress works great with basic lands to begin with. Let me start with the version I am using:

20 Lands
10 Forest
3 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Naya Panorama

With 4 Utopia Sprawls and Naya Panorama, I don't really have problems getting red or the mana I needed. Plus it is resilient against Wastelands.

[Pienterekaak]

Ill try to answer some of these questions with my experience with the deck. and post my list for reference

1: Sigil vs. Sacred Mesa vs. Words of War, 1 win condition vs. 2 vs. 3.
You forget Luminarch Ascension, which is actually a great wincondtion. i won a few games going t2 luminarch, t3 confinement
and win on angel tokens.

2: Lotus Petal vs. ESG vs. Chrome Mox
The only time we really need a extra 1 mana source is turn 1 (against combo) after turn 1 it gradually gets worse to draw any of these cards. Which means you need to play around 3 of them to get them in turn 1. Chrome mox is the worst card here in my opinion, since it provides card disadvantage, and drawing it after turn 1 is a horrible topdeck. between ESG and petal i think ESG is the best becouse it basicly does the same thing, but its also awesome against daze. Still i tested it, and i didnt found it good enough.

3: Humility good/bad.
Everytime i had the card in my deck (it was in side) i usually tutored for some other card instead, becouse it was better in that situation. It has it uses though against pridemage for example, so im still testing it as a 1 off in my side.

4: City of Solitude vs. Choke vs. Carpet of Flowers vs. Vexing Shusher
City and choke > carpet of flowers & shusher i think, susher is not a enchantment, and is open to creature removal. and extra mana is nice, but i rather just screw his game plan.

5: Will Enchantress work w/o Moat.
I personally tutor for moat alot, its a complete defence in 1 card against alot of decks. Humility makes them 1/1, but those can still kill you. So i would almost dare to say it will not work without moat. There are too many times where your in a dire situation and need to get out of that, and moat does exactly that in alot of cases. (other enchantments are just not that effective or require other cards to work like confinement)

Bonus: How bad Land Tax would be if it were unbanned.
I think it wont do alot in enchantress (although i do not play exploration)

Presenting my list which i call EnChantress

//Mana base: 22
9 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
5 Plain
1 Karakas

//Draw: 8
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Prescence

//Mana acceleration: 6
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Wild Growth

//Protection: 11
3 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Runed Halo
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Moat

//Kill: 3
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Luminarch Ascension

//Search 5
4 Sterling Grove
1 Enlightent tutor

//Utility: 5
3 Orim's Chant
2 Replenish

It was originally build to fight combo since that deck is very present in my meta.
Since ANT is banned now (mystical tutor) im curious about how combo will develop to see if this list is still viable.

About this list

lands: 22
i feel this is the right number, and the 1 savannah is enough too (@mattguy). I tried 20 lands and more mana enchantments, but i got mana screwed too often. I feel very comfortable with 22. 1 savannah is also enough, you have 4 fetches to get it if you really really need colourfixing, which you dont need most of the time. And since enchanting non basic lands can cost you the game if your facing wastelands, you dont want to play alot of those. Im testing 1 karakas vs iona and teeg.

Mana acceleration: 6
I feel this is the right number, i usually have one in the early game, and you usually only need 1.

//Protection: 11
2 oblivion ring is in my experience the best number of rings. more is too much, and with less you can find yourself in situations wishing you had 1 more.

Kill: 3
Still testing this, want to replace 1 ascension with words of war to try this out. Asension is a great card (especially vs control) which won me many games. Ascention + confinement, moat, chant is great.

Utility: 5
3 chant, yes :P chants in enchantress. now that combo is redeveloping, i have to wait to see if these are still viable, becouse combo was the main reason for 3 chant main.
Why play chants
vs control
It gives your opponent 3 extra MUST counters, thus you are more able to cast that critical spell (usually replenish, but also if you must resolve a enchantress effect, its good to chant first)
vs Combo
obvious..
vs Aggro
This is the worst matchup for chant, luckaly the rest of your deck is made to beat aggro... and timewalking with chant (especially t1-t2) can really slow aggro down, remember its also a fog effect.

So far, chant has not made my good matchups worse (aggro), and made my worse matchups better (combo, heavy U control). And does something against any deck and gives you a chance against combo in game 1, which is better than the usual 3 utility enchantments that you play in this slot.

Cards i dont play:
Mirri's guile
I rather just draw the 3 cards with my enchantress effects..

Exploration
in my opinion enchant lands are always better than explorations, since it doesnt matter if its a enchant land in the early game, or a exploration (becouse if you start with 4 lands + exploration, which would make exploration better, you should have mulled that hand in the first place in most cases) and when your drawing tons of cards it lets you play extra lands.. but when i draw tons of cards, im usually winning anyway.. so i dont need exploration.

Still busy building my perfect sideboard, so ill update that later.

[wcm8]

I don't think you *need* duals, but I think you should definitely have 4x Windswept Heath. If you are running Mirri's Guile I see the value of running even more fetch lands, otherwise those should be enough to get you W or G when you need it.

However, if this thread is to be taken seriously, we shouldn't even bother discussing budgets lists. Save that for the Casual forum. You don't see people in the Zoo thread worrying about budget in terms of construction...

Also, I'd be willing to help write a primer if this thread were to start over. I don't claim to be the best player of the archetype, but I have spent a lot of time playing the deck and reading through this thread. Here's a little gist of what I would write about the deck...

Deck Philosophy:
Enchantress is a linear hybrid combo/control deck. Linear because the engine requires the majority of the deck to be enchantments, combo because of the synergy inherent between the card choices, and control because the deck completely neutralizes the opponent's threats when it is working correctly. Enchantress can be a good choice in the current meta-game, because it capitalizes on the aggro matchup by making creature combat and even direct damage spells essentially pointless. Games can be "won" by turn 4 or 5 with the right hand, although the actual swing for 20 might not occur until several turns later -- assuming your opponent hasn't already scooped after seeing your near-impenetrable wall of defense.

The Core of the Deck:
These are the cards that are considered auto-includes. If you're not running them, you probably aren't doing it right.

18-22 Lands in some combination of the following
X Forest
X Plains
0-2 Savannah
0-1 Taiga
4 Windswept Heath
X Green Fetchlands
0-2 Horizon Canopy
2 Serra's Sanctum

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Elephant Grass
2-3 Solitary Confinement
2-3 Replenish
1 Moat
1-2 Enlightened Tutor
2-3 Win Conditions (typically Sigil of the Empty Throne or Words of War)

This leaves you with a little less than 10 open slots that can be tailor-matched for your local meta-game. Some of these other choices might be better suited for the SB, but the nice thing about Enchantress is that you can pretty easily tutor up any silver bullet you want in game 1.

Other Choices:

Runed Halo Sometimes with more in the sideboard. The caveat is that these require WW which isn't always abundant early-game.
Choke Should definitely be in the sideboard, but with the prevalence of blue in Legacy, makes a strong main deck choice as well.
Ground Seal Cantrips, but also helps hose certain graveyard strategies. With potential rise of Lands builds using Life from the Loam, this should be strongly considered main deck.
Oblivion Ring All-purpose removal. 1 in the main is often enough, but more can be useful in an unknown meta.
Karmic Justice Insurance against sweepers. Don't forget to trigger it on Wastelands.
Lignify Mainly for Iona.
Karakas See above.
Carpet of Flowers Just awesome vs. blue decks.
City of Solitude More blue hate.
Wheel of Sun and Moon Elephant Grass should be enough to take care of Dredge, but this also helps vs. other grave-based decks.
Sacred Ground You run a lot of basics, but some matchups would benefit from this.
Blood Moon Its effect is generally one-sided and can really screw up a lot of other decks. Definitely worth consideration.
Vexing Shusher Forces your cards through counters. Can be used in conjunction with Worldly Tutor to fetch this as well as your Argothians.
Seal of Primordium Disenchant that serves your engine.
Aura of Silence See above. Better effect but more restrictive cost.
Suppression Field Can shut down certain strategies.
Ghostly Prison Permanent elephant grass.
Rule of Law Seems like a bad choice to me. Hurts you almost as badly as it does combo.
Mirri's Guile Provides filtering.
Sylvan Library See above. Also has some synergy with Words of War.
Sacred Mesa An alternative win condition.
Luminarch Ascension Ditto.
Baneslayer Angel Brought in post-sideboard. Most opponents will have sided-out their creature removal, letting these or some other big fatty win you the game.
Lotus Petal Acceleration.
Elvish Spirit Guide Acceleration, Daze "counter".
Chrome Mox Permanent acceleration at the cost of a spell.
Exploration Not as commonly run with the printing of Utopia Sprawl. I don't think Enchantress runs enough lands to capitalize on its effect.
Gaea's Touch See above, except worse in most situations.

And obviously your sideboard can run cards that work fine elsewhere, stuff like Tormod's Crypt, Faerie Macabre, etc.

Play Style:
Your ideal opening is landing an Enchantress effect by turn 2, and then drawing through your deck while landing defenses every turn thereafter. Sometimes a hand without an Enchantress in the opening 7 is workable, particularly if it contains a hoser that you know will really screw up your opponent or a tutor so you can get your pieces as needed. The 'lock' occurs after you have at least two Enchantresses on the board, a Sterling Grove for targeted protection (even better if you have two!), and a Solitary Confinement that you can sustain thanks to the Enchantresses. At this point, it becomes difficult if not downright impossible for most opposing decks to win. Even if your opponent can manage to somehow sweep your board, you can often Replenish everything back into play the turn after. Then it just becomes a matter of swinging for the win with tokens (careful about decking yourself!) or burning them with Words of War.

Fast decks like Zoo can still beat you if they draw the nuts and you draw crap, but in general your aggro matchup is very favorable. Goblins in particular has a lot of trouble, especially since they aren't running Quasali Pridemage. Against blue, you have a decent matchup thanks to your color-hosers and Replenish. Just be extra careful to play around Daze if you see Islands in play. Against some Merefolk and Dreadstill builds, landing Moat is GG. The worst matchup, combo, has been dealt a huge blow with the banning of Mystical Tutor, so if you can get a sustainable Solitary Confinement out in time, winning is possible in these scenarios.

The main questions that remain regarding deck construction:
-Should accelerants be ran, and if so how many? Should land auras or lands be cut for those slots?
-1, 2, or 3 win conditions?
-Is the red splash necessary (I think it is, but obviously people have won tournaments with just Sigil)
-Should the build veer more towards the combo or the control side?
-Are deck filters (Mirri's Guile, Sylvan Library) worth the slots?
-Should the main deck be built to better handle fast aggro or blue decks? (Assuming a large unknown meta like a Grand Prix)

[Nonex]

I'd like to contribute with my experience too, if it can help anyone, then so be it. Please keep in mind that this is just my opinion.


1: Sigil vs. Sacred Mesa vs. Words of War, 1 win condition vs. 2 vs. 3.
2: Lotus Petal vs. ESG vs. Chrome Mox
3: Humility good/bad.
4: City of Solitude vs. Choke vs. Carpet of Flowers vs. Vexing Shusher
5: Will Enchantress work w/o Moat.
Bonus: How bad Land Tax would be if it were unbanned.

1- Sigil and Words win this battle. Sigil because it just requires the mana to cast it and the tokens just need you to develop your board as usual, unlike Mesa, which requires additional mana to be spent specifically on it.

To put it in numbers, Mesa needs :4: :w: :w: :w: :w: and :1: :w: to maintain itself and provide the same pressure as 1 Sigil token, while Sigil needs the mana to cast an enchantment, which goes from :g: to :3: :w: :w: (you also get that enchantment's own benefits).

Words because it's an alternate win condition and a way to avoid decking yourself.

3 win conditions because Sigil doesn't need the game to be locked in your favor to function. I actually run 4, that is, 3 Sigils 1 Words. See below.

2- Chrome Mox wins despite the card disadvantage because it provides mana every turn. There are always cards to imprint. In the case of the 3rd Sigil mentioned above, it's useful outside of a lock so you can run 3 to draw one early; however, if you really need it, it doesn't hurt to imprint one on a Mox.

3- Humility is bad because it shuts down half of the draw engine, until they print Enchantress's Presence Reloaded 2.0. Humility will then become a house, although not necessarily a must. Sigil doesn't really like it, but neither do Zoo or Merfolk.

4- City of Solitude wins for as long as the staple counterspells are free. Choke goes in a 2nd position because it needs to catch the opponent tapped out. Carpet of Flowers must be cast in the first two turns of the game or it becomes rather useless. Vexing Shusher can't compete with enchantments here.

5- The key is not the card itself, but its role. Moat, as a general barrier without upkeep costs, is a bridge between Elephant Grass losing effectiveness as your opponent drops lands and Solitary Confinement unable to sustain itself due to an underdeveloped board or draw engine. Anything able to fill this role can replace Moat. Possible worse but cheaper candidates could be Island Sanctuary or Dueling Grounds.

Bonus: I see Land Tax taking the role of fetchlands mainly, so it can't find a home in this deck. However, a different approach with Mox Diamond and Exploration could be tried, with unpredictable results.

[PunkRocker1134]

Back to budget lists real fast, How does this look for a budget list:

4 Argothian Enchantress
Creatures [4]
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Choke
3 Elephant Grass
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Island Sanctuary
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Replenish
2 Runed Halo
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Sterling Grove
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Words of War

8 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
6 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum

Board:
1 Aura of Silence
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Choke
1 City of Solitude
1 Elephant Grass
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Karmic Justice
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Runed Halo
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon

I'm hoping to take this to the Starcitygames Open in Denver and am looking to refine this budget list.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I wasn't posting those questions so we could all answer them. I was saying they've all been discussed atleast 20 times in 100 pages. Oh well, as long as everyone else did.

1: In my opinion Words is the best. It has the power to end the game quicker than any other (good) answer, it keeps you from decking yourself, and in a pinch it can burn PITA creatures. Sigil is good too, I would run atleast 1. Sigil ends the game fairly quickly and if for whatever reason you can't get the draw engine online you can still win with 4/4 angels, also giant blockers come in handy sometimes. Sacred Mesa isn't terrible but I like Sigil better. In the long run you end up paying more to win with Mesa (way more) and you aren't using that mana to play spells. To me the day mana burn ended Mesa left the deck never to return. The only way I would consider Mesa again was if Earthcraft became legal because infinite tokens are hilarious. Every other answer is crap. Words of Wind sucks, Words of Wild sucks, I could just win with WoW instead. Luminarch Ascension is beyond crap, if I don't take damage for 4 straight turns I shouldn't start making Angel tokens, I should be putting my angel tokens back in their box because I just won the game 2 turns ago.

2: Chrome Mox, Card disadvantage sucks but the fact the mana boost lasts all game is clutch many many times. As cool as first turn Argothian is, First turn Argothian, Second turn Presence is better. There are very few turns where I don't use every single mana available, so having 1 extra mana for the rest of the game pays off. Also drawing Mox in the middle of comboing out is still good, and in some cases, very good.

3: They all say, "Well, Humility shuts down utility creatures." I say between Moat, Grove, Confinement, Halo, Lignify, Karakas, and O. Ring all maindeck the only creature I can't shut down is Argothian Enchantress. Get it.

4: Vexing Shusher is by far the best option, but the more people play it the worse he becomes so you guys should just keep playing City of Solitude.

5: Moat belongs in Enchantress, if you don't have Moat you are playing budget Enchantress. It will work but Moat makes the deck better.

bonus: Land Tax sucks and will continue to suck until the end of time and space. If I was playing vs. someone and they played Land Tax turn 1 I don't know if I would laugh or thank the DCI for blessing me with such a terrible opponent to goldfish my deck against.

[anonymos]

A lot of people locally have been talking like this is the new big bad deck to beat lately. Any thoughts? Should we up the Replenish count? I'm currently running 3, with the 3rd in the board.

If this deck takes off like the locals, and that goober Doug Linn seem to think it will, what do we want to plan for the mirror?

[JrGman2004]

It's still a work in progress, Probably should throw the E. Tutors back into the SB and replace them with more Grasses since Tutors are really bad vs. counterspells.

Personally I like 1 main and 1 in the board. If you see that singleton in G1, it can go fetch up a silver bullet that you're running main... like a Blood Moon for Lands... a Ground Seal for Dredge, Reanimator, or Loam... a Moat for aggro... whatever... sure it doesn't cantrip, and you don't want 4 since you already have the Groves... but I like the one in the main, and I bring in the 2nd one against decks where it's important for us to see a sideboard card in G2 and G3.


4: Vexing Shusher is by far the best option, but the more people play it the worse he becomes so you guys should just keep playing City of Solitude.

I've been playing with 2 Vexing Shusher in my sideboard for a little bit now. The one thing I've found, is that it works better against non-Countertop decks... if you try to use it against Countertop, you essentially are going to pay 1 extra for every spell that you want to stick. The only real benefit I see to Vexing Shusher is the fact he is a creature. Your opponent might side out his creature removal. But if they bring in enchantment removal, they can hit your City of Solitude or Choke. A combination of all 3 of those might be the right answer, but I don't really know for sure what the correct balance might be... gonna be doing some heavy play testing to get ready for Columbus...



Oh, that brings up another point. I'd like to hear other players' experience with Stax... my experiences with it have been bad... unless you can get set up super super fast, or have some early disruption, they can hurt you quickly and lock you out. Even if you drop an early Solitary Confinement, it can be rough if they play out right. I think their problem has been inconsistency, but with the reintroduction of Grim Monolith, I have a feeling we'll be seeing more Stax in Columbus as people give it a whirl...

[Neuad]

How does this look for a budget deck?

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
6 [ROE] Forest (1)
2 [ROE] Plains (1)
2 [R] Savannah
1 [R] Taiga
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [US] Serra's Sanctum

// Creatures
4 [US] Argothian Enchantress

// Spells
4 [ON] Enchantress's Presence
4 [IN] Sterling Grove
4 [7E] Wild Growth
4 [DIS] Utopia Sprawl
2 [VI] Elephant Grass
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
2 [UD] Replenish
1 [6E] Enlightened Tutor
2 [CFX] Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 [ON] Words of War
2 [TE] Mirri's Guile
2 [DDD] Lignify
2 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
1 [OD] Ground Seal
1 [HOP] Oblivion Ring

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 2 [ARE] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 [FNM] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [US] Carpet of Flowers
SB: 2 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 2 [TE] Choke
SB: 2 [OD] Ground Seal
SB: 2 [OD] Karmic Justice


Obviously the only big card I'm missing is Moat. . .but with Ghostly Prison I think I can survive until I get a moat.

[TheSleeper]

Neuad - I'd up the basics count and drop the Wooded Foothills. You need to be hitting Forests to play your Utopia Sprawls. I haven't seen many lists with 8 fetches.

[Neuad]

-4 Foothills
+4 Forests

even? or -2 +2, or some unmentioned combo.

[dontbiteitholmes]

-4 Foothills
+4 Forests

even? or -2 +2, or some unmentioned combo.

Either cut some fetches or add some Guiles. Mirri's is really the only reason I can think of to run more then the usual 4 Windswept Heaths.

[anonymos]

I only run 4 fetches and still <3 Mirri's Guile. It's probably my 3rd favorite 1 drop in the deck. Helps even out marginal hands.

Has anyone put thought into some of the fairly powerful new M11 enchants? Some of them look just crazy enough to pull this deck in a very different direction. I won't play them for the Grand Prix most likely, but there are a couple I'm looking at for testing afterward.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

M2011 Spoilers thoughts:


Brittle Effigy: This seems like the choice spot removal spell (for Iona, etc). It's colorless, it exiles, you tutor it with E Tutor and it drops for 1. The only negative is it exiles itself so you can't hit it with Regrowth (or at least I can't since I'm like the only one who plays with Regrowth).

Dark Tutelage: It's yet another card drawing enchantment. It's splashable but of course like 10X worse than Enchantress' Presence... but card draw draws into more card draw, as a friend of mine once explained to me... I'm not even concerned about that life loss, any 3cc or 4cc spell you play in Enchantress is worth 3 or 4 life, the concern is that it's a little slow and requires a black splash. It can sustain a Confinement as long as you have some continuous life gain.

Leylines: Well Punishment is an enemy of Solitary Confinement and it's going to give RED a good boost in Legacy. The Black leyline is a reprint, the blue leyline doesn't add anything strategically to what we want to do and annoying to hardcast with our standard manabase, and the green leyline doesn't add to our strategies either (4/5! angels! 1/2! Pegasi! ). So I guess we are waiting on the White leyline which will probably be awesome...

Jace's Erasure: Well we draw a lot of cards, so we'll trigger this a lot, this could be thought of as a 2CC win condition (played in multiples) but we have to combine it with something like Leyline of the Void. I take 2CC enchantments pretty seriously... this one can be considered a standalone win condition (in fact it is kind of like the Words) but that win condition (milling) can be horrible without backup.

Liliana's Caress: Another 2CC win condition but it's not standalone. It would require some sort of interesting combo enchantment to go along with it. It's LIFE LOSS which is great. But this card, it is for killing Solitary Confinement. Ha, this card is for the Enchantress mirror match! I think this is a very interesting card, I am intrigued by the black splash, and it punishes people for abusing discarding, and it does life loss which is difficult to play around.

In conclusion: Our white defensive strategy is becoming less and less dependable and new leylines for everyone and a new artifacts cycle means we may see more and more disenchant effects that we should expect to have to fight through. We haven't gotten any interesting enchantments in our main colors but blue and black have stronger cases.

[dontbiteitholmes]

M2011 Spoilers thoughts:


Brittle Effigy: This seems like the choice spot removal spell (for Iona, etc). It's colorless, it exiles, you tutor it with E Tutor and it drops for 1. The only negative is it exiles itself so you can't hit it with Regrowth (or at least I can't since I'm like the only one who plays with Regrowth).

Dark Tutelage: It's yet another card drawing enchantment. It's splashable but of course like 10X worse than Enchantress' Presence... but card draw draws into more card draw, as a friend of mine once explained to me... I'm not even concerned about that life loss, any 3cc or 4cc spell you play in Enchantress is worth 3 or 4 life, the concern is that it's a little slow and requires a black splash. It can sustain a Confinement as long as you have some continuous life gain.

Leylines: Well Punishment is an enemy of Solitary Confinement and it's going to give RED a good boost in Legacy. The Black leyline is a reprint, the blue leyline doesn't add anything strategically to what we want to do and annoying to hardcast with our standard manabase, and the green leyline doesn't add to our strategies either (4/5! angels! 1/2! Pegasi! ). So I guess we are waiting on the White leyline which will probably be awesome...

Jace's Erasure: Well we draw a lot of cards, so we'll trigger this a lot, this could be thought of as a 2CC win condition (played in multiples) but we have to combine it with something like Leyline of the Void. I take 2CC enchantments pretty seriously... this one can be considered a standalone win condition (in fact it is kind of like the Words) but that win condition (milling) can be horrible without backup.

Liliana's Caress: Another 2CC win condition but it's not standalone. It would require some sort of interesting combo enchantment to go along with it. It's LIFE LOSS which is great. But this card, it is for killing Solitary Confinement. Ha, this card is for the Enchantress mirror match! I think this is a very interesting card, I am intrigued by the black splash, and it punishes people for abusing discarding, and it does life loss which is difficult to play around.

In conclusion: Our white defensive strategy is becoming less and less dependable and new leylines for everyone and a new artifacts cycle means we may see more and more disenchant effects that we should expect to have to fight through. We haven't gotten any interesting enchantments in our main colors but blue and black have stronger cases.

Brittle Effigy is super meh, worse than O. Ring at 2 more mana and not an enchantment. Karakas is a better answer to Iona since it can't be answered by Reanimator and Brittle doesn't answer Inkwell which is the 2nd biggest danger. Iona usually names White so Effigy can't be tutored more of the time anyways.

Dark Confidant Enchantment is also way subpar. Enchantress cares more about life than any other deck. If I had a dollar for every time I won a game at 3 life or less i could drop them in the Gulf to soak up all that oil. Not only that but it costs 3. I'd rather stick in Guile at the one drop and just skip a bad draw somewhere down the line instead of paying life to draw deeper.

I don't see Red playing the leyline in Legacy. It's just not good enough when Pithing Needle stops COP and other stuff and Solitary Confinement is a fringe concern.

Jace's Erasure. There might be a deck for this out there somewhere, but it's not us. Unfortunately mill absolutely destroys us so WOTC can stop printing mill cards before they accidently make a good one..

Caress, oh man, I really don't think people will play it I just hope I'm right.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

Hey, buddy. I played a small Legacy tournament not too long ago and had the pleasure of facing Stax. It was rough and mostly won by him making a lot of play mistakes, missing Smokestack triggers, etc. A first turn Trinisphere is pretty much good game unless you start drawing basics. Paying three for a Chrome Mox sucks, lol. Blood Moon was a house since it can shut down their City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb. Wheel of Sun and Moon out of the side helped against Crucible of Worlds. Karmic Justice came in as well.

I'm highly considering Tajuru Preserver for Smokestack effects, as well as any Eldrazi nonsense. Thoughts? That new Brittle Effigy in M11 looks like an interesting option against Iona decks.

Question: any idea how Tajuru Preserver interacts with Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale?

Tajuru Preserver is a unique 2 drop. Nothing else does this. If you want to protect something period, you need it, shroud and indestructable.

But you can't play it the same way you can't play Mesa/ Veduran Enchantresses. You would need to change the deck to protect creatures from targeted kill effects. Which is not that complicated but it would be a fairly different deck.

You would need to replace Sterling Grove with Greater Auramancy (and probably go up to 4 E Tutors). I don't see this as that big of a compromise, busting Sterling Grove for tutor is a nice option but a mana and time intensive play.

Then you need to replace some of the standard 1-2 drops with 1-2 drop creature auras. This will allow you to shroud the Protector, Vexing Shusher, of 3CC enchantresses just like they were Argothians.

Animate Dead seems like an interesting aura for this. There are several expensive auras that are cool like Followed Footsteps and Splinter Twin but I think you'll be better off with the cheaper ones.

Another option is to have a way to Flash the Protector in from your hand or your graveyard in response to Smokestack/ All is Dust. Then you don't need to worry about keeping it alive.

But yeah, sacrifice effects are a big achilles heel for Enchantress, and for every other deck, period. That's what makes Annihilator an interesting ability.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

Brittle Effigy is super meh, worse than O. Ring at 2 more mana and not an enchantment. Karakas is a better answer to Iona since it can't be answered by Reanimator and Brittle doesn't answer Inkwell which is the 2nd biggest danger. Iona usually names White so Effigy can't be tutored more of the time anyways.

Dark Confidant Enchantment is also way subpar. Enchantress cares more about life than any other deck. If I had a dollar for every time I won a game at 3 life or less i could drop them in the Gulf to soak up all that oil. Not only that but it costs 3. I'd rather stick in Guile at the one drop and just skip a bad draw somewhere down the line instead of paying life to draw deeper.

I don't see Red playing the leyline in Legacy. It's just not good enough when Pithing Needle stops COP and other stuff and Solitary Confinement is a fringe concern.

Jace's Erasure. There might be a deck for this out there somewhere, but it's not us. Unfortunately mill absolutely destroys us so WOTC can stop printing mill cards before they accidently make a good one..

Caress, oh man, I really don't think people will play it I just hope I'm right.

Why is Inkwell a threat? It doesn't fly over your Moat effect, and you can solve it premanently with 3 angels or 11 squirrels.

Caress- it will be played in some combo deck with the right Chains of Mephistopheles-ish combo, it's so damn cheap. And it hurts White lots and perfectly shafts Confinement. But we can deal with Enchantments in Enchantress pretty easily.

I don't see Pithing Needle played over Punishment. I mean, Punishment is perfect for Red and hates on White so so much. 4 copies are going to fly out of every Red sideboard.

Jace's Erasure- It's definitely an easy win condition. I mean, it turns into who has the better draw engine. If only mill didn't have so many problems right now. But it's almost stupid- 1) Draw lots of cards. 2) Exile opponent cards that stop milling. 3) Win.

Caress is a real card for us if we can do the black. This is a card, just like Compost, some decks and some cards simply die when it's out, and Enchantress has the engine to search it and protect it.

Enchantress is going to really start to branch out into different colors and variants once M2011 is out...

If your games are coming down to a few life points, maybe you should at some life gain enchantments. They can give you some real Peace of Mind.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Why is Inkwell a threat? It doesn't fly over your Moat effect, and you can solve it premanently with 3 angels or 11 squirrels.

Caress- it will be played in some combo deck with the right Chains of Mephistopheles-ish combo, it's so damn cheap. And it hurts White lots and perfectly shafts Confinement. But we can deal with Enchantments in Enchantress pretty easily.

I don't see Pithing Needle played over Punishment. I mean, Punishment is perfect for Red and hates on White so so much. 4 copies are going to fly out of every Red sideboard.

Jace's Erasure- It's definitely an easy win condition. I mean, it turns into who has the better draw engine. If only mill didn't have so many problems right now. But it's almost stupid- 1) Draw lots of cards. 2) Exile opponent cards that stop milling. 3) Win.

Caress is a real card for us if we can do the black. This is a card, just like Compost, some decks and some cards simply die when it's out, and Enchantress has the engine to search it and protect it.

Enchantress is going to really start to branch out into different colors and variants once M2011 is out...

If your games are coming down to a few life points, maybe you should at some life gain enchantments. They can give you some real Peace of Mind.
Inkwell is a threat not so much because of what it is/does but shroud is a PITA that makes you focus on more of a variety of threats. It's easy to handle Iona if you plan for her properly but the answers to Iona and the answers to Inkwell are complete opposites. Sometimes I would play vs. Reanimator and have just the total own your ass hand where if they went Iona I would have a 99% chance of winning the match but then they play Inkwell and all of a sudden the game is changed, it's turn 2 and I have 3 turns to answers inkwell through counters/discard or lose. Then again neither one of those is much of a problem anymore. Reanimator was never much of a threat once people started hating on it and since it was overrated to begin with and it just lost a lynchpin card it shouldn't be much of a concern going foward.

I don't see a top tier deck out of Caress at this time. I mean it's not a terrible card but we are talking about every card every printed in Magic -60 or so. A combo deck with that seems bad when there are 2 card combos that end the game on the spot.

Leyline of Punishment owns Confinement to a point, but then again not really. First off even if Enchantress becomes "popular" I don't think it will be at the level where it demands specific SB answers like ANT or Solidarity, but I think now that ANT and Reanimator are out of the picture we might face more generalized hate. Second with Leyline out you still have shroud, so vs. most Red decks Moat + Confinement is still GG and they would probably rather side in all their Grips than 3-4x Grip and 4x Leyline. I mean really who has room for 4x Leylines when most decks don't have anything that prevents damage to begin with and it's watering down a deck that seeks to win as quickly as possible.

Jace's Erasure could be used as a win con, but really some decks want cards in GY and burning someone out 2 damage at a time for 1-2 consecutive turns or making a fistful of 4/4 flyers is just so much more straightfoward and has the added bonus of their not being any decks that want to get shocked 10 times of look foward to you making 4/4 flyers.

Caress, meh. I could make them discard and take 2 or I could skip a draw and make them or any creature take 2. I mean, once again the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If my draw engine is online Words of War is easier than both Caress and Erasure because I just have to make 10 mana and 10 draw triggers instead of making my opponent draw then discard 10 cards (BTW yikes on that thought) or have like 20 draw triggers and 2 Erasures out (and possibly something to stop their deck from taking advantage of the cards I put in their library).

Lots of games come down to a few life points, but then I win a lot of the time. Peace of Mind is not worthy of inclusion just to add a Dark Confidant to the deck. I still win a lot of those games because I draw into cards like Moat or put down a Confinement lock and stabilize instead of playing a 3 mana enchantment that loses me life every turn or Peace of Mind.

I don't want to be a buzz kill, but out of the 175 cards spoiled so far I don't see any that make the cut. I mean everytime a new set comes out there are people that want to add cards from the new set to decks but the way the meta is now I'm not seeing a mill or discard Enchantress being viable. Maybe I've just been playing Magic for too long and seen this happen with every set, or maybe just a lot of old T2 players are coming into the scene lately who naturally want to add new cards to a deck everytime a set drops, but you really have to look at new cards with a cynical view before you go saying that, "Eureka, this changes everything," Line. Enchantress has changed roughly 6-7 cards in the past 5 years. If your wincon is a 2 card combo and it doesn't win the game on the spot (and WoW doesn't count because that's synergy with draw triggers not a combo) it's probably not any better than what we already have.

Edit- Had a couple beers at a BBQ before writing this so ignore spelling/grammer errors and I still stand by the basic message 100%.

[GiantGrowth]

I have to disagree with the color splashes, they have been tried before only to be taken out because Gw is just so much more consistent, and I don't see any enchantments that really change that.

[jiazhouhuaqiao]

But shouldn't cards change a lot more? Take for example Eyes of the Wisent. People stick with their Chokes and City of Solitude but if you read the analysis of very respected players, Eyes of the Wisent is just as devastating against blue. And one is 2CC and the others are 3CC.

And M2011 is really really on steroids...

[anonymos]

But shouldn't cards change a lot more? Take for example Eyes of the Wisent. People stick with their Chokes and City of Solitude but if you read the analysis of very respected players, Eyes of the Wisent is just as devastating against blue. And one is 2CC and the others are 3CC.

The difference is that Choke stops them from doing stuff or at least makes them think a lot harder about what they are doing. Eyes of the Wisent just makes dumb guys. It also can help pump goyf if they're in both colors. It just makes stuff to clutter up the ground and your field when you get a Moat online also. If you want silly guys, you could play Hidden Gibbons.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Hey, buddy. I played a small Legacy tournament not too long ago and had the pleasure of facing Stax. It was rough and mostly won by him making a lot of play mistakes, missing Smokestack triggers, etc. A first turn Trinisphere is pretty much good game unless you start drawing basics. Paying three for a Chrome Mox sucks, lol. Blood Moon was a house since it can shut down their City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb. Wheel of Sun and Moon out of the side helped against Crucible of Worlds. Karmic Justice came in as well.

I'm highly considering Tajuru Preserver for Smokestack effects, as well as any Eldrazi nonsense. Thoughts? That new Brittle Effigy in M11 looks like an interesting option against Iona decks.

Question: any idea how Tajuru Preserver interacts with Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale?

Sacred Ground.

I can't really speak to the match-up; I've always found it rather easy, but I haven't played it since Monolith was unbanned.

[wcm8]

Apparently M11's white leyline has an effect similar to Ivory Mask. I think Enchantress has found itself a new sideboard card.

[tomjulioo]

not sure:
to be on the battlefield turn 0, you need to play 4 of them and with combo being weaker due to the ban of MT, i'm not sure it worth the 4 SB slots...

[TheSleeper]

Has anyone tested vs. Aggro Loam, or specifically Devastating Dreams?

Seems pretty good, taking out our lands (which may have auras.. so card advantage for them), Argothians, etc. Does Sacred Ground work here? I'm unsure of the rules in this case (and with Smokestack).

[dontbiteitholmes]

Has anyone tested vs. Aggro Loam, or specifically Devastating Dreams?

Seems pretty good, taking out our lands (which may have auras.. so card advantage for them), Argothians, etc. Does Sacred Ground work here? I'm unsure of the rules in this case (and with Smokestack).

Devastating Dreams is bad news, in fact depending on what version of Aggro Loam they play it could be very bad news. Burning Wish means Reverent Silence which means scoop phase. Devastating Dreams doesn't trigger Karmic Justice and Silence doesn't care about Sacred Ground so if they run Burning Wish you are in a very bad spot. Yeah for the record Karmic Justice doesn't trigger when you are forced to sac but Sacred Ground does, so it trumps Dreams and Smokestack.

[anonymos]

I would like to add to the fact that I absolutely despise this matchup. If I had a feeling it would be a respectable presence at the GP, I'd consider 2-3 Sacred Ground sideboard. Fortunately, I don't have to make that much room because I don't see it being a BIG player. I think that it'll make maybe a 3% of the decks level of showing. I expect about the same from enchantress or Stax.

[Dark Ritual]

Yeah devastating dreams is, to be blunt, devastating against us and spells GG's pun intended. We can't maintain solitary lock without lands to cast enchantments and if they play dreams they likely play wish and in every wishboard there is that jerk card called reverent silence that is amazing against us. Fortunately aggro loam is not as highly played as it once was and I expect it to not have as much of a presence as zoo will at the GP or other decks like lands.dec or variants of countertop designed to beat zoo.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I haven't found Loam to be a problem at all, but I MD 4 Ground Seal.

The new white Leyline seems really good as a SB option if your meta-game calls for SBing against combo. It has the same underlying problem as other anti-combo pieces though; is that match-up worth fighting?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I haven't found Loam to be a problem at all, but I MD 4 Ground Seal.

The new white Leyline seems really good as a SB option if your meta-game calls for SBing against combo. It has the same underlying problem as other anti-combo pieces though; is that match-up worth fighting?

Yeah the problem isn't so much the decks with just Dreams, but the ones with Dreams and Burning Wish. Dreams can wreck us so quick and also has the bonus for them of wiping out Argothians, Silence is the other side of the coin in that it wrecks the board and removes Presence. It's not hard for them to drop some quick beats then Wish for the correct answer in regards to board position and win the game before we can stabilize. Even if we have Karmic Justice, Sacred Ground, Ground Seal, and Moat out they can Wish out a Reverent Silence, float mana, play Silence, Dreams and the entire board goes to the graveyard except they have Loam and Wastelands our Graveyard engine costs 4 mana. It's not a matchup I look foward to. Luckily some people don't play Burning Wish since it is worse in some key matchups then straight A to B Aggro Loam.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Again, it's really hard for them to get to that mana AND apply pressure with a Ground Seal out, and since Ground Seal is incidental to your primary plan, you can just combo out at full speed. And typically you can just hold onto some lands if you anticipate Dreams. Then post-board you have S. Ground and Justice.

The scenario you describe can happen, sure, but it's not really representative of the average match vs. them.

[arcboundravager2]

so its been a while since ive commented on this thread but i feel Leyline of Sanctity deserves some serious consideration in the side. it reallt shores up burn and makes it hard for combo to get through.

[Shawon]

so its been a while since ive commented on this thread but i feel Leyline of Sanctity deserves some serious consideration in the side. it reallt shores up burn and makes it hard for combo to get through.

Definitely does deserve some serious consideration. Not just against burn or combo, but also against Monoblack/Pox and the like. Turn 0 Leyline stops Thoughtseize from nabbing your Enchantresses before you cast them, or Hymn to Tourach from crushing your dreams.

[arcboundravager2]

my current SB is:
3 warmth (soon to be new white leyline)
1 replenish
1 null chamber
1 ground seal
1 karmic justice
3 carpet of flowers
1 city of solitude
2 aura of silence
1 helix pinacle (for the mirror and a 4th wincon against sadistic sacriment)
1 lignify (probably need to change this)

[arcboundravager2]

Definitely does deserve some serious consideration. Not just against burn or combo, but also against Monoblack/Pox and the like. Turn 0 Leyline stops Thoughtseize from nabbing your Enchantresses before you cast them, or Hymn to Tourach from crushing your dreams.

hadnt even considered that. you sir deserve a cookie. will you be attending GP columbus?

[Shawon]

No, I don't own cards, I just play on MWS lol

[slaughtercult]

I'm planning on running enchantress at GP columbus and was wondering what the metagame may look like as I am not from the area and haven't a clue. Would this be a good choice or should i consider running a different deck?

[anonymos]

I'm planning on running enchantress at GP columbus and was wondering what the metagame may look like as I am not from the area and haven't a clue. Would this be a good choice or should i consider running a different deck?

I'm not sure anyone can really predict what's going to be big for the GP. The lack of major events after Wizards decided to screw up the metagame by removing the combo elements (the good ones anyway), makes it less predictable.

My suggestion is to have a plan for zoo, merfolk, reanimator (slower), belcher, new horizons, lands, goblins, and random stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in forever if you don't have the 3 round bye from a GPT. If you have your byes you can reasonably expect the really bad random stuff to more or less be weeded out.

[mercc]

I'm not sure anyone can really predict what's going to be big for the GP. The lack of major events after Wizards decided to screw up the metagame by removing the combo elements (the good ones anyway), makes it less predictable.

My suggestion is to have a plan for zoo, merfolk, reanimator (slower), belcher, new horizons, lands, goblins, and random stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in forever if you don't have the 3 round bye from a GPT. If you have your byes you can reasonably expect the really bad random stuff to more or less be weeded out.

And after 3-0 it's going to be anything with blue, preferably bant colors.
And zoo ofcourse

[arcboundravager2]

No, I don't own cards, I just play on MWS lol

at some point i will get you a cookie

[arcboundravager2]

I'm planning on running enchantress at GP columbus and was wondering what the metagame may look like as I am not from the area and haven't a clue. Would this be a good choice or should i consider running a different deck?

i dont know if anyone knows whats gonna happen with the meta but i think the idea of playing a deck thats extremely strong against agro and the like. it seems like a strong pic

[addaro]

Hi guys,

Im playing with 4 wild growth, 4 utopia sprawl, 3 chrome mox and 19 lands: 8 forests, 4 plains, 4 windswept heath, 2 serras sanctum and 1 savannah. Now I want to add words of war into my deck so Im thinking if I need a taiga or a plateau? Any thoughts which one of them and WHY? Thanks.

[Xero]

Definetly Taiga; you have more green than white spells. The only reason you'll need a red producing dual is for casting Words of War, which makes Plateua a worse Plains most of the time.

[TheSleeper]

Taiga for me. For a long time I ran no Taiga, and just used Utopia Sprawl to cast Words of War (or more rarely discard off a Solitary and Replenish). Recently as I added Blood Moon to the SB I added a MD Taiga and yeah its nice to have.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Hi guys,

Im playing with 4 wild growth, 4 utopia sprawl, 3 chrome mox and 19 lands: 8 forests, 4 plains, 4 windswept heath, 2 serras sanctum and 1 savannah. Now I want to add words of war into my deck so Im thinking if I need a taiga or a plateau? Any thoughts which one of them and WHY? Thanks.

That's not a ton of Sprawl targets.

[dontbiteitholmes]

That's not a ton of Sprawl targets.

Agreed. I think you want to run atleast 15 virtual Forests. An Enchantress builder would do well to remember it's almost impossible to win without a Forest and any opening hand without a Forest will most likely be thrown back.

[anonymos]

<-- Devil's Advocate on the Taiga/Plateau thing.

I've always played the Plateau. I also use it as part of my count when I look at white sources for the deck though.

For those that aren't me, I recommend Taiga. Don't tell Tom I said this.

[addaro]

Thanks for your input. Having no forest for utopia sprawl was never an issue. But happened to me once that I had no forest at all even after a mulligen to 5. So maybe my manabase can use some help and thats why Im writing here:) I derived it from Christopher Lou and his wining deck at SCG. But wanted to make it wasteland proof and didnt like the horizon canopys too much....at all.

So I want to play 1 savannah and 1 taiga/plateau with 7/4 resp. 8/3 forest/plains, 4 fetch, 2 serras sanctum and 3 chrome mox, 8 1mana enchant lands. Will it work during the whole tournament. Is some version stronger versus some decks and weaker against others? Do I need to up the count of savannahs or fetches or ... ?

[anonymos]

So I want to play 1 savannah and 1 taiga/plateau with 7/4 resp. 8/3 forest/plains, 4 fetch, 2 serras sanctum and 3 chrome mox, 8 1mana enchant lands.

Here's the mana base I've played since before Star City Indy. I came in 23rd in the event.

4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
9 Forest
3 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
3 Savannah
1 Plateau (remember, devil's advocate)
2 Serra's Sanctum

I play the Plateau as part of my basic Plains count. If I were to swap it to a Taiga, I'd drop to 8 forests and add a basic plains.

What everyone is saying about needing a forest in opening hand is VERY true. I've never been fond of Horizon Canopy. It hurts in the matchups where you want the mana early the most. Horizon Canopy is something that I would love later in the game, but never early because in the first few turns, the goal is get stuff online to survive. A couple early points of unnecessary damage seems counterproductive.

[addaro]

Thank you anonymos. But how would you change to have 3 chrome mox? And isnt 3 savannahs too much duals (wasteland)?

[anonymos]

Thank you anonymos. But how would you change to have 3 chrome mox? And isnt 3 savannahs too much duals (wasteland)?

I have never tried a chrome mox build, so I have no idea. I don't fetch savannah's unless they aren't playing nonbasic hate. I normally fetch basics and run with it. If by some twist of fate I run out of basics I'll start fetching duals. The plateau/taiga slot is an exception to this as when I get it, I'm either casting Blood Moon or Words of War.

[TnT]

<-- Devil's Advocate on the Taiga/Plateau thing.

I've always played the Plateau. I also use it as part of my count when I look at white sources for the deck though.

For those that aren't me, I recommend Taiga. Don't tell Tom I said this.


Ha caught you
on the mox build i think it would be growth or guile and maybe a land that would switch

[Nuke-tified]

Hey i'm fairly new to the Enchantress forum and haven't had time to sift through all 100+ pages, but I noticed a couple people discussing plaing Chrome Mox. I've tested with it but i'm just not a fan of it in this deck. Early in the game when Chrome Mox is at it's most valuable, you have less cards to choose from to imprint on it. Later in the game when you have tons of cards to imprint, you don't need the mana from it nearly as much. I haven't tested Lotus Petals, but I think even they would be better. I play Elvish Spirit Guide since it allows a turn one Argothian or turn two Presence. The major downsides to playing it over Chrome Mox are: 1. You only get the mana production once, instead of every turn and 2. You can only make green mana with them. I still think they're better than anything else besides growth and sprawl. I played a tournament match against Belcher last night and was (almost) able to cast a turn one Runed Halo. I didn't have it in hand and had to Enlightened eot, but Savannah, remove ESG for green to cast Utopia Sprawl (naming white) would have let me cast Runed Halo if I didn't have to tutor it up first. Out of everything i've tested for turn 1 mana acceleration, Elvish Spirit Guide has served me better than any other. How do you guys feel about them? In case anyone cares, i'm playing G/W with a Taiga and Sprawls for my one-of Words of War. I've also been testing a black splash for sb Engineered Plague and Perish. And yes, I know Perish will kill my Argothians, but i'm hoping that if my hand is forced, it will be worth it. I haven't managed to cast either one yet. Every time I board them in I don't draw either one, and when i've had the opportunity to tutor for an E.P. i've always wanted to get something else that will do more for me than an E.P. I saw a list a while back that splashed black for SB Thoughtseize which I thought was pretty slick, so I may test that too.

[TnT]

The engineered pagues in the SB i dont think are very good most of the decks they are used against you already have a very good match against and humility makes more fun for judges when people are confused

[TheSleeper]

Nuke-tified: Some people run ESG, some petal, some Mox, some nothing (maybe lands + exploration). They have all been discussed many times over the course of this thread. In the end its up to you to choose the acceleration that works best for your build.

Personally I used to dislike Mox back when my build was heavy green, and found ESG to be great. Over time my deck has a higher concentration of White (the most important change being to add 2 x ET), and moving to Mox has proved great. Early game you can get your turn 1 Argothian (before they Thoughtseize), you can imprint spells that are otherwise crappy in a starting hand (Sigil), imprinting a Grove means you have a un-Wastelandable Savannah, late game it lets you keep 'going off' as you have plenty of cards to imprint so its like dropping 2nd/3rd lands for the turn. Also randomnly helps against land destruction/denial strategies by diversifying your base. I have even EOT-ET'd for a Mox when I needed to hit a 3rd mana source and went on to win the game.

[addaro]

Hi guys again. So after another week of playtesting I have finally settled on my build but I need (hopefuly) one last help from you: in what matchups is Moat so great? I bought the whole deck without Moat and now Im thinking about finally going for it, but I have played so many games without it (with 3 Confinement MD) that my games with it are awfull, I always wish it was rather Confinement. Thanks.

[slaughtercult]

Hi guys again. So after another week of playtesting I have finally settled on my build but I need (hopefuly) one last help from you: in what matchups is Moat so great? I bought the whole deck without Moat and now Im thinking about finally going for it, but I have played so many games without it (with 3 Confinement MD) that my games with it are awfull, I always wish it was rather Confinement. Thanks.

If this is how you feel right off the bat, then don't get a moat. The money could be used elsewhere. I personally have been running 3 confinements as well and dont see much use for moat. That and i can't afford one. Sometimes i run an Island Sanctuary in its place...

[dontbiteitholmes]

You have to be able to support Confinement, Moat you just cast and forget about. Moat + Sterling Grove is pretty much GG vs. a lot of decks.

[anonymos]

I play Moat and 3 Confinement main. I know it seems like overkill, but when Zoo has you against a wall being able to throw Moat out to kill their pridemage before you confinement is golden.

[Pienterekaak]

Moat is a must.
Moat is there to to give you the time to set up a confinement lock. Its a answer to alot of decks in a single tutorable card. You cannot always rely on confinement for protection, since you need 2 draw effects for the confinement lock. And becouse the confinement lock requiers so much pieces, its mana intensive too, and can sometimes be too slow. That is why you play moat. I had plenty of situations where i didnt have any draw effects, and my opponent had a few creatures where moat was my only solution (since confinement lock takes too much time)

so if you have the money play moat. you can always sell it again and maybe make some profit :)

And i also play 3 confinement main atm, so far i am quite happy with them.

[wcm8]

You also get silly plays like...

T1: Forest, tap, cast Utopia Sprawl.
T2: Serrah's Sanctum, tap forest for GW, play Wild Growth on Sanctum. W floating, tap sanctum for GWW. Play Moat. ::goblin player scoops::

Obviously an example of 'magic christmas land', but it happens.

You can play and win with Enchantress without packing Moat. But Moat is just such a great silver bullet against a large percentage of legacy decks that a truly competitive build has it as an auto-inclusion.

Believe me, I hated plopping down the ~$150 for my copy. But the price is only going to go up if Enchantress does well at Columbus like I think it will. It's also seeing play in other control-ish builds like Countertop Thopter. Kudos to those who managed to snag one before the price skyrocketed...

[stu55]

2 Thoughts:

1) How are people planning on dealing with the Aluren deck? I have Leyline of Sanctity in the SB and a few other things.

2) I want a 4th win condition because I am afraid of Sad. Sacrement, Jester's Cap, Earwig Squad....thinking Banefire or Golden Wish to the SB as the answer or going down to 2 Solitary Confinement instead of 3 in the maindeck

[leox]

Hi, I'm new to this forum and i want to give my thoughts about my favorit decktype.

first of all: Moat is the best silver bullet in this deck. Ok, I often sideboarded the card out, but against decks i don't need it.
One of my luckiesed plays against Treshhold long time ago. He countered everything i played in the early games (2 or 3 enchantress effects, so must counters!), then i landed a Moat and he had nothing against it!

One of my Questions: what has the deck against Emracul and his "family"?

@stu55: what about Runed Halo? I run 2 copies main and 1 in the sideboard, cause it's a solution against combo and also against a lot.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Karakas and O. Ring vs. Emrakul, or possibly Elephant Grass. Runed Halo, Moat, or Confinement vs. Progenitus.

Runed Halo only helps vs. Emrakul if you can sac 6 perms and still have it in play (and still have enough juice to win the game).

[GreenOne]

Karakas and O. Ring vs. Emrakul, or possibly Elephant Grass. Runed Halo, Moat, or Confinement vs. Progenitus.

Runed Halo only helps vs. Emrakul if you can sac 6 perms and still have it in play (and still have enough juice to win the game).
How does O.Ring help?
Humility might be a solution, but only if you're infested with those (might be useful with Pridemage, Trygon Predator and Iona though)

[Shawon]

*Nevermind, assumed O-Ring was an Aura.


*How can i link cards?

"[cards]", not "[card]"

[heroicraptor]

The spell Oblivion Ring does NOT target. It has a triggered ability that goes on the stack once the permanent has resolved and entered the battlefield.

[GreenOne]

The spell Oblivion Ring does NOT target. It has a triggered ability that goes on the stack once the permanent has resolved and entered the battlefield.
The triggered ability target though, so it's useless nonetheless.

[Darkenslight]

The triggered ability target though, so it's useless nonetheless.

That's horribly wrong. Ye,s O-ring does target, but Emrakul has Pro: Colored SPELLS. O-ring will safely remove it.

[Nizmox]

That's horribly wrong. Ye,s O-ring does target, but Emrakul has Pro: Colored SPELLS. O-ring will safely remove it.

This man is absolutely correct.
O-Ring the spell does not target, the ability once it resolves does and Emrakul does not have protection from Colored abilities.

EDIT: And here is the relevant link http://mtgsalvation.com/1217-cranial-insertion-emrakul-can-be-oblivion-ringed.html

[GreenOne]

Wow, I thought it had protection from coloured abilities too! That changes things a lot!

[Sprite]

Hey, what do you think about my bulid:


10 Forest
2 Plains
2 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
1 Serra's Sanctum
2 Karakas
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
4 Ground Seal
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Sterling Grove
4 Elephant Grass
1 Karmic Justice
4 EnchantressŽs Presence
4 Wild Growth
1 City of Solitude
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Replenish

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Sanctities
1 Karmic Justice
3 Choke
2 City of Solitude
1 Sacred Ground
3 Aura of Silence
1 Replenish

When I would have a Moat:

- 1 Ground Seal
+ 1 Moat

[tride]

Are those Leyline of th Meeks supposed to be Leyline of Sanctities? Because I don't think you should play Leyline of the Meek. Or if you really do, could you explain why.

[Sprite]

Sorry, this are Leyline of the Sanctities.

=)

[Q 221]

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


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

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

[addaro]

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

Hope Enchantress does well at Columbus!

[Wasteland]

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

[dontbiteitholmes]

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

[Dark Ritual]

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

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

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

[Wasteland]

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

[wcm8]

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

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

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

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

[caiomarcos]

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

The list I ran:

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

4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Sterling Grove

4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Wild Growth
1 Exploration

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

1 Words of War
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne

2 Replenish
1 Enlightened Tutor

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

[dontbiteitholmes]

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

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

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

Drew with Bant Survival.

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

[anonymos]

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

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



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

[dontbiteitholmes]

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

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

[TheSleeper]

Congrats on your finish DBIH, decklist?

[dontbiteitholmes]

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

[anonymos]

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

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

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

Drew with Bant Survival.


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

[dontbiteitholmes]

TA is a really rough match-up, and Merfolk can occasionally squeeze out a win, but what happened v. Stoneforge?
I just got unlucky vs. Bant. Game 2 instead of drawing one of my many basics or fetches I drew a lot of nonbasics and he hit me with a string of Wastelands and barely beat me out. Game 3 I had him on the ropes, he had Gripped early and Pridemage hit my Grove and he had 2 Wastelands slow me down but I played a Solitary and passed with Replenish in hand to lock the game if he passed back and he rips Grip off the top with no cards in hand. So basically I just got unlucky both games.

[The_Red_Panda]

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

[ho_master]

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

[Zlatzman]

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

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

[ho_master]

I'm just going to post it here, since the target audience for this report is for the Enchantress community to pick me apart for making incorrect decisions on deck design/sideboarding :)

Please pardon my tl;dr style of writing, but I just want to make my thoughts as clear as possible. Also, I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything here, so everything I've written is just my (possibly very wrong) opinion.

Deck List:

Lands:
7x Forest
3x Plains
4x Windswept Heath
2x Serra's Sanctum
2x Savannah
1x Tropical Island
1x Horizon Canopy

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Elephant Grass
4x Sterling Grove
1x Moat
2x Replenish

2x Chrome Mox
2x Solitary Confinement
2x City of Solitude
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Runed Halo
3x Wild Growth
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
2x Sigil of the Empty Throne
1x Words of Wind

The Sideboard:
1x Humility
2x Aura of Silence
2x Karmic Justice
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Lignify
1x Replenish
2x Choke
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Explanation of card choices:

It's a standard deck, with everything from Replenish upwards being what I believe to be "Untouchable" slots, except the Tropical Island, which of course is for Words of Wind. I have a variety of 2's to handle various scenarios, but I don't want to over commit on anything to keep my options open. Oblivion Ring felt like it needed to be a 2 of as well with the rise of decks that cheat in too powerful creatures (Emrakul/Iona) using Show and Tell, Mosswort Bridge, or Shelldock Isle. Of course, O-Ring isn't castable under Iona (unless it's for Show and Tell), but answers to Emrakul are absolutely necessary in the current meta. I have a 1-of Wheel of Sun and Moon to address Sword of the Meek and any other Graveyard dependent strategy.

For the sideboard, I added the 4 Leylines of Sanctity, which I (and others judging from the last few posts on the thread) think are amazing in certain matchups. Obviously it's the card Enchantress has been wanting against combo for so long, but applications in other matchups are worth examining. Zoo is actually an aggro deck that can be a bit difficult thanks to the intense amount of pressure it puts on you, and Sanctity will at least invalidate 4x Lightning Bolt, 4x Chain Lightning and 3x Grim Lavamanancer ability. I'll put in 4 cards to try to stop 11 cards in a deck any day. Against discard based decks, it obviously shores up a matchup which could blow you out of a tournament purely off of Hymn and Thoughtseizes. Also, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, and Bojuka Bog all target a player to remove cards (excluding Relic's remove all graveyards ability), and if you feel your opponent is boarding sufficiently into those to prevent Replenish, you have leyline to match them. Finally, It seems some control decks are switching to winning almost purely by Jave the Mind Sculptor, and Sanctity is just another way to stop that win condition. Added bonus: Leyline of Sanctity is an enchantment that is free and adds to Serra's Sanctum enchantment count.

As mentioned above with O-Ring, I believe 1 or even 2 Lignify's are necessary in the board depending on if you feel the meta is very Show and Tell heavy.

I have a 1-of Emrakul in the board because this is the one deck I feel that has a consistent shot of legitamately casting it and receiving the full effects of can't be countered and most importantly, take an extra turn. Against Control decks with Counterbalance, if your opponent is just shutting you out of win con's by floating 3's or 5's or even 4's against you, you can ignore all that and simply hardcast Emrakul, untap, and wipe their board. Of course, if your opponent has generated a ton of Thopters, you have another situation on your hands, but I feel that most Counter Thopter decks don't go for the kill via annoying flyers until control has been firmly established in the late game, thus buying you between 7-9 turns to generate the mana necessary to wreck their board before they can start combo'ing off. Added bonus here: If your opponent is playing Show and Tell and you mise the Emrakul when he casts it, imagine his surprise when you windmill flip it over and he has to pass the turn to you.

Finally, the Humility is anti-synergistic with Enchantress, but in some cases, I'd rather invalidate part of my engine if it means getting rid of their Pridemages/Iona/Emrakul/Trygon Predator/anything else that's just BAD. Also, sometimes against ridiculous aggro decks, you need to be able to buy a few turns by shrinking Merfolk/Goblins to manageable 1/1's instead of them being 3/3's or 4/4's which will kill you in one turn. And with my version, once you've established a lock, you can proceed to bounce the Humility using Words of Wind, which leads into my next topic...

On Words of Wind vs Words of War:

I used to run this a long time ago in Austin, but if I recall correctly, it's fallen out of favor for a couple of reasons:

1. Words of Wind is not an "instant-kill", whereas Words of War definitely causes your opponent to lose
2. Wind also makes Enchantress games run long, which could be a factor in being unable to finish your match without a draw.

For the first reason, I say that Wind doesn't cause your opponent to definitely enter a losing state as defined by the rules of Magic, but once you start the cycle of bouncing permanents, I found that opponents usually just scoop up their cards rather than let you finish the process of wrecking their board. In the case where you don't have Serra's Sanctum out, you probably will be dealing between 8-12 damage to your opponent using Words of War, which will still require one more turn to finish him off with it. However, if you have Words of Wind, you can instead bounce 4-6 permanents of theirs (and yours of course), which I believe to be much more explosive. Sure, it's not that great against Counter Top Thopters after they have a ton of tokens, but neither is Words of War in that case, and on average, I'd say that if you go off on your opponent with Wind, you will end up bouncing at LEAST 50%-75% of their board and leave them with mostly just lands and maybe one manageable threat like a Goyf. It's just as much of a kill to cripple their position int he game as it is to let them keep their board and hope that you have two turns to activate War without being blown up by an epic topdeck. Also, Words of Wind allows you to bounce your cheap enchantments, like Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl, which I THINK nets you a little extra mana to activate Wind more times than you might be able to activate War. I haven't really done all the scenarios, but it definitely helps your hand, whereas in the War case, you'd have to just use the enchantments already in hand, which may be expensive 3 CMC spells, which would slow your damage.

For the second reason, I argue that Wind is just as fast of a kill as War either by causing instant scoops, or failing that, it should only take one or two more turns post-bouncing to tutor up Sigil with Sterling Grove with your opponent having a minimal board, protect it with a City of Solitude (or have him blow his counters on that), so you really only lose about 3-4 minutes going this approach rather than burn to the face with War. In addition, and I don't know if this point is valid enough, but if you have Landstill decks and Counter Top Thopter decks making top 8's/winning tournaments, then what is the complaint about how slow Wind is? Those decks run MUCH slower than Wind-Enchantress, and sometimes rely on just winning game 1 and going to time. Enchantress is a similar style of Control-Combo deck; why should it not follow the same principles that CTT is laying out? Again, Wind is absolutely devastating to most opponents in reducing their board to shambles, while yours stays the same.

One final note in Wind vs. War is that in the mirror, War is utterly useless mostless, whereas Wind is a way out of winning the battle, thus bouncing your opponent's Confinement and allowing you to swing in with Angels for the win. It's a <2% case that ever occurs at tournaments, but wouldn't you rather play a way out of this rather than just drawing with your opponent?

Ok enough analysis, here's the report!

Tournament Report:

Round 1: Kayvan Kole playing 4-color Counter Top

Game 1: He has turn 1 Top followed by turn 2 Counterbalance on the play, but I have turn 1 Utopia Sprawl and turn 2 option of casting Argothian or Presence. I go for Argothian, despite the higher likelihood of being countered by blind flip CMC 2, but he blind reveals a Top, and lets it resolve (I didn't want him to blind flip, miss, and still have the option to Daze Presence). He drops a Goyf, but I drop an Elephant Grass, and he pays to begin small beats for 2 at a time. Eventually I either resolve an Oblivion Ring or a Solitary Confinement, because I don't take anymore damage, then I proceed to cast Sigil of the Empty Throne, which is countered the first time, but resolves the second time, and I crap out angels until he dies. I think a Jace the Mind Sculptor was involved somewhere in all this, but it didn't matter too much once I resolved Confinement.

-4 Elephant Grass
-1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
-2 Wild Growth
-1 Moat

+2 Aura of Silence
+1 Replenish
+2 Choke
+2 Karmic Justice
+1 Emrakul the Aeons Torn

I took out the usual useless stuff against Control-ish decks, but decided to cut Moat because I didn't want to have it be useless against a Vendillion Clique, and because I could mostly resolve Runed Halo's/Oblivion Rings to handle the miniscule number of threats the deck runs (Goyf, Jace, Clique). Emrakul is the hotness against control decks, and I can actually CAST it, so I'm convinced this might be really good...

Game 2: I believe I land an early Enchantress effect with it not being countered and with no Counterbalance either. I resolve Runed Halo naming Jace the Mind Sculptor, then resolve Runed Halo naming Tarmogoyf. He resolves a Meddling Mage naming Solitary Confinement, but I have the O-Ring for it. Eventually his board is nothing but 5 lands and a Sensei's Top, while I have the usual enchantments out + Sterling Grove protection. I step into my turn where I finally have both Serra's Sanctum + Emrakul in hand, drop the Sanctum, and hardcast Emrakul almost purely off of it! His eyes widen as he nods okay, and I cast a few more enchantments just to fill my hand, end my turn, go to untap the next turn, and before I can declare attackers, he extends his hand.

1-0

Round 2: Frank Emmeret with Gamekeeper/Faeries/Bomberman (don't know the deck name).

I actually didn't know the full extent of how much trouble I was in until game 2...

Game 1: He lands turn 1 top and turn 2 Bitterblossom, but I have Elephant Grass on my turn 3 or 4 to stop the sheannigans. He drops another Bitterblossom, losing 2 life a turn for a bit, and resolves Innocent Blood to take care of my Argothian, but I have a Presence out and am drawing a ton of cards from it. Eventually I have 3 Sterling Groves out and a fresh Elephant Grass with no age counters, and so he tries to cast Maelstrom Pulse targeting my Sterling Groves. I helpfully point out that he cannot target the Sterling Grove, or any other enchantment for that matter, but that he still announced the spell and has to claim a legal target...so he wisely chooses his Bitterblossoms. Next turn, he goes for Thoughtseize, sees I have 2 Replenish and 2 Sigil of the Empy Thrones in hand, and scoops up his cards before he finishes resolve the spell.

+4 Leyline of Sanctity
+2 Karmic Justice
+1 Replenish
-2 Runed Halo
-2 Wild Growth
-2 City of Solitude
-1 Wheel of Sun and Moon

I thought he was playing some sort of Rock-ish Faeries deck since I didn't see much beyond them, but if I had known better, I'd have kept in that Wheel of Sun and Moon and Runed Halo...

Game 2: I have pre-game Leyline of Sanctity to prevent discard effects, and we spend a couple of turns setting up, me with Presence, him with Top. He hems and haws on turn 5 or so, and decides to cast Cabal Therapy targetting himself. He reveals his hand...Innocent Blood, Wasteland, Living Wish, LED, and Gamekeeper. I look at the Gamekeeper and go "Uh-Oh" to myself, and try to wrack my brain for what he could be using that for...I settle on him trying to crack it with Therapy to get Emrakul and hope I'm not wrong. In any case, he gets the Therapy in the yard, casts Gamekeeper, then sacs it targetting himself again and flips....Auriok Salvagers. He generates "infinite mana" first (I correct him into saying he can't do that, but I helpfully say I'm ok with him having a million of each color in the mana pool), goes to his yard...and curses his luck. I fetch up an Oblivion Ring and remove the Salvagers to prevent more shenanigans, but I have to hurry because he has more Therapies in the yard and may eventually draw another Gamekeeper. I spend the next 6 turns literally doing nothing but frantically drawing for a kill condition to win, and finally get Words of Wind out and bounce most of his permanents, leaving him 3 lands on the board. He has one more turn to draw a Chromatic Star/Engineered Explosives, peeks at his top card, casts Top and peeks 3 down, flips over 3 lands and extends the hand shake of defeat.

2-0

Round 3: John Adams with Saito Merfolk

Game 1: I don't have very good notes on Merfolk decks because they usually went pretty fast. I see that he knocked me down to 14 with Lord of Atlantis beats, but I wrote down that I resolved Moat and won with Angels. I remember him saying he had to quickly find more Coralhelm Commanders before things got out of control, but he only had 1 and I had at least 5 Angels when he scooped at 20 life.

+1 Humility
+1 Replenish
+2 Choke

-1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
-1 Oblivion Ring (mistake I think)
-2 Runed Halo

My deck is already suited for Aggro, and though his deck is Blue, I don't have time to cast Emrakul. Even with Humility shutting off my Argothians, I will end up winning thanks to Moat + Elephant Grass, resolve City of Solitude, then Words of Wind his board until I bounce Humility and my Angels swoop in for the kill.

Game 2: He resolves 2 Engineered Plagues, and we call for a judge to get the exact Creature types of Argothian, and names "Human" then "Druid" on each one. It doesn't matter though, as I have 3 Enchantress's Presence in hand, have 2 of them FOW'd, and end up looking at lethal on the board before I successfully tutor up a Moat with Sterling Grove and resolve it. I have only the 1 Presence out, but have a Sigil of the Empty Throne and cast my first Enchantment...and draw a land, then Chrome Mox, then Land, then Argothian Enchantress. However, the 1 Angel I have ends up swinging in 3 times, knocking him down from 16 to 4, and on his final turn, he cannot find Coralhelm to block the Angel in time.

3-0

Round 4: Mark Trogdon playing what he called Supreme Blue
I saw Mark play a creative deck with Omnath in the Vintage champs, and ihis deck for Legacy was equally creative. He ran ALL basics and fetches, what seemed to be 4 Counterspells, 4 Dazes, 4 FOW's, Academy Ruins, Oblivion Stone, Tabernacle, and the kill for the deck was Calcite Snapper (yes, that 1/4 common from Worldwake), and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

Game 1: In this 40 minute slug fest of a match, I end up resolving almost all of my enchantments in this game. He resolves a Jace early, but I have the Runed Halo to stop it...but he has the Oblivion Stone to blow up both of our boards. I've held onto 2 enchantress effects, however, and recover my position and my hand to a comfortable situation. Eventually he drops a Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Calcide Snapper, which slows my exponential growth of Angels, and I stupidly lose my Argothian to the effect that I forget to pay for. He draws for one of the final turns of our game, and plays an Academy Ruins, and my eyes go instantly to the O-Stone...and I realize I have one turn to win. He passes turn, and I attempt to go for Replenish with City of Solitude in the yard, and succeed. I then drop Words of Wind and proceed to play the bounce game, bouncing 7 of his permanents and leaving him with 5 lands and me with 2 angels. He scoops after he begins his turn.

Game 2: He resolves an Early calcite Snapper, but I have Runed Halo for it, and then time is called in the round. Mark is a nice guy and asks what would be better for me, for him to scoop or for it to go to a draw, and I say I have no idea. We end up drawing and I win the match.

4-0

Round 5: Jeffrey Cohen playing Belcher

Game 1: He mulls to 6, and then keeps and then passes the turn. I go "WTF dredge or Belcher??" Two turns later, he discards an Empty the Warrens and I go "Crap." However, I have a quick Confinement with Sterling Grove and think I'm safe, but he starts to go off, uses Burning Wish and hardcasts Reverent Silence with no cards left in hand. I next turn cast Replenish and he scoops.

+4 Leyline of Sanctity
+2 Karmic Justice

-1 Words of Wind
-2 City of Solitude
-1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
-2 Oblivion Ring

Finally, a combo match with Leyline usage! And I stole game 1! I'm feeling pretty good, and hoping that I can pull this out...

Game 2: I keep a hand that has enchantress effects and Elephant Grass, hoping that he's going the Goblins route this time. On my last turn, I draw into Leyline of Sanctity and think if I can untap one more time, I win, but he goes off on his turn going for Belcher. 50-50 coin flip and I guessed wrong. He flips 20 non-lands, and I scoop

Game 3: I keep a hand that has Leyline but no Grass/Moat/Confinement and hope my 50-50 coin flip guess is right this time....but he drops turn 1 12 Goblins and I am just stunned. I have a couple of draws...slow peel the top card my final turn like a poker champ....and flip over a Horizon Canopy. I sac the land and slow peel again, and extend my hand of defeat when I flip a Plains. The next card incidentally was solitary Confinement, so I missed it by that much both games 2 and 3.

4-1

Round 6: Jeff Chen with Bant Survival

Jeff is one of my friends from Houston who flew up with me and I was VERY depressed to play him in this round. I'm just going to paste his notes on the match:

Game 1: David mulls to 5 on the play. I have a pretty aggro hand with Hierarch and Pridemage in my hand. I peel the Trygon Predator and play it on T2. David O-Rings it on T3, but I drop the Pridemage and bring the Predator back with it and David can't really recover.

(I sided in Humility, Lignify, Karmic Justice, and Wheel of Sun and Moon, and sided out some Wild Growths, Runed Halo, and an Elephant grass or two)

Game 2: This game was pretty brutal. I get out a fast Goyf, Force and Enchantress effect, then drop a Meddling Mage on Sigil of the Empty Throne (I have Grip in my hand in case of Humility). David ended up having 2x Sigil as the last 2 cards in his hand, to his frustration. He drops an Argothian Enchantress and tries to get back into the game, but can't get going before I overrun him with creatures.

4-2

Round 7: Josh Hollander with Saito Merfolk

Seeing Merfolk again made me very happy this round, but it was very close.

Game 1: He goes turn 1 Mutvault, Aether Vial, and I go turn 1 Chrome Mox, land Argothian with no fear of Daze. Then I drop an Elephant Grass and stall with that for a while. He does get out 4 lands (2 Mutavault, 2 Wasteland), but I O-Ring' his Aether Vial, preventing him from casting anymore Merfolk, but he's beating in for 6 a turn. I drop to 2...then resolve Moat and crap out angels. He scoops when I summon 5 of them while he's still at 20 and doesn't have Coralhelm.

Same Sideboard as earlier

Game 2: He has the pretty much nuts draw of Adept, Lord, Reejeray, Lord and my life drops REALLY fast. He lets two of my Enchantress effects resolve and saves his Force of Will for Elephant Grass alone, which is ballsy, but did allow him to win the match.

Game 3: Again, Argothian resolves without a hitch, and I figure he has Plague, but it never comes. However, I do have 2x Elephant Grass and Choke in hand. The first Grass gets FOW'd, but the 2nd sticks...and when he attacks me, paying 2 islands, I drop Choke next turn...leaving him with an untapped Island and a Wasteland. He struggles to recover from the on, as I drop to 7 from fetching/Canopy activations, and eventually I stupidly decide to just keep drawing cards instead of searching for Words of Wind. However, I get it with 4 cards left to go in my deck and 3 Enchantress effects, cast Words of Wind with Sanctum mana, and return his entire board with 1 card left in my deck with Sigil on board. He concedes.

5-2

Round 8: Scott Yoder with Saito Merfolk

Round 1: I believe I resolve an early Presence on the play due to him going turn 1 Mutavault, Aether Vial, so I don't have to fear Daze, then drop grass to stall for time. He attacks me with a 2/2 cursecatcher from 13 to 5, but eventually I establish the Confinement lock and produce enough Angels to make him scoop.

Same sideboard, but this final one has the sweet impending taste of victory, hopefully...

Round 2: This match is infinitely more dicey, because though I get the Enchantress effects on board, he attacks me from 18 to 16 to 10 to ONE. After the final attack, however, I have City of Solitude into Moat on my turn to stop the attacks. I spend the rest of the game finding Words of Wind and then bounce his entire board without Sigil of the Empty Throne out. He sees the writing on the wall, and concedes.

Final score: 6-2, and after standings are posted, 12th place.

Overall I felt my play was very tight with minimal mistakes, except for anything made in the sideboard. I'd love to hear what people felt might've been better to side in/out/other cards to include to improve the Bant Survival matchup.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't have any problem with a Words of Wind deck being posted here, just the terrible pile people call enchantress that runs specifically for the combo win with Cloud of Faeries and all that jazz. Take that version to the casual forum, but if the only difference is WoWind, I'd just say if it were me personally the Wind would be War obviously and the Horizon Canopy would be Karakas. I'll read the report later when I have time. I'm sad I couldn't make GenCon but it was either MTG or pick up the GF from the airport and you know how that goes. Oh also City of Solitude should be In the Eye of Chaos since you already run Blue and Eye is good against more then counterspells.

[anonymos]

My only issue with your list is the lack of win conditions. I've been running into a lot of earwig squads lately.

How are you liking the leylines from the board? What do you use them for? I've been debating on it myself and would like to know others thoughts on them.

[wcm8]

Leylines are awesome. Leyline +/or Moat = win vs. quite a few decks. I think they are an auto-include in Enchantress, and I've been toying with the idea of playing them in the main since they've been getting sided in for a LOT of matchups. They give you a fighting chance vs. certain types of combo, and are useful vs. burn and discard.

Decks that sneak in Emrakul will continue to be a problem for Enchantress, and I'm not sure how to combat that other than packing more maindeck O. Rings and/or Karakas.

[ho_master]

Earwig squads usually aren't maindeck, so you're able to bring in Leyline of Sanctity from the sideboard and prevent yourself from being targetted. With RB gobbos especially, there won't be an answer for that early on unless they play Anarchy. Sanctity also prevents you from being targetted by Warren Weirding, keeping your Enchantress's alive, so this is a matchup I'd highly recomend boarding into Leyline of Sanctity.

Quick list of cards in popular decks that target players:
Earwig Squad
Warren Weirding/Diabolic Edict
Thoughtseize/Duress/Hymn/Inquisition of Kozileck/Cabal Therapy
Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus/Bojuka Bog
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning/Grim Lavamancer/Fireblast
Seismic Assault
Intuition
Cruel Ultimatum
Goblin Charbelcher
Grindstone
Parasitic Strix

My point is that in a varied meta, you're better off having Leyline of Sanctity in your board to prevent random hate from shutting you out at a tournament.

[heroicraptor]

I helpfully point out that he cannot target the Sterling Grove, or any other enchantment for that matter, but that he still announced the spell and has to claim a legal target...so he wisely chooses his Bitterblossoms.

Congrats on cheating your way through that.

[mattguy]

Congrats on cheating your way through that.

Just curious on how is that cheating? Unless he can choose a shrouded enchantment and the spell fizzles because of non-legal target?

[Oiolosse]

yeah, if he prompted him to choose something else knowing that pulse was fizzled upon declaring sterling grove then that's cheating, but maybe he thought it had to be a legal target?

[Darkenslight]

Just curious on how is that cheating? Unless he can choose a shrouded enchantment and the spell fizzles because of non-legal target?

It's cheating because it should have been a GRV - Illegal Target, with a Warning. What our guy did would be classed as Cheating - Fraud (Misrepresenting Game State), which is a DQ without prize.

[Zlatzman]

In other words: Maelstrom Pulse should be returned to hand, and manacosts undone. You're not allowed to play a spell at an illegal target.

Just to clarify: Oblivion Ring is different because it does not target on being cast, so it's perfectly legal to cast it. It's when it enters the battlefield the target is chosen, and a legal target must be chosen.


Other than that: nice and detailed report. I'm going to playtest Enchantress a bit tomorrow, if it feels right I'll probably play it in a small local tournament next week. Might as well playtest both WoWind and WoWar while I'm at it.

[ho_master]

Ahh, I was taught differently at my local weekly tournaments, that once you cast a spell, you're stuck with it to choose a legal target. I went through the comprehensive rules to find the part about undoing spells with illegal targets. I had no intentions of Fraud, but thanks for the headsup on that. *Embarassed face*

In any case from that match, he had knocked himself down to 9 with 2x Bitterblossoms in play, so I think my opponent actually was aided there in not killing himself in 5 turns just off of Bitterblossoms.

Thanks for the comments on this though everybody! I wanted to get feedback and not knowing the rules is definitely feedback that's worth reading.

[Darkenslight]

Ahh, I was taught differently at my local weekly tournaments, that once you cast a spell, you're stuck with it to choose a legal target. I went through the comprehensive rules to find the part about undoing spells with illegal targets. I had no intentions of Fraud, but thanks for the headsup on that. *Embarassed face*

In any case from that match, he had knocked himself down to 9 with 2x Bitterblossoms in play, so I think my opponent actually was aided there in not killing himself in 5 turns just off of Bitterblossoms.

Thanks for the comments on this though everybody! I wanted to get feedback and not knowing the rules is definitely feedback that's worth reading.

No problem, but if you have only one Grove, he can target the Grove. If you have 2 x Grove, or Grove and Privileged Position, then he ain't doing shit. :)

[martyr]

Lands:
7x Forest
3x Plains
4x Windswept Heath
2x Serra's Sanctum
2x Savannah
1x Tropical Island
1x Horizon Canopy

4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Elephant Grass
4x Sterling Grove
1x Moat
2x Replenish

2x Chrome Mox
2x Solitary Confinement
2x City of Solitude
2x Oblivion Ring
2x Runed Halo
3x Wild Growth
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
2x Sigil of the Empty Throne
1x Words of Wind

The Sideboard:
1x Humility
2x Aura of Silence
2x Karmic Justice
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Lignify
1x Replenish
2x Choke
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Most of the card choices I understand, and I *really* like this list, but I have a few questions.

1: For those of us poor suckers with no access to Moats, would a Humility in the main instead of it be fine? Moat's technically better against some decks, but it's an answer for Emrakul where Moat is not.

2: 2x of Chrome Mox seems...odd? Could you explain why your acceleration is 4x Sprawl, 3x Wild Growth, 2x Chrome Mox instead of just 8x enchants or something?

Great report, but other than mising O-Rings and Runed Halos and Humilities and stuff, I really can't think of an answer to Trygon Predator that wouldn't be an overreaction to perceived threat.

[sa17dk]

I've tested Chrome Mox and I've found that I wanted at least 3 if I ran it to get it consistently in my opening hands. Chrome Mox is great for casting that turn 1 Argothian or a turn 2 Presence but gets progressively worse after the first two or three turns. Obviously theyre great if youre pitching a Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl, but I've never been disappointed top decking a Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl later in the game because with at least one Enchantress effect out they are free cantrips/draw spells.

[ho_master]

I did used to run Humility as a poor man's option (before I broke a large chunk of a paycheck to get the Moat -_-), and it worked just as well (even better in some cases), and with the use of ridiculously overpowered creatures like Emrakul, Iona, Qasali Pridemage, Trygon, and even Terrastadon/Woodfall Prmius (in Dredge), Humility has a lot more worth now if your meta has decks that try to get these annoying critters out. I'd recommend putting it in and be damned when people say it's anti-synergistic with Argothian.

My acceleration spread really came down to the fact that 9 acceleration effects "felt" like more than enough when I was goldfishing with the deck. When I was at the standard 4x Sprawl, 4x Growth, 3x Mox (I beleive that was Lou's numbering from when he won), I would draw into too many accelerants mid-combo and not find relevant pieces to answer threats on the board. I'm not a statistician, and I'm not a pro player, but cutting 1x Growth and 1x Mox for 2x Business Spells seemed to just be stronger to me rather than going all-in on getting mana. I could be totally wrong, but during the Champs, I didn't miss the fact that I was missing a couple of acceleration sources.

[anonymos]

1: For those of us poor suckers with no access to Moats, would a Humility in the main instead of it be fine? Moat's technically better against some decks, but it's an answer for Emrakul where Moat is not.


Please read the last 10 or so pages of the thread. Moat replacement questions come up every 3-5 pages. Humility is bad for the deck MAINDECK if you are one of the people who just play everything. There are times where it just shuts off your entire draw engine because you haven't drawn presences. It can also be a dead draw in some matchups, including combo matchups where you REALLY cannot afford them.

[Adzeye]

I've been wondering how to improve the combo matchup and it seems the shifting metagame and M11 has been of some help. Leyline of Sanctities will definitely be of great help against Tendrils and Aluren, but what about Show&Tell->Emrakul? Sure we have Oblivion Ring, but better then that, since we play white, we have Karakas. But we can't really count on getting it, so that's why I've added 2 Crop Rotations, which can also get Horizon Canopy (as not to make it a dead draw) and Maze of Ith/Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale against aggro. I'm not entirely sure about playing non-enchantment spells either, but that card's always been a favorite of mine. Now here's my decklist :

6 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Serra's Sanctum
2 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith

2 Exploration
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Chrome Mox/Lotus Petal/ESG (if we'd like consistency rather then speed, 2 Worldly/Enlightened Tutor)
1 City of Solitude (Vexing Shusher if using Worldly Tutor, it can't even be countered itself)

2 Crop Rotation
2 Replenish
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
3 Elephant Grass
1 Karmic Justice
1 Words of War

Sideboard
1 Blood Moon (slow us down, screw them up)
1 Aura of Silence (v.s. Mirror)
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Elephant Grass
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Humility
1 Replenish
2 Choke
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Leyline of Sanctity

I think it should improve some matchups, but how does Enchantress generally fares against the current meta (post-colombus)?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm thinking of going 1x Karakas and 1x O. Ring SB and 1x each MD, which only changes my SB one card from my last tournament and gives me 4 outs to Emrakul G2/G3. I also run the Guiles + Fetches plan so that gives me a pretty good chance to get one of them before Emrakul gets a swing in. Your results may very. I don't think Crop Rotation is the right answer, Maze definitely isn't because Emrakul will still trigger. IMO your deck lacks focus. Cut some of those bad lands and add the good ones. I never like Canopy, I've ended many games at 1 life and many where if I would have had 1 more mana I would have won, but there are very few games where saccing a land to draw a card would have been the difference. Flagstones is terrible as a Plains and as a fetchland.

Also there isn't much data as too what the meta is exactly after GP Columbus. The banning of M Tutor shook up the format and several unusual decks top 8'd. It's hard to say where that leaves Enchantress or really the format in general. I would say the top 8 for GP would be a pretty severe gauntlet to run Enchantress through, but as the format continues to adjust we could possibly never see half of those decks in a top 8 ever again, so I guess it's wait and see.

[martyr]

Please read the last 10 or so pages of the thread. Moat replacement questions come up every 3-5 pages. Humility is bad for the deck MAINDECK if you are one of the people who just play everything. There are times where it just shuts off your entire draw engine because you haven't drawn presences. It can also be a dead draw in some matchups, including combo matchups where you REALLY cannot afford them.

Obviously it's not the ideal, traditional roadblock against aggro for the maindeck, but as mentioned Pridemage, Emrakul, Trygon Predator etc all see a fair amount of play and shutting off half your draw engine seems a fair trade for not auto-losing to two of those creatures and having a much harder time against fliers.

I was just asking for his specific opinion, based on the metagame he saw at a recent, large tournament. It wasn't a question solely about a budget replacement, it was a serious inquiry as to the viability of adding a Humility to the main to fight new threats.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Obviously it's not the ideal, traditional roadblock against aggro for the maindeck, but as mentioned Pridemage, Emrakul, Trygon Predator etc all see a fair amount of play and shutting off half your draw engine seems a fair trade for not auto-losing to two of those creatures and having a much harder time against fliers.

I was just asking for his specific opinion, based on the metagame he saw at a recent, large tournament. It wasn't a question solely about a budget replacement, it was a serious inquiry as to the viability of adding a Humility to the main to fight new threats.

So Humility instead of Moat or alongside? I'd rather run Moat personally and between Sterling Groves and O Rings take care of everything else. If I had a list that already has Moat it'd be really, really, hard to talk me into Humility over another O Ring. Sometimes Humility is bad news bears for you as well, and last time I checked I still win most of my games by ramping through a good 40+ cards in my deck, so shutting off my cheapest, hardest to kill draw engine seems like a bad trade. Most things Humility is going to answer perhaps should be answered by other cards. Example, Grove owns Pridemage, O Ring owns Emrakul, Halo owns Predator, all cards we run anyways. The only decks I can think of where I'd ever really want Humility in pre G2 would be certain Survival builds and decks that cheat Emrakul into play with haste or hardcast him (otherwise I'd rather answer with Ring or Karakas).

I'd never completely discount Humility from a SB just because there are several matches where it more or less shuts them down, but I'm still a long way from putting them in MD and I think that might be a little hasty at this point. Granted we all see the GP top 8 clear as day, and we know many players are blindly buying Show And Tell as we speak with Starcity pulled up on their computer screen ready to copy decklists card for card, but we need to keep our eyes on the brass ring here. The straightest line between us and victory is drawing lots of cards and locking the game long enough to win. Humility shuts down 1/2 our draw engine and it's only really worth it vs. a handful of decks. We already run silver bullets to handle problem creatures. The 3 most important creatures to answer are Pridemage, Trygon, and Emrakul, then several fringe creatures like Iona, Painter's Servant, yada yada. We already run Groves, Replenishs, O Rings, Runed Halos, and Karakas in most builds which all answer our most likely offenders. If your worried about Trygon and Emrakul I'd suggest more O Rings, Pridemage is a dick but I don't think adding another 1x Answer to our 4x Groves is going to make the difference. If they draw him either you have the Grove when he is ready to break or you don't, all the more reason to quickly draw through your deck with Argothian.

[caiomarcos]

About Humility (I'm sure it was mentioned before, but not in the last couple pages), it also shuts down one of your kills. Sigil of the Empty Throne does not look so sexy when it becomes a much worse Sacred Mesa.

I've got Moat a while ago, when it was not worth a small car, but still I played with both maindeck, then moved Humility to the sideboard and now it keeps getting in and out of my board, depending on my feel of the meta. Now I'm seeing more and more SnT/Emrakul around here so I'm sure humility will be an important piece in my sideboard.

[martyr]

I kind of hate your answers, but thanks for being clear and well thought out. Looks like I'll be trading up pretty hard the next few weeks =/

I would be super gun-shy about not including at least one Humility in the board, though. Trygon scares the crap out of me, thought it probably shouldn't so much.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I kind of hate your answers, but thanks for being clear and well thought out. Looks like I'll be trading up pretty hard the next few weeks =/

I would be super gun-shy about not including at least one Humility in the board, though. Trygon scares the crap out of me, thought it probably shouldn't so much.

In my experience Trygon is not nearly as common as you make it sound. I'd be more concerned with Emrakul personally.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If you're worried about hasty Emrakul, Sacred Ground might be an option; the damage can be prevented by Confinement/Halo, after all, so it's the annihilator that we're chiefly worried about, yes? And we run Sacred Ground in the SB anyway, it's cheap, and it has other applications.

Also, Trygon still gets answered by Grove, and is a full turn slower than Pridemage. If they have a Hierarch, then it's the same speed. Either way, it's the same problem, but with less pressure than Zoo puts on.

[Infinitium]

Curiosity speaking, has there been any discussion about maining Leyline? Granted it's dead in the water against certain decks, but that can be said for any control element you run and it does shut down burn, edicts, discard and tendrils etc and plays well with Serra's Sanctum, and the poor topdeck is somewhat mitigated by the amount of draw this deck runs.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Unless it's a really weird meta I don't think Leyline fits in the MD. It's just not good vs. most decks that play Force of Will and those are some of our tougher matchups.

[addaro]

Hi guys,

could someone pls explain why do people run Dovescape in SB? Whats the theory behind it? What MUs do I side it in and why? I get the part that Enchantress can "overpower" the opponent by playing more noncreature spells but it seems to me more complicated than just create 4/4 angels... There must be something Im not understanding...

Thanks :)

[Darkenslight]

Hi guys,

could someone pls explain why do people run Dovescape in SB? Whats the theory behind it? What MUs do I side it in and why? I get the part that Enchantress can "overpower" the opponent by playing more noncreature spells but it seems to me more complicated than just create 4/4 angels... There must be something Im not understanding...

Thanks :)

Because Sigil says 'When you cast an enchantment spell'. Dovescape may counter the enchantment, but you get a lot of 1/1s AND 4/4s.

[waSP]

There are some matches where having your opponent being unable to resolve spells means you auto-win (even without an Enchantress effect). So basically: slow combo decks, blue control decks, board control decks, aggro decks with very few creatures. It's especially great if you're running Enlightened Tutor to be able to go get it quickly for cheap once you have sufficient mana.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Any deck that doesn't damage you until they have basically won the game is Dovescape bait. You will win the Dovescape race 9/10 times.

[sa17dk]

So I've been testing Chrome Mox and Runed Halo and these are some of my thoughts:

1. I tried running 2 Chrome Mox and I hardly drew them when they were relevant (i.e. the first 2 turns). When I went up to 3 I found them just the right amount of times to power out what I needed those first three turns but it was painful having to pitch cards to them. Sure, they were nice when I was going off with two enchantress effects on the board but at that point I was winning anyway. Not to mention they are horrible topdecks and dont replace themselves for free like Utopia Sprawl/Wild Growth do when you have an enchantress on the board. I'm going to try testing ESG and Lotus Petal which brings me to Runed Halo.

2. It's hard casting WW. The WW makes the deck feel more white heavy than it actually is. I'll admit Runed Halo has been pretty nice randomly, but since I hate fetching nonbasics, getting the WW for Runed Halo is a pain. If it weren't for cards like Runed Halo or Aura of Silence (which I dont maindeck because I use Seal of Primordium) I would never have to fetch a dual land. I usually only have two white sources at most on board (a Utopia Sprawl naming white and a plains) and one of those is always used for casting Sterling Groves and Oblivion Rings. However I dont feel comfortable cutting it which is why I've cut the Taiga and replaced it with a Plateau :) Perhaps when I try out the Lotus Petals I'll have a better experience.

[wcm8]

I've been testing a list that so far has been doing quite well for me.

Toolbox Enchantress:

20 Lands:
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Karakas
2 Serrah's Sanctum
2 Plains
8 Forest

28 Essentials:
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Elephant Grass
4 Sterling Grove
2 Solitary Confinement
2 Replenish

2 Win-Conditions:
1 Words of War
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne

10 Toolbox set:
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Moat
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ground Seal
1 City of Solitude
1 Blood Moon
1 Noetic Scales
2 Oblivion Ring

(1 oblivion ring could be cut for some other relevant silver-bullet, I like the answer-everything aspect of it. I also think 1 Wild Growth and 1 Elephant Grass could possibly be cut for other things as well.)

Because you have 6 tutors and a superior card drawing engine, finding the answers you need to a particular opponent is not that difficult. You sacrifice redundancy for utility, but I think it's a fair trade-off given the nature of the deck.

The questionable inclusions are MD Blood Moon, the singleton Leyline, and Noetic Scales, and only 2 win-conditions. Blood Moon is so good against a huge swath of Legacy decks. It totally screws one deck (43 lands), punishes greedy mana-bases (practically every Legacy deck that isn't mono-colored), makes Brainstorm/Counterbalance far less good by getting rid of free shuffling via fetchlands, and messes up utility and combo lands (Rishadan port, Shelldock Isle, various man-lands, etc.).

The Leyline has been proving itself very beneficial game 1, even when its not in the opening seven. Leyline + Moat = win against some decks, and doesn't require the draw engine to sustain itself like Solitary Confinement does. Depending on board position, sometimes this is a better card to fetch up than Confinement. I found myself boarding in 4 Leylines in a huge amount of matches, so having one in the main doesn't seem to hurt too much. It also shuts down Jace, which seems to be gaining a lot of popularity.

Noetic Scales is fetchable with Enlightened Tutor, and with the insane card drawing Enchantress has, seeing it in a game isn't usually too difficult after you get your engine going. Along with Karakas, it provides an answer to Iona, Emrakul, and Progenitus -- reactively and preemptively. It can also occasionally force aggro decks to start building their board over -- at the very least, it can often bounce Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore, Countryside Crusher, pumped up Merefolk and even Goyf.

Enchantress often has the opponent simply scoop after you establish a lock, and actually dealing 20 is often a formality. Reducing the win conditions to two seems fine, as even if they get countered you have a backup plan with Replenish (often supported by City of Solitude). I also typically hate seeing them early in game, as I'd much rather prefer to work on the deck's goal of establishing a lock rather than going for a quick kill. If you know how the deck works, going to time isn't usually a concern unless you are facing another control deck. You do open yourself to being blown out by Sadistic Sacrament and other cards like it, but then you're going to be siding in Leylines against those sorts of decks anyways.

The SB is heavily meta-dependent, but here's what I run:
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Aura of Silence
2 Choke
1 Replenish
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 City of Solitude
1 Sacred Ground
1 Karmic Justice
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Lignify

I have not really missed Runed Halo that much. Everything that it does is done better by the other cards in the deck.

edit: I may have to try Dovescape in the sideboard. I'd also be curious to see the lists that made day two and see what sort of tech they used.

[caiomarcos]

What is that Noetic Scales for? What does it do that Grass, Moat, Confinement don't take care already?

[waSP]

The writer was concerned about Iona, Emrakul, and Progenitus. It handles all of those cards extremely well.

[caiomarcos]

The writer was concerned about Iona, Emrakul, and Progenitus. It handles all of those cards extremely well.

Thanks, reading is tech!

[sa17dk]

Did some testing with a group of legacy players and here are my thoughts:

1. I'm definitely replacing Moat with Humility. The deck has no problem dealing with swarms of creatures. If they want to pay 2 mana to swing with a 1/1 and tie up their resources, that makes me ecstatic. If my metagame had more Zoo or Goblins and whatnot then I would definitely keep the Moat in, but my meta is enamored with dropping Emrakul and creatures that just ruin my day. I found myself siding out Moat and bringing in the Ghostly Prison I was testing from the SB very often.

2. Survival + Loyal Retainers + Anger + Emrakul + Toolbox creatures is hard to deal with. I dont know how to deal with a Hasted Emrakul.

3. Lotus Petals were pretty awesome for me all day. I only ran two but I never wished they were Chrome Mox or ESG.

4. I'm dropping the Runed Halo count to one (in the MD). They were a bit underwhelming. Oblivion Ring on the other hand was a life-saver.

5. I think I might want to run one Enlightened Tutor. I'm not sure.

6. I want to try Blood Moon in the main.

7. I dropped my win condition count to two (one Sigil and one WoW) and I was very happy with it. I had some close games where it took me a bit longer to find a win condition to close the game out, but I definitely loved not seeing them early.


I think all I proved was that Enchantress is a very metagame dependent deck and that your silver bullets are going to need to be picked accordingly.

[slaughtercult]

Running this lately. My local meta is mostly control, hense the maindeck choke and such.

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Runed Halo
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Elephant Grass
1 City Of Solitude
1 Choke
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Sterling Grove
2 Replenish
1 Ground Seal
1 Sigil Of The Empty Throne
1 Words Of War
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn

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

Sideboard:
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Choke
1 Blood Moon
2 Runed Halo
4 Wheel Of Sun And Moon
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Karmic Justice
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Aura Of Silence

I'm having great results (still) with Emrakul against control, Hypergenesis and Show & Tell decks as it either nullifies their Emrakul or trumps whatever they happen to 'flash' into play. I'm saving the money for a Moat to replace one of the Solitary Confinements. I also want to squeeze another E. Tutor in the main. What would be good to cut for it? I was thinking one Runed Halo, but they shut down so many strategies...

[sa17dk]

Any reason for cutting the 3rd Replenish in the board?

[anonymos]

Did some testing with a group of legacy players and here are my thoughts:

2. Survival + Loyal Retainers + Anger + Emrakul + Toolbox creatures is hard to deal with. I dont know how to deal with a Hasted Emrakul.

5. I think I might want to run one Enlightened Tutor. I'm not sure.

7. I dropped my win condition count to two (one Sigil and one WoW) and I was very happy with it. I had some close games where it took me a bit longer to find a win condition to close the game out, but I definitely loved not seeing them early.

I think all I proved was that Enchantress is a very metagame dependent deck and that your silver bullets are going to need to be picked accordingly.

Ground Seal fixes your issue #2. Wheel of Sun and Moon won't.

I tried E. Tutor for the GP in place of the Mirri's Guile I'd been running. Jury is still out on it.

I don't like only having 2 win conditions. I play 3 main and 1 in the board. Earwig Squad and Sadistic Sacrement are too readily available to safely only play 2 win conditions.

I agree with your final statement.

[Ricardolucente]

I´m having trouble with White Stax, T1 land + lotus petal+ Trinisfere let my deck too slow, don´t having time to draw Karmic justice, Sacred Ground or Aura of Silence until he cast Armageddon.

Have anyone any idea how to beat this?

[Dack]

The fact is that your Stax opponent won't drop a Trini T1 everytime ^^

The W Stax MU isn't easy, but still doable. Karmic+Sacred Ground+Aura of Silence are good. Against the first Armageddon in G1, a tip that worked several times for me was to trick the opponent by keeping some lands in hand, when you can of course. Just drop 1-3 lands, enchant 1 or 2 of them with Sprawls or Growths, start to develop yourself a little and your opponent will -most of the time- be tempted to do the Geddon. Then after you can play with the lands you kept. Kinda risky but sometimes worth it.

Then on G2 G3 you want your Sacred Ground as soon as possible. With the Trinispheres it's just a 3cc max, I think you globally have more chances to play it before any serious threat from Stax, even with the broken first turns the deck can do ^^

[Master Shake]

I´m having trouble with White Stax, T1 land + lotus petal+ Trinisfere let my deck too slow, don´t having time to draw Karmic justice, Sacred Ground or Aura of Silence until he cast Armageddon.

Have anyone any idea how to beat this?

Realistically you're going to need to accept this one as being unfavorable. This deck does literally everything you don't want an opposing deck to do.

It uses almost no creatures
It messes with your lands
It packs relevant removal in the main and many of the same kind of cards you're going to bring in against it in the board.

Beating the deck is going to really require too many SB slots for what is just always going to be not enough to stop it.

If you're metagame is 7 Stax decks and yourself and you need to beat it with Enchantress then you start looking at having an aggressive board plan, but even then the Stax strategy is just fundamentally strong against Enchantress.

The good news is that Stax isn't a really sound, established strategy at the moment so you should be able to dodge that bullet in any large scale event. Where as most of the decks that are doing well happen to be decks Enchantress is strong against.

[anonymos]

I halfway agree with MasterShake on this. I think the matchup is ugly because it attacks us the one way that we really can't combat. They mess with our lands. The best answer I have for this matchup other than what he suggested is mulligan properly, make sure to keep a land or two in hand at all times, and remember that all of your draws except replenish at E. Tutor are permanents.

You are the beatdown in this matchup.

[sa17dk]

So theres a tournament soon that I will be attending. I have no idea what the meta will be like. What do you guys think of this list for an unknown meta?

//Maindeck
8 Forest
3 Plains
1 Plateau (personal choice)
1 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Wooded Foothills (because I've had some trouble finding a fetch to go grab the Plateau/Taiga for Blood Moon)
4 Windswept Heath

4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal (I've liked the 1 and 1 split between the Mox and Petal)

4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress

4 Sterling Grove
4 Elephant Grass
1 Moat/Humility (cant decide which one I want MD and which I want in the SB)
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Lignify
1 Runed Halo
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Blood Moon (MD Blood Moon has been amazing in my testing)
2 City of Solitude
3 Solitary Confinement

2 Replenish
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Words of War

//Sideboard
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Choke
1 Runed Halo
2 Aura of Silence
2 Karmic Justice
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Ground Seal
1 Sacred Ground
1 Moat/Humility (depends on which I run MD)
1 ?????

[Ricardolucente]

So theres a tournament soon that I will be attending. I have no idea what the meta will be like. What do you guys think of this list for an unknown meta?

//Maindeck
8 Forest
3 Plains
1 Plateau (personal choice)
1 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Wooded Foothills (because I've had some trouble finding a fetch to go grab the Plateau/Taiga for Blood Moon)
4 Windswept Heath

4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal (I've liked the 1 and 1 split between the Mox and Petal)

4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Argothian Enchantress

4 Sterling Grove
4 Elephant Grass
1 Moat/Humility (cant decide which one I want MD and which I want in the SB)
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Lignify
1 Runed Halo
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Blood Moon (MD Blood Moon has been amazing in my testing)
2 City of Solitude
3 Solitary Confinement

2 Replenish
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Words of War

//Sideboard
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Choke
1 Runed Halo
2 Aura of Silence
2 Karmic Justice
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Ground Seal
1 Sacred Ground
1 Moat/Humility (depends on which I run MD)
1 ?????

Well y see that you don´t have nothing against combo decks, maybe 2 Leyline of Sanctity, Rule of Law, mindbreak trap in SB

Main i go Moat, Humility SB -1 elephant grass + 1 oblivion ring

[anonymos]

So theres a tournament soon that I will be attending. I have no idea what the meta will be like. What do you guys think of this list for an unknown meta?



Personally, I'd find space for a 3rd win condition if you thing the R/B goblins list is running around. They like playing Earwig Squad early enough that they can actually beat you because of it. I actually play a 4th in my sideboard because of that situation. It all depends. My suggestion for you is really simple. Show up early and try to see what you can see. Humility main deck is not so hot. It shuts off a lot of things, but it also shuts off HALF of your draw engine and makes your angels pretty poor.

[Zlatzman]

I played Enchantress at a small local tournament a couple of days ago, but ended up with a pretty unimpressive 1-2 finish (2-2 if the first round bye is counted).

The list was fairly standard:


//Lands
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
3 Windswept Heath //friend is borrowing the last one
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Serra's Sanctum
8 Forest
3 Plains

//Acceleration
2 Lotus Petal
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth

//Enchantress
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence

//Kill conditions
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Words of War
1 Sacred Mesa

//Other Enchantmens
4 Sterling Grove
4 Elephant Grass
2 Solitary Confinement
1 Ground Seal
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Moat
1 Oblivion Ring
1 City of Solitude
1 Runed Halo

//Other
2 Replenish

//Sideboard
1 Humility
1 Karmic Justice
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Blood Moon
2 Choke
1 Replenish
1 Sacred Ground
1 Lignify
1 Aura of Silence
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 City of Solitude


Round 1 - bye
1 -0

Round 2 - Dredge
He got an early Putrid Imp, but didn't manage to dredge into crazy stuff right away. This gave me time to cast Sterling Grove for Wheel of Sun and Moon, which left him attacking with just a few creatures. Sigil of the Empty Throne got down shortly thereafter, sealing the deal.

Sideboarding: - Words of War, Sterling Grove, Seal of Primordium. + Solitary Confinement, Ground Seal, Wheel of Sun and Moon

The second game was much like the first, getting me an early Wheel of Sun and Moon. This time it was backed up by two Sterling Groves and a Sacred Mesa.

2-0

Round 3 - Dredge
Game one he mulled to 3 on the go, but managed to cast an early Breaktrough giving him decent gas. I had the early Sterling Grove, but was forced to fetch for Elephant Grass due to him having several Zombies on the board already. The Elephant Grass stopped the pain at 13 life, and he didn't dredge into any relevant spells. The next turn I sealed the deal with several more pieces of hate, to which he scooped.

Sideboarding: same as round 2. Siding out Sterling Grove was probably the wrong move though, as I really need an early lock.

Game two he kept his 7, while I mulled to six. After some early lock piece I managed to stabilize on 11 life, but Ray of Revelation on my Solitary Confinement and a reanimated Iona on white sealed the deal.

Further sideboarding, sided out something for Lignify.
Game three I got the nuts with turn one Argothian Enchantress, turn two Wheel of Sun and Moon. Unfortunately the rest of my hand was weak, consisting of lands and a Humility. I decided not to play out the Humitiy as I didn't have a Presence on the table while he had Putrid Imp, Tireless Tribe and Golgari Thug beating down. I top deck three land, as well as another Argothian Enchantress before finally finding an Utopia Sprawl. I cast the Utopia Spawl, which drew me into more Utopia Sprawl / Wild Growth as well as an Enchantress's Presence.
At this point I was at 8 life, and he had 3 power on the table. I decided to dig further instead of casting Humilty. On his next turn he cast Flame-Kin Zealot, and without thinking I counted the damage and scooped up my cards. As soon as I had done so a spectator pointed out that I could have just blocked using my Argothian Enchantress, getting me at least another turn. This would probably have let me draw into some sort of lock and win the match. In hindsight I should definitely have dropped Humility, giving me 1/1 creatures to block and a single Enchantress's Presence for card advantage.

2 -1

Round four - Zoo

Game one I didn't manage to stop the creature-beats until I was at 12 life, at which point double Bolt + Price of Progress got me. Gaddock Teeg prevented an early Moat from stalling the ground.

Sideboarding: can't remember what I sided out, but I do remember siding in Blood Moon, Humility, Oblivion Ring, CoP: Red and Solitary Confinement.

I kept a hand of forest, Wooded Foothills, Serra's Sanctum, Blood Moon, Oblivion Ring, Enchantress's Presence and Argothian Enchantress. I play turn 1 forest, turn two fetch forest (?!) play Argothian, turn three draw Sterling Grove. After that I drew an assortment of Enchantments I could not cast, while he beat me down with various small creatures. I might have won this game had I only fetched for Savannah instead of having some irrational fear of Price of Progress.

2-2

All in all a disappointing evening, but the deck performed quite well. I'm not sure what changed I'd like to do to the list. I might move the Sacred Mesa to sideboard or remove it all-together, and once I get my other Savannah back I'll consider swapping Seal of Primordium for Aura of Silence.

I'd also like to focus the sideboard a bit, running fewer one-offs, but I need more experience playing the deck before I'm able to properly sideboard with Enchantress.

[sa17dk]

Does anyone know how this deck stacks up against Dreadstill and Merfolk?

[caiomarcos]

Does anyone know how this deck stacks up against Dreadstill and Merfolk?

Ride a couple of Elephant Grasses until you get mana to drop a Moat and win. Never lost a match to Merfolk.

Dreadstill is harder, but also very winnable, Replenish is king and plan for it. You probably play either Choke or City of Solitude maindeck, go for them. Also depends a lot of the skill and knowledge of your opponent. Depending on what he counters early on, sould be quite easy, otherwise go the route I said: Solitude - City - Replenish. Be aggressive, they can't keep up with the amount of must counters you have.

Both favorable match ups.

[michaelq]

Just went 4-0 in a local tournament in Ventura, CA (near LA) with my pretty standard Enchantress deck. Here's my list (typed by hand so pardon lack of set edition, etc.)

Enchantments (30):
4 Enchantress' Presence
4 Elephant Grass
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Moat
1 Ground Seal
1 Lignify
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Words of War
1 Sigil of an Empty Throne
1 Sacred Mesa

Creatures (6):
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Argothian Enchantress

Sorceries (3):
3 Replenish

Lands (21):
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
2 Serra Sanctum
7 Forest
4 Plains
1 Taiga

SB was:
3 COP Red
2 Runed Halo
2 Sacred Ground
2 Karmic Justice
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ground seal
2 Aura of Silence
1 Blood Moon

Round One: Zoo with Kavu Predator/Grove of the Burnwillows (and some other tech)

The deck was a slightly jankier version of zoo with Grove of the Burnwillows, STP, Punishing Fire and Kavu Predator in addition to Pridemages, Nacatl and other beats. It wasn't a bad deck and I imagine she would have beaten me if I'd opted to play Merfolk (last minute meta call - I had mono U merfolk sleeved up as well).

G1 - I get moat in my opening hand and cast it on turn four after O-ringing and lignifying TWO Gaddok Teegs! I don't draw any enchantresses, but I do get a sterling grove, and I leave it in play instead of sacking it so that she can't kill moat with pridemages. She manages to burn me down quite a bit by casting and recasting punishing fire (returning it with Burnwillows) but I combo out on turn 12 or so (with words of war), still safely out of burn range.

G2 - She has a strong opening with pridemages, another Teeg, and a grip on my elephant grass. I get beaten down quite a bit, she drops a wooly thocktar and grips my final protection one or two turns before I would have been able to get the engine going behind a solitary confinement.

G3 - She drops early beats, but I'm able to quickly combo out through her nacatls on the backs of 2 early resolved groves. I kill her with words of war.

Round Two: 4-color Landstill

This is a tough match that goes really long - I think the 50 minute time limit may have been neglected this round because we played until our decks were super thin. His wincons are Gigantapede, factories, and I think he had an Eternal Witness.

G1: I start building up my mana base. He dumps a lot of lands into his graveyard through wasting, fetching, etc., then goes for an EOT Intuition for Loam, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives. I give him loam, and he loams during his turn. The next turn, I resolve a Ground Seal, rendering both loam and Ruins moot, but has another explosives and blows it a turn later, also killing an enchantress. He also cast several innocent bloods and killed my enchantresses that way too! I stuck a moat early on to deal with his factories (and as I thought at the time, all of his win conditions - though he was playing four colors and could conceivably destroy it). I churn through my deck, cast some enchantress's presences (which he blows with explosives) and eventually get out a sigil. He has, by this point, made me discard a lot of blank cards to Raven's Crime and blown all my enchantresses, so I'm in top-deck mode. I have one or two angel tokens out. Then he casts Call of the Skybreaker (!) and gets a flying 5/5. I slowly cast enchantments to build up my army of 4/4s and start attacking through, but he keeps wiping my tokens (and his) with explosives or gaining life back with Nomad Stadium. I manage to finally cast words of war when he is at 3 life, and he doesn't have the mana to both wipe my tokens and recur Nomad Stadium. If he had two or three more mana out, this game would have probably gone his way.

G2: I don't even think we have enough time to play another game, but we go for it. He has a very strong start and I'm stuck on only one mana. He EE's my wild growth and I am literally discarding my stuff.Thankfully I got a couple lands down, then a couple enchantresses, then drew into more land and stabalized. He already had his EE/Ruins and his loam/waste engines online and I though "there's no way I can win this". Noting that he had only 1 plains on the table and the rest were non-basics, and that he was tapped out (he was playing counter magic, but not FoW - he was barely in blue as it turned out) I used grove to search for my blood moon, cast it, then locked him out long enough to win with Words of War.

Round 3: Aggro Elves!

Speed was at a premium here, and I here I excelled: Elvish Spirit Guide came in handy allowing me to turn 1 play a land, exile ESG, cast wild growth, drop Argothian Enchantress. I did this twice during the tournament, and it made for some t4 soft-locks with 2 enchantresses and solitary confinement.

G1: Turn one elf, turn two two elves (one being hermit druid) he taps the three elves and plays Priest of Titiana and concordinant crossroads, then drops an elvish archdruid. Wow. I have an enchantress out, make my second land-drop, and play an enchantress's presence. He beats for a lot, and I'm fairly low. I drop an elephant grass. Instead of attacking, he produces a ton of mana, plays another elf and uses all the mana to cast Biorythm. Wow - he didn't realize argothian enchantress was a creature and I drop to one. He has no mana left to attack and he passes. I cast sigil, some one drops, then kill him the next turn with two hasty angels tokens.

G2: I board in Karmic Justice thinking he may have global enchantment removal. He opens quickly and dumps his hand of elves by turn three. He has a sick amount of mana on the table thanks to archdruid and two quirion rangers. He beats me down to 15. I cast a second enchantress, then an enchantress's presence, and am forced to pass without any disruption, hoping he can't somehow pump to lethal. He can! He taps archdruid three times and plays Joraga Warcaller and pays the multikicker 6 times! He attacks in with three creatures, then shrugs and he practically starts picking up his cards. I realize that I can block one of them and go to one, so I do so. My top-deck is a fetchland I can't crack. I manage to cast a solitary, then draw into grove that I play for protection from grip. He can't do anything. I keep the engine alive barely on the backs of two enchantresses, draw into a second grove, and eventually more enchantresses and Karmic Justice. I don't think he had any global removal (despite that awesome two-cost green instant they just printed in M11), so it turned out I was safe. I didn't crunch the numbers, but had he realized I could block, I'm pretty sure he would have been smart enough to figure out a way to kill me between all those elves he had on the table. Few!

Round 4: Armageddon Stax

Ok - I know what you're thinking. This has to be one of the worst possible matchups for enchantress, and it certainly seems to be - at least pre-board. This guy was playing 5 armageddon effects. Five!

G1: This is basically a blow-out. He armageddons, with mox diamond out, then drops tabernacle to kill my enchantress. He trinispheres, I can't draw land, I scoop.

G2: I board in 2 sacred ground, 2 karmic justice, and two aura of silence. I mull to 6, keep a hand with some lands and an enchantress, and go to work. He leads with chalice at one. Then a second chalice at 2. I luckily have enchantress's presence. He is unable to kill my enchantresses. He blows my lands with armageddon, but fortunately I have 3 more in hand. He runs out of cards in hand while I start cycling my one and two drops for two cards as they get countered by chalice. At one point, I have a lignify I forgot to board out and no legal target, and I have to cast sacred ground! I point an aura of silence at his crucible of worlds to make armageddon a bit more painful for him. Sure enough, next turn he armageddons again, but luckily, I have drawn a lot of cards. I build up my mana base, hit 4, then cast Replenish and get back everything, including sacred ground. My lignify halts his win-con - a flying Ghostly Prison creature I've never seen before but am thoroughly impressed by. He scoops.

G3: He gets a smoke stack active early on. I have enchantress on the table, and I manage to draw into both Serra's Sanctum (which he doesn't have a waste for) and sterling grove. There is a moment of anxiety as I pass the turn after having cast grove, not having another enchantment to activate a draw. He has two moxes on the table but can't seem to get to three mana after having to sac one to smokestack. I sac an elephant grass before I have to pay the upkeep cost, trigger grove and search for sacred ground, then cast sacred ground. He keeps the smoke stack alive for another turn but realizes it's hopeless. I keep drawing cards and he eventually extends his hand.

So that's the tournament - 2 pure control decks, two aggro decks. I was happy not to run into combo or Countertop, and I managed to dodge a guy playing a pretty good landstill build with Jace and some beta duals in it (he seemed to be a pretty good pilot, too). I'm going to a pretty big tourny in LA on Saturday and I'm planning to run the same build.

As for changes, I'm hoping to shave down to 1 COP Red in the board, fit an enlightened tutor in for silver bullets, and get in a third ESG (maybe take out a forest). I may throw City of Solitude back in the board. As for Choke, I'm still not sold on it seeing that the deck has no other mana denial strategies. I'm going to re-read the last few pages of the thread, but if you guys have any ideas for my sideboard, let me know! Thanks for your input!

[Ben]

Hi all, new to the site.

I was wondering that the reason of running 1 moat is due to its price or it is because running more than 1 would turniing into some dead draws?

[caiomarcos]

Hi all, new to the site.

I was wondering that the reason of running 1 moat is due to its price or it is because running more than 1 would turniing into some dead draws?

I'd like to believe it's both, but seeing how good Moat is, running 2 wouldn't be that crazy. Anyway, I think the price keep us from trying multiples.


tourny report

Very nice report. Detailed enough to give a good insight on what works and how. Like you said, your list is pretty standard, but I have a few questions on it.

Did you ever play Sacred Mesa? For a long time I was playing like you, with the 3 different wincons in the maindeck, but last tournament I cut the Serra and I think that's a good move.

Do you have any plans against combo?

About the silver bullets, is that written on stone or just a meta call? Like Blood Moon side and not maindeck, only one O. Ring main, Lignify main, no Justice main etc. Is it worth to cut some of those bullets for the extra acceleration in the form of ESG? I've tested Mox and was really disappointed, maybe I'll try them elves next.

On your sideboard, isn't Karmic Justice and Sacred Ground overkill? I see them performing fairly similar roles.

Also, congrats on the good performance!

[anonymos]

So locally I've noticed that I'm not getting the mileage I used to out of Blood Moon. I think I'm going to drop it for a while.

Karmic Justice and Sacred Ground perform similar roles, but very different roles at the same time. Karmic Justice is for sweepers and targeted land distruction. It doesn't do a bit of good against things like Devastating Dreams. Sacred Ground is good for those matchups and also for those silly people planning on attacking with Emrakul so long as you get enough lands in play. I tend to want one or the other for a matchup, not both. I play both in my board currently. Kind of like playing Wheel of Sun and Moon and Ground Seal. They both are a form of GY hate, but they function differently. You don't always want/need both in a given matchup.

[michaelq]

[/QUOTE]

Did you ever play Sacred Mesa? For a long time I was playing like you, with the 3 different wincons in the maindeck, but last tournament I cut the Serra and I think that's a good move.

Do you have any plans against combo?

About the silver bullets, is that written on stone or just a meta call? Like Blood Moon side and not maindeck, only one O. Ring main, Lignify main, no Justice main etc. Is it worth to cut some of those bullets for the extra acceleration in the form of ESG? I've tested Mox and was really disappointed, maybe I'll try them elves next.

On your sideboard, isn't Karmic Justice and Sacred Ground overkill? I see them performing fairly similar roles.

[/QUOTE]

I played it one or two times during the entire tournament. I am going to a tournament on Saturday in West LA, and I'm dropping Mesa due to its clunkiness. I played it mainly as an alternative to a second sigil, but now I'm thinking it's OK to drop to two wincons. It has been useful in the past, but I'd rather have more protection - a second O-ring or a third ESG.

Also, I'm taking lignify out of the maindeck. It was irrelavant in for most of the matchups (even hurting me in the stax matchup since I couldn't target anything with it, and thus couldn't cycle it while under chalice for 2). I will definitely run a second O-ring. I'm also going to put in a Karakas because it's randomly useful and because I'm running plenty of basic plains already. I don't plan on running into reanimator but a lignify in the board will also be helpful against aggro.

As for my plan against combo, I'm of the opinion that 1) I can survive an early Empty the warrens with Elephant Grass, Moat and Solitary, and 2) I can possibly (with ESG acceleration) get a solitary out soon enough (or chain two solidarities) soon enough to no be Tendrils'd to death. I'm ditching Rule of Law because it hurts me as well. I don't like the new leyline because it costs too much to cast and will likely be bounced or gripped. I don't plan to build a board against combo because I don't think there are any good anti-combo options. I'll just hope to not run into it, or to get lucky if I do run into it, and build my board for my other bad matchups. Regarding the Stax matchup, it's rare, but having 6 very strong hate cards post board is good enough - I will keep both Karmic and Sacred Ground because, as anonymos said, they serve different purposes.

My board will probably look something like this:
2 Karmic Justice
2 Sacred Ground
2 Aura of Silence
1 Blood Moon
1 COP Red
1 Ground Seal (1 MD)
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Lignify
2 Choke
2 ?

I'll probably run all 4 ESG since they are at best mana acceleration, at worst chump blockers.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Hi all, new to the site.

I was wondering that the reason of running 1 moat is due to its price or it is because running more than 1 would turniing into some dead draws?

The price is an issue for some. I run 2 moats and I feel like sometimes I'm only running 2 because I have them. It's really hard not to run2 moats when you have them for some reason. That said moat is rarely a dead draw. I mean it sucks if jace is already building up counters but it stops so many relevant threats in a deck that is all about stopping damage from coming across. 3 is definitely overkill but 2 is doable, it doubles your chances of drawing into a card that is really good against almost every deck.

[dahcmai]

I was playing against an enchantress deck today and thought I would ask here about it. I haven't ever ran into one before, but I play UBGR Landstill and it seems this is one extremely bad match up for Enchantress. After 7 or so games I had thrashed him soundly in every game. I wondered if this was normal for Landstill to beat Enchantress like that all the time or if it was a fluke? I had always thought enchantress decks were really decent against control until today. His list was a typical list you'd see here and he's a good player so I can't knock it up to a skill difference.

[sa17dk]

I was playing against an enchantress deck today and thought I would ask here about it. I haven't ever ran into one before, but I play UBGR Landstill and it seems this is one extremely bad match up for Enchantress. After 7 or so games I had thrashed him soundly in every game. I wondered if this was normal for Landstill to beat Enchantress like that all the time or if it was a fluke? I had always thought enchantress decks were really decent against control until today. His list was a typical list you'd see here and he's a good player so I can't knock it up to a skill difference.

I definitely agree. Game 1 is usually manageable but when all the Spell Pierces and whatnot come in, it gets miserable.

[Suneloon]

I got fourth place with this version at a local tournament. To be fair it was only a 13 player tournament. But all experienced Legacy players. I lost to Belcher and High Tide.

19
6 Forest
2 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
1 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Karakas

11
4 Chrome Mox
4 Wild Growth
3 Utopia Sprawl

16
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
2 Mirri's Guile
2 Replenish

10
4 Elephant Grass
2 Moat
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Runed Halo
1 Karmic Justice

4
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Words of War


SB
15
4 Enlightened Tutor
2 Solitary Confinement
1 Blood Moon
1 Choke
1 Runed Halo
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Sacred Ground
1 Lignify
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Karmic Justice
1 Concordant Crossroads

I feel that the deck really needs Chrome Mox to be fast enough. But I would cut a couple of acc. cards next time. Maybe: - 1 Mox, -1 Sprawl. I don´t understand why people like Sprawl over Wild Growth? Imo the restriction on Sprawl is way more relevant than the ability to generate any color.

The “E. Tutor for Runed Halo” should simply be Leylines. It kinda worked against both combo decks I meet, but Leylines would have been better. When boarding against control you can´t really afford the card-disadvantage of E. Tutor. Even to get the silver bullets.
Blood Moon and Choke both won me matches.

Words of War is almost never relevant. I´m definitely testing Words of Wind next time! I think Blood Moons could be replaced by other control-hate cards.

[Destroy&Bury]

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and have just picked up Enchantress. I played it to a top-2 split in a 28-men (no females) 8-proxy tournament. Since it's a 8-proxy event, the decks are pretty much unconstrained by budget. The field is like this:

top-8:
belcher
enchantress (me)
zoo
goblins
madness survival
monobrown stax
belcher
No Bant

rest of the field:
3 madness survival
3rd belcher
2 dredge
sneaky show
elfball
bg rock
berserk demon rock
2nd NO bant
merfolk
2nd goblins
2nd zoo
burn
bw mystic confidant
monoblack aggro
monoblack discard

a detailed version of my tournament report can be found on my blog here: http://mtgtrinket.blogspot.com/2010/08/tourney-report-top-2-split-with.html

I was lucky to avoid the combo players and played against monoblack discard, rock, zoo, and faced the same madness survival twice. My decklist differed from others in that I cut the silver bullets and maxed out on Journey to Nowhere and Oblivion Ring. Ths is motivated by the desire to crush aggro. I'm also willing to be a bye to combo as I expected few copies to be present (I was wrong).

Here's my decklist:
Enchantress
Mana (20 + 8)
4 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
2 Serra’s Sanctum
3 Plains
10 Forest
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl

Disruption (20)
2 Elephant Grass
4 Journey to Nowhere
2 Runed Halo
4 Sterling Grove
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Moat
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Solitary Confinement

Threats (2)
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne

Others (10)
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress’s Presence
2 Replenish

Sideboard (15)
2 Elephant Grass
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Karmic Justice
1 Harsh Judgment
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Solitary Confinement
2 Choke

Since I'd have played Belcher in the finals if we hadn't split, I would like to know what chances my deck has against a belcher list that has Hull Breach but not Reverent Silence? Will Null Chamber change things? What happens if they have Reverent Silence and I have Null Chamber?

[sa17dk]

Your list is definitely interesting.

Im curious as to how confident you feel in your matchups against counter-heavy control decks, particularly because you're not running any City of Solitudes anywhere and you didn't face any hardcore blue control decks. I notice you have the 2 Chokes but I noticed that when the blue decks start boarding in Spell Pierce to compliment their Counterspells/Forces/CB/etc. the matchup gets more and more difficult. My personal playstyle against blue control decks is to throw must-answer bombs at them such as City of Solitude/Choke/Blood Moon while baiting with whatever else I have in my hand.

[HokusSchmokus]

There is an Enchantress deck featuring Emrakul winning the local weekly legacy league in Dortmund, GER. Shit just never seems to lose....
Anyone thought of this yet?Emrakul in enchantress?

[Dack]

I don't see what more Emrakull brings than the kills already used in the deck, except that it's not an enchantement.
Ok it gives you a free turn if your hardcast it, but with the deck at the time you can play a 15cc spell you should probably already be winning.

[slaughtercult]

There is an Enchantress deck featuring Emrakul winning the local weekly legacy league in Dortmund, GER. Shit just never seems to lose....
Anyone thought of this yet?Emrakul in enchantress?


I have had very positive results with Emrakul in my build. I added it when it was first released, it hasn't left my deck yet. It helps against Grindstone decks, countertop, and the mirror. I have even put it into play from an opponent Show and Telling me. They didn't expect it... :laugh:

[Dack]

Against Grindstone you have the Confinements, against countertop the Cities/Replenish/blue hate, against mirro Aura of Silence... Do you really feel the need for Emrakull when you have 15 manas ? Aren't the kills already used enough ?

[Justin]

Emrakul seems pretty random without a tutor. The enchantment win conditions can be found with Sterling Grove.

[slaughtercult]

I suppose we could all agree that Emrakul is an acquired taste amongst enchantress players. Some like it there, some don't...I prefer it as a third win condition, as well as a back up plan.

[caiomarcos]

I suppose we could all agree that Emrakul is an acquired taste amongst enchantress players. Some like it there, some don't...I prefer it as a third win condition, as well as a back up plan.

A back up plan in case of what? The way I see it, you'll never cast Emrakul unless you have your engined assemble and running well. Sigi otoh lets you slow roll enchantments and beat with a couple of angels even if you don't have your engine out. And you can fetch it, and protect it and recover it with Replenish, all without enchantress effects.

EDIT: In case of Show and Tell?

[Dack]

In case of Show and Tell, putting an O-Ring in play is my favorite choice most of the time.

Other thing, what do you guys think about running Dovescape as a win con ? I replaced Words of War for it and so far I like it more. I think it's better versus heavy control decks and can help you even with 1 enchanteress-effect. Kinda risky card to play but most of the time you're the less screwed. Fun card I always wanted to play ^^

Has anyone tested it ?

[sa17dk]

I dont know what everyone's fascination with alternate win conditions is. Sigil and Words of War are just so good at what they do. Words of War is probably the best wincon available. Sometimes even Sigil seems slow. The problem with Emrakul is that Emrakul is ONLY good as a win condition, whereas you can drop Sigil or Words earlier to get some tokens or burn out some annoying creatures.

Anyways, in other news:

1) I hate Chrome Mox. I tried testing 1 Chrome Mox and 1 Lotus Petal as my two accelerants and I always wished my Chrome Mox was a Lotus Petal.
2) Moat is nuts. If you have budget constraints and cannot get a Moat that's fine. But please dont try to rationalize it with yourself. Moat is nuts. Moat has gotten me out of situations that cards such as Ghostly Prison or whatnot would never have.
3) The Zoo matchup is a lot harder than I thought. I played many games against Zoo today without any SB cards for them and I got rocked. Their creatures I can handle, but their burn to the dome hurts. Sphere of Law and/or COP: Red is definitely coming in. Probably Sphere of Law.
4) Duals suck. I dont ever want to run more than 1 Savannah (and the obvious Taiga/Plateau for WoW).
5) I playtested many games against storm combo today and using SB slots for combo seems like a waste of time. But that's just me.

[caiomarcos]

I dont know what everyone's fascination with alternate win conditions is. Sigil and Words of War are just so good at what they do. Words of War is probably the best wincon available. Sometimes even Sigil seems slow. The problem with Emrakul is that Emrakul is ONLY good as a win condition, whereas you can drop Sigil or Words earlier to get some tokens or burn out some annoying creatures.

Anyways, in other news:

1) I hate Chrome Mox. I tried testing 1 Chrome Mox and 1 Lotus Petal as my two accelerants and I always wished my Chrome Mox was a Lotus Petal.
2) Moat is nuts. If you have budget constraints and cannot get a Moat that's fine. But please dont try to rationalize it with yourself. Moat is nuts. Moat has gotten me out of situations that cards such as Ghostly Prison or whatnot would never have.
3) The Zoo matchup is a lot harder than I thought. I played many games against Zoo today without any SB cards for them and I got rocked. Their creatures I can handle, but their burn to the dome hurts. Sphere of Law and/or COP: Red is definitely coming in. Probably Sphere of Law.
4) Duals suck. I dont ever want to run more than 1 Savannah (and the obvious Taiga/Plateau for WoW).
5) I playtested many games against storm combo today and using SB slots for combo seems like a waste of time. But that's just me.

I strongly agree on every point, let me comment on them.


Wincons: After a long time I caved in and accepted that Sacred Mesa is not necessary anymore. With the printing of Sigil and the departure of mana burn, WoW and Sigil do everything you want a wincon to do. Today people are more ready to face Emrakul than to get rid of a 5 CC enchantment with shroud. WoW and Sigil are so much more versatile, fit so much better in the deck and have so many more interactions than Emrakul that it is not even fun to compare them.

1) Agree, Chrome Mox sucks. Tested it and hated it so much. It's not worth to mulligan only to find them in your opening hand, and after the 2nd turn they are dead cards. Can't say anything about Petal since I've never tested them.

2) Agree 100%. 9 out of 10 times I drop a moat, the game is mine. It only got slightly worse now that there's a flying Merfolk, but many times that I dropped a Moat against merfolk, it was followed by concession.

3) Partially agree. Burn is the only problem like you said, but it all comes to the cards both of you draw, and the Enchantress player taking advantage of the Zoo player mistakes. Many Zoo players don't know how to play against Enchantress, therefore they think they'll have time to pay for Elephant Grass for a couple of turns and attack with their lonely Nacatl for a while, only to find out that 3 damage a turn for the first couple turns is not fast enough. It also depends whether they draw enough burn, and most of them won't mulligan looking for burn and would keep decent creature hands that fail against Enchantress. Also depends whether you draw extra removal like O. Rings and Lignifys from sideboard. Like in many match ups, Replenish is a house against Zoo, play your Elephant Grasses and Confinements like fogs and recycle them. Bring back that Confinement tat you used as a fog, plus that Moat that was destroyed by Pridemage, together with the Grove you used to fetch it, and that's a game. Through practice you can make Zoo a very favorable match up.

4) Spot on. I started playing with Enchantress with the mandatory Taiga and only one Savannah because I only had one. Then I tried more but it didn't fit. You already don't have many targets for wasteland, so your non-basics will be destroyed, use them wisely. Losing one or two each game is manageable, losing more than that becomes a real hinderance.

5) That's the most difficult decision I still have to make about the deck. Should I try harder winning the combo match up or just say fuck it and improve the rest?