Words of War is an enchantment, Emrakul is not. Both are useless in the early game. WoWar can be used to draw cards, Emrakul can not. This shouldn't be a discussion, there's no good reason to run Emrakul.
Words of Wind offers a slight edge in some matchups at the cost of an additional slot, plus it makes going to time more of an issue.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
I can't understand how you argue against WoWar and sugest WoWind when every argument you gave against WoWar seems to be even stronger against WoWind. They are the same thing, but one actually kills your oponent. Care to explain further? Maybe I am missing something...Originally Posted by waSP
"Want all, lose all."
Words of Wind does not require that you have 10 draws to dump into your winning the game. Words of Wind feeds into itself. The missed draws are replaced by enchantments in your hand, rather than damage to your opponent. It can be abused with a single Enchantress in play.
Spatula,
I see your point with Emrakul.
There is only one criticism of Words of Wind that doesn't apply to Words of War as well. It can't kill problematic 1 or 2 toughness dorks. I don't think I've ever heard that as a strong reason to include WoWar. Maybe that could be proposed as a significant strength now, though?
Why are people still caught up on running cutesy-but-unnecessary things like Emrakul and Words of Wind?
I've basically streamlined my list and I'm now using a list very similar to Spatula's. I got rid of all the "toolbox" options and went straight for consistency and redundancy.
I use 2 Mirri's and 2 GSZ's and the results are fantastic. However, I also run Spatula's more combo oriented build.
Emrakul is perfectly justifiable if you're expecting Painter's Stone or a Mirror; Emrakul is a practical answer to both MU's. Pending you're not using him to answer either MU, I agree that he is unnecessary. No early-game utility and when you can finally ramp to 15 you can won with any of the other 6+ wincons available to us.
@ Words of Wind:
I honestly haven't done testing with WoWi so I'm not prepared to offer comments based on experience, so I will have to rely soley on theorycraft. Based on what I know, it does have utility, particularly in the control MU, in that it can allow you to live either under a Confinement or off of 1 Enchantress somewhat easier as it continously refreshes at least 1 draw. Its not bad at slowing oppossing tempo as if they have little board position their options are usual a land or something relevant to bounce. My fears, however, is because its not a technical wincon I would have to run it in addition to WoW. It can't target specific threats meaning you have to use its ability each turn or spammed for it to be useful. I don't consider it to be as useful for the Mirror as they too have Enchantress's so you're still helping to drive their engine.
I don't necessarily consider WoW's ability to shock creatures to be that relevant tbh. In majority of situations I would rather recieve the draw than remove a creature. With all our cantrips and tutors it usually seems to be the smarter option just to get one of our universal protections that simply kill off a creature.
@ Toolbox: Toolboxes are just, in general, fun to use. I used to have a Wishboard for my Valakut-43 lands, then I made a Living Wish board for Enchantress, and of course the GSZ for my Rock/Enchantress's. I think people just like the utility they provide, although in reality, particularly for our deck, they rarely amount to much. I, for example, love the idea of having a Blood Moon although realistically it rarely amounts to much beyond the rarity of screwing over Lands and D&T. I think that most Enchantress players just need to get over the fear of not trying to cover every base and just go for improving consistency with redundancy. Its okay to lose some MU's if you have overwhelming victories against most.
Forlorn Egoist
How to play Belcher:
Step 1) Draw 7 cards.
Step 2) Throw said 7 cards onto the table while making a "BLAH!" sound.
Step 3) Hold up hands quizically and ask: "Do I win?"
Decks
Enchantress
Dragon Stompy
Rock
UG Madness/Thresh (Pauper)
Do you guys find Aura of Silence or Serenity more obnoxious from the opponent?
I'm not advocating the idea to run WoW rather Emrakul. I just said: wich card is replaceble when WoW is out of scene. My current list have three kill conditions: Sigil of Empty Throne, Emrakul and Words and I'm thinking in take off my Words and exchenge for anything else. I like Emrakul very much and I said also how important is to play in main deck Mirri or Elightned Tutor since I could put then on new slots for instance
About Words of Wind, IMO isn't a good choice, isn't a bigt threat, doesn't kill nothing and just control opponent when we could stop him with Solitary or Moat. Maybe I'll test it but I'm not convinced yet
This version made Top 8 at SCG open in Charlotte:
//Enchantress, by Paul Lynch
//Downloaded from StarCityGames.com
2 Plains
7 Forest
4 Wild Growth
1 Blood Moon
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Sterling Grove
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Moat
1 Karakas
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Words of War
4 Windswept Heath
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Runed Halo
2 Mirri's Guile
1 Taiga
2 Savannah
2 Replenish
2 Serra's Sanctum
4 Argothian Enchantress
3 Elephant Grass
2 Arid Mesa
// Sideboard:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Nevermore
1 Stony Silence
1 Karmic Justice
1 Ground Seal
1 Humility
3 Choke
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Aura of Silence
First, congrats to Paul Lynch.
I'm glad to see GSZ getting the respect it deserves; I worry about the number of non-forest lands, and running Halo over Grass #4.
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
I'm thinking about sleeving up this deck. But I was wondering how it wins against any deck with fow/counterspells? There's a lot of versions that only have 2 winconditions: 1 Sigil of the Empty Throne & 1 Words of War. Both counterable. And then 2 Replenish to bring them back. That's only 4 spells that needs to be countered to win the match for a control player.
So I was thinking about making a version with Emrakul instead of Words of War. Anyone care to explain why everyone don't play that version, and how you win against control if you don't play emrakul?
There are lots of must counters in the deck with the enchantress effects being the biggest threat. The opponent can counter the winconditions (although its sometimes wise to hold on to one or more replenish until you know you can resolve it) but that means he/she usually cant win through the lock anymore.
You lead with a less relevant threat to remove the counter and then resolve the big splashy wincondition. Just play cards until they run out of counters. Most of the time you will outdraw them anyway.
Most of the time opponents will scoop once you 1) drop a solid lock (like 2 enchantress+confinement) or 2) drop a wincondition.
Words of war and Sigil are still my prime winconditions. Emrakul is nice but it needs a Serra's Sanctum in play which will get wasted the first chance they get.
One other note: most sideboards are similar to the one above, which has 3 choke + 2 carpet of flowers, and a few boards run vexing shusher. I've never actually played against someone who just holds the counters and waits to counter words/sigil; seems most everyone tries to counter the enchantresses.
In theory, holding on to 4 counters for the 2 wincons/2 Replenishs seems like a good idea, however you need to consider several things. Firstly, the fact that the opponent needs to have 4 relevant counters, Force of Will/Counterspell being the most common. An opponent, honestly, isn't going to auto-keep a hand with nothing but counters, meaning they need to draw into the counters they'll need. If they don't counter the initial Mana-enchantments/Enchantress' then we can easily out-draw them/tutor up our wincons before they assemble all the counters necessary.
Honestly when playing against us control needs to assume the role of the aggro player because we literally have a deck full of universal, toolbox answers, insane cantrips, and at least 4-7 ways to tutor. We're control-combo. Realistically its much smarter in most cases for a control player to just counter the 1-2 initial Enchantress', drop relevant cretures like KotR/Delver/Jace 2.0/Goyf/etc. and just straight up attack us. G1 is when that "counter 4 cards," strategy would be most viable. G2/3 would not give them better odds. We have access to:
Carpet of Flowers
City of Solitude
Choke
Dovescape
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Nevermore
All of the above (plus several others I failed to mention) are relevant answers to the control MU. TBH I'm more afraid to fight through discard than I am counters.
As for running Emrakul, yes, you could certainly replace WoW with him but we've all invested much time in this thread debating Emrakuls pros and cons. He's a great answer for counter-control, but your SB (which, trust me, if U is relevant you will invest 5+ slots to fighting it) is more than capable of negating their counters, thus having something uncounterable is redundant. Emrakul has no early game utility meaning until you can ramp into 15 mana hes a dead card, and factoring out his uncounterability, at 15 mana you can easily win with any wincon of your choice.
In my experience unless you're running into a meta thats rampant with either Painter Stone or the Mirror MU Emrakul is just unnecessary. Of course, everyone has their own personal flavor for the deck and I certainly put Emrakul in-and-out based on my meta however my preference is maximizing the utility of all cards in my deck and frankly Emrakul has very little utility beyond a GY shuffle and a moot uncounterability.
Forlorn Egoist
How to play Belcher:
Step 1) Draw 7 cards.
Step 2) Throw said 7 cards onto the table while making a "BLAH!" sound.
Step 3) Hold up hands quizically and ask: "Do I win?"
Decks
Enchantress
Dragon Stompy
Rock
UG Madness/Thresh (Pauper)
Can someone provide me a link to a good Enchantress deck that doesn't run Moat? I have all the other cards necessary for various versions of the deck (except Mirri's Guile, which I can easily acquire).
Also, what's the key in the mirror match? Set up an early Solitary Confinement and draw enough cards to sustain the lock without decking yourself? Does the game just degenerate if both players set up a Confinement lock with enough Enchantress effects to sustain, provided both have Emrakuls to reshuffle their libraries?
I don't have any mirror match experience because I'm the only Enchantress player in my area (that I know of), but I remember seeing Helix Pinnacle as a pretty neat wincon if you're expecting the mirror.
LOL this is hilarious.
I also just realized you can still swing with Emrakul through Solitary Confinement (or Moat, of course) to break the mirror with Annihilator. Still looking into different options though. (Infinite turns with a huge Sanctum + Karakas on your Emrakul seems like too much fun.)
You can run a 1-of Karakas to set up infinite turns with Emrakul where Annihilator wins it for you. Your other option is to sneak in a Words of Wind either in your board or your maindeck.
Here's a new piece of tech that no one has tried as far as I know. You can set up a lock against other decks that only lets them play instants with Words of Waste and Sensei's Divining Top. Basically you get out Words of Waste and eliminate their hand with it and an enchantment or two. You can then lock them out of the game by activating Top during their draw step every turn (unless they have Snapcaster/Clique and you have no gas or they are on burn and you don't ever land a confinement).
This isn't very useful in the current environment but I imagine it could be STRONG if Loam were to come back with force. It feels like an excellent play against the Veteran Explorer decks.
Words of War: the third strongest enchantment in its cycle.
I usually win mirror matches by landing an Aura of Silence ASAP, or Vexing Shusher + Dovescape, or Worship. Not necessarily all of them at once, but they are three separate valid methods. Worship not so much if they have their own one or Emrakul, but if they have neither, it's essentially a Solitary Confinement with no drawbacks.
Words of war: best enchantment win condition, since it actually KILLS the opponent. Some people just don't grasp that instead of bouncing the opponents board you can just KILL the opponent with WoWar instead of durdling around by bouncing all the permanents and waiting to draw emrakul. And emrakul only wins when you're winning; sigil of the empty throne can make a pair of angels and just win in 2-3 turns while words of war cantrips with enchantress in play.
Congrats to Paul Lynch though, running GSZ and look he didn't run emrakul, words of wind/waste, or any other cute cards. Only odd thing about his list is that he doesn't run 4 elephant grass.
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