You know...despite the fact that you played a somewhat underpowered old-fashioned aggro deck, big props to you for playing a somewhat underpowered old-fashioned aggro deck.  You may not have won as many matches as you'd like, but it sounds like you had fun turning creatures sideways.

I guess I'm curious to see in what context the card has been tested...what deck have you tried it out in?

but the "win" isn't the problem.  if pandeburst suits your fancies, then fine.  A lot of people will stick with mesa, others will use trenches or decree, or somebody might decide elder land wurm is broken.

the problem lies in the fact that the deck has a problem with:
1.  Super-fast combo decks that don't rely on the graveyard.
2.  Certain aggro-control strategies that can draw as well as enchantress, but run search, dig, and redundancy instead of a billion (potentially dead) silver bullets.

Right now, the sideboard seems to be pulled in too many directions.  When that's the case, that's a tell-tale sign that the deck is not particularly suited for the current metagame.  Fortunately for me, I can rule out certain matchups when I play that the rest of you probably concern yourselves with.

I played a few games against a fairly standard Tog build, and I gotta say--game 1 is just ugly for enchantress.  You've got too many dead cards and you spend too much time sifting through the deck to try to find ways to attack the Tog deck.

It seems to me that this thread has reached a consensus that Enchantress still blows vs. most super-fast combo.  Until they print an enchantment that reads:

        cc = G
        Text: Combo decks lose.

there's almost no point in devoting sideboard slots against combo.  I'd rather try to gear Enchantress into having a better chance against Hulk in games 2 & 3.  Typical anti-control cards like Choke, City of Sol, Carpet of Flowers, etc. are nice coming out of the sideboard, but a lot of decks had reasonable success playing 4 Maze of Iths.  Until Hulk builds run more strips or start using Stifles, they're stuck trying to Time Walk their way into a win.  

I haven't tested this idea, so it may just suck.  Are there better ways to fight Tog?

I'm willing to say that if Enchantress can't beat combo (which, right now, it really doesn't) AND Hulk, then it's gonna be stuck on the sidelines in casual play.

yay--it seems humility is dead in enchantress, so the argothian engine reigns supreme!

seriously, in the Tog matchup, the enchantress player has got to take a very aggressive mindset.  Throw threats out machine-gun style, because really, you have quite a supply.  Duress, Sylvan, KJ (as many have mentioned, this is quite the key card and should be maindecked in any meta, in my opinion), S. Grove, C.o.Sol., Choke, and the brutality of Replenish.  A pretty good arsenal, compared to a lot of decks that roll over belly-up against Tog.  

Yes, Tog runs a lot of draw cards, but not a lot of hard counters.  Keep their mana tied up and their hand count (relatively) low and I really think Enchantress should be able to butt heads with Tog straight-up.

Glad to see cooberp post again...this deck is his baby and growing out of its diapers.  If only it could neuter combo somehow...

Dr. Sylvan brought up 2 points as to why the Argothian engine is better than Presence:  casting cost and Worship.  Just for testing I swapped 3 Argothians for 3 Presences (making 4 Presence and 1 Argothian total) and while I usually didn't have too big a problem casting the Presence, it was 90+% of the time 1 turn slower than casting an Argothian would have been.  For me, humility will stay in my Parfait deck.

I mentioned this before, but Holistic Wisdom has served me on more than one occasion to get a Replenish back (ditching a not-needed-at-the-moment Duress usually).  Besides Strip Mine, Serra's Sanctum and LoA are frequently need resurrection, too.

I plugged in Dueling Grounds and am pretty pleased with it...it's helping me in aggro matches where I've stalled them out (usually a Moat or Worship) but they're one topdeck from a naturalize or Wonder from rushing in for 10+ points of damage.  Whlie a Grove would protect the Worship lock, Groves don't do anything to stop Wonder-inspired flying armies from beating your Moat.  Just a personal preference based on my meta matchups, I guess.

Just curious...how many of your Swarms are seeing the light of day?  In other words, how often are they immediately killed by bolts/stp's that would otherwise be dead cards?

duh.  I'm a moron.  Yeah, I edited my post to say "dropping black."

Maybe I've been in a cave, but I haven't kept up with TMD affairs enough, so I'll ask...where is that cooberp fellow, anyway?  I fear evoking the wrath of the community if there's some taboo hush-hush thing that caused his enchantress rants to disappear.

I'm biased toward keeping the Argothian, but by dropping black, I think the control matchup suffers.  Without Duress and no abeyance/chant effects, resolving critical enchantments (Sylvan, Presence, CoS) early in the game will be harder.  I just see a lot of topdeck-hoping.  Perhaps the 4th grove can re-emerge in a build without black?

On the other hand, the aggro matchup is probably better with all the Swords and Humility.  I'm not someone who agrees that aggro is a bye for Enchantress, so I do see this as a legitimate plus.

Alright, somebody else who has tested Dueling Grounds and has found it useful (Muzzoni).

I keep seeing posts about Aggro being an easy matchup, but I just haven't found that to be always true.  Ever since Wonder--> graveyard has become a common play, Moat is iffy as a lock card.  Big Wurms and large Mongrels are problematic for Abyss to take down slowly (yes, I play against madness a lot).  StP can help, but an enchantment e.g. Dueling Grounds that slows down ANY creature rush strategy (soldiers, goblin armies, fast fat) is nice to have coming out of the sideboard.

I can't see dumping black...not just for duress, because chant serves a similar purpose, but the raw power of demonic tutor can't be overlooked in a deck that runs silver bullets instead of redundancy.  Grove can only go so far.  Abyss and Estate still have their place in the deck.  Don't overlook that Duress is a sorcery and can be Wisdom'd away late-game to bring back a crucial Replenish...I've done this before to save my ass and that's not a possible play with chants or abeyances.

I like Argothians.  They provide the worship lock, which is still the best way to beat sligh/gobs.  Unless they're boarding anarchy or earthquake-type spells, which is doubtful, you win.  If one mana means the world in Type 1 (bolt > incinerate, phid > magpie, etc.) then I've gotta stick with the Argothians.  Humility would be nice, but Parfait this deck isn't.

I'm enjoying this thread immensely...good to see a resurrection attempt on Enchantress going on.

Later

Wild Growth is a nice replacement for moxen, but if you have the jewelry, I'd forget about W.G.  You'll need more room for beef and not necessarily that much mana boost.  I guess that's the problem with enchantress--it's one of an older style of deckbuilding that relies on silver bullets, thus there's always a fight for deckspace.

Before the fetchlands were printed, I had a couple of Abolishes in the side due to the complete wrecking that Blood Moon (BtB to a lesser extent) caused.  Now that Heaths are available, I think Toad's Eternal Dragon route provides a satisfactory 2nd route to getting basic lands into play.

As long as the majority of Dragon builds uses the Ambassador kill, Gaea's Blessing seems to be a fine choice.  Metalworker is another beast, though.  StP is probably the best answer.  Can the mana base support Aura of Silence?  Replenish makes everything easier to cast, but that extra turn of speed vs. Mud is crucial.

We're actually in agreement here...I'm definitely not proposing multiple copies of KJ in enchantress.  I'm saying that in some metagames, it belongs maindeck to help win game 1.

Against some match-ups, KJ is more than a catch-all or substitute for superior card, it IS the best card.  I must play against a lot more Deeds and Disks than a lot of people.

My question lies here...now that there's a decent anti-combo card in Rule of Law, what is this deck missing?  What enchantment could be printed to really push enchantress back to the forefront?  The deck is too slow, so something to up its speed that doesn't also benefit the opponent would be really nice.  Carpet of Flowers is great, but so narrow.

I've also been tinkering around with enchantress for no other reason than the gradual disappearance of enchantment hate with the rise of sideboard cards like rack and ruin, energy flux, etc.

The control matchup really isn't that bad.  Landstill can be a problem, but no card hoses Nev's disk like Karmic Justice.

I didn't like Pariah for a long time because I kept finding myself replenishing it onto my enchantress (in order to get other necessary enchantments back from the graveyard).  The problem is, despite what I tested, very few anti-aggro enchantments were able to do what Pariah is best at -- buying a turn.  It's just better than Seal of Doom or Arrest or anything else like that.  When that stompy deck finally draws its naturalize and gets rid of your moat, hopefully one of its beatsticks is Pariah'd, giving you a turn to replenish.  If there was a "fog" enchantment, I'd be tempted to try it out for those occasions when the held-back horde of mongrels and wurms suddenly is able to attack again.

With 1/1 soldiers and X/2 Piledrivers running around, one card I've messed around with is Dueling Grounds.  It's working out OK...just needs to be sealed away when you go on the pegasus rampage.

I've also dropped to 3 Groves (basically to cram Karmic Justice in the main).  It's been fine, as silver bullets, not tutoring, are still the true strength of this deck once you get past the draw engine.

Good luck, and post any other new tricks for this currently under-rated deck that you can think of.

I like this deck a lot.  Looks fun.  I have a couple of questions:

1.  When you Starstorm, how often do you usually find yourself casting it with X >1?  I only ask because I was using Starstorm in a (somewhat) similar red deck, but found Slice and Dice to be just as good 90% of the time.  It still kills welders and soldiers at instant speed and gets you a card draw.  If you need to kill Wurms or Su-Chis, Slice and Dice still works.

2.  I agree that you'll need to find your creatures, thus Impulse is good.  Have you tried actual card-drawing instead of the digging, though?  I haven't playtested your deck, but I think it could support AK decently even without Intuitions.  

Good luck

It's those pesky Land Taxes that make the parfait matchup so miserable.  You can throw disruption at his hand, mana, etc. all day and the lands (and non-empty hands) just keep coming back.  I'm sure the parfait deck can still churn out a turn of Chant +kicker followed by Replenish, and you're probably done for.

Graveyard hate is a decent strategy, but maybe Ebony Charms instead of Crypts or Planar Voids.

Personally, I like the idea of mono-black Pox, but I'd agree that 2 nether spirits are needed there.  Ditch the 2 edicts and find room for all 4 wastelands.  

Good luck!

While I'll agree that most of the creatures in a current top-10 list were printed before or around Urza's block, Vegeta said explicitly what I tried to (too) subtlely--metagame changes make such a list in need of CONSTANT evolution.

Dreadnought and Goblin welder wouldn't have made such a list in 1999, 2000, 2001, etc.  Neither would Juggernaut, and it's as old as Moses.

There will again come a time in vintage when Juggernaut falls to mediocre, and the same might be true for WGD and a couple of others.  I think there's no doubt that Welder and Xantid are probably on the list to stay for years to come.  On the corollary, currently under-used cards like Hyppie, Phid, Morphling, Negator, etc. will likely make a comeback.  Jackal Pup is still pretty underrated.  After all, sometimes red just wins, right?

Hell, R&D might print some stupid green/black enchantment mirroring Necro, thus making PT Funk a tier 1 deck, thus making everyone think that spiritmonger is worthy of such a ranking.  It's just too difficult.

I'm one of the (few maybe?) people who like a mix of zuran orb and claws of gix.  No big deal there, though.

You gotta get a balance into the deck.

Samite Ministration can be fun to imprint on a scepter, although you might want other (enchantment) answers to black/red.

I must be still living in 1997 because one creature that still makes me whimper when it gets played on the other side of the board is Hyppie.  I'm not saying it's currently the best creature, but I'd have a hard time leaving it out of a top 10.

I like the list that included "soldier token."  Good stuff.  2 years ago "pegasus token" could've made the list.