[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

If you add black, I'd add in another fetch or two. ETutor actually is way better in my opinion once you add doomwake and eplague side. As for protection, it's fine because you'll find it with ETutor/Grove. I find my self wanting a second solitary at times, but sometimes it can be difficult to set up. I definitely don't like a second helm because it is an actual do nothing card.

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The protection is most certainly not fine when playing against fast aggro. For example, burn and goblins can quite often kill on turn 3, and pretty much always on turn 4. Suppose you play acceleration t1, enchantress t2, grove+sac on turn 3 and get your protection on turn 4, then you'll pretty much always die on the draw, and sometimes also on the play. This is in two supposedly good matchups, and assuming that everything goes your way except for the lack of protection. Moreover, a tempo deck who knows your list could just save the counters for the confinement.

In my opinion, the only advantage in playing RiPhelm over a more compact wincon is that you can combo-kill your opponent on turn 3-4. By only playing one, you not only make it harder to find, but you also risk blanking the rest in peace by having the helm discarded or countered.

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Originally Posted by Concordant

The protection is most certainly not fine when playing against fast aggro. For example, burn and goblins can quite often kill on turn 3, and pretty much always on turn 4. Suppose you play acceleration t1, enchantress t2, grove+sac on turn 3 and get your protection on turn 4, then you'll pretty much always die on the draw, and sometimes also on the play. This is in two supposedly good matchups, and assuming that everything goes your way except for the lack of protection. Moreover, a tempo deck who knows your list could just save the counters for the confinement.

In my opinion, the only advantage in playing RiPhelm over a more compact wincon is that you can combo-kill your opponent on turn 3-4. By only playing one, you not only make it harder to find, but you also risk blanking the rest in peace by having the helm discarded or countered.

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I think Megadeus' choices are perfectly justified in many metagames, and if it weren't for the fact that my meta has a lot of burn, zoo, and maverick style decks that require early protection, I would prefer to play a list similar to his in regards to the number of elephant grasses and solitary confinements. I also don't think he (or anyone) should consider goblins too seriously when making deck building decisions.

Regarding helm. I played the helm version for a long time, and my experience with it is that every so often you get to steal wins with the combo in games where you wouldn't otherwise have gotten there. But I found over time that having RiP/helm in the deck is only worthwhile if RiP is good without helm. In a meta where that is not the case I vastly prefer to play replenish, since it provides a mid game trump card after lots of countermagic, discard spells and abrupt decays.

A different concern I have with RiP is that I feel like it constrains options whereas replenish opens them. Every upkeep payment for solitary or E grass becomes much harder and much more punishing if the wrong choice is made since you can't get those cards back. I admit to not being the greatest player, so this is probably less of a concern to someone better at the game.

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Originally Posted by The_Dingo

Regarding helm. I played the helm version for a long time, and my experience with it is that every so often you get to steal wins with the combo in games where you wouldn't otherwise have gotten there. But I found over time that having RiP/helm in the deck is only worthwhile if RiP is good without helm. In a meta where that is not the case I vastly prefer to play replenish, since it provides a mid game trump card after lots of countermagic, discard spells and abrupt decays.

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I think this is a good point. I don't run as many RiPs as other seem to (I'm on 1-2 main) and agree that I don't actually use RiP/Helm all that often. I'm on the black splash with an MD Doomwake Giant (who is a perfectly acceptable wincon on his own) and might just cut Helm and go down to a single Rest in Peace and add a Replenish for added Doomwake synergy.

On a related note, Megadeus is right; if you splash black, 6-7 fetches are where you want to be. Not only do they smooth the mana out, they let you get the most out of Guile.

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Originally Posted by Concordant

The protection is most certainly not fine when playing against fast aggro. For example, burn and goblins can quite often kill on turn 3, and pretty much always on turn 4. Suppose you play acceleration t1, enchantress t2, grove+sac on turn 3 and get your protection on turn 4, then you'll pretty much always die on the draw, and sometimes also on the play. This is in two supposedly good matchups, and assuming that everything goes your way except for the lack of protection. Moreover, a tempo deck who knows your list could just save the counters for the confinement.

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Even granting that Zoo and Goblins are relevant matchups (which in most metas they aren't), they're some of Enchantress's best matchups, hands down. If you're doing worse than 60/40 against them, you're doing something horribly wrong. As for Burn, Megadeus' list has 7 ways to make you untargetable postboard (not counting tutors) so you're something like 60% to just naturally draw one and the floor on your winrate is your odds of just mulliganing to Leyline. If you're somehow still concerned about winning your best matchups, you can always add Words of Worship somewhere, whih literally none of those decks can beat. Tempo decks are all varying degrees of favorable, and if they wait to counter Confinement you'll simply run them out of cards more often than not.

Aggro is a good matchup. However, the deck is constraint on mana in the early turns (1-2-3). That makes only Elephant Grass a relevant card to slow aggro down and that card is questionable main. It is has it's uses but often is just a cantrip as well.

Since I got the deck on MTGO, I realised this again (the early mana). It really wants ESG or Chrome Mox (maybe Mox Diamond) to speed up in those early turns. It's almost a must to keep up in the format which is blistering fast.

Also, online Choke, Carpet of Flowers and other SB options are quite costly.

It still is a lot of fun toplay though!

How is elephant grass a questionable card to main? It's very stock. Most of these cards "do nothing" and if nothing else it is a G Draw 2. Yes it's less good in certain match ups, but I can't imagine a meta where I run any less than 2. Any ideas on things to slow down aggro then other than a 4th grass or 2nd solitary?

Ghostly Prison is the obvious one, but it's just a more expensive Elephant Grass that doesn't have cumulative upkeep (and also doesn't protect you from Marit Lage). I've run The Abyss before, but it can be pretty slow. After that you get into oddball stuff like Drop of Honey and whatever the color-shifted version is in White, and neither of those is particularly good. Kirtar's Desire and Oppressive Rays are reasonable 1-for-1 removal that are also Enchantments.

Drop of Honey and its time shifted version seem real bad in a deck where one of the central cogs is a 0 power creature

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Drop of Honey and its time shifted version seem real bad in a deck where one of the central cogs is a 0 power creature

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Oh they are. I've tried them. You can kinda-sorta run off of Presence if you have to, but they're by far the worst options. Words of Worship (especially in conjunction with Sylvan Library) really is great, though.

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Originally Posted by btm10

Even granting that Zoo and Goblins are relevant matchups (which in most metas they aren't), they're some of Enchantress's best matchups, hands down. If you're doing worse than 60/40 against them, you're doing something horribly wrong. As for Burn, Megadeus' list has 7 ways to make you untargetable postboard (not counting tutors) so you're something like 60% to just naturally draw one and the floor on your winrate is your odds of just mulliganing to Leyline. If you're somehow still concerned about winning your best matchups, you can always add Words of Worship somewhere, whih literally none of those decks can beat. Tempo decks are all varying degrees of favorable, and if they wait to counter Confinement you'll simply run them out of cards more often than not.

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You mean that burn and goblins used to be good matchups. That was before people started cutting elephant grass and solitary confinement. If you look back at pre 2012 lists when enchantress was regularly placing top 8, you'll never find a list that plays 3 elephant grass and 1 confinement.

I count 5 cards to become "untargettable":
1 confinement
3 leyline of sanctity
1 aegis of the gods/aegis of honor (depending on list)

Aegis of the Gods would get bolted immediatelly, so it doesn't really count. Leyline is good in the opener, but does not protect you from Eidolon of the Great Revel and Sulfuric Vortex. This leaves 1 copy of Solitary Confinement and we already established that tutoring for it is often too slow.

Words of Worship is good vs burn, but is not effective agaist goblins. Goblins can easily attack for 20 each turn. It is also a bit slow if you have to tutor for it. (Tutor turn 2, play words turn 3, gain 5 life turn 4.)

Regarding tempo decks: Yes, they'll lose the card advantage game by holding the disruption for your lock pieces. However, assuming they have a decent threat they can still win the damage race. Lets assume that you have drawn 5 extra cards by turn 5 since they did not counter your enchantress, but are now at risk of dying to delver+bolt. You play confinement or helm, they counter it and you now have ~5 mana left to find another piece of protection (or win the game). In a normal list with ~10 pieces of protection, this would not be a problem since you would have seen ~17 cards including on average 3 relevant cards, i.e. 2 backup copies. If you go down to 5 pieces, then you'll have about 0.5 as backup.

Look at the current format. What aggro decks are we so worried about that consistently put up results? Burn. That's really about it. I've had 50/50 success against delver. Infect is a terrible match up barring drastically changing the deck. My certain is my meta game call and it obviously worked. At my last 50 man tourney the room was probably 25% BUG decks where RIP and Sterling Grove are both really good. I just happened to play against reanimator and lands and didn't draw the correct half of my deck. It happens.

I play this deck on and off, but one problem MU I keep running into is Miracles. I just can't seem to win that one. Especially the version with Mentor is a nail in my coffin! I'm playing the GW version with Sterling Grove and 2 Replenish in the SB. How do you guys see this MU and how do you SB?

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Originally Posted by Darklingske

I play this deck on and off, but one problem MU I keep running into is Miracles. I just can't seem to win that one. Especially the version with Mentor is a nail in my coffin! I'm playing the GW version with Sterling Grove and 2 Replenish in the SB. How do you guys see this MU and how do you SB?

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Miracles should be a favorable matchup, though if you are playing RiP-helm and enlightened tutor you'll have a harder time. This is one of the reasons why I abandoned the helm kill in favor of a more traditional list. Last time I played, I used:

4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress' Presense
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Sterling Grove
3 Suppression Field
4 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ground Seal
1 Choke
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Replenish
20 lands

In retrospect, I would probably change the Choke for a third GSZ since that makes the sideboard Gaddock Teeg better.

This maindeck is so strong that you dont have to board a lot vs miracles. Bring in Gaddock Teeg and whatever answer you have to Counterbalance. Choke if you have it. Maybe Sigarda.

Are you running main deck emrakul? Curious of the list because I find miracles to be very favorable. A main board banishing light is nice to have though since counterbalance can be bad for you if they set it up early. I think it also depends on the miracles players familiarity with the match up. But overall i think I'd be happy to pay against miracles any round

Yeah, I think Miracles is pretty favorable, too. I realized I haven't posted a list in a while. I'm on the GWb list below, went 3-1 at locals the last time I ran it.

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Elephant Grass
3 Sterling Grove
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Thoughtseize
2 Banishing Light
1 Exploration
1 Rest in Peace
1 Solitary Confinement

4 Windswept Heath
8 Forest
2 Plains
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Serra's Sanctum
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Bayou

Sideboard

4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Aegis of the Gods
2 Choke
2 Rest in Peace
2 Nevermore
2 City of Solitude
1 Seal of Primordium

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Originally Posted by btm10

Yeah, I think Miracles is pretty favorable, too. I realized I haven't posted a list in a while. I'm on the GWb list below, went 3-1 at locals the last time I ran it.

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress's Presence
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Elephant Grass
3 Sterling Grove
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Thoughtseize
2 Banishing Light
1 Exploration
1 Rest in Peace
1 Solitary Confinement

4 Windswept Heath
8 Forest
2 Plains
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Serra's Sanctum
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Bayou

Sideboard

4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Aegis of the Gods
2 Choke
2 Rest in Peace
2 Nevermore
2 City of Solitude
1 Seal of Primordium

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Thought seize main is pretty radical. Can you tell us how good or bad it's been, which matchups you board it out.

Merry Christmas!
I have been playing Enchantress on cockatrice for a while. I have felt that the biggest problem with the standard list is that out best protection can be decayed, requires protection via sterling groove, and doesn't win us the game.
Therefore i've been playing a more aggressive approach.

Business
4 argothian enchantress
4 green sun's zenith
4 enchantresses presence

Consitency
3 mirris guile
2 replenish

Acceleration
4 wild growth
4 utopian sprawl
3 carpet of flowers
2 mox chrome

Protection
4 elephant grass
3 banishing lights
1 solitary confinement

Win conditions
3 sigil of the empty throne
1 doomwake giant
1 emrakul, the eons thorne

Lands
4 Windswept Heath
5 forest
1 savannah
1 bayou
1 plains
3 serra's sanctum
1 nykthos, shrine to Nyx
1 karakas

Sideboard
1 engineered plague
1 city of solitude
1 stony silence
1 dread of night
3 rest in peace
3 leyline of sanctity
3 swords to plowshares
1 helm of obedience
1 nevermore

So with this build your plan is to start making angels asap for both blocking and attacking.
What i've found is that even if your first and second enchantress effect gets countered you can ramp up to sigil quicky and your dead enchantment comes alive. Toughest matchup is infect (hence the swords in SB), Death and taxes with vial out (hence dread, stony and solitude in SB) and RUG (swords are good here too). Storm is tougher with only one maindeck Confinement, but I have lots of sideboard cards for it.
Replenish is an allstar that have won me many games, even against BG decks running deed.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Are you running main deck emrakul? Curious of the list because I find miracles to be very favorable. A main board banishing light is nice to have though since counterbalance can be bad for you if they set it up early. I think it also depends on the miracles players familiarity with the match up. But overall i think I'd be happy to pay against miracles any round

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This is my last list I played:

4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Helm of Obedience

2 Oblivion Ring
2 Sterling grove
4 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
2 Rest in Peace
4 Mirri's Guile
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
1 Sigil of the Empty throne

6 Forest
1 Plains
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
4 Serra's Sanctum
1 Karakas

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Originally Posted by btm10

Mana Sources/Lands (27)
5 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
2 Serra's Sanctum
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth

Engine(16)
4 Argothian Enchantress
3 Sterling Grove
3 Enchantress's Presence
2 Sylvan Library
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Replenish

Staying Alive(6)
3 Elephant Grass
1 Sphere of Safety
1 The Abyss
1 Leyline of Sanctity

Answers(8)
3 Duress
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Suppression Field
1 Words of Waste

Win(3)
1 Rest in Peace
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Helm of Obedience

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Originally Posted by The_Dingo

Thought seize main is pretty radical. Can you tell us how good or bad it's been, which matchups you board it out.

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The post quoted above is what I was running about 2 years ago, and I had definitely run Duress at various points prior to that, probably as far back as 2002 or 2003. So it's not THAT radical. The purpose of MD discard right now is meta call - Delver is a bad call there at the moment because we have as many as 3/20 people on Lands (and more on various grindy BGx decks) on any given week, so there's usually no more than 1 or 2 people on any Delver variant. Since there's also a fair amount of Miracles and slower blue decks, Thoughtseize helps make sure the first Enchantress effect resolves and doesn't get eaten by Liliana before I get rolling while also having a lot of utility against combo. They're still not great matchups preboard, but I'm probably taking ~40% preboard against ANT, which is the major combo deck in my local meta. Infect is still a problem, but that one is going to take more dedicated sideboard hate. If people start playing Elves I'd probably cut a Choke for an Engineered Plague.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Look at the current format. What aggro decks are we so worried about that consistently put up results? Burn. That's really about it. I've had 50/50 success against delver. Infect is a terrible match up barring drastically changing the deck. My certain is my meta game call and it obviously worked. At my last 50 man tourney the room was probably 25% BUG decks where RIP and Sterling Grove are both really good. I just happened to play against reanimator and lands and didn't draw the correct half of my deck. It happens.

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Obligatory plug for energy field. The card is amazing in a deck running nothing but permanents. Especially if you are already running a bunch of rest in peace and sterling groves to turn it into a hard lock.

And I know what you're gonna say: "But, but, but I already spent a ton of money on an archaic and strangely worded card from legends (the abyss), and I don't wanna lose my newly garnered street cred...". Well have no fear, I say, since you're playing blue now, you can grab yourself a couple copies of in the eye of chaos for your SB and still party like it is 1994.

Since we're already geared towards holding back aggro, if we (or rather I am), can squeeze in 4 leylines of sanctity maindecked, do you guys think that will be good or does that sound horrible? I was tweaking my deck earlier and managed to squeeze in 4 Leylines.

Edit: This doesn't have much to do with enchnatress, bt since it's the holidays, and my enchantress was involved I wanted to share with you guys.

I recently just came back from deployment, and it being the holidays, I just wanted to share to you guys an experience that happened, a while back this year, when I played at Philadelphia's Eternal Weekend, going 3-3 with enchantress on an Omnitell infested event.

When I got done with my match, I went under the table to grab my backpack, gallon of water and playmat tube, but when I stood up, my deck box is gone. My enchantress deck, is something I have had for so long, and I would say it's like my pet deck. Having pimped it of having beta dual land, and all basic lands from guru, as well as alpha wild growths. The judges said they havent seen anyone with it, nor did it got turned in. A lot of people started wondering why I am so frantic, later that day it feels like my soul got ripped out of me, and is pretty much dead set on quitting magic for good. Then later on, one of the judges came and got me, because according to lost and found area, which I visited before, someone had turned in a deck. They asked me to name the cards that is inside, and it did end up being my deck. The person could have easily walked away with the deck specially with beta dual land, and fetchlands, and 11 guru lands as well as karakas, but instead turned it in. The person never left their name, and I wished he did so I can atleast give them my thanks. Moments like this is when I really love the magic community.

Happy holidays.