People generally started playing quadlazer because it is the most consistent version of dredge. You don't usually need to play Dread Return in game one because you are making a ton of creatures on turn 2 and tearing their hand apart with Cabal Therapy. "Mind Twisting" with Therapies is good enough to get there. A lot of the sideboards for quadlazer do play a Dread Return package so that it can get an instant win with Flame-Kin Zealot. I prefer quadlazer because it is full of all the business spells that you need.
Dredge takes some practice to learn the more intricate plays, but your game 1 is fairly straight forward. When you get to games 2 and 3, though, things become quite different. Playing against hate with Dredge is one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do in this game. I once had a friend that was able to beat a Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus AND a Tormod's Crypt in play. So just keep practicing and don't become discouraged. Dredge is like the Boogeyman; people always have to be prepared to play against you because if they aren't you will just roll them.
He really is nothing like a cannonist as he shuts of the engine our deck is based around. Paying more for a spell doesn't stop us drawing cards, our deck generates a lot of mana. Playing one spell a turn doesn't stop us from drawing cards, we still get to play the most important spells we need to. This spirit stops us drawing cards, there isn't really a way to play around that.
Canonist stops us from chaining spells, which in the early game is extremely problematic. When you are digging for more answers/engine pieces he pretty much stops us from drawing cards. Late game spirit is more disruptive, but early game they are both very troublesome and similar in function.
Choosing which you'd rather play against is like choosing between herpes and syphilis.
And I'd argue its scarier than notion thief. Its the same P/T but it costs 2 so if they're on the play and land it T2, so much of what we want to do is locked out.
The reason I disagree is because shardless BUG naturally gains so much card advantage that by playing a turn 3 or 4 notion thief, they simply sandbag their counterspells for the truly problematic enchantments (i.e. grove, o-ring and WoW). This is after they also bring in more discard in the form of additional hymns and/or thoughtseizes, so now we are extremely reliant on our leylines that don't do anything verses the thief. On top of that, they just let our grasses resolve and decay them. If you don't already have o-ring/WoW in your hand or sphere/moat out and they have let a couple enchantress effects resolve, it is pretty much game over. Not always, but most of the time.
At least the decks that will play the new spirit don't have decay, discard, edict effects, mass -1/-1 removal, or counterspells. Fighting a single one of those things is challenging, yes, but fighting all of them is a whole different ball game. That's why I'm not as afraid of this guy as some may be. We have dealt with hate like him in the form of Thalia and Canonist. When you look at it, he is essentially very similar to a canonist as far as how he goes about counteracting our gameplan.
I know I'm late to the party, but congrats to Jeff on your finish. I am sorry I didn't respond to your post, I have been extremely busy this past month or so. All very exceptional points in regards to win cons, etc. And I thank you for your compliment, you are too kind for saying that, but I just play a deck, you innovated and have helped spearhead a viable sub-archetype. No small feat by any standard.
In regards to the new hatebear, I would like to remind people that she does overlap a fair bit of what Thalia does. I'm not entirely convinced that D&T or Maverick will take her out for this new creature. They may very well run both in some form or fashion, but it won't be 4 and 4. Not to mention decks like Maverick already have a pretty solid brainstorm deck matchup, so they don't need more help. And this new spirit doesn't do near enough damage to the storm combo decks that Thalia does. She's great against Griselbrand, but not every combo deck is focused around him. I feel that Thalia hits a broader spectrum of problems, but only time will tell.
P.S. she isn't quite as devastating as Notion Thief for us. *shivers*
The only real hate for Enchantress that I'm seeing right now is splash hate in the form of Disenchant, and unfortunately with the release of Theros, I'm seeing a small amount of Swan Song showing up as well, which has the unfortunate effect of splash hating a lot of what we are trying to do.
The problem with Sigil of the Empty Throne is the same reason why I run Words of Wind - I am afraid of decking myself in the process of making a sufficient number of tokens to actually win the game. All in all, since our only creatures have Shroud, we blank all creature removal excepting Edict effects (darn you, TNN, for making those a better meta-call) naturally, and playing the Sigil win condition opens us up to making all those removal spells live again. Since we generally have to draw 30 cards already before dropping Sigil and will usually have 3 Enchantress effects online before we win, every removal spell brings us three cards closer to decking ourselves. Words of War / Wind helps us in that regard to keep us from decking ourselves, but if we have a Words engine operational, Sigil seems redundant. It's also the worst win condition in the mirror, for what it's worth, due to Solitary and Sphere / Grass. Plus, you don't win until at least two turns after you play it - one to make the Angels and a second turn to swing with them.
I agree about increasing the number of RIP from 1 to 3. I'd rather keep the 4th copy as a Ground Seal due to the cycle effect.
Uncounterability + Inevitability is my reason for the Emakul, in addition to being able to shuffle in cards that got countered or discarded earlier in the game. With Serra's Sanctum + Karakas, Emrakul gives me access to nearly infinite turns and annihilation, guaranteeing the win. Woe be to the player who has his/her Sigil Countered, a RIP on the board, and now has no way to win the game.
Honestly, in order to combat faster combo decks, it may be correct to just go all in on RIP / Helm, put 3-4 RIP / 3 Helm / 2-3 Energy Field, include Enchantress effects for draw, run a basic shell of hate to protect it, and try to combo out on turn 4 while crushing the tempo decks such as RUG Delver and "fair" decks such as Maverick and Jund. At the very least, at least this plan gives a fighting chance at racing Elves.
I find it it interesting that so many of you are railing against the crux that this deck has always had: faster combo. If your answer is to combo out turn 4, then I'm here to tell that that is too slow. Our engine/shell isn't redundant enough to be consistent in killing sooner than that. In order to make it so, you end up sacrificing many of the things which allow us to crush Tempo Decks. So why not just build TES or the like? They still beat fair decks, and combo off within the few couple of turns on a very consistent basis.
I will also continue to repeat the fact that if you are worried about decking yourself, you need more practice with this deck. I have never once done so and have been playing this deck for a number of years.
I am also curious as to how many of you that are advocating the use of Emrakul are simply theorycrafting, or if you have, in fact, played with it for a great deal of time. I once ran it in my deck, but too often it was a dead card. In your opener, it might as well be a mulligan. Without sanctum, a dead draw. And by the time it was relevant, any win con would do. You all seem to be forgetting that by the time you are resolving a win con, the blue decks have already exhausted their counterspells. That is the main point with our redundancy. And if a win con was countered, replenish was there to finish the job. Replenish has NEVER served it's primary function as a card to counteract enchantment destructive, but as the last nail in the coffin against blue decks.
Allow me to also add that energy field will do less than nothing against combo decks not named reanimator or dredge. Tendrils doesn't care, that's for sure. And by lowering the count of sterling groves, they'll just bounce whatever tenuous lock piece you have out anyway. Or elves will kill it with Terrastadon.
You used the word ineveitability to describe emrakul, and sigil is that as well. With a lock, which is very consistent in the original shell, you only need an angel or 2 to win the game. I would also like to point to your discussion on getting your sigil countered with a RiP out. Might I ask why you'd play a RiP against a blue deck not named reanimator? If it's a silver bullet, you ignore it because replenish is better. If it's not, you aren't running replenish anyway. "Woe is the player who..." is not going to be an issue for someone that has designed their deck properly, or is careful about their board state. And in the case of reanimator you better hope for the nuts draw, even with RiP/Helm.
In regards to elves, I guarantee this isn't as constistent as them. They almost always go off turn 3 and sometimes even turn 2.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure most of you understand the function of enchantress and the meta in which it functions well in. It is primarily a prison deck and a combo deck secondly. I say that because or combo is not one that gets online and kills instantly. Our engine is slow, and takes several turns to build up to that, but is consistent in doing so. We thrive primarily in a blue and fair deck dominated field. Combo generally will never comprise a majority of any given large tournament you may attend. RiP/Helm is all well and good, but please don't delude yourselves in to thinking it's as consistent or fast as true combo decks. You'll be in for a rude surprise. Each deck has an Achilles heel, which is exactly why Legacy is enjoyable. It is impossible to completely irradicate a weakness. We can do our best to mitigate them, though.
I feel as if too many of you are pulling this deck into too many directions and all that is doing is diluting this deck's function. Does that mean it's wrong to experiment? Of course not. But experiment with the understanding that there is a point in which you must recognize that a deck isn't capable enough of the functions you desire. At which juncture it may be wiser to play a different deck.
Keep in mind this deck has been around for a great deal of time, and during its hayday, the only deck capable of comboing consistently before turn 3 was Spanish Inquisition. A deck so difficult to pilot that it was rarely seen in tournaments. The next most powerful combo deck was solidarity, and it rarely went off before turn 5. Cards like ad nauseum, emrakul, griselbrand, heritage druid, didn't exist. Even entomb was banned.
Why do I mention all those things? Simply because I do not believe this deck, in its original GWr version is anywhere near dead as most of you might think. the meta is not 100% combo, and I still believe that to be the hardest thing to overcome. Everything else is at least manageable if you are willing to learn the matchups, your own deck, and lines of play. And if combo comes to dominate, merfolk and tempo decks will come out of the woodworks, and we do very well against both.
There is an ebb and flow in metas, don't forget that. There are certain times in which decks aren't playable, but I do not believe that is the case for us. Not yet.
P.S. Freggle, Eureka is actually a very interesting card to consider. It certainly has my attention. Don't take any of this an affront to the work you have done on the RiP/Helm version. I simply like to point out certain facts that people tend to forget when discussing the two decks.
With an enchantress effect out, it can.
You play it where x=0
Herp derp. I was thinking of discarding it for some reason. It's cute, but you should be chaining into other enchantments anyway so you don't really need a card specifically for that. The only reason I can think of would be during an early and tentative lock. At which point a couple copies of this probably wouldn't be in your hand. Every slot in Enchantress is precious and I personally wouldn't waste any on this.
Have anyone been testing Mana Bloom as a 1 of? I have seen some lists running it, but haven't really figured out why it is as good as some people say. It does provide 1 extra mana a turn, but is it really that relevant?
It's not good. At all. It does so little for Enchantress that I really wouldn't waste any space on it. At best it is a recurring draw engine, but you shouldn't need that often enough to warrant you playing this card.
Maybe I'm asking the wrong question... What are the hate cards facing Dredge? I remember Leyline of the Void, Tormod's Crypt, Gaddock Teeg, Wheel of Sun and Moon were all cards that hosed the deck, and there were specific answers to each. What are the hater cards against dredge, and what are some answers for those haters...
@archdukeofevil - Thank you for the start!
-Yawg
The main hate you'll face up against is actually rest in peace, surgical extraction,extirpate, relic of progenitus, deathrite shaman, and sometimes grafdigger's cage. The hate you named is pretty much outdated. Void is mainly a vintage card, relic is better than crypt in almost everyway, wheel is outclassed by rest in peace, and you can usually win without casting dread return, so teeg doesnt do much. Ashen Ghoul is another great sideboard card to diversify yourself against hate cards like surgical and extirpate. I had my doubts until I tried him, and he is absolutely amazing.
In regards to what you are running that is so different from other dredge decks, your dread return package is a little large for the mainboard. Most lists only play 2 dr and 2 dr targets. The reason to run flayer is to get around attacking your opponent, and zealot is usually overkill. I personally prefer quadlazer with a dr sideboard if I feel I need that. Both have merits, but anymore its usually enough to just make a ton of zombies and mind twist them with your therapies, so game 1 dr usually isnt very necessary. A few people also only play 3 breakthroughs, so theres that.
However, I would like to comment on our opponents, something I've said quite often actually. When you are playing storm combo against friends, the only proper way to do it is to play against people who are properly prepared to play against you. Playing against your friend's Goblins deck, for example, does not make you an ******* simply because you are playing combo. It makes him an ******* for not preparing for his combo matchup. I've seen builds that play Thalia and all sorts of combo hate post-board. If someone is playing something incompatible, then they are really the one at the loss. If you're in a situation where playing something good would mean that nobody plays with you, well then you have a different problem. In this case, you want to hang out with Legacy players, typically adults with jobs.
I'm paraphrasing, but I've won and lost countless games with PSI and yet I've heard the following thoughts from control players:
"Man I won/lost but damn that was one of the most fun games of magic I've played in a long time."
There were variations on this of course, but it didn't matter if it was local, non-local, big or small tournament. I've had countless people lose to me and still say it was one of the best games they've ever played, if not the best. The PSI grind plan is immensely fun to play but its also hard to play against. Sometimes, it doesn't work. Sometimes, it sets you far over the top and you do something retarded on turn 1 with 3 different 1cc plays. Most of the time, however, you'll find yourself grinding.
In fact, a specific UB Reanimator matchup in a 50+ event that I topped 8 in. He spent too much life reanimating things and paying life after getting hit with a mini-tendrils that I eventually beat him to death in G3 with a Slithermuse, ESG, and Dryad Arbor. He managed to play 1 dude to block, and killed another, but I only needed to hit him for 1. Epic finish.
Also, I've had a lot of fun with my friends at locals back when I lived in SD by switching between Empty the Warrens focused post-board plans, man-plans, grind plans, and protection plans. Most other decks won't allow you to diversify into alternative builds because SI can make business substitutions to maintain is explosiveness, then again, you can also remove business, add protection, and then you build everything into one turn. PSI is actually a very modular piece of machinery. Just look at VANT where it ported something like 37 cards from PSI.
Very good points. In my experiences, though, when someone says "casual Legacy" I take it to mean one or more of the following:
A) They play a pet homebrew deck of their own, because they can use most any card ever printed.
B) They play a "Tier 1.5 or lower" (I use quotes because, as we all know, a great deal of decks in Legacy that may not be seeing play right now can conquer certain metas or tourneys, and the meta shifts constantly) that is, once again a pet deck.
C) They play budget versions of top tier decks.
In those three cases, I generally find that players that fall within these categories are reluctant to play against "degenerate" decks and most often take their loss once, then never play against combo again.
It takes a certain kind of player (even "serious" players) to actively enjoy sitting across from a combo player, and they are either combo players themselves, or have an interest in combo decks. If this person's meta is filled with these sorts of casual players, or players that would like to learn how to play against combo, then I say press on and build the deck. But sadly, there are quite a few casual players out there that would rather sulk in a corner about how unfair the deck is, say things like "this isn't how the game is supposed to be played", refuse to adapt, and return to their vacuum of decks that turn Craw Wurms sideways.
I understand that may sound a little harsh and bitter, but I am merely speaking from experience. And there isn't anything to say that they are wrong...in regards to themselves and their playgroup. That may not be how they enjoy playing the game, and that's perfectly fine. We all play for different reasons and have different playstyles, which is natural in a game with as much variation as magic.
Bottom line, if you know how your gaming group will react to a combo deck, then more power to you. But if you aren't sure, keep in mind that combo decks tend to clash with many of their opinions on magic. Especially a combo deck that has the capability to frequently combo on turn one.
Hey guys. I recently stumbled onto SI and it peaked my interest straight away. Guess I just like the idea of being able to win on the first turn. I little more research told me that SI is the most likely deck to win on turn one, although it's apparently quite tricky to pilot at times?
So I'm wanting to buy this deck, but I was wondering what build or version goes off on turn one the most. Also I'm wanting to build a version pretty much with no protection, if I could instead add cards that would bolster the consistency then I will. Because I don't play legacy competitively, just casually with some friends, so FoW wont ever be an issue.
Be ready to learn how to mulligan with one of the most difficult decks, though. This isn't like Stoneblade where you have a couple lands, some countermagic, and a duder and you can learn how to mulligan fairly quickly. I estimate I goldfished about 300+ hands before I had a strong grasp on what hands to keep and which ones to pitch.
PSI was what I used to play, but you also need to learn how to sideboard correctly if you ever plan on playing outside of your group. I you can't sideboard properly, then you will lose to blue decks just about every time.
It's a fun deck to play, and very rewarding when you master it, but it can also be frustrating at times in comparison to other decks like TES, because when they cast their draw engine (Ad Nauseum), they are most likely going to go off. With this deck, you can draw 16 cards and fizzle. I did that twice in a tourney, with 10 mana floating, didn't draw a win-con, and I was not happy. That usually doesn't (and by usually doesn't I mean almost never) happens with TES.
All in all, you'll have a great time playing it, but if you're just playing casually with friends, I'm not sure you want to build this. They will not enjoy sitting there watching you combo game after game after game, and will not offer to play games against it. Especially if none of them have/play Force of Wills or blue decks in general. A friend of mine had TES built and foiled out for our smaller local Legacy meta (about 15ish people that have real Legacy decks) and outside of tourneys, no one wanted to play with him. He got pretty tired of having a $3,000+ deck in his bag that rarely came out, so he got rid of it. Such is the crux of owning a combo deck. That is why I generally won't recommend building a combo deck unless it is your tertiary Legacy deck for the purposes of rounding out your meta once in awhile, and you understand that it probably won't come out very often.
Just something to keep in mind as this deck isn't terribly cheap (Bayou, LED's, even Cruel Bargains are at $15, etc) to just build and decide you don't like it/never get the chance to play it.
Anyone here tested Blind Obedience? Is it worth considering?
I consider it the best answer against combo elves, and still stand by that assessment. The card slows them down to a crawl, usually long enough to lock them out. Outside of that it has minor applications against goblins (don't really advise much) or against sneak attack, but not a ton else. And certainly not mainboard material unless every other person in your meta plays combo elves.
I think you're losing sight of what we actually care about. Understand, all of what I'm about to say is from the perspective of a Replenish player, but that's in part relevant to the trade-off of Ground Seal vs RIP — one lets you run replenish.
I don't think that shrinking Goyf, Mongoose, and KotR is worth the trade off of RIP.
It's not like we're typically losing to those cards anyway, and Ground Seal cuts off the card that will actually get through our lock (Deathrite Shaman) while also representing an increase in consistency. Ground Seal also protects our replenishes against grave hate (I've had people side in Faerie Macabre for lack of better options for example, but Surgical and Extirpate are also rather common, if poor, board choices against us as well).
Nerfing already non-issues for us isn't something we should care about. I'd rather nail the problem card (Deathrite), and smooth out the rest of our plays (that extra draw trigger on Seal is a pretty big deal) while enabling a second CA engine.
I completely agree with your opinion that nerfing goyf, goose, and kotr is largely irrelevant. I have heard that as an argument for RiP for awhile now, and I always stress to people that if you are losing to those decks with Enchantress, you are either keeping/getting terrible hands, or you don't know the matchups. I rarely lose to tempo decks like Canadian Thresh, and have lost maybe a game ever to Maverick.
HOWEVER, my case for running RiP is different. The way I see it, the matchups that we usually lose to that need help from grave hate are Dredge and Reanimator. In the past, Dredge was an auto-win for us, but since the advent of Faithless Looting, they now go off far more consistently and faster than ever. Which makes silver bullet answers a tad bit awkward. As we all are well aware of, Reanimator tends to go off on turn 2-3 with a solid amount of consistency as well. What both of these matchups have in common is that they most always kill us before Replenish matters (ie, mid-late game), or before we could even cast the card in the first place. Which renders boarding them out a moot point, so I would much rather go with the card that is the best possible blanket answer to both of those decks, which is RiP. Granted, I understand Reanimator boards into a Show & Tell package games 2 and 3, but every little bit helps. And sadly, Ground Seal does nothing against Dredge anymore, since most don't even play Dread Return, or if they do, can simply kill you in the manner that Quadlazer Dredge does. Of course for Dredge, we have Elephant Grass, which is an auto-win for us if they don't play DR, but I like having as many answers as possible for them, and from a combo player's perspective, I love it when my opponent is forced to aggressively mulligan into only a few cards for an answer. So more is better, and not to mention that if you beat them game 1, they can very realistically play a turn 1 Cabal Therapy naming Elephant Grass anyway (which has happened before). Once again, the more answers the better.
On the topic of Deathrite Shaman, as I stated a few pages ago, I'm trying out Phyrexian Unlife as a broader answer. If worse comes to worse, I'll go back to a mainboard Ground Seal as an answer, but I think I will still have RiPs in my side board.
I agree that GW RIPHelm is very inferior to Naya Enchantress. To bring it up to that level, you want to be playing Bant. It doesn't bring much, but what it does bring is pretty key. In fact, I only run 3-4 blue cards in the entire 75. A single In the Eye of Chaos in the board because its so good at fighting things like storm, and makes things like omnitell and force a bit more awkward for them (force costs either 5, a blue card and a life, or 8UU, Echoing Truth costs 3U, etc). Then 2-3 Energy Fields. In most Enchantress build's its not great, but in one which has 4 RIP, it becomes pretty potent. Doesn't even warp the mana base much. I source my blue of a single tropical island and my utopia sprawls. Plus, running solitary plus energy field gives you some nice defences.
GWb isn't worth considering. The only 2 black enchantments I'd run are The Abyss and Chains of Mephistopheles. And neither of them is worth the near $200 price tag.
TBH, I think it depends on what you want to do. If you want to go for a more combo kill style of deck, you want the Bant RIPHelm. If you want a slightly more controlling, silver bullet oriented build that can kill more gradually, you want traditional Words of War Naya.
I'm an idiot, asw. I meant GWu. Definitely not junk colors. Mistype ALL THE THINGS! Lol
Your Wild Growth and Sterling Grove counts should both never drop from 4. I can't think of a single match-up where you'd even side either of them out, let alone choose to shave them in the main.
I completely agree that in this day and age, Grove is a must have at 4. While I also agree on the Wild Growth topic, and run 4 myself, the fact is that when you run the numbers of 7 vs 8 growth effects through hypergeometric distribution (the statistics tool used to calculate draw percentages of certain cards) it is an almost negligible difference of finding at least 1 in the opening hand. From that rationale I have seen a few other respected Enchantress players in the community that only play 7 growths.
Planning on running a GW RiP-Helm deck in a local toruney this weekend. Any thoughts on the list? Has been a while since I've played MtG now, so I might be a bit rusty.
Emrakul is horrible, I'm not going to go into why seeing as it is discussed every few pages, so I'd peruse them if I were you.
Leyline of Sanctity should never be played as anything less than a 4 in the 75, Nevermore is usually too slow against the decks we need a card like that for, i.e. combo.
I highly suggest running a Sphere of Safety somewhere in the main.
I have always hated Oblivion Ring as a 2 of in the main. When I first started playing this deck by borrowing it from a friend, and he had 2 main, I despised it. I have an odd love/hate relationship with the card, and mainly run it as a silver bullet as there are many scenarios where drawing it doesn't do a damn thing for you and you wish it was something else.
I don't like playing non-green fetches, as they can force you to search up a dual when you would rather have a forest. I consider the upside of being able to get a basic forest far higher than being able to get a basic plains.
I normally despise Enlightened Tutor, as it is a Time Walk for our blue opponents most of the time, and only serves as card disadvantage, but because you need a way to tutor up Helm, I guess it is passable.
I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd play Helm/RiP combo in a shell like this. This seems strictly worse than both the traditional GWr version, as you are simply diluting what that deck does for a potentially quicker kill. I'd honestly just suggest playing GWr and cut Helm combo or GWu if you want to run Helm. Just my 2 cents, though.
Dredge takes some practice to learn the more intricate plays, but your game 1 is fairly straight forward. When you get to games 2 and 3, though, things become quite different. Playing against hate with Dredge is one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do in this game. I once had a friend that was able to beat a Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus AND a Tormod's Crypt in play. So just keep practicing and don't become discouraged. Dredge is like the Boogeyman; people always have to be prepared to play against you because if they aren't you will just roll them.
Canonist stops us from chaining spells, which in the early game is extremely problematic. When you are digging for more answers/engine pieces he pretty much stops us from drawing cards. Late game spirit is more disruptive, but early game they are both very troublesome and similar in function.
Choosing which you'd rather play against is like choosing between herpes and syphilis.
The reason I disagree is because shardless BUG naturally gains so much card advantage that by playing a turn 3 or 4 notion thief, they simply sandbag their counterspells for the truly problematic enchantments (i.e. grove, o-ring and WoW). This is after they also bring in more discard in the form of additional hymns and/or thoughtseizes, so now we are extremely reliant on our leylines that don't do anything verses the thief. On top of that, they just let our grasses resolve and decay them. If you don't already have o-ring/WoW in your hand or sphere/moat out and they have let a couple enchantress effects resolve, it is pretty much game over. Not always, but most of the time.
At least the decks that will play the new spirit don't have decay, discard, edict effects, mass -1/-1 removal, or counterspells. Fighting a single one of those things is challenging, yes, but fighting all of them is a whole different ball game. That's why I'm not as afraid of this guy as some may be. We have dealt with hate like him in the form of Thalia and Canonist. When you look at it, he is essentially very similar to a canonist as far as how he goes about counteracting our gameplan.
In regards to the new hatebear, I would like to remind people that she does overlap a fair bit of what Thalia does. I'm not entirely convinced that D&T or Maverick will take her out for this new creature. They may very well run both in some form or fashion, but it won't be 4 and 4. Not to mention decks like Maverick already have a pretty solid brainstorm deck matchup, so they don't need more help. And this new spirit doesn't do near enough damage to the storm combo decks that Thalia does. She's great against Griselbrand, but not every combo deck is focused around him. I feel that Thalia hits a broader spectrum of problems, but only time will tell.
P.S. she isn't quite as devastating as Notion Thief for us. *shivers*
I find it it interesting that so many of you are railing against the crux that this deck has always had: faster combo. If your answer is to combo out turn 4, then I'm here to tell that that is too slow. Our engine/shell isn't redundant enough to be consistent in killing sooner than that. In order to make it so, you end up sacrificing many of the things which allow us to crush Tempo Decks. So why not just build TES or the like? They still beat fair decks, and combo off within the few couple of turns on a very consistent basis.
I will also continue to repeat the fact that if you are worried about decking yourself, you need more practice with this deck. I have never once done so and have been playing this deck for a number of years.
I am also curious as to how many of you that are advocating the use of Emrakul are simply theorycrafting, or if you have, in fact, played with it for a great deal of time. I once ran it in my deck, but too often it was a dead card. In your opener, it might as well be a mulligan. Without sanctum, a dead draw. And by the time it was relevant, any win con would do. You all seem to be forgetting that by the time you are resolving a win con, the blue decks have already exhausted their counterspells. That is the main point with our redundancy. And if a win con was countered, replenish was there to finish the job. Replenish has NEVER served it's primary function as a card to counteract enchantment destructive, but as the last nail in the coffin against blue decks.
Allow me to also add that energy field will do less than nothing against combo decks not named reanimator or dredge. Tendrils doesn't care, that's for sure. And by lowering the count of sterling groves, they'll just bounce whatever tenuous lock piece you have out anyway. Or elves will kill it with Terrastadon.
You used the word ineveitability to describe emrakul, and sigil is that as well. With a lock, which is very consistent in the original shell, you only need an angel or 2 to win the game. I would also like to point to your discussion on getting your sigil countered with a RiP out. Might I ask why you'd play a RiP against a blue deck not named reanimator? If it's a silver bullet, you ignore it because replenish is better. If it's not, you aren't running replenish anyway. "Woe is the player who..." is not going to be an issue for someone that has designed their deck properly, or is careful about their board state. And in the case of reanimator you better hope for the nuts draw, even with RiP/Helm.
In regards to elves, I guarantee this isn't as constistent as them. They almost always go off turn 3 and sometimes even turn 2.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure most of you understand the function of enchantress and the meta in which it functions well in. It is primarily a prison deck and a combo deck secondly. I say that because or combo is not one that gets online and kills instantly. Our engine is slow, and takes several turns to build up to that, but is consistent in doing so. We thrive primarily in a blue and fair deck dominated field. Combo generally will never comprise a majority of any given large tournament you may attend. RiP/Helm is all well and good, but please don't delude yourselves in to thinking it's as consistent or fast as true combo decks. You'll be in for a rude surprise. Each deck has an Achilles heel, which is exactly why Legacy is enjoyable. It is impossible to completely irradicate a weakness. We can do our best to mitigate them, though.
I feel as if too many of you are pulling this deck into too many directions and all that is doing is diluting this deck's function. Does that mean it's wrong to experiment? Of course not. But experiment with the understanding that there is a point in which you must recognize that a deck isn't capable enough of the functions you desire. At which juncture it may be wiser to play a different deck.
Keep in mind this deck has been around for a great deal of time, and during its hayday, the only deck capable of comboing consistently before turn 3 was Spanish Inquisition. A deck so difficult to pilot that it was rarely seen in tournaments. The next most powerful combo deck was solidarity, and it rarely went off before turn 5. Cards like ad nauseum, emrakul, griselbrand, heritage druid, didn't exist. Even entomb was banned.
Why do I mention all those things? Simply because I do not believe this deck, in its original GWr version is anywhere near dead as most of you might think. the meta is not 100% combo, and I still believe that to be the hardest thing to overcome. Everything else is at least manageable if you are willing to learn the matchups, your own deck, and lines of play. And if combo comes to dominate, merfolk and tempo decks will come out of the woodworks, and we do very well against both.
There is an ebb and flow in metas, don't forget that. There are certain times in which decks aren't playable, but I do not believe that is the case for us. Not yet.
P.S. Freggle, Eureka is actually a very interesting card to consider. It certainly has my attention. Don't take any of this an affront to the work you have done on the RiP/Helm version. I simply like to point out certain facts that people tend to forget when discussing the two decks.
Herp derp. I was thinking of discarding it for some reason. It's cute, but you should be chaining into other enchantments anyway so you don't really need a card specifically for that. The only reason I can think of would be during an early and tentative lock. At which point a couple copies of this probably wouldn't be in your hand. Every slot in Enchantress is precious and I personally wouldn't waste any on this.
It's not good. At all. It does so little for Enchantress that I really wouldn't waste any space on it. At best it is a recurring draw engine, but you shouldn't need that often enough to warrant you playing this card.
Umm... no it can't.
The main hate you'll face up against is actually rest in peace, surgical extraction,extirpate, relic of progenitus, deathrite shaman, and sometimes grafdigger's cage. The hate you named is pretty much outdated. Void is mainly a vintage card, relic is better than crypt in almost everyway, wheel is outclassed by rest in peace, and you can usually win without casting dread return, so teeg doesnt do much. Ashen Ghoul is another great sideboard card to diversify yourself against hate cards like surgical and extirpate. I had my doubts until I tried him, and he is absolutely amazing.
In regards to what you are running that is so different from other dredge decks, your dread return package is a little large for the mainboard. Most lists only play 2 dr and 2 dr targets. The reason to run flayer is to get around attacking your opponent, and zealot is usually overkill. I personally prefer quadlazer with a dr sideboard if I feel I need that. Both have merits, but anymore its usually enough to just make a ton of zombies and mind twist them with your therapies, so game 1 dr usually isnt very necessary. A few people also only play 3 breakthroughs, so theres that.
Ps, putrid imp is simply amazing, never cut him.
Very good points. In my experiences, though, when someone says "casual Legacy" I take it to mean one or more of the following:
A) They play a pet homebrew deck of their own, because they can use most any card ever printed.
B) They play a "Tier 1.5 or lower" (I use quotes because, as we all know, a great deal of decks in Legacy that may not be seeing play right now can conquer certain metas or tourneys, and the meta shifts constantly) that is, once again a pet deck.
C) They play budget versions of top tier decks.
In those three cases, I generally find that players that fall within these categories are reluctant to play against "degenerate" decks and most often take their loss once, then never play against combo again.
It takes a certain kind of player (even "serious" players) to actively enjoy sitting across from a combo player, and they are either combo players themselves, or have an interest in combo decks. If this person's meta is filled with these sorts of casual players, or players that would like to learn how to play against combo, then I say press on and build the deck. But sadly, there are quite a few casual players out there that would rather sulk in a corner about how unfair the deck is, say things like "this isn't how the game is supposed to be played", refuse to adapt, and return to their vacuum of decks that turn Craw Wurms sideways.
I understand that may sound a little harsh and bitter, but I am merely speaking from experience. And there isn't anything to say that they are wrong...in regards to themselves and their playgroup. That may not be how they enjoy playing the game, and that's perfectly fine. We all play for different reasons and have different playstyles, which is natural in a game with as much variation as magic.
Bottom line, if you know how your gaming group will react to a combo deck, then more power to you. But if you aren't sure, keep in mind that combo decks tend to clash with many of their opinions on magic. Especially a combo deck that has the capability to frequently combo on turn one.
Be ready to learn how to mulligan with one of the most difficult decks, though. This isn't like Stoneblade where you have a couple lands, some countermagic, and a duder and you can learn how to mulligan fairly quickly. I estimate I goldfished about 300+ hands before I had a strong grasp on what hands to keep and which ones to pitch.
PSI was what I used to play, but you also need to learn how to sideboard correctly if you ever plan on playing outside of your group. I you can't sideboard properly, then you will lose to blue decks just about every time.
It's a fun deck to play, and very rewarding when you master it, but it can also be frustrating at times in comparison to other decks like TES, because when they cast their draw engine (Ad Nauseum), they are most likely going to go off. With this deck, you can draw 16 cards and fizzle. I did that twice in a tourney, with 10 mana floating, didn't draw a win-con, and I was not happy. That usually doesn't (and by usually doesn't I mean almost never) happens with TES.
All in all, you'll have a great time playing it, but if you're just playing casually with friends, I'm not sure you want to build this. They will not enjoy sitting there watching you combo game after game after game, and will not offer to play games against it. Especially if none of them have/play Force of Wills or blue decks in general. A friend of mine had TES built and foiled out for our smaller local Legacy meta (about 15ish people that have real Legacy decks) and outside of tourneys, no one wanted to play with him. He got pretty tired of having a $3,000+ deck in his bag that rarely came out, so he got rid of it. Such is the crux of owning a combo deck. That is why I generally won't recommend building a combo deck unless it is your tertiary Legacy deck for the purposes of rounding out your meta once in awhile, and you understand that it probably won't come out very often.
Just something to keep in mind as this deck isn't terribly cheap (Bayou, LED's, even Cruel Bargains are at $15, etc) to just build and decide you don't like it/never get the chance to play it.
I consider it the best answer against combo elves, and still stand by that assessment. The card slows them down to a crawl, usually long enough to lock them out. Outside of that it has minor applications against goblins (don't really advise much) or against sneak attack, but not a ton else. And certainly not mainboard material unless every other person in your meta plays combo elves.
I completely agree with your opinion that nerfing goyf, goose, and kotr is largely irrelevant. I have heard that as an argument for RiP for awhile now, and I always stress to people that if you are losing to those decks with Enchantress, you are either keeping/getting terrible hands, or you don't know the matchups. I rarely lose to tempo decks like Canadian Thresh, and have lost maybe a game ever to Maverick.
HOWEVER, my case for running RiP is different. The way I see it, the matchups that we usually lose to that need help from grave hate are Dredge and Reanimator. In the past, Dredge was an auto-win for us, but since the advent of Faithless Looting, they now go off far more consistently and faster than ever. Which makes silver bullet answers a tad bit awkward. As we all are well aware of, Reanimator tends to go off on turn 2-3 with a solid amount of consistency as well. What both of these matchups have in common is that they most always kill us before Replenish matters (ie, mid-late game), or before we could even cast the card in the first place. Which renders boarding them out a moot point, so I would much rather go with the card that is the best possible blanket answer to both of those decks, which is RiP. Granted, I understand Reanimator boards into a Show & Tell package games 2 and 3, but every little bit helps. And sadly, Ground Seal does nothing against Dredge anymore, since most don't even play Dread Return, or if they do, can simply kill you in the manner that Quadlazer Dredge does. Of course for Dredge, we have Elephant Grass, which is an auto-win for us if they don't play DR, but I like having as many answers as possible for them, and from a combo player's perspective, I love it when my opponent is forced to aggressively mulligan into only a few cards for an answer. So more is better, and not to mention that if you beat them game 1, they can very realistically play a turn 1 Cabal Therapy naming Elephant Grass anyway (which has happened before). Once again, the more answers the better.
On the topic of Deathrite Shaman, as I stated a few pages ago, I'm trying out Phyrexian Unlife as a broader answer. If worse comes to worse, I'll go back to a mainboard Ground Seal as an answer, but I think I will still have RiPs in my side board.
Just my 2 cents on the topic.
I'm an idiot, asw. I meant GWu. Definitely not junk colors. Mistype ALL THE THINGS! Lol
I completely agree that in this day and age, Grove is a must have at 4. While I also agree on the Wild Growth topic, and run 4 myself, the fact is that when you run the numbers of 7 vs 8 growth effects through hypergeometric distribution (the statistics tool used to calculate draw percentages of certain cards) it is an almost negligible difference of finding at least 1 in the opening hand. From that rationale I have seen a few other respected Enchantress players in the community that only play 7 growths.
Emrakul is horrible, I'm not going to go into why seeing as it is discussed every few pages, so I'd peruse them if I were you.
Leyline of Sanctity should never be played as anything less than a 4 in the 75, Nevermore is usually too slow against the decks we need a card like that for, i.e. combo.
I highly suggest running a Sphere of Safety somewhere in the main.
I have always hated Oblivion Ring as a 2 of in the main. When I first started playing this deck by borrowing it from a friend, and he had 2 main, I despised it. I have an odd love/hate relationship with the card, and mainly run it as a silver bullet as there are many scenarios where drawing it doesn't do a damn thing for you and you wish it was something else.
I don't like playing non-green fetches, as they can force you to search up a dual when you would rather have a forest. I consider the upside of being able to get a basic forest far higher than being able to get a basic plains.
I normally despise Enlightened Tutor, as it is a Time Walk for our blue opponents most of the time, and only serves as card disadvantage, but because you need a way to tutor up Helm, I guess it is passable.
I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd play Helm/RiP combo in a shell like this. This seems strictly worse than both the traditional GWr version, as you are simply diluting what that deck does for a potentially quicker kill. I'd honestly just suggest playing GWr and cut Helm combo or GWu if you want to run Helm. Just my 2 cents, though.