@opax. why only three leylines and not four in the side?
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@opax. why only three leylines and not four in the side?
Mainly slot problem. Tes is about 1-5% of my meta so i don't really need 4 of. It's the same for the 3rd shusher.
Hi all,
Played a large tournament yesterday (207 players) with Enchantress. Not because it’s such a strong deck but more because it’s so much fun. My list;
4 Arg. Enchantress
4 Ench. Presence
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth
1 Mirri’s Guile
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Moat
3 Supression Field
1 Words of War
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
3 Elephant Grass
2 Runed Halo
2 Replenish
3 Chrome Mox
4 Plains
7 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Serra’s Sanctuum
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
SB
1 Enl. Tutor
1 Karmic Justice
1 Aura of Silence
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Choke
1 City of Solitude
1 Bloodmoon
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 leyline of Santity
Rnd 1
I played against a homebrew of Madness-Survival with Red, White, Green. He played Lion’s Eye Diamond, Reckless Wurm, Arrogant Wurm, Anger and Memnite to get extremely explosive starts. He’s on the play, drops 6 power of creatures and passes. I got the Elephant Grass and he cannot attack. I build up my mana until I get the lock with Confinement and then he scoops. He still got to attack twice when I had to let go of the Grass to use my mana to set up several Enchantress effects and once when he got enough mana with another Diamond to pay the Grass but it didn’t really matter since all damage was on board, barring Anger (haste) guys. Second game I got to see the Survival but after a slow start of Figure of Destiny. He decided to try and burn me out with 4x Grim Lavamancer and using Survival to fill his graveyard. A good plan when there’s a Moat to keep your creatures at home but waaaay to slow against Enchantress. I get the lock and he scoops (which happened a lot, do we really need any actual win conditions? :tongue:)
Rnd 2
Next up, Merfolk. I do not know the statistics of the matchup but it feels worse then in theory it should be. They are way more aggressive as I feel they ought to be and if they just counter the cards that stop the onslaught of Merfolk (like Moat and such) and let the engine happen, then they're in good shape. First game he starts and he does so with Vial (all games he does that, nice one). I have a decent start but end up drawing no business for 2-3 turns which is enough form him to swim me over (Merfolk cannot be running me over, now can they). Next game, I get to lock him and he plays on to see what the deck actually does to win. He never had seen the deck before… Last game is similar to the first. Vial, lord, lord, lord, dead. Something like that. Too bad he had the counter for my Choke, otherwise he would have been locked with Elephant Grass on the table as well but now he could punch trhough.
Rnd 3
Funny thing, my neighbour is also playing Enchantress. He has got a terrible matchup though, some control deck with P. Deed and Innocent Blood… I saw he did manage to take a game though, good job. My matchup is Survival Madness Vengevine. First game he’s fairly slow out of the gates and I get the lock and the win. Second game, my tech against Survival in hand (Supression Field) and mana a plenty. It just so happens I fetch a Forest, play a forest and my Sanctum does nothing yet… No Supression Field, no 3rd mana so no Enchantress Presence. BIG mistake there, fetch a plains and the deck start humming where as his deck pretty slows to a crawl. Now, he went crazy with Survival, get 4 Vengevine, kill you. So, 3rd game for the marbles.
He starts decent but so do I. My Sterling Grove and Runed Halo on Trygon Predator keeps his enchantment destruction at bay which is very necessary with all the pressure on the table (like, 2x enough power to kill me). He Krosan Grips my Halo though and then his Predator comes over to kill my Grove. Now, that should not happens since it’s illegal. But it happened, damage was already done and combat was over before I realize what went down. JUDGE! Judge doesn’t change the onboard situation and gives my opponent a warning. Right, from easily winning I go to losing. Until I play my Replenish that is :wink:. Easily brought it home from there and my opponent was really flustered about what happened (he didn’t do it on purpose and more small mistakes where made during that match, by both sides).
Rnd 4
Goblins are a menace, especially with turn 1 Lackey every time. But Enchantress is good at buying time. First to games we split in a rather boring way (I blow him out, he blows me out) so it’s unto the 3rd, which is very interesting. I get control but no way to kill him. 2x Needle on Words of War makes a single Oblivion Ring pretty weak. And my Sigil (boarded 1 out) is hiding far far away. Problem; 1 got 1 Angel token, 2 cards in my deck and a full lock with a full grip. So I start beating with a 4/4 but if he ever deals with it… He is at 4 and just has searched Siege Gang Commander to kill the angel. Not me, since I have Halo on SGC and Lightning Crafter (seen in 2nd game) to prevent direct damage. So I could even let the Confinement go and hide behind Moat and the Halo’s but that’s not a win (decking in 5 extra turns is not going to happen, lolz). Lucky for me I have Supression Field and O. Ring in the graveyard. I Replenish, take out his Vial on 4 (so next turn 5) and then up the activating cost of slinging goblins at angels for with 2 mana a pop. He doesn’t have enough mana to cast the SGC and activate it twice. Yay me!
Rnd 5
Another homebrew and at 7 points (I’m at 9 but downpaired). He’s playing Tide-Hollow Sculler, Duress, Vindicate, Vial, Serra Avenger, Mother of Runes, FoD, Jitte… Fun to play but that strong a deck in the filed I think.
First game I lock him, second game I do not. He starts going nuts with Vial; "after your draw in your drawphase, Vial in Sculler". That he does 4x in a row. Coupled with a Duress and a vindicate means I never get going until it’s to late. Third game he get’s another Vial at two and lo and behold, scullers into action again. But just 2 this time and I manage to get a good presence on the board (thanks to Sculler being also black and Elephant Grass has something to say about that) and pretty much dominate the game. However, he has discarded or locked all my win conditions. I managed to get that O. Ring back with Replenish but I choose not to cast it because I also found Leyline in the process of that turn (or I played it the turn before Replenish, details are hazy), which meant no more discard or direct damage for him. The next turn I get back my Words of War (from under a Sculler) which then kills him.
Then I drop. Yes that’s right, I’m 4-1 and I drop. I regret it a little but not much (like, I would do it again in the same situation). It was already after dinner when I got home but I was in time to bring the children to bed and today, work is happening again. So banking on even more good matchups (plenty combo around) to maybe make top 8 wasn’t worth it for me. It was a great day, great tournament and allround great opponents.
About the deck. Mirri’s Guile was great but only early. Still, I would like to have some (I barrowed the single copy of a friend). Chrome Mox is also great because it makes the deck faster in a consistent way and the deck loves it’s mana. I also use it often once the engine is going to get the right mana. Otherwise you have to discard excess cards anyway and I really needed it to play a Runed Halo or Supression Field at times (when digging and digging to find the much needed answer). Supression Field was good also. Aether Vial hates it. So does Survival. But a host of other stuff also get’s weaker. Jitte becomes lousy as my round 5 opponent noticed. Siege gang Commander is lackluster with it in play. Mother of Runes doesn’t do much anymore. And mana is tight in Legacy, not many decks have a gameplan which incorparates paying 2 mana for cool activated abilities. Maybe there's a form of LD viable, giving the strenght of Wasteland (+Rishadan port) in some deck. Hmmm....
Still, the 3 Supression Fields are the most flexible slots in the deck in my opinion. It was a meta call against Merfolk (Vial, leveler, Cursecatcher, manlands) and Survival and it performed very solid.
That’s all folks (well, seems like plenty :wink:)
Well done Wim! I saw you playing round 3.Quote:
Originally Posted by Just me
Me and my friend also played Enchantress at the same tournament.
The guy next to you (Ties) in round 3 played with Orim's Chant main deck. It helped him playing a replenish wich almost won him that match round 3. :smile:
I saw it in his hand during the match. Never would have thought of it for this deck. Can you (or he) post a list here and maybe some results?
If the other Dutch Enchantress players are posting their Dutch National Championship experience I might as well copy/paste the report I wrote for another forum.
I sleeved a different build and choose to run Living Wish to help with finding an Enchantress quickly and give me some game against some of the harder matchups.
7 Forest
2 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Taiga
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sterling Grove
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Mirri's Guile
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Runed Halo
1 Moat
1 Words of War
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
4 Living Wish
1 Replenish
//
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Karakas
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Peacekeeper
1 Humility
2 Choke
2 Karmic Justice
1 Aura of Silence
1 Replenish
1 City of Solitude
Argothian Enchantress -> Playing 4 Living Wish led me to playing the 4th in the side. That way I get an Enchantress effect in hand faster.
Mirri's Guild -> Enchantment version of Top without the draw option. This card is absolutely bonkers. It's cheap, can't be needled and fixes the draw. I played 2 before and upped it to 3 and I'm sticking with that (4 would be too much)
WoW and Sigil -> I've always played only 2 winconditions whereas some lists play Sacred Mesa but I dislike the manarequirement to upkeep it and haven't needed more than 2 winconditions anyway.
Living Wish -> Secret tech with a wishboard hoping to get some game against some of the harder matchups. I didnt run into allot of decks where the Wish was anything more than a way to get Argothian Enchantress in hand though.
Karakas -> Getting hosed by Iona@White is gamebreaking. Karakas solves that amongst allot of other problematic legendary creatures
Glacial Chasm -> Against rush decks like Goblins or Zoo if you can get it out fast enough.
Canonist and Teeg -> Against combo
Peacekeeper -> again against decks that try to kill you by attacking.
On with the program.
I set of alone (noone else plays Legacy over here) at 8.45 to arrive about 1.5h later in Eindhoven. It takes me about 20 minutes to enter the venue and register. It was really crowded but I manage to find some familiar faces and put up a chair and sit with Dennis Baauw, Arjan, Marius and some german guy. We chat a bit and just watch Dennis beat that german guy with the vintage deck he says he'll be playing in the vintage national champs next week.
I can't really remember all the plays so the actual report is going to be a bit short but after 8 rounds of swiss and taking no notes my brain turned to mush.
R1 Joost - 4c Enlightened Rock
G1 He gets some dudes on the board but has to pop Deed for 3 to avoid loosing. He had a top in play that gets put on the top of his library. Top gives him enough gas to kill me.
G2 I get a quick confinement lock with several enchantress effects. He tutors for Deed, draws it with top and plays it after which he's outtapped. I play some enchants and draw into the Oring I was looking for. I remove the Deed and it's all over after that. WoW kills him.
G3 He gets some dudes again where I get Mirri's Guile and Grove. He again has to Deed the board away but I held back enough gas to there. Kill him with WoW
2-1 / 1-0
R2 Tim - 3c landstill
G1 I break 2 standstills and get some stuff countered. Then I get an Enchantress in play and start drawing cards while he beats with Factory. He drops Jace... I play some stuff he has to counter and then Oring the Jace. Next turn I resolve Replenish and it's all over. Wow Kills him.
G2 He sticks Jace again on turn 4 after countering some stuff I play. I Runed Halo the Jace to protect myself. He then gets an Engineered Explosives@2 with Jace@5 loyalty. He begins to build Jace by looking at his top card. I try to find something to get rid of Jace or Explosives but fall short.
G3 I keep a horrible hand but with about 5 minutes on the clock neither of us were going to get there in time.
1-1-1 / 1-0-1
R3 ? - Some weird Zoo pile with Hierarchs and Terravores
G1 At one point I need to block with Enchantress to survive. I then search Moat with Grove to halt his attack. He plays the sandbagged Pridemage and kills me.
G2 I get a quick confinement lock but I'm at 2 at that point. I need to tap the Horizon Canopy to play something and go to 1... But that's where I stay while I kill him. I was unable to play the Words of War because there was just 1 card left in my library. But the 5 angels I get from Sigil get me there.
G3 he plays t1 Hierarch, t2 pridemage, t3 KotR, t4 Teeg. That proves to be a bit too much for me to handle. I played a turn 4 Wish for Teeg to get him out because I had Moat in hand. Next turn I go to 2 and get a bolt thrown at me.
1-2 / 1-1-1
Its not looking too great but I'm here so I'm gonna play a few rounds.
R4 ? - Zoo (generic list this time)
G1 I get a fast hand and a fast lock. Kill him with Wow
G2 I get a fast hand and a fast lock. Kill him with a combination of Angels and WoW.
2-0 / 2-1-1
R5 Boaz - 3c Rock
G1 He makes me discard Confinement but I draw into Enchantress Presence. I get that in play. He blows Deed but I had enough gas to get some more Enchantress effects and eventually a Confinement lock. Again WoW seals the deal.
G2 He plays t1 Thoughtseize and makes me discard Argothian Enchantress. He then extirpates the Enchantress. Turn 3 I get seized again, this time for Echantress's Presence and that gets extirpated as well. Scoop.
G3 Its game had the funniest play of the day for me. I play land. He plays land+top. I play land and mana enchant. He plays Pridemage. I then play savannah and Karmic Justice (I wanted to play Presence but the Pridemage stops that) On his turn he plays Wasteland and decides to waste the savannah. I get a free vindicate from Justice and kill one of his remaining duals. He taps it for mana and uses Pridemage to kill the Justice. Nice play. I get to kill his remaining dual as well. He ends up with just top where I have 2 lands+mana enchant and Enchantress Presence in hand. Before he recovers I have a solid lock and kill him with WoW
2-1 / 3-1-1
R6 ? / UG Vengevival
G1 He makes a t2 Survival so I know where this is going. I try to resolve Runed Halo but he FOWs pitching another FOw. He gets some dudes and a Vengevine. I resolve Grove and activate it to find another Halo. He then searches for Goyf. Before I get some sort of grip on the game I get beaten by big green dudes.
G2 I keep a risky hand with 1 land and Mirri's Guile. I've kept hands like this before this day and always found the stuff I needed. But this time I get nothing. No lands and no mana enchants.
He gets some guys. I find a land and pass. He beats. I find Living Wish for Peacekeeper hoping to find a land next turn. He beats me again and I go to 2. I don't find the needed land and again die to green beats.
0-2 / 3-1-2
R7 No Show... He dropped but the judges failed to check it in the software.
2-0 / 4-1-2
R8 ? - BG aggro rock (without Deeds)
G1 He starts beating with Dryad Arbor while I set up. I resolve Moat and he gets a Vampire Nighthawk and starts the beats again. But the beats are too slow. I get some enchantress effects and Confinement. I kill him with Angels.
G2 He drops some Goyfs and starts beating. I get some enchantress effects and need to discard lots of cards without finding a winconfition or Confinement. Guile gives me the Confinement I need and I replenish the rest of the discarded enchantments in play. He's locked out and dies to WoW.
2-0 / 5-1-2.
Overall I was quite pleased with the list and my performance. I managed to stay focusses for the major part of the day although it was already around 9 pm.
I finish 27th of 207 players and up with a Scalding Tarn for my troubles.
I'm quite happy with the maindeck although I'm not sure I will play the Wish board again. In theory it helps but this tournament I didnt really need it or I was too late.
I managed to dodge one of the worst matchups (Combo) which was nice. Landstill is usually a hard matchup as well but his list wasn't that strong. I suggested him to go to 4C and play deeds which is the card I fear the most as it destroys my entire board and dodges the Groves.
The manabase does need an overhaul though... I think I'm going to cut the Canopies. They're nice but the draw was never needed (the idea was to be able to draw while having a Confinement out with no enchants in hand which never happened) I did have some issues with the Canopies because they can't be enchanted with Utopia Sprawl which is needed sometimes. I will only cast mana enchants on basic lands if possible to prevent getting blown by wasteland so maybe going to 1 savannah might be something worth testing as well.
I talked to Ties after round 7 or 8 and we shared ideas. I quite like his Orim's Chant tech although it will only stall your opponent for a turn.
The fun thing about Enchantress is there are so many different directions you can take the deck by playing different cards.
-edit-
Nice... post #1 on The Source :P
what's is the worst match up for solitaire? I am thinking it runs over goblins, dredge and junk but loses to dreadstil/proNObant, how it goes vs reanimator? (iona for white is sure lose?). How the deck does vs rock/eva green variants (after SB they have alot of hate+deed)
thanks for your time reading this
Against Iona you only out is shoting her down with WoW (it can and has been done in the past) OR actually relying on Lignify. In case you run Living Wish just grab Karakas and you're good to go.
Dreadstill is actually no bad matchup. We've played it several times and it usually comes down to whether they have a fast Dreadnought (in which case they will win) or not. I'd easily call it 50/50 with LOTS of room to make both player's skill count once it gets past turn3.
From my experience playing against Goblins, I would not say that it is an easy matchup.
There are 3 primary ways to attack Enchantress:
1) Shutting it down via counters (which is why the preboard Blue control matchup seems to be about 50-50).
2) Fast combo.
3) Attacking the mana base (same reason why Stax is a bad matchup).
Against Goblins, we dont have the benefits that all our basics provide us. Enchantress is a VERY mana hungry deck (try surviving after dredge drops a Realm Razer against you). The straightforward aggro we can handle. The problem arises when they get a control oriented hand and use their mana to Port us down, and pressure us for free with Lackey/Vial.
2 Rishadan Port
1 Mountain/Fetch
1 Vial
1 Matron --> Edict effect
I'm all for different opinions and yadda yadda, but I'm going to venture to say that if you're having trouble playing against Goblins with Enchantress, you're doing it wrong. That's like, THE baseline for the deck.
Goblins is a good matchup yes. BUT, turn 1 Lackey coupled with direct damage in the form of Siege-Gang Commander and maybe Sharpshooter or Lightning Crafter make it much better for Goblins as I would like. It always is a tense game where stalling sometimes isn't enough and you might be forced to drop a Confinement to early or something.
Still, it might be tough every single time, I think I'm something like 7-1 in tournaments. It's just never an easy game.
Anybody suggestions about how best to approach the Merfolk matchup?
I also have a lot of problems against decks running P. Deed but thanks to Replenish it's not an autoloss. I remember even a game pre-Replenish in which my opponent needed 6! Deeds to beat me (Eternal Witness). Sandbagging and playing smart helps (and I obviously had Holisitic Wisdom back then).
Basically the challenge with Enchantress / Solitaire is make it past the first 3 turns. You need time to set up the confinementlock/get a drawengine running.
Aggro is a descent to good matchup if you can stall their attack for a couple of turns. If they get out stuff too fast it gets hard very vast. Turn 1 lackey is a threatning play (against most decks) due to the tempo it creatres.
But if you ask me Combo is by far the hardest matchup. Combo has the ability to win on turn 1-3 fairly easy and Enchantress just doesn't have anything to stop that that soon. Turn 2 Runed Halo might be the best play early in the game. But then its still tough.
Rock is just hard if the get enough Pdeeds. Without the deeds its allot easier. Karmic Justice is gold here and if you don't overextend it's still winnable through the deeds.
Attacking the manabase: I try to spread the mana-enchantments as much as possible to prevent a blowout from Rishadan Port or Vindicate. I've not lost a game to Vindicate on a land alone (unless I'm short on mana anyway)
I find Aura of silence very strong vs Deed. It make Deed cost 2 more, so 5 mana to cast deed and 3 mana to hit us hard. Have 8 mana is difficult in one turn. Usually if i'm going to lock or close game in some turn and i have mana and tutor effect for dig into a protection i prefer aura instead of justice( that's a personal choice by the way i prefer to be aggressive than passive vs black deck).
If you are scared by deck that run witness+ deed+volrath recursion just run ground seal. it stops a thousand of opponents utilities and, most important, it kills loam and extirpate.
About playing vs back deed deck try to call their discard effect with haloo( mainly hymn and raven's crime) and keep some cards in your hand ready for restart.
If you run more basic lands, the matchup vastly improves. Usually just boosting your mana with one or two Wild Growths/Utopia Sprawls will be enough to zoom out of Daze range. I play Lotus Petal and Exploration as well. Others play Elvish Spirit Guide or Chrome Mox. Any acceleration will get you there. I can see how the matchup would be tougher for slower (generally white-heavy) builds. But unless the Merfolk player is running maindeck Echoing Truth, he won't be able to deal with a resolved Solitary Confinement. Elephant Grass is usually pretty decent, too, holding back Mutavaults. Choke + Elephant Grass is also quite strong, if you play Choke.Quote:
Originally Posted by Just me
Hey guys! I thought I would stop lurking and have a post. It's nice to get so many different opinions on a deck with so many options :). I've been playing enchantress for a while now [a decade, if you count aggro enchantress in urza/masques standard ^^], and pretty much have a grip on how everything works sits together. So..... a few pointers/questions to you all!
On merfolk- I think that avoiding their disruption is the key. They only have FoW generally as their only 'hard' counter game 1, but having a part of the draw engine countered by a daze/spell pierce can give them enough tempo to run you over with lords. Also look out for stifles on fetches and sterling groves (the last being particularly bad if you need it to tutour for the solitary lock next turn. Sometimes making a dash for the moat is a good option, as they have little to get round/over it. By the time the commanders are flying in, a more hard lock can usually be formed. And don't forget that an early Words of War can be bad news for them too if you just burn some lords off, it can be quite distressing for them. Like against all blue, I think that trying to land some draw engine against them is key (maybe baiting with a city of solitude/choke if you have time) then just try to land bombs/lock pieces until they run out of counters and then do a fatal replenish on them. Watch out for engineered plague naming druids/humans from the side against blue/black builds, as they might try and cut your draw engine in half. It might do nothing, or cripple you depending on your draw, so it might be worth some enchantment hate from the side (aura of silence, etc....). Also note that much of the creature removal from the black end is targeted (eg diabolic edict), and can be shut down with runed halo or solitary confinement.
On goblins- I think that a good player with the right draw can attack the enchantress manabase quite effectively, and so look out for them trying to play quite controlling and wasting/tapping sanctums and multiply-enchanted lands (which is sometimes a necessity). Take any brake from them doing this to play their own spells as an opportunity to try and lock them. Try and keep as much mana down as possible when you have locked them, so they can't make you mis-caluculate with will timed mana disruption. On the plus side, all of these mana tactics probably only bring the match up to 50/50 :). I won game at a nationals legacy event by landing a moat turn 2 in one game and turn 3 in game two against goblins (gosh, i'm such a lucksack ^^).
Questions, questions- Sooooo with the ever growing rise of survival builds (now close to half my, albeit small meta). Whats the most effective way to hate it out? Attack the survival with o-rings, aura of silence, suppression field? Hate the graveyard with Wheels? More creature removal (Lignify FTW!)? Quickest lock possible (more solitaries/win-cons)? Something zany (rule of law, dovescape, random enchanted evening randomness or similar)?
What do you think? My current plan is to grab some more chokes and wheels off the side and cross the fingers. It seems that if you hate out the counters, they aggro you, if you hate out the 'yard they can madness up, and if you keep loads removal type effects, they inevitably have a grip of counters.... I don't think its a terrible match up for us, but would like to see my side optimised against it a little. I've got 4 slots devoted to it, and at the moment I think they should be a humility (controversial, I know) and a couple of suppression fields (which I have not really tested any). I have one aura of silence on the side as utility that probably comes in too... Any other ideas people have had?
Also. I was playing elf aggro once (expecting a bye ;)). And the cheeky man pulled a harmonic convergence on me. Which was naughty of him. Anyone got any ideas how to combat/play around/side for this type of disruption? It was pretty brutal. Im pretty glad no-one seems to have discovered that 'presence of the master' is a card yet :).
Thanks in advance peeps.
Keep rockin' the locks!
The Spanish Tunnel King
Speaking from someone who is a teammate of arcboundravager2 and a pilot of some variant of Vengevine Survival, cards that can disrupt Vengevine Survival are still your usual suspects, Elephant Grass (prevents the t3 combo, kill you type of play barring a lucky Gaea's Cradle if they even run it), Runed Halo naming Vengevine (because every other creature will be something you can handle slowly and/or shitty like Wild Mongrel), and of course Moat/Confinement. I generally don't consider any aggro matchup to be unfavorable, especially if your build contains 4 Elephant Grass + X Runed Halo + 1-2 Moat.
If you land an early Sterling Grove, to be honest there are literally no outs that the VVS player can take to remove any of your answers, since you are basically looking at a bunch of targeted Enchantment removal. Will they have Harmonic Convergence? Sometimes sure, if they are aware of what it does, I've known for a long time about that card but I feel like its incredibly narrow and without a proper tutor for it (cough cough Mystical Tutor) there is really no way to justify 2-3 copies in the board if I want to get it consistently postboard. You will get blown out with that card sometimes but fortunately there are still some countermeasures you can take.
For example, if you don't already have a Sterline Grove in play feel free to play a protection piece (Halo or Confinement) and Oblivion Ring it, or if you aren't going to die the turn they cast it, you can always stack your enchantments in a manner in which you can easily recover. It helps a lot with a card like Serra's Sanctum in play, if you are at that stage in the game. Also make sure you have at least 1 Lignify in your 75 for Iona, I also think Ground Seal is pretty good right now too. Karmic Justice will help against full board sweepers. Another option that can be quite good is Null Chamber naming Harmonic Convergence. Basically whatever they name, you will eventually find a way to get it back into play (name win condition --> cast Confinement --> discard win condition --> Replenish, name Replenish --> rape them anyways, etc).
I think I covered most of the important points. Yes, this is speaking from me getting my ass kicked week in and week out by this deck, some day I will become less stubborn and I'll put those Convergences in, hehe.
I'll also add that against tribal, in general a combination of Elephant Grass and Runed Halo have usually sealed the deal, you can soak up enough damage to the point where you can set up your lock. Same thing against Goblins. I played against Rbg Goblins for over 40 games (20/20 pre/post board) in a single testing session and I am comfortable in saying that I easily won 90%+ of my games, if not more, and I don't even usually play the deck. The only serious threat from them is Reverent Silence and fortunately that card is not being run enough at the moment.
this is quite a detailed list of some of my shenangins, thanks mark. i also encourage a karakas somewhere in the main. its been good to meQuote:
Originally Posted by Morbid-
Thanks for the reply guys :).
Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you both said :). My 'standard' anti-creature set up is 2 runed halo, 4 elephant grass and 1 moat (and o-ring if you count it, I guess), and getting one a halo down on vengevine is pretty awsome-tastic. I guess my main problem is that people in my meta are a bit blue-obsessed, and play really heavy counter versions (4 daze and a couple of spell pierce main deck, plus the forces. Plus prob something else. And more off the side...). So I'm caught in between a rock a hard place. Do you play around daze/spell piece, in which case the first few turns are trying to accelerate out of range of them, and if they sense this, they can just aggro up and then you're a little behind, which might just be enough for them to squeeze 20 damage through. Or would you try and land things like runed halo early but 'naked' (ie without city of solitude in play/in daze range/kind of sure they are out of counters...). Pre-board I think the moat is kind of 'meh'. In my experience those mutant plant thingys tend to fly due to Wonder (although it might buy you 1 turn...). Post board Wheel+moat+grove seems a pretty hard lock though, to be sure :).
I recently took my null chamber out of the side. To be honest, it has saved my neck in a few cases where the game would had been un-winnable without it, but it also trips you up quite a bit, I find. People who play against me a lot tend not to name win-cons (which I vary anyway...), but have a knack of naming exactly in my hand, sometimes interfering with the draw engine, which can be a bit.... annoying).
The main problem about harmonic convergence is that you are usually staring down lethal on the board with them locked up, so it's a case of 'convergence', swing with the team, and so there is no time to re-set up.... Incidentally, that same elf guy 'biorythemed' me early expecting to kill me, but it turns out that argothian enchantress is a creature ;).
I really agree with karakas. Its so good I almost want to run the living wish version. ALMOST :). The only thing that really scares the pants off me is Emrekul/Iona (OK, and storm combo.... ^^), and its a great (uncounterable) answer to either. It is the best thing to 'show and tell' in the world :). Unless they drop Progenitus. But he is black (which everyone seems to forget. The number of times i've resolved an elephant grass against one with them thinking they could just pay the 2 :))). But beware that people packing Emrekul tend to side in things like pithing needle and wasteland for these things, so its not an absolute grantee... I think I lost 1 game to keeping a forest and karakas and it got wasted in all the time i've played. Maybe it was a bad keep...
But I think that they'll not ban survival (although I might eat my words tomorrow on the announcement :)), so it's good to be adaptable.
The Spanish Tunnel King
Sounds like just bad luck with the Null Chambers really. It's definitely a silver bullet and think of it like a one sided Meddling Mage that can be tutored for and cantrips if you have Enchantress effects in play. The Biorythmn thing is pretty funny but if you're looking at situations where HC is lethal then I'd definitely pack a Chamber.
If there's a lot of blue in your metagame, consider playing some amount of Carpet of Flowers (3) in your sideboard. We are in an era of Legacy where taxing spells like Daze and Spell Pierce are preferred to cards like Counterspell. Obviously Force of Will is the general exception here and the occasional Spell Snare, but it's all about tempo type counters versus hard counters. CoF takes full advantage of that fact and reads: take care of me, of you have 4 whole counters in your deck the rest of the way.
The other advantage of playing Enchantress is that most of the cards that we play are not ones that everyone is necessarily familiar with playing against. It is very easy to bait out counters on the wrong things early in the game. If you do happen to mull into an early Argothian, in general against those tempo type decks it's good game. It's immune to Spell Pierce and when you start turning enchantments in your hand into cantrips, the game ends pretty quickly.
Storm combo really isn't all that scary, if you don't have 4 Leyline of Sanctity in your sideboard you definitely should. With the chance of a second turn Sterling Grove, it's really difficult for the ANT/TES/whatever pilot to get through that hate (not to mention Elephant Grass for the EtW tokens). The SnT/Sneak Attack ones are on the other end of the spectrum, I'm never a fan of an attacking Emrakul.
For decks such as Landstill which have the ability to spam counters, I've found City of Solitude to be more than apt at handling this, due to the fact that it basically reads "Counter me now, or I'll make 1/6-1/5 of your deck completely useless."
What I've been running to help slow down the VengeSurvival MU is MD 3 Elvish Spirit Guide and place 4 Suppression Field in the SB (Remember, Mongrel/Aquamoeba are activated abilities, and fetches arent mana abilities :O). I've gotten some criticism for running ESP over Mox, and it's my opinion both work sucessfully in our deck, although to varying amounts. I prefer ESP since the point of it is to accelerate for T1/2 only. After that I typically have all the board position I need to go off. With Mox, yes, the fact it stays to help with mana is no moot ability, but that -1 card can be damaging at times.
On a random note, I wanted to thank Wizards for creating Leyline of Sanctity. That, + Suppression Field + Runed Halo + Null Rod means I finally have a chance against combo (I've actually won quite a few Belcher MU since I got the playset of Leylines ^^).
Forlorn Egoist