[Deck] U/G Enchantress

Honestly, that's kind of a small thing to be concerned with. If you spread your Wild Growth effects between two different basic lands and try to keep at least one blue mana on each (either by it being an Island with Wild Growths or a Forest with a Utopia Sprawl set to blue), then all you need to do to start going off is cast a Cloud of Faeries and all of their porting was useless. It's annoying, sure, but it's not really even that much of a problem, certainly not enough of a problem to invest a card in. If you're really really worried about it, I'd play a Pithing Needle in the board which is something I might do anyway; that will give you a cheap, effective solution. But as I said, you can really only get screwed over by enemy Rishadan Ports if your play is sloppy.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

Honestly, that's kind of a small thing to be concerned with. If you spread your Wild Growth effects between two different basic lands and try to keep at least one blue mana on each (either by it being an Island with Wild Growths or a Forest with a Utopia Sprawl set to blue), then all you need to do to start going off is cast a Cloud of Faeries and all of their porting was useless. It's annoying, sure, but it's not really even that much of a problem, certainly not enough of a problem to invest a card in. If you're really really worried about it, I'd play a Pithing Needle in the board which is something I might do anyway; that will give you a cheap, effective solution. But as I said, you can really only get screwed over by enemy Rishadan Ports if your play is sloppy.

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yea thats a good multi purpose card. i'll consider it.

the only reason it was a problem was because i was both not drawing more lands, AND he was duplicating his ports with thespian stage.

So, I just stumbled across one of the new Born of the Gods cards, Spirit of the Labyrinth, which I imagine could cause some real problems with UG Enchantress. Not sure if anyone here has seen this card yet, so I thought I'd pass it on.

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Originally Posted by rarefiedar

So, I just stumbled across one of the new Born of the Gods cards, Spirit of the Labyrinth, which I imagine could cause some real problems with UG Enchantress. Not sure if anyone here has seen this card yet, so I thought I'd pass it on.

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Just run a 1-of Humility to tutor for.

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Originally Posted by Greenpoe

Just run a 1-of Humility to tutor for.

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...tutor with what? Oh, and there's also the fact that this is a creature-based combo deck. Have you even read this thread?

Spirit of the Labyrinth is absolutely an issue for this deck (and any enchantress deck, and any deck that's based on drawing cards). It's actually just a very powerful card, but it has limitations, like all cards do. In this case, it's limitations are that it's only going to see play in a deck that doesn't care about it's ability, so that leaves pretty much just Maverick (as if that were even still a deck) and Death and Taxes. Pretty much every other deck has some form of card advantage or card selection, and all of those cards are bad with this guy. So it's Maverick and Death and Taxes.

Maverick isn't really an issue because Seal of Removal neatly answers that guy on the turn that we need to go off, though it will be still annoying. Death and Taxes will make best use of it because an Aether Vial on 2 will blank Seal of Removal as an answer. Being that this guy is an enchantment, things like Seal of Primordium and Krosan Grip are also good answers that we already play. Honestly though, if DnT is a large part of your metagame and you are having trouble beating it, it's always possible to get a Bayou, splash black (probably at the cost of white) and play Dread of Night to donkey-punch that deck. It will kill every creature that could possibly matter out of them, turns your Seal of Removal back on in the face of Mother of Runes, and it even happens to be a one-mana enchantment so it will cantrip you through the deck. But Seal of Primordium remains one of the best, most versatile answers to that card specifically.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

...tutor with what? Oh, and there's also the fact that this is a creature-based combo deck. Have you even read this thread?

Spirit of the Labyrinth is absolutely an issue for this deck (and any enchantress deck, and any deck that's based on drawing cards). It's actually just a very powerful card, but it has limitations, like all cards do. In this case, it's limitations are that it's only going to see play in a deck that doesn't care about it's ability, so that leaves pretty much just Maverick (as if that were even still a deck) and Death and Taxes. Pretty much every other deck has some form of card advantage or card selection, and all of those cards are bad with this guy. So it's Maverick and Death and Taxes.

Maverick isn't really an issue because Seal of Removal neatly answers that guy on the turn that we need to go off, though it will be still annoying. Death and Taxes will make best use of it because an Aether Vial on 2 will blank Seal of Removal as an answer. Being that this guy is an enchantment, things like Seal of Primordium and Krosan Grip are also good answers that we already play. Honestly though, if DnT is a large part of your metagame and you are having trouble beating it, it's always possible to get a Bayou, splash black (probably at the cost of white) and play Dread of Night to donkey-punch that deck. It will kill every creature that could possibly matter out of them, turns your Seal of Removal back on in the face of Mother of Runes, and it even happens to be a one-mana enchantment so it will cantrip you through the deck. But Seal of Primordium remains one of the best, most versatile answers to that card specifically.

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Yea, the big problem with all these "creature/enchantment" cards is that they open themselves to all sorts of removal, but some of them are quite poweful so that's the trade-off, I guess. I hadn't really thought about any decks in particular that would run them so thanks for the analysis. I'm actually rather new to the legacy format and have only been playtesting a few decks to get the feel of the format. One of these decks happened to be UG Enchantress after seeing a video of it in action. Not a week after making my deck I see this card, and immediately thought of how devastating it would be if someone got it out early enough.

I hadn't really though through the full implications of playing this, and I can definitely see how other decks would be hesitant to add this into their roster. This card would negate a Brainstorm and Ponder, wouldn't it? Give those cards popularity in Legacy, I think Spirit of the Labyrinth could be a huge game changer if people started running it.

how many of you guys run ancestral knowledge in this deck? has anyone tested it and made a decision if its worth it or not?

i have a rulings question for you guys. lets say i play my land for the turn. then i cast gaea's touch and put an additional forest from my hand into play. if i were to bounce the touch to my hand, could i play it again and play a second 'extra' forest from it (so 3 lands total for the turn)?

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Originally Posted by sun tzu

how many of you guys run ancestral knowledge in this deck? has anyone tested it and made a decision if its worth it or not?

i have a rulings question for you guys. lets say i play my land for the turn. then i cast gaea's touch and put an additional forest from my hand into play. if i were to bounce the touch to my hand, could i play it again and play a second 'extra' forest from it (so 3 lands total for the turn)?

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Not anymore. It used to work that way, but the most recent rules change from Wizards changed the way that extra land drops are counted. Now you have a maximum number of land drops a turn (modified by cards like Gaea's Touch and Exploration) that is kept track of throughout the turn. So if you have an Exploration in play, your maximum number of land drops is 2, and the game keeps track of how many you make.

There's not a whole lot of need for extra card draw or card manipulation in this deck, given that when you execute your primary plan, you're drawing your whole deck anyway.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

Not anymore. It used to work that way, but the most recent rules change from Wizards changed the way that extra land drops are counted. Now you have a maximum number of land drops a turn (modified by cards like Gaea's Touch and Exploration) that is kept track of throughout the turn. So if you have an Exploration in play, your maximum number of land drops is 2, and the game keeps track of how many you make.

There's not a whole lot of need for extra card draw or card manipulation in this deck, given that when you execute your primary plan, you're drawing your whole deck anyway.

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I asked this question over at MTGsalvation rulings also, and they said it was different from the 'exploration' rulings because you 'put' the land into play instead of play extra land. im not sure how relevant this even is, or if it has potential for some small combo between words of wind and gaea's touch (not sure how it could matter), but you can 'put' basically any amount of forests from your hand into play if you can repeatedly bounce the gaea's touch to your hand.

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Originally Posted by sun tzu

I asked this question over at MTGsalvation rulings also, and they said it was different from the 'exploration' rulings because you 'put' the land into play instead of play extra land. im not sure how relevant this even is, or if it has potential for some small combo between words of wind and gaea's touch (not sure how it could matter), but you can 'put' basically any amount of forests from your hand into play if you can repeatedly bounce the gaea's touch to your hand.

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That's not how it's worded in the oracle text. Oracle text is:

"You may play an additional land during your turn if that land is a basic forest. Sacrifice Gaea's Touch: Add {G}{G} to your mana pool."

So no, it's an Exploration.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

That's not how it's worded in the oracle text. Oracle text is:

"You may play an additional land during your turn if that land is a basic forest. Sacrifice Gaea's Touch: Add {G}{G} to your mana pool."

So no, it's an Exploration.

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"
0: You may put a basic Forest card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Sacrifice Gaea's Touch: Add GreenGreen to your mana pool."

from gatherer:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Ca...tiverseid=1767

i dont know if this really changes anything, or matters, but its still a cool trick to keep in mind.

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Originally Posted by sun tzu

"
0: You may put a basic Forest card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Sacrifice Gaea's Touch: Add GreenGreen to your mana pool."

from gatherer:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Ca...tiverseid=1767

i dont know if this really changes anything, or matters, but its still a cool trick to keep in mind.

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That's bizarre, the MTGJudge App on my phone has a different oracle text. I guess it depends on which oracle text the judge is reading at the time you play it, because that text definitely suggests that you can run it the same way that Exploration used to work in Enchantress decks that could bounce and replay it over and over again. It's still a fine card, if you're in the market for an Exploration, but Exploration itself is often just better because you can cast it turn 1 to get the most out of it, and it still wasn't really a card worth playing. I tried it out, and I had to bump the land count up into the 23-24 range to make it worthwhile, and that was just generally worse than playing fewer lands and more enchantments. Personally, I ended up going the opposite way, running 17 lands and 3 Chrome Mox, which I found to be quite good at getting you onto the board quicker and giving you more of a chance in the combo matchups. Those are still the reason why I don't really play this deck anymore (the combo matchup is just absolutely awful) and the reason why I can't in good conscience recommend this deck to anyone right now, but if a metagame ever develops where most of the rest of the combo decks out there disappear, this deck is just about unbeatable in a metagame of fair decks.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

That's bizarre, the MTGJudge App on my phone has a different oracle text. I guess it depends on which oracle text the judge is reading at the time you play it, because that text definitely suggests that you can run it the same way that Exploration used to work in Enchantress decks that could bounce and replay it over and over again. It's still a fine card, if you're in the market for an Exploration, but Exploration itself is often just better because you can cast it turn 1 to get the most out of it, and it still wasn't really a card worth playing. I tried it out, and I had to bump the land count up into the 23-24 range to make it worthwhile, and that was just generally worse than playing fewer lands and more enchantments. Personally, I ended up going the opposite way, running 17 lands and 3 Chrome Mox, which I found to be quite good at getting you onto the board quicker and giving you more of a chance in the combo matchups. Those are still the reason why I don't really play this deck anymore (the combo matchup is just absolutely awful) and the reason why I can't in good conscience recommend this deck to anyone right now, but if a metagame ever develops where most of the rest of the combo decks out there disappear, this deck is just about unbeatable in a metagame of fair decks.

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i really like this card in the UG version. it helps a lot with going off. if you have an enchantress effect in play its basically a free draw + land drop if you have the forest in hand because you can just sac it to regain the GG you spent to cast it, then play more wild growths or utopia sprawls, hopefully ending up with the 1U you need to cloud of faeries to untap and keep going. with 2 enchantress effects its obviously even better. i was testing 3 but i never minded drawing them, so i added the 4th and i testing that currently.

also, if you dont need the extra GG when you sac it right away, you can just leave that mana up to help play around spell pierce, and daze, etc.

i was wondering what the lowest minimum enchantment count you could would ever run is? i've always tried to stay at about 30 enchantments, but maybe i dont even need that many.

i am also curious as to if UG is even where enchantress wants to be at at all? this deck is very fun to play and has a lot of redundancies to make it strong in several places, but i still feel like maybe GW or some other version might be better than UG.

I just stumbled across this thread/deck. Is anyone still playing it? If so, how does it fair in the meta right now. I'm trying to acquire the pieces to put it together and I wanted to know if there has been anything new that I should look into.

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Originally Posted by wsurugby10

I just stumbled across this thread/deck. Is anyone still playing it? If so, how does it fair in the meta right now. I'm trying to acquire the pieces to put it together and I wanted to know if there has been anything new that I should look into.

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I don't know how the meat is for U/G Enchantress right now. However, I have the conviction that this deck is one Earthcarft unban from being a strong contender for Tier 1, so I am always expecting it. =)

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Originally Posted by wsurugby10

I just stumbled across this thread/deck. Is anyone still playing it? If so, how does it fair in the meta right now. I'm trying to acquire the pieces to put it together and I wanted to know if there has been anything new that I should look into.

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I ended up taking U/G Enchantress to to my local legacy event last wednesday and went 4-0 with it while still missing an argothian enchantress :/ I played a pretty stock list.

The deck played really well and was a lot more mechanical in interactions then I thought it would be, but was super fun to play (maybe not for the person sitting across from me)

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Originally Posted by wsurugby10

I just stumbled across this thread/deck. Is anyone still playing it? If so, how does it fair in the meta right now. I'm trying to acquire the pieces to put it together and I wanted to know if there has been anything new that I should look into.

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This isn't really one of those decks that changes a whole lot from month to month, mostly because in order for a new card to make an impact it's going to have to be a very cheap enchantment that's powerful and Wizards has been pushing for creature combat over the last decade or so, making the non-aura enchantments fairly weak. The deck is still viable, in the sense that it was never really not viable, but it will always struggle against combo while beating most of the fair decks fairly convincingly. Because I have never played in a large Legacy tournament where I haven't faced combo of some kind at least once, it makes me skittish to play this deck, but theoretically if combo is fairly low in your metagame and you dodge it you could run the table pretty easily. You have the best late game in the format so if you play the control role against most of the decks you will eventually out-grind everyone and win. You just have to be able to make it that far, which poses a challenge against combo, whereas you're fairly well set up against aggro decks and control decks are a joke.

Andrew Cuneo streaming the deck, with the notable inclusion of Eidolon of Blossoms maindeck, and Reclamation Sage in the sideboard:

http://www.channelfireball.com/video...g-enchantress/

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Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt

Andrew Cuneo streaming the deck, with the notable inclusion of Eidolon of Blossoms maindeck, and Reclamation Sage in the sideboard:

http://www.channelfireball.com/video...g-enchantress/

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Thank you for posting this here I enjoyed watching it. One thing I noticed was Energy Field does work against infect and should have been boarded in.

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Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt

Andrew Cuneo streaming the deck, with the notable inclusion of Eidolon of Blossoms maindeck, and Reclamation Sage in the sideboard:

http://www.channelfireball.com/video...g-enchantress/

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I saw that too. -2 Carpet of Flowers (main) and -the white splash. Reclamation Sage is a natural upgrade and has been in my SB since it came out. Eidolon of Blossoms seems interesting, though I'm not sure how in-the-market we are for a 13th Enchantress. It's nice though that it can't be Abrupt Decayed (though can be hit with Lighting Bolt) and it can be gotten with Green Sun's Zenith, though I'm not sure how often you'd rather it wasn't just Argothian. It is nice that it draws a card when it comes into play.

Also without any white in the sideboard (Gaddock Teeg) he had trouble with combo decks, though that's pretty much to be expected from this deck. It is fun to watch it just dump all over Miracles, and that combined with a strong tempo matchup makes it a good choice if you can somehow dodge combo.