Originally Posted by
benthetenor
Just some quick notes. I went with the Enchantress split that I did so that a Surgical Extraction on Argothian Enchantress or an Engineered Plague on Humans wouldn't completely destroy my ability to function. Other than that, the main is pretty standard. For the sideboard, I tried a few different things out. Back to Basics is absolutely insane in this metagame, but I'm not really convinced that it's what we want to be doing, since we don't really care how much mana they have. Though in theory, B2B + Elephant Grass is a lock against something like RUG or BUG or Jund or anyone who doesn't have any basics. Dueling Grounds was okay, though I think there has to be a better fifth Elephant Grass out there...maybe just Propaganda or Ghostly Prison? I jammed some test games against ANT (my friend got 42nd playing ANT at the tournament) but clearly didn't see it, though In the Eye of Chaos just completely destroyed his ability to function in a timely manner, so I think it's good. The absolute best card in my sideboard all day long was Deep Analysis, and it wasn't even close. It's not flashy by any means, but it completely turned around games where I got hammered with discard early or got my first enchantress or two countered. In general, the decks that are doing those things to you are not bad matchups, but you need some way to recover from a lot of discard or timely counterspells, as those are the only way that those kinds of decks are going to beat you.
What I do want to test is more Compost in the board, along with Chrome Mox over some number of lands. I'd be very interested to see how often a turn 1 Enchantress happens. It felt like the deck was just a slight bit too slow sometimes, and getting down an enchantress before they can interact with you is probably just really important. Turn 1 Thoughtseize slows us down by a lot, so being able to get the Enchantress out there extra early is probably important. Along those lines, I'd also like to go back and test 2 Exploration and 1 land in place of the Carpet of Flowers, since the format isn't nearly as blue as it was even a month ago. It still crushed against blue decks, but even those decks are more geared towards Counterspell than Spell Pierce or Daze. As for Verduran Enchantress over the 4th Enchantress's Presence, I don't think it helped or hurt. It makes us a little more vulnerable to Wrath effects, a little less vulnerable to Disenchants, slightly less efficient just in the sense that Presence cantrips with other Enchantress effects on the board, but also more resilient to stuff that's bad for us. I didn't see a Surgical Extraction all day, so it's possible that I was correct when I assumed that most people won't bring them in, though I didn't face off against RUG which usually has a set. I don't really see a good reason to not just run it that way, though maybe there's merit to just trying to fit both cards into the deck.
One thing that was cool was I beat Counter Top game 1 by just tricking my opponent into putting Top on top, then casting Words of Wind, then making him slowly pick up all of his lands. Just crushed him. I guess what I mean to say is, I'm not really worried about Counterbalance + Top anymore...I also decided that this deck needs to be playing against good decks, so winning the first round is tech. It has a rough time against a lot, but I think it crushes BUG, and should have plenty of game against Jund, so it should still be pretty well positioned in the metagame if we can solve the Elves issue.
