Enchantment (26)
Land (20)
Artifact (3)
Creature (5)
Instant (2)
Sorcery (4)
Sideboard
Enchantment (12)
Creature (3)
Why should anyone play Enchantress in Legacy?
The first answer is of course the fact, that you might like the deck and that it is cheap (by legacy standards). ;-) Just in case you are interested, I uploaded a budget-version of this deck. You can find it here:
550$ Budget Legacy Enchantress (No Emrakul)
An ultra budget version for casual players can be found here:
200$ ULTRA Budget Legacy Enchantress (No Emrakul)
The more compelling answer to why you should play enchantress might be the fact, how adaptable Enchantress is to different meta environments.
It is one of the few decks which can run Rest in Peace in the maindeck and has a sideboard packed with hate for several different decks (which can be of course easily adapted to the meta).
The Rest in Peace maindeck works wonders against any graveyard based strategy, be it Dredge decks, Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire in Lands decks, any Deck running Snapcaster Mage or a "casual" Tarmogoyf. It even shuts down Gurmag Angler which is a real winoption for Grixis Delver decks these days.
The sideboard hate consist among others of Leyline of Sanctity which helps in burn matchups, UR Delver or even against discard heavy black decks running Liliana of the Veil. Tailored to fight most delver decks and elves aswell the sideboard has three Trinisphere (coincidence?) coming down as early as turn two. Most decks can barely fight through this and a resolved sphere is the k.o. for any storm deck. Another hate card which hits several decks is the infamous Blood Moon. It disables a variety of decks relying heavily on a diverse mana base and it shares some target decks with the Trinisphere. The other cards pack some situational hate against counterheavy matchups (City of Solitude) or decks running Force of Will in general (Gaddock Teeg). Packing a Humility is no bad either either to handle big creatures with ease aswell as smaller utility creatures like Monastery Mentor.
As you can imagine, there is seldom a sideboard card suitable for only one deck but for a wide variety of archetypes being prevalent in the curent meta. This is what makes enchantress such a flexible deck to play at a tournament.
Now I want to dive into the maindeck.
My winoptions are Words of War, Helm of Obedience and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. The words are also a maindeck utility card against elves, Delver of Secrets
and Deathrite Shaman. The helm works as a 2-card kill combo with Rest in Peace which mills the opponent entirely, since their cards never hit the graveyard and therefor never get checked by an activated helm (activation still costs one mana though). The most common way to win with this enchantress list is to draw either a rip or a helm, tutor the other part and win in a turn thanks to Serra's Sanctum which provides a lot of mana, once the deck gets going. Should you come across a second Serra's Sanctum you can activate the one in play and then play the second one, sacrificing the first to the legend rule. Activating the second should net you even more mana, sometimes even enough to cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Then Karakas can be used to bounce Emrakul and cast it again, over and over.
And here we are now, wondering what really gets this deck going... glad you asked, it is all about the ladies, more specific the namesake enchantress effects. Either in Argothian Enchantress or the Enchantress's Presence. Green Sun's Zenith is the enchantress effect 9-12 and helps to form the absolute core of the deck. Your main goal is to resolve one enchantress effect turn three or earlier if possible. Without them the deck lacks carddraw, and that is what the deck is best at.
To provide early enchantresses there are some ramp enchantments, which convert to cantrips once a enchantress stays on board: Wildgrowth and Utopia Sprawl. The golden rule is to enchant only basic lands with those two, until you are 100% sure the opponent does not play any Wasteland. Especially for Utopia Sprawl it is important to focus on basic forests, since it can easily be dispatched by a Blood Moon! The more enchantresses you can assemble, the faster the deck will run towards victory. Additional carddraw is provided by Sylvan Library.
Getting several of the ladies on board can be hard sometimes, and that is where we hit the second main goal of the deck: protecting itself from harm aka buying some time. Buying time is no joke in a format playing as fast as legacy, but here come our maindeck resolutions for multiple angles of attack an opponent might run: Elephant Grass, Solitary Confinement and Oblivion Ring.
While the grass has four copies, the other two safety cards come as two offs or three offs only. While the grass is easy to cast and keep up, it can be difficult to pay for the upkeep effects of the confinement, even if you already have one enchantress running! This is also the reason why you play the grasses more easily than the confinement. The o-rings are reserved for targets, we cannot shut down with either grass or confinement. Knocking out Liliana of the Veil feels as good as slamming your o-ring on the table uppon a resolving Show and Tell.
To get what you need in every situation the deck runs Mirri's Guile, the Sylvan Library, Sterling Grove and Enlightened Tutor. The last also helps finding a missing helm in the right situation.
The right situation is another good topic:
This deck is in no way an easy deck to pilot. Especially winning with Words of War and several enchantress effects is a task you can solve only by calculating a lot and keeping a good eye on manacolours, the correct stacking of triggers and the question, how fast you can win. Furthermore important is the question how fast the opponent can win, since it helps you to estimate at which time you need to play a security card. Therefor you need a good knowledge about the meta and about the different decks the meta includes. Playing around Force of Will is daily bussiness in legacy, but since enchantress decks can play several threats a turn, you actually can bait out counters.
As hard as the deck is to play, as rewarding is it. Winning by carefully setting up your defenses and doing all the math you need for your Words of War is as satisfying as using a Solitary Confinement as Time Walk and get a spontaneous win with the Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace combo after tutoring for one of both parts. Hardcasting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is not as rare as one might think! Do not underestimate the mana power you get from Serra's Sanctum.
I love playing the deck since it is a challenge as well as it is a bliss to play with all the synergy enchantress provides! Besides all the spicy mechanics there is beauty in many of enchantresses cards. Take your time to look through the cards, you will find many beautiful artworks in this deck! I hope I was able to catch your interest in this deck :-) should there be any questions, let me know, I will answer them gladly.
Have a good day and thanks for reading
PS:
I did some hypergeometric calculation for this deck and tried to evaluated the chances to get two enchantresses on the table or at least play them (this is of special importance since we have to assume our first attempt gets countered). Therefor I looked closely at the possibility of playing two ore more enchantresses by your 3rd turn.
I used the advices from this article:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/brewer-s-minute-hypergeometric-distribution-in-deck-building
And I calculated how possible it is to reach the goal of this deck: Drawing 2 enchantresses by turn 3 (this means you can cast one and still try to resolve another one the following turn).
On the play: Your chances to draw a second enchantress or more by your third turn are 63%.
On the draw: Your chances to draw a second enchantress or more by your third turn are 69%.
So if your starting hand has only one enchantress (36%) do not worry, the chances of you getting another enchantress are on your side ;-)
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 8 years |
| Last updated | 5 years |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Legacy legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 1 - 1 Mythic Rares 33 - 11 Rares 8 - 3 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.12 |
| Folders | decks, Inspirations, neat ideas, Aetherborn basker |
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