[Developmental] GW Opal-Wave

[Freggle]

My bad. I assumed the decklist in the opening post was the most up-to-date one; I have now made myself read some more of the thread I see you also cut back to 3 Presence (and 2 Replenish) in later lists, that's also the decision I was closing in on.

Cutting the Fertile Ground is something I also often do post-board, but I have to admit it has been nice in the Blood Moon Stompy matchups - often managed to win due to being able to play all my spells through a chalice on 1 stopping Sprawl, and Moon stopping everything else (esp. due to my black splash with only 1 basic plains - I guess in the 2 colour build it's less necessary)

No Sweat, Nice 5-0 BTW. As for the Fertile Ground it's not the strongest, but I see your point. Since your dig spells are green, and payoff spells are white it can be an issue. I have lost to not getting adequate white in time, though rare.

[Fjaulnir]

Played the Belgian Legacy Cup finals today with this list, made 10th place with 5-2.

2 Bayou
1 Plains
4 Forest
1 Starfield of Nyx
4 Kruphix's Insight
1 Doomwake Giant
4 Parallax Wave
1 Karakas
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Enchantress's Presence
4 Serra's Sanctum
3 Replenish
4 Opalescence
4 Wild Growth
2 Cast Out
1 Choke
2 Savannah
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Sylvan Library
1 Sterling Grove
1 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:
1 Seeds of Innocence
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Engineered Plague
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Choke
1 Dead Weight



That means I now have played a full 186 competitive matches with this deck (473 games), going 95-91 so my winrate is down to 51% from being closer to 58-60% in the beginning. Not counting Storm which is like 13% of my pairings on MTGO, it would be 88-76 (53,7%) which would be decent.


The decks I played against 4x or more:
Storm 7-15 (32%)
Miracles 10-7 (59%)
Grixis Delver 7-10 (41%)
Eldrazi 6-3 (67%) - 2 of the losses were vs Big Eldrazi with 4?x Ulamog though.
Sneaky Show 4-4 (50%)
Reanimator 3-5 (37,5%)
BUG Delver 1-7 (12,5%)
Dredge 5-1 (83%)
Stoneblade 4-2 (67%)
RUG Delver 2-3 (40%)
Lands 4-0 (100%)
DnT 0-4 (0%)

[Claymore1]

I just saw Hoogland playing with Wave enchantress, I recognize the petal and seeds of innocence, and right of the bat I suspect Fjaulnir as the donator, unless I'm mistaken.

[Fjaulnir]

Mengucci also recorded with it apparently but I haven't gotten around to watching either. I was not the donator btw - I would have done so though.


I heard Mengucci butchered it though / didn't understand the combo at all, so I hope Jeff did a better job at it

[slayjay]

Played my first paper tournament yesterday with this deck and ended up very unlucky second.


Unfortunately, the deck was not that unknown as some days before because of menguccis article. Bad timing :D


Some short notes:

Played this list:


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


2 Doomwake Giant
4 Kruphix's Insight
2 Replenish
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Enchantress's Presence
4 Sylvan Library


2 Cast Out
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Opalescence
4 Parallax Wave
1 Starfield of Nyx


1 Fertile Ground
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth



Sideboard


1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Seal of Primordium
3 Drop of Honey
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void


After the event, I definitely would swap a land for another white source, a Scrubland maybe. Was cutted of white and black some times. And an Aegis of the Gods maindeck, maybe instead of second Giant. Storm typically cannot beat turn 2 Aegis maindeck (2 tutors to get them).


Round 1: 4c Aggro Loam (with Knights)


Deck showed directly what it does a lot: Bad hands and a lot of mulligans. Had to got to 5, opponent started with turn 1 Chalice, turn 2 2 Dark Confidant, nothing to do for me…Boarded Leylines against Knight of the Reliquiary, but the graveyard is not the main problem…it is just important to keep Chalice away, and even Chalice does not hurt that much like in other Enchantress builds. Just keep creatures under control, and that is what the deck does best. Won the other two games with ease.

1-0, 2:1


Round 2: Death and Taxes


Kept a greedy one-lander (Forest and Wild Growth plus Sylvan Library), he started with Mother of Runes, Rishadan Port, Thalia, my Wasteland-proofed Forest did nothing out of become tapped in my upkeep…this was too risky…but against the most other decks the hand was keepable.


After sideboarding the Drop of Honey really shined, opponent was really desperated.

2-0, 4:2


Round 3: Amadeus with Aggro Mud / +1/+1 Counters (not really sure about the name, pretty much the same deck like in Vintage: Chalices, Thorns, Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Lodestone Golem, Walking Ballista etc.)


Amadeus is a friend of mine, we played against each other a lot in the last years, mainly vintage. He is usually on something colorless, mostly rogue, Eldrazi, Chalice decks. And with a lot of success.


Lost my third die roll this day, he started with turn 1 Thorn, turn 2 Lodestone Golem, I lost without resolving a spell after mulligan to 5...


In the other two games Drop of Honey really shined again, the MVP card of this evening. Game three was quite tight, me winning on two life.


3-0, 6:3

Round 4 and last round: Dark Maverick


This could be quite hard to win. Maindeck Gaddock Teeg, Quasali Pridemage, Knight of Reliquary, Wasteland, Ghostquarter, Chalices, Green Zenith to search this stuff…


Lost my 4th die roll again…so 0-4 in die rolls this day…


Mull to 5 first game, too far ahead, he was too fast…

Game 2 was back and forth with a better ending for me.

Game 3 we both mulled to 5, long stally game, he had a lot of pressure, I had Opalessence, but my second white mana get wasted, and was unable to find second white in 3 turns with Sylvan Library and Presence and a lot card draw on the board…quite bad und unlucky, but this is magic.


3-1, 7:5

This was good enough for second place and a Vendillion Clique.


Got a lot of positive feedback for the deck and games :-) Really like the deck at the moment, every fair creature based deck has a hard stand against it.

[Freggle]

Alright, I have some holiday time coming up, and I may be tempted to really test this deck to push this concept.

Questions for the Development team:

• Does the deck need both Doomwake Giant (with the requisite 3rd color), and Drop of Honey or Porphyry Nodes?

My inclination is to apply K.I.S.S. and eliminate the 3rd color to mitigate meta issues (Wateland, Port) at a lower curve. Is there a reason not to pursue this through your testing?

• If a 3rd color is needed should the deck explore the use of Prismatic Omen, or Hall of Gemstone to help with enchantment count, and color issues?

Hall of Gemstone could hose (to a degree) combo, or BGx “Leo” (or other multi colored) decks while coloring us up. It’s mitigated on our end through the judicious use of Utopia Sprawl In addition the 3/3 body Hall would give us under Opalescence could be quite nice


• Does the deck need more tutors (at card disadvantage) or more card filter / “draw” (place in hand) abilities?

I have a tendency to prefer card filtering as a hedge to counter magic (out threat their counters), however if you play with Sterling Grove, or Enlightened Tutor it could help with this A+B combo deck more. In addition, you do have the ability to main deck bullets to hedge tricky MU’s i.e. Drop of Honey vs. D&T, or Aegis of the Gods vs Storm, Hall vs. Multi color .dek…

• Is Cast Out (and it’s higher casting cost / cycling ability) really better in this deck than more Oblivion Rings?

Unless we are leaning on Replenish I’m not sure how this could be true. As Cast Out does not interact in the same way as Oblivion Ring does with the combo on the board.

• Should there be an alt kill?

My findings are no, but if I HAD to explore one I’d consider a red splash for Words of War, as we would then have a targetable kill, that replaces draws with Sylvan Library, and could machine gun things like Revoker, Leo, Thalia, Teeg… …or at worst skip a draw to get it done to make the comb / deck work again.

Nice finishes everyone, looking forward to the comments.

[Fjaulnir]

After the event, I definitely would swap a land for another white source, a Scrubland maybe. Was cutted of white and black some times. And an Aegis of the Gods maindeck, maybe instead of second Giant. Storm typically cannot beat turn 2 Aegis maindeck (2 tutors to get them).

That's actually a really good idea! I've been unsure about the maindeck white Leyline so that would mitigate some of its awkwardness.
Might also help beat Echoing Truth on a Leyline postboard

• Does the deck need both Doomwake Giant (with the requisite 3rd color), and Drop of Honey or Porphyry Nodes?

My experience is it's needed at least somewhere in the 75, I have lost to many a True-Name that the combo just couldn't interact with or that I couldn't race with my 4/4s at that point of the game.
It's also one of the few ways to interact with a Mother of Runes protected Phyrexian Revoker.

Splash damage vs other cards (Young Peezy etc) is just a nice bonus.


I have randomly won off it after they surgicaled my combo pieces but I guess that's just a fringe situation. It has also once won me a match vs Nic Fit where they had 2x Carnage Tyrant that I could neither interact with nor race as I was at 4 life or something like that. I just used Opal-Wave to infinitely flicker my Doomwake and give them -10000/-10000


I like a 3rd colour anyway because
a) I like to be able to hardcast my Leyline of the Voids (the original build didn't have any GY hate but that just felt miserable whenever playing against any GY based deck
b) it adds the option of Engineered Plague which is another way to slow down Death n Taxes and Elves just enough to have a chance.


EDIT: Porphyry almost never did anything for me. Granted I never got to test it vs Elves or DnT, so I just could side it in vs Delver (the most popular deck on MTGO) and there it won me 1 close game but the other 3-4 games that I resolved it it was
a- too slow (taking a turn to kill something)
and/or b- you don't always have the choice, especially when they play Pyromancer.

Small sample size so not scientific . For my last few matches with the deck I put a Dead Weight in the SB and that actually felt better the 1 time I got to play it - got to choose which creature to kill despite them having a clogged board, it kills immediately, and it's even better with Replenish and Starfield as it takes less time to go back to the GY.

• If a 3rd color is needed should the deck explore the use of Prismatic Omen, or Hall of Gemstone to help with enchantment count, and color issues?

Hall of Gemstone could hose (to a degree) combo, or BGx “Leo” (or other multi colored) decks while coloring us up. It’s mitigated on our end through the judicious use of Utopia Sprawl In addition the 3/3 body Hall would give us under Opalescence could be quite nice

I haven't tested any of these, and on the one hand cards that don't ramp but just color fix (cfr Abundant Growth) feel like they're not worth it in this deck.

On the other hand, I feel Hall of Gemstone has the most potential here because at least it also hoses your opponents potentially.

• Does the deck need more tutors (at card disadvantage) or more card filter / “draw” (place in hand) abilities?

I have a tendency to prefer card filtering as a hedge to counter magic (out threat their counters), however if you play with Sterling Grove, or Enlightened Tutor it could help with this A+B combo deck more. In addition, you do have the ability to main deck bullets to hedge tricky MU’s i.e. Drop of Honey vs. D&T, or Aegis of the Gods vs Storm, Hall vs. Multi color .dek…

I have gone back and forth on playing the tutor effects, I love that drawing E Tutor off your draw step lets you tutor before Sylvan trigger resolves, and lets you pay 4 for that card (as it will be the 2nd card drawn that turn - can't not pay life though as you can't put the E Tutor back anymore). And E Tutor for Library is also an okay start if you got nothing else going on occasionally.
But they have also equally often felt mediocre. So for now I have stayed on a middle ground and run only a few of them.

• Is Cast Out (and it’s higher casting cost / cycling ability) really better in this deck than more Oblivion Rings?

Unless we are leaning on Replenish I’m not sure how this could be true. As Cast Out does not interact in the same way as Oblivion Ring does with the combo on the board.

In my experience, O Ring is definitely necessary. Cast Out wouldn't replace the O Ring slot but another slot (at least it did when I put them in originally).
Without O Ring you just die to a resolved Teeg (unless you can find your 1-off Karakas or so...)

Cast Out has been great though in some situations:
-off Replenish
-vs Lands: they make Marit Lage EOT, it has happened more than a few times that I could steal wins if I didn't have Wave yet by flashing it in
-vs Rishadan Port trying to tap down your Serra's Sanctum
-with Sylvan Library in play: cycle in your upkeep or your draw step (can even do that if it's the first card drawn off Library if you haven't taken the other 2 cards yet) to dig 1 deeper and have more options to put back.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ANYONE PLAYING THE DECK: the Cast Out interaction and the E Tutor interaction when topdecked off Sylvan Library, mean that you need to resolve your Sylvan Library properly whenever playing this deck!!! I can't stress this more. Most people seem to think Sylvan Library is a "look at top 3" effect but in this deck it is often enough to be relevant NOT. You draw 1 card keeping it aside, then if you dont have E Tutor or Cast Out in hand (including the 1 new card) draw 2 more and decide whether to put 2 back.
Like when you're playing Miracles you can't just put cards into your hand in your draw step without looking and thinking first.

This is maybe only 1-2% of playing your games at most, depending on your build - but when playing fringe rogue decks you can't afford to lose 1-2% more than necessary if you want to have any decent success

• Should there be an alt kill?

My findings are no, but if I HAD to explore one I’d consider a red splash for Words of War, as we would then have a targetable kill, that replaces draws with Sylvan Library, and could machine gun things like Revoker, Leo, Thalia, Teeg… …or at worst skip a draw to get it done to make the comb / deck work again.

Well, if you don't count Doomwake I think the deck doesn't *need* one indeed. Helm of Obedience to complement my Leylines in the SB almost never worked - it was just as easy if not easier/faster to Opalescence and kill them with 4/4 Leylines as it was to dig for that 1 Helm that couldn't get Kruphixed etc.

On the other hand: I also have been thinking about the Machine Gun combo with this deck, just haven't gotten around to it yet*. Adding red means most likely cutting black so losing Doomwake / outs to TNN, but options like Blood Moon vs some decks might be worth it (to be fair Blood Moon doesn't change most bad matchups of the deck though, only ones that are already okay to super favoured?)


*I did not renew my MTGO rental subscription so unfortunately I won't be able to grind games with that version to get a quick feel for it - will have to be done the slow old fashioned way if ever...

[mistercakes]

What in the world is mtgo rental

[Fjaulnir]

I didn't own any of the decks I played, I paid a monthly fee to a dealer (Manatraders) to rent any decks I want from their bots. Not cheap but if you want to swap between 3-4 decks each week like me it's definitely better than having to buy all of these decks completely.

[Freggle]

Played a lot of matches today an yesterday. One thin I have learned is the deck likes Lotus Cobra.

Cobra nets 3 mana on a fetch (2 landfalls and the land) and makes the deck more explosive.

Here is where I'm currently at:

Main:
4 Parallax Wave
2 Ground Seal
4 Opalescence
4 Windswept Heath
2 Commune with the Gods
4 Kruphix's Insight
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Savannah
3 Plains
4 Serra's Sanctum
6 Forest
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Starfield of Nyx
4 Sylvan Library
3 Mirri's Guile
2 Replenish
4 Lotus Cobra

Side:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Banishing Light
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Swords to Plowshares

[Claymore1]

Seeing as this deck's main cards are 4cc, the removals I think should be at 3cc, that being O-Ring or Banishing Light.
This is to stop DnT's and Maverick's Gaddok Teeg / Sanctum Prelate from stopping you guys.

In my GWr Enchantress however, I actually use Ixalan's Binding over Cast Out.
The instant speed hasn't really mattered for me, more than making the opponent draw dead cards, which I see as free turns for us.
Usually after playing the game with my opponent, I always ask if I can see whats in their hand. Very frequently, they have extra / multiple copies of what was exiled by Ixalan's Binding.
Im pretty sure it may be pretty tilting for the opponent as well when they brainstorm away their copies, fetch, and just to draw that copy later.


I have a question though, seeing at this deck runs a MUCH heavier count of Sylvan Library, compared to regular enchantress (sometimes enchantress doesnt even run it), wouldn't Words of War shine in the deck?
If the entire wave combo cannot be assembled, turning our Sylvan Library as our win condition seems pretty good, and can interact with opponent's creatures a lot faster.
Red splash also gives access to things like: Blood Moon, Seal of Fire (Elves, Infect, DnT, Delvers), or Pyrostatic Pillar vs Storm Based decks.

[Freggle]

So, played a lot more matches. I'm liking Lotus Cobra as a blocker and ramper. It does double duty, it buys us time blocking or warding off would be attackers, or eating removal thus eating opponents mana while ramping / coloring up our mana.

Mirri's Guile replaced Sterling Grove as a way to speed up the deck and make it more resilient to goodstuff.dek It does a good job of dialing up the right card faster than Sylvan, and makes for less mulligans as you can keep a 1 lander and guile.

Since we were controlling are draw so much I thought I'd try Courser of Kruphix. Since many time it would act as a life gaining / blocking howling mine as we build to our combo. The results are pretty good!

Makes triggering Cobra easier, and if you want a land and a card its not at the expense of 4 life via sylvan, its + life.

With the deck now being able to throw must counter spells, spell after spell the reliance on Replenish has been less and less, and is cut to 1 may be cut all together to move into doomwake (however I have found with multiple Courser's you can life race TNN)

Here's where I'm at. I may also cut a Sylvan or 2 for Exploration or find room for a few Sterling Groves.

Main:

The Combo:
4 Parallax Wave
4 Opalescence
1 Starfield of Nyx

The Dig
4 Sylvan Library
3 Mirri's Guile
4 Kruphix's Insight
4 Courser of Kruphix

The Ramp
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Lotus Cobra

The Stall
4 Oblivion Ring

The Inevitable
1 Replenish

Mana
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Serra's Sanctum
6 Forest
1 Savannah
3 Plains

Side
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Banishing Light
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Swords to Plowshares

[oarsman]

I have been following along the two enchantress threads recently. Freggle, are you the only one not playing Enchantress's Presence? That seems like a pretty massive divergence, and in the pages I read there wasn't any comment about it. Can you summarize your thoughts on why it isn't necessary. Courser/cobra are nice that they impact the board, but giving up that much draw and turning on removal seems questionable.

[Freggle]

I have been following along the two enchantress threads recently. Freggle, are you the only one not playing Enchantress's Presence? That seems like a pretty massive divergence, and in the pages I read there wasn't any comment about it. Can you summarize your thoughts on why it isn't necessary. Courser/cobra are nice that they impact the board, but giving up that much draw and turning on removal seems questionable.

oarsman, first off fan of your stream, and you.

i'll jot this out quickly prior to going to my Christmas party and follow-up with any more detail later.

I think I may be the only one testing a non-presence list. This was a recent development from this weekend. Previous to that though I had been running lists that vary from 2-3. It may be incorrect to cut all to them but the list wants no more than 3.

As a side note in developing many enchantress lists I have also found that enchantress decks likes a number of cards to be at a count of 3. This give you steady access to the card due to the excessive draws / looks at but leave a slot to bring in (or multiple slots if you drop all non-essential cards to 3) to add more dimension to the game plan.

Enchantress's Presence was cut because the overall curve of the deck was too high for it to be effective. This list given the curve does not play like GW or UG Enchantress because we do not have the mana to play back to back 4 drops. in the early decisive turns. Since the draw was not effective, and the tempo was slow (drop presence, then next turn cast 4 drop for a card) I opted to test Mirri's Guile in the slot to get more "card selection" as opposed to card draw. This allows the deck to see more cards in the early decisive turns, mulligan less.

Since the deck runs a high number of fetches and "dig spells" seeing a fresh 3 is relatively trivial. IMHO Mirri's greatly increases the play-ability of the deck. Was Pressence the correct cut. Only more testing will tell.

As for the creature Lotus Cobra was a test to work around the strange mana requirements for the deck. As in you want Green mana T1, but access to WW on Turn 3 or 4. that's a tall order for any deck. Cobra significantly increased the odds of achieving that. Courser was a test to thin, as we stacked the deck as a source of card advantage since we lost presence, and work on another issue that we are just sitting ducks till we combo.

In testing this works well, but this is by no means a complete list. Got to go for now.

Edit:

Best case scenario for opening hands with Enchantress’s Presence & Mirri’s Guile. Note that there are other cards you would prioritize over Guile or Presence should you draw those instead, but if you had to rely on the cards on their own merit which is statically better.

Enchantress’s Presence
The best hand with current lists with an Enchantress’s Presence opener:

Presence
Land or fetch
Another land
3 x Wild Growth or Sprawl for (note you normally don’t want to sprawl for green)

Hypergeometric probability of this hand 0.5%
Cards seen / Drawn with no disruption, and no mull by turn 3: Opening 7 + 4-6 (blind draw off of Presence pending)

Mana used on drawing / looking: ALL

Mirri’s Guile
The best hand for Mirri’s Opener:

Mirri’s
Land or fetch
2X Fetch
3X Other business

Hypergeometric probability of this hand 9.8% (could be made better by dropping the 3rd plains for a Fetch, which it should be then would be 10.6%, with plains/ fetch swap and 4th Guile added 13.4%)
Cards seen / Drawn with no disruption, and no mull by turn 3: Opening 7 + 6-12 depending on the other business spells.

Mana used on Drawing / Looking: to (if Guile and Kruphix’s Insight T3)

More description on the mana issue

The deck wants a T1 basic forest to drop a Wild Growth or a Utopia Sprawl on to ramp into other business. Basic Forrest is to play around the 2 for one of Wasteland

Therefore, the mana base is heavily green, and currently reliant on Utopia Sprawl, Serra’s Sanctum, & fetches to get to T3 / T4. This further puts restrictions on keep able hands.

Ways to pull pressure of the perfect mana draw:

Adopt Mirri’s Guile to see more cards to find the right mix early, and increase the T1 plays, as well as reduce mulligans.

Play Lotus Cobra the card colors us up and play right into the Mirri’s Guile fetch plan.

Test Prismatic Omen this card still blanks creature removal, but gets our basic forests to produce :W:

Test Hall of Gemstone in theory this card can hose multi colored decks, but it would also put pressure on ours to stay green and color up off of this, as there is in the casting cost.

Abandon the Sanctum, Growth ramp plan and adopt another ramp plan, like Farseek, This could allow us to play more non basics, but that could be a trap as we still need to hit 4 mana reliably and this is Legacy.

[Fjaulnir]

I have been following along the two enchantress threads recently. Freggle, are you the only one not playing Enchantress's Presence? That seems like a pretty massive divergence, and in the pages I read there wasn't any comment about it. Can you summarize your thoughts on why it isn't necessary. Courser/cobra are nice that they impact the board, but giving up that much draw and turning on removal seems questionable.

Hi Joe,

super cool!! I had never expected you to be into the archetype. Welcome welcome.


By the 2 threads I assume you mean regular GW Enchantress with Solitary Confinement and either Helm-Rip or Sigil of the Empty Throne/Emrakul as wincons, and this one?

Freggle already answered your questions so I'll just sales pitch you on the 3rd version of Enchantress then, UG with Words of Wind (renewed discussion starting at page 21 around here. It started with this list and that was then "refined" by me to something like this (has 1 unpublished MTGO 5-0 with it as well, with an Abrupt Decay over the 2nd Jace in the SB).

Just like Opal-Wave it has a lot of cool and unusual interactions that 'traditional' enchantress doesn't, it may be tedious on MTGO to go infinite (Abundant Growth + 1 Enchantress or 1 mana enchantment + 2 Enchantresses is infinite with Words of Wind and Candelabra but requires *many* clicks) but they're both strong against different matchups so it would be a metagame choice (or one of personal preference);

F.ex. Opal-Wave is very favored against Chalice decks like Eldrazi but folds to Death n Taxes more, UG Enchantress is stronger vs Grixis Delver and Death n Taxes as it's not on the CMC 4 plan but weaker against Chalice (mostly if combined with a fast clock - so esp. Eldrazi. Moon Stompy is usually okay for both decks); Opal-Wave also manages to not *completely* lose to Storm (32%) as UG does (10%) but for me UG has a slightly higher win % against the MTGO field overall (53% in 144 matches for UG vs 51% in 186 matches for Opal-Wave with black splash).

[Freggle]

Thinking about Joe’s comment more over the holiday break, and pondering the Enchantress rule of 3 (non-essential “engine cards” tend to want to statistically want to be at a 3 count) I decided to reduce the durdle and work towards designing a statistically stable list.

This was the same method used when the dev. Team was tuning the GW Helm deck. “Believe in the numbers, and the deck will run.”
So, the goal was to focus the deck on the most cards seen for the lowest mana while still trying to address the mana issue.

This means removing Courser of Kruphix and increasing the shuffles some other more mana efficient way. (1 more fetch, and 2 Enlightened Tutor)

In addition, I took all non-essential cards and reduced them to a count of 3. This freed up some slots to “borrow” (ahem, steal) from this old non-enchantment list and add in Rule of Law.

In the development of GW Helm there was a break through in playing Suppression Field in that we could build around the card to gain advantage, whereas most decks do not. That static edge bought us time. …just enough time to get the engine online and be more competitive.

Since this deck now relies on “looks” Mirri’s Guile, or static draw triggers Sylvan Library, and our combo is triggers we are heavily advantaged while playing under Rule of Law. (this card makes cantrips look silly)

I tested the list tonight on MTGO tournament practice. In a very small sample set it went 6-0 beating Turbo lands, Grixis Delver, 2x Nic Fit, some UG combo deck, and BR Reanimator. In all matchups the Rule of Law proved to be stellar, stopping combo shenanigans after reanimating Grizzy, or cabal Therapy, but not being able to flash back, cantrip, and that’s the turn…

Here is list I’m tuning as it stands now:

Main:

The Combo
4 Parallax Wave
4 Opalescence
1 Starfield of Nyx - Alt win 1

The Dig
4 Kruphix's Insight
3 Sylvan Library
3 Mirri's Guile
2 Enlightened Tutor

The Ramp
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Lotus Cobra - Alt Win 2

The Stall / Clean-up
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Rule of Law

The Inevitability
1 Replenish

The Mana
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
4 Serra's Sanctum
6 Forest
2 Plains
2 Wooded Foothills

The Board
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Banishing Light
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Swords to Plowshares

Board still in question, Lotus Cobra may not be needed (now that the list is more measured [1 spell a turn]), but sure does feel good, and has fixed in some spots. Still needs tuning.

F.ex. Opal-Wave is very favored against Chalice decks like Eldrazi but folds to Death n Taxes more, UG Enchantress is stronger vs Grixis Delver and Death n Taxes as it's not on the CMC 4 plan but weaker against Chalice (mostly if combined with a fast clock - so esp. Eldrazi. Moon Stompy is usually okay for both decks); Opal-Wave also manages to not *completely* lose to Storm (32%) as UG does (10%) but for me UG has a slightly higher win % against the MTGO field overall (53% in 144 matches for UG vs 51% in 186 matches for Opal-Wave with black splash).

D&T is greatly helped by Lotus Cobra (Flickerwisp on enchanted lands is no longer a blow out), Mirri's Guile to find the right hate, and Swords to Plowshares out of the board. This latest version does not roll over to D&T anymore. Played them a few times yesterday, it's only a real challenge when Mom is online and Revoker is on Parallax Wave, but we can still manage to cobble together the right cards to break through that too. Porphyry Nodes was amazing vs them, but ATM that has been cut. the board will likely get retooled though as Rule of Law shores up combo in the main pretty decently. I do have to try your version of UG though.

[slayjay]

Some questions to you all. I am still not sure about these things...some things were discussed before, some I want to clarify:

Enlightened Tutor vs Sterling Grove:

Tutor: Faster, instant. My main idea was to play 2 -3 Tutors to find a one maindeck Aegis of the Gods (or maybe Rule of Law) against storm. But I think this plan will not work. When would you dig for Aegis with Tutor? In paper you usually do not know what the opponent is on. Opp starts with Probe, Therapy. Grixis Delver or Storm? Against Grixis fetching Aegis is not pretty strong...and Aegis has to come on board at the first 2-3 turns against storm to be relevant. So I think this maindeck slot is not worth it. So loose to storm game 1 and hope the best for the other 2 games...instead I am at 2 maindeck Sterling Grove at the moment, because it protect all our stuff and can be a Tutor when needed. I know it can make Wave / Opal more complicated, but this is fine for me. And Grove is fetched by Insight and comes back with replenish and is good with Opal and Presence. So overall more relevant for this deck.
Thoughts?

Oblivion Ring vs Cast Out:

I was on the 2/ 2 split all the time. But like said before, Cast Out does not interact with Wave/Opal the way we want. Gaddock Teeg and overall a turn later for Cast Out makes the card draw of cycling for me bad. I would go to 4 O-Rings at the moment. Reanimate cycled Cast Outs by Replenish is a situation that came up to less for me.

[Fjaulnir]

Re Freggle's new list: that looks sweet and I'll have to try it out!

Didn't you have any problems with True Name Nemesis?

[Freggle]

Some questions to you all. I am still not sure about these things...some things were discussed before, some I want to clarify:

Enlightened Tutor vs Sterling Grove:

Slayjay, the answer is dependent on the rest of the list and the overall gameplan. If your closer to traditional Enchantress (playing Enchantress’s Presence) then Sterling Grove is likely the better choice. That is the list I last saw you post.

If you’re playing the Mirri’s Guile / Rule of Law version posted last night (less Enchantress’s Presence), then Enlightened Tutor is likely better because it’s instant speed (can be played on your opponent’s turn)
Sterling Grove avoiding Chalice on 1 though is something to keep in the back of our minds.

Oblivion Ring vs Cast Out:

Cast Out is the complete wrong card because it cannot remove a Gaddock Teeg. Tricks with the cycling ability and Replenish is no reason to play an otherwise lesser card that does not interact well with the combo IMHO.

Didn't you have any problems with True Name Nemesis?

I did not run into TNN last night with the new list, but I suspect I would should TNN arrive, and I’m not ready to race.

Last night I was thinking about this as well to a degree. Since the latest list I posted is resilient and playable, yet isn’t reliant on drawing a bunch of cards like traditional Enchantress it opens up new avenues of disruption like Rule of Law main. Since the Enchantment count isn’t critical with the exception of Kruphix’s Insight you don’t have to limit the design space to just / mostly enchantments like you do in traditional Enchantress. Therefore, we could play somewhere in the 75 Terminus. Since we now are controlling our draw fairly well, and it’s pretty likely we can miracle it with some regularity. Even if we don’t it’s not impossible (some games fairly trivial) for us to hit 6 mana to hard cast it should it find it’s way into our hand.

I think the list may want 2-3. This could possibly be the Lotus Cobra slots in the list above. It would essentially function as Elephant Grass in traditional Enchantress, but tilt tougher MUs like Grixis, or D&T in our favor as we could wipe the board of their nonsense as opposed to try and deal with it in a targeted manner.

This would also be good against Progenitus out of elves a way in which I believe they would board given our Rule of Law.

Something to think about / test…

I’m already back to work, so my testing will be now slowed a bit.

[Claymore1]

lol, Fjaulnir's deck list got featured in MTGgoldfish's "Instant deck tech", apparently the deck is called, Opal Essence Reanimator.