[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[GreenOne]

Which should almost never be sufficient to stop you between Enchantresses, Replenish, and Grove.

Or they could just EE for 0 and take out all your tokens.

Yeah, with mesa too. I just need to play a couple enchantment and put the opponent in a 3 turn clock with sigil (and still have/draw a couple enchantments in hand). You don't need to overextend.

What makes you think that you're going to get to 5 mana (double white) against them and not be dead all ready?

If I'm not getting to 5 mana (double white) then Mesa is useless too. However, if I hit 5 mana sigil actually does something, where Mesa doesn't.

If you're drawing neither mana nor your actual threats, your luck is terrible.

I don't understand. When did I say I never drew actual threats? I just pointed out that when on 5 mana Sigil starts to work, where Mesa does not.

Why do you prefer a deck with 2 wincons?

Do you run into a lot of people playing Extract?

Yesterday I had my Words of War Thoughtseized and Extirpated. I won that game.

[honz]

Yesterday I had my Words of War Thoughtseized and Extirpated. I won that game.

To be honest, this is such a freak occurance that i wouldn't give it too much thought. This not only requires both players to be holding the perfect set of cards, but also requires that you have neither ground seal or confinement in play. However, crypt / relic often get sided in against replenish, and then can get lucky with sieze/hym/specter...etc I am begining to run 2, mainly because of that. I would imagine playing 1 win-con in the main and 1 in the board would work rather nicely.

@ hi-val: i really fail to see the problem here. Between 2 win-cons, 3 replenish (i think 3 is the right number) you already outnumber their 4 forces. If they are holding all their counters, then you should be able to go off (finding all said cards) before they find even 3 of those forces. Also, since they aren't countering anything, you should be able to hold onto those replenish. Post board, you have # choke / # blood moon / #city of solitude to slow their cantrips, and provide more must-counters. If counterbalance is the problem, run more aura of silence / oblivion ring / seal of primordium.

[GreenOne]

In another game that happened vs black based control the opponent thoughtseized and extirpated my Presences. Then he played plague on my argothians. It was almost impossible to find an Oblivion Ring / Aura of silence for his plague and then topdeck one of the 3 Argothians I had before he could topdeck another Plague / Extirpate/ he would win. So I tutored Sacred mesa, making 2 tokens a turn. He fund a plague (pegasus) and I lost. Sigil would have saved me here.

[honz]

In another game that happened vs black based control the opponent thoughtseized and extirpated my Presences. Then he played plague on my argothians. It was almost impossible to find an Oblivion Ring / Aura of silence for his plague and then topdeck one of the 3 Argothians I had before he could topdeck another Plague / Extirpate/ he would win. So I tutored Sacred mesa, making 2 tokens a turn. He fund a plague (pegasus) and I lost. Sigil would have saved me here.

Agressively mull into ground seal? Sometimes you just loose games. Not many people are playing plagues and extirpates (short of survival), but if your meta is full of extirpate.dec, perhaps its time to play a different deck.

[Forbiddian]

About my comment earlier:

Sacred Mesa is not a standalone threat. How do people think 8 mana for support is nothing? Ok, if you're ridiculously mana flooded and you hit 8 land drops and have never draw a single enchantment, then sure, Sacred Mesa is "standalone." Other than that, it relies on a lot of enchantments already on the board.

In a real game, you get to 8 mana off of Serra's Sanctum and a stack of wild growth effects. Any board sweepers or wastelands really inhibit Sanctum. To say nothing of the upkeep cost inhibiting Elephant Grass.

Say you have the reasonable board: Ground Seal, Mesa, two wild growths (and maybe an exploration thrown in), 3 land, and a sanctum. This is a great time to have Mesa, you're really threat light and have a lot of mana.


You get 9-10 mana a turn. Engineered Explosives @ 1 in this case strips you down to 5 mana a turn. Wasteland strips you down to 5.

But even worse, say you keep Sacred Mesa in your hand, because it's a "standalone threat." Your opponent sweeps your board. Now you have a pitiful three mana per turn to generate a net 0 tokens. Nice. Of course in this situation, Sigil couldn't be resolved, either, but Sacred Mesa is JUST AS DEAD in its glorious "I'm a Standalone Threat, I need no help from other cards."


Sigil requires you to draw into threats. Sacred Mesa requires you to have a lot of enchantments on the board and a Serra's Sanctum. Both require at least WW and probably 6 mana to be effective at all.


I fail to understand how one is condemned as dependent on other cards and the other is considered a standalone bomb.

Again, I like Sacred Mesa, and I'll test Sigil, but my gut tells me I'll probably stick with Mesa. Still, I won't delude myself into thinking that Sacred Mesa is some sort of standalone threat in the current metagame. It requires me to have a lot of enchantments on the board and either a Serra's Sanctum or a lot more land and a lot more enchantments.

Sacred Mesa probably WAS a standalone threat against like ~ landstill. In the modern game, it's not. Most decks would gladly force me to pay 1W upkeep every turn just to stay alive for each creature they have (fewer turns against Grass), and a lot of decks run Jitte or mana denial.


Sacred Mesa is still fairly effective in those situations, but it requires the rest of the deck to be firing on all cylinders. Certainly not a standalone threat (epitomized by, say, Morphling).

[landstill101]

About my comment earlier:

Sacred Mesa is not a standalone threat. How do people think 8 mana for support is nothing? Ok, if you're ridiculously mana flooded and you hit 8 land drops and have never draw a single enchantment, then sure, Sacred Mesa is "standalone." Other than that, it relies on a lot of enchantments already on the board.

In a real game, you get to 8 mana off of Serra's Sanctum and a stack of wild growth effects. Any board sweepers or wastelands really inhibit Sanctum. To say nothing of the upkeep cost inhibiting Elephant Grass.

Say you have the reasonable board: Ground Seal, Mesa, two wild growths (and maybe an exploration thrown in), 3 land, and a sanctum. This is a great time to have Mesa, you're really threat light and have a lot of mana.


You get 9-10 mana a turn. Engineered Explosives @ 1 in this case strips you down to 5 mana a turn. Wasteland strips you down to 5.

But even worse, say you keep Sacred Mesa in your hand, because it's a "standalone threat." Your opponent sweeps your board. Now you have a pitiful three mana per turn to generate a net 0 tokens. Nice. Of course in this situation, Sigil couldn't be resolved, either, but Sacred Mesa is JUST AS DEAD in its glorious "I'm a Standalone Threat, I need no help from other cards."


Sigil requires you to draw into threats. Sacred Mesa requires you to have a lot of enchantments on the board and a Serra's Sanctum. Both require at least WW and probably 6 mana to be effective at all.


I fail to understand how one is condemned as dependent on other cards and the other is considered a standalone bomb.

Again, I like Sacred Mesa, and I'll test Sigil, but my gut tells me I'll probably stick with Mesa. Still, I won't delude myself into thinking that Sacred Mesa is some sort of standalone threat in the current metagame. It requires me to have a lot of enchantments on the board and either a Serra's Sanctum or a lot more land and a lot more enchantments.

Sacred Mesa probably WAS a standalone threat against like ~ landstill. In the modern game, it's not. Most decks would gladly force me to pay 1W upkeep every turn just to stay alive for each creature they have (fewer turns against Grass), and a lot of decks run Jitte or mana denial.


Sacred Mesa is still fairly effective in those situations, but it requires the rest of the deck to be firing on all cylinders. Certainly not a standalone threat (epitomized by, say, Morphling).

And a deck like this when you do draw some cards with ground seal and the enchantress effects, you should not have a problem getting to omg 4 lands, really, how often do you get stuck at 3 lands? More than most of the time I have to many and use them for discard with confinemnt.

4 mana is enough for it to be stand alone, this will produce 1 guy a turn to block, but while you are blocking, (omg no one has noticed this) you are still drawing cards, which can draw you into more lands, or other enchantments which help. So yes it is a stand alone card, because it doesn't matter if you draw a land or an enchantment, you can still make guys, but with sigil, if you draw a land, you don't get a guy.

[Jaiminho]

And a deck like this when you do draw some cards with ground seal and the enchantress effects, you should not have a problem getting to omg 4 lands, really, how often do you get stuck at 3 lands? More than most of the time I have to many and use them for discard with confinemnt.

4 mana is enough for it to be stand alone, this will produce 1 guy a turn to block, but while you are blocking, (omg no one has noticed this) you are still drawing cards, which can draw you into more lands, or other enchantments which help. So yes it is a stand alone card, because it doesn't matter if you draw a land or an enchantment, you can still make guys, but with sigil, if you draw a land, you don't get a guy.

One pegasus will block only one attacker. Also, why would you want to draw enchantments, if you won't have mana to play them? Mesa's being overrated here. You can't just drop it on turn 3 and hope to win the game.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

You guys don't understand the deck.

Neither Mesa nor Sigil are part of your plan A. The only situation where either one would be of any value to the deck is when you have no better threats (Enchantresses, Replenish, Grove).

Saying that the mana you have to sink into Mesa is equivalent to the cards and mana you have to sink into Sigil is an indication that you don't appreciate what function either one would serve in your deck.

And playing unnecessary cards because the opponent might Thoughtseize your 1 win con if its in your opening hand, might actually be running MD Extirpate, might have drawn said Extirpate, and you didn't have Ground Seal, is a ridiculous case of giving into the fear.

I'll take my chances.

[GreenOne]

I'll take my chances.

I don't believe in the history of magic there were a control deck playing 1x wincondition in the entire deck. The 2 winconditions are here to make it easier to win once you are stalling the game. For eg. if the opponent has a Meddling/needle naming your wincon, it's easier to just tutor the other one, than to remove the needle (if you have O.Rings left) and then tutor for the other wincon. Other than that, it's not usually a bad thing to see 1 wincondition in the first 20-25 cards or so.
Note that Sigil/Mesa act like a wincondition but also as a control card, providing a good number of blockers (Mesa) or some number of big blockers (Sigil).
It's not like I never wished that Mesa was Oblivion Ring or something else, but I'm generally happy to see a wincondition my opponent has to deal with (by the time I see it), and sometimes Mesa did the job (worse, but it worked) to stall the ground anyway. I hope Sigil will fill that role better. I'll test the card once it's out.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Why is the history of other decks relevant to how many kill conditions this deck should run?

Especially since this isn't a control deck?

[GreenOne]

Why is the history of other decks relevant to how many kill conditions this deck should run?
Especially since this isn't a control deck?

It's not relevant, but I just wanted to point it out, cause it's quite strange.
But anyway, this IS a control deck:
- It plays a HUGE amount of control cards (Grass, Ring, Confinament, Moat, Ground Seal, Runed Halo). Something like 1/3 or 1/4 of the deck
- It plays a CA engine in enchantresses and Replenish and card selection in Sterling Grove.
- It plays only a few winconditions
- It does win only after it has stabilized the board, and NEVER before turn 4.

It's definetly not aggro, and it wants to have some sort of board control before winning, so it's not combo.
I'd definetly say it's a Control deck, but if you want it, you can call it Control-Combo.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

On the other hand it has no card selection or disruption.

Card advantage can be part of any deck. You don't need to stabilize the board to win, you just need to stall against aggro decks. Running few win cons is common to both combo and control.


But ultimately, the labels are outdated anyway.

[GreenOne]

On the other hand it has no card selection or disruption.

Card advantage can be part of any deck.

But ultimately, the labels are outdated anyway.

Disruption is everything that generally mess with your opponent's gameplan, being it removal (O.Ring), something that slows down (Grass), something that mess with their graveyard recursion (Ground Seal), etc.

Tutors and cantrips are almost the definition of card selection. Our deck plays 4x Sterling Grove. Check.

Card advantage can be part of any deck, but in fact is not. Canadian Thrash, Team America and Goyf Sligh don't play any form of card advantage, for example.

Labels can be outdated, but it's important to be aware of who's the beatdown in the match. And our role is more than often to be the control deck.

You don't need to stabilize the board to win, you just need to stall against aggro decks.

Well, let's suppose that I took some points of damage in the early game against an aggro deck. If I stall and still take some points each turn I'm probably going to lose (eg. I'm stalling with Elephant Grass, so I'm taking only 4 a turn by a Goyf). I need to keep a confinament up, or to completely shut down opponent's creatures (Moat, O.Ring, Halo) before winning or the opponent could just attack or burn me ftw.

[Forbiddian]

On the other hand it has no card selection or disruption.

Card advantage can be part of any deck. You don't need to stabilize the board to win, you just need to stall against aggro decks. Running few win cons is common to both combo and control.

But ultimately, the labels are outdated anyway.

Uh, you pretty much need to stabilize the board to win. I've never seen someone go off with Words without being at least able to dig to and resolve a Solitary.

But the main problem I have is this distinction between card advantage and card selection. If you draw three cards and DON'T HAVE TO PUT TWO BACK why is that somehow worse than Brainstorm? Or somehow put into a different category.

Card selection is about seeing more cards. Also, this deck typically runs 1-2 copies of sylvan library and/or mirri's guile.

And it runs disruption elements like Ground Seal (how do you not consider that disruption), Moat, etc. Are you defining disruption as countermagic or discard only?

[hi-val]

I played around with two Sigils in the deck over Mesa and Words. I'd hope everyone else weighing in with their opinion has done the same, so nobody's just spinning wheels. It takes significantly less time to goldfish a hand than write a forum post! Anyway, in the limited work I did, I found that when Sigil shines, it's when you have one or two Enchantresses out and you can chain Sprawls and Wild Growths together with other cheap enchantments and end up with 5 angels on the board at the end of the turn. In that sense, it gives the opponent a lot less time to get Explosives going or something else to stop the token rush.

I'm still out on whether it's worthy or not but I was much more impressed with it than I thought I would be.

[GreenOne]

I played around with two Sigils in the deck over Mesa and Words. I'd hope everyone else weighing in with their opinion has done the same, so nobody's just spinning wheels. It takes significantly less time to goldfish a hand than write a forum post! Anyway, in the limited work I did, I found that when Sigil shines, it's when you have one or two Enchantresses out and you can chain Sprawls and Wild Growths together with other cheap enchantments and end up with 5 angels on the board at the end of the turn. In that sense, it gives the opponent a lot less time to get Explosives going or something else to stop the token rush.

I'm still out on whether it's worthy or not but I was much more impressed with it than I thought I would be.

I had a bit of goldfish with it (single copy -1 Mesa +1 Sigil), but goldfish is not relevant in a deck that has so much interaction with the opponent. However, the pressure that this enchantment keeps on the opponent wants him ro find some solution really fast, I agree with you.

[Gibbie_X]

But ultimately, the labels are outdated anyway.

Agreed...


How can you not call a deck Aggro when 1 win-con is flying beat sticks? It may either fit in all the types, or start a new type. In order to fit in Combo, you would be playing Beasts or PandaBurst. Well, with this new Sigil, that is a combo all by itself. What about prison, seeing that you lock yourself in a bubble and wait to smash, not leaving you opponent much room to maneuver.

[GreenOne]

How can you not call a deck Aggro when 1 win-con is flying beat sticks?

Back in the days monoblue control was running a couple of Morphling as finishers. You couldn't call it aggro, though.

According to Wikipedia:
Aggro (short for "aggressive"),(may also be known as "beatdown") is a strategy that aims to win as quickly as possible. This is usually done by aiming for maximum damage output in the early turns and often places a heavy emphasis on using creatures as efficient damage sources

It may either fit in all the types, or start a new type. In order to fit in Combo, you would be playing Beasts or PandaBurst. Well, with this new Sigil, that is a combo all by itself. What about prison, seeing that you lock yourself in a bubble and wait to smash, not leaving you opponent much room to maneuver.

This deck is clearly of the Control or Prison type. Yeah, labels can be outdated, but you still need to realize what your plan is. And definetly the main plan of this deck is reach control of the board and then win.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

That's ridiculous.

Your goal is to win.

Period.

Every deck's goal is to win.

How you get there depends on what deck you're playing against.

[GreenOne]

That's ridiculous.

Your goal is to win.

Period.

Every deck's goal is to win.

How you get there depends on what deck you're playing against.

What a great piece of knowledge. Thanks for pointing out that the goal, in that magical game, is to win. However, decks are following different paths to reach the winning status.

Against everything that's faster than you (anything non-control) you want to stabilize the board and then win. You're the control deck in those matchups.
Check out the classic "Who's the beatdown" by Flores for more info.