Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics Deck ver 1.5 - Updated 2nd September 2017
Warning: This is a pure combo based deck. Long turns with the potential to go infinite is the norm in this deck.
Table of Contents
Brief history of the deck
Why you should consider this deck
Deck list & Statistics
Why Derevi at the helm of Enchantress
Noteworthy Combos
Old/Currently Not in deck combos
Other Synergies
Card choices
Update history
Brief History of the deck
My love for enchantress started when I saw how my friend's 60 card enchantress deck combos off by drawing and playing the entire deck, recycle them and play again, generating enough mana for a fireball. It was the start of my love of engine decks, where the cards are each viewed as part of the machine, like wheels and cogs.
My 1st enchantress EDH started off with Ghave, Guru of Spores at the helm, which I feel that it is rather forced as it doesn't really embrace the essence of running an enchantress deck. Most of the deck's win conditions are based off winning via creature death, by generating infinite tokens using a selected number of enchantments. It feels clunky and isn't really a huge blast to play. Bant is more suited to enchantress colors compared to BWG, but it is missing an important piece of the puzzle, its commander. I am not really a big fan of pillowfort nor prison type of enchantress, hence commander select in Bant is really limited. You may ask,
What the hell can Derevi do in enchantress? Enchantments can't do anything with tapping or untapping.
In the beginning I shared the same thinking as everyone as I build the deck. But trust me, after playing with initial version of the deck (v0.1) I can safely say that Derevi doesn't disappoint. She is by far the BEST combo general for enchantress.
Why you should consider this deck
Do consider giving this deck a whirl if you:
Likes Math, especially counting available mana over the course of a turn
Likes engine type decks. (You favourite deck in Modern is Eggs before they get the ban hammer)
Likes unconventional wins
Enchantments is your weapon of choice
This deck might not be suitable for those who:
Hates counting, especially available mana
Hates combos, especially solitaire types
Hates Bant for whatever reason
Likes mana rocks and prefers artifacts over anything else
Amongst all Bant commanders, she is the only commander that can be deemed as "a cog in the engine deck". With a way to get her back into the command zone she can be used again and again thanks to her unique ability. She is used mainly in the deck to untap permanents that generate mana. Enchantress is a very mana hungry deck, and with an untapper which is almost always available at a cheap cost of 1WUG, it becomes fomidable.
In the deck there are only 2 types of permanents that she can untap, mana dorks and lands. Mana dorks like Bloom Tender can generate more than 1 mana per activation. It is slightly more tricky with lands, but nothing can't be done in enchantress, especially with green helping out.
The above 9 cards make up the "land mana engine component" which makes enchanted lands tap for more than 1 mana. Combine a few of them into a single land and you can start looping Derevi.
Noteworthy Combos & Strategies
Since this is an engine based deck, it will be good to group the strategy section together with the noteworthy combos. The deck does require quite a bit of thinking, much like the modern/legacy Eggs.dec and the legacy combo enchantress. It is recommended to do some goldfishing tryouts before bringing it to play for the first time. The deck also employs a number of interesting plays with the stack, will be explained in detail below.
To achieve the 5 mana land pre-requisite, enchant the land with land auras. We can do it in a few different combinations, like Dawn's reflection + copy enchantment, or overgrowth + fertile ground + utopia sprawl, or dawn's reflection + fertile ground on Serra Sanctum. Just mix and play.
How to use the combo:
Similar to Mana Engine no.1, with Martyr's Cause and a 5 mana land online, tap the land for WUGX.
Use the WUG+1 to activate Derevi from the command zone
Derevi's ETB trigger targets the 5 mana land.
Resolve the untap trigger
Sacrifice Derevi to Martyr's Cause, bringing her back to the command zone
Restart from 2 until you get infinite mana of all colors, then can reactivate Derevi to untap or tap other stuff.
Additional notes for both Mana Engines
Both of the mana engines can be mixed together in different combinations. Like replacing Bloom Tender with a land enchanted with Dawn's Reflection, or replacing Dual Nature with Dance of Many + Mana reflection to boost Bloom Tender. There are many combinations littered in the deck to achieve a mana engine with Derevi.
Infinite - Opalesence Core
Pre-requisite: Opalesence + Parallax Wave Effect: Infinite exiling of opponents' creatures/enchantments, infinite ETB triggers of our own creatures/enchantments.
Interestingly this combo can be use together with Derevi to achieve infinite mana + tap down on all opponent permanents (artifacts/lands since enchantments/creatures should be gone)
How to use the combo:
With both Opalesence and Parallax wave on the field, activate parallax wave's ability targeting an enchantment/creature
Here is where it differs, if it is a permanent from your side, let the parallax wave trigger resolve. If it is not, keep the trigger on the stack
Use Parallax Wave's ability on itself, resolve this trigger.
Parallax Wave's LTB trigger kicks in, bringing it and all other permanents that are exiled back into play.
Resolve the unresolved triggers (the one that exiles the opponent's permanent), exiling that permanent permanently as there is no more Parallax Wave LTB trigger to bring it back.
Restart from 1
For Parallax Tide, use it in the loop like above, using Parallax Wave to exile the tide.
Infinite - Dual Nature Opalesence
Pre-requisite: Opalesence + Dual Nature + Oblivion Ring Effect: Exile all opponents' non-land permanents or get infinite ETB triggers off our own permanents
Dual Nature + Opalesence together makes copies of any enchantment that ETBs. Each and every non-aura enchantment will come in with their token counterpart, allowing double usage of our enchantments. What is so special about this is that it provides some very interesting combos. I'll highlight some of the minor combos before touching on the main Oblivion Ring combo which is more complex.
combi + Seal of Removal : With 2 of the removal seals in play, sacrifice the token copy to return the original (it is a creature thanks to Opalesence). With enough U we can just keep casting the loop, yielding card draws from our enchantresses, creating angel tokens with Sigil of the Empty Throne or use Blind Obedience's extort. This becomes a kill condition when a mana engine is available.
Rule to be abused (from Oracle):
10/1/2007: If Oblivion Ring leaves the battlefield before its first ability has resolved, its second ability will trigger and do nothing. Then its first ability will resolve and exile the targeted nonland permanent forever.
How to use the Oblivion Ring combo:
With both Opalesence and Dual Nature on the battlefield, cast Oblivion Ring
Oblivion Ring ETBs, triggering Dual Nature
Here it goes both ways, for own non-land permanents we resolve Oring's exile trigger first; or for opponents' non-land permanents, resolve Dual Nature's trigger first
Dual Nature's trigger resolve, putting in a creature token which is a copy of Oring
Token Oring ETB triggers, targeting the original Oring.
Resolve the token ETB trigger, exiling the original Oring. Dual Nature's LTB triggers and exiles the token Oring
token Oring LTB triggers, bringing back the original Oring.
Restart from 2
Note:
If you choose to exile all opponent's non-land permanents, those triggers will remain on the stack and not resolve until the entire 'infinite' loop has ended. To end the loop, just target another permanent with the copied Oring.
Rule to be abused (from Oracle):
10/1/2009: If Dance of Many leaves the battlefield before its first ability has resolved, its second ability will trigger and do nothing. Then its first ability will resolve and put a token onto the battlefield. That token won't have any connection to a Dance of Many permanent, so it won't be exiled when a Dance of Many leaves the battlefield.
How to use the combo:
With Sun Titan and Faith Healer in play, cast Dance of Many.
Dance of Many ETB trigger, target Sun Titan and is put on the stack. DO NOT resolve this.
Sacrifice Dance of Many to faith healer, gaining 1 life. Dance of Many is put into the graveyard
Resolve Dance of Many ETB trigger, putting a token of Sun Titan into play.
Token Sun Titan ETB trigger, targetting Dance of Many in the graveyard.
Return Dance of Many onto the battlefield.
Restart from 2
Infinite - Bounce everything!
Pre-requisite: Enchantress Presence (or any enchantress or recycle) + Treachery + Copy Enchantment + Words of Wind + 5 lands (that produces 6 mana and above) + 1 creature to enchant (any one will do) + any other low cost enchantment (1cc enchantments are preferred, depends on how much extra mana is produced from the 5 lands) Effect: Bounce back all opponents' permanents.
This is a 5+ card combo. For this combo explanation I'll use the minimum requirements that is required for it to work. 5lands (6mana) + a 1mana other enchantment. If a doubler is in play like Mirari's Wake, 5 lands will produce (10 mana) and we can use any other 4cc and below enchantments for the combo.
How to use the combo:
With an enchantress draw effect, Words of Wind, Treachery + in play, tap 5 lands to cast Copy Enchantment (uses 3 mana, left 3 mana).
Pay 1 to replace the draw with Words of Wind. (uses 1mana, left 2 mana)
Words of Wind triggers, each player returns a permanent back to hand. Return any 1cc enchantment besides treachery.
Copy Enchantment ETBs as Treachery, enchanting a creature (preferbly ours), untap up to 5 lands
Cast back the returned enchantment, pay 1 to trigger Words of Wind. (uses 2 mana, net 0 mana)
Words of Wind triggers, each player returns a permanent back to hand. Return Copy Enchantment (Treachery)
Restart from 1
Note:
This combo will achieve infinite mana should each iteration gives a positive net mana.
Infinite base engine - Sun Titan recursion loop
Pre-requisite: Angelic Renewal + Sun Titan + Martyr's Cause Effect: Sun Titan iconic recursion engine, infinite ETB of creature and enchantment (used for triggering other stuff)
This is the 2nd core engine of the deck, and is used as the base engine to enable many other combos. Ajani's Chosen is one of them, to get infinite 2/2 cat tokens. Another nice combo to use with is a combination of Enchanted Evening + Aura Shards, wipe all opponent's permanents away. The skies is the limit, coupled with Dual Nature + Opalesence + Dance of Many you can get infinite copies of whatever creature that is on the board.
How to use the combo:
With all 3 cards in play, sacrifice Sun Titan to Martyr's Cause
Sun Titan goes to gy, triggering Angelic Renewal, sacrifice Angelic Renewal to return Sun Titan back into play
Sun Titan ETBs, returning Angelic Renewal into play
Restart from 1
Infinite - Venser mana engine
Pre-requisite: Earthcraft + Dawn's Reflection(+ any other land aura combination, land that taps 5cc with UU) on a basic land Effect: Infinite colored mana
Venser is an all star card in this deck, I really wonder why I didn't include it in the decklist in the first place. He just do so much and have so much synergy with the entire enchantress.dec. This combo abuses the ability of Venser to return himself on ETB, and with the ETB trigger on stack, tap Venser as a cost to Earthcraft to untap a land. To achieve the 5 mana land pre-requisite, enchant a basic land with land auras. We can do it in a few different combinations, like Dawn's reflection + copy enchantment, or overgrowth + fertile ground + utopia sprawl. Just mix and play.
How to use the combo:
Cast Venser
As Venser's ETB is put on the stack, targeting himself.
Tap Venser in response using Earthcraft to untap the 5mana+ land.
Resolve the untap trigger
Resolve the bounce trigger, returning Venser to hand
Restart from 1 until you get infinite mana of all colors.
Other Notes:
Coincidently this works pretty well with Recycle too, but the deck is just too tight to have space for it.
Infinite - Venser in Parallax Opalesence
Pre-requisite: Earthcraft + Dawn's Reflection(+ any other land aura combination, land that taps 5cc with UU) on a basic land Effect: Bounce all opponents permanents, return all opponents spells, basically an "I win" combo
How to use the combo:
Refer to opalesence combo. Choose to bounce Venser for the ETB effect.
Other Synergies
There are other synergies found in the deck that aren't really infinites, but provide a good advantage.
Heliod Skybind
Effect: Generates many cleric enchantment creature tokens.
How to use the combo:
Tap Serra Sanctum to Pay WW2 x N times (as much as the serra sanctum can generate) to generate the creature tokens
Skybind triggers x N times, target one of the triggers on Serra Sanctum. (The rest can target lands or creatures if you want, Sun Titan is a good target. Or send all triggers to Serra Sanctum)
Serra Sanctum exiles and returns at the end of turn untapped
Loop from 1 again the next turn
What is good about this is the combo is usable on opponents' turns. Heliod + Skybind also provides some protection against attacking creatures by exiling them on combat, which is devastating against voltron styled commanders who like to pile everything on their 1 creature (swords and auras). Once the mana generation is sufficient enough (since tokens generated by Heliod are enchantments themselves). The combo turns into an oppressive lock where we can lock players out of their turns by exiling all their lands, mana rocks and dorks during their upkeep.
Blind Obedience with Embargo
Effect: Creatures and artifacts can't do anything (besides etb and non tap activated abilities)
How to use the combo:
Have both of them on the battlefield.
A crucial lock for us since City of Solitude is out of the deck. This combination of cards help delay the board for a while as until we get to our combos.
Decree of silent solemnity
Effect: Opponents can't cast spells without being countered automatically
How to use the combo:
Have both of them on the battlefield.
This is a really oppressive combo. Outside of spells that can't be countered, activated abilities or cycling spells, opponents can't really do anything much once these 2 cards hit the field. The problem, however is that Solemnity also neuters Parallax Wave combos and Mana Bloom.
Currently this combo is under testing.
Old/Currently Not in deck combos
This section contains combos that are currently not within the deck, due to decklist changes. If the combo is back in the deck it will be added back in.
Evolutional leaping into Venser - 9+ cards combo
Pre-requisites:: Permanent that can tap for WWUUGG, Evolutionary Leap in play Effect: Digs out the Venser in Parallax Opalesence combo
Permanent can be bloom tender with mana reflection or land with Mana auras. This is the short version of the enchantress engine combo, where it doesn't require the player to cast the entire deck just to pull off the combo. Requires a total of 9 cards to combo off, but only 3 of them are needed in play (shown in images above) , the others are tutored from your library and Derevi in command zone. As long as the permanent can tap for at least WWUUGG you can go off. It doesn't need to be Bloom Tender specific.
How to use the combo, in this case I’m using bloom tender as the mana engine
Flash in Derevi using her ability
Target bloom tender to untap her
Tap bloom tender for WWUUGG
Sacrifice Derevi to evolutionary leap, netting a creature card from your library and 1 extra W or U Mana. (This is an infinite Mana engine)
Repeat steps 1 to 4 until you get the creatures Academy Rector, Clever Impersonator and Venser, Shaper Savant and the mana GG with at least 12 other mana in combinations of W and U.
Cast Academy Rector
Cast Clever Impersonator, etb as a copy of Academy Rector
Sacrifice the 2 rectors to evolutionary leap, search your library for Opalesance and Parallax Wave and put them onto the battlefield.
Cast Venser, Shaper Savant, returning a permanent
With venser, Opalesance and Parallax Wave in play. Bounce all opponents permanents. (For Opalesance combo, read the Opalesance combo section)
Note:
If you use dual nature as part of the combo, choose to remove the token instead of derevi first. Clever Impersonator isn't needed as Academy Rector will ETB with a copy of itself. Blue mana is not needed in the Dual Nature combo.
Alternatively, you can just cast Academy Rector, sacrifice rector to find Blind Obedience and Venser extort the life out of all opponents.
Card Choices
Sweeper - Austere Command
There are numerous sweeps in EDH, especially when we have white in our colors, home to some of the best sweepers (eg Wrath of God, Planar Cleansing). So why Austere command over other 4 mana sweepers? Firstly is the versatility of it, able to hit creatures, artifacts and enchantments. Secondly it can be used as a 'finisher' card when paired with Enchanted Evening and Faith Reward. If you have 10mana, enchanted evening in play and the 2 cards in hand, It is a guaranteed auto-scoop if you resolve the 2 cards.
Best permanent tutor in deck - Wargate
Wargate is a really scary card, one of the sole reasons why I chose to switch from Junk Enchantress to Bant enchantress. If you look closely at the decklist, you will notice that the lack of staple targeted removals like Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within. As this is a 'thematic' deck, I will really want to lower the amount of non-enchantment cards and focus solely on enchantments doing the kill. So how do one fight against other permanents?
Littered in the deck are several type removals/hoser cards which Wargate have access to, with cards like Parallax Wave (against creatures), Aura of Silence (against enchantments/artifacts), Stony Silence (anti artifacts) and the all encompassing Oblivion Ring.
Counters - Venser, Shaper Savant & Muddle the Mixture
The deck is really light on counters, due to slot limitations. Both Venser, Shaper Savant and Muddle the Mixture are chosen due to their versatility. Muddle the Mixture is another tutor for important 'cogs' in the deck, and Venser is a very versatile card that acts as a pseudo 'remand' and
Power of copy - Copy Enchantment & Clever Impersonator
Along with its BFF Enchanted Evening this mimic is able to mimic absolutely anything, from lands to planeswalkers. Clever Impersonator is Xerox of the deck, copies everything
Creature Sacrifice - Evolutionary Leap & Martyr's Cause
Ahh, why these 2 sacrifice channels and not some other commonlyusedaltars? I've sort of covered the power of evolutionary leap in the combos section, let us talk more about Martyr's Cause.
As we know, this deck is a very combo centric deck, most of the time there are only a few creatures on our board to protect us, many of which we will never use to chump block an opponent's creature. This is where Martyr's Cause come into play, it is a very very good delay tactic to prevent opponents from killing us or our creatures. Consider this scenario, a land enchanted with a wild growth and a dawn's reflection will be very common in the enchantress style of play, tapping that land itself yields 4 mana. This technically makes Derevi free to 'activate' since Derevi can untap that 4 mana land on ETB. With this we get infinite activations of Martyr's Cause.
Opponent sweeping the board with Blasphemous Act? Activate cause. Facing down a hundreds of thousands of angry 1/1 squirrels? No problem the cause will take care of it.
2nd Sept 2017 - Decklist ver 1.5, Additional combos and protection added.
4th July 2015 - Decklist ver 1.3, Additional combos added. More info on card choices
21st December 2013 - Decklist ver 1.2, Card choices section initiated
14th November 2013 - Decklist ver 1.1, changes to lands and added in Cloudstone Curio.
9th November 2013 - Initial decklist 1.0 & Combo section up
from the combos:
Derevi + land that taps for 5 mana + Martyr's Cause = infinite mana/untaps/taps
*I don't think there's a single land that taps for 2WUG. Maybe if you had Gaea's Cradle and one of those Sakuri creatures that filters green mana into any color. Or Mana Reflection + one of the Ravnica Karoo Lands.
Opalescence + Parallax Wave + Oblivion Ring = exile all opponents' non-land permanents
*I think you should have Opalescence + Parallax Wave separately, as just those two in play is brutal, and IIRC there's a way to stack the triggers where you can permanently exile all your opponent's creatures and enchantments without needing Oblivion Ring.
Dual Nature + Opalesence + Oblivion Ring = exile all opponents' non-land permanents
*You're going to have to explain how to stack the triggers on this one.
Faith Healer + Sun Titan + Dance of Many = infinite Sun Titan tokens
*If Dance of Many leaves the battlefield, the Sun Titan token it makes is exiled; I'm not sure if sacrificing Dance of many while the copy affect is on the stack works. If not, this combo only generates infinite life, not infinite tokens.
Thanks for the criticisms and comments. My bad at posting the decklist at 2 am in the morning, next time I must check before posting. I copied my Marath's post format here and missed out on the lands part.
I've posted some of the important synergies and combos found in the deck with their explanation. Will be posting more soon.
Notable changes: + Cloudstone Curio
The only artifact in the deck currently. Enables us to take back out cast out enchantments and cast again for more enchantress draws.
+ Magus of the Candelabra, - Rofellos
The candelabra of Tawnos is a top sought after card for enchantress decks as it effectively doubles the effects of their multi-mana lands. A creature version is chosen here instead for the following reasons:
1) He is a creature, Green has numerous tutors to get him out.
2) He can still function when Stony Silence is active
3) He is 0.3% the cost of Candelabra of Tawnos.
- 1 land (Lands drop to 35) and a lands rework.
Derevi is very colored mana heavy. Lands like Ancient Tomb and Temple of the False God not as functional here. Fetch lands are added.
This deck has gained a rather infamous reputation of being the vomit.dec in my meta. So much that my aggro/control friend (who plays Rafiq) keeps most of his counters just to tuck Derevi into the deck, and another friend who will not hesitate to Damnation the board even when there is only 1 enchantress on board on turn 3.
Solid List! I've had a Angus Bant Enchantress together for about a year now and it's heavy on the pillowfort and light on combo. I was expecting Derevi to enable something like this and now you've come in and done all the heavy lifting for me. It's a relatively small amount of changes I need to make to include a few of the combos - I have to make some room for the new stuff alongside the classic hosers like Land Equilibrium and In the Eye of Chaos.
Thanks
Also - There's no Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx ? This seems like it'd help you get infinite mana. It was goo just by itself in my build before Derevi came out.
....So after making a few changes to my list and playing it quite a few times, I'm really enjoying it - it's much less staxxy and a lot more responsive to the state of the game. Almost - dare I say it - like a 3-color Karn (just replace all the artifacts with enchantments).
What have been your experiences, if any with the deck in the last few weeks ?
Solid List! I've had a Angus Bant Enchantress together for about a year now and it's heavy on the pillowfort and light on combo. I was expecting Derevi to enable something like this and now you've come in and done all the heavy lifting for me. It's a relatively small amount of changes I need to make to include a few of the combos - I have to make some room for the new stuff alongside the classic hosers like Land Equilibrium and In the Eye of Chaos.
Thanks
Also - There's no Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx ? This seems like it'd help you get infinite mana. It was goo just by itself in my build before Derevi came out.
....So after making a few changes to my list and playing it quite a few times, I'm really enjoying it - it's much less staxxy and a lot more responsive to the state of the game. Almost - dare I say it - like a 3-color Karn (just replace all the artifacts with enchantments).
What have been your experiences, if any with the deck in the last few weeks ?
Thanks for liking my list. I have forgotten about Nykthos, need to get a copy of that.
I really like playing the deck, it is currently one of the top threat contenders in my meta, almost to the stage when I am public enemy no.1 when I pull out Derevi (in a meta with Sharuums and Nekusars). Most of the time the group have a love/hate relationship with this deck, wanting to kill me yet not willing as I play hosers against certain deck strategies (eg. Stony Silence against artifacts)
The addition of cloudstone curio increases the deck's potency to combo off by quite a big margin. Defense-wise need to work on it a little, the deck has problems of recovering after 3 opponents decide to strip-mine my lands on turn 4 (happened over a few games).
Need a card slot for Mystic Barrier, it is really good against aggro and not high threat enough for them to remove it as it provides them a target to throw their forces to.
I also have been building Derevi and heading in the combo direction. I'm definitely stealing some of these techs. Have you considered Gilded Lotus and Deadeye Navigator? I'm also looking for things to do once you actually have infinite mana. Some ideas I've had are Martial Coup,Diviner's Wand or Ambassador Laquatus. With a Soul Sister you can gain infinite life as well.
This deck still tends to vomit so many enchantments into play that most opponents can't really keep track of everything - but it seems like they're having more fun than they used to playing against it.
Notable changes
- Rhystic Study, + Time Spiral
Time spiral is one of best cards for enchantress, it refuels the hand, shuffles gy in library and untaps 6 lands, what not to love. Rhystic Study is out, most of the time when I have and enchantress online, the rhystic study becomes useless.
- Magus of the Candelabra, + Heartbeat of Spring
Magus is a good card, but he needs concordant crossroads to actually do work in the deck. Most of the time it will not survive until I can use his ability. Heartbeat of Spring on the other hand is a 3cc mana doubler. The only problem is that is should be used only when Derevi is about to combo off to prevent others from benefiting.
- Reliquary Tower, + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Never had a hand that I need to discard down to 7. Serra Sanctum no.2 is better.
- Carpet of Flowers, + Copy Artifact
Really hate to see carpet of flowers go, am currently testing out copy artifact. Copying mana rocks is an efficient way to ramp (especially when there is a gilded lotus out turn2)
@Glen: I would prefer an enchantment based deck than relying on creatures.
Have you considered Food Chain for more efficient Derevi looping? I know the mana can only be used for creature spells but it would seem better than sacrificing Derevi to no end except to be able to loop. Would also allow your infinite Sun Titan combo to produce infinite mana.
Have you considered Food Chain for more efficient Derevi looping? I know the mana can only be used for creature spells but it would seem better than sacrificing Derevi to no end except to be able to loop. Would also allow your infinite Sun Titan combo to produce infinite mana.
EDIT: Never mind, I realized my own foolish mistake. Move along nothing to see here.
I just mentioned it since you already have Bloom Tender and you had Gilded Lotus before (I think, I might be mixing threads now), so Deadeye Navigator just adds more potential to go infinite mana.
Have you considered Food Chain for more efficient Derevi looping? I know the mana can only be used for creature spells but it would seem better than sacrificing Derevi to no end except to be able to loop. Would also allow your infinite Sun Titan combo to produce infinite mana.
Yep I did consider Food Chain before, but sadly the deck only has 10 creatures. The low creature count makes it hard to utilize the enchantment fully. However this will change as we might have a chance to attain more "enchantment creatures", since we are in an enchantment based block. Can't wait to see what other gems Theros has for us.
I just mentioned it since you already have Bloom Tender and you had Gilded Lotus before (I think, I might be mixing threads now), so Deadeye Navigator just adds more potential to go infinite mana.
Deadeye Navigator is a really strong card, and it needs a number of ETB buddies to function well. There are only 3 other such 'buddies' in the decklist currently
However, even with Opalescence in the picture, there isn't a strong enough suite of ETBs to include DEN. This will change though, as the current Theros block is enchantment/enchantment creatures heavy.
However, even with Opalescence in the picture, there isn't a strong enough suite of ETBs to include DEN. This will change though, as the current Theros block is enchantment/enchantment creatures heavy.
Opalescence also works great along with Gaea's Cradle. On top of its usefulness if you end up pumping out lots of tokens with Luminarch Ascension and Sigel. But its and expensive card and idk if you wish to go that way.
It also has the potential to pump out infinite mana with Equilibrium. Lets say, Cloud of Faries and island, hoping G equals at least 2.
Serra's Sanctum has the same potential and both can be done with Derevi if you have Dawns Reflection out.
I'm really strong about thinking of moving into Bant Enchant but my ideas are all over the place I don't know exactly what to focus and move towards. So I been following to try and keep things in line.
From what I've seen so far, this is the definitive Derevi, Empyrial Tactician combo deck. I take it you've been playing enchantress for a while to realize the plethora of interactions you have going on in this deck. While I have played against enchantress a couple of times and I understand how enchantress turns into a game of solitaire, I was wondering how the deck plays up until the point of comboing out. Do you have trouble interacting with others in the early game?
The other problem I tend to find in finely tuned combo decks such as Sharuum the Hegemon or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is how fragile the combo is to players who have seen it before. How do you typically fight against the hate this deck will bring to the table?
I'd say that just about the most dangerous thing my version of this deck could see is Presence of the Master - I'm pretty sure I don't have a way (other than aura shards) of removing that.
...But I never see presence of the master. Recovering from enchantment wipe can be painful - but you should be careful not to overextend in the first place. Incidentally, Derevi can generate infinite mana in response to someone strip-mining your already-enchanted land.
Also, I have 9 other decks. If I had fewer, I'd expect people to be a little more keen on my deck's intentions.
From what I've seen so far, this is the definitive Derevi, Empyrial Tactician combo deck. I take it you've been playing enchantress for a while to realize the plethora of interactions you have going on in this deck. While I have played against enchantress a couple of times and I understand how enchantress turns into a game of solitaire, I was wondering how the deck plays up until the point of comboing out. Do you have trouble interacting with others in the early game?
The other problem I tend to find in finely tuned combo decks such as Sharuum the Hegemon or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is how fragile the combo is to players who have seen it before. How do you typically fight against the hate this deck will bring to the table?
For most of the time till comboing out, I play quite a bit of politics as the deck can't handle straight up aggro/enchantment hate. The most difficult time for the deck is the 1st 6 turns. A lot of things happen during the 1st 6 turns in my meta, like Sharuum attempting to combo off, Rafiq attempting to combo off (infinite turns), Nekusar attempting to chain wheels, Azusa alpha-striking by then etc.
In short there are many other really dangerous decks out there together with this deck. I can say the threat/hate people have for this deck is still there, but now for my meta is evenly spread out due to everyone playing equally high threatening decks. Everyone has to guard against each other.
In the early game, the first thing I will do is to establish political stability. My meta knows this deck very well, till a stage where they will not hesitate to sweep the whole board even when there is only 1x argothian enchantress on the whole board. There are quite a bit of "political" cards scattered in the deck that can be used as 'bargaining' chips to help mitigate the hate this deck generates.
eg. Stony Silence against the rock rampers. It prevents artifact based decks from comboing out
Parallax Wave helping others against voltron/aggro players
Next is getting cards to deter sweeps, Enchanted Evening or Karmic Justice. It does make opponents hesitant to blow up my stuff, as I will not hesitate to trade my enchantments for their lands, 1 for 1.
As to how the deck plays, it does a lot more than just straight up solitaire and win. There are times where I go aggro due to the type of cards I drew, like running Auratog + Rancor + GGGGG investment every turn = a whooping 13 trample damage if everything else is not available. Or deciding to go alpha strike with angels/cats with concordant Xroads.
One thing for sure, I am still not fully satisfied with the card choices, personally more creature defenses will be nice but I am hesitant as it will dilute the combo potential of the deck.
I'd say that just about the most dangerous thing my version of this deck could see is Presence of the Master - I'm pretty sure I don't have a way (other than aura shards) of removing that.
...But I never see presence of the master. Recovering from enchantment wipe can be painful - but you should be careful not to overextend in the first place. Incidentally, Derevi can generate infinite mana in response to someone strip-mining your already-enchanted land.
Also, I have 9 other decks. If I had fewer, I'd expect people to be a little more keen on my deck's intentions.
Presence of the Master downright kills our decks. So far I have not seen it too. One of the reasons I suppose is that it is really a meta-call should this card be included. It doesn't absolutely nothing else besides hosing its own kind + it is in the colors the makes use of enchantments the most.
A bit of talk about the previews, how you guys think of the following?
Opalesence + Parallax Wave + Perplexing Chimera = Control all spells
Seems not bad in my opinion, though it requires adding an additional Homeward Path to make it more worthwhile. It can also "redirect" 'Krosan grip' styled spells to our advantage.
(On the Perplexing Chimera) I like it. My group was discussing it and I noted that as awesome as it'd be on a Mimic Vat, I think it has to be in play before the spell to be stolen is played [That doesn't affect this deck's use of it, but might affect others'].
Am I thinking correctly, or is Perplexing Chimera even better than I thought ?
Yes Perplexing Chimera does work wonders when paired with Mimic Vat (and other until EOT token cloning tech like KikiJiki/Splinter Twin). You do need to get the token in before the opponent has an opportunity to cast a spell though.
Since this is an enchantress.dec, let us talk about what other enchantments that can pair exceptionally well with it. The first thing that comes into mind is Flickerform. One interesting thing to note is that flickerform is still under our control even when Perplexing Chimera is given to the opponent after the "on cast trigger resolution". This makes it sort of a better option than placing it under Mimic Vat or other clone creators, the aura can also protect the chimera from removal as long as we have mana.
Another enchantment based combo is what I talked about, the Opalesence+Parallax Wave+Perplexing Chimera. It works like this
1) All 3 enchantments in play
2) An opponent announces casting of a spell (Spell A)
3) Perplexing Chimera triggers, we decide to take control of the spell
4) Perplexing Chimera trigger resolves, opponent gains control of the chimera, we gain control of Spell A
5) Spell A is placed on the stack, since is opponent's turn he has priority
6) Priority is passed until ours, activate Parallax Wave, targeting Perplexing Chimera
7) Let Parallax Wave trigger resolve
8) Activate Parallax Wave again, targeting itself (since opalesence is in play)
9) Parallax Wave resolves, LTB triggers and returns both Parallax Wave + Perplexing Chimera back under our control.
10) Spell A resolves.
This combo will capture all spells that are of sorcery speed or the 1st instant spell we can exchange when Chimera is under our control.
Opalescence also works great along with Gaea's Cradle. On top of its usefulness if you end up pumping out lots of tokens with Luminarch Ascension and Sigel. But its and expensive card and idk if you wish to go that way.
It also has the potential to pump out infinite mana with Equilibrium. Lets say, Cloud of Faries and island, hoping G equals at least 2.
Serra's Sanctum has the same potential and both can be done with Derevi if you have Dawns Reflection out.
I'm really strong about thinking of moving into Bant Enchant but my ideas are all over the place I don't know exactly what to focus and move towards. So I been following to try and keep things in line.
Apart from Opalesence and the token generators, Gaea's Cradle doesn't really work well in the deck. The creature count is too low to abuse it.
Similarly, cards like Equilibrium requires more creature cards to work. Cloudstone Curio is a better alternative here as it works on every other permanent type other than artifacts, and it works on ETB rather than on cast which makes it more abusable. (eg, Earthcraft+Fists of Ironwood+Enchanted Evening)
It will be good to determine what style of enchantress (deck's focus) you will like to play. A more voltron style, a combo style, a pillowfort or prison. After knowing that it will be easier to form the deck.
Born of the Gods is released! Perplexing Chimera is a really funny inclusion to the deck, it kind of stops opponents from casting their own bombs, besides sweeps.
What are your thoughts on the new cards? Below are the cards which I find interesting to include, all of them belonging to either U or W. Green has not much to offer for this set though, haiz. Will be posting the updated decklist once I finish testing.
Ephara's Enlightenment
Ephara's Enlightenment is a pretty interesting 3cc Azorius aura. The key ability of this card is the ability to return it to hand should a creature ETB under our control. This makes Ajani's Chosen a key companion card, 3cc to give +1/+1 token to a creature and generate a 2/2 cat token.
Ah, the new interesting inclusion to my current deck. I've had a couple of games where it is out whecking havoc on the battlefield. What I mean about whecking havoc? It throws a wrench into all my opponent's plans, anything that isn't global based (sweeps being the most common) have a chance to get "commandeered" by the chimera. Currrently it suffers a low 4 rating synergy rating due to the deck having nothing much to do with it besides it being an enchantment creature. It also needs at least 2 extra card slots to make it worthwhile to use. The saving grace is it lets opponents think twice about casting stuff that advances their position, often making them pass their turn without doing anything, afraid of getting their ramp/tutor/bomb taken away.
This is an excellent delaying and control card to have, well worth the inclusion rating and slot change. A couple of tips of using the chimera though, firstly without any of the companion piece (Homeward Path, Flickerform, Venser, the Soujourner), refrain of gaining control of any spell that is cast. Having the chimera on the opposing side is detrimental to us as well. Secondly, the chimera has a huge tendency of drawing out sweeps, as they are the most common spell type that does what is intended no matter who controls them.
The new set has 2 interesting creatures with worthwhile heroic abilities. Meletis Astronomer is a 2cc creature which helps in filtering our decks for enchantments when an aura is cast targeting him. Mindreaver is a game ender card which has the potential of exiling the libraries of opponents when a certain engine becomes available. Below are some of the available engines with the current decklist.
Rancor x Faith Healer/Auratog
A simple engine to use with the heroic gang. Cost as little as a G to get it going.
Treachery x Copy Enchantment x Cloudstone Curio
A self sustaining engine, give your opponents a mindreaving, heroic death.
A top staple land of many EDH decks, City of Brass acts as a cheap and efficient mana fixer, falling slightly behind Command Tower due to its prickly nature (1 damage per use). If this appears in your meta as a staple, you are in luck! It gives Derevi another win condition. Just assemble the following:
I LOVE what you've done with the place! I've plans to include Ephara, god of the polis to my deck, already have a Perplexing Chimera in here, though. What about Plea for Guidance ? It can fetch up combos if the game needs to end or just some good synergy if we're having a good time - it's performed admirably for me so far.
As far as Ephara's Enlightenment, I have been running Molting Skin in my deck - and it's surprisingly superb, all by itself. I don't see myself switching from this to Ephara's Enlightenment. I'm also testing out Seaside Haven as a back-up draw outlet.
Time for a little thread necromancy... ahem "I agree"
So I built Derevi a month ago based alot on your build. It has been SUPER fun to play and even wins quite often.
Though my playgroup tends to stay away from infinite combos so I am not taking full advantage of your build, Instead I am going ultra synergistic with Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum (Just short of infinite haha) and more weird stompy by using Gods
But my friend asked a question, why am I not playing Aura Thief...why in the nine hells am I not playing with Aura Thief? I am already playing enchanted evening and have enchantments that sac creature via Fanatical Devotion and [card]Martyr's Cause[/card. So have just added it, I am sure it will be halarious once or twice before my friends catch on and Enchanted evening becomes a kill on sight card
What are your thoughts on ending the game via stealing everyone's everything (Except auras, way to fail Aura Thief)?
Deck ver 1.5 - Updated 2nd September 2017
Warning: This is a pure combo based deck. Long turns with the potential to go infinite is the norm in this deck.
Table of Contents
Brief History of the deck
My love for enchantress started when I saw how my friend's 60 card enchantress deck combos off by drawing and playing the entire deck, recycle them and play again, generating enough mana for a fireball. It was the start of my love of engine decks, where the cards are each viewed as part of the machine, like wheels and cogs.
My 1st enchantress EDH started off with Ghave, Guru of Spores at the helm, which I feel that it is rather forced as it doesn't really embrace the essence of running an enchantress deck. Most of the deck's win conditions are based off winning via creature death, by generating infinite tokens using a selected number of enchantments. It feels clunky and isn't really a huge blast to play. Bant is more suited to enchantress colors compared to BWG, but it is missing an important piece of the puzzle, its commander. I am not really a big fan of pillowfort nor prison type of enchantress, hence commander select in Bant is really limited. You may ask,
What the hell can Derevi do in enchantress? Enchantments can't do anything with tapping or untapping.
In the beginning I shared the same thinking as everyone as I build the deck. But trust me, after playing with initial version of the deck (v0.1) I can safely say that Derevi doesn't disappoint. She is by far the BEST combo general for enchantress.
Why you should consider this deck
Do consider giving this deck a whirl if you:
This deck might not be suitable for those who:
Decklist and Statistics
[float="left"]
1x Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
//Engine Cards
1x Dual Nature
//Enchantress Draw & Card Filtering (6)
1x Eidolon of Blossoms
1x Enchantress's Presence
1x Argothian Enchantress
1x Verduran Enchantress
1x Mesa Enchantress
1x Sylvan Library
//Card Return (1)
1x Words of Wind
//Token Generators & Doublers (3)
1x Sigil of the Empty Throne
1x Ajani's Chosen
1x Monastery Mentor
//Blinks (2)
1x Heliod, God of the Sun
1x Skybind
//Combo Cards (2)
1x Opalescence
1x Parallax Wave
//Hosers and Locks (2)
1x Embargo
1x Stony Silence
//Sacrifice Channels (2)
1x Faith Healer
1x Martyr's Cause
//Steal Effects (1)
1x Treachery
//Copy Effects (3)
1x Copy Enchantment
1x Dance of Many
1x Clever Impersonator
//Enchantment Land Auras/Mana 'enchantments' (8)
1x Wild Growth
1x Fertile Ground
1x Utopia Sprawl
1x Overgrowth
1x Dawn's Reflection
1x Market Festival
1x Carpet of Flowers
1x Weirding Wood
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Mana Reflection
//Land Adders (2)
1x Mana Bloom
//Mana Dorks (1)
1x Bloom Tender
//Land Changers (1)
1x Prismatic Omen
//Protection (8)
1x Aura of Silence
1x Aura Shards
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Karmic Justice
1x Seal of Removal
1x Blind Obedience
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Enchanted Evening
1x Grasp of Fate
//Tutors and Card Advantage (10)
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Academy Rector
1x Chord of Calling
1x Crop Rotation
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Wargate
1x Sterling Grove
1x Land Tax
1x Evolutionary Leap
//Land Untaps and Haste (3)
1x Concordant Crossroads
1x Earthcraft
1x Frantic Search
//Boardwipes (1)
1x Austere Command
//Recurs (6)
1x Sun Titan
1x Replenish
1x Eternal Witness
1x Angelic Renewal
1x Open the Vaults
1x Faith's Reward
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Sunpetal Grove
1x Hinterland Harbor
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Flooded Grove
1x Mystic Gate
1x Wooded Bastion
1x Command Tower
1x Deserted Temple
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
1x Windswept Heath
1x Serra's Sanctum
1x Cascading Cataracts
1x Reflecting Pool
7x Forest
5x Plains
4x Island
Statistics
Creatures: 15
Enchantments: 40
Artifacts: 0
Sorceries: 6
Instants: 5
Planeswalkers: 0
Lands : 34
Avg casting cost: 3.08
Link to Current Decklist
Link to Old decklist (2015)
Why Derevi at the Helm of Enchantress
Amongst all Bant commanders, she is the only commander that can be deemed as "a cog in the engine deck". With a way to get her back into the command zone she can be used again and again thanks to her unique ability. She is used mainly in the deck to untap permanents that generate mana. Enchantress is a very mana hungry deck, and with an untapper which is almost always available at a cheap cost of 1WUG, it becomes fomidable.
In the deck there are only 2 types of permanents that she can untap, mana dorks and lands. Mana dorks like Bloom Tender can generate more than 1 mana per activation. It is slightly more tricky with lands, but nothing can't be done in enchantress, especially with green helping out.
1x Fertile Ground
1x Utopia Sprawl
1x Overgrowth
1x Dawn's Reflection
1x Market Festival
1x Weirding Wood
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Mana Reflection
The above 9 cards make up the "land mana engine component" which makes enchanted lands tap for more than 1 mana. Combine a few of them into a single land and you can start looping Derevi.
Noteworthy Combos & Strategies
Since this is an engine based deck, it will be good to group the strategy section together with the noteworthy combos. The deck does require quite a bit of thinking, much like the modern/legacy Eggs.dec and the legacy combo enchantress. It is recommended to do some goldfishing tryouts before bringing it to play for the first time. The deck also employs a number of interesting plays with the stack, will be explained in detail below.
Commander specific infinite - Mana Engine no.1
Pre-requisite: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Dual Nature + Bloom Tender
Effect: Infinite colored mana, untapping and tapping of all permanents
How to use the combo:
Commander specific infinite - Mana Engine no.2
Pre-requisite: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Dawn's Reflection(+ any other land aura combination) + Martyr's Cause
Effect: Infinite colored mana, untapping and tapping of all permanents
To achieve the 5 mana land pre-requisite, enchant the land with land auras. We can do it in a few different combinations, like Dawn's reflection + copy enchantment, or overgrowth + fertile ground + utopia sprawl, or dawn's reflection + fertile ground on Serra Sanctum. Just mix and play.
How to use the combo:
Additional notes for both Mana Engines
Both of the mana engines can be mixed together in different combinations. Like replacing Bloom Tender with a land enchanted with Dawn's Reflection, or replacing Dual Nature with Dance of Many + Mana reflection to boost Bloom Tender. There are many combinations littered in the deck to achieve a mana engine with Derevi.
Infinite - Opalesence Core
Pre-requisite: Opalesence + Parallax Wave
Effect: Infinite exiling of opponents' creatures/enchantments, infinite ETB triggers of our own creatures/enchantments.
Interestingly this combo can be use together with Derevi to achieve infinite mana + tap down on all opponent permanents (artifacts/lands since enchantments/creatures should be gone)
How to use the combo:
For Parallax Tide, use it in the loop like above, using Parallax Wave to exile the tide.
Infinite - Dual Nature Opalesence
Pre-requisite: Opalesence + Dual Nature + Oblivion Ring
Effect: Exile all opponents' non-land permanents or get infinite ETB triggers off our own permanents
Dual Nature + Opalesence together makes copies of any enchantment that ETBs. Each and every non-aura enchantment will come in with their token counterpart, allowing double usage of our enchantments. What is so special about this is that it provides some very interesting combos. I'll highlight some of the minor combos before touching on the main Oblivion Ring combo which is more complex.
combi + Seal of Removal : With 2 of the removal seals in play, sacrifice the token copy to return the original (it is a creature thanks to Opalesence). With enough U we can just keep casting the loop, yielding card draws from our enchantresses, creating angel tokens with Sigil of the Empty Throne or use Blind Obedience's extort. This becomes a kill condition when a mana engine is available.
Rule to be abused (from Oracle):
10/1/2007: If Oblivion Ring leaves the battlefield before its first ability has resolved, its second ability will trigger and do nothing. Then its first ability will resolve and exile the targeted nonland permanent forever.
How to use the Oblivion Ring combo:
Note:
If you choose to exile all opponent's non-land permanents, those triggers will remain on the stack and not resolve until the entire 'infinite' loop has ended. To end the loop, just target another permanent with the copied Oring.
Infinite - Dance of many Titans
Pre-requisite: Dance of Many + Sun Titan + Faith Healer
Effect: Infinite Sun Titan tokens, infinite life
Rule to be abused (from Oracle):
10/1/2009: If Dance of Many leaves the battlefield before its first ability has resolved, its second ability will trigger and do nothing. Then its first ability will resolve and put a token onto the battlefield. That token won't have any connection to a Dance of Many permanent, so it won't be exiled when a Dance of Many leaves the battlefield.
How to use the combo:
Infinite - Bounce everything!
Pre-requisite: Enchantress Presence (or any enchantress or recycle) + Treachery + Copy Enchantment + Words of Wind + 5 lands (that produces 6 mana and above) + 1 creature to enchant (any one will do) + any other low cost enchantment (1cc enchantments are preferred, depends on how much extra mana is produced from the 5 lands)
Effect: Bounce back all opponents' permanents.
This is a 5+ card combo. For this combo explanation I'll use the minimum requirements that is required for it to work. 5lands (6mana) + a 1mana other enchantment. If a doubler is in play like Mirari's Wake, 5 lands will produce (10 mana) and we can use any other 4cc and below enchantments for the combo.
How to use the combo:
Note:
This combo will achieve infinite mana should each iteration gives a positive net mana.
Infinite base engine - Sun Titan recursion loop
Pre-requisite: Angelic Renewal + Sun Titan + Martyr's Cause
Effect: Sun Titan iconic recursion engine, infinite ETB of creature and enchantment (used for triggering other stuff)
This is the 2nd core engine of the deck, and is used as the base engine to enable many other combos. Ajani's Chosen is one of them, to get infinite 2/2 cat tokens. Another nice combo to use with is a combination of Enchanted Evening + Aura Shards, wipe all opponent's permanents away. The skies is the limit, coupled with Dual Nature + Opalesence + Dance of Many you can get infinite copies of whatever creature that is on the board.
How to use the combo:
Infinite - Venser mana engine
Pre-requisite: Earthcraft + Dawn's Reflection(+ any other land aura combination, land that taps 5cc with UU) on a basic land
Effect: Infinite colored mana
Venser is an all star card in this deck, I really wonder why I didn't include it in the decklist in the first place. He just do so much and have so much synergy with the entire enchantress.dec. This combo abuses the ability of Venser to return himself on ETB, and with the ETB trigger on stack, tap Venser as a cost to Earthcraft to untap a land. To achieve the 5 mana land pre-requisite, enchant a basic land with land auras. We can do it in a few different combinations, like Dawn's reflection + copy enchantment, or overgrowth + fertile ground + utopia sprawl. Just mix and play.
How to use the combo:
Other Notes:
Coincidently this works pretty well with Recycle too, but the deck is just too tight to have space for it.
Infinite - Venser in Parallax Opalesence
Pre-requisite: Earthcraft + Dawn's Reflection(+ any other land aura combination, land that taps 5cc with UU) on a basic land
Effect: Bounce all opponents permanents, return all opponents spells, basically an "I win" combo
How to use the combo:
Refer to opalesence combo. Choose to bounce Venser for the ETB effect.
Other Synergies
There are other synergies found in the deck that aren't really infinites, but provide a good advantage.
Heliod Skybind
Effect: Generates many cleric enchantment creature tokens.
How to use the combo:
What is good about this is the combo is usable on opponents' turns. Heliod + Skybind also provides some protection against attacking creatures by exiling them on combat, which is devastating against voltron styled commanders who like to pile everything on their 1 creature (swords and auras). Once the mana generation is sufficient enough (since tokens generated by Heliod are enchantments themselves). The combo turns into an oppressive lock where we can lock players out of their turns by exiling all their lands, mana rocks and dorks during their upkeep.
Blind Obedience with Embargo
Effect: Creatures and artifacts can't do anything (besides etb and non tap activated abilities)
How to use the combo:
A crucial lock for us since City of Solitude is out of the deck. This combination of cards help delay the board for a while as until we get to our combos.
Decree of silent solemnity
Effect: Opponents can't cast spells without being countered automatically
How to use the combo:
This is a really oppressive combo. Outside of spells that can't be countered, activated abilities or cycling spells, opponents can't really do anything much once these 2 cards hit the field. The problem, however is that Solemnity also neuters Parallax Wave combos and Mana Bloom.
Currently this combo is under testing.
Old/Currently Not in deck combos
This section contains combos that are currently not within the deck, due to decklist changes. If the combo is back in the deck it will be added back in.
Evolutional leaping into Venser - 9+ cards combo
Pre-requisites:: Permanent that can tap for WWUUGG, Evolutionary Leap in play
Effect: Digs out the Venser in Parallax Opalesence combo
Permanent can be bloom tender with mana reflection or land with Mana auras. This is the short version of the enchantress engine combo, where it doesn't require the player to cast the entire deck just to pull off the combo. Requires a total of 9 cards to combo off, but only 3 of them are needed in play (shown in images above) , the others are tutored from your library and Derevi in command zone. As long as the permanent can tap for at least WWUUGG you can go off. It doesn't need to be Bloom Tender specific.
How to use the combo, in this case I’m using bloom tender as the mana engine
Note:
If you use dual nature as part of the combo, choose to remove the token instead of derevi first. Clever Impersonator isn't needed as Academy Rector will ETB with a copy of itself. Blue mana is not needed in the Dual Nature combo.
Alternatively, you can just cast Academy Rector, sacrifice rector to find Blind Obedience and Venser extort the life out of all opponents.
Card Choices
Sweeper - Austere Command
There are numerous sweeps in EDH, especially when we have white in our colors, home to some of the best sweepers (eg Wrath of God, Planar Cleansing). So why Austere command over other 4 mana sweepers? Firstly is the versatility of it, able to hit creatures, artifacts and enchantments. Secondly it can be used as a 'finisher' card when paired with Enchanted Evening and Faith Reward. If you have 10mana, enchanted evening in play and the 2 cards in hand, It is a guaranteed auto-scoop if you resolve the 2 cards.
Best permanent tutor in deck - Wargate
Wargate is a really scary card, one of the sole reasons why I chose to switch from Junk Enchantress to Bant enchantress. If you look closely at the decklist, you will notice that the lack of staple targeted removals like Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within. As this is a 'thematic' deck, I will really want to lower the amount of non-enchantment cards and focus solely on enchantments doing the kill. So how do one fight against other permanents?
Littered in the deck are several type removals/hoser cards which Wargate have access to, with cards like Parallax Wave (against creatures), Aura of Silence (against enchantments/artifacts), Stony Silence (anti artifacts) and the all encompassing Oblivion Ring.
Counters - Venser, Shaper Savant & Muddle the Mixture
The deck is really light on counters, due to slot limitations. Both Venser, Shaper Savant and Muddle the Mixture are chosen due to their versatility. Muddle the Mixture is another tutor for important 'cogs' in the deck, and Venser is a very versatile card that acts as a pseudo 'remand' and
Power of copy - Copy Enchantment & Clever Impersonator
Along with its BFF Enchanted Evening this mimic is able to mimic absolutely anything, from lands to planeswalkers. Clever Impersonator is Xerox of the deck, copies everything
Creature Sacrifice - Evolutionary Leap & Martyr's Cause
Ahh, why these 2 sacrifice channels and not some other commonly used altars? I've sort of covered the power of evolutionary leap in the combos section, let us talk more about Martyr's Cause.
As we know, this deck is a very combo centric deck, most of the time there are only a few creatures on our board to protect us, many of which we will never use to chump block an opponent's creature. This is where Martyr's Cause come into play, it is a very very good delay tactic to prevent opponents from killing us or our creatures. Consider this scenario, a land enchanted with a wild growth and a dawn's reflection will be very common in the enchantress style of play, tapping that land itself yields 4 mana. This technically makes Derevi free to 'activate' since Derevi can untap that 4 mana land on ETB. With this we get infinite activations of Martyr's Cause.
Opponent sweeping the board with Blasphemous Act? Activate cause. Facing down a hundreds of thousands of angry 1/1 squirrels? No problem the cause will take care of it.
- To be continued -
Need to find space for the following:
1x Sheltered Aerie
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
2nd Sept 2017 - Decklist ver 1.5, Additional combos and protection added.
4th July 2015 - Decklist ver 1.3, Additional combos added. More info on card choices
21st December 2013 - Decklist ver 1.2, Card choices section initiated
14th November 2013 - Decklist ver 1.1, changes to lands and added in Cloudstone Curio.
9th November 2013 - Initial decklist 1.0 & Combo section up
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
In the 'list by card function' decklist I think there's a lot of errors; Sacred Foundry, Stomping Ground, Rootbound Crag, Clifftop Retreat, 2 Mountain and Fire-Lit Thicket are all outside the colors of derevi. Im guessing you were copy/pasting from the wrong list.
from the combos:
Derevi + land that taps for 5 mana + Martyr's Cause = infinite mana/untaps/taps
*I don't think there's a single land that taps for 2WUG. Maybe if you had Gaea's Cradle and one of those Sakuri creatures that filters green mana into any color. Or Mana Reflection + one of the Ravnica Karoo Lands.
Opalescence + Parallax Wave + Oblivion Ring = exile all opponents' non-land permanents
*I think you should have Opalescence + Parallax Wave separately, as just those two in play is brutal, and IIRC there's a way to stack the triggers where you can permanently exile all your opponent's creatures and enchantments without needing Oblivion Ring.
Dual Nature + Opalesence + Oblivion Ring = exile all opponents' non-land permanents
*You're going to have to explain how to stack the triggers on this one.
Faith Healer + Sun Titan + Dance of Many = infinite Sun Titan tokens
*If Dance of Many leaves the battlefield, the Sun Titan token it makes is exiled; I'm not sure if sacrificing Dance of many while the copy affect is on the stack works. If not, this combo only generates infinite life, not infinite tokens.
EDH Decks:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ezuri, Renegade Leader 1v1
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher 1v1
Hythonia the Cruel
Trying to build:
Jenara, Asura of War
Designing a Custom Set:
Clash of the Cultures: 5 Wedges, 5 Cultures
Providing Artwork for:
Archester: Frontier of Steam
Thanks for the criticisms and comments. My bad at posting the decklist at 2 am in the morning, next time I must check before posting. I copied my Marath's post format here and missed out on the lands part.
I've posted some of the important synergies and combos found in the deck with their explanation. Will be posting more soon.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Notable changes:
+ Cloudstone Curio
The only artifact in the deck currently. Enables us to take back out cast out enchantments and cast again for more enchantress draws.
+ Magus of the Candelabra, - Rofellos
The candelabra of Tawnos is a top sought after card for enchantress decks as it effectively doubles the effects of their multi-mana lands. A creature version is chosen here instead for the following reasons:
1) He is a creature, Green has numerous tutors to get him out.
2) He can still function when Stony Silence is active
3) He is 0.3% the cost of Candelabra of Tawnos.
- 1 land (Lands drop to 35) and a lands rework.
Derevi is very colored mana heavy. Lands like Ancient Tomb and Temple of the False God not as functional here. Fetch lands are added.
This deck has gained a rather infamous reputation of being the vomit.dec in my meta. So much that my aggro/control friend (who plays Rafiq) keeps most of his counters just to tuck Derevi into the deck, and another friend who will not hesitate to Damnation the board even when there is only 1 enchantress on board on turn 3.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Thanks
Also - There's no Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx ? This seems like it'd help you get infinite mana. It was goo just by itself in my build before Derevi came out.
What have been your experiences, if any with the deck in the last few weeks ?
Thanks for liking my list. I have forgotten about Nykthos, need to get a copy of that.
I really like playing the deck, it is currently one of the top threat contenders in my meta, almost to the stage when I am public enemy no.1 when I pull out Derevi (in a meta with Sharuums and Nekusars). Most of the time the group have a love/hate relationship with this deck, wanting to kill me yet not willing as I play hosers against certain deck strategies (eg. Stony Silence against artifacts)
The addition of cloudstone curio increases the deck's potency to combo off by quite a big margin. Defense-wise need to work on it a little, the deck has problems of recovering after 3 opponents decide to strip-mine my lands on turn 4 (happened over a few games).
Need a card slot for Mystic Barrier, it is really good against aggro and not high threat enough for them to remove it as it provides them a target to throw their forces to.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
I've added RAV block guild Karoos
as well as Lotus Vale, as risky as it may be. I've considered adding Squirrel Nest for utility and cheap combo-age with Earthcraft.
This deck still tends to vomit so many enchantments into play that most opponents can't really keep track of everything - but it seems like they're having more fun than they used to playing against it.
Notable changes
- Rhystic Study, + Time Spiral
Time spiral is one of best cards for enchantress, it refuels the hand, shuffles gy in library and untaps 6 lands, what not to love. Rhystic Study is out, most of the time when I have and enchantress online, the rhystic study becomes useless.
- Magus of the Candelabra, + Heartbeat of Spring
Magus is a good card, but he needs concordant crossroads to actually do work in the deck. Most of the time it will not survive until I can use his ability. Heartbeat of Spring on the other hand is a 3cc mana doubler. The only problem is that is should be used only when Derevi is about to combo off to prevent others from benefiting.
- Reliquary Tower, + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Never had a hand that I need to discard down to 7. Serra Sanctum no.2 is better.
- Carpet of Flowers, + Copy Artifact
Really hate to see carpet of flowers go, am currently testing out copy artifact. Copying mana rocks is an efficient way to ramp (especially when there is a gilded lotus out turn2)
@Glen: I would prefer an enchantment based deck than relying on creatures.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
EDIT: Never mind, I realized my own foolish mistake. Move along nothing to see here.
Yep I did consider Food Chain before, but sadly the deck only has 10 creatures. The low creature count makes it hard to utilize the enchantment fully. However this will change as we might have a chance to attain more "enchantment creatures", since we are in an enchantment based block. Can't wait to see what other gems Theros has for us.
Deadeye Navigator is a really strong card, and it needs a number of ETB buddies to function well. There are only 3 other such 'buddies' in the decklist currently
-Eternal Witness
-Sun Titan
-Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Bloom Tender can only go infinite with DEN when a haste effect is in play.
If we consider enchantments being creatures due to Opalescence, it opens up more interesting DEN activations
-Dance of Many
-Oblivion Ring
-Aura Shard (need to check rules whether when Aura Shard ETB as a creature will trigger itself)
However, even with Opalescence in the picture, there isn't a strong enough suite of ETBs to include DEN. This will change though, as the current Theros block is enchantment/enchantment creatures heavy.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Opalescence also works great along with Gaea's Cradle. On top of its usefulness if you end up pumping out lots of tokens with Luminarch Ascension and Sigel. But its and expensive card and idk if you wish to go that way.
It also has the potential to pump out infinite mana with Equilibrium. Lets say, Cloud of Faries and island, hoping G equals at least 2.
Serra's Sanctum has the same potential and both can be done with Derevi if you have Dawns Reflection out.
I'm really strong about thinking of moving into Bant Enchant but my ideas are all over the place I don't know exactly what to focus and move towards. So I been following to try and keep things in line.
The other problem I tend to find in finely tuned combo decks such as Sharuum the Hegemon or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is how fragile the combo is to players who have seen it before. How do you typically fight against the hate this deck will bring to the table?
...But I never see presence of the master. Recovering from enchantment wipe can be painful - but you should be careful not to overextend in the first place. Incidentally, Derevi can generate infinite mana in response to someone strip-mining your already-enchanted land.
Also, I have 9 other decks. If I had fewer, I'd expect people to be a little more keen on my deck's intentions.
For most of the time till comboing out, I play quite a bit of politics as the deck can't handle straight up aggro/enchantment hate. The most difficult time for the deck is the 1st 6 turns. A lot of things happen during the 1st 6 turns in my meta, like Sharuum attempting to combo off, Rafiq attempting to combo off (infinite turns), Nekusar attempting to chain wheels, Azusa alpha-striking by then etc.
In short there are many other really dangerous decks out there together with this deck. I can say the threat/hate people have for this deck is still there, but now for my meta is evenly spread out due to everyone playing equally high threatening decks. Everyone has to guard against each other.
In the early game, the first thing I will do is to establish political stability. My meta knows this deck very well, till a stage where they will not hesitate to sweep the whole board even when there is only 1x argothian enchantress on the whole board. There are quite a bit of "political" cards scattered in the deck that can be used as 'bargaining' chips to help mitigate the hate this deck generates.
eg.
Stony Silence against the rock rampers. It prevents artifact based decks from comboing out
Wheel of Sun and Moon against reanimators
Parallax Wave helping others against voltron/aggro players
Next is getting cards to deter sweeps, Enchanted Evening or Karmic Justice. It does make opponents hesitant to blow up my stuff, as I will not hesitate to trade my enchantments for their lands, 1 for 1.
As to how the deck plays, it does a lot more than just straight up solitaire and win. There are times where I go aggro due to the type of cards I drew, like running Auratog + Rancor + GGGGG investment every turn = a whooping 13 trample damage if everything else is not available. Or deciding to go alpha strike with angels/cats with concordant Xroads.
One thing for sure, I am still not fully satisfied with the card choices, personally more creature defenses will be nice but I am hesitant as it will dilute the combo potential of the deck.
Presence of the Master downright kills our decks. So far I have not seen it too. One of the reasons I suppose is that it is really a meta-call should this card be included. It doesn't absolutely nothing else besides hosing its own kind + it is in the colors the makes use of enchantments the most.
A bit of talk about the previews, how you guys think of the following?
Opalesence + Parallax Wave + Perplexing Chimera = Control all spells
Seems not bad in my opinion, though it requires adding an additional Homeward Path to make it more worthwhile. It can also "redirect" 'Krosan grip' styled spells to our advantage.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Am I thinking correctly, or is Perplexing Chimera even better than I thought ?
Since this is an enchantress.dec, let us talk about what other enchantments that can pair exceptionally well with it. The first thing that comes into mind is Flickerform. One interesting thing to note is that flickerform is still under our control even when Perplexing Chimera is given to the opponent after the "on cast trigger resolution". This makes it sort of a better option than placing it under Mimic Vat or other clone creators, the aura can also protect the chimera from removal as long as we have mana.
Another enchantment based combo is what I talked about, the Opalesence+Parallax Wave+Perplexing Chimera. It works like this
1) All 3 enchantments in play
2) An opponent announces casting of a spell (Spell A)
3) Perplexing Chimera triggers, we decide to take control of the spell
4) Perplexing Chimera trigger resolves, opponent gains control of the chimera, we gain control of Spell A
5) Spell A is placed on the stack, since is opponent's turn he has priority
6) Priority is passed until ours, activate Parallax Wave, targeting Perplexing Chimera
7) Let Parallax Wave trigger resolve
8) Activate Parallax Wave again, targeting itself (since opalesence is in play)
9) Parallax Wave resolves, LTB triggers and returns both Parallax Wave + Perplexing Chimera back under our control.
10) Spell A resolves.
This combo will capture all spells that are of sorcery speed or the 1st instant spell we can exchange when Chimera is under our control.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Apart from Opalesence and the token generators, Gaea's Cradle doesn't really work well in the deck. The creature count is too low to abuse it.
Similarly, cards like Equilibrium requires more creature cards to work. Cloudstone Curio is a better alternative here as it works on every other permanent type other than artifacts, and it works on ETB rather than on cast which makes it more abusable. (eg, Earthcraft+Fists of Ironwood+Enchanted Evening)
It will be good to determine what style of enchantress (deck's focus) you will like to play. A more voltron style, a combo style, a pillowfort or prison. After knowing that it will be easier to form the deck.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
What are your thoughts on the new cards? Below are the cards which I find interesting to include, all of them belonging to either U or W. Green has not much to offer for this set though, haiz. Will be posting the updated decklist once I finish testing.
Ephara's Enlightenment
Ephara's Enlightenment is a pretty interesting 3cc Azorius aura. The key ability of this card is the ability to return it to hand should a creature ETB under our control. This makes Ajani's Chosen a key companion card, 3cc to give +1/+1 token to a creature and generate a 2/2 cat token.
Minimum slot change: 1
Card's synergy with deck: 6/10
Inclusion rating: 7/10
Ephara, God of the Polis
The Azorius god, Ephara, God of the Polis, lets us draw every turn should a creature ETB the last turn. Ephara can work with available engines in the current deck like Sun Titan x Angelic Renewal x Martyr's Cause, Opalesence xx Parallax Wave, or she can partner with Verdant Embrace for an easy 1 card draw every upkeep.
Minimum slot change: 2
Card's synergy with deck: 3/10
Inclusion rating: 5/10
Perplexing Chimera
Ah, the new interesting inclusion to my current deck. I've had a couple of games where it is out whecking havoc on the battlefield. What I mean about whecking havoc? It throws a wrench into all my opponent's plans, anything that isn't global based (sweeps being the most common) have a chance to get "commandeered" by the chimera. Currrently it suffers a low 4 rating synergy rating due to the deck having nothing much to do with it besides it being an enchantment creature. It also needs at least 2 extra card slots to make it worthwhile to use. The saving grace is it lets opponents think twice about casting stuff that advances their position, often making them pass their turn without doing anything, afraid of getting their ramp/tutor/bomb taken away.
This is an excellent delaying and control card to have, well worth the inclusion rating and slot change. A couple of tips of using the chimera though, firstly without any of the companion piece (Homeward Path, Flickerform, Venser, the Soujourner), refrain of gaining control of any spell that is cast. Having the chimera on the opposing side is detrimental to us as well. Secondly, the chimera has a huge tendency of drawing out sweeps, as they are the most common spell type that does what is intended no matter who controls them.
Minimum slot change: 3
Card's synergy with deck: 4/10
Inclusion rating: 8/10
Heroic ability - Meletis astronomer & Mindreaver
The new set has 2 interesting creatures with worthwhile heroic abilities. Meletis Astronomer is a 2cc creature which helps in filtering our decks for enchantments when an aura is cast targeting him. Mindreaver is a game ender card which has the potential of exiling the libraries of opponents when a certain engine becomes available. Below are some of the available engines with the current decklist.
Rancor x Faith Healer/Auratog
A simple engine to use with the heroic gang. Cost as little as a G to get it going.
Treachery x Copy Enchantment x Cloudstone Curio
A self sustaining engine, give your opponents a mindreaving, heroic death.
Minimum slot change: 2
Card's synergy with deck: 7/10
Inclusion rating: 7/10
More recently discovered stuff, yay.
Funny killcon - Kill by land
A top staple land of many EDH decks, City of Brass acts as a cheap and efficient mana fixer, falling slightly behind Command Tower due to its prickly nature (1 damage per use). If this appears in your meta as a staple, you are in luck! It gives Derevi another win condition. Just assemble the following:
Opalescence x Parallax Wave x Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Then you can give your opponent a pat on the back, "Bro/Sis, I tap and untap your City of Brass for XX times, killing you with your own land".
If you want this to be a feature of the deck, there is always Psychic Venom.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
As far as Ephara's Enlightenment, I have been running Molting Skin in my deck - and it's surprisingly superb, all by itself. I don't see myself switching from this to Ephara's Enlightenment. I'm also testing out Seaside Haven as a back-up draw outlet.
So I built Derevi a month ago based alot on your build. It has been SUPER fun to play and even wins quite often.
Though my playgroup tends to stay away from infinite combos so I am not taking full advantage of your build, Instead I am going ultra synergistic with Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum (Just short of infinite haha) and more weird stompy by using Gods
But my friend asked a question, why am I not playing Aura Thief...why in the nine hells am I not playing with Aura Thief? I am already playing enchanted evening and have enchantments that sac creature via Fanatical Devotion and [card]Martyr's Cause[/card. So have just added it, I am sure it will be halarious once or twice before my friends catch on and Enchanted evening becomes a kill on sight card
What are your thoughts on ending the game via stealing everyone's everything (Except auras, way to fail Aura Thief)?
Nicol Bolas, a balance of Vorthos and PowerUBR
Nath of the Gilt LeafBG
Others
Squee, Goblin of AwesomenessR
Nekusar, the Mindblazer!UBR
Vela the NightcladUB
I used to be a world champion, but then I took a wolf to the knee. And three Galvanic Blasts to the face.
Concerning when returning to Kamigawa would be acceptable