[Deck] Solitaire (Enchantress)

[starchild]

LOL! As Bertrand Hustle said Stony Silence is very good in these MU's and does nothing to us (we board out helm.) It is absurdly powerful in other MU's as well.

@Spiritual Focus - Although it is true that it is not conditional to targeted vs. non-targeted discard it is conditional to discard. I would argue however, that the hand control function of BUG is not the issue we have vs. the deck. It is the board control. We beat hand control through redundancy alone.

@ BUG - In general when I design a strategy against a particular troublesome deck I look to define the problem, and then begin to search for cards that work well against that strategy as well as improve others. In this case I would personally defined the issue as the decks ability to control the board. The problem cards are Toxic Deluge, Abrupt Decay,Golgari Charm & Lilliana of the Veil.
As WG Enchantress we really do not have an explicit answer to this. Leyline of Sanctity can stop Lilliana, but vs. Charm and Toxic we are sitting ducks. Since Leyline is already valuable in other MU’s it should be strongly considered for this board strategy.

So I will start with + 4 Leyline of Sanctity
To fill out the rest we will focus on redundancy which will help sustain a board presence and fight through discard equally. The whole deck is contingent on resolving and sustaining an Enchantress effect, so more enchantress effects makes sense.

+1 Eidolon of Blossoms This will up the Enchantress effects to 14.
If I felt like I had board room I would test an additional win Sigil of the Empty Throne. This would help close the game faster, and fight through Lilliana.

In order to make room for these 5 cards I would likely make the following shaves:

-1 Banishing Light
-1Solitary Confinment
-1 Rest in Peace
-1 Elephant Grass

Okay, so after looking at the deck I don’t feel like cutting 5 is wise as a turn 2 Suppression Field can bottle-up any deck (especially this one.) So I’m down to 3 Leyline of Sanctity

+ 3 Leyline of Sanctity
+1 Eidolon of Blossoms

So my total 60 post board would be:

4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Enchantress’s Pressence
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Eidolon of Blossoms
3 Suppression Field
2 Elephant Grass
2 Solitary Confinement
1 Emrakul
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Mirri’s Guile
2 Rest in Peace
3 Leyline of Sanctity

1 Karakas
4 Serra’s Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
1 Plains
11 Forest

…I’d test that for a bit, and see what happens, and make adjustments from there.

Good luck with your testing, look forward to your report ;) I'd hope there is a place for Sigil of the Empty Throne in your build. And...hope you find time for an updated primer, would have been awesome. Cheers!

[The_Dingo]

I don't mind running Replenish alongside RiP. I only run a single Replenish right now, but there's an argument for 2. If you're running GWb, there's also an argument for a Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace mix to protect your Replenish strategy.

I do have 2 replenish in my board, and I was hesitant to bring them in alongside RIP, but I'll start testing that out.

I think the biggest limitation on writing a primer is that there really isn't a consensus build of the deck at this point. There's a core, and there was a discussion of what exactly the core was a few months (maybe almost a year at this point) ago...and beyond 4 Argothian, 4 Presence, 8 Growth+Sprawl, and some number of GSZ, there wasn't a whole lot of consensus. A lot of people in this thread have gone back to straight GW, but I still prefer GWr or GWb for cards like Blood Moon, Words of War, The Abyss, Engineered Plague, Words of Waste, and Duress/Thoughtseize. I'm far from sold that the utility of the splashes is outweighed by going straight GW.

I remember that we were unable to find a consensus on the build, but it makes a lot of sense that there isn't one. Some things like how many GSZ versus E tutor, versus Sterling grove is very much a preference call. As a prison deck, many of the lock pieces are meta dependent and so the exact configuration will vary wildly. I do think that there is a generalized formula however that almost everyone follows in terms of the ratio of enchantress effects, tutors (of one kind or another), acceleration, lock pieces, and win cons.

I was splashing black for E plague and dread of Night, but I always avoided leyline of the void. BB seemed too hard to cast w/ the way my lands were set up. How would you configure a mana base if your only black cards are in the SB?

[starchild]

I have done som adjustments to my deck, based on what I have seen here, hi Freggle! :)

I play in a semi-competive environment, all kinds of decks are represented in the Aggro, Control and Combo categories (more than 30 different decks), so I can face just any match up and sideboards. Any help will be highly appreciated. I have cut 4 Sterling Grove, City of Solitude, Moat, Oblivion Ring, Runed Halo, 2 Replenish (still like this one a lot!, but not so sure with R.I.P.), Words of War, Enlightened Tutor and a Taiga from my main and Humility, Karmic Justice, Wheel of Sun and Moon, 2 Ground Seal and a Lignify from my sideboard. Added Eidolon of Bloosoms, Helm/Emrakul, Supression Field main. Both main and SB could be changed. Any comments or suggestions will be highly appreicated. Many thanks in advance!

Current deck:

Creature [7]
4 Argothian Enchantress
2 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sorcery [4]
4 Green Sun's Zenith

Artifact [2]
2 Helm of Obedience

Enchantment [28]
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Elephant Grass
3 Solitary Confinement
4 Enchantress's Presence
3 Rest in Peace
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
3 Supression Field
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl

Land [20]
10 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
4 Serra's Sanctum
60 cards

Sideboard:
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Carpet of Flowers
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Stony Silence
15 cards

[btm10]

I do have 2 replenish in my board, and I was hesitant to bring them in alongside RIP, but I'll start testing that out.

I remember that we were unable to find a consensus on the build, but it makes a lot of sense that there isn't one. Some things like how many GSZ versus E tutor, versus Sterling grove is very much a preference call. As a prison deck, many of the lock pieces are meta dependent and so the exact configuration will vary wildly. I do think that there is a generalized formula however that almost everyone follows in terms of the ratio of enchantress effects, tutors (of one kind or another), acceleration, lock pieces, and win cons.

I was splashing black for E plague and dread of Night, but I always avoided leyline of the void. BB seemed too hard to cast w/ the way my lands were set up. How would you configure a mana base if your only black cards are in the SB?

Honestly, I'd just run a regular manabase and rely on Sprawl for fixing if my black spells only required B. If you're in the market for a maindeck card, I'd run a Bayou and at least a fifth fetch. As for Replenish, since it's especially useful against BGx (particularly BUG) decks, it doesn't hurt to have a Ground Seal in the sideboard for matchups where you want both Replenish and an answer to DRS. It's narrow, but it's frequently helpful. I don't think it's necessary, though.

I have done som adjustments to my deck, based on what I have seen here, hi Freggle! :)

I play in a semi-competive environment, all kinds of decks are represented in the Aggro, Control and Combo categories (more than 30 different decks), so I can face just any match up and sideboards. Any help will be highly appreciated. I have cut 4 Sterling Grove, City of Solitude, Moat, Oblivion Ring, Runed Halo, 2 Replenish (still like this one a lot!, but not so sure with R.I.P.), Words of War, Enlightened Tutor and a Taiga from my main and Humility, Karmic Justice, Wheel of Sun and Moon, 2 Ground Seal and a Lignify from my sideboard. Added Eidolon of Bloosoms, Helm/Emrakul, Supression Field main. Both main and SB could be changed. Any comments or suggestions will be highly appreicated. Many thanks in advance!

This looks fine at a glance, but I think if you're running Emrakul then you should have at least 1 Nykthos over a Sanctum, and potentially a 2/2 split. In addition to being a Sanctum-like effect for any color, it gives you mana for playing Argothians, and gives you GG for Eidolon. I'd also trim at least 1 and at most 2 copies of GSZ now that you have 10 'real' Enchantress effects. While you want Teeg out of the board, I'd probably cut Surgical for 1 GSZ, 1 Metagame Slot. There's really no purpose to running Surgical alongside a full set of Rest in Peace. Also, 3 Stony Silence seems like a lot. Is there a lot of Affinity or MUD in your meta?

[GoldenCid]

I was splashing black for E plague and dread of Night, but I always avoided leyline of the void. BB seemed too hard to cast w/ the way my lands were set up. How would you configure a mana base if your only black cards are in the SB?

If you are going to splash a third color my advice is to run at least 1 dual land that adds Gx i.e. Bayou in this case.
Iwould not relly just in sprawl for hitting the black. I agree that BB is very heavy and innecesary.

How many copies of Dread and plague do you run?

GC.

[The_Dingo]

I have yet to play against U/G infect, but it seems to be growing in popularity, and it seems like a pretty poor MU. Does anyone have experience or advice about which cards are good, which are bad, and how to board properly. If infect continues to grow in popularity, what weapons do we have to combat it?

[btm10]

I played against a version of it once, almost a year ago. I got turn 2'ed on the draw game 1, but had a pretty strong draw game 2 and pulled it out on the back of multiple copies of Elephant Grass. I lost game 3 to typical Infect shenanigans. I doubt that it's a good matchup. Melira, Sylvok Outcast as a GSZ target in the board is probably the best answer we have.


EDIT:

If you are going to splash a third color my advice is to run at least 1 dual land that adds Gx i.e. Bayou in this case.
Iwould not relly just in sprawl for hitting the black. I agree that BB is very heavy and innecesary.

How many copies of Dread and plague do you run?

GC.

It depends on what your splash is for. If you're going to run my list from last year, then the Bayou is probably needed. If you're going to just run 1-of The Abyss (in GWb) or 1-of Words of War (in GWr), then you'd rather run Fertile Ground or Abundant Growth and keep your mostlly basics mana base intact. I don't even think those are necessary additions, but they're preferable to relying on a 1-of nonbasic to color fix with any consistency.

[The_Dingo]

If you are going to splash a third color my advice is to run at least 1 dual land that adds Gx i.e. Bayou in this case.
Iwould not relly just in sprawl for hitting the black. I agree that BB is very heavy and innecesary.

How many copies of Dread and plague do you run?

GC.

I never really had much success w/ the black splash, and I am back on the GW plan, although when I was splashing for DoN and E plague I had 1 bayou 4 fetches. I never felt like the splashed cards had the huge, game swinging impact that I envisioned when I decided to add them to my SB. So since I couldn't just press the EZ button, I resigned myself to grinding out my wins the old fashioned way. Although humility plus DoN is as close to a hard lock as things get against DnT.

I played against a version of it once, almost a year ago. I got turn 2'ed on the draw game 1, but had a pretty strong draw game 2 and pulled it out on the back of multiple copies of Elephant Grass. I lost game 3 to typical Infect shenanigans. I doubt that it's a good matchup. Melira, Sylvok Outcast as a GSZ target in the board is probably the best answer we have.

It depends on what your splash is for. If you're going to run my list from last year, then the Bayou is probably needed. If you're going to just run 1-of The Abyss (in GWb) or 1-of Words of War (in GWr), then you'd rather run Fertile Ground or Abundant Growth and keep your mostlly basics mana base intact. I don't even think those are necessary additions, but they're preferable to relying on a 1-of nonbasic to color fix with any consistency.

If I end up playing Enchantress at GP NJ I will be sure to have a Melira for my SB. I tend to win a lot of my games on the back of multiple elephant grasses, it's basically an auto 4 of in my list at this point.

In regards to words of war I currently have 3 suppression field maindeck, which seems like a very unappealing interaction. Is it worth testing even w/ 3 suppression fields? Or maybe replace 1 w/ a WoW?

[btm10]

If I end up playing Enchantress at GP NJ I will be sure to have a Melira for my SB. I tend to win a lot of my games on the back of multiple elephant grasses, it's basically an auto 4 of in my list at this point.

In regards to words of war I currently have 3 suppression field maindeck, which seems like a very unappealing interaction. Is it worth testing even w/ 3 suppression fields? Or maybe replace 1 w/ a WoW?

I need to pick a deck for GPNJ as well, though a small chance that I won't be able to make it has popped up.

I've run WoW alongside Suppression Field before and it's been alright, but only with a singleton Field. It's fine but it does slow you down unless you're chaining Sanctums or have Sanctum + Nykthos.

[Freggle]

Honestly, I'd just run a regular manabase and rely on Sprawl for fixing if my black spells only required B. If you're in the market for a maindeck card, I'd run a Bayou and at least a fifth fetch. As for Replenish, since it's especially useful against BGx (particularly BUG) decks, it doesn't hurt to have a Ground Seal in the sideboard for matchups where you want both Replenish and an answer to DRS. It's narrow, but it's frequently helpful. I don't think it's necessary, though.

I ran some probabilities on a 3rd color using only 4 fetches, Sprawls, and a singleton dual land. I'm not certain my calculations were 100% but it was something like you were 40% less likely to have access to the 3rd color. That means 4 out of 10 games you wouldn't have the 3rd color on time. You could decrease by playing more fetches, but you would play more into Stifle and potentially Wasteland and you would likely drop the Suppression Field plan.

This looks fine at a glance, but I think if you're running Emrakul then you should have at least 1 Nykthos over a Sanctum, and potentially a 2/2 split. In addition to being a Sanctum-like effect for any color, it gives you mana for playing Argothians, and gives you GG for Eidolon. I'd also trim at least 1 and at most 2 copies of GSZ now that you have 10 'real' Enchantress effects. While you want Teeg out of the board, I'd probably cut Surgical for 1 GSZ, 1 Metagame Slot. There's really no purpose to running Surgical alongside a full set of Rest in Peace. Also, 3 Stony Silence seems like a lot. Is there a lot of Affinity or MUD in your meta?

Nykthos also adds more variance, taxes the mana base, and does not play well with Suppression Field. Three Stony Silence are there to hit fast hate on artifact based combo decks... ANT, TES as well as Shut down Sensei's Decks, MUD and Painter.

I have yet to play against U/G infect, but it seems to be growing in popularity, and it seems like a pretty poor MU. Does anyone have experience or advice about which cards are good, which are bad, and how to board properly. If infect continues to grow in popularity, what weapons do we have to combat it?

It is a poor MU, but winnable. Swords to Plowshares is a good way to draw kill cards and by turns. Swords also keeps hatebears off the table against D&T as well as exiles reanimated fatties from reanimator.

This post contains a list with all of the above mentioned cards.

[siqatzi]

Hello all :) I've had roughly the same enchantress list built for a couple of years (relatively toolboxy, 4 Groves, no GSZ, only 2 Serra's Sanctum) and I'm thinking of rebuilding it differently, better tuned to the relevant local/current Legacy metagame. I rather like the method of deckbuilding that builds the deck specifically to beat each possilble matchup and then takes an average of those (weighted towards more common and/or more difficult matchups). With that in mind, I've started constructing a list of cards relevant to fighting different archetypes/groups of decks/categories of cards. I wondered if anyone might be willing to take a look and suggest things that I've missed?

Blue decks
Choke
Carpet of Flowers
City of Solitude
Multani’s Presence
Spirit of the Labyrinth
Chains of Mephistopholes
In the Eye of Chaos
Mystic Remora

Storm decks
Rule of Law
Spirit of the Labyrinth
Leyline of Sanctity
Stranglehold
Nevermore
Runed Halo
Aegis of the Gods
Phyrexian Unlife
Gaddock Teeg

Tempo decks
Suppression Field
Choke
Blood Moon
Elephant Grass
Ghostly Prison
Sphere of Safety
Blind Obedience
Kirtar’s Desire
Carpet of Flowers

Creature-based aggro decks
Elephant Grass
Moat
Sphere of Safety
Ghostly Prison
Island Sanctuary
Words of War
Humility
Blind Obedience
Kirtar’s Desire

Artifact-heavy decks
Stony Silence
Seal of Cleansing
Seal of Primordium
Gaddock Teeg

Discard-heavy decks
Replenish
Spiritual Focus
Aegis of the Gods
Leyline of Sanctity
Compost
Mystic Remora

Board-control-heavy decks
Karmic Justice
Replenish
Sterling Grove
Mystic Remora

Land-based decks
Choke
Blood Moon
Suppression Field

Graveyard-based decks
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Rest in Peace
Leyline of the Void

Stoneblade decks
Suppression Field
Stony Silence
Humility
Seal of Cleansing
Seal of Primordium

Decks with planeswalkers
Suppression Field
Gaddock Teeg

Decks with huge creatures
Oblivion Ring
Banishing Light
Runed Halo
Kirtar’s Desire

Red decks
Warmth
Aegis of the Gods
Leyline of Sanctity
Blind Obedience
Nyx-Fleece Ram
Phyrexian Unlife
Sanctimony
Courser of Kruphix

Black decks
Compost

White decks
Dread of Night

Tribal decks
Engineered Plague

Playing as the beatdown/all-in on the combo
Eidolon of Blossoms
Green Sun’s Zenith
Serra’s Sanctum
Exploration
Courser of Kruphix
Elvish Spirit Guide
Chrome Mox
Solitary Confinement
Rest in Peace
Helm of Obedience
Energy Field

Playing as the control
Sterling Grove
Mirri’s Guile
Enlightened Tutor
Kruphix’s Insight
Blind Obedience
Sylvan Library
Mystic Remora

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer!

[Watersaw]

Storm decks
Eidolon of Rhetoric
Nether Void

Tempo decks
If Blood Moon fits in here, then Back to Basics makes sense

Creature-based aggro decks
Solitary Confinement

Artifact-heavy decks
Aura of Silence
Reclamation Sage
Blind Obedience

Board-control-heavy decks
Kruphix's Insight

Land-based decks
Rest in Peace and Ground Seal do a number on Life From the Loam

Graveyard-based decks
Ground Seal

Decks with huge creatures
Energy Field
Saw a guy running Glare of Subdual the other day. More on that later.

Red decks
Chill
Circle of Protection: Red

Black decks
Light of Day

Playing as the beatdown/all-in on the combo
Gitaxian Probe
Abundant Growth

Played pretty bad yesterday at the SCG Open in Edison. Had an embarrassing number of misplays and lost at least 3 matches to myself. I dunno. My ear was bothering me all day (and still is. I'd better get this looked at...) but I still should have done better.

Enough whining, what did we learn?
Eidolon of Blossoms and Suppression Field continue to be overperformers, while Sigil of the Empty Throne was never actually good. There was not one case where I actually wanted it and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was not there that turn or one faster. Probably taking it out.
Stony Silence was never that relevant during the day. Matchups/already had Suppression Field etc.
Dryad Arbor as land 21 makes so many iffy hands playable.
Leyline of Sanctity is amazing against Esper Deathblade. Or at least it was both times I played them.
Reanimator is either absurdly hard or he got super lucky. Consistent turn 2 Griselbrand is not fair Magic.
As much as I've raved about Kruphix's Insight the card was awkward. I'm not sure how to put it into words but it felt like it was too much. Pretty cool against heavy removal though.
OmniTell is difficult. If they manage to play Show and Tell you need to not only have an answer to Omniscience but pray they don't have the Cunning Wish or whatever to ruin Banishing Light. I guess Gaddock Teeg is good here, but they can just wish for removal.
Painter dosn't seem too bad. Unless I got lucky.
Same with Jund Depths. Rest in Peace does a number on them.

There was another guy playing Enchantress there and we got to talk for a bit. I don't remember everything, but his list was NUTS. Highlights include:
Blind Obedience forcing a draw against Miracle by causing Helm of Obedience to ETB tapped on turn 5.
Mainboard Root Maze, wrecks fetchland manabases and artifacts in general. He thought it was alright and generally hurt them more than him.
Singleton Living Wish and while I didn't see his whole sideboards, I did see him board in... Riptide Chimera and Doomwake Giant, the later blowing out Storm post-Empty the Warrens. I lost my shit when I saw that happen.
I think there was 1of mainboard Courser of Kruphix? He was definitely playing the card.
Words of War and Words of Wind powered by Abundant Growth
Glare of Subdual, which he said was okay. Thought it was worth bringing up since it's a more proactive way to fight Sneak Attack and artifacts that aren't named Lotus Petal or Lion's Eye Diamond.
Seriously, the deck was awesome. IMO the second coolest deck I saw that day, falling only behind mono-black control with Decree of Pain and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.

[Watersaw]

As for what I was playing, here's my slightly-modified-from-last-time pile:

Mainboard
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Eidolon of Blossoms awesome, considering adding a second
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Kruphix's Insight it was okay, probably great if so much of the deck wasn't focused on making GSZ better

3 Elephant Grass
3 Mirri's Guile yeah, this card is still super strong
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Rest in Peace
3 Suppression Field
2 Solitary Confinement
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne was useless all day

1 Helm of Obedience it's really good, but I'm not sure if I wanna double up on it

1 Dryad Arbor mad useful
1 Karakas
2 Plains post-board white mana becomes so much more important. might add a third...
4 Windswept Heath
4 Serra's Sanctum
9 Forest ...or replace one of these with a Savannah

Sideboard
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Stony Silence didn't feel like enough
1 Gaddock Teeg might try a second actually
1 Kruphix's Insight I had no idea what to do with this slot so I figured I'd test it out a bit. see above.
1 Oblivion Ring the split with this and
1 Banishing Light this actually felt perfect
2 Humility
4 Leyline of Sanctity still great

[Freggle]

Hello all :) I've had roughly the same enchantress list built for a couple of years (relatively toolboxy, 4 Groves, no GSZ, only 2 Serra's Sanctum) and I'm thinking of rebuilding it differently, better tuned to the relevant local/current Legacy metagame. I rather like the method of deckbuilding that builds the deck specifically to beat each possilble matchup and then takes an average of those (weighted towards more common and/or more difficult matchups). With that in mind, I've started constructing a list of cards relevant to fighting different archetypes/groups of decks/categories of cards. I wondered if anyone might be willing to take a look and suggest things that I've missed?

I think that this is a very good practice. This is largely how GW helm has been tuned. I think your categories are a bit too specific however. I think if you were to go through this exercise I would break it down to cards that are good vs. Combo, Control, or Aggro.

In doing so you also have to recognize that some cards are decent in 2 categories. Take for instance Solitary Confinement. It has good combo and aggro elements to it. i.e. 0 damage and player shroud respectively. I would even go as far to say that it inherently has some viability vs. control in that player shroud stops lilliana and discard, and it is an enchantment and will trigger draws if an enchantress effect is in play.

Rather then write all of these out with percentages of categories I think you could get a lot more information by graphing them. I would draw a triangle with equal sides. label each point combo, control, aggro. I'd plot points for cards in that "spectrum" If it's equally good in all 3 MU it should be dead center. That would identify a pool of cards that are strong across the board. Then from there you could test and weed out cards based off of other findings like mana cost...

...if your meta gets more askew to a certain style you just look at that part of the triangle.

As for what I was playing, here's my slightly-modified-from-last-time pile:

Mainboard
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Eidolon of Blossoms awesome, considering adding a second
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Kruphix's Insight it was okay, probably great if so much of the deck wasn't focused on making GSZ better

3 Elephant Grass
3 Mirri's Guile yeah, this card is still super strong
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Rest in Peace
3 Suppression Field
2 Solitary Confinement
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne was useless all day

1 Helm of Obedience it's really good, but I'm not sure if I wanna double up on it

1 Dryad Arbor mad useful
1 Karakas
2 Plains post-board white mana becomes so much more important. might add a third...
4 Windswept Heath
4 Serra's Sanctum
9 Forest ...or replace one of these with a Savannah

Sideboard
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Stony Silence didn't feel like enough
1 Gaddock Teeg might try a second actually
1 Kruphix's Insight I had no idea what to do with this slot so I figured I'd test it out a bit. see above.
1 Oblivion Ring the split with this and
1 Banishing Light this actually felt perfect
2 Humility
4 Leyline of Sanctity still great

It's unfortunate about your finish. It's easy to get tripped up when planning lines to outs. I liked the notes above as well.

[The_Dingo]

Reanimator is either absurdly hard or he got super lucky. Consistent turn 2 Griselbrand is not fair Magic.

I've played the enchantress reanimater MU quite a bit, and it feels so terribly skewed in their favor. Like 75/25, and the odds don't change much postboard. The problem is that it's hard to have an angle of attack or defense that is fast enough, and their best hands are unbeatable. In my experience, they always have the FoW for the RIP, and while Elephant grass is fine against griselbitch, he just draws 14 and we die a horrible death by elesh norn, or Iona, or tidespout tyrant.

On the plus side, Helm of obedience is super fun in this MU. If you get it rolling there is a good chance you can have a griselbrand of your very own! People are often surprised to read that helm can do anything w/out RiP in play.

I wish I had some helpful advice to offer, other than dodge that MU if you can!

[The_Dingo]

Has anyone here tried a super prisony U/G enchantress deck w/ 4 Root maze and 4 back to basics or something along that vein? I feel like that would be fun from our side, but not much fun for anyone else.

[Bertrand Hustle]

As for what I was playing, here's my slightly-modified-from-last-time pile:

Mainboard
4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Eidolon of Blossoms awesome, considering adding a second
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Kruphix's Insight it was okay, probably great if so much of the deck wasn't focused on making GSZ better

3 Elephant Grass
3 Mirri's Guile yeah, this card is still super strong
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Wild Growth
3 Rest in Peace
3 Suppression Field
2 Solitary Confinement
4 Enchantress's Presence
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne was useless all day

1 Helm of Obedience it's really good, but I'm not sure if I wanna double up on it

1 Dryad Arbor mad useful
1 Karakas
2 Plains post-board white mana becomes so much more important. might add a third...
4 Windswept Heath
4 Serra's Sanctum
9 Forest ...or replace one of these with a Savannah

Sideboard
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Stony Silence didn't feel like enough
1 Gaddock Teeg might try a second actually
1 Kruphix's Insight I had no idea what to do with this slot so I figured I'd test it out a bit. see above.
1 Oblivion Ring the split with this and
1 Banishing Light this actually felt perfect
2 Humility
4 Leyline of Sanctity still great

I abandoned Insight, but I totally agree on the second Plains. Tried using two this weekend and I really liked the second, especially post board for Plowshares.
Speaking of which... May sound risky, but I may try running some number of Plows mainboard, as the meta this weekend was pretty creature heavy.
I think 3 Stony Silence feels just right.

[siqatzi]

...

Thanks very much for the suggestions, those are really helpful!

I think that this is a very good practice. This is largely how GW helm has been tuned. I think your categories are a bit too specific however.

I quite agree. I'm starting by grouping useful cards according to relatively fine distinctions, to then use those lists as a resource when designing individual decklists. I think it would probably be impractical to come up with that many different full decklists and try to unify them somehow...

I think if you were to go through this exercise I would break it down to cards that are good vs. Combo, Control, or Aggro.

In doing so you also have to recognize that some cards are decent in 2 categories. Take for instance Solitary Confinement. It has good combo and aggro elements to it. i.e. 0 damage and player shroud respectively. I would even go as far to say that it inherently has some viability vs. control in that player shroud stops lilliana and discard, and it is an enchantment and will trigger draws if an enchantress effect is in play.

Though I agree that smaller categories are the way to go, I think perhaps "combo", "aggro" and "control" aren't the best categories to use - it seems to me like there are just too wildly varying strategies that could come under the same heading but for which very different hate cards are relevant (e.g. compare ANT and Sneaky Show, or Stax and Miracles), as well as some cases where decks in different headings benefit from the same hate cards. I wonder if an intermediate position, with some groupings of decks broader than I've started with but narrower than those three might be the way to go.

Rather then write all of these out with percentages of categories I think you could get a lot more information by graphing them. I would draw a triangle with equal sides. label each point combo, control, aggro. I'd plot points for cards in that "spectrum" If it's equally good in all 3 MU it should be dead center. That would identify a pool of cards that are strong across the board. Then from there you could test and weed out cards based off of other findings like mana cost...

...if your meta gets more askew to a certain style you just look at that part of the triangle.

This is a really interesting idea. I'll see what I can come up with..
Thanks very much for your advice!

[Watersaw]

I abandoned Insight, but I totally agree on the second Plains. Tried using two this weekend and I really liked the second, especially post board for Plowshares.
Speaking of which... May sound risky, but I may try running some number of Plows mainboard, as the meta this weekend was pretty creature heavy.
I think 3 Stony Silence feels just right.

Hell, I'm trying a 1of Gaddock Teeg in the main. It hasn't been too terrible so far.

Cut Sigil of the Empty Throne and went down to 2 mainboard Rest in Peace. If I feel uncomfortable with only two win conditions I'll add in... something else. EDIT: People have been experimenting with Banefire, right? How's that been working out?

So far the second Eidolon of Blossoms is doing work. That card should not be this good.

3 Plains is probably too many. Going back to 2.

[Dihensoeur]

Hi people,

I just would like to suggest to you an idea:

What about a Enchantress deck with Doran, the Siege Tower ?

With by example cards like:

Pharika, God of Affliction
Courser of Kruphix
Nyx-Fleece Ram


You gain time (body + life with sheep+Courser) and you can get some power with Doran (that reduce Delver / TNN).

Regards,
Dihensoeur