A quick report of what happened last Wednesday : I ended up going 3-1 ! Pretty happy with the result, and the decks always make an impression on the opponent and curious onlookers
1/ Elves : lost 0-2
My Leylines were protecting me against Shaman of the Packs, but eventually the opponent always ended up with a very large board and tons of mana which allowed hip to pay very easily the Ghostly Prisons' tax and overrun with Ezuri once or twice at the same time. I think it is an awful matchup. Only Wrath of God could have gained me a bit of time, and even that's not super exciting. All their activated abilities were mana abilities, so Suppression Field didn't help. Post side they had Rec Sage and Fracturing Gusts to handle as well.
Nota Bene : add Rule of Law in the side to stand a chance next time.
2/ Affinity : win 2-0
Suppression Field and Solemnity prevented a lot of shenanigans game 1 until I managed to establish the lock with Phyrexian Unlife. Game 2 Stony Silence did it's job.
3/ Burn : win 2-0
There's no beating around the bush : I utterly rekted my opponent. He's on the play, but Turn 0 Leyline really hurt him. A Runed Halo on his Eidolon was pretty funny as well. Several Ghostly Prisons later, I fly over him easily for the win.
Game 2 I didn't have a Leyline right away, but I drew one later in the game. He drew 1 Revelry but he had to target it toward Greater Auramancy. I managed to cast a Nevermore naming Revelry and then Phyrexian Unlife won me enough time to establish the lock.
4/ Affinity : win 2-1
The opponent had the nuts game 1. Game 2 I locked him out using Suppression Fields and Stony Silence. Game 3 I played a Porphyry Node on the draw and picked apart its board bit by bit, starting with Signal Pests, until the Node went to the yard. I didn't draw a Stony Silence this game and at one point he could have won if he'd drawn a Cranial Plating (he had plenty of mana to equip and attack), but he didn't. The matchup feels favored, even if this one was closer.
I heard there was an UW control lurking around but I'm glad I avoided it \o/
The deck is so fun, I love it. Next step : try the Idyllic Tutors, I'm convinced they will be great.
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French Commander : Yisan Liliana Kytheon Kari Zev Grenzo Karlov Tajic Gitrog Prossh Turboramp Najeela Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro Legacy : Goblins
I like the new Fall of Thran card from Dominaria. It's a bit expensive, but the payoff is pretty nice. I'm thinking W/B for Leyline of the Void and discard. Void can win games on it's own, and the discard can help you with counter wars.
Any thoughts?
WB brings in some utility. I don't think that the shell exists for it yet, but it could do so. t0 LOTV and LOS is really powerful.
The issue is discard is meh in our deck, it is good vs control, but against aggro it sucks, and it takes the place of permanents.
LOTV and RIP are very different cards, RIP is main deckable in our shell now, but LOTV is not RIP. Againt snappy or dredge it is, but against Goyf it is not. If only Helm of Obedience were legal.
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So Dominaria is here and despite the Saga elements it is pretty much as you were.
The one exception is the 2cc critter enchantment based removal, which is worth looking at. Fall of than is playable in Enduring Ideal style decks, but that is about it and for two more mana you can Obliterateand likely end the game. The new Lich effect is worth a look, but BW remains the least obvious of the splashes.
Seal Away could indeed replace a Journey to Nowhere. The vast majority of creatures we want to hit will be tapped anyway.
That's not many new toys, though ^^
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French Commander : Yisan Liliana Kytheon Kari Zev Grenzo Karlov Tajic Gitrog Prossh Turboramp Najeela Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro Legacy : Goblins
Has anyone tried Lost Auramancers with Solemnity and Phyrexian Unlife? Even tho Auramancers aren't instantly sacrificed while coming to play, they may chump block something, or you can simply play some wrath effect cards.
I tooled around with Lost Auramancers quite a bit trying to make it work. It felt the best in a deck that also used a Viscera Seer/Geralf’s Messenger combo so that Lost Auramancers cloud be sacced whenever you needed. Unfortunately I came to realize that even when you build around it, it’s just too slow. It’s a hard sell when there’s some other decent options out there for tutoring and in most situations the 3/3 body is irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, cheating enchantments into play is great and being able to tutor for any enchanment in your deck is even better, I just personally couldn’t get it to work.
I've really wanted to make an enchantments deck work. The unlife/solemnity combo seems interesting from a soft-lock perspective, because it's relatively fast and unlife does a lot on its own. (Especially since it guarantees you an extra turn.)
Green I really like for 2 reasons. First, we get tons of digging for enchantments. Since we're focusing on these, this gives us our best outs. Second, control is a huge problem for us. But green gives us an answer: Thrun, the last Troll, which is basically unbeatable for most control decks. Additionally, Vessel of nascency and Commune with the gods can pick him up, giving us a lot of consistency.
This deck has very easy mana requirements, so every version should be running 4 field of ruin. We can probably even squeeze in several ghost quarters to help the tron matchup.
I'm not sure about greater auramancy. I'm not sure what I would cut for it, and I kind of like the idea of just playing finishers instead of combo protection pieces. But perhaps setting up a "hard lock" is easier and more worthwhile.
I haven't really tested anything yet, as I wanted to do some brainstorming first. What do people with more experience with this archetype think?
Nice list. I ran something similar for a while that used the Heliod, God of the Sun/porphyry nodes combo as the primary win-con. Just from first impressions it does look like you have quite a lot of tutor power, maybe too much even? Vessel of Nascency looks needed as your only viable 1cmc drop when you're on the play or opponent doesn't lead with a creature. I absolutely love Kruphix's Insight, if I'm in green I always try to cram it in. Its' inherent card advantage is hard to pass up, especially if you're not running an enchantress draw engine along side your enchantments. Idyllic tutor on the other hand has been feeling increasingly underwhelming the more I use it. While tutoring up any enchantment is great, it always feels too slow. Commune with the Gods, on the other hand, isn't half of the tutor spell Idyllic Tutor is but it curves into Phyrexian or Solemnity which is so critically important in making these kinds of decks competitive. If it were me, I would take out Idyllic completely, you still have great dig support between commune,vessel, and kruphix and with being at 4-ofs with both Phyrexian Unlife and Solemnity, at some point you just have to trust the probability math.
Have you considered running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx? Looks like you'd have a pretty healthy devotion number on board to give you a nice Nykthos activation which is a great way to dump mana into Heliod after you've established the soft lock. You can even chain your Nykthos drops for more mana shenanigans. You may have to give up a few Ghost Quarters or Field of Ruins to fit it though, as the colorless land count would be dangerously high and could lead to some awkward starting hands.
I always feel naked without at least a single Greater Auramancy in the main deck, especially if I'm running Starfield of Nyx as one of my win-cons. All it takes is a single removal spell to ruin your day once Nyx goes online. With at least a single Greater Auramancy, the opponent has to work a little harder to make that happen. It's bad enough that Nyx makes you lose to a single board wipe (Damnation, Wrath of God, etc.), but to lose to a single Fatal Push or Lightning Bolt feels terrible. I would suggest 1 Greater Auramancy main, and at the least 1 other somewhere in your 75, whether it's main or sideboard.
And I'm curious, is there a specific match up where you would bring Karmic Justice in? Or is it just for general interaction against your enchantments? While it's a really interesting card I wonder if it's just better to keep them from destroying your enchantments altogether (ala Greater Auramancy) than to have an enchantment that lets you trade when they do so? Unless of course this is for land destruction, in which case I think it's really neat tech in that department. Sacred Ground is something I like to play around with, mostly because it doesn't compete at the 3cmc slot, but I can see the case for Karmic Justice.
But with all that said I completely agree with you, I think green is a great way to support this shell. It offers some of the best tutor support, great sideboard cards against our worst match ups, and some really neat tools when it comes to ramping into our soft lock.
Nice list. I ran something similar for a while that used the Heliod, God of the Sun/porphyry nodes combo as the primary win-con. Just from first impressions it does look like you have quite a lot of tutor power, maybe too much even? Vessel of Nascency looks needed as your only viable 1cmc drop when you're on the play or opponent doesn't lead with a creature. I absolutely love Kruphix's Insight, if I'm in green I always try to cram it in. Its' inherent card advantage is hard to pass up, especially if you're not running an enchantress draw engine along side your enchantments. Idyllic tutor on the other hand has been feeling increasingly underwhelming the more I use it. While tutoring up any enchantment is great, it always feels too slow. Commune with the Gods, on the other hand, isn't half of the tutor spell Idyllic Tutor is but it curves into Phyrexian or Solemnity which is so critically important in making these kinds of decks competitive. If it were me, I would take out Idyllic completely, you still have great dig support between commune,vessel, and kruphix and with being at 4-ofs with both Phyrexian Unlife and Solemnity, at some point you just have to trust the probability math.
I think you may be right. Idyllic tutor is very powerful, but there are a lot of digging effects right now, so it might make my board impact too slow. I think some number is still correct, but I'll have to play around with these numbers.
I've heavily been considering some graveyard option to abuse all this dig, but I can't find a great one. Life from the Loam + Worm Harvest (or Flame Jab) was an idea, but it's perhaps too unreliable to find them together? And maybe not the best win condition anyway. Life from the loam + Ghost Quarter could essentially be a win-condition as well, since we could strip the opponent of all their lands before playing out threats they can't interact with. I'm not sure. Any thoughts here?
I have, but I don't think this type of deck needs it. What are we ramping to? Once Heliod comes online, he will probably already be a creature. Him alone + a few tokens is fast enough to finish a game. So there is a ton of room for other utility lands. The land destruction is in the hope I can slow tron down. But it might not be enough anyway, so perhaps the quarters aren't worth it. Field of Ruin is just always good, so I think it's worth running. I have been considering some other utility lands, but I'm not really sure what would fit.
It would be nice to be able to have another win-condition via lands, although any option is incredibly slow. Mistveil Plains is a super backup plan for milling the opponent
I always feel naked without at least a single Greater Auramancy in the main deck, especially if I'm running Starfield of Nyx as one of my win-cons. All it takes is a single removal spell to ruin your day once Nyx goes online. With at least a single Greater Auramancy, the opponent has to work a little harder to make that happen. It's bad enough that Nyx makes you lose to a single board wipe (Damnation, Wrath of God, etc.), but to lose to a single Fatal Push or Lightning Bolt feels terrible. I would suggest 1 Greater Auramancy main, and at the least 1 other somewhere in your 75, whether it's main or sideboard.
Yeah, I don't think I actually want starfield in the maindeck. I will probably replace it with Sigil of the Empty Throne as a safer option. I do like it as our fastest win condition, although it is our riskiest.
My main issue with auramancy is I keep thinking "Why not just run win conditions instead?" The main argument here is that aurmancy is a cheap spell, so we can use it to setup a harder lock sooner, and then rely on a couple of key victory conditions.
Eyes of the Wisent was one of my first thoughts. But then I realized that the main problem is that we have few win conditions, and if any of them get countered/dealt with, we can be in trouble. Choke also isn't that good due to the amount of non-island blue soruces these decks run nowadays. And it's not actually ending the game for you...Merely slowing your opponent down. And what if I don't draw these cards early? Or have to dig for them? The opponent likely has an answer already.
I think Thrun is great because there is no way to interact with it, and he'll just attack to end the game quickly before the control decks can find their relevant spells. It's never a good idea to give control much time. Plus our dig cards can find him!
And I'm curious, is there a specific match up where you would bring Karmic Justice in? Or is it just for general interaction against your enchantments? While it's a really interesting card I wonder if it's just better to keep them from destroying your enchantments altogether (ala Greater Auramancy) than to have an enchantment that lets you trade when they do so? Unless of course this is for land destruction, in which case I think it's really neat tech in that department. Sacred Ground is something I like to play around with, mostly because it doesn't compete at the 3cmc slot, but I can see the case for Karmic Justice.
Karmic Justice is probably not worthwhile. I just really like the card. The thought was that it could help with an oblivion stone or resolved Engineered explosives before solemnity. But I think it's not necessary.
Ultimately I'm trying to focus on making the deck consistent, and thinking about what things it struggles with. From this perspective I think it will be easier to develop a gameplan for what the deck needs.
Vessel of Nascency is surprisingly the best draw card. It never misses, and sometimes you really just want a land. Plus instant speed search can be good vs. discard if you don't have enough mana to find something + cast it.
Worm Harvest is actually pretty neat with all the dig spells. There's usually several lands in the graveyard just due to dig, and so all our lands turn into win-conditions. It's important to not play out too many lands to take full advantage of this card. So I think I'm going to keep trying it. I think three win-conditions is reasonable, especially one working from the grave. Life from the Loam doesn't do much for us though.
Speaking of win-conditions... Idyllic Tutor is better than the dig spells because you can turn it into a win-condition later in the game. I think it's important to finish the game, and for this reason the tutor is needed.
Kruphix's Insight is not as good as I had hoped. The value is nice, but often I'm not getting 3 cards. We mostly care about specific enchantments, so getting card advantage is less important. I might cut more, since there is probably too much dig.
Cast Out is great. I think this type of effect is needed, and the cycle option is very useful when we don't need this effect. I want to play 3 of them, but it's hard to find space.
Utopia Sprawl seems good on paper, but needed a forest is a real drawback. There are better lands you can use than a lot of forests.
Greater Auramancy is still an unknown for me. I feel like I'd rather just find win-conditions and close the game out instead of relying on this. Most decks don't have a ton of answers to enchantments anyway.
I'm with you on Vessel of Nascency, I didn't think I'd find myself digging for a land as often as I do, definitely an added bonus of having it as the early dig spell. I can see with your deck, having to draw a very few specific win-cons that Idyllic Tutor would be better suited than Kruphix's Insight. It's a tough decision when a good Kruphix can dig you into your remaining lock pieces + your win-con but on the other hand can fizzle to its own variance.
Cool idea with Worm Harvest giving you a win-con from another axis. The more sideboard cards our opponents have to bring in the worse it makes their decks so I like the idea of putting pressure on from the graveyard.
And I'm with you 100% on Cast Out. I've had a few really good players tell me it's a wasted slot and I should be running Oblivion Ring in it's place. Once you play these decks you get a sense of how useful the cycling can be to give you that last ditch effort to dig for an unlife/solemenity/ or anything else more useful than a dead removal card. The flash is also something to note and has been clutch in a handful of situation. Definitely keeping it main deck as my catch-all.
So for a while I was running a very similar list to yours with a single Axis of Mortality as a back-up win condition. Then I started to notice that about half of my wins were coming from that card over the Heliod beatdown or flying over the top with Sigil. So I decided to go down the rabbit hole and tailor the deck around Axis of Mortality as the primary win-con. The end result looks like a weird Ad Nauseam deck, but focusing on a T3 hard-lock (Phyrexian Unlife, Solemnity, and Greater Auramancy) instead of a T3 kill. Heliod still makes the sideboard as my beatdown approach incase someone's packing Leyline of Sanctity.
what a pile of trash! I hate when a deck you think is going to be terrible puts up better results than a deck you worked hard to build. I don't know if it's just been the match up lottery or what, but this thing is holding up way better than I thought it would. I'm porting it over to MTGO this weekend and trying it out in a league to truly see how terrible it is.
So right now in the meta I think the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity lock is very well positioned considering how little hate people are packing against enchantments. Really, the only thing on the radar is Blood Moon and Bogles and a lot of lists don't fear Bogles enough to pack hate for it. That leaves our combo uniquely positioned to not only lock out the wide swath of aggro decks that are running amok, but also mostly safe against the types of interaction most decks pack. Hand disruption is a different story and is still quite prevalent. I don't know if Leyline of Sanctity truly deserves to be main deck, but I had room and figured why not.
The flip side of our lock combo, however, is that it's painfully slow. Most decks are swinging lethal or combing off by turn 3 on a consistent basis. For us to be competitive we don't necessarily have to win turn 3, but we should be focusing on setting up the lock as early as possible. I've been messing around with a bunch of different ramp packages and I haven't felt completely satisfied yet. I tried the Utopia Sprawl/Arbor Elf approach, but like you I felt like the constraint of needing a high forest count was just too taxing to build around. I think there's an optimal ramp package that compliments our combo, I'm just not sure what that is yet. I do believe one is needed though. Maybe not for pillow fort lists running a lot of interaction but definitely for the more "combo" versions of the soft lock.
I don't know how well this will hold up against a field of t1 decks piloted by good players, but so far it's pulling over an 80% win rate over 30ish games. I do think that number is higher than it should be though, since I've seen very little Tron or control match ups which are definitely harder match ups for this deck.
P.S. our homeboy Thrun already won me 2 games against Grixis Control. thumbs up.
Axis of Mortality seems like a cool card. I did consider it for a win-condition, but I felt like I wanted win-conditions that could also be useful without a combo. Then again, maybe that's not a strong enough reason since it's probably hard to win without the combo lock. Another downside is that this doesn't get through an opposing Leyline of Sanctity, but maybe that's a small concern. Just because we can use this to kill our opponents, doesn't mean that other win conditions wouldn't work just as well.
In looking for cards to combo with Phyrexian Unlife, I did come across Spoils of the Vault. It's a neat card, but I think it's just too risky without Phyrexian Unlife. I think it's just too high variance. With unlife though, it certainly is very good--find a missing combo piece, and fast. But at that point, isn't idyllic tutor enough? Unlife alone has a good chance of letting you make it until turn 5 in a worst case scenario. One nice thing about a black splash is that you can use Death's Shadow, which is an oddly good card for us.
As for the speed of the deck...That is the one downside of the deck. But honestly, most of the aggro decks aren't actually that fast that kill on turn 3 with any consistency. Plus, with Phyrexian Unlife, you guarantee yourself the next turn 4 (since a big creature swing just puts you into negative life). And it's possible the next turn they can't do 10 damage once their creatures start having infect. Other combo decks can be fast, but I don't think that they're a huge worry; they're just not a large part of the meta. You're more likely to run into linear aggro, midrange, or control. We can use the sideboard to combat combo.
So the question is: Does ramp matter for the deck? It's possible to just slow other decks down, which seems like a better option to me. I don't like running creatures which turn on removal game 1 for opponents, plus it's hard for the ramp to be that consistent for us. I think it's important to try to be on an axis which our opponents just can't deal with. Enchantments already are on this axis. I think for this reason, just slowing other decks down is easier and more consistent. Porphyry Nodes is a really good anti-aggro card.
Another idea is to run Melira, Sylvok Outcast as another way to combo with Phyrexian Unlife, post board.
I think Leyline of Sanctity in the main is good, but perhaps run 2-3 instead of 4? And keep the other ones in the side.
Glad Thrun has been working out for you! He's really awesome vs. control.
If I may, I don't like your lists personally. You're going all-in on the Solemnity Lock, basically relying 100% on a two card combo which I find dangerous (or 3 card combo, if you play Greater Auramancy). To make room for the digging you've ditched some of the most important "pillow fort" cards like Suppression Field and Ghostly Prison, so you're letting aggro decks roam free in the hope you've locked them up by turn 4 but they often won't let you or you won't draw your pieces.
Also, the lock without Greater Auramancy is not an auto-win at all. I think most tier decks have answers to it, often in the main.
I don't know. Granted : I haven't tried it, so maybe it's stronger than it looks ^^
I really like Thrun though. Some people have recommanded Obliterate as well, as a splash versus blue control, but Thrun is an option. The thing is : he's strong but can still be chumpblocked for a long time.
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French Commander : Yisan Liliana Kytheon Kari Zev Grenzo Karlov Tajic Gitrog Prossh Turboramp Najeela Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro Legacy : Goblins
Oh I definitely agree, I've abandoned a lot of the prison fort elements to focus on getting the lock down quicker and more consistently. You can't have both, just not enough room to pack it all in. There's been a lot of great work shared here for making the Prison Fort style of the deck pretty ironed out so I wanted to delve into the more unexplored directions. It should be noted that playing it more like a combo deck has its innate disadvantages over the traditional prison fort strategies, but it also has some strengths that those strategies don't have. Getting Phyrexian Unlife down on turn 2 and if needed the hard lock (Solemnity and Greater Auramancy) by turn 3 has proven to be very powerful in this current meta. You don't see the usual prison fort staples like Ghostly Prison or Sphere of Safety because they have been replaced with ways to consistently get your combo out before a deck can kill you with creatures. Once the lock is establish there's very few situations where a creature swinging in matters. Of course, somewhere in the 75 needs to be an answer to things like annihilator, but it's far from needed in the main board.
So my philosophy for taking the deck in this direction is as followed: Do I want to blank creature damage or ALL damage based strategies? We have access to a combo that not only stop creatures from killing you, but any damage based win con, which if you look at the meta is almost every single top 16 deck from the last couple big events, minus things like Ad Nauseam which can win through means other than damage. Combine that with the small amount of enchantment hate in proportion to other forms of hate in sideboards and main decks and it's not a big leap to think that the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity lock is very well positioned right now. Can the same be said for a card like Ghost Prison? No. There's plenty of decks out there that don't care about a lot of the prison effects the traditional lists are packing. So considering all this, I believe it's worth exploring an all in approach on this powerful combo.
So we know the lock is pretty solid. Cool. Unfortunately two big problems still remain: How do we get it out as early as possible and once it's out, how do we win? Sigil of the Empty Throne and Heliod can be solid win-cons, but they can also take a long time to close the game out and, as was mentioned earlier, a lot of main decks have a way to slither out of the soft lock. In my experience playing Prison fort I found the slow win-cons to be it's Achilles heel. While Axis carries it's own negatives, it can close a game out very fast when compared to Sigil or Heliod. It can win with just a Phyrexian Unlife out if sequenced carefully. Do I think it's the perfect win-con? No way. I can barely even say it's good. But it does have the ability to close a game and it has great synergy with the soft lock that we aim to create. It's funny, I'm not really having a problem with Axis winning games, what I'm having a problem with is the ramp package being partly creature based and more often than not, being removed. Lotus is performing great. I would ditch Herald and Birds at the drop of a hat if someone suggested something better.
I'm not saying any of this is right or better than the traditional pillow-fort lists, I just love exploring outside-of-the-box jank ideas.
Innovation is always cool. Tech can be transferred sometimes, and sometimes not but always worthwhile to look at. Effectively Enduring ideal pillow forts do the same thing as the list above- abandon the control elements to get more ooomph, removing individual good cards that happen to synergise to get more powerful card synergies that are actually combos, there is no issue there in doing that, but it changes the focus of the matches.
A true traditional pillow fort will be able to consistently churn out anti critter stuff early, it will be more consistent vs aggro and less vulnerable to having its wincocns countered, a key issue, because it has more slots for them, it is less vulnerable to opponents having the out card in hand as removing one lock piece is often not enough. It can also run hate cards like RIP that are normally in the board because they contribute to sphere of safety counts. Counterspells are always the issue alongside tron. Ideal runs Boseiju, for example, for that reasons, and some run silence. One of the reasons I run and build around Obliterate late game is simple- it is uncounterable, and when cast it normally effectively wins the game with a couple of S field or sphere of S effects out. Winning after a land reset is much easier against controlling decks. The downside of these decks is they don't win quickly, are more vulnerable from the board and from 1-0 down things are often really hard to bring back.
The other side is that those ramping get a chance to win from nowhere often, and their late game is often more powerful, whilst the win cons can actually sometimes be control elements themselves and they get way fewer 1-1s. I don't see either way as being right, I think their is more innovation to be had in the ramping versions, whether they be EI versions or otherwise........
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Been thinking about other options for this deck. The GW versions were fun, but spent too much time digging and not enough time impacting the board. Looking at other splashes, I've been thinking about black a lot because of Beseech the Queen. Landing a Phyrexian Unlife almost always guarantees your next turn, which can mitigate some slowness of tutors. So if you can survive until turn 4 to cast phyrexian unlife, it's likely you can setup your combo. Having more tutors makes you more resilient in the face of discard too. Anyway, here's an idea for a list:
The goal in this deck is to go hard prison. Play some 1-2cmc spells to delay the game, then setting up unlife + solemnity by turn 5, with tutoring if necessary. Then from there work to get 2 Greater Auramancy in play to completely lock the opponent out of the game. Black has some nice additions.
Bitterblossom is a great win-con, and synergies with unlife perfectly. Unlike other win-cons, it can also come down early and be a great creature stall as well.
Collective Brutality is a great multi-purpose card. In fact, black gives us options to lots of discard post-board, which can help us immensely against control decks.
The downsides to black, particularly to support Beseech the Queen, is the manabase. For it to work, you really need almost all of your lands to produce black. Not sure if the listed manabase is appropriate, but it's a start.
Orzhova, the Church of Deals is likely bad, but I like the idea of 1 land as a super plan B win-con. Probably not worth it though.
How do you guys feel about a black splash? It's along the lines of the green version I had been working on, but I think it might be better because it's deterministic. You can plan around what your tutors will get you. Perhaps it's wrong to focus on the combo so much though. I mean, it doesn't actually win the game right away. The only advantage is that there are nice tutors for both pieces of the combo.
Black definitely has some fun toys to play with. Being able to bring in a full set of thoughtseize game 2 is a great way to deal with those hate cards that your opponents bring in. Beseech the Queen acts as a wider Idyllic Tutor, it's a great card, but like you said producing the black mana can be taxing. Unless you work that weakness into your win-con. I had great success with 3-4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Karma as my decks primary win-con, backed up by the Bitterblossom beat down with a single Death Pit Offering to give the engine a little more juice. The deck performed great. It was smooth and the game plan was solid (we won't talk about Blood Moon). Then I took it into a few leagues and it just got utterly destroyed. 9 times out of 10 I was just too slow or the deck failed to kill in time against a more inevitable deck like Tron. In a slower meta, I think the black splash is possibly the strongest addition, but it really hurts not having a way to crank out the combo pieces early. Let me know how it tests out for you, I would be interested in revisiting BW again, especially if these Teferi control lists slow the meta down a little bit.
As for the combo at large, I can't tell you how many games I've won just by dropping the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity pair. If that doesn't get the concede, dropping a Greater Auramancy or two usually does. I actually took the deck into a friendly league and took out my win-cons (Heliod and Axis of Mortality) just for the heck of it. Long story short I ended up 4-1, losing only to a Jace control deck that ended up milling me out. The combo is legit and in my opinion the strongest aspects of the pillow-fort strategy right now. It seems to be a well positioned answer to the hyper-aggressive linear meta we currently have (at least on MTGO).
Any Wx enchantment control needs 4 halo, 4 Leyline main, plus some attack taxes to actually start getting "free" wins.
The moment you start Path ing and casting sorceries the enchantment count becomes lower, and it ends up being a good stuff control deck that starts to lose game one to aggro decks that the ghostly/sphere/Leyline/halo decks could beat. That is ok in itself, because good stuff decks are fine, but other good stuff decks exist, and they are better.
As a rule, if you can look at a list and Lingering Souls would improve it or is worthy of consideration it probably is not going to work out as good as, for example, Jeskai control.
Black has toys that fit enchantment control. Black has bitterblossom, which is good with solemnity and unlife, and 1cc discard, which is just good. Discard from the board or main is strong, flexible support.
Lich's mastery might be great, but the big issue is a bunch of instants, plus no Leylines make the deck like an Esper control deck without the card advantage.
If you add in cards like phyrexian arena you might get it back. To a greater extent spheres and Leylines will start generating free wins vs Storm and other linear decks like valakut.
My feeling is fatal push and path are not going to make the deck better, at least in large numbers, there are better shells for them. The point of the deck is it gets free wins vs Storm, Valakut, Burn and Merfolk, plus of course Death's Shadow and many human builds, whilst being weaker to good stuff decks or any counter heavy decks and Tron. When every enchantment counts towards sphere of safety and Halo is so good Vs many decks, I can't see adding a bunch of one for one critter removal in their place helping, we already stuff critters senseless, making them pay 10 to attack does that. Adding discard does give a flexible game, and will help. So a brutality board seems strong, a thoughtseize here or there too, but for critter control I am not so sure.
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I have been running a WB Pillow Fort Deck for a few months now on MTGO. It is stock for the most part:
4 Leylines
2 Halo's (Budget reasons right now)
2 Story Circles
3 Nevermore
3 Greater Auramancy
4 Prison's
4 Suppression Field
Orings, B-Lights, and Thop Arrest for variety against Extraction and Meddling Mage
etc...
But anyways, what I have been having success with is the combination of Underworld Dreams + Master of the Feast. The deck also plays an Ethereal Armor, which can make a very big turn 3 threat that cant get out right Pushed (needs revolt), and cannot get Bolted. The decks other win con is Urborg + Karma. I chose this because Runed Halo naming Karma is really funny (most people dont know the card exists) and its a solid finisher.
I have also been trying the card Gonti's Machinations and running Phyrexian Arena, Mana Confluence's and Reflecting Pools to splash some spicy off color side board enchantments. So far, it is kind of eh...the real benefit is from Phyrexian Arena, unless you wanted to make a super spicy 5c Rainbow Fort deck, i'd avoid the Mana Confluence and Reflecting Pool + Gonti's Munitions.
Another deck i have been working on is playing WU with Ardent Plea and Lotus Bloom for ramp. Play Ardent Plea, Cast Bloom, cast a prison. I haven't played many games with it, but when I have cast Plea into bloom, it felt like Casting BBE into an Abrupt Decay.
My experience, Black as alot of ways to win the game over time where as most other fort decks are kind of like...oh crap...you have 10 3/3's all of a sudden or something more along the Living End overwhelm you style.
Yes, I remembered it a while after.
Just to be clear I am not recommending it.
Indeed I am not recommending Karma/Urborg [it is mentioned in the primer because one deck has done it once), although it is a hell of a trick. If you do resolve it later on it can often be dead in two turns or one. Many pillow fort lists can not die to certain decks, so that how they win is irrelevant almost in those matches.
For the record, rather tangentially regarding white with black (or at least a some black sources) I think Lich's mastery could work in some context somewhere....eventually.
Why beseech the queen over Mastermind's Aquisition? Aquisition seems much better, as it also allows sideboard silver bullet shenanigans and you don't have to reveal. I definitely think a black splash is the way forward though. Discard out of the sideboard can win match ups that I think are unwinnable with just mono white.
Beseech The Queen can be cast for BBB, and 3 mana can make a huge difference in some games. You can always cast it for at least 2BB. But tutors are pretty slow in general.
I am not convinced that it is worth it to hurt your mana base and your life total so much just to cast a worse tutor for 1 less mana. Maybe it is worth it some games, but how many games do you lose because the mana base is worth? Maybe it is worth testing.
1/ Elves : lost 0-2
My Leylines were protecting me against Shaman of the Packs, but eventually the opponent always ended up with a very large board and tons of mana which allowed hip to pay very easily the Ghostly Prisons' tax and overrun with Ezuri once or twice at the same time. I think it is an awful matchup. Only Wrath of God could have gained me a bit of time, and even that's not super exciting. All their activated abilities were mana abilities, so Suppression Field didn't help. Post side they had Rec Sage and Fracturing Gusts to handle as well.
Nota Bene : add Rule of Law in the side to stand a chance next time.
2/ Affinity : win 2-0
Suppression Field and Solemnity prevented a lot of shenanigans game 1 until I managed to establish the lock with Phyrexian Unlife. Game 2 Stony Silence did it's job.
3/ Burn : win 2-0
There's no beating around the bush : I utterly rekted my opponent. He's on the play, but Turn 0 Leyline really hurt him. A Runed Halo on his Eidolon was pretty funny as well. Several Ghostly Prisons later, I fly over him easily for the win.
Game 2 I didn't have a Leyline right away, but I drew one later in the game. He drew 1 Revelry but he had to target it toward Greater Auramancy. I managed to cast a Nevermore naming Revelry and then Phyrexian Unlife won me enough time to establish the lock.
4/ Affinity : win 2-1
The opponent had the nuts game 1. Game 2 I locked him out using Suppression Fields and Stony Silence. Game 3 I played a Porphyry Node on the draw and picked apart its board bit by bit, starting with Signal Pests, until the Node went to the yard. I didn't draw a Stony Silence this game and at one point he could have won if he'd drawn a Cranial Plating (he had plenty of mana to equip and attack), but he didn't. The matchup feels favored, even if this one was closer.
I heard there was an UW control lurking around but I'm glad I avoided it \o/
The deck is so fun, I love it. Next step : try the Idyllic Tutors, I'm convinced they will be great.
Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro
Legacy : Goblins
WB brings in some utility. I don't think that the shell exists for it yet, but it could do so. t0 LOTV and LOS is really powerful.
The issue is discard is meh in our deck, it is good vs control, but against aggro it sucks, and it takes the place of permanents.
LOTV and RIP are very different cards, RIP is main deckable in our shell now, but LOTV is not RIP. Againt snappy or dredge it is, but against Goyf it is not. If only Helm of Obedience were legal.
The one exception is the 2cc critter enchantment based removal, which is worth looking at. Fall of than is playable in Enduring Ideal style decks, but that is about it and for two more mana you can Obliterateand likely end the game. The new Lich effect is worth a look, but BW remains the least obvious of the splashes.
That's not many new toys, though ^^
Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro
Legacy : Goblins
I tooled around with Lost Auramancers quite a bit trying to make it work. It felt the best in a deck that also used a Viscera Seer/Geralf’s Messenger combo so that Lost Auramancers cloud be sacced whenever you needed. Unfortunately I came to realize that even when you build around it, it’s just too slow. It’s a hard sell when there’s some other decent options out there for tutoring and in most situations the 3/3 body is irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, cheating enchantments into play is great and being able to tutor for any enchanment in your deck is even better, I just personally couldn’t get it to work.
Anyway, here's my first stab on a GW version:
// 1 Creature
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
// 23 Enchantment
4 Solemnity
4 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Runed Halo
4 Porphyry Nodes
1 Gideon's Intervention
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Vessel of Nascency
1 Starfield of Nyx
// 24 Land
4 Field of Ruin
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Razorverge Thicket
4 Kruphix's Insight
4 Idyllic Tutor
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Karmic Justice
1 Nevermore
3 Leyline of Sanctity
Green I really like for 2 reasons. First, we get tons of digging for enchantments. Since we're focusing on these, this gives us our best outs. Second, control is a huge problem for us. But green gives us an answer: Thrun, the last Troll, which is basically unbeatable for most control decks. Additionally, Vessel of nascency and Commune with the gods can pick him up, giving us a lot of consistency.
This deck has very easy mana requirements, so every version should be running 4 field of ruin. We can probably even squeeze in several ghost quarters to help the tron matchup.
I'm not sure about greater auramancy. I'm not sure what I would cut for it, and I kind of like the idea of just playing finishers instead of combo protection pieces. But perhaps setting up a "hard lock" is easier and more worthwhile.
I haven't really tested anything yet, as I wanted to do some brainstorming first. What do people with more experience with this archetype think?
Have you considered running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx? Looks like you'd have a pretty healthy devotion number on board to give you a nice Nykthos activation which is a great way to dump mana into Heliod after you've established the soft lock. You can even chain your Nykthos drops for more mana shenanigans. You may have to give up a few Ghost Quarters or Field of Ruins to fit it though, as the colorless land count would be dangerously high and could lead to some awkward starting hands.
I always feel naked without at least a single Greater Auramancy in the main deck, especially if I'm running Starfield of Nyx as one of my win-cons. All it takes is a single removal spell to ruin your day once Nyx goes online. With at least a single Greater Auramancy, the opponent has to work a little harder to make that happen. It's bad enough that Nyx makes you lose to a single board wipe (Damnation, Wrath of God, etc.), but to lose to a single Fatal Push or Lightning Bolt feels terrible. I would suggest 1 Greater Auramancy main, and at the least 1 other somewhere in your 75, whether it's main or sideboard.
I really like the Thrun, the Last Troll idea as an answer to control match ups (which can be horrendous for us). I usually run Eyes of the Wisent alongside Choke, but I'm curious to see how Thrun works as a replacement to Eyes of the Wisent.
And I'm curious, is there a specific match up where you would bring Karmic Justice in? Or is it just for general interaction against your enchantments? While it's a really interesting card I wonder if it's just better to keep them from destroying your enchantments altogether (ala Greater Auramancy) than to have an enchantment that lets you trade when they do so? Unless of course this is for land destruction, in which case I think it's really neat tech in that department. Sacred Ground is something I like to play around with, mostly because it doesn't compete at the 3cmc slot, but I can see the case for Karmic Justice.
But with all that said I completely agree with you, I think green is a great way to support this shell. It offers some of the best tutor support, great sideboard cards against our worst match ups, and some really neat tools when it comes to ramping into our soft lock.
I think you may be right. Idyllic tutor is very powerful, but there are a lot of digging effects right now, so it might make my board impact too slow. I think some number is still correct, but I'll have to play around with these numbers.
I've heavily been considering some graveyard option to abuse all this dig, but I can't find a great one. Life from the Loam + Worm Harvest (or Flame Jab) was an idea, but it's perhaps too unreliable to find them together? And maybe not the best win condition anyway. Life from the loam + Ghost Quarter could essentially be a win-condition as well, since we could strip the opponent of all their lands before playing out threats they can't interact with. I'm not sure. Any thoughts here?
I have, but I don't think this type of deck needs it. What are we ramping to? Once Heliod comes online, he will probably already be a creature. Him alone + a few tokens is fast enough to finish a game. So there is a ton of room for other utility lands. The land destruction is in the hope I can slow tron down. But it might not be enough anyway, so perhaps the quarters aren't worth it. Field of Ruin is just always good, so I think it's worth running. I have been considering some other utility lands, but I'm not really sure what would fit.
It would be nice to be able to have another win-condition via lands, although any option is incredibly slow. Mistveil Plains is a super backup plan for milling the opponent
Yeah, I don't think I actually want starfield in the maindeck. I will probably replace it with Sigil of the Empty Throne as a safer option. I do like it as our fastest win condition, although it is our riskiest.
My main issue with auramancy is I keep thinking "Why not just run win conditions instead?" The main argument here is that aurmancy is a cheap spell, so we can use it to setup a harder lock sooner, and then rely on a couple of key victory conditions.
Eyes of the Wisent was one of my first thoughts. But then I realized that the main problem is that we have few win conditions, and if any of them get countered/dealt with, we can be in trouble. Choke also isn't that good due to the amount of non-island blue soruces these decks run nowadays. And it's not actually ending the game for you...Merely slowing your opponent down. And what if I don't draw these cards early? Or have to dig for them? The opponent likely has an answer already.
I think Thrun is great because there is no way to interact with it, and he'll just attack to end the game quickly before the control decks can find their relevant spells. It's never a good idea to give control much time. Plus our dig cards can find him!
Karmic Justice is probably not worthwhile. I just really like the card. The thought was that it could help with an oblivion stone or resolved Engineered explosives before solemnity. But I think it's not necessary.
Ultimately I'm trying to focus on making the deck consistent, and thinking about what things it struggles with. From this perspective I think it will be easier to develop a gameplan for what the deck needs.
Vessel of Nascency is surprisingly the best draw card. It never misses, and sometimes you really just want a land. Plus instant speed search can be good vs. discard if you don't have enough mana to find something + cast it.
Worm Harvest is actually pretty neat with all the dig spells. There's usually several lands in the graveyard just due to dig, and so all our lands turn into win-conditions. It's important to not play out too many lands to take full advantage of this card. So I think I'm going to keep trying it. I think three win-conditions is reasonable, especially one working from the grave. Life from the Loam doesn't do much for us though.
Speaking of win-conditions... Idyllic Tutor is better than the dig spells because you can turn it into a win-condition later in the game. I think it's important to finish the game, and for this reason the tutor is needed.
Kruphix's Insight is not as good as I had hoped. The value is nice, but often I'm not getting 3 cards. We mostly care about specific enchantments, so getting card advantage is less important. I might cut more, since there is probably too much dig.
Cast Out is great. I think this type of effect is needed, and the cycle option is very useful when we don't need this effect. I want to play 3 of them, but it's hard to find space.
Utopia Sprawl seems good on paper, but needed a forest is a real drawback. There are better lands you can use than a lot of forests.
Greater Auramancy is still an unknown for me. I feel like I'd rather just find win-conditions and close the game out instead of relying on this. Most decks don't have a ton of answers to enchantments anyway.
// 1 Creature
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
// 24 Enchantment
4 Solemnity
4 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Runed Halo
4 Porphyry Nodes
1 Gideon's Intervention
4 Vessel of Nascency
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Cast Out
// 23 Land
3 Field of Ruin
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Razorverge Thicket
3 Kruphix's Insight
4 Idyllic Tutor
4 Commune with the Gods
1 Worm Harvest
4 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Nevermore
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Cool idea with Worm Harvest giving you a win-con from another axis. The more sideboard cards our opponents have to bring in the worse it makes their decks so I like the idea of putting pressure on from the graveyard.
And I'm with you 100% on Cast Out. I've had a few really good players tell me it's a wasted slot and I should be running Oblivion Ring in it's place. Once you play these decks you get a sense of how useful the cycling can be to give you that last ditch effort to dig for an unlife/solemenity/ or anything else more useful than a dead removal card. The flash is also something to note and has been clutch in a handful of situation. Definitely keeping it main deck as my catch-all.
So for a while I was running a very similar list to yours with a single Axis of Mortality as a back-up win condition. Then I started to notice that about half of my wins were coming from that card over the Heliod beatdown or flying over the top with Sigil. So I decided to go down the rabbit hole and tailor the deck around Axis of Mortality as the primary win-con. The end result looks like a weird Ad Nauseam deck, but focusing on a T3 hard-lock (Phyrexian Unlife, Solemnity, and Greater Auramancy) instead of a T3 kill. Heliod still makes the sideboard as my beatdown approach incase someone's packing Leyline of Sanctity.
I call it.......BAD NAUSEAM
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Herald of the Pantheon
4 Lotus Bloom
Dig
4 Spoils of the Vault (I'm in love with this card)
4 Vessel of Nascency
1 Idyllic Tutor
Lock
4 Phyrexian Unlife
3 Solemnity
3 Greater Auramancy
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Cast Out
2 Axis of Mortality
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
Lands (21)
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Mistveil Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Temple Gardens
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
4 City of Brass
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Runed Halo
1 Pariah
2 Nevermore
1 Rest in Peace
1 Sacred Ground
1 Stony Silence
1 Rule of Law
1 Choke
what a pile of trash! I hate when a deck you think is going to be terrible puts up better results than a deck you worked hard to build. I don't know if it's just been the match up lottery or what, but this thing is holding up way better than I thought it would. I'm porting it over to MTGO this weekend and trying it out in a league to truly see how terrible it is.
So right now in the meta I think the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity lock is very well positioned considering how little hate people are packing against enchantments. Really, the only thing on the radar is Blood Moon and Bogles and a lot of lists don't fear Bogles enough to pack hate for it. That leaves our combo uniquely positioned to not only lock out the wide swath of aggro decks that are running amok, but also mostly safe against the types of interaction most decks pack. Hand disruption is a different story and is still quite prevalent. I don't know if Leyline of Sanctity truly deserves to be main deck, but I had room and figured why not.
The flip side of our lock combo, however, is that it's painfully slow. Most decks are swinging lethal or combing off by turn 3 on a consistent basis. For us to be competitive we don't necessarily have to win turn 3, but we should be focusing on setting up the lock as early as possible. I've been messing around with a bunch of different ramp packages and I haven't felt completely satisfied yet. I tried the Utopia Sprawl/Arbor Elf approach, but like you I felt like the constraint of needing a high forest count was just too taxing to build around. I think there's an optimal ramp package that compliments our combo, I'm just not sure what that is yet. I do believe one is needed though. Maybe not for pillow fort lists running a lot of interaction but definitely for the more "combo" versions of the soft lock.
I don't know how well this will hold up against a field of t1 decks piloted by good players, but so far it's pulling over an 80% win rate over 30ish games. I do think that number is higher than it should be though, since I've seen very little Tron or control match ups which are definitely harder match ups for this deck.
P.S. our homeboy Thrun already won me 2 games against Grixis Control. thumbs up.
In looking for cards to combo with Phyrexian Unlife, I did come across Spoils of the Vault. It's a neat card, but I think it's just too risky without Phyrexian Unlife. I think it's just too high variance. With unlife though, it certainly is very good--find a missing combo piece, and fast. But at that point, isn't idyllic tutor enough? Unlife alone has a good chance of letting you make it until turn 5 in a worst case scenario. One nice thing about a black splash is that you can use Death's Shadow, which is an oddly good card for us.
As for the speed of the deck...That is the one downside of the deck. But honestly, most of the aggro decks aren't actually that fast that kill on turn 3 with any consistency. Plus, with Phyrexian Unlife, you guarantee yourself the next turn 4 (since a big creature swing just puts you into negative life). And it's possible the next turn they can't do 10 damage once their creatures start having infect. Other combo decks can be fast, but I don't think that they're a huge worry; they're just not a large part of the meta. You're more likely to run into linear aggro, midrange, or control. We can use the sideboard to combat combo.
So the question is: Does ramp matter for the deck? It's possible to just slow other decks down, which seems like a better option to me. I don't like running creatures which turn on removal game 1 for opponents, plus it's hard for the ramp to be that consistent for us. I think it's important to try to be on an axis which our opponents just can't deal with. Enchantments already are on this axis. I think for this reason, just slowing other decks down is easier and more consistent. Porphyry Nodes is a really good anti-aggro card.
Another idea is to run Melira, Sylvok Outcast as another way to combo with Phyrexian Unlife, post board.
I think Leyline of Sanctity in the main is good, but perhaps run 2-3 instead of 4? And keep the other ones in the side.
Glad Thrun has been working out for you! He's really awesome vs. control.
Also, the lock without Greater Auramancy is not an auto-win at all. I think most tier decks have answers to it, often in the main.
I don't know. Granted : I haven't tried it, so maybe it's stronger than it looks ^^
I really like Thrun though. Some people have recommanded Obliterate as well, as a splash versus blue control, but Thrun is an option. The thing is : he's strong but can still be chumpblocked for a long time.
Modern : Solemnity Prison Martyr Proc Devotion to Green 8 Whacks Eldrazi Processor Bogles Landfall Aggro
Legacy : Goblins
So my philosophy for taking the deck in this direction is as followed: Do I want to blank creature damage or ALL damage based strategies? We have access to a combo that not only stop creatures from killing you, but any damage based win con, which if you look at the meta is almost every single top 16 deck from the last couple big events, minus things like Ad Nauseam which can win through means other than damage. Combine that with the small amount of enchantment hate in proportion to other forms of hate in sideboards and main decks and it's not a big leap to think that the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity lock is very well positioned right now. Can the same be said for a card like Ghost Prison? No. There's plenty of decks out there that don't care about a lot of the prison effects the traditional lists are packing. So considering all this, I believe it's worth exploring an all in approach on this powerful combo.
So we know the lock is pretty solid. Cool. Unfortunately two big problems still remain: How do we get it out as early as possible and once it's out, how do we win? Sigil of the Empty Throne and Heliod can be solid win-cons, but they can also take a long time to close the game out and, as was mentioned earlier, a lot of main decks have a way to slither out of the soft lock. In my experience playing Prison fort I found the slow win-cons to be it's Achilles heel. While Axis carries it's own negatives, it can close a game out very fast when compared to Sigil or Heliod. It can win with just a Phyrexian Unlife out if sequenced carefully. Do I think it's the perfect win-con? No way. I can barely even say it's good. But it does have the ability to close a game and it has great synergy with the soft lock that we aim to create. It's funny, I'm not really having a problem with Axis winning games, what I'm having a problem with is the ramp package being partly creature based and more often than not, being removed. Lotus is performing great. I would ditch Herald and Birds at the drop of a hat if someone suggested something better.
I'm not saying any of this is right or better than the traditional pillow-fort lists, I just love exploring outside-of-the-box jank ideas.
A true traditional pillow fort will be able to consistently churn out anti critter stuff early, it will be more consistent vs aggro and less vulnerable to having its wincocns countered, a key issue, because it has more slots for them, it is less vulnerable to opponents having the out card in hand as removing one lock piece is often not enough. It can also run hate cards like RIP that are normally in the board because they contribute to sphere of safety counts. Counterspells are always the issue alongside tron. Ideal runs Boseiju, for example, for that reasons, and some run silence. One of the reasons I run and build around Obliterate late game is simple- it is uncounterable, and when cast it normally effectively wins the game with a couple of S field or sphere of S effects out. Winning after a land reset is much easier against controlling decks. The downside of these decks is they don't win quickly, are more vulnerable from the board and from 1-0 down things are often really hard to bring back.
The other side is that those ramping get a chance to win from nowhere often, and their late game is often more powerful, whilst the win cons can actually sometimes be control elements themselves and they get way fewer 1-1s. I don't see either way as being right, I think their is more innovation to be had in the ramping versions, whether they be EI versions or otherwise........
// 17 Enchantment
4 Solemnity
4 Phyrexian Unlife
3 Greater Auramancy
2 Runed Halo
1 Cast Out
3 Bitterblossom
// 8 Instant
4 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
4 Swamp
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Fetid Heath
1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
4 Beseech the Queen
4 Idyllic Tutor
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Collective Brutality
The goal in this deck is to go hard prison. Play some 1-2cmc spells to delay the game, then setting up unlife + solemnity by turn 5, with tutoring if necessary. Then from there work to get 2 Greater Auramancy in play to completely lock the opponent out of the game. Black has some nice additions.
Bitterblossom is a great win-con, and synergies with unlife perfectly. Unlike other win-cons, it can also come down early and be a great creature stall as well.
Collective Brutality is a great multi-purpose card. In fact, black gives us options to lots of discard post-board, which can help us immensely against control decks.
The downsides to black, particularly to support Beseech the Queen, is the manabase. For it to work, you really need almost all of your lands to produce black. Not sure if the listed manabase is appropriate, but it's a start.
Orzhova, the Church of Deals is likely bad, but I like the idea of 1 land as a super plan B win-con. Probably not worth it though.
How do you guys feel about a black splash? It's along the lines of the green version I had been working on, but I think it might be better because it's deterministic. You can plan around what your tutors will get you. Perhaps it's wrong to focus on the combo so much though. I mean, it doesn't actually win the game right away. The only advantage is that there are nice tutors for both pieces of the combo.
As for the combo at large, I can't tell you how many games I've won just by dropping the Phyrexian Unlife/Solemnity pair. If that doesn't get the concede, dropping a Greater Auramancy or two usually does. I actually took the deck into a friendly league and took out my win-cons (Heliod and Axis of Mortality) just for the heck of it. Long story short I ended up 4-1, losing only to a Jace control deck that ended up milling me out. The combo is legit and in my opinion the strongest aspects of the pillow-fort strategy right now. It seems to be a well positioned answer to the hyper-aggressive linear meta we currently have (at least on MTGO).
The moment you start Path ing and casting sorceries the enchantment count becomes lower, and it ends up being a good stuff control deck that starts to lose game one to aggro decks that the ghostly/sphere/Leyline/halo decks could beat. That is ok in itself, because good stuff decks are fine, but other good stuff decks exist, and they are better.
As a rule, if you can look at a list and Lingering Souls would improve it or is worthy of consideration it probably is not going to work out as good as, for example, Jeskai control.
Black has toys that fit enchantment control. Black has bitterblossom, which is good with solemnity and unlife, and 1cc discard, which is just good. Discard from the board or main is strong, flexible support.
Lich's mastery might be great, but the big issue is a bunch of instants, plus no Leylines make the deck like an Esper control deck without the card advantage.
If you add in cards like phyrexian arena you might get it back. To a greater extent spheres and Leylines will start generating free wins vs Storm and other linear decks like valakut.
My feeling is fatal push and path are not going to make the deck better, at least in large numbers, there are better shells for them. The point of the deck is it gets free wins vs Storm, Valakut, Burn and Merfolk, plus of course Death's Shadow and many human builds, whilst being weaker to good stuff decks or any counter heavy decks and Tron. When every enchantment counts towards sphere of safety and Halo is so good Vs many decks, I can't see adding a bunch of one for one critter removal in their place helping, we already stuff critters senseless, making them pay 10 to attack does that. Adding discard does give a flexible game, and will help. So a brutality board seems strong, a thoughtseize here or there too, but for critter control I am not so sure.
4 Leylines
2 Halo's (Budget reasons right now)
2 Story Circles
3 Nevermore
3 Greater Auramancy
4 Prison's
4 Suppression Field
Orings, B-Lights, and Thop Arrest for variety against Extraction and Meddling Mage
etc...
But anyways, what I have been having success with is the combination of Underworld Dreams + Master of the Feast. The deck also plays an Ethereal Armor, which can make a very big turn 3 threat that cant get out right Pushed (needs revolt), and cannot get Bolted. The decks other win con is Urborg + Karma. I chose this because Runed Halo naming Karma is really funny (most people dont know the card exists) and its a solid finisher.
I have also been trying the card Gonti's Machinations and running Phyrexian Arena, Mana Confluence's and Reflecting Pools to splash some spicy off color side board enchantments. So far, it is kind of eh...the real benefit is from Phyrexian Arena, unless you wanted to make a super spicy 5c Rainbow Fort deck, i'd avoid the Mana Confluence and Reflecting Pool + Gonti's Munitions.
Another deck i have been working on is playing WU with Ardent Plea and Lotus Bloom for ramp. Play Ardent Plea, Cast Bloom, cast a prison. I haven't played many games with it, but when I have cast Plea into bloom, it felt like Casting BBE into an Abrupt Decay.
My experience, Black as alot of ways to win the game over time where as most other fort decks are kind of like...oh crap...you have 10 3/3's all of a sudden or something more along the Living End overwhelm you style.
There is an enchantment that prevents damage to you during your turn that also does this....
Just to be clear I am not recommending it.
Indeed I am not recommending Karma/Urborg [it is mentioned in the primer because one deck has done it once), although it is a hell of a trick. If you do resolve it later on it can often be dead in two turns or one. Many pillow fort lists can not die to certain decks, so that how they win is irrelevant almost in those matches.
For the record, rather tangentially regarding white with black (or at least a some black sources) I think Lich's mastery could work in some context somewhere....eventually.