Sterling Grove
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Sterling Grove

Enchantment

Other enchantments you control have shroud. (They can't be the targets of spells or abilities.)

, Sacrifice this: Search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top.

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

1 month ago

I've been struggling with this for a couple of my decklists recently, and I'm trying to summarize my thoughts here without starting a new thread. So this is semi-stream-of-thought, and I apologize if it gets a little rambly.

There are several criteria being tracked by the current bracket system, including resource generation, speed, reliability, and oppression, and possibly others.

Game changers: A combo like Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle gets a key card on the game changers list, because it's fast and reliable, ending a match on turn 3-4. These are speed game changers. Other game changers generate resources just by playing the game, like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. This group often also includes oppression, since a lot of them tax the opponent. Another group is cheap (1-2 mana) tutors, like Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, or Survival of the Fittest, that increase a deck's reliability for very little opportunity cost. Most game changers can be sorted into one of these four categories. Ancient Tomb and Gaea's Cradle are speed and resource generation, Drannith Magistrate and Force of Will are oppression, and so on.

Bracket Guidelines: From Gavin Verhey's announcement article, here's what each of the brackets mean and expect. Important to note that the system is still in beta testing, so this is probably going to be different in the future.

  • Bracket 1: Decks with more focus on a gimmick than on winning. "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game!" This bracket doesn't allow extra turns, two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or game changers, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 2: Decks that can win, but are not tightly focused, or slow to develop. "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings." This bracket doesn't allow any game changers, mass land denial, two-card infinite combos, or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 3: Decks that are focused on winning efficiently, but are not optimized. "They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks." This bracket does not allow mass land denial or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts game changers and two-card infinite combos, and allows tutors freely.

  • Bracket 4: Decks that are optimized for their strategy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards... This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly. The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame." This bracket has no restrictions.

  • Bracket 5: Decks that expect to win at the most competitive levels. "There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod." This brackets has no restrictions.

Deck Analysis 1: The deck I've been struggling most with is Clear Waters. As I listed in another thread, it has an infinite turns combo (Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign) and mass land denial (Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain), and a selection of tutors to pull these together (Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, and Sterling Grove). This should put it squarely into Bracket 4.

My concern is that it's neither high powered nor optimized. On the axes of speed, resource generation, reliability, and oppression, I would score it high on oppression, pretty good on reliability, and low on speed and resources generation. Looking at examples of other Bracket 4 decks around the internet, all four of those criteria need to be high in this bracket. The infinite turns combo is slow and easily removed, and the land denial is optional (Opposition can have other targets) or temporary (Quicksilver Fountain can remove its own effect).

It would be easy to simply add a big pile of game changers to improve all of these facets. Right now, it has one game changer in Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and that one's not essential to the deck. That's not the direction I want to go with the deck, though--I want to keep it reasonably budget, and even adding the three least expensive of the game changers I'm considering would basically double the deck's cost.

I know that people in brackets under 4 want to be able to play their deck, and the infinite turns and land denial shut that down. These are clearly stated in the announcement article -"A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated."- that's why they're forced into brackets 4 and 5. But if a deck isn't able to compete against high power, optimized Bracket 4 decks, can it be considered Bracket 4?

Deck Analysis 2: Another deck that I've been struggling with is an enchantment deck, Do Not Mistake Peace For Passivity. The point of concern for this deck is land denial. Blood Moon is classic mass land denial, and the deck is designed to play around it with Abundant Growth, Fertile Ground, Prismatic Omen, and similar cards. It also has a combo that doesn't directly deny lands, but punishes their play and use: Manabarbs + Citadel of Pain. Otherwise, the deck fits all the criteria of a Bracket 2 deck--no game changers, no infinite combos, few tutors, and no extra turns.

This deck can be converted into a pure Bracket 2 deck without much effort by replacing Blood Moon and Manabarbs. But as it stands, a single card pushes the deck up two brackets, according to the guidelines. Again, I don't feel the deck is high powered or optimized, and would not be able to compete in a Bracket 4 match. It could probably survive in Bracket 3, since it's highly synergistic, but nothing any higher.

In this case, adding a bunch of game changers and power cards would somewhat dilute how the deck functions. A few, like Smothering Tithe or Trouble in Pairs, could slot in, but most others would be more gratuitous.

Conclusion: To quote the article again, "There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely." "You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions." All of this can be discussed in a Rule 0 talk. I strongly believe the brackets are intended to help this conversation, not replace it. As an example, for the Clear Waters deck, I would say that the deck is not optimized to Bracket 4, and I think it fits best into Bracket 3, but it's controlling and has a potential three-card infinite turns combo. I'm willing to announce when the combo is assembled and ready to start, to give everyone a turn cycle to react, and reduce the use of Opposition to creatures and artifacts.

I feel like the current setup is a little too restrictive of the kind of combo-control decks I like. I can have fun smashing big creatures into each other and outmaneuvering everyone else, but I will enjoy locking down the board and establishing my inevitability, and I'm having a harder time trying to find ways to do that in lower brackets. Some people have already offered me excellent feedback and suggestions that I'm taking into consideration, but I'd also like to see how people are responding to the bracket system so far.

For comparison, here's a few more of my decklists:

legendofa on Testing brackets with Merfolk combos

1 month ago

I just finished detailing this deck.

deck chart

Clear Waters

Commander / EDH legendofa

10 VIEWS

It has an infinite turns combo with redundancies. Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign

It has land denial. Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain

It has a game changer. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

It has multiple relevant tutors. Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, Sterling Grove

By all measures, this deck falls under Bracket 4. But I think it better fits Bracket 3, because Wanderwine Prophets is the most expensive card. It simply can't compete with decks whose individual cards are worth more than this whole thing, or decks with six game changers and "I win" combos that land on turn 3. It just isn't up to that level. The turns combo in particular is slow and highly telegraphed, since Prophets needs to survive a turn cycle before it can go off.

So where does this fall? Bracket 3? Low-end Bracket 4? The fuzzy gray area in the middle? Would you accept a Bracket 3 match with potential infinite turns and land locks?

kamarupa on Enchanted Spring Cleaning - Bant

4 months ago

I love Sterling Grove in my enchantment deck, Manic Enchantress. If you can add a few more enchantments, I'd also suggest 1-2 Sythis, Harvest's Hand and 1-2 Enchantress's Presence in place of Serum Visions. What can I say other than, 'I just love drawing tons of cards?'

psionictemplar on 5c enduring ideal

9 months ago

capwner I'm not sure if you noticed while going over the decklist but electrodominance also allows you to cast profane tutor as well. Generally speaking, tutors are more useful for combo decks that unfiltered draws, which is why you sometimes see Sterling Grove or Idyllic Tutor for example. One thing my experience has shown me (playing control/prison) is that having specific answers at specific times can really make or break games. That being aside if you are interested in looking at my profile, I have several other versions of ideal I've experimented with over time to see if any of those interest you as well.

DreadKhan on Tuvasa CEDH stax

11 months ago

What do you think of Estrid's Invocation in this list? Each upkeep it becomes whatever Enchantment is situationally best, that seems worth a look? It's really good if you've already got Sterling Grove or Greater Auramancy out, then your Enchantments are shrouded. Have you thought about something more spicy than Wrath of God in here? I was wondering about something like Single Combat, Promise of Loyalty, or even Winds of Abandon? There is always Cyclonic Rift, with Rule of Law out Rift is a truly backbreaking play in my limited experience. In my Stax deck I found Brave the Sands very useful, it can make it easy for my single large creature to attack with impunity, as well as block up to two creatures per combat (which is usually enough if you've got something like Stasis or Static Orb out).

I can't seem to figure it out on my own, but I'm guessing you have a good reason not to use All That Glitters in here? Not enough synergy perhaps/Tuvasa is usually big enough on her own?

Anyways cool list, cEDH Stax is tons of fun!

Rhadamanthus on Looking for the interaction of …

1 year ago

There are different answers for these situations. For the Anikthea, Hand of Erebos question, the populated token will also be a black 3/3 Enchantment Creature - Zombie copy of Sterling Grove. For the Vihaan, Goldwaker / Cybermen Squadron question, the myriad tokens will be non-creature Treasures.

An object's "copiable characteristics" are its base printed characteristics plus the results of any other copy effects that are currently being applied to it (i.e. copying a Clone pretending to be Runeclaw Bear will make another Bear, not another Clone). For tokens, their "printed" characteristics are the ones they were created with. This means the copiable characteristics of Anikthea's tokens include the 3/3 black zombie creature part, but the copiable characteristics of Vihaan's awakened treasures are just regular treasures.

bhst5019 on Looking for the interaction of …

1 year ago

So, I have Anikthea, Hand of Erebos in play, it has copied a Sterling Grove. The 3/3 creature is now in play. I now copy it with a populate card. My question is about the token it produces. Is it a creature or just an enchantment? Also something that just copies a token, will the Sterling Grove be a creature?

This is a similar question. Vihaan, Goldwaker is in play with Cybermen Squadron. I head to combat making a treasure token a 3/3. I then attack with the token, triggering Myriad. Are the tokens made, 3/3 or are they just tapped regular treasure tokens?

Jaroc249 on Gylwain’s Selesnya Show

1 year ago

Phule451 this is what I've done to the deck now which includes your suggestions:

Timber Paladin > Gala Greeters

Timely Ward > Gallant Pie-Wielder

Angelic Destiny > Lady of Laughter

Starfield Mystic > Grand Crescendo

Idol of Oblivion > Sterling Grove

Please let me know what you think and if you have anymore suggestions to make this deck a great show

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