are enchantment decks worth it?
Standard forum
Posted on Dec. 30, 2013, 2:09 p.m. by drewster1001
I always see enchantment decks, and I feel they are a hit or miss. They rely alot on getting creatures out and buffing the crap out of them. Some do this with hexproof, others do this with just a bunch of creatures. I feel like this is what makes removal cards so powerful. If someone puts all their resources into one card and then it gets Doom Blade ed, or you are forced to sac it lets say due to Devour Flesh , then you just lost a turn or two to one card. Yet if they don't have removal your hitting like a truck. So I was just wondering what other peoples thoughts on enchantment decks are. Do decks with light enchantments do better? Or do decks with lots of enchants and protection spells do better?
Epochalyptik says... #3
Pre-rotation Bant hexproof was basically the pinnacle of enchantment decks in Standard. It had good creatures (cheap bodies with hexproof) and loads of cheap enchantments (especially Rancor and Ethereal Armor ). It could win just as board wipes were becoming a thread, and it was impervious to targeted creature removal.
I don't follow the current Standard meta, but I do know that enchantment-based decks aren't nearly as good now that the M13 and ISD stuff rotated.
Also, once you begin to include protection spells for your creatures, you actually end up hurting your deck. Now you have to divide nonland space in your deck between creatures, enchantments, and protection. Both protection and enchantments are useless without creatures, and the creatures are useless without enchantments. Protection isn't always necessary, and it isn't necessary at all if you have enough cheap, evasive creatures. Including protection also means you need to divide your in-game resource use, which will, in turn, mean you're slowing your tempo and holding back on plays.
December 30, 2013 2:26 p.m.
It's six of one, half a dozen of another. Every deck has it's strengths and weaknesses. When we're talking about already-on-the-battlefield modifications to creatures, be it auras, anthem effects, or even +1/+1 counters, there's a certain susceptibility. The low CMC and starting P/T of the creatures makes them as vulnerable to most cheap spot removal, the same as horde decks are, but without the volume of creatures to trivialize it. Bounce becomes truly gnarly (imagine swinging in for lethal with 6 or 7 5/5 soldiers, only for your opponent to drop an AEtherize , all those creatures came back to your hand, but those enchantments went to the graveyard, and any +1/+1 counters are just gone).
Having said all that, I think Bestow adds some much needed viability to these decks. They're all (relatively) inexpensive early game creatures, and later game auras that will survive board wipes and bounces, and aren't so ease to remove as regular enchantments (someone actually has to devote a card to destroying it). It mitigates that card inefficiency that they had (the 2 for 1). Particularly when you look at some of them. Hopeful Eidolon for example. Put Ethereal Armor on him, and you can be swinging for 3 or 4 on turn 2. Drop a Spear of Heliod on turn 3 and you are looking at a 5/5 (maybe even a 6/6) lifelink. Heliod, God of the Sun of turn 4, and now it's a 6/6 - 7/7 lifelink with vigilance. Removal and wipes can be troublesome, but it's about pacing. They're topdecking by turn three, but they only need to hit into one or two creatures to finish the job.
Ultimately, the success depends on the meta and whether the deck is well built and well played.
December 30, 2013 2:56 p.m.
It really comes down to how competitive you want to be.
There's enough hexproof and pseudo-hexproof creature along with a few decent auras to make a passable aura deck. It's shaky, but it's fine enough for kitchen table and FNM. You don't want to try and make it without hexproof though, there's just too much good removal these days.
The problem is that right now there are not enough really powerful cards to draw you to that style. Without enough power to make up for the hands you must mulligan due to not having the right pieces, it's just a less consistent aggro deck. This is the core crutch of an aura deck, and why trying to play stuff like Alpha Authority doesn't make it work either.
December 30, 2013 3:05 p.m.
bant enchantments got hosed with rotation. Losing 1 drop / recurssion enchantment in Rancor and 2 of the 3 main creatures Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft killed it.
so unless we see a reasonable replacement i wouldnt invest too much into the idea.
December 30, 2013 3:10 p.m.
There is currently a Naya Hexproof deck that is putting up results on online events, and a few pros have tried the deck and commented that the power level is really low but it is still fine as long as the number of sacrifice effects being played remain low. The list, for reference.
December 30, 2013 3:17 p.m.
Jrjersey01 says... #8
I'm running g/w auras ad it isn't doing to well. It cant race the white Aggro and white/black or white/red decks. It is only good against midrange beside it kills before they cast a bomb. The deck is Enchanted evening with giant lions. Auras are just not well placed with all the Aggro going on.
December 30, 2013 3:39 p.m.
Dalektable says... #9
I'm currently running my deck
A Good Man Goes To War
which has received quite a bit of love from the site. It is basically White Weenies heavily supported by enchantments to flat out win. I have a couple FNM reports on my decklist, but i can say it does fairly well. Removal is a problem, but by turn three at the earliest this deck can just flat out win. Aggro is absolutely no problem, as the amount of lifegain keeps me out of reach. I can usually steamroll midrange before they have a chance to do anything massive, and control is a coin toss. Luck of the draw, i guess. But if you'd care to take a look at the deck, this is truly what i believe to be the best enchantment based deck in the format. I built this when white weenies didn't show a face in standard, and with the enchantments i still consider this a sort of homebrew as i didn't base this off of anything.
December 30, 2013 11:24 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #10
in this Standard I would say enchantment decks are viable. They build devotion and trigger Heroic abilities.
December 31, 2013 11:20 a.m.
tommyjbear says... #11
Do enchantments activate heroic? I don't know of any enchantments that have the keyword "target" in their texts. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if an activated ability say the "put a +1/+1 counter on target creature" part of Bow of Nylea would trigger heroic? Heroic say whenever you cast a spell that targets this creature. It's not a spell though, right? Just an ability?
January 1, 2014 2:45 p.m.
tommyjbear says... #12
Oh wow. Ok. Bow of Nylea is an enchantment. That's embarrassing. Still though, can anyone answer my question?.
January 1, 2014 3 p.m.
tommyjbear Bow of Nylea wouldn't because as you mentioned it's not a spell it's an ability. All of the aura and bestow enchantment cards do target in order to enchant the creature they are being cast on, so they do trigger heroic. So for example, Unflinching Courage and Boon Satyr .
January 1, 2014 3:01 p.m.
vonbittner says... #14
There are some things to consider:1) as u said, ur crit has to be removal resistant, which narrows down ur choices to crits w/ hexproof (usu. Green), or black (so no doomblade);2) there are few auras that are really worth it. Ethereal Armor , Unflinching Courage , Gift of Orzhova are some. Giving +1/+1's is just dumb. U need more.3) using non-aura enchantments may be a different angle to the problem. I though of a deck using Pacifism -like cards to bring Gods online. Black and White is good here.4) If ur trying to use enchantments to enable heroic abilities... I'd rather use instants. They're more reliable, i guess.
gufymike says... #2
I think overall, the least amount of enchantments is the best idea. Bestow is an interesting answer to this, but most of them are too expensive to matter. The only two that I can think of that are really playable are Boon Satyr and Nighthowler , both do work in theros. Umbra's (totem armor) are interesting in that they will be destroyed instead of the creature. Both are attempts to answer the '2 for 1' problem inherent to aura's. Non-Aura enchantments are good to play, but most are expensive (cmc wise) to play outside of casual environments, that's not saying all are unplayable, there are some very good ones to play in the right decks, like Honor the Pure and Intangible Virtue .. I wouldn't even play enchantments in a swarm deck (lots of creatures), at that point, I'm looking for instants that allow me to buff my creatures.
December 30, 2013 2:20 p.m.