I have decided to redo my Johan deck as I was hoping to get a 4-color general I could use for Enchantress. Unfortunately, that didn't quite work out so I decided to look into the partner generals to see if I could find something that was a little more synergistic with Enchantress. Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa seemed alright. With Gravity Sphere it means my Pegasus tokens off Sacred Mesa and Soldier tokens off Mobilization are unblockable. Vial Smasher the Fierce was added to get access to Black and Red and it does kind of play well if I get the "lock" of Gravity Sphere and Moat.
I didn't want to start a new thread as I don't plan on doing anything more with Johan, but below is the original post and latest decklist for Johan so I can refer back to it if I ever want to revert to it. Besides, there was only activity by me so there isn't much in the way of "Confusion" regarding which list the changes are referring to.
This deck has gone through a number of iterations. I have tried all 3 WGx color combinations. I got away from Blue because it really only gave me Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening. Enchanted Evening was hard to let go, but I didn't feel blue really gave me what I wanted for this build.
I also has black and that was a pretty good deck with The Abyss, Attrition, Phyrexian Arena, and so on. I decided to go with red for a couple of reasons. Namely, I didn't have a Naya deck built and I wanted to try it. Plus, red gives me access to Stranglehold, Fires of Yavimaya and Purphoros. I also like Assemble the Legion as it eventually becomes a must answer card or it will slowly overrun the battlefield. I liked Johan as my general since he gives pseudo-Vigilance to my creatures and he is big enough to be able to win off General Damage if it becomes necessary.
I run Null Rod as my only artifact because of what it does and because I run Titania's Song. I like this tiny subtheme of artifact hate (along with Stony Silence) because it is extremely relevant early game. Turn 1 Sol Ring? Turn 2 Null Rod or Stony Silence shuts that down along with the rest of their artifact ramp. They do get a turn out of it, but it is fun to blank everyone's artifacts this way. Titania's Song has also saved me from Artifacts with triggered abilitied like Timesifter.
There are a couple cards I added that don't really fit the Enchantress theme, but they give so much value that I just had to add them for consistency. Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd especially fall into this category. I actually like Emeria Shepherd more as it can get back more of my Enchantments if needed, though the inclusion of Sun Titan made the inclusion of things like Soul Snare than much better.
Faith's Reward and Second Sunrise are there to save me from a massive board wipe and a cool trick when someone wipes the board thinking they got rid of all my enchantments.
I have been playing this build for a few weeks and I like the way it plays. It certainly seems less powerful than the WBG version, but that is fine for the meta I am in.
I am always open to new card ideas or suggestions/thoughts/questions about my current card choices.
I was playing this deck the other day and it was not really working at all. It took forever to actually close out the game. Most of the reason was because I never got any of my enchantresses to draw cards and when I tutored I had to get other cards to stay alive (like Humility). I struggled to stay relevant in the game and I did all I could to stay alive. The only reason I didn't die was because someone else decided to Fog when a couple of us were attacked. After that, I stabilized but it should have been much better since I had Moat and Sigil of the Empty Throne on the field. But, because I was never drawing enchantments, I could not get anything going.
I started to look through my list and other cards trying to figure out a way to add a little more card drawing or card filtering to the list. I came up with these cards:
Abundance and Pursuit of Knowledge look really good. Abundance isn't really card drawing, but it does help filter my draws so I don't get mana flooded or mana screwed. It hopefully gets me to my enchantments or enchantresses sooner.
When I do get my enchantresses out, I am finding that I am skipping draws anyway since I have so many cards in hand. Pursuit of Knowledge lets me store those skipped draws up for later.
Armistice looks like a decent mana sink but it is expensive. 10 mana and 6 life to opponents to draw two cards seems really overcosted. But, it does give me a way to draw cards when I don't have enchantresses yet. I am not going to include it yet, but it is in the back of my mind in case the other two just aren't good enough.
Looking through my current list, I find that Silent Sentinel and Fires of Yavimaya aren't very good in practice. Sentinel seems good because it can get my enchantments back, but at 7 mana and needing to attack, it never does as much as I want it to. Emeria Shepherd is just much better and even Sun Titan can get quite a few back.
Fires of Yavimaya seemed like a good idea. It gave all my tokens haste and let me alpha strike someone. But, most of the time the tokens were just 1/1's unless I could get Luminarch Ascension on line. The 4/4's that I could create was the only time haste was ever really relevant. I decided that for one card that took a bit to start making tokens anyway it wasn't worth trying to give all my creatures haste. Most of the time I can afford to wait a turn to let those couple extra angels attack.
I found that Assemble the Legion was not doing all I wanted it to. A 5 mana enchantment should do something more than just slowly create tokens during every one of my upkeeps and I never wanted to draw it or spend the turn to cast it. I generally had better cards to cast (such as Sigil of the Empty Throne) that would always take precedence. And, since it is 5 mana, it was never a good card to draw just to cantrip with my Enchantresses.
Authority of the Consuls offers so much more in the deck. It is a constant stream of lifegain and I have had a couple of games that I probably would have won had I had just 4 or 5 more life. The biggest thing this enchantment does, however, is prevent me from getting one-shotted by Zada, Hedron Grinder (with a bunch of tokens and Expedite) or Krenko, Mob Boss. It alsoallows me to more easily alpha strike someone since they can't flash in a bunch of blockers or get a bunch of tokens for blocking on their turn.
And last, but not least, it is only 1 mana. It allows me to keep stringing together draws (with a few Enchantresses) for 1 mana so I can keep digging further in the deck.
See original post. I have decided to change this list from a Johan build to a partner build with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa and Vial Smasher the Fierce. The changes can be seen by looking at both lists and there were enough that I don't want to list them all out. I will be using this thread to keep my Enchantress build up to date as it changes.
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Hmm...I could see where that would be good, but I end up in the same situation with my other decks: what to cut? I already cut 2 enchantments I really didn't want to cut to get the deck where it is now. Plus, it hurts me too, though I am not sure that is really that relevant.
There are so many good choices for a deck like this, but it is difficult to put in all the good cards into a 4 color deck.
Here is my updated deck list:
1 Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa
1 Vial Smasher the Fierce
Lands
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Canopy Vista
1 Cinder Glade
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
4 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Mana Confluence
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Taiga
1 Temple Garden
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Chaos Warp
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Oblation
Sorceries
1 Extinguish All Hope
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Replenish
Creatures
1 Academy Rector
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Daxos the Returned
1 Doomwake Giant
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Fountain Watch
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Herald of the Pantheon
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Sun Titan
1 Verduran Enchantress
Artifacts
1 Null Rod
Enchantments
1 Abundance
1 Angelic Chorus
1 Attrition
1 Aura of Silence
1 Aura Shards
1 Bitterblossom
1 Bonds of Mortality
1 Burgeoning
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Earthcraft
1 Enchantress's Presence
1 Exploration
1 Font of Fertility
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Gravity Sphere
1 Greater Auramancy
1 Humility
1 Khalni Heart Expedition
1 Luminarch Ascension
1 Martyr's Bond
1 Moat
1 Mobilization
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Privileged Position
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Soul Snare
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Spidersilk Armor
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Sterling Grove
1 Stony Silence
1 Sylvan Library
1 The Abyss
1 Titania's Song
1 True Conviction
Black basically gets me access to The Abyss, Phyrexian Arena, Doomwake Giant and Agent of Erebos (along with a couple other cards). This deck used to be black and realistically I could probably cut the rest of the red cards, but I want to keep Purphoros, God of the Forge, Chaos Warp, and Goblin Bombardment for now.
I didn't want to start a new thread as I don't plan on doing anything more with Johan, but below is the original post and latest decklist for Johan so I can refer back to it if I ever want to revert to it. Besides, there was only activity by me so there isn't much in the way of "Confusion" regarding which list the changes are referring to.
1 Johan
Lands
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Brushland
1 Canopy Vista
1 Cinder Glade
1 Command Tower
1 Flooded Strand
6 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mistveil Plains
3 Mountain
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
6 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Savannah
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Temple Garden
1 Terrain Generator
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya Hollow
Creatures
1 Academy Rector
1 Archetype of Endurance
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Femeref Enchantress
1 Fountain Watch
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Herald of the Pantheon
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Sun Titan
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Abundance
1 Angelic Chorus
1 Aura of Silence
1 Aura Shards
1 Authority of the Consuls
1 Bonds of Mortality
1 Burgeoning
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Earthcraft
1 Enchantress's Presence
1 Exploration
1 Font of Fertility
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Greater Auramancy
1 Humility
1 Karmic Justice
1 Khalni Heart Expedition
1 Luminarch Ascension
1 Martyr's Bond
1 Moat
1 Mobilization
1 Privileged Position
1 Pursuit of Knowledge
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Shivan Harvest
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Soul Snare
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Spidersilk Armor
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Sterling Grove
1 Stony Silence
1 Stranglehold
1 Sylvan Library
1 Titania's Song
1 True Conviction
1 Null Rod
Sorceries
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Open the Vaults
1 Reap and Sow
1 Replenish
1 Rout
Instants
1 Chaos Warp
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Faith's Reward
1 Oblation
1 Second Sunrise
This deck has gone through a number of iterations. I have tried all 3 WGx color combinations. I got away from Blue because it really only gave me Aura Thief and Enchanted Evening. Enchanted Evening was hard to let go, but I didn't feel blue really gave me what I wanted for this build.
I also has black and that was a pretty good deck with The Abyss, Attrition, Phyrexian Arena, and so on. I decided to go with red for a couple of reasons. Namely, I didn't have a Naya deck built and I wanted to try it. Plus, red gives me access to Stranglehold, Fires of Yavimaya and Purphoros. I also like Assemble the Legion as it eventually becomes a must answer card or it will slowly overrun the battlefield. I liked Johan as my general since he gives pseudo-Vigilance to my creatures and he is big enough to be able to win off General Damage if it becomes necessary.
I run Null Rod as my only artifact because of what it does and because I run Titania's Song. I like this tiny subtheme of artifact hate (along with Stony Silence) because it is extremely relevant early game. Turn 1 Sol Ring? Turn 2 Null Rod or Stony Silence shuts that down along with the rest of their artifact ramp. They do get a turn out of it, but it is fun to blank everyone's artifacts this way. Titania's Song has also saved me from Artifacts with triggered abilitied like Timesifter.
There are a couple cards I added that don't really fit the Enchantress theme, but they give so much value that I just had to add them for consistency. Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd especially fall into this category. I actually like Emeria Shepherd more as it can get back more of my Enchantments if needed, though the inclusion of Sun Titan made the inclusion of things like Soul Snare than much better.
Faith's Reward and Second Sunrise are there to save me from a massive board wipe and a cool trick when someone wipes the board thinking they got rid of all my enchantments.
I have been playing this build for a few weeks and I like the way it plays. It certainly seems less powerful than the WBG version, but that is fine for the meta I am in.
I am always open to new card ideas or suggestions/thoughts/questions about my current card choices.
I started to look through my list and other cards trying to figure out a way to add a little more card drawing or card filtering to the list. I came up with these cards:
Abundance and Pursuit of Knowledge look really good. Abundance isn't really card drawing, but it does help filter my draws so I don't get mana flooded or mana screwed. It hopefully gets me to my enchantments or enchantresses sooner.
When I do get my enchantresses out, I am finding that I am skipping draws anyway since I have so many cards in hand. Pursuit of Knowledge lets me store those skipped draws up for later.
Armistice looks like a decent mana sink but it is expensive. 10 mana and 6 life to opponents to draw two cards seems really overcosted. But, it does give me a way to draw cards when I don't have enchantresses yet. I am not going to include it yet, but it is in the back of my mind in case the other two just aren't good enough.
Looking through my current list, I find that Silent Sentinel and Fires of Yavimaya aren't very good in practice. Sentinel seems good because it can get my enchantments back, but at 7 mana and needing to attack, it never does as much as I want it to. Emeria Shepherd is just much better and even Sun Titan can get quite a few back.
Fires of Yavimaya seemed like a good idea. It gave all my tokens haste and let me alpha strike someone. But, most of the time the tokens were just 1/1's unless I could get Luminarch Ascension on line. The 4/4's that I could create was the only time haste was ever really relevant. I decided that for one card that took a bit to start making tokens anyway it wasn't worth trying to give all my creatures haste. Most of the time I can afford to wait a turn to let those couple extra angels attack.
Updates:
-Fires of Yavimaya
-Silent Sentinel
+Abundance
+Pursuit of Knowledge
- Assemble the Legion
I found that Assemble the Legion was not doing all I wanted it to. A 5 mana enchantment should do something more than just slowly create tokens during every one of my upkeeps and I never wanted to draw it or spend the turn to cast it. I generally had better cards to cast (such as Sigil of the Empty Throne) that would always take precedence. And, since it is 5 mana, it was never a good card to draw just to cantrip with my Enchantresses.
Authority of the Consuls offers so much more in the deck. It is a constant stream of lifegain and I have had a couple of games that I probably would have won had I had just 4 or 5 more life. The biggest thing this enchantment does, however, is prevent me from getting one-shotted by Zada, Hedron Grinder (with a bunch of tokens and Expedite) or Krenko, Mob Boss. It alsoallows me to more easily alpha strike someone since they can't flash in a bunch of blockers or get a bunch of tokens for blocking on their turn.
And last, but not least, it is only 1 mana. It allows me to keep stringing together draws (with a few Enchantresses) for 1 mana so I can keep digging further in the deck.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
There are so many good choices for a deck like this, but it is difficult to put in all the good cards into a 4 color deck.