Top 9 SCG Indy with Enchantress

[dontbiteitholmes]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=41105

Okay, first things first. RIP Misstep, you will be missed. This deck was chosen specifically to eat alive the MM metagame and I'm sad I didn't get to do that. Feel free to test Enchantress vs. UW Mystic or NO RUG if you don't believe me.

Anyways all that aside I thought Enchantress was a bad choice for the meta going in, and I was probably right. I wanted to audible to Team America last minute but instead I stayed up till 4AM bullshitting the night before. This report will 100% be off memory so forgive me if parts are completely wrong.

Round 1: High Tide
G1- I sit down and my opponent is Alex Bertincini... Great round 1 I get the ringer. Knowing the meta and his past history I assume he is playing Merfolk, which I put at about a 50/50 without Misstep. I win the roll and play first. He drops an Island on his turn and Ponders, I know I'm screwed now. He Brain Freezes me easily for the win turn 4.
G2- Believe in miracles. I go first. Turn 3 - Dovescape he doesn't find the Force, turn 4 Argothian, easily win from there.
G3- He combos out on turn 3, I'm thinking the whole time I should casually mention Emrakul so he will play around a card not in my deck and potentially lose to that, but I can't figure out a way to bring it up that he won't instantly read as a bluff (I mean if it's in my deck he's going to know I wouldn't mention it). This will become important later in the day.
0-1-0

Round 2: Merfolk
G1: He rolls me with Merfolks and free counters.
G2: I lock him down with Confinement and make angels, he scoops.
G3: I land a Moat and he digs for Corralhelm. He taps out for a Rejerey, I answer with Choke + Elephant Grass on my turn. He's pretty much done but still has a possible out in Collarhelm off a Vial and activate with Vaults + Wastes. Of course this doesn't happen in time, he dies to angels.
1-1-0

Round 3: UWr Countertop + Jace
G1: He gets early countertop lock. At one point he flips Aethersworn Cannonist off Balance and I politely tell him I'm going to call a judge and confirm it is in his maindeck. I'm about as nice as I can be at this point emphasising I'm just making 100% sure and that I don't think he's cheating but he takes it personally as an accusation of cheating. We play out the game and when he counters my Replenish I scoop since that was my last viable out and we are running low on time.
G2: I lock him out with Solitary and kill him with angels. We have 45 secs. left in round so we take the draw. I give him a play tip (he was flipping counterbalance every time unaware it was a may ability, I always let my opponent know after the game if they missplay because it benefits everyone at that point). He's still sour at me calling the judge (let me say again I couldn't have been nicer about the way I did it, like I said I don't know the guy, and I don't think he's cheating, but I just want to make sure incase he's that one guy in the room) so he gives me the play tip of "don't accuse your opponent of cheating." I actually feel bad so I call over some random people to confirm that it's nothing beyond the pale to call a judge in that situation, but he's not trying to hear it.
1-1-1

Round 4: UW Mystic w/ Counterbalance
G1: He locks me down and kills me with dudes.
G2: I lock him out and kill him with angels.
G3: We are running low on time. We agree that if one person has commanding board position the other will scoop, the only "Gentleman's agreement" ever to exist in Legacy. Turn 3 of turns and I have 2x Enchantress Sigil, several angels and a Confinement. I'm getting nervous that he's going to no sir me. Turn 5 I make several more tokens and for sure I would have had him next turn as he's completely locked out to game. He honors our agreement and scoops. Like I said, he was dead next turn.
2-1-1

Round 5: Zoo
G1: I mull to 4, but it's a solid 4. Enchantress, Guile, land, land. I get tricky with Guile and fetchlands to shuffle away unwanted cards and barely scrape out a Solitary lock the turn before I die. Lavamancer was a serious threat but Confinement showed up right on time and Guile brought it to the top for me.
G2: With Enlightened Tutors coming in this just gets easier. Teeg comes down as a threat but he really only shuts down Replenish and Moats. I land the Solitary lock in time and cruise to victory.
3-1-1

Round 6: UW Mystic
I don't remember much of this match but I easily won it with time to spare.
4-1-1

Round 7: Zoo
G1: Moat locks down his double Guide. I drop Blood Moon for the only time all day to keep him off Pridemage. Solitary next turn locks him out.
G2: Solitary lock again.
5-1-1

Round 8: Solidarity
G1: I had talked to this guy outside between rounds so he knows what I'm playing and vice-versa. This time I try some inception. "Oh man, this matchup is so favorable for you. There's no way I can beat this deck, I mean my friends were telling me I should win this match because of Emrakul, but obviously if you're at 7-1-0 with Solidarity you know how to easily play around Emrakul." He agrees and we talk about how back in the day idiots would put Gaea's Blessing in their SB and think they were immune to Solidarity, the seed is planted (AKA I don't play Emrakul). He's on the play. He drops an Island and passes, I drop land, Growth and pass. He Opts and shrugs. Misses his first land drop, thank god I have a chance. He starts hitting land again. I drop a turn 3 Sigil and turn 4 drop 3 enchantments. 2 turn clock. He's forced to try to go off with lethal on the stack turn 6 with 4 land and whiffs after going through about 2/3 of his deck. Close one. I still don't expect to win.
G2: He starts to go off with Confinement on the stack and aces me with Brain Freeze. I look at the storm count of 40, "Yeah you have enough to play around Emrakul easily let's just go to game 3."
G3: Time gets called around turn 4. I'm turn 0, I drop a Solitary Confinement, there is no easy way to win for me so I'm just going to play for the draw and try to top 32. He passes to me and I'm turn 2. I discard Dovescape to Confinement then Replenish. He thinks hard and decides to try to go off in response to Replenish on the stack (Dovescape is only thing in GY Confinement and 2x Enchantress in play, if he let's Replenish resolve we draw since he can never kill me with tokens or remove Confinement). At this point I see some light at the end of the tunnel since if he misses after a couple Meditates I could win, long shot I know but still... So he starts going off, at one point he tries to Intuition and I point out that doesn't work under Confinement. He plays out several Meditates but since I put him on a clock he can't remove Confinement and play around Emrakul at the same time he fizzles. He thinks hard and decides to force Replenish after doing math and realizing I could kill him with tokens. I go to turn 3 and let Confinement die. I have Sigil in hand so I drop that and start making tokens. I'm still going to need Words of War and Sanctum to pull out a win. I dig like crazy turn 4 and find everything I need, of course I don't remember the exact way it played out but there was a lot of tricky play going on to make it all happen. I start turn 5 and show him my hand, he scoops so that everyone doesn't have to wait another 10 mins. for us to finish, I have everything I need just a matter of putting it all together.
6-1-1

Round 9: UW Mystic
This was the feature match, so feel free to look up to replay on SCGLive.
I open both games with a mull to 6 and one land + Mirri's Guile. He gets poor draws both games and never has a fighting chance. I lock him down and dispatch him in standard fashion.
7-1-1

I'm the only 7-1-1 to not make top 8. Oh well, the top 8 was not favorable to my deck anyways and I have school early Monday so I scoop my $100 and drive home.

This is my 2nd top 16 with Enchantress at SCGs. When built correctly Enchantress should beat everything but combo and decks with Deed. I wouldn't recommend it again until Reanimator and ANT get beat back out of the format, but given the right meta it's a strong choice. Blood Moon was the wrong silver bullet for this event, Choke is usually the right call here and this event was no exception. I would either run Choke or Nevermore in that slot for the time being. Possibly an even better choice would be splashing a Trop and running MD In the Eye of Chaos, but this is virtually untested. I thought about it @ GP Columbus and decided against it last minute and it's been sitting in my binder ever since.

Don't play Enchantress unless you have tested a lot. It's a deck that has many favorable matchups but it's also a deck that you can easily play yourself out of a win if you aren't careful. Knowing how to play your fetchlands to manipulate your deck with Mirri's Guile is crucial and is the difference between winning and losing more often then not.

[OurSerratedDust]

Nice work on your finish. Tough luck on 9th though.

[JustPAT4]

Hey man,

I have tremendous respect for your posts here. You often make me laugh, think, and realize things I should have known.

Congrats on the finish.

I happened to catch the feature match live. I was wondering if you were nervous (because of the standings/cameras) or if you were simply being especially careful. Tough to tell.

Cheers,

Pat

[dontbiteitholmes]

Hey man,

I have tremendous respect for your posts here. You often make me laugh, think, and realize things I should have known.

Congrats on the finish.

I happened to catch the feature match live. I was wondering if you were nervous (because of the standings/cameras) or if you were simply being especially careful. Tough to tell.

Cheers,

Pat

I made one misplay that I remember and that was forgetting the order I stacked Mirri's Guile and drawing a land I didn't want instead of shuffling it away with another fetch with Enchantress triggers on the stack, which caused me to have to sac Solitary with no enchantments in hand. I starting playing a little sloppy late in the match, but only because I was so incredibly far ahead it would have taken a miracle for him to come back. Glad you like my comments on here, I've been playing since revised so hopefully some people will find what I say insightful. It would be a shame to do something off and on for 15 years and still be terrible at it...

[dontbiteitholmes]

I just watched SCGLive archive of part of my match. I wasn't that nervous. For the record I drank like 5 cokes and took 2 adderall earlier in the day, so that had a lot to do with the shaking. I was playing slow because I was forced to keep one land openers in both games and I didn't want to play into Wasteland and get blown out. I had to let Solitary die because obviously I didn't have what it took to keep it alive game 1 or I would never have sacced it. Also for the record it was not my first time being on the bubble for an SCG open. I also top 8'd in 2006/2007 it was just before they started keeping records and calling them opens and this is my 6th SCG open since I started playing again last year. I was playing slow because first the match got delayed at the start, then I had to mull to one land, then some of my deck was in upside down, then I kept whiffing on Mirri's for more land, then the judge and Kenta kept asking me questions, so I had to do all kinds of what if scenarios in my head to not blow it while counting mana and responding to questions from 2 people. The deck is hard to play, I usually play much faster but I can't see a clock from where I was sitting and apparently that's a big part of my routine as not being able to see the clock made me feel like I wasn't playing as slowly.

[JustPAT4]

Haha I can definitely see the adderall having everything to do with the shaky hands, on top of difficult decisions early on, outside questions, and awkward mana. Definitely not an easy deck to pilot, though a ton of fun in my opinion.

Thanks for clearing that up about the Solitary. I was truly baffled, but could only think that you simply ran out of enchantments to keep the engine running. I missed the fetch opportunity there.

Congrats again.

I look forward to following your posts in the future.

Pat

[dontbiteitholmes]

Yeah that coverage was embarrassing. I definitely got 4 hours sleep the night before and 5 hours on Friday. The only thing keeping me awake at that point was Adderall and Coke and by that point I had been playing Magic for 9 hours with only a candy bar to eat all day. I was just completely fatigued to be honest and it shows in the coverage. I obviously don't play that slowly normally or I would never have made it that far with Enchantress but I wasn't nervous at being in the coverage but to be honest I actually am a little shaky naturally and stressing my body and mind with lack of food/sleep does not wear well.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

It's funny, when I saw the top 16, saw Enchantress, and checked out the list I was like, "Huh, lotsa Guiles and the Dovescape/Shusher package in the board...somebody must be reading that guy over on the Source and playing good cards." Turns it, it was in fact "that guy on the Source" behind the deck.

Congrats on the good finish. Beating Solidarity must have been a rush.