Enchantress Onslaught changes

[j_orlove]

Quote I don't think the manabase can support a 2nd blue card, but I might test some post SB games versus combo to see.  If it really wins when it's out, it might be worth a slot.

You could always side out ancestral for the lab against combo  --if it actually does win those games, it'd be worth it. That could help a little with the strain on your mana.

[Amosw99]

Hey all,
You may remember from the bdominia days that I play enchantress IRL. My deck is different from coober 'cause i don't own an ancestral so the mana base looks like this:

4 Savannah
2 Scrubland
2 Bayou
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
7 SoLoMox
4 City of Brass
1 LoA
2 Windswept Heath
1 Serra's Sanctum

Basically, i replaced the brushlands with the windswepts.

Also, in my metagame two of the 5 or so decks to beat are TnT, MaskNaught, and ICT (for real   ). So I took a Seal of Cleansing out and added an Aura of Silence. I almost never have the problem of the 1WW mana cost especially after adding the windswept heath's. It is a silver bullet against MaskNaught, it's better than seal vs. TnT, and it rapes ICT (like everything else). Also, if you happen to find a mirror match it's great there. It could be the answer you are looking for but I don't really know with the blue in the mana base.
  I'm still working the main deck but i have decided that one prescence is correct and i have had holistic wisdom in my deck for a while over regrowth...my list...

4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Enchantress's Prescence
4 Sterling Grove
1 Aura of Silence
3 Sylvan Library
4 Replenish
1 Moat
1 Abyss
1 Pariah
1 Worship
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Sacred Mesa
1 Pursiut of Knowledge
1 Choke
3 Duress
1 Words of Waste
1 Balance
1 Holistic Wisdom

SB: (I wouldn't recommend mine for the average metagame but it works around here)
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Pariah
2 Cop:Red (i'm still not sold on samite ministration)
1 Aura Fracture
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Duress
1 Choke
2 Powder Keg
1 Karmic Justice


The differences between mine and Cooberp's are really metagame differences. I just thought I'd post mine to see how an enchantress deck looks in a less defined metagame. Also, to show a stable way of encorporating the new cards and holistic wisdom that seems to be working out for me. The thing I don't understand about other builds is the amount of tutoring. Maybe it is becaues I don't play ancestral that i feel that tutoring is so fundemental. I LOVE playing 4 groves DT and VT. Before I played with VT I splashed blue for FOF but i hated it and made the switch...I was rewarded by making the deck  much better vs. control and all aggro except sligh.

I have found that Choke is better than City of Solitude vs. the base blue decks in my area. I think City only hurts mono blue while Choke can hurt mono blue, keeper, TnT, Gro, and various other decks that incorporate blue

Does anyone have any suggestions to improve my build? It's pretty well tested as my area has Sligh, Sui, MaskNaught, TnT, ICT, Grow, Stompy, and mono blue and I play them all regularly.

Amos

[cooberp]

Amos--
Problems with your build:

1. Mana. You're somewhat short on colored mana--the deck's requirements for G and especially W are VERY high.  I wouldn't go lower than 16 W/15 G.  You'll get hosed by Wastelands and land destruction.

2. Seal vs. Aura.  Where I find this makes the difference is when you need to stop a turn 1 Survival or Necro before they deal too much damage.  And WW is practically impossible to get under B2B.  But if it works for you, go with it.

3. You have too little draw and too much tutoring, just as you said (but as a positive).  I found the deck improved DRAMATICALLY when instead of having to lose cards in order to find others (4 Groves and Vamp), I just drew my answers by loading up on raw draw power and dig with Sylvan reshuffling.  I used to always be one step behind when I was paying a card to wait a turn to get another card.  Now I'm draws and draws ahead and have all the answers in hand ahead of time.  If you face a TON of aggro, the extra tutoring may be necessary, but I can barely remember games when I just couldn't find what I needed by drawing huge numbers of cards and picking and choosing off a frequently-reshuffled Sylvan.

4. Choke vs. CoS: Huh?  Keeper can easily play around Choke with four Cities and artifact mana, which is why I cut it from the maindeck.  CoS doesn't hose Keeper the way it hoses mono blue, but it DOES let you do whatever you want and leaves them with tons of dead cards in hand.  It's a mandatory maindeck include.  I'd only maindeck Choke in a VERY heavy control environment.

[BigChuck]

I think a common misconception a lot of you are having is that this deck can support multiple blue cards. The ONLY reason there is blue to begin with, is because ancestral recall is one of the best cards ever made, and is worth the one tundra, especially now that you can use the fetchlands to get the blue mana. That is the only reason for the blue splash. Adding the one tundra for the recall isn't that big of a deal, as you can still get white, and you have 5 sources of blue, which is sufficient to play your one blue card. Running multiple blue cards would require adding more blue mana. The aforementioned suggestion of siding out ancestral is ludicris. Who sides that out? Almost no decks add colors just for the sideboard;they work with what they have. Running cities doesn't mean I suddenly go add more colors. Adding colors makes most decks more inconsistant, and there is absolutely no good reason for wanting to do that.

[j_orlove]

Quote The aforementioned suggestion of siding out ancestral is ludicris. Who sides that out?

Well, if the Lab wins more games than 3 cards would, why not side it out?

Oh, and Azhrei used to side it out vs 4x FoF Mono-U, because they ran so many copies of misdirection, and he wanted to fit in so much sideboard hate.

I'm not saying he definitely should, I'm saying that if the lab *just wins*, then it would be better than Ancestral.

For example: Lab stops Dragon from winning, since they cannot cast the animate effect and the stroke in the same turn. Of course, this is just one deck, and I don't really know how much it would help in other matchups, but "your opponent cannot win" just seems stronger than "draw 3 cards"

[Fastbond]

Since the deck is 61 cards, maybe it would be wise to go down to two sterling groves.  Replenish allows you to recur it multiple times.  With two you can still have the double sterling grove lock.  And there's lots of other nonenchantments you'd like to see that can't be fetched with Sterling Grove(ie. Balance, Replenish).  The double grove lock doesn't come into play that often and doesn't stop cards such as Pernicious deed for instance.  Hollistic Wisdom serves as an effective graveyard tutor for enchantments in any case.  Don't have the moat in your deck well then trade an enchantment for a Pariah, etc.

[BigChuck]

I would never go down to two groves. It just isn't enough to get one consistently, and they are very, very good. Don't forget, they aren't just protection for your enchantments, they also tutor for them. I'm also not sure what you are trying to prove with the holistic wisdom arguement. While it is a good card, they serve two different purposes. If you really want to go down to sixty cards, dont cut something which protects half your deck, and goes and finds answers. If anything, if I were to cut anything, which I really don't see the need to do, by the way, it would probably be pariah.

[cooberp]

Cutting Grove no. 3 equals DIE against aggro.  The point is you want a turn 3 or 4 at the latest Abyss, Moat, or Worship.  That's not going to happen without three Groves.  Grove is also quite strong against control, primarily because it gets Pursuit of Knowledge once Sylvan is on board.  Trust me, three is the right number.
And I can't ever see cutting Pariah, unless they print a sac-enchantment Swords to Plowshares.  You need Grovable recurrable creature removal, and the extra turn it buys you is critical.  More times than I can count, I've been at very low life vs. a horde and gone Pariah, Replenish, Replenish until I could find Moat or Worship.

[Amosw99]

This weekend I played both mono blue and sligh and i lost to back 2 basics and blood moon repetedly even though i sided in an aura fracture. I observed a tnt player also playing against the same decks and his answer was to use wooded foothills to get a basic forest so he could still use survival to get lyrist. I was thinking, has anyone thought about adding one basic plains to the deck so your seal/fracture can be cast under a b2b or blood moon?
just thoughts,
Amos

[cooberp]

If you face tons of nonbasic hate, that's not a bad idea at all.  You really can't cut colored sources though--you can't afford to have more than one land that doesn't produce two primary colors--so you'd have to swap it in for the Tundra, hurting your ability to cast (and maybe run) Ancestral.  Then again, I ran Ancestral long before fetchlands just off Cities Mox Lotus and had no trouble.
Then again, if you face tons of nonbasic hate, Parfait might be a better choice.  If the Keepers and combo decks are kept out by nonbasic hate, you might be best off playing a monocolor deck and just tweaking it with specific hosers for the predominant decks in the field.

[MQN2003]

CooberP, I think it makes sense to cut a Sylvan Library to go down to 60 cards. It's pretty easy to find one when you have 2 of them, 3 Groves, and 2 tutors in a slightly thinner deck. Also, they are fairly useless in multiples later in the game.

In your sideboard, I'm not entirely sure what the second Presence and the Femeref Enchantress are for. Could you please clarify that for me? Also I find that siding Samite Ministrations in against red and black just doesn't do very much, usually only buying a turn or two, which sometimes isn't enough. Wouldn't another Story Circle do just as much and more?

[cooberp]

MQN2003--Thanks for looking at the deck.
Adding the third Sylvan was the best change I ever made.  The old version would always lose a card tutoring for Sylvan, only to have it countered.  This version always draws Sylvan and can get it through under the counterwall.  It's a huge difference.  They are much less useless in multiples lategame with Words of Waste, plus they are cheap enchantments that cantrip.  Also, if the first draws a counter, you want to draw another one.
As for the SB--The second Presence is there because against control, the more Enchantress effects the better.  You want six maindeck but I just don't think there's room; however, there's really nothing you'd rather see against control.  Thus, the more the merrier.
Ministrations aren't great against black, although they can be great when black uses up its hand and you just need to buy a little time to gain control.  They are, however, what makes Sligh a total cakewalk after boarding.  Price or Fireblast are completely, well, burned by this card.  It's an auto-concession.  And you need to KILL Sligh postboard.

[defe]

Hi there, back to the TNT sideboard option. If the Artifact-creatures are a problem, here comes a weird idea. Darkest Hour, enchantment, 1cc, and playing around story circle with it will be great...

Maybe it's not the correct answer, but, here are my 2 cents.  

[jdl]

Darkest Hour would give you a black Artifact Creature that still won't die to The Abyss.  Your best bet should be to get a Worship  on the board and protected.

[Fastbond]

How about cutting the two wastelands and adding back an enchantresses presence.  The deck isn't really fast enough to exploit a wasteland or duress opening against combo.  And there's a lot more things to be worried about in keeper than a turn one library like a turn one mindtwist for example.  Also, the one strip mine is recurrable via wisdom is necessary.  And normally average cards like Phyrexian Arena can outdraw Sylvan Library.  Another Enchantresses Presence would help to keep up with Library and you can use Duress and Words of Waste as an answer to it.  The wastelands can help against Bazaar Squee but that drawing engine is not often played so I think it might be worth it to rely on a sole stirp mine through wisdom recursion to deal with it.  There are so many other effective draw engines besides Library of Alexandria that it might be better to work on trying to keep up with those engines than just have an answer to one engine that isn't played in that many decks and may not even show up during the game.

[cooberp]

You clearly never have faced a turn one Library with your opponent going second and no Wasteland in sight.  You can't *resolve* Sylvan or Words of Waste if your opponent is drawing two cards a turn from the beginning.  And the majority of T1 decks play Library, because, well, it's broken.\n\n

[cooberp]

Azhrei and friends deserve tremendous props for the Celestial Dawn idea.  If they can run it off their manabase, I think it's safe to say a deck with 17 white sources can support it.  Absolute genius.  It's in the board in place of the last Femeref Enchantress, as they tend to get Kegged away by decks running Fracture.

[Amosw99]

I noticed in the keeper thread that Az said that an enchantress deck showed up at the tournement in Virginia on Saturday...does anyone who attended know what it looked like? i'd be really interested to find out... thanks...

BTW celestial dawn....  ...drool...

Amos

[j_orlove]

I know the dawn protects keeper against REB, scald, and all their other color hosers, as well as wasteland, blood moon, and the other nonbasic hosers.
Here, I assume you'd just use it to hose nonbasics?

The one problem I see with the dawn is that it makes your sanctum and wastelands plains. I don't know if this is a huge issue or not, especially since it fixes the color screw problem.

Oh, and those enchantresses are less likely to get kegged, now that Az and friends replaced keg with peacekeeper and alter reality  

[BigChuck]

I think the fact that all the nonbasic hate is useless makes up for not having sanctum(technically). You lose some tempo, but its significantly better then losing ALL your tempo to a back to basics.

[Amosw99]

ok...celestial dawn...does it replace Aura Fracture as a good card THE card to side in vs. B2b and blood moon? should it be in addition taking out say...a seal? I don't really know without testing but my gut says to keep the fracture and cut a seal but I just wanted to bounce the idea off you guys, what does everyone else think?

[cooberp]

Aura Fracture will never be cut from any deck of mine.
There's no Seal in the SB, just the one MD.

[ZoneSeek]

Wow ... Bleach. How did we overlook this card? It does seem to be a solid answer to two cards that severly hurt the deck. I don't really see a downside to it - in fact, it also gets around Hibernation, if you see that often. No longer do we have to use the janky Lens to get around that cursed bouncer. Of course, it makes Wash Out more lethal, but I think Hibernation has seen more play.

I could have sworn I scoured card listings for all white green and black enchantments .... grrr  

[spin13]

The loss of Wastelands through use of Celestial Dawn is almost negligible.  The only deck that runs something worth being Wasted that you would ever side Dawn in against is Mono-U and its one, non-Tutorable Library of Alexandria.  Being able to resolve a Dawn and fix your mana should be able to provide the mana flow to either resolve enough to win or to keep them below 7 cards (by being able to cast every spell drawn).

As for the reason nobody else thought of Dawn earlier is because its uses are predominatly for Blue-based control versus Red.  Considering the previous lack of White, as well as the host of Blue tools to deal with Red its not surprising it was overlooked, considering its lack of past use and mana cost.  Who would think a card that made everything White would be great in a blue deck?  The fact that it dodges Blood Moon and Back to Basics is just gravy on the fact that it whoops Sligh in the ass.
 
-E

[ZoneSeek]

Since this is technically an Onslaught thread, what do you guys think about Aurafication? Its use is specific; it shuts down any deck reliant on 1 - 3 creatures for it's win condition, so long as you don't Sylvan or CoB yourself to death. Is the 2WW cost too much? Or is it just too narrow to be played?

[cooberp]

Moat
Legends Rare
Enchantment
2WW
Nonflying creatures can't attack.

Does that answer your question?

[LoA]

I'm betting Zone was thinking of that card as an anti-Morphling measure to combat Keeper/BBS and possibly OSE.  I'm not sure it's better than Humility in this role, but I've never actually played Enchantress, so I'll defer to the experts.

[Amosw99]

The deck does not need another specific anti morphling card, it already has two Sacred Mesa's   Anyhoo, everyone always says it but i'll repeat it, it's not the morphling that control deck's win with, it's the card advantage. What you are really scared of from keeper, and OSE are things like mindtwist, yawgwill and ancestral that you don't really have a good answer too. From mono blue you are primarily afraid of B2B. The current sideboard deals, as well as it can, with those two threats.


On a different note I'm seeing considerably more sui in my area (5 up from 2), should i be playing a compost or a Cop:black SB in addition to my two pariah's and two swords that i was bringing in vs. sui? I want to add another card for the matchup and i want it to be a strait hoser not just spot removal and i'm not sure which is better...i'm leaning towards Compost because I have a foil one   but i'm not sure that's a good reason.

EDIT: sorry, i figured i should post my SB to give people ideas on my meta and how i sb for various matchups.

1 Duress
1 Choke
1 Celestial Dawn  
1 Karmic Justice
1 Enchantress's Presence (still testing, used to be another aura of silence)
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Aura Fracture
1 Cop Red
1 Samite Ministration
2 Pariah
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Perish
1 Overgrown Estate

Amos

[cooberp]

That's very little to bring in against control...just 1 choke and no 2nd city of solitude?
You shouldnt be boarding extra pariahs.  I'd use kegs.  And Compost is better than CopBlack because you already have story circle.
Second Estate does nothing, Perish destroys your Enchantresses.

[ZoneSeek]

Yes, I did intend it to be specifically anti-morphling. I should have clarified. But, you're right, Mesa already makes Morphling look like a sub-par win condition.  I'm well aware of the role of Moat.

A vastly negative reaction; which I anticipated. Like I said, I figured I would stay with the thread topic. Why couldn't Keg have been an Enchantment? Or Legacy's Allure have been green?

I think Humility is better, but Moat is better than Humility in Enchantress because it needs to shut down the attack phase and not just slow it down. Slamming down a Moat with 3 life left is usually more effective than slamming down a Humility.