[SCD] Enlightened tutor

[median]

Right now I think Enlightened Tutor is really good in combo.

Situation one,
You have a hand with a Dark Ritual and an Enlightened Tutor.

Cast Tutor for Necropotence, cast Necropotence with the Ritual.

Situation 2
You have a hand with a Necropotence/Gifts/Bargain/Tinker and an Enlightened Tutor.
Cast Tutor for Black Lotus, Cast your Threat.

What's crazy is that enlightened tutor is both halves of the combo. It also works with key-vault, but Necropotence is easier since dark ritual isn't dead without Necropotence.

The other option is to build a toolbox with Rest in Peace, Nihil Spellbomb, Sensei's Divining Top, Engineered Explosives, and Serenity. These would be in the sideboard and come in depending on the match. This is added versatility, Enlightened tutor improves you functionality as a combo deck and improves your games post board by giving you a toolbox approach.

Lastly I include a single Oath of Druids in every deck with Enlightened Tutor. This functions much the same way as Hurkyl's Recall in Merchant Scroll decks. For two mana I can Oath out my Tinker target and that will usually be enough to give me a chance against Workshops and Aggro.

Let me know how you see this.

[nineisnoone]

I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad, as there is nothing wrong with the benefits that you describe. However, in a very "that's Vintage" sort of way, I generally find I don't need that many tutors (there are plenty if you are black), and I'm better off with more business/support cards.

Last time I messed around with it, it was in a more aggro-control shell, rather than combo.

[Daenyth]

Generally the combo decks are black and have many many better tutors available.

However, I do think it may aid a toolbox-style approach in base-white hate decks.

[Wagner]

Right now I think Enlightened Tutor is really good in combo.

Situation one,
You have a hand with a Dark Ritual and an Enlightened Tutor.

Cast Tutor for Necropotence, cast Necropotence with the Ritual.

Situation 2
You have a hand with a Necropotence/Gifts/Bargain/Tinker and an Enlightened Tutor.
Cast Tutor for Black Lotus, Cast your Threat.

In both situations, if you get countered, your opponent will 3 for 1 you, 3 for 2 if he uses a FoW. No saying it's awful, but pretty risky and not worth it most of the time.

[Archae]

In both situations, if you get countered, your opponent will 3 for 1 you, 3 for 2 if he uses a FoW. No saying it's awful, but pretty risky and not worth it most of the time.

This could be said of Vampiric Tutor as well. Granted, a deck running black probably has discard to clear the way somewhat, but vampiric has the same downsides if you're not fetching a land or something uncounterable.

[Wagner]

In both situations, if you get countered, your opponent will 3 for 1 you, 3 for 2 if he uses a FoW. No saying it's awful, but pretty risky and not worth it most of the time.

This could be said of Vampiric Tutor as well. Granted, a deck running black probably has discard to clear the way somewhat, but vampiric has the same downsides if you're not fetching a land or something uncounterable.

But Vampiric is a lot more polyvalent, and still will get sided out sometimes in control mirrors. As say, not bad, but not good enough.

[MaximumCDawg]

The other problem I've had with Enlightened Tutor has been that it just doesn't fit in the decks that you might need it in.  If you're in Bomberman, you're in blue, and you have better ways to manipulate your draws.  If you're in Dark Times, you're in black, and you have better tutors. 

If you're in Mono-White, W/G, W/R, or W/G/R you have currently have no targets for this spell.  These decks, where they pop up, are hatebear decks without serious need to tutor enchantments or artifacts.  See, there are certainly toolbox cards in these colors (Grafdigger's Cage, Rest in Peace, Elephant Grass, Pyrostatic Pillar, etc) but they're all made substantially worse if you have to tutor them out.  Giving storm, dredge, or oath another turn and broadcasting your hate to them is a bad idea. 

So, it's a very powerful card and it's worth having a playset, but it won't see play until there's a compelling reason to do it.  It's like Burning Wish; a card whose price will eventually pop up three times or so in new printings.

[median]

In my playing around with the card I've found it to be almost the same as vampiric 2-5. Against dredge and workshops it's stellar, against creature decks it holds it's own. I know I can't build a deck that has favourable matches against everyone one so I'm happy to use this in a deck that looses to control and wins to everything else. The only strategy this that this card plays poorly to is counter magic. If you can live with that then this compromise is really worth it.

EDIT;

For reference heres my list

4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
3 Mox Opal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Necropotence
1 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Misstep
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Oath of Druids
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Black Lotus
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire

[Bill Copes]

In my playing around with the card I've found it to be almost the same as vampiric 2-5. Against dredge and workshops it's stellar, against creature decks it holds it's own. I know I can't build a deck that has favourable matches against everyone one so I'm happy to use this in a deck that looses to control and wins to everything else. The only strategy this that this card plays poorly to is counter magic. If you can live with that then this compromise is really worth it.

Have you considered Defense Grid?  You can even fetch it with the E. tutors.

[meadbert]

I have some out of date experience running Enlightened Tutor in Grim Long.  I was actually already running one when it was unrestricted and I liked that that for all the reasons you mentioned.  I then tried running four and quickly found that four did not work.  Here is the issue.  Hands with one top deck Tutor are solid in fast combo decks.  This is more true now that Brainstorm is restricted so they do not compete with Brainstorm as a turn one play.  Hands with two top deck tutors are bad if your goal is to combo out turn two because the second top deck tutor basically functions as a dead draw.  Most combo decks will start with Mystical and Vampiric.  Adding the 3rd top dock tutor triples the chance you start with two and adding a fourth doubles it on top of that.  It seemed to me at the time that a total of four top deck tutors was the sweet spot, so you could run Imperial Seal and Enlightened Tutor or 2 Enlightened Tutor.

I briefly toyed with running Enlightened Tutor over Imperial Seal, but ultimately Imperial seal was better.  That Enlightened Tutor forces you to show your opponent what you tutored for is significant, especially when grabbing Black Lotus.  When playing against Long it is frequently difficult to decide whether countering Black Lotus is the correct decision, but if you opponent just Enlightened Tutored for it then it becomes much easier.

[Archae]

If you are going for combo in Wx or WU (read: without black) and want to use Enlightened Tutor as your main means for finding Vault-Key and finding hate in games 2 and 3, you can run Grand Abolisher, and avoid countermagic on your turn. In hatebears, Grand Abolisher may be cute, but doesn't seem to make the cut in my view. Just another consideration in a heavy W deck other than Defense Grid that still allows you to tutor at the end of the opponent's turn.

[rmn]

I use an enlightened tutor in my Kobold deck to search for skullclamp and carnival of souls, but only after adding Demonic, Vampiric, Consultation, and two copies of Steelshaper's Gift.  That said, I'd rather I owned an Imperial Seal.

[median]

Have you considered Defense Grid?  You can even fetch it with the E. tutors.

I will add that to the toolbox.