[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress) - Former DTB

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

This is the currently legal decklist as of 4/5/05

Engine:
4x Argothian Enchantress
4x Enchantress's Presence

Acceleration:
4x Wild Growth
4x Exploration

Security and Stabilizers:
3x Sterling Grove
3x Ground Seal
4x Elephant Grass
2x Sylvan Library
3x Solitary Confinement
2x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence

Kill:
1x Words of War
1x Words of Wilding
1x Sacred Mesa

Mana base:
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
7x Forest
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
2x Plains
2x Serra's Sanctum
2x Taiga

SB:

Anti-control:
2x Choke
3x City of Solitude
3x Multani's Presence
Disenchant effects:
2x Aura of Silence
Insurance:
2x Karmic Justice
1x Sacred Ground
1x Null Chamber
Anti-aggro:
1x Parallax Wave

Card choices:

Enchantresses: The deck's core. It really doesn't require much explanation; 4 of each is obvious and necessary; Verduan is too vulnerable and slow to be played.

Sylvan Library: Almost as good as an Enchantress against some decks; I'd rather drop it than Argothian against <s>Dragon</s> Solidarity turn 1/2. The deck has 7 reshuffle effects to work with the Library.

Wild Growth/Exploration:1-drop enchantments that accelerate early game, and cantrip afterwards. The goal is to cast at least 1 Enchantress by turn 2, these are the cards that get it done

Elvish Spirit Guide: See above. The only drawback is that it's not an enchantment. However, provided you can draw other enchantments, it continues to be of use mid-late game in "going off".

Ground Seal: Critical against Dragon and Mud, and has great synergy with the Enchantresses and Solitary Confinement. I replaced many of the deck's "silver bullets" with them. Even without an Enchantress, the ability to cantrip is of more use than an expensive and often dead reactive card that relies on Sterling Grove to tutor.

Sterling Grove: Serving both as protection from targeted disenchant effects and as a tutor for critical spells; it also makes the kill condition a one-slot commitment.

Seal of Cleansing: Deals with random things like Disk, Tanglewire, Winter Orb, tapped out to play Pernicious Deed, and other such obstacles the deck can run up against.

Elephant Grass: It's Propaganda/Light of Day for a one mana investment. The cumulative upkeep doesn't generally need to go past 2, at most.

Solitary Confinement: A thousand times better than Worship, it stops pretty much every kill condition in the game. The drawback is counteracted by the deck's draw engine.

Words of War: The red splash is worth the incredible reliability, flexibility and speed of the improved main kill condition that doubles as board removal.

Sacred Mesa: Reasonably strong kill condition that also makes chump blockers.

Words of Wilding: Usually the secondary kill; stronger on its own than Words of War, but weaker without than Sacred Mesa.

Mana base:

The single red mana source really doesn't come up that often. A single Serra's Sanctum is questionable; two would be nice, but they're almost always dead in the opening hand, so they're high risk.

Update: Recently I've added number 2, but might want to find room for another non-conditional mana source.

Sideboard:

Multani's Presence: It comes down turn 1 and turns every counter into Arcane Denial. One game against TeenieBopper he had to Force of Will a spell with two Multani's Presences out. Crazy card advantage and the price is right.

Aura of Silence: Same as Seal of Cleansing, but a lot better against Pernicious Deed, Landstill and Enchantress.

Karmic Justice: Anti-hate and anti-LD.

City of Solitude: Good against control, and ATS.

Seal of Cleansing: Because it's better than Aura against a lot of decks, and against other decks, 5 disenchant effects are good.

Sacred Ground: Anti-LD. Not very prominent, but LD is such bad news for this deck I feel it's worth it. Good against Sundering Titan and Armageddon.

Null Chamber: Anti-combo, serving dual time against random hosers like Pernicious Deed, Armageddon, Tempest of Light and Tranquil Domain.

Other SB Options:

Exalted Angel, Genju of the Fields, Gaea`s Blessing, Spreading Algea, Compost, Night Soil, Sphere of Law, Ghostly Prison, CoP:Red, Rule of Law, Chalice of the Void, Spiritual Focus, Moat, Humility.

Testing:

I haven`t recorded specific results since the bannings, so these are estimates that are based on mine and Mad Zur`s experience, so they can be taken with a grain of salt and aren`t error-proof. Estimates are pre-SB.

v. Landstill - 45%-55%

Previously this was a heavily favorable match. Since the bannings, the deck has moved more towards Trenches. WoG is an answer to Argothian that the deck lacked previously(not including Disk). They also MD Disenchant now. I think in a meta where Landstill is succesful, it`s priority #1 in the SB, and I would consider having 12 cards to side in. Included are Multani`s Presence, City of Solitude, Choke, Aura of Silence, and I would like to include either Exalted Angel or Genju of the Fields/Cedars. Your best bet is to overwhelm with threats; take out Elephant Grasses, Ground Seals, 2 Explorations, 2 Solitary Confinements, 1 Wild Growth, and the other Confinement only if you have Exalted Angel/Genju of the Fields. I wouldn`t usually suggest playing more than one Argothian at a time.

v. ATS - 65%-35%

You play the beatdown here. The only real way they can win is through countering your early Enchantress or having a particularly explosive Survival hand and you having a slow hand. Exploration, Sterling Grove, and Ground Seal all play roles here, in addition to the normal threats. SB you have the option of Humility, but it shouldn`t be needed unless you have a lot of ATS in your area. If you`re playing first, you can bring in Aura of Silence, otherwise, leave it.

v. Welder Survival - 75%-25%

See ATS match, except they don`t have FoW and Ground Seal is even better. They usually can only win through a third turn Titan. SB you bring in Sacred Ground, Karmic Justice, and Aura of Silence.

v. R/G Survival - 80%-20%

See ATS match, except they have no disruption at all. Their usual strategy of attrition isn`t very relevant, since Solitary Confinement with a Sterling Grove is ultimate card advantage, making their deck useless.

v. Solidarity - 10%-90%

This is basically an auto-loss if they have Cunning Wish and Hibernation in the board. If they don't it's probably 35%-65% in their favor. SB option include Gaea`s Blessing, Null Chamber, and Chalice of the Void. Blue builds can access In The Eye of Chaos, but it has poor synergy with Null Chamber. Currently I have Choke and City of Solitude.

v. 2-Land Belcher - 40%-60%

Your Confinement actually does something in this match, but you need to drop it quick. This is one of those match-ups where you hope to go turn 2 Library, draw 3 cards, drop a Confinement, and be able to keep it up. Aura of Silence comes in, with Null Chamber.

v. U/G Madness - 60%-40%

They have to hit you with early disruption and have pressure; sometimes they have both, more often than not they don`t. This is still a thinking match; always play it safe with your Confinements. One of the oddities of the aggro-control match is having to worry about a Confinement resolving reasonably quickly after an Enchantress has resolved. Elephant Grass is also strong in this match-up. City of Solitude and Parallax Wave come in for Seals of Cleansing and a Ground Seal. If you play in a combo-heavy meta, you might want to leave one SoC in in case of Arcane Lab.

v. Goblin Sligh - 65%-35%

Elephant Grass and Solitary Confinement dominate this match-up; they lack answers to your threats. You have to be more carefu games 2 and 3, but this is usually just a matter of finding a Confinement before they can kill you.

v. Vial Goblins - 70%-30%

Above, but less able to race. Like R/G Survival, you don`t care about their card advantage at all. Post board they might access any combination of Anarchy, Flaring Pain, and Pithing Needle. Anarchy and Flaring Pain both mean that you want to keep Elephant Grasses up, even under Confinement.

v. Hulk - 35% - 65%

Counters, Duress, and Pernicious Deed make this a losing battle. There`s really not that much to be said about it; similiar SBing as Landstill, but take out two SoC for Karmic Justices.

v. WWW/Angel Stompy 70%-30%

This isn`t really hard or complicated; they have a few MD Disenchant effects, and a usually slow clock. SB they have Armageddon, so play with that in mind and you should be fine; you have 4 SB options with the above list for that, plus you can hold back a bit on land. Justice also covers any Weenie lover who brought Tempest of Light.

v. Gro 35-65%

What, like 9 counters, plus Naturalizes/Disenchants/Duress/Pyroclasm(depending on build)? This is hard as hell. CotV for 2 post board is sweet though.



Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1132028221

[Garbados]

I'm still sketchy about the lone taiga. It's just begging for a wasteland. And without holistic wisdom, cards besides rootwater thief that have that same sort of effect will continually ruin your day. It'll be a sad day when you get beaten by a kid running Soldiers with Wipe Clean. However, SB'd Sacred Mesa helps, but I still favor Opalescence. It might be slower, . I wonder if switching the Taiga with a mountain wouldn't be a bad idea. You'd have to throw in g/r fetches, but atleast you wouldn't fall on your face to any punk running land hate.

I'm kicking around ideas for a more control-based Enchantress, or atleast a build with a better game against Zilla Stompy (there's 3 of them in my meta! Three!! And the rest of my meta, expect for a deck or two, falls into the category of things that Enchantress just flattens. Namely sligh).

My opinion: So long as your meta is sligh-heavy or Landstill dominated, this deck is a solid choice. Unless your meta is more developed (more MUD, Dragon, Zilla, Landstill, FCG, Angel Control), in which case your chances get reduced to about 1/3 on average. Atleast that's better than zero, I'd say. Solid build, several thumbs up. If we can resolve the issues surrounding WoWar's fragileness, I'd say it'll be optomized.

[gaypron]

i would say, -2 heaths and +2 foothills, and replace 1 of the plains for a mountain

[CavernNinja]

@ Spatula - Hey, I can actually Domain and with the Justice trigger(s) on the stack win the game...or I can Domain let all my shit die and use Caller to spank you with lots of bears. Tranquil Domain I have found is the only card worth boarding in the matchup because he packs so much hate that naturalize isn't going to do anything but delay the inevitable lock with seals and auras and night soil and seals and everything else in his deck apparently.
@ Garbados - Replenish is actually the way that Words gets into play. With Solitary confinement to protect your graveyard from crypt it is a reltively safe thing to do. You discard it at end of turn when you're holding your deck in your hand and then replenish the next turn. I don't think that there is much fragileness with Words of War as Wipe Clean won't hit it. Sterling Grove does actually do stuff BTW.

EDIT: I missed the ATS comment the first time through...ATS has a really hard time keeping up with the number of permanents, especially the number of land, that Solitaire likes to play. I would actually think that the results were a little further in Solitaires favor.

[Zilla]

I want to give you props, Spatula. I'm really pleased to see an optimized decklist with thorough card explanations and matchup results. Given people's interest in the archetype, it's nice to have a solid foundation for them to work from when discussing it.

One clarification though... I'm confused about the results listed for Zilla Stompy. If I'm reading it correctly, Zilla's performance got worse after boarding in Tranquil Domain. The results for all the other matchups were listed as Solitaire/Opponent. Were they transposed for the Zilla matchup, or am I just missing something?

[ns2973]

I would like to join godzilla and give you props. Great card by card analysis and an optimized decklist with what seem to be realistic results. It is indeed nice to have a base from which to work. It must have been a typo that the match went up in zilla.

[overlord95]

@elgin(spatuala)
what happen to gaea's touch i thought it was working pretty well last time i saw the deck. also on the data for hulk we tested this match up it was about 60-40 in favor for hulk but if you need more data we can test it out. also congrads on the win yesterday

[Mad Zur]

There's a limit to how much acceleration one can fit in the deck. Gaea's Touch could only possibly go in for ESG, and Touch can't get you a first turn Argothian ever or a second turn Presence without a basic forest.

I must not have been there for the Zompy testing (It is different from what was posted on the other thread, probably a compilation though), but I would be quite amazed if it was not a typo.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I'm still sketchy about the lone taiga. It's just begging for a wasteland. And without holistic wisdom, cards besides rootwater thief that have that same sort of effect will continually ruin your day. It'll be a sad day when you get beaten by a kid running Soldiers with Wipe Clean. However, SB'd Sacred Mesa helps, but I still favor Opalescence. It might be slower, . I wonder if switching the Taiga with a mountain wouldn't be a bad idea. You'd have to throw in g/r fetches, but atleast you wouldn't fall on your face to any punk running land hate.

I'm kicking around ideas for a more control-based Enchantress, or atleast a build with a better game against Zilla Stompy (there's 3 of them in my meta! Three!! And the rest of my meta, expect for a deck or two, falls into the category of things that Enchantress just flattens. Namely sligh).

My opinion: So long as your meta is sligh-heavy or Landstill dominated, this deck is a solid choice. Unless your meta is more developed (more MUD, Dragon, Zilla, Landstill, FCG, Angel Control), in which case your chances get reduced to about 1/3 on average. Atleast that's better than zero, I'd say. Solid build, several thumbs up. If we can resolve the issues surrounding WoWar's fragileness, I'd say it'll be optomized.

To address the point, it was a typo, I'll edit and fix it.

But to addres Garbados's points; Enchantress only has unfavorable match-ups against two of those decks; MUD and Angel Control. And I disagree on the quality of Angel Control, we've not been impressed with it in testing, but that might be a meta-call.

If the three Zompy decks in your area *aren't* playing Tranquil Domain, then the post-SB looks even better than the pre-SB, bringing in Sacred Mesa for chump blockage.

@Gaea's touch: Unless they restrict Workshop and errata Dragon, I think focusing on Enchantress as a combo deck is a mistake. No build can match Dragon's speed or a Workshop-powered opening. Gaea's Touch would further improve aggro match-ups, but would be situational against control as well. I prefer having Ground Seal; at the least it will cycle, at the most it wins games *and* uber-cantrips.

[Garbados]

@ Spatula
1.) I didn't mean to imply that Solitaire has a bad game against all those "higher developed" decks, only to say that they tend to appear more often in more developed metas. Like your initial explanation stated, 'chantress stomps landstill. Period. Not to mention having a fair game against Zilla (60-40 is fair, I'd say. A little unfavorable, but certainly not unwinnable) and even moreso against FCG and other sligh-styled decks. I think I said 'your chances drop to 1/3' because I was paranoid of Zilla, having never tested out the two decks against eachother myself.

2.) If Solitaire only has a bad game against 2 of those "higher developed" decks, then I have a feeling my experimentation with a control-chantress would be time wasted. I'll just get back to trying to build this version.

@ Cavern Ninja
Oh. I didn't realize that was how you normally did it. In my playing of the deck, I would go off and draw into WoWar, play a (hopefully) found Taiga and get it on the board, then prevent the drawing of the rest of my deck with WoWar and win the game. Silly me. Thanks for pointing that out, though.

[Zilla]

Spatula:

I'm curious what makes you say Angel Control is so unfavorable, when you say your game against Landstill is so solid. The truth is that the two decks aren't that different in terms of strategy. Particlarly after SB, the decks have almost identical threats/answers, differing essentially only in draw engines. Is it Angel Control's ability to run Edict? I'm confused.

[Di]

I just realized something. Although the deck is incredibly fast and provides a great engine, as I've done work with it as well as reported it, I noticed that a control deck only technically needs to counter 3 cards game 1, the 2 Replenish and the Words of War, and then Solitary Confinement if it comes to it. With so few threats in the game 1, are you sure that the matchup against control is so favorable?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Spatula:

I'm curious what makes you say Angel Control is so unfavorable, when you say your game against Landstill is so solid. The truth is that the two decks aren't that different in terms of strategy. Particlarly after SB, the decks have almost identical threats/answers, differing essentially only in draw engines. Is it Angel Control's ability to run Edict? I'm confused.

I think it's Edict + Duress that he's afraid of mainly.


To Diablos: I've said the same thing to him five thousand times. He switches between his "They don't know they only have to counter those spells" defense, and his "Then I just have to wait to cast all three in the same turn and they probably won't be able to counter" defense. Apparently it's worked for him so far... I'd still like to see 1x Words of Worship in the main, though.

Also, Solitary Confinement doesn't ever need to be countered if the goal is to target his kill conditions, since he has no way to keep up the Confinement indefinitely.

[Zilla]

Two enchantress effects on the board is a pretty likely way to keep the Confinement lock going indefinitely. Thus, Confinement might need to be countred if there are two or more enchantress effects on the table. Of course, if it can be killed with mass removal later on, it may not be necessary.

[Di]

Yes, which is why I said, "and then Solitary Confinement if it comes to it." If you have to, then counter it. Also, it's very, very easy for Enchantress to deck themselves. While doing coverage for the top16 at Big Arse, I remember game 2 Spatula only had like 12 cards left on turn 6. It's very easy for you to just deck the enchantress player, so countering a Confinement might not be all that necessary if they will be dead in a couple turns.

[Garbados]

We cannot assume our opponent is stupid. Even if you're constantly running into stupid players, you're just intentionally ruining your deck should your opponent decide hardcasting squee is a bad idea. There are a lot of threats in the deck that will make a control player nervous anyway, so I'm not /too/ surprised Spatula has gotten away with it so far. However, if your meta isn't mandating 4x Ground Seal, you could probably squeeze in some Holistic Wisdoms (If it hits play, all further counterspells are suddenly next to useless) and maybe another kill condition or such thing MD'd. I know for my meta, 1-2 Ground Seals is max, as there's one unpowered Dragon deck and a MUD deck that shows up maybe once every 3 weeks, so i'll be making these changes. However, Ground Seal is 1G, and Holistic Wisdom is 1GG and costs 2 to use and another kill condition would normally score a cc of 3 or so, depending on which card you'd put in. In any case, the potential loss of tempo might be worth its weight in gold if your meta is more control heavy.

Basically, the issue in question is "how do we up the number of things our opponent /must/ counter?" or atleast "how do we prevent our opponent from countering our threats (without watering down the deck)?". the top answers are...
1.) Up the number of threats. (More kill conditions.)
2.) Up the number of ways we keep our threats in the game. (Holistic Wisdoms to act like auxillerary Replenishes and other such effects)
3.) Up the number of ways we can prevent our opponent from killing us. (WoWorship or Confinement-like effects)

I would write more, but I gee-two-gee, so...

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

If they don't interfere with the draw engine they need 3 counters in hand and castable by fourth-fifth turn. It seems unlikely, as most control decks only run 8x counters.

Post-SB eases this situation should it arise, adding 2-3x must-counters. But if anything, maindeck I would probably cut 1x Elephant Grass for either Sacred Mesa or Words of Worship.



And yes, against Angel Control, Edict is a pain, and Duress is another 3-4x counterspells.

[Mad Zur]

The only time that you can deck someone with Confinement is if the number of cards in your deck + the number of cards in your hand > the number of cards in his deck. That's extremely unlikely unless you're playing the mirror... and that doesn't really matter because I wouldn't expect to have much countered there (although Null Chamber could make things interesting :p). No amount of card drawing in the world can keep Confinement going once you run out of cards in the deck.

The control match is usually won or lost by one or two counterspells, so them having four extras makes things considerably closer (remember that less than a third of each deck consists of relevant spells). Scrying is probably better than Standstill, since an early Standstill is rarely correct, and Scrying draws more cards in the late game. U/B has both, though (and Edicts in place of StP), so it's probably worse than Angel, depending on how many Disenchants the Angel player brings in.

I usually run a third Replenish, another kill, and/or City of Solitude, which all make the "counter your win conditions" plan seem poor.

[Garbados]

60 cards.
8 Counters. (3 to be needed)

The individual chance of any given card in the deck being a counter is about 13%. Given that they'll need 3 in their hand by turn 4, they'll have drawn atleast 10 cards of their deck, and it's highly likely they'll have some form of draw. If I remember my algebra correctly, the chances of having 3 counters out of 10 cards is a little over 36%. Of course, I think that's wrong because I always hated algebra. Regardless, 13% is still a fair chunk of that 100.

In any case of how likely your win/non-loss conditions getting funkafied is, it would seem that what you take out for any countermeasures is a meta call. In a MUD/dragon heavy meta, ground seal is simply invaluable and seriously outweighs any and all anti-control things like Holistic Wisdom. However, if your meta (like mine) is almost devoid of MUD and Dragon, then Ground Seal could probably keel over and die in favor of various anti-control measures. Even so, the matter of Enchantress's disruptability is a matter much needed to discuss, regardless of whether the answers are meta calls.

EDIT: Spatula made good points concerning what control players will often counter. While the number of things they /must/ counter is few, the things that make them nervous enough to counter anyway (enchantress effects, namely) are just as viable in this situation. One will eventually run into someone who will let you have your enchantress effects in order to save their counters for that replenish or hardcasted WoWar, and in this case you side in more must-counters. I hate to be assuming my opponent will be less than perfect, but there's two factors saving one's butt from getting pwn'd.
1.) Cards that make opponents very very nervous, namely the namesake of the deck. This will often be countered simply because it's the namesake of the deck. The semi-worthy logic behind it is "if an entire deck can be made around a single card and still be good, then that card must be good/worth countering!" like i said earlier, however, there are those who /will/ see through their nervousness, but only after having played against/with the deck many times.
2.) As I mentioned in the other /closed/ enchantress thread, there are so many enchantress variants running about that knowing exactly what to counter beyond the seemingly obvious is very unlikely. So while you might get a lot of counters hurled at your draw engine, your kill will be relatively safe. Unless you decide, for whatever reason, to hardcast WoWar.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That depends on what deck they're playing; also bear in mind that good players won't let you resolve Enchantresses so they can cast draw spells, hoping to draw the second or third counter and the mana to use them all the same turn. If you're speaking specifically of Landstill, remember that you have the ability to stop their draw with Seal of Cleansing and Aura of Silence. In my time playing the deck, the only time I ran out of kill conditions was once when I was playtesting against Fish, and at the Big Arse against Jander. If they try this and it succeedes 1/3 of the time, that's fine, they'll still lose the other 2/3. Post-SB it's not even a viable strategy, so if that's the entirety of their game-plan, then by all means, let Enchantresses resolve.

Relevant cards against control:
8x Enchantresses
3x Library(if a Library resolves, WoW itself becomes relevant)
3x Grove(tutors Enchantresses)
2x Replenish
4x Ground Seal
(2x Seal of Cleansing, 1x Aura of Silence)

Ground Seal by itself only cycles, however, with a single Enchantress or a Sylvan Library, that effect is considerable. Even by itself, with more relevant cards in your deck and you being the deck on the offensive, cycling Ground Seal is more effective than them cycling Ice or DoJ.



Edited By SpatulaOfTheAges on 1092247381