It’s Extended season. An amazing number of decks are making PTQ T8s. Early results showed Twenty-two different archetypes have multiple T8 appearances (breakdown below.) It’s a diverse field, and a diverse field rewards playing powerful decks that aren’t well known. Enchantress – the combo version – fits that definition. It won a PTQ last weekend and made T4 the week before, and Betrayers just became legal.
Fair warning – this is a long article. I’ll start with some info on the two major versions of Enchantress, cover some card choices and then move on to the results of a lot of playtesting. I’ll cover the major matchups with practically all of the tier one decks, including RDW, Desire, UG Madness, Reanimator, Life, Scepter-Chant, Rock, Affinity and even Ben Dempsey’s Stifle.dec.
My qualifications: I have played Enchantress decks in PTQs, at GPs, in team games, in multiplayer and I have even built a 5color Enchantress deck. I have also written about Enchantress fairly often, including an article on the old Dojo, plus YW #19 and YW#58. Those articles have decklists, but those deck are not Extended legal any longer, nor would they necessarily be competitive in this metagame. They sure were fun, though.
First, some basics. At its core, Enchantress decks run Argothian Enchantresses, plus some other Enchantresses or Enchantress effects. These have included Verduran Enchantress, Femeref Enchantress and Enchantress’ Presence. All do the same thing – they draw cards when you play enchantments. Having multiples Enchantresses in play, and drawing and playing cheap enchantments means you draw a ton of cards. No other deck in Extended can outdraw Enchantress.
Enchantress decks can kill with Rancor-fed Auratogs, infinite mana engines built around Cloud of Fairies and bounce effects, or even giant, trampling Birds of Paradise. Enchantress decks can play silver bullets to hose any number of existing archetypes, including all of the Tier one decks. The trick, of course, is making the deck fast enough to run with the powerhouses while still fitting in the bullets and fetchers. That has not always been possible in the pre-Betrayers metagame, but pure combo versions can work. I have heard rumors of people doing well with beatdown Enchantress, but the combo version seems much better. So, we’ll look briefly at the beatdown deck, then move on to combo.
Here’s a classic Auratog beatdown version, piloted by Mike Hron. It can beat with huge Auratogs, Rancored Verduran Enchantress or Birds of Paradise wearing Ancestral Masks. This deck builds mana and draws cards for the first few turns, then smashes with impossibly big creatures quite quickly. I have played versions like this, and I have out-raced turn 2 Akromas on occasion. Since that usually means trampling over Akroma for the win, you can get an idea of the speed and power. However, Reanimator is still more consistent than this, even if you run Pacifism or Arrest to negate the first Reanimation target.
Enchantress:
Mike Hron 2002 Pro Tour Houston (31st)
4 Plains
4 Brushland
13 Forest
2 Verduran Enchantress
1 Llanowar Elves
4 Argothian Enchantress
4 Auratog
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wild Growth
4 Rancor
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Sterling Grove
4 Fertile Ground
4 Enchantress’s Presence
1 Seal of Cleansing
3 Exploration
2 Ancestral Mask
Sideboard
1 Light of Day
1 Karmic Justice
1 Ground Seal
2 Sanctimony
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Honor the Fallen
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Planar Void
4 Hidden Gibbons
1 Wall of Blossoms
Years ago, the Enchantress beatdown decks had a shot. No longer. The environment has gotten too fast, and winning it all with a tog is not possible – at least, not with an Auratog.
The other option for Enchantress builds is one built around Cloud of Fairies and Words of Wind. With this option, you use Cloud of Fairies to untap Serra’s Sanctum and a land enchanted with some mix of Wild Growths and/or Fertile Grounds. In between, you cast a cheap enchantment, then replace the multiple Enchantress-generated draws with the Words of Wind everyone-returns-a-permanent effect, and use it to return Exploration and Serra’s Sanctum, then replay those.* In short order, you have infinite mana and your opponent has no permanents. You can win with Stroke of Genius or Ambassador Laquatus, or even Cloud of Fairies beatdown, but most opponents scoop once it’s clear you can bounce all their permanents every turn.
Originally, these decks used Frantic Search. After it was banned, the decks adjusted. Here are two of the recent Eternal Wind variants:
So Nakamura
GP Okayama Trial #4 Winner, Jan. 2004 (57 cards)
13 Forest
8 Island
2 Serra’s Sanctum
3 Argothian Enchantress
4 Wall of Blossoms
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Worldly Tutor
4 Living Wish
4 Wild Growth
4 Fertile Ground
3 Exploration
4 Enchantress Presence
1 Trade Routes
4 Words of Wind
1 Tsabo’s Web
Sideboard
1 Argothian Enchantress
3 Worship
2 Deep Analysis
3 Defense Grid
1 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Masticore
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Pentavus
Kenta’s Love:
Norihito Nishimura GP Okayama, day two
11 Forest
7 Island
3 Yavimaya Coast
2 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Cloud of Faeries
3 Argothian Enchantress
4 Wall of Blossoms
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Trade Routes
3 Exploration
3 Living Wish
3 Words of Wind
4 Fertile Ground
4 Enchantress’s Presence
4 Seal of Removal
4 Wild Growth
2 Worship
Sideboard
2 Naturalize
4 Seedtime
2 Parallax Tide
2 Deep Analysis
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Masticore
1 Cloud of Faeries
The only Enchantress build to appear at Pro Tour: Columbus was a variant that combined the two. Endless Wind had the infinite mana / Words of Wind engine, but also beat down with two Endless Wurms. Now Endless Wurm is a 9/9 trampler for five mana that can occasionally be cast on turn 3 in this deck, but it has an upkeep cost instead of haste. Enchantress can be as fast as Affinity or Reanimator, but it is just not as consistent. Note that this deck finished a long way from the Top 8. A long way.
The Endless Wind –
Adam Stutt, PT: Columbus (144th)
10 Forest
6 Island
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Treva’s Ruins
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Argothian Enchantress
2 Endless Wurm
1 Cloud of Faeries
4 Exploration
4 Seal of Removal
4 Wild Growth
4 Fertile Ground
4 Enchantress’s Presence
3 Living Wish
3 Words of Wind
1 Parallax Tide
Sideboard (14 cards – missing card has to be Serra’s Sanctum)
3 Chill
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Masticore
1 Eternal Witness
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Spike Feeder
1 Energy Flux
1 Gilded Drake
1 Monk Realist
1 Worship
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Endless Wurm
Since I always have much more fun playing rogue archetypes and homemade decks than playing the PT T8 stuff, I spent a lot of time trying to make Enchantress, Pattern Rector and Rock work. Probably way too much time – I think I have over two hundred games playing it against RDW alone – and far, far fewer playing more common matchups, like RDW against Affinity. (Note: I wrote the first draft of this article around the time of the Betrayer’s Prerelease. Since that time, both Enchantress and Pattern Rector have won PTQs.)
I have two, significantly different builds of Enchantress, a two-color build and a three-color build. Neither are quite good enough to rule the current metagame, but they are close. They are good enough to justify an article because the seeds of something might be there – or a better player than I am might be able to do more with them than I can. (Like win PTQs – which these decks now have.)
The first version is a two-color build very similar to Stutt’s PT Columbus build. I cut two Yavimaya Coasts, the Treva’s Ruins, one Wall of Blossoms, one Endless Wurm and the Parallax Tide for a Forest, Island, Trade Routes, Eternal Witness and Back to Basics. Surprisingly enough, I have kept one Endless Wurm – it steals just enough games, especially against Meddling Mage decks that try to lock out the Enchantresses.
The second build is three colors, and looks like this:
Three Color Enchantress
6 Forest
2 Island
4 Plains
2 Brushland
2 Yavimaya Coast
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Treva’s Ruins
3 Argothian Enchantress
3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Cloud of Faeries
4 Exploration
4 Seal of Removal
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Wild Growth
4 Fertile Ground
4 Enchantress’s Presence
2 Sterling Grove
2 Words of Wind
1 Solitary confinement
1 Worship
1 Spirit Link
2 Living Wish
2 Brainstorm (became Living Wish # 3 and Eternal Witness)
Sideboard Living Wish targets: True Believer, Serra’s Sanctum, Ambassador Laquatus, Argothian Enchantress, Viridian Zealot, Masticore, Gilded Drake, Cloud of Faeries
Enchantress is a combo deck, which means you have to both playtest it against real decks and goldfish it a ton. A lot of matches hinge on whether you play a turn 1 Exploration and another land, a Forest and Wild Growth or hold the enchantments until after you have an Enchantress effect in play. These decisions are toughest against fast decks: you are balancing speed against the chance of fizzling. A hand with 2*Forest, Island, Wild Growth, Enchantress Presence, Words of Wind, Seal of Removal has obvious plays if you are going first, but the choices get harder when an opponent might activate Rishadan Port before you can get the EP down.
You also want to practice going off with the deck a lot. The mana can get complex. In tournaments, I like to bring a bunch of colored tokens and use them to represent mana in my pool. Not only does it help me keep track – a real concern after 6 hours of playing the deck – it also lets my opponent know exactly what’s happening and avoids some nasty arguments about what spell used what color mana.
I’m going to do some card by card comments on some of the more unusual cards. I assume everyone knows why you play Argothian Enchantress, Enchantress’ Presence and Serra’s Sanctum, but some of the others are less obvious.
Wall of Blossoms
This provides some defense against the fast beatdown decks, like RDW and Affinity. It also cantrips, and that can occasionally be useful. In some circumstances, you can generate a lot of mana (lands, some Wild Growths and Fertile Grounds and a Serra’s Sanctum) but have only Words of Wind in play – no Enchantress effects. At that point, you can cast and bounce the Wall multiple times – thereby bouncing opponent permanents and keeping them from developing. That sort of thing can buy plenty of time to topdeck something more useful. It is never a situation you want to get in, but I have won games by replacing my initial draw by bouncing a Wall of Blossoms, then bouncing it a couple times to keep my opponent’s board permanent free. I still get my draw – I just get it at the end of my first main phase.
Spirit Link
It is another answer to Akroma, Rorix or other fast beats, and can really annoy RDW when you have this on their creature and Wall of Blossoms around. It is rarely dead – it even slows up Psychatog. Most importantly, once you start going off, you often generate a ton of white mana via Serra’s Sanctum. Mana of other colors can be more difficult, especially since you need blue for Cloud of Fairies, green for the other 1cc enchantments like Exploration, and eventually more colors for Living Wish and Ambassador Laquatus. Having a 1cc white enchantment really helps, even if you are just targeting your own Wall of Blossoms.
Seal of Cleansing
It is an answer to Isochron Scepter, some Affinity stuff, and some other problems – and it is white. See above for why that’s important.
Solitary Confinement
It is an answer to fast beatdown, to discard like Cabal Therapy and Duress, and to the Mind’s Desire kill cards. With some Enchantress effects and even a minimal amount of luck, you can play and draw enchantments during your main phase, and the skipped draw phase becomes irrelevant. On rare occasions you draw nothing but land and stall, but then you just sacrifice Confinement and get your draw back.
Trade Routes
With 23 lands, I drowned under a flood of lands way too often. Even with 22, I still like cycling them. More importantly, Serra’s Sanctum, Trade Routes and Exploration is a combo. In many cases, you use the Sanctum mana to bounce other lands to get around color screw. Trade Routes can also help pay upkeep on Solitary Confinement.
Worship
It is always nice to have RDW scoop to a Worship / Argothian Enchantress combo game one, and it is another white enchantment to bounce, but this is nowhere near as good in the other matchups. Reanimator has Sickening Dreams. Desire and Chant have Cunning Wish for Disenchant or bounce. Affinity has the Disciple. And on and on. It’s good, but not as amazing as it once was.
Eternal Witness
You can do such stupid things with infinite Eternal Witness recursion. For example: against Reanimator, I had Words of Wisdom, Argothian Enchantress and Seal of Removal. Reanimator has some real problems when you bounce their creatures with Seal of Removal, nab it back with Witness, then pay one to bounce the Eternal Witnesswhen Seal comes back down. Eternal Witness, Cloud of Fairies, Words of Wind and two Enchantress effects clears the opponent’s board, and happens quite often. Good enough to maindeck. If you really want some funky tricks, Snap, Eternal Witness, Serra’s Sanctum and a Forest enchanted with Wild Growth and Fertile Ground means infinite mana.
Endless Wurm
I feel embarrassed to even include this here, but it does win games against RDW and against some other decks. It is definitely not a primary path to victory, but it is just good enough that I can’t quite cut it. Remember, however, that this entire archetype is barely playable in the current metagame, so I am not saying that Endless Wurm is a great creature. However, very few decks in this format play Terror, you can’t kill Endless Wurm with a Smother or just a couple burn spells, and even if they bounce it, since it is easy to replay. It does end the game in a couple hits. I keep moving him to the sideboard, but Living Wish and Endless Wurm is seven mana – which I either don’t have or, if I have it, I’m winning anyway. Besides, if you have tons of mana and want to wish for a fattie, go get Akroma.
Brainstorm
It is probably going to phase out, (note; it has) but I got so sick of Duress and Cabal Therapy that I decided to include a few. I am playing Islands. However, I am not that certain that I can get Islands early on – or necessarily want one on turn one. However, Brainstorm is only really good against Duress and Therapy in the first few turns.
The best part about Enchantress, however, is the wealth of silver bullets you can add to the mix. Enlightened Tutor, Sterling Grove and insane card drawing can find a lot of them. That said, however, the format really doesn’t lend itself to a silver bullet strategy. There are simply too many playable decks, using too many different win conditions. To fight them all, you need a lot of bullets – so many that you end up with a ton of dead cards. At the last GPT, I saw Reanimator, Desire, Scepter/Chant, RDW, mono-green, Affinity, Rock and several other decks, and the GPT was actually quite small. Looking at the PTQ results, the list is much longer.
Other Silver Bullets:
Back to Basics
I run one copy of Back to Basics maindeck in the U/G version of the deck, and a second in the sideboard. Back to Basics is a solid answer to Rishadan Ports, which are a pain in the RDW matchup, and to Affinity’s game plan. Back to Basics can also mess up Scepter-Chant’s mana, especially the versions that actually have access to red mana for Fire/Ice. Back to Basics really doesn’t hurt the U/G version much, since you can eventually untap the Serra’s Sanctum with Cloud of Fairies, and since you cast practically everything through Fertile Ground mana anyway.
Tsabo’s Web
Back to Basics does not work in the three-color version, because of the pain lands. The closest alternative is Tsabo’s Web. It does shut down Rishadan Port and (occasionally) Wasteland, but it does not lock down the other non-basics. On the plus side, Tsabo’s Web can perform the same function as Wall of Blossoms when Words of Wind is in play – namely bouncing all the opponent’s permanents – and it can do so using Serra’s Sanctum mana. However, it does not do quite enough to be worth playing, unless your metagame is composed of almost nothing but RDW, Life (the Starlight Sanctums) and man lands.
Parallax Wave / Parallax Tide
These are additional removal spells. Parallax Tide can seriously slow down an opponent for a couple turns – which is often all you’ll need. Parallax Wave does the same for beatdown creatures. However, all these effects are temporary (unless you play Stifle, but that’s another deck.)
Kirtar’s Desire
This is another option for, in effect, creature removal. It isn’t very exciting, but it does negate a fast Akroma or Rorix, and does shut down Tog. Spirit Link is generally better, although Kirtar’s Desire will keep you from dying to Akroma when you have 5 life left, while Spirit Link won’t. Kirtar’s Desire also costs just one mana, which is important. Pacifism, at two mana, is useless. Arrest is slightly better, since it can shut down Rofellos, Goblin Welder, an en-Kor creature or Masticore, but it is still too expensive. For that much mana, play Solitary Confinement.
Hidden Gibbons / Hidden Guerillas
These are one-mana enchantments that become threats once triggered, and they are triggered fairly easily. However, they just don’t do enough to win a slot. The Gibbons trigger on instants, and were very nice against counter-heavy decks if you dropped one turn one. Getting one turn one requires you to play 3-4 in the sideboard, and you don’t have room. Hidden Guerillas, which triggers on artifacts and becomes a 5/3 trampler, just trades with a Myr Enforcer against Affinity, and doesn’t always trigger against anything else. Most decks with Chrome Moxen will hold them, and if a Scepter hits, imprinting Chant, having an attacker isn’t that important anyway.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
If you run multiple Living Wishes, Serra’s Sanctum and some other mana let you cast this early and often (often, because few decks have any alternative to bouncing Akroma.) One copy in the sideboard is sweet – Argothian Elder / Worship is okay against red decks (golden unless they have a Pyroclasm effect), but Akroma / Worship is such wonderful overkill. I don’t really know if I would prefer Akroma to Endless Wurm – or whether I fetch her often enough to justify the slot. Most of the time the deck wins via Words of Wind if it get’s to this point – Akroma is often unnecessary.
The rest of the silver bullets are matchup specific, so I’ll address them there.
Matchup with Red Deck Wins:
This matchup is slightly above even – maybe 60 percent. I have played a ton of games, but with a multitude of builds. What the matchup really comes down to is that RDW is very consistent, and Enchantress is not. If you can get the engine going, you will draw Worship or Solitary Confinement and just win. Barring that, you can get Endless Wurm and just win, either because you kill them outright or because they spend all their resources on killing the Wurm. As a last resort, you can often hang on and bounce all their permanents. It’s a tight race, but doable. Living Wish for Masticore helps, once you have the mana. Cloud of Fairies is only so-so – you have to bounce all their permanents and empty their mana pool before playing it or be content with one untap and soaking up a removal spell. If RDW has Pillage maindeck, and it hits a land with a couple Fertile Grounds and Wild Growths, that hurts, but the Pillage versions are generally slower, so it doesn’t really change the matchup. Tangle Wire is much less scary, since you often have a ton of lands, or can only tap those lands that only produce one mana.
Chill is pretty solid in the sideboard, but it really only helps this matchup. Sideboard slots are so limited that other options, like Propaganda, might be a better use of your very limited sideboard slots. Chill also competes with Absolute Law, which means that the Argothian Elders can block everything but Morphed Firecats, and that they survive Cave-In, which is important if you want to rely on the Worship. Sphere of Law is also solid, albeit expensive. Solitary Confinement, or Akroma, are the best options. At best, Confinement is game over. At worst it buys you at turn or two.
Matchup with Affinity:
Game one this is a stretch. You need a fast start and a lot of luck. The problem with Affinity is that your Words of War tricks really don’t slow them all that much – bouncing two Frogmites and a Myr Enforcer doesn’t help when they come back into play for free. Endless Wurm is surprisingly good (as is “surprise – this bad card is almost good”) here – but you can’t rely on drawing a one-of. Solitary Confinement is your primary out – and you have to count on drawing that, either directly or via Sterling Grove. If you can fire off a Living Wish, you are generally going for Masticore to massacre their Disciples and fliers, Cloud of Fairies or Serra Sanctum for going off, or – very occasionally – True Believer or Eternal Witness.
From the sideboard, March of the Machines and Energy Flux – or even Energy Flux and Back to Basics, would be nice. Hidden Guerillas would provide pressure – boarding in 3 or 4 could win the game. However, I have not found room for any of those cards in the sideboard. Affinity is only 10 percent of the metagame, and half the Enchantress sideboard is already filled with Living Wish targets. I generally bring in the extra Back to Basics (in UG) or the extra Solitary Confinement, plus any Naturalizes or Seals of Cleansing I managed to squeeze into the board. Affinity can bring in Engineered Plagues on Enchantresses and Kamis, so games two and three are not any better.
Matchup with U/G Madness:
On a good day, you can Words of Wind them into submission. On a bad day, you get the Words of Wind and they have a madness outlet and a Basking Rootwalla. In that case, you Living Wish for Masticore and blow everything away, or Akroma and first strike kills everything. You have a ton of mana and card drawing, so Force Spike, Daze and Circular Logic are less of a problem. Getting killed with fast beats that fly over your Walls of Blossoms would seem likely on paper, but it just doesn’t seem to happen – I either get Words of Wind or Living Wish or Confinement soon enough.
The people I play against are really skilled with U/G Madness. Despite that, my win percentage is astronomical. I’d give numbers, but it feels like I’ve been unreasonably lucky. I’ll try another 30-40 games and see if it begins to even out, but so far this looks really good for Enchantress. I just don’t understand why.
Honor the Fallen is a silly sideboard card, but it is somewhat useful against Reanimator as well. It is not amazing, but it worked for Mike Hron. Nothing else seems much better – and you probably want to leave the Living Wish targets in the sideboard. U/G Madness’ sideboard is worse, however – one flashbacked Ray of Revelation won’t cut it, and many decks don’t even have that.
Matchup with Mind’s Desire:
Let’s be brutally honest here – you are playing a tier two combo deck against a tier one combo deck. If they get a fast start, they win. However, you have Solitary Confinement, which stops both Brain Freeze and Tendrils, and could even Living Wish for True Believer, which has the same effect. With both on the table, they need to find two separate bounce spells – three if you also get a Sterling Grove in play. That slows them down a lot, usually fatally. Mind’s Desire requires at least a couple lands and a medallion effect or two to go off. Once you get Words of Wind going, you can bounce their permanents enough to lock them out, then win at your leisure. It’s not great, but the matchup is winnable.
Sideboarding consists of bringing in the other Solitary Confinement and any additional disenchant effects you have for the Walls, and useless stuff like Spirit Link in the three color version. You want to kill their Moxen and Medallions. Eternal Wurm can steal a game here, since they generally drop a few life points to pain and fetch lands, and if they chump with a Sunscape Familiar, that is still good for you.
Matchup with Reanimator:
This matchup is the reason to play Enchantress. Four maindeck Seal of Removal, plus Eternal Witness and, eventually, the Words of Wind lock is pretty good against the deck. It is not all gravy, however – Cabal Therapy and Duress hurt. The one positive is that these games are decided fairly quickly. You either stop their initial reanimation and outdraw them, or you don’t and you lose. Gilded Drake in the sideboard helps, since you have Living Wish, but locking them up with Words of Wind is better.
Post sideboard, they get a Cranial Extraction, and you get nothing much, although I have experimented with Ground Seal. The advantages to Ground Seal is that it cantrips, and it stops them from Reanimating your Gilded Drake. Reanimator looks to be a tier one deck – at least right now, a week before GP Boston – but I don’t know that Ground Seal is good enough to win enough sideboard slots to make it relevant. Ground Seal is not something you want to draw turn eight – and it does not combo with Eternal Witness.
[It’s post GP Boston now, and the Teen Titans decks have the potential to be a lot worse. Back to Basics will make them hurt, but Sundering Titan is God-awful for you. Ground Seal looks like the best option – or hoping to miss this deck.]
Matchups with the Rock:
Cabal Therapy, maybe Duress, and Pernicious Deed do not a fun match make. The Rock is a beating. In the past, I have tried cards like Bind and Karmic Justice to nerf the Deed. Bind just got yanked by a discard spell, but Karmic Justice actually helped – at the very least, it made Deed painful for us both. It’s not enough, and if Rock resolves Cranial Extraction on one of the Enchantress effects you are in a world of hurt. The only saving grace is that control Rock appears to be losing steam, so maybe you can miss this matchup. Beatdown Rock, with more creatures and fewer Deeds and Extractions, is less of a problem.
Matchups with Life:
This is a very strange matchup to playtest, since both sides are, basically, goldfishing, but Enchantress has the advantage. That’s hardly surprising, since Life does nothing to the opponent when it goes off, and you win by decking them. Your only concerns are Test of Endurance or running out of chump blockers if they combo and have Unspeakable Symbol tech. Post sideboard, you need to keep all their lands off the table, since Serenity wrecks you. Fear Serenity, both here and against white weenie. That aside, enjoy the win.
We have not had enough time to learn Cephalid Life very well yet. Seal of Removal seems fine against Sutured Ghoul, but the matchup is not as easy as pure Life. If you play well, and are playing against a mediocre CL player, you win. If your opponent is highly skilled – well, I don’t know. I’m beating CL, but that may be due to misplays.
Matchup with Scepter Chant:
If they are going first, and get a Scepter lock on turn two, you are dead. If you can get a Seal of Cleansing down, you are in much better shape. Seal of Removal answers Meddling Mages, when set to something important, and if you can resolve even one Enchantress effect you will draw enchantments faster than they can draw counters. Unfortunately, it really does come down to resolving that first Enchantress effect. I have tested and played against both the with and without Mages version, and the no-mages version is more of a problem, because they replace the Mage with additional counters.
Ben Dempsey’s Stifle.dec
I playtested against Ben and that deck in the weeks before Boston. I didn’t play Enchantress too much. Suffice it to say that a deck that relies on Wild Growth and Fertile Ground is not happy against a deck that plays Parallax Tide. His deck needs four mana to fire off a Tide, but he also has to draw it. You have to draw Words of Wind, which also costs three. If you start returning permanents first, you generally win. Not a great matchup, but if you have practiced, you can win.
Summary:
Here’s the summary I wrote before this weekend.
Yup, the deck really has no amazing matchups. Reanimator is close, but you are not incredibly consistent and they are, so you can expect to lose a match here and there. Other matchups range from slightly in your favor to unfavorable. There is a reason Enchantress finished 144th at the Pro Tour. That said, however, the deck is rogue, and it does win. Very few people have tested against Enchantress, and very few understand just how fast the deck can go from doing nothing to winning. Moreover, the deck gets very little splash damage – only sideboarded Serenities have any real impact. If you like it, and know it, it’s playable. Not amazing, but playable, and a lot of fun.
But I will amend the summary slightly. Wilson Freeman won the Rochester, NY PTQ last weekend with combo Enchantress. He has a PTQ report, with decklist, in the forums. A week before that, Isao Oono took his The Endless Wind version to 4th Place in a Tokyo PTQ. Here’s his decklist:
6 Forest
10 Island
2 Serra’s Sanctum
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Argothian Enchantress
4 Fertile Ground
1 Trade Routes
2 Worship
4 Wild Growth
3 Exploration
4 Seal of Removal
4 Enchantress’s Presence
3 Words of Wind
4 Living Wish
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Snap
Sideboard
1 Wasteland
1 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Masticore
1 Ambassador Laquatus
1 Eternal Witness
1 Worship
2 Deep Analysis
4 Mana Leak
1 Monk Realist
My playtest deck was pretty similar to this, but I had -1 Words, -1 Living Wish, -1 Stroke, -1 Worship, – 1 Snap, -2 Coasts for +1 Back to Basics, +1 Wurm (I know, I know), +1 Confinement, +1 Exploration, +1 Forest, +1 Island. His deck has more focus, mine more answers. And mine has an Endless Wurm, which might indicate which version you should copy.
Post Betrayers:
So, does the deck change when Betrayers becomes legal? Let’s see. Enchantress does not get Titania’s Song, Sylvan Library or a new version of Argothian Enchantress, which is what it really needs. What it does get are Lifegift and the Genjus. Let’s take the dreck first.
Lifegift is slow lifegain that only rises above mediocre when you are already going off. If you are already bouncing lands with Words of Wind, gaining a couple life should not matter. If you are not, then spending three mana on this is just bad.
Genju of the Realm
If you have 2WUBRG and an untapped land, this is a hasty 8/12 trampler that is close to indestructible. Getting the mana is not impossible or even unlikely, but Endless Wurm is a lot cheaper and does not get shut down by Rishadan Port – and it is barely playable. There is a certain cool factor involved in playing a legendary enchantment, but there is a cache to winning, too. You can have one or the other – not both.
Genju of single colors
These make a bit more sense. The blue version has evasion, but it requires Blue mana and Islands, and that Blue mana is generally needed for casting and recasting the Cloud of Fairies. The White Genju is also less useful, since you won’t have all that many Plains in the three color versions of the build – but having a one-mana enchantment when going off is a huge benefit. The Green version may be the best, however, since you will always have lots of Forests. On turns where you have mana, and can bounce several permanents, you can play and activate the Genju, then bounce it and activate another Forest. Even if the Genju leaves play, the animated land remains animated until end of turn. In some circumstances – namely if you cannot go infinite, but can bounce a few permanents – that can create a reasonable attack force. It would be nice if you could bounce a land with Trade Routes and have the Genju return, Rancor-like, to your hand, but that does not work. If it did, the Genjus would be obviously playable, but as they are, I will have to playtest a lot before I add them to the deck.
I would also expect that Genju will fit well in the W/G beatdown versions. I haven’t tested that at all.
Short summary – classic archetype, fallen on hard times, but it does still win PTQs.
Bonus Feature: Here’s the mid-week PTQ T8 breakdown, showing deck archetypes and the number of T8 appearances. [These are a smidge dated due to my schedule’s fault and not Peter’s but are interesting nonetheless. – Knut]
Red Deck Wins 33
The Rock 22
UG Madness 17
Scepter Chant 16
UW Desire 15
Life 13
Goblins 12
Affinity 8
Aluren 8
Psychatog 8
Reanimation Machine 8
Reanimator 8
Gro-a-Tog 4
Temporary Solution 4
UB Desire 3
Kiki-Opposition 3
Trinity 3
White Weenie 3
UG Squirrel Opposition 3
Cephalid Breakfast 2
Enchantress 2
Sneak Attack 2
UWB Desire 1
UW Control 1
Confinement 1
Draco-Explosion 1
Food Chain Goblins 1
Pattern Rector 1
Goblin Death 1
Green-red Fatties 1
Trinity and Nail 1
Welder Control 1
Welder Intuition 1
* To go infinite, you actually need two Enchantress effects and two Explorations.