[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[ESG]

Play Carpet of Flowers. It beats Daze. It's also really good when combined with Elephant Grass. Either they boost your mana by playing more lands, or they don't attack you and you get more turns to develop your board. Consider playing a bomb that can't be Spell Snared, like Worship. I personally prefer Worship to Moat. No problems with flying, and it doesn't even cost me a draw step. If you're deeper into white and want to try overloading their Spell Snares, Circle of Protection: Blue (all the CoPs, for that matter) is better than people remember. Runed Halo and Oblivion Ring are other options. I haven't tested it, but Soul Snare is another possibility. Being deeper into green, I run more than the standard number of Lignify and have been pretty happy with that. If you one-for-one troublesome creatures, you're going to pull ahead, because Enchantress has one of the best draw engines in the game. Replenish, as always, is very good against counterspells. If they have a faster clock, like RUG Thresh, then you either ignore the clock and try to set up your combo or lock, or you remove the creature.

[XdeckX]

Sometimes blue players get nutty draws but most of the time I'm able to grind out a win. You play so many (nearly) must-counters that you're bound to land something.
On other occations though it's just not meant to be.
Last FNM I played against UW Stoneblade with Snapcasters. I lost game 1 for some reason. 2nd game he countered the first 5 relevant spells I played with 3 spell pierce and 2 spell snare while landing a turn 3 stoneforge (fetch SoFF) into the skull. When Enchantress can't draw more than 1 card per turn while being under pressure then things go south pretty fast.
Most of the time you just need to land 1 enchantress effect and play some crap while refilling against control.

[Dalapin]

I am new to the deck and DO NOT mean to start a discussion on any crappy cards that aren't worth it. I would just like to know if Island Sanctuary is ever used as a cheap halfway between Moat and Solitary against tribal? I understand that the tribal match-up is already great and so why bother adding or exchanging anything.

If someone could give a little explanation I feel I might be able to glean some subtleties about the deck.

[damionblackgear]

Island Sanctuary reads,

"If you would draw a card during your draw step, instead you may skip that draw. If you do, until your next turn, you can't be attacked except by creatures with flying and/or islandwalk."

So, yes and no. The thing is. if you don't have an enchantress on the field then you're probably not going to be happy here. If you do, pray they don't play Lord of Atlantis.

With Solitary Confinement, you can't stop them from attacking (since you won't have a draw step) but, it wouldn't be needed with a confinement out... unless they destroy it before damage.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Island Sanctuary is a pretty poor replacement for Moat because Moats biggest strength is that it allows you to lock down many creatures while still drawing cards for turn so you can use it in situations where solitary lock is not suitable, ie when your draw engine isn't online yet. In most cases you will just end up wishing Sanctuary was Solitary or Moat. If you are looking into a Moatless build try spatula's list on the last page as a more combo centric approach.

[Dalapin]

Island Sanctuary is a pretty poor replacement for Moat because Moats biggest strength is that it allows you to lock down many creatures while still drawing cards for turn so you can use it in situations where solitary lock is not suitable, ie when your draw engine isn't online yet. In most cases you will just end up wishing Sanctuary was Solitary or Moat. If you are looking into a Moatless build try spatula's list on the last page as a more combo centric approach.

I understand much better now, I just got my Moat today so I'm not looking for that kind of build, it just seemed like a reasonable card and I wanted to understand more about the deck and WHY it doesn't fit within it. Thank you for the explanation.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

When Moat is good, it's good because it functions on its own, regardless of whether the draw engine is in place. When the draw engine is in place, all cards are inferior to Solitary Confinement. Therefore, Island Sanctuary, although it appears like it has the strengths of both cards, actually has the weaknesses of both while being inferior to either.

It's definitely tricked me a couple times into a SB slot, and it's been a disappointment every single time.

[Oiolosse]

Therefore, Island Sanctuary, although it appears like it has the strengths of both cards, actually has the weaknesses of both while being inferior to either.

Good analysis.

[scrubbysniff]

What's up Enchantress thread? I am fairly new to the archetype, one of the few decks in Legacy I can afford to play (no blue duals, forces etc). In my limited amount of testing I've come to hate Sigil as a win con, I'd rather just run a second words of war. It seems like it would only be good if I ran crossroads, as I like to win in a single turn. Can anyone make a compelling argument that would convince me to keep it in? I've also been running Opalesence in the side, most people tend to board out all their creature control against me, has not backfired so far. Mainly this decks make me pissed I sold off my moat when it was like 70 bucks, I have grown to hate 16 year old me.

edit: advance apology if these have already been covered, I've read a decent chunk but its a LONG thread.

[Nonex]

I like to win in a single turn.

This is pretty much the only reason why you would avoid playing Sigil. However, since the deck already takes several turns to get everything it needs online, waiting for a couple more should be the least of your worries. Besides, winning the turn after you cast Sigil is very, very common, just like winning the turn after casting Words of War. You don't need and shouldn't run Concordant Crossroads because it's unnecessary and often counterproductive, and I suggest you never run more than 1 Words of War; it's redundant and you only want to see it late game anyway.

[damionblackgear]

Can anyone make a compelling argument that would convince me to keep it in?

sometimes you don't have a red source, the ability to not draw the card, or the need to block because you can't win without making it to the next turn. They also Sac/block Emrakul. Can't think of anything else.

[Julian23]

Too bad that today only a few decks scoop to Moat and I'm finding it impossible to beat blue decks with Snapcaster Mage.

Good builds of Enchantress are always playing around 2-3 copies of Ground Seals. Try to incorporate these into your list. Also, Sigil will randomly win you games, when you cast it on turn3, no matter how many Enchantress effects you've got in the board - something that Words of War will never play. Stick with Sigil, it's worth it.

[Dark Ritual]

Good builds of Enchantress are always playing around 2-3 copies of Ground Seals. Try to incorporate these into your list. Also, Sigil will randomly win you games, when you cast it on turn3, no matter how many Enchantress effects you've got in the board - something that Words of War will never play. Stick with Sigil, it's worth it.

Yeah people fail to realize that crapping out flying tarmogoyf's every turn after sigil resolves is actually a solid plan for winning the game not to mention the fact that over half your deck is enchantments so you have pretty good odds of hitting. And if you draw an argothian off the top darn I guess you get an enchantress effects while the same is true of GSZ. Chrome mox is the nut low when you aren't playing it turn 1 and you aren't combo'ing off with enchantress effects. Replenish is always dependant on your GY as per usual.

[Fjedsen]

Sigil is also good to have different win options.
A lot of people (especially blue and white mages) board things like Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle against me. Sigil is not affected by Pithing Needle and 1-2 Meddling Mages on Words of War would be a huge problem to play around.

[Dark Ritual]

Well I often discard words of war during cleanup due to having more than 7 cards in hand and in that case you can replenish to just get around meddling mage. Meddling mage isn't a problem for this deck at all really unless they play one and name the correct enchantress effect that you have in your hand before it hits play. But I rarely see meddling mage sided in against me and I rarely see it played either.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I played the following list at the Charlotte Open:

4x Argothian
4x Presence
2x GSZ

4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Wild Growth
2x Exploration
2x ESG

4x Elephant Grass
4x Ground Seal
3x Sterling Grove
2x Solitary Confinement
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Choke

1x Words of War
2x Replenish

2x Serra's Sanctum
3x Savannah
1x Taiga
2x Verdant Catacombs
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswept Heath
10x Forest

SB:

4x Carpet of Flowers
2x Choke
1x Energy Storm
1x Karmic Justice
1x Humility
1x Sacred Ground
1x Nevermore
1x Stony Silence
1x Sigil of the Empty Throne
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Yavimaya Enchantress

A couple cards would have been different if I had had access to everything I wanted. There should've been a Lignify in the board and a Mirri's Guile MD.

Round 1:

Game 1: He wins the roll and opens with basic swamp, blind Therapy naming FoW. I try to figure out what he's playing. What I do after is largely irrelevant, because I didn't draw Ground Seal and it turns out he's playing Golden Grahams. Remember that deck? I play an Enchantress instead of an unsupported Confinement, noticing Salvagers in play, the LED in the yard, but not the Chromatic Star in his bin.

I already have Ground Seal against him, if I draw it, and I bring in Humility, Stony Silence and Nevermore.

Game 2: I mull to 5 and keep a hand that has a turn 1 Ground Seal and nothing else. I should note I wasn't mulling into a Ground Seal, I just didn't have any enchantresses. So I don't draw any gas for five turns, and he Gamekeepers into Emrakul.

0-1

So I use this time to do some scouting. I see a lot of Dredge, surprisingly, as well as Delver, Maverick, Bant, Blade-control. Some Reanimator, but not a lot. Also a fair spread of random decks; I note one other Enchantress player, some Team America, some Mud, some Goblins, Storm combo, a handful of Zoo. The only deck I didn't see was Merfolk.

So I'm down 1, but I clear my head and go into the next round.

Round 2

This guy for some reason strikes me as an aggro player, so when my 7 isn't keepable, I decide not to mull a 6 card hand with no Enchantresses but 2 Grass. I find out quickly that this is not the case, and he is in fact playing Bladecontrol. Crap. I draw into a second Grove to join the one from my opener, and both are countered. This is the beginning of my inklings that this guy might not be the best player. I resolve a Replenish, still no Enchantresses out, but 2 Grasses to hold back his Batterskull and 2 Groves. I grove next turn for a Choke when he taps out for Jace. I get an Enchantress the next turn. This game ends up being tight, me being at low life and him with a fully active Jace, but I got Confinement out in time and that's all she wrote.

Out comes

-4 Wild Growth
-2 Exploration
-1 Words of War
-1 Solitary Confinement

+2 Choke
+4 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
+1 Yavimaya Enchantress

This game involved him countering my first two Enchantresses, me resolving a Choke, and then a Yavimaya Enchantress. So that was that.

1-1

Round 3

I keep a solid hand and he drops turn 1 Delver. I guess he has a couple Snapcasters because Ground Seal gets countered along with an Enchantress. Elephant Grass buys time into a Replenish, and I draw into too many Enchantresses/Grasses for him to handle.

-4 Wild Growth
-2 Exploration
+4 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Choke
+1 Energy Storm

Game 2 his double Delvers don't blind-hit an instant or sorcery for four turns, and the lack of pressure makes this game one sided.

2-1

This round I end up getting paired against Blue Sligh with a ton of burn and Delvers. The first game is one of the weirdest I've ever played with this deck;

I'm on the play, I land-go, he drops Lavamancer. I drop Argothian. He goes double Rift Bolt. I drop Confinement. He chooses to hit himself for 6 instead of killing his Lavamancer. I let Confinement drop and O. Ring his Lavamancer. He drops Sulfuric Vortex. I draw no more enchantments and play both ESGs. One gets burned and the other gets bounced. I'm letting lands build in my hand at this point. I Replenish Confinement back into play, and by the time I pass with 0 cards left in hand, he is at 1 life with the Vortex in play.

Game 2 I only bring in Energy Storm, as he was playing a lot of basic mountains. I take out Choke.

He gets an early start with Delver and Goblin Guide backup, and I lose because I named white instead of green with a Utopia Sprawl.

Game 3 I keep him off my back with an Elephant Grass for a couple turns, but bottlenecking on 3 mana I let it drop for a Confinement with only one Enchantress on the board, but two more in hand. So this is a dangerous decision but my only real path to victory. It takes two more turns to draw into lands, but eventually the lock stabilizes.

3-1

Round 4 I face yet another turn 1 Delver. Luckily for me, although he flips off an upkeep Brainstorm, a second land doesn't join my opponent's board for a few turns, so an Elephant Grass pretty much seals this.

-4 Wild Growth
-2 Exploration
+4 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Choke
+1 Energy Storm

He has a turn 1 Delver that is quickly joined by a Goblin Guide. I get out an Energy Storm but he lands a Pyrostatic Pillar and I can't find a Confinement.

-1 Words of War
+1 Sigil of the Empty Throne (it avoids Pillar sort of)

I mull to 6 and he has the Delver/Guide opening again, and enough countermagic to back it up. I pass one turn away from a stable lock hoping he doesn't have another bolt, but he does.

3-2

Round 6 I won't even get into; he was playing CRET Belcher and had a turn 1 win game 2.

So my record for the day was

Combo 0-2
Delver 2-1
Bladecontrol 1-0

Conclusions: I'm not sure Yavimaya is worth the board slot. The MD Choke was an MVP. GSZ was great. I still find it absurd that there are people not running 4x Elephant Grass. Energy Storm was okay, but I think a CoP Red would have helped more. Or maybe run both.

And lastly, maybe with the printing of Nevermore and Stony Silence, and a fairly open meta, it actually is time to start reconsidering the combo matchup in the board. This would start with 4x Enlightened Tutor, and probably include things like Stony Silence, CotV, Nevermore, Humility, Tormod's Crypt.

[guelahpapyrus]

Thanks for the report, Spatula. A few questions:

What's your feeling on Blood Moon? What would you have brought Sacred Ground in against? I'd also be curious on your thoughts regarding the Pridemage. I didn't find him that helpful in my testing. What did you think of him?

[ForlornEgoist]

Thanks for the report, Spatula. A few questions:

What's your feeling on Blood Moon? What would you have brought Sacred Ground in against? I'd also be curious on your thoughts regarding the Pridemage. I didn't find him that helpful in my testing. What did you think of him?

I currently use Blood Moon in my build (switching between MD and SB based on what I expect in my local metas) and I've found running it as a 1-of can randomly screw over players while ultimately not harming us that greatly. Combo/control (bant/rock) can randomly get screwed by not fetching their single basics, so dropping an early Moon can easily win you the game. Albeit it shuts off our Sanctums which can damage our tempo greatly, I've found having that 1 mana screw/nonbasic out to be well worth the risk.
In regards to Sacred Ground I can't imagine what decks he was assuming he'd encounter that would warrant it. Honestly, the only two MU's I've ever felt any desire to have this card were Stax and Lands, both of which are already heavily in our favor.

@ Spatula:
Thanks for posting up the report. Couple of questions:

Why 4 Carpet of Flowers? Why run them at all? You really have no outlets to abuse the mana directly, and the war-of-attrition so to speak comes from resolving an Enchantress. Yeah, I can see situations where you have 1-3 in hand but only mana for 1 and a Carpet might let you play them either 1 extra or all at once thus denying the opponent the chance to draw into another counter but the card seems to provincial in uses to warrant 4 slots. Honestly I'd rather see you run City of Solitude. In similar thought, based on the fact you seemed to be expecting blue (and that you have GSZ) why wouldn't you want to be running Vexing Shusher?

@ Nevermore: Admitingly I aquired a playset as I assumed I might need them at some point, I must know against what decks would you side this in that had threats you couldn't answer with either A)generic enchantress protection, or B) Runed Halo?

I'm not a huge fan of keeping only 1 wincon MD. I'll leave it to each Enchantress player to decide for themselves what works best in regards to # of wincons.


So, I'm somewhat excited that my meta has begin to shift away from aggro, meaning I can cease to run the 3 Journey to Nowhere in my deck (I know, seems janky, but with no Moat these have been amazing in helping to solve Merfolk/S&T issues). Now that I've reverted Rock to a more classic style I can begin to use GSZ which seems to be having some success with other Enchantress players.

OH! I randomly found some super awesome tech to use AGAINST Enchantress decks while digging through 1 of my boxes: Presence of the Master. Until now, when using decks like Rock I've had Harmonic Convergence as my tech against Enchantress, but this! Wow.... its just mean. (Interestingly enough, I once had Harmonic in my Enchantress SB. I know, seems weird, but the week before I toiled away countless hours learning the best way to stack my own enchantments, so when I used this at the tourney against 3 other Enchantress' next week I ended up going 4-0 because I stacked better than them ^^).

Also found Arboria. Not amazing, I know. Its horrid in that it requires you wait a full turn (like Island Sanctuary) before it prevents creatures from attacking thus giving them at least 1 turn, however, if you're like me and have randomly run into 1 of those moments where you couldn't support a Grass or Confinement and were in topdeck mode this might be an interesting card to playtest as it stops all creatures and only requires you not do anything during your turns. I realize its kind of janky, but whenever I find random enchantments like this in one of my boxes I just feel the need to share it. ^~^

Forlorn Egoist

[Kring]

Question for me: How has exploration fared in your deck?

[Just me]

Hi all,

Enchtress used to have a (small) weakness in that you could deck yourself, especially when the wincoditions are all hiding in the bottom five or so.

Now, with the new rules for mandatory triggers becoming 'may', does that mean we may forget to draw cards of the Enchantress-effects?

Link to article on CFB from Eric Levine HERE.