Other Peoples’ Decks: Enchanting Cromat

I love featuring other peoples’ decks. It allows me to showcase some of the fun and interesting things that are happening in the format and tap into the
mindsets of other players. Sometimes a deck will come along that simply demands to be featured. This is one of those decks. It looks like it’s a blast to
play, reasonably inexpensive to build, and will create the kind of positive experience that we like to promote. It has some cards that you’ve seen before
and a few that I guarantee you’re going to have to go look up.

Twenty-five-year-old Roger Hurtubise III has been playing Magic since Beta. In his spare time, he likes going to car shows and making music with his
friends. Roger is a long-time Commander fan, having started playing around Zendikar block. His first deck was, in his own words, “a crappy Ulasht token
swarm that kind of pooped out and then evolved over time.” The idea behind this deck was simply a five-color pillow fort which evolved into the
nearly-all-enchantments version. It looks like a blast to play.

Let’s take a look at the individual cards:

The Gods

Ephara, God of the Polis: This one made me scratch my head a little since there aren’t really creatures in the deck. Heliod, God of the Sun; Luminarch
Ascension; and Sigil of the Empty Throne create them, but for the most part, I don’t expect the deck to draw too many cards off of Ephara. She’ll be a
creature herself reasonably often, so beating with her can commence.

Heliod, God of the Sun: Another inexpensive beater most of the time, Heliod may eventually be able to produce enough creatures to be worthwhile.

Keranos, God of Storms: Keranos has one of the subtly good abilities even if you haven’t built around it. The three damage isn’t as significant in this
format as the additional card draw.

Purphoros, God of the Forge: Strangely enough, the firebreathing ability might be the one that gets used most on this card. Roger will make some tokens,
but not in the way that many decks (like Krenko, Mob Boss) do.

The Enchantments

Abundance: The first thing I did when I saw Abundance was to scroll down to make sure that Sylvan Library is there. It is. A good card in its own right,
especially when you have enough land and just want to draw gas, Abundance turns Sylvan Library into a “draw two extras for free” each turn card.

Arenson’s Aura: Part of my appreciation of this deck is its use of old cards that no one ever plays. Arenson’s Aura is one of them.

Blind Obedience: New cards are good, too. Blind Obedience keeps hasty armies, like those that can suddenly spring up from Maelstrom Wanderer, off your
back.

Carpet of Flowers: I keep threatening to play Carpet of Flowers and never think to find a slot for it in a deck. Someone is playing enough Islands to make
this worthwhile, even Turn 1.

Compost: One of my long-time hidden gems, Compost always rises to the occasion and draws piles of cards. It triggers when a card is put into a graveyard
from anywhere, so something even as simple as casting a black sorcery or instant will draw a card.

Copy Enchantment: How can you not play this in an enchantment deck? If I were on a development team, I would have made this cost one more and would still
play it all the time.

Detention Sphere: Mostly here to take out token armies, you might consider it to protect something of your own if you get a read on some sort of
destruction spell upcoming.

Dueling Grounds: With a nearly non-existent creature count, you’ll need a way of not getting battled too much. Dueling Grounds is a great answer.

Enchanted Evening: Fracturing Gust is a blowout for you. Might as well make it a blowout for everyone else, too. Of course, it also lets you copy some huge
creature with Copy Enchantment, too.

Enchantress’s Presence: Card draw, pure and simple.

Energy Field: Combos with Wheel of Sun and Moon to make you invulnerable to damage because nothing goes to your graveyard.

Energy Flux: Artifacts are good, and Energy Flux makes them less so. Another card I’d like to see more of.

Fertile Ground: Since there isn’t any ramp, a little mana acceleration is necessary.

Future Sight: One of the great, if difficult-to-keep-around, cards in the format, Future Sight is land ramp and card draw in one package. Also, you cannot
whine when someone blows it up.

Ghostly Prison: Another defensive choice.

Greater Auramancy: With Privileged Position, makes all your stuff vulnerable only to mass destruction.

Helix Pinnacle: I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a deck that doesn’t create infinite mana, but I imagine it’s an interesting threat if you can keep the
game going long enough.

Holistic Wisdom: There are so many enchantments in the deck that I’m not sure that anything is so important that I’d want to get it back, but I imagine
situationally this could be quite valuable.

Humility: An outstanding meta-card, one that I support when the deck isn’t completely built around it. Someone is eventually going to take it out, but
until then, you’re safe from too much damage.

Insight: People like playing green spells. You like drawing cards. Everyone is happy.

Karma: Even if Roger didn’t have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the list, someone would be playing it. Suddenly, greedy land bases become dangerous to your
health.

Karmic Justice: I love this card even when I’m playing only a few enchantments. When you’re playing a gross ton of them, people are going to think twice
about that Fracturing Gust.

Land Tax: The best one-drop of all time???

Leyline of Anticipation: I don’t really know how much value there is casting these cards as instants. Seems like a card that could be considered for a cut,
although just maybe being able to keep up mana for Helix Pinnacle when you don’t really need to play enchantments and still maintaining the option of
playing one if a situation arises is okay.

Luminarch Ascension: Online early, this will dictate the pace of a game. It will also get you targeted. Still, 4/4 angels make many beatings.

Mana Reflection: Doubling mana production sure can get that Helix Pinnacle going faster.

Mirari’s Wake: Moar mana doubling. And those Heliod tokens start getting scarier.

Mirri’s Guile: A bargain basement Sensei’s Divining Top (for your upkeep only, but you don’t have to pay for it).

Mystic Barrier: A great card design. This is the kind of multiplayer card I’d like to see more out of R&D rather than stuff that affects “each
opponent.”

Necropotence: Very, very interesting. If you have Wheel of Sun and Moon in play, the cards you discard aren’t exiled.

Pendrell Mists: The deck needs to make things hostile to creatures, and Pendrell Mists helps a great deal, especially when you’re not playing any sorcery
board wipes.

Pernicious Deed: One of the deck’s few board wipes, it’s also going to take out a good deal of your stuff. Be very careful, especially since you’re not
playing Replenish.

Phyrexian Arena: Simple, delicious card draw.

Planar Collapse: What do you care about blowing up all the creatures? You’ll just make more.

Privileged Position: People will sometimes want to touch your stuff. They need to keep their filthy mitts off.

Propaganda: More defense from the ravening hordes.

Protective Sphere: A clever choice in a five-color deck, it prevents damage from any source, not just creatures.

Pursuit of Knowledge: Pretty unlikely that someone is going to hate-nuke this, so it’s a reasonably safe way to turn three cards into seven (especially
with that Abundance/Sylvan Library combo going).

Rhystic Study: Here’s how you play Rhystic Study: “Hey, don’t forget to pay one extra.” Not: “HA!!! You forgot to pay one, loser! I draw. No
take-backsies!”

Roots of Life: With Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play, a life-gaining machine.

Sigil of The Empty Throne: You’re playing lots of enchantments; might as well get some angels out of it, too.

Smoke: Ah, the classics. I wouldn’t mind seeing this played more often, too.

Sphere of Safety: Of course you’re playing this. You’re pretty likely to set up some situations where you simply can’t be attacked because people can’t pay
enough.

Spirit of Resistance: Another five-color natural, I wonder how often the deck actually has all five colors in play. Because the gods are indestructible, it
might be a little more often than in previous five-color decks.

Spreading Plague: I love the situations that this creates, especially when you have token generators. It’s a must-kill for creature decks.

Sterling Grove: Protecting and tutoring in one card, there’s everything to love about Sterling Grove.

Stony Silence: There are so many good artifacts in the format that I can bet this is an MVP in every game it shows up in.

Stranglehold: If I had designed this card, it would be “players” instead of “opponents,” but I still love it.

Sylvan Library: As mentioned, part of a cool combo. You don’t lose life with Abundance in play because you’re not drawing the cards.

Tainted Aether: Another ancient card that I absolutely love and just haven’t found the right spot for.

Teferi’s Care: Makes me wonder why there’s not a Rancor or something in the deck. That’d be super-tech.

Test of Endurance: A deck has to have a win condition. This one is eminently reasonable.

Trace of Abundance: Helping with the colored mana situation, though I wonder if Prismatic Omen might be more helpful (even if this produces an extra mana).

Wheel of Sun and Moon: Most of the time, you’ll use this to enchant yourself, but if someone is playing a dredge or heavy graveyard recursion deck, you
might consider enchanting them instead. I know my Karador deck would hate that.

Wild Growth: Simple mana acceleration.

Wild Research: The research, it’s wild.

Words of Wind: I’ve seen infinite mana decks use this to bounce everyone’s boards. That’s a yawn. Occasional use to get out of a tight spot is reasonable
use.

Words of Worship: Never know, it might save your life.

Night of Soul’s Betrayal: Get out of here, little creatures.

The Sorcery

Primal Surge: I just wonder what happens when the whole deck is on the table. I imagine the Words of Wind or Words of Worship will keep you from getting
decked. The inclusion of both of them makes more sense to me now.

Notable Lands

Serra’s Sanctum: Um, yeah! Pulling off a win with this and Helix Pinnacle would be one for the ages.

Cards I’d Consider

There aren’t too many cards that I would suggest taking out of the deck, but there are a few I might think about trying to squeeze in.

Breathstealer’s Crypt: Monday Night Gamer Keith Bogart plays this is one of his decks and it’s always a giant pain in the patootie. Since you’re
creature-light, it’s rarely going to affect you.

Circle of Protection: Green: I dunno. Just throwing that out there – especially with Dueling Grounds in play.

Eidolon of Blossoms: Massive draw power in this deck.

Ground Seal: You’re not doing too much with your graveyard, but there are other folks who love to use theirs. The card replaces itself and prevents a
popular strategy in the format. Again, my Karador deck would be quite dyspeptic.

Kruphix, God of Horizons: I think that Helix Pinnacle is really affecting my brain.

Maelstrom Nexus: You’re playing five colors. Why not get stuff for free? There’s no whiffing in the deck, like having an instant that you don’t want to
cast come up. I think this would be a strong addition – and even better with Leyline of Anticipation around.

Mind Unbound: It might take a few turns to come online, but it seems like in this deck, you have some time to work with.

Phyrexian Tyranny: It may also be rough for you, so I’d give it some serious thought – but those two guys that both have Consecrated Sphinx are in trouble.

Primal Order: Sure, you’re playing quite a few nonbasics, but you also have some reasonable life gain and you can prevent the damage with Spirit of
Resistance.

Repercussion: It’s a card that can backfire against you sometimes, but with a low creature count, it could be very interesting to sit back and watch the
fireworks.

Thanks to Roger for sharing such a fun deck. If I can’t come up with a superior idea for the five-color deck that I’m going to top off the Chromatic
Project with, this will get some strong consideration. If you’d like your deck to be featured, I’m happy to take a look at it. My preference is
when people suggest featuring decks which belong to friends or that they saw someone else playing and couldn’t wait to tell me about. Here are a few
guidelines:

• Themes aren’t necessary, but they certainly grab my attention. Themes no one has thought up before get a bonus. I’m a sucker for literary tie-ins. When
someone builds a Macbeth deck, you’d better believe I’ll jump on it.

• Do something unusual, but make sure the deck is still playable. A decklist that spells out the preamble to the Constitution might be clever, but if it’s
just a pile of cards, then it’s not worth sharing.

• Decks with combos are fine; combos are what make Magic the game it is. Infinite combos, especially those that are easily-assembled, make me shrug.
Palinchron + anything pretty likely to get the deck tossed on the trash pile.

• Format the deck list in a Word document.

• Avoid good stuff decks. We’ve seen them a million times. They’re great to play, but not worth featuring. Again, this is about things we might not have
seen before, or things that we’ve seen looked at in new ways.

• Avoid combo-kill-you-all-Turn-3 decks. Most of the people (not all, but most) that read this column aren’t interested in them. They’re also unlikely to
make me go “Oh, that’s cool!”

As is my recent habit, here is the complete list of one of my decks. Presented without comment, it’s a way of getting the latest versions of all of my
decks into the database.

If you want to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a campaign that’s been alive since 1987), ask for an invitation to the Facebook group
“Sheldon Menery’s Monday Night Gamers.”