All right, so enchantments are my absolute favorite card type. I love everything about them. I have built and disassembled so many Enchantress decks over the past seven years, and the one problem they all seem to have is: lack of win-cons.
I have tried Bant Enchantress, even Simic at one time. I have tried Selesnya Enchantress. Orzhov (with the Daxos the Returned). Five-color with Sliver Queen. Even a brief stint at Naya.
I have a lot of awesome enchantments (no Moat anymore, as I traded it away just before it doubled in price. Of course, that was part of the trade that got me my Judge foil Gaea's Cradle, so yay?), which I am mostly hoarding in my binder in hopes C16 gives me an Enchantress general.
Now, since Daxos provides his own win-con of tokens, perhaps I just didn't do his build properly, and I think I could probably pull it off better now. But I would miss all the lovely WG enchantments. My meta is pretty solid, nothing out of the way or over the top broken, but a deck that is too weak ends up being unplayable. My toughest matchups would include a Mizzix Storm deck or Daretti artifacts.
Now, I have a pretty solid collection in general, so I am not too fussed about needing cards for a given deck I want. If I like a deck enough, I'll gut others for it.
My problem is that when I build an Enchantress deck, it just sort of ... dies. There is a decent amount of enchantment hate in my meta, but that isn't it. It just ends up either so slow I'm dead before any of my engines get online or else I can slow everyone down--but then what?
I've been trying to convince myself to finally build Bant enchantress-tokens with an intent to use various Seedborn Muse Effects and token doublers with opposition and glare of subdual. Getting all if that to fit into a neat package has been problematic.
I've been trying to convince myself to finally build Bant enchantress-tokens with an intent to use various Seedborn Muse Effects and token doublers with opposition and glare of subdual. Getting all if that to fit into a neat package has been problematic.
Yes, exactly! I have a bunch of awesome enchantments--so many that I have no room for anything to DO with them...
Enchantments are also my favorite card type and I too have been trying to get them to work for a while. I agree, there just comes a point in the game where even if you are winning, it takes for freaking ever. It is kinda inherent to the enchantment strategy: it pillowforts until critical mass just takes over. It makes it super inefficient. Honestly, I think the best way to win is to combo out somehow, or to build up planeswalker ults. Unsavory yes but I can't figure anything else out.
Earthcraft is your friend in Enchantress, especially with token decks. Play it alongside Squirrel Nest for infinite squirrels, or wild growth a plains and use Sacred Mesa to make infinite Pegasus tokens. Earthcraft is an extremely busted card and if it ever got unbanned in legacy, I think it would push Enchantress to T1 or at least lock it in as a solid T1.5 deck. While it's been a primary wincon of mine, I also ensure that I'm playing Sigil of the Empty Throne as well as Luminarch Ascension (it also combos with wild growth/plains for infinite Angels here). Once you build a critical mass, you can also look to Eidolon of Countless Battles. Heliod also makes a good appearance, he can go inifinite when combined with Mana Reflection and the dudes he makes actually trigger Eidolon of Blossoms.
My most competitive Enchantress build featured Trostani as the general to gain a ton of life; Enchantress takes a little bit to get off the ground unless you just nut draw and her gain life ability would sometimes enable infinite lifegain. I played both Gaea's Cradle as well as Serra's Sanctum and I don't recall the deck even playing any artifacts at all, not even Sol Ring, I opted for another Wild Growth effect in an attempt to mirror 60 card Legacy Enchantress the best I could, with further inspiration from old school Mesacraft decks back when Earthcraft was allowed in Standard....or rather Type II. While you only get so many wild growth effects, you also get the ability to play mana doublers like Mirari's Wake and Mana Reflection. The key is to get one of your BASIC lands to produce GW when tapped one way or another, and combo out with a token producer and Earthcraft, or else just use the overwhelming amount of mana you generate to utilize the token producers at a crazy level. Making 6 4/4 Angels a turn via Sigil and Enchantresses or Luminarch is just about as good as going infinite. Doubling Season provides a way to get Luminarch online even faster if you draw it mid/late game, combos with any walkers you want to play, and combos with token engines to go infinite with earthcraft without having a wild growth effect. (1W makes two angels from Luminarch instead of 1, and those two can tap to untap the plains twice to make two more angels........)
I'll try and remember some of the key cards and the way the deck was built....though since I've taken it apart newer options have been printed that may make the deck more viable, but the deck hardcore focused on playing the absolute best enchantments in the game, every enchantress effect it could get its hands on, both Cradle and Sanctum and ways to tutor for them, and cantrippy wild growthesque enchantments over mana rocks. The remaining gaps were filled in with the best tutors I had access to and the select few cards that were just too good to ignore. The deck puts a high premium on colored mana btw, sometimes on a big turn you'll find yourself needing WWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGG to play what you're drawing into; there's a delicate balance of keeping both types of mana available at all times so you can keep playing what you draw. It's also important to be able to ensure you have a reasonably sized basic manabase since Earthcraft only lets you untap basic lands.
Earthcraft, earthcraft, earthcraft. That is the key to the deck.
These were just some of the most important cards I remember playing.
Godhands could sometimes combo as early as T3 (T1 land-E. Tutor for Earthcraft, T2 land, wild growth, Earthcraft, T3 land, squirrel nest combo out) but the deck would usually start doing its thing T5ish. You really want to sandbag your cantrippy Enchantments till you have an enchantress effect, but sometimes you need to roll them out early and them's the breaks.
Nekorin's Derevi Enchantress list is solid, but old. My preferred wincon (out of a few) is Heliod + Skybind + Serra's Sanctum to generate a massive-but-finite amount of tokens and mana (more on each subsequent players'turn).
It goes as follows: Heliod, God of the sun+ Skybind in play, DURING YOUR EOT,activate Heliod with Serra's Sanctum and generate a ton of tokens and Skybind triggers. Target Sanctum and all worthwhile lands of the player to go next in turn order.
Lands flash out until beginning of next EOT, repeat for next player, build army, lock players out.
I'm also a big fan of Words of wind, Treachery and any Enchantress effect to get all opponents to bounce all their permanents.
I have a similar issue with my Anafenza enchantress deck. Lots of Avenger end game strategies for me (I used to do that with a Hazezon version as well).
Thanks, everyone! I am liking the Earthcraft and Heliod, God of the Sun/Skybind ideas. Does anyone have experience adding B to the GW Enchantress shell? It adds more tutors, but it also adds Daxos the Returned. Is he as worthwhile as I want him to be?
I haven't tried junk enchantress yet I did however have a second Golgari deck for a while using Pharika and the various constellation creatures from Theros alongside the available Enchantresses.
While it felt pretty powerful whe enough enchantments matter pieces were active the problem was it only had things I couldn't fit in my primary EDH deck. I've been trying to find a suitable home for them ever since.
Daxos, the returned seems a solid guy, but I would like him more for constellation rather than enchantress. The only enchantress that triggers off of enchantments entering is eidolon of blossoms. On the other hand, if you are able to keep yourself at zero experience counters, the creatures dying instantly could go for some horrible things. I particularly like using black market for it, but also the old (read: usually terrible) carnival of souls does have applications. I also like his (and other paid mana token abilities) with cards like aura shards to just wipe out any opposing artifacts and enchantments. Heck, even running dictate of erebos and grave pact makes for a rather nasty creature stax lock. Admittedly, that makes for a very different style of enchantress deck. There is a semi-competitive BWG enchantress list running around the multiplayer forum. I think the general was ghave.
I just built my Cromat enchantress deck and have only played a few games with it. The one game I won was with Jeskai Ascendancy plus Cryptolith Rite plus a few creatures plus Flickering Ward. I got to that point thanks to enchantress effects and Replenish.
Thanks, everyone! I am liking the Earthcraft and Heliod, God of the Sun/Skybind ideas. Does anyone have experience adding B to the GW Enchantress shell? It adds more tutors, but it also adds Daxos the Returned. Is he as worthwhile as I want him to be?
I recently developed a deck for a friend that wanted an Enchantress shell but also wanted to play black. It was....difficult. I ultimately decided on making Teneb the general, mainly because he could be used to recur Enchantresses as necessary and there really wasn't a much better option.
Daxos is not good as a part of the 99 unless you can easily return him. As a commander, if you play him and get a few experience counters and he gets killed, oh well, you can always recast him. As part of the 99 though, he's not as accessible when killed and if you built the deck to do that, well, you're not really playing enchantress anymore and you dilute the deck.
Adding black, however, does give you access to the powerful black tutors in addition to some potent black enchantments and more removal than a GW shell would have alone.
A GW enchantress shell has a hard time killing things unless you're willing to bring in non-enchantment removal which, again, dilutes the deck. Sure, Swords to Plowshares is great, but you really want to try and avoid playing non-enchantment permanents unless the card is just nuts (Replenish), or fetches enchantments (tutors). Even though you get to play Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light (and you should), these things don't hit hexproof problems, and getting rid of them brings back your problem.
Adding black gives you:
Demonic and Vampiric Tutors Pernicious Deed (this is a big one) Underworld Connections (massive draw power when combined with Earthcraft)
Various recursion effects in enchantment form like Phyrexian Reclamation and Palace Siege
An auto-win condition if you choose to sleeve up Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo (it's kinda tricky for the deck to sometimes set this off though, and the cards don't do a lot for this deck on their own necessarily)
Volrath's Stronghold (another way to bring back fallen Enchantresses without diluting the deck with sorcery based recursion) Erebos, God of the Dead, and Pharika (good way to get some solid enchantment based graveyard hate!) Animate Dead/Necromancy
Blightcaster (is actually really good) Doomwake Giant (also handy!)
and some nice removal/protection enchantments like No Mercy, Seal of Doom, things like that.
Of course, the real challenge comes from the fact that again, the deck wants to play basics to ensure you can fire off Earthcraft combos, but having a third color makes the manabase lean more heavily on nonbasics. This can be bypassed to some extent if you have a set of fetches, and the OG Duals you'll want to be playing (or at least the shocks). If not, it's an extremely difficult manabase to build with. You need basics, some number of nonbasics, Cradle and Sanctum, and then you have to figure out what # to run because you play your wild growth effects, which tend to produce G mana, which further complicates things. Add to this the fact that you're also diluting your third Sanctum effect (Nykthos) and making it less valuable. It was a real challenge honestly, and I think it can still be done. Also, in order to sleeve up enough black cards to make black worth playing, you've now also got to make room for them, and GW pack the best cards for Enchantress.....so what ends up getting the axe? There are so many "auto includes" it gets really tough to find room for even 20ish black cards. And at that point, if you're playing that little black, what are you wrecking your manabase for exactly? So adding the black does add some nice bells and whistles, but getting it JUST right is a real challenge.
Let me explain the Wild Growth concept a little better, because it's the best way to make the deck competitive.
Wild Growth effects with an enchantress in play are incredibly powerful as there's a huge synergy that occurs when you're drawing cards when you cast a spell that makes your lands make more mana that allows you to play what you drew into, to draw more cards to make more mana to cast more spells.......and eventually you find something like Enlightened Tutor and go find Earthcraft and just go off completely.
Or if you have Sigil of the Empthy Throne Out, you're getting a 4/4 for every Wild Growth you cast that causes you to draw into Utopia Sprawl that you then tap your wild growth'd plains for GW to cast the Utopia Sprawl, leaving a W floating to make another angel and draw into, say, Abundant Growth. So you now tap the forest with Utopia Sprawl (GGW in pool) to cast the Abundant Growth to draw TWO more cards and make an Angel, then you draw into, say, Crop Rotation, burn another land and go get Serra's Sanctum, which now taps for a ton of mana which plops down Sphere of Safety or whatever and you now have a super Propaganda out.
Enchantress does not play mana rocks for this reason, it plays the Wild Growth effects instead to grant acceleration and grant late game relevance. You have to sometimes decide to sandbag them till you can cantrip them with an enchantress, or deploy them to fuel Serra's Sanctum or Sphere of safety or something.
The drawback is you're a little soft to land destruction. If your enchantress has been drawing you cards when you cast them, that's great, you're not really getting two for one'd when your enchanted forest explodes, and it's one less thing that can wreck your Cradle or Sanctum later down the line.
The reliance on Enchantresses is part of what makes the deck slow however, since you generally want to play the Enchantress before you start playing your enchantments. And Mesa/Verduran Enchantress are easily offed, and Edilon of Blossoms is just as fragile, but slower (though her upsides are obviously worthwhile). Enchantress's Presence is extremely valuable though, it's obviously harder to remove, and is usually what I use Enlightened Tutor for if I don't have combo pieces in hand. Because the Enchantress element is so crucial, it's important that you have ways to find and recur them, and that makes adding black an alluring option.
Earthcraft is an amazing card because it's cheap enough to cantrip, provides a win condition, and even if it's not doing infinite combos, with Wild Growth effects and things it can produce ABSURD amounts of mana. It's also a reserve list card, so you can feel pretty secure in picking one up. Trust me, it's like a cornerstone of the deck no matter how you build it.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
if you are not a combo type player, I've been playing Bant enchantress with Rubinia at the helm for a while. In addition of the classic enchantment matters engine, I run all the aura variant of "control magic" to try to finish the game. If I can’t find my win condition, I can try to use theirs.
When the deck durdles too much, takes too much time to get going or some of the engines get removed, the B plan is to act as a “steal your stuff” deck, with rubinia as supports role. You still get reward to play those auras when you have at least one engine online, and if often happens that the opponent can’t take them back using removal when I got one the enchantment that protects other enchantments. Also play well with replenish effects that you are already probably running in these type of deck. I also run all the artifact hate… while it’s not a win condition, it can screw a lot of popular deck.
Not saying is the perfect solution for a competitive deck, but it feels highly synergistic and fun to play, and for me is a good alternative way of finishing game.
Well, an aura-focused Voltron just wins by Voltron. Most others go with tokens or Stax. (There are a lot of enchantment cards in both themes.)
Disclaimer: I tend to play enchantress as a subtheme. It tends to be something I add when I notice how many enchantments I already have.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Thank you for this! It has been something I've wondered about for a while, the question of adding B. I am beginning to doubt it, seeing the importance of basics to the deck.
So now the question becomes: do I build two Enchantress decks? One for Daxos and one for ... I don't know. Sigarda maybe?
I used to have a Bant Enchantress deck with Rubinina at the helm, then Rafiq. I didn't end up liking aura Voltron...
Anyway, Ebonclaw, thank you SO much! This is a lot of what I was looking for.
Just gonna really quickly slide in here and throw in my two cents to support Daxos. I agree that enchantress struggles to close out the game by default, and one of Daxos's greatest strengths is that he comes with a built in game ender in a swarm of huge tokens. I've had a decent degree of success with a build that has a decent toolbox of silver bullet answers, tutors to help locate said answers when needed, along with a healthy splash of proactive spell disruption (constant dribbling discard, plus Rule of Law effects - all the unspent mana won't go to waste on your end, it'll turn into bodies!). Skybind is indeed nuts. I do miss having green in the deck every now and then, and it's far from the most competitive deck in the world.
Thank you for this! It has been something I've wondered about for a while, the question of adding B. I am beginning to doubt it, seeing the importance of basics to the deck.
So now the question becomes: do I build two Enchantress decks? One for Daxos and one for ... I don't know. Sigarda maybe?
I used to have a Bant Enchantress deck with Rubinina at the helm, then Rafiq. I didn't end up liking aura Voltron...
Anyway, Ebonclaw, thank you SO much! This is a lot of what I was looking for.
What about Dragonlord Dromoka or Trostani? Dromoka gives you protection if you decide to combo and Trostani can give you life with Sigil.
I play a pretty all-in on enchantments with Marath, Will of the Wild. You get to keep all GW-enchantments (and I don't think you can build the deck properly without Argothian Enchantress and friends), while getting a win-con all in itself. You ramp like crazy anyway and Purphoros, God of the Forge and Mana Echoes can seal basically any game. It also can give you access to some nice hate cards like Blood Moon, Stranglehold and Smoke, but they main reason to add red is basically Marath by itself.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, curious why this card is not mentioned much. being Esper, it has probably the best colors for enchantments, u win by grinding people out and drowning them with the cards u draw
Dragonlord Dromoka sounds like a good option. I am also thinking about Sigarda, Host of Herons. Does anyone think the C16 decks will provide an Enchantress general? I'd LOVE a GW legendary Enchantress...
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, curious why this card is not mentioned much. being Esper, it has probably the best colors for enchantments, u win by grinding people out and drowning them with the cards u draw
Mostly because Oloro puts a huge target on your head and enchantress generally wants to lay low initially. Plus no green so no enchantresses (not such a big deal), worse ramp (being able to play stony silence/null rod is huge in enchantress decks), and no Gen Wave (a personal favorite in permanent heavy enchantress decks).
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, curious why this card is not mentioned much. being Esper, it has probably the best colors for enchantments, u win by grinding people out and drowning them with the cards u draw
Also because the thread is about winning, and you mentioning "grinding people out" goes against the philosophy of the thread.
I'd say wait for C16, you never know. C15 gave us Daxos, which was quite unexpected.
Under the theory that they have been printing more generals that we all want (like werewolf and spider ones), I can envision us getting a GWBU one:
G - enchantress
W - loves enchantments
B - loves to draw
U - loves to draw
Then again we never received a true minotaur general (all they had to do was switch giant and minotaur). This is all speculation, too, so I am sorry.
They're going with four-color next year. I picture BRGW as tokens, WUBR as artifacts, UBRG as fatties or spellslinger, and GWUB as enchantress or reanimator. That leaves the question, whither RGWU?
(Of course, we're getting ten legends, possibly fifteen since they usually have "two new legends and a reprint", but they don't have any four-color.)
But my basic point is GWUB could be enchantress. Or reanimator.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I have tried Bant Enchantress, even Simic at one time. I have tried Selesnya Enchantress. Orzhov (with the Daxos the Returned). Five-color with Sliver Queen. Even a brief stint at Naya.
I have a lot of awesome enchantments (no Moat anymore, as I traded it away just before it doubled in price. Of course, that was part of the trade that got me my Judge foil Gaea's Cradle, so yay?), which I am mostly hoarding in my binder in hopes C16 gives me an Enchantress general.
Now, since Daxos provides his own win-con of tokens, perhaps I just didn't do his build properly, and I think I could probably pull it off better now. But I would miss all the lovely WG enchantments. My meta is pretty solid, nothing out of the way or over the top broken, but a deck that is too weak ends up being unplayable. My toughest matchups would include a Mizzix Storm deck or Daretti artifacts.
Now, I have a pretty solid collection in general, so I am not too fussed about needing cards for a given deck I want. If I like a deck enough, I'll gut others for it.
My problem is that when I build an Enchantress deck, it just sort of ... dies. There is a decent amount of enchantment hate in my meta, but that isn't it. It just ends up either so slow I'm dead before any of my engines get online or else I can slow everyone down--but then what?
Those of you who play Enchantress--how do you win? Is it Opalescence? Token swarm (Sigil of the Empty Throne or Luminarch Ascension style)? Auras on Bruna, Light of Alabaster? What?
Savra, Queen of the Golgari (Green Black Control with Graveyard Advantages)
Standard
Probably Mono Red Sligh
Modern
Dredge
Legacy
Dredge
Yes, exactly! I have a bunch of awesome enchantments--so many that I have no room for anything to DO with them...
My most competitive Enchantress build featured Trostani as the general to gain a ton of life; Enchantress takes a little bit to get off the ground unless you just nut draw and her gain life ability would sometimes enable infinite lifegain. I played both Gaea's Cradle as well as Serra's Sanctum and I don't recall the deck even playing any artifacts at all, not even Sol Ring, I opted for another Wild Growth effect in an attempt to mirror 60 card Legacy Enchantress the best I could, with further inspiration from old school Mesacraft decks back when Earthcraft was allowed in Standard....or rather Type II. While you only get so many wild growth effects, you also get the ability to play mana doublers like Mirari's Wake and Mana Reflection. The key is to get one of your BASIC lands to produce GW when tapped one way or another, and combo out with a token producer and Earthcraft, or else just use the overwhelming amount of mana you generate to utilize the token producers at a crazy level. Making 6 4/4 Angels a turn via Sigil and Enchantresses or Luminarch is just about as good as going infinite. Doubling Season provides a way to get Luminarch online even faster if you draw it mid/late game, combos with any walkers you want to play, and combos with token engines to go infinite with earthcraft without having a wild growth effect. (1W makes two angels from Luminarch instead of 1, and those two can tap to untap the plains twice to make two more angels........)
I'll try and remember some of the key cards and the way the deck was built....though since I've taken it apart newer options have been printed that may make the deck more viable, but the deck hardcore focused on playing the absolute best enchantments in the game, every enchantress effect it could get its hands on, both Cradle and Sanctum and ways to tutor for them, and cantrippy wild growthesque enchantments over mana rocks. The remaining gaps were filled in with the best tutors I had access to and the select few cards that were just too good to ignore. The deck puts a high premium on colored mana btw, sometimes on a big turn you'll find yourself needing WWWWWWWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGG to play what you're drawing into; there's a delicate balance of keeping both types of mana available at all times so you can keep playing what you draw. It's also important to be able to ensure you have a reasonably sized basic manabase since Earthcraft only lets you untap basic lands.
Earthcraft, earthcraft, earthcraft. That is the key to the deck.
Core shell:
These were just some of the most important cards I remember playing.
Godhands could sometimes combo as early as T3 (T1 land-E. Tutor for Earthcraft, T2 land, wild growth, Earthcraft, T3 land, squirrel nest combo out) but the deck would usually start doing its thing T5ish. You really want to sandbag your cantrippy Enchantments till you have an enchantress effect, but sometimes you need to roll them out early and them's the breaks.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
It goes as follows:
Heliod, God of the sun+ Skybind in play, DURING YOUR EOT,activate Heliod with Serra's Sanctum and generate a ton of tokens and Skybind triggers. Target Sanctum and all worthwhile lands of the player to go next in turn order.
Lands flash out until beginning of next EOT, repeat for next player, build army, lock players out.
I'm also a big fan of Words of wind, Treachery and any Enchantress effect to get all opponents to bounce all their permanents.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
While it felt pretty powerful whe enough enchantments matter pieces were active the problem was it only had things I couldn't fit in my primary EDH deck. I've been trying to find a suitable home for them ever since.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari (Green Black Control with Graveyard Advantages)
Standard
Probably Mono Red Sligh
Modern
Dredge
Legacy
Dredge
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
If you go the Opalescence route, note that it combos with Parallax Wave as well as with Dance of Many (assuming you're down with infinite combos).
I recently developed a deck for a friend that wanted an Enchantress shell but also wanted to play black. It was....difficult. I ultimately decided on making Teneb the general, mainly because he could be used to recur Enchantresses as necessary and there really wasn't a much better option.
Daxos is not good as a part of the 99 unless you can easily return him. As a commander, if you play him and get a few experience counters and he gets killed, oh well, you can always recast him. As part of the 99 though, he's not as accessible when killed and if you built the deck to do that, well, you're not really playing enchantress anymore and you dilute the deck.
Adding black, however, does give you access to the powerful black tutors in addition to some potent black enchantments and more removal than a GW shell would have alone.
A GW enchantress shell has a hard time killing things unless you're willing to bring in non-enchantment removal which, again, dilutes the deck. Sure, Swords to Plowshares is great, but you really want to try and avoid playing non-enchantment permanents unless the card is just nuts (Replenish), or fetches enchantments (tutors). Even though you get to play Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light (and you should), these things don't hit hexproof problems, and getting rid of them brings back your problem.
Adding black gives you:
Demonic and Vampiric Tutors
Pernicious Deed (this is a big one)
Underworld Connections (massive draw power when combined with Earthcraft)
Various recursion effects in enchantment form like Phyrexian Reclamation and Palace Siege
An auto-win condition if you choose to sleeve up Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo (it's kinda tricky for the deck to sometimes set this off though, and the cards don't do a lot for this deck on their own necessarily)
Volrath's Stronghold (another way to bring back fallen Enchantresses without diluting the deck with sorcery based recursion)
Erebos, God of the Dead, and Pharika (good way to get some solid enchantment based graveyard hate!)
Animate Dead/Necromancy
Blightcaster (is actually really good)
Doomwake Giant (also handy!)
and some nice removal/protection enchantments like No Mercy, Seal of Doom, things like that.
Of course, the real challenge comes from the fact that again, the deck wants to play basics to ensure you can fire off Earthcraft combos, but having a third color makes the manabase lean more heavily on nonbasics. This can be bypassed to some extent if you have a set of fetches, and the OG Duals you'll want to be playing (or at least the shocks). If not, it's an extremely difficult manabase to build with. You need basics, some number of nonbasics, Cradle and Sanctum, and then you have to figure out what # to run because you play your wild growth effects, which tend to produce G mana, which further complicates things. Add to this the fact that you're also diluting your third Sanctum effect (Nykthos) and making it less valuable. It was a real challenge honestly, and I think it can still be done. Also, in order to sleeve up enough black cards to make black worth playing, you've now also got to make room for them, and GW pack the best cards for Enchantress.....so what ends up getting the axe? There are so many "auto includes" it gets really tough to find room for even 20ish black cards. And at that point, if you're playing that little black, what are you wrecking your manabase for exactly? So adding the black does add some nice bells and whistles, but getting it JUST right is a real challenge.
Let me explain the Wild Growth concept a little better, because it's the best way to make the deck competitive.
Wild Growth effects with an enchantress in play are incredibly powerful as there's a huge synergy that occurs when you're drawing cards when you cast a spell that makes your lands make more mana that allows you to play what you drew into, to draw more cards to make more mana to cast more spells.......and eventually you find something like Enlightened Tutor and go find Earthcraft and just go off completely.
Or if you have Sigil of the Empthy Throne Out, you're getting a 4/4 for every Wild Growth you cast that causes you to draw into Utopia Sprawl that you then tap your wild growth'd plains for GW to cast the Utopia Sprawl, leaving a W floating to make another angel and draw into, say, Abundant Growth. So you now tap the forest with Utopia Sprawl (GGW in pool) to cast the Abundant Growth to draw TWO more cards and make an Angel, then you draw into, say, Crop Rotation, burn another land and go get Serra's Sanctum, which now taps for a ton of mana which plops down Sphere of Safety or whatever and you now have a super Propaganda out.
Enchantress does not play mana rocks for this reason, it plays the Wild Growth effects instead to grant acceleration and grant late game relevance. You have to sometimes decide to sandbag them till you can cantrip them with an enchantress, or deploy them to fuel Serra's Sanctum or Sphere of safety or something.
The drawback is you're a little soft to land destruction. If your enchantress has been drawing you cards when you cast them, that's great, you're not really getting two for one'd when your enchanted forest explodes, and it's one less thing that can wreck your Cradle or Sanctum later down the line.
The reliance on Enchantresses is part of what makes the deck slow however, since you generally want to play the Enchantress before you start playing your enchantments. And Mesa/Verduran Enchantress are easily offed, and Edilon of Blossoms is just as fragile, but slower (though her upsides are obviously worthwhile). Enchantress's Presence is extremely valuable though, it's obviously harder to remove, and is usually what I use Enlightened Tutor for if I don't have combo pieces in hand. Because the Enchantress element is so crucial, it's important that you have ways to find and recur them, and that makes adding black an alluring option.
Earthcraft is an amazing card because it's cheap enough to cantrip, provides a win condition, and even if it's not doing infinite combos, with Wild Growth effects and things it can produce ABSURD amounts of mana. It's also a reserve list card, so you can feel pretty secure in picking one up. Trust me, it's like a cornerstone of the deck no matter how you build it.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
When the deck durdles too much, takes too much time to get going or some of the engines get removed, the B plan is to act as a “steal your stuff” deck, with rubinia as supports role. You still get reward to play those auras when you have at least one engine online, and if often happens that the opponent can’t take them back using removal when I got one the enchantment that protects other enchantments. Also play well with replenish effects that you are already probably running in these type of deck. I also run all the artifact hate… while it’s not a win condition, it can screw a lot of popular deck.
Not saying is the perfect solution for a competitive deck, but it feels highly synergistic and fun to play, and for me is a good alternative way of finishing game.
Disclaimer: I tend to play enchantress as a subtheme. It tends to be something I add when I notice how many enchantments I already have.
On phasing:
So now the question becomes: do I build two Enchantress decks? One for Daxos and one for ... I don't know. Sigarda maybe?
I used to have a Bant Enchantress deck with Rubinina at the helm, then Rafiq. I didn't end up liking aura Voltron...
Anyway, Ebonclaw, thank you SO much! This is a lot of what I was looking for.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
What about Dragonlord Dromoka or Trostani? Dromoka gives you protection if you decide to combo and Trostani can give you life with Sigil.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Mostly because Oloro puts a huge target on your head and enchantress generally wants to lay low initially. Plus no green so no enchantresses (not such a big deal), worse ramp (being able to play stony silence/null rod is huge in enchantress decks), and no Gen Wave (a personal favorite in permanent heavy enchantress decks).
Also because the thread is about winning, and you mentioning "grinding people out" goes against the philosophy of the thread.
I'd say wait for C16, you never know. C15 gave us Daxos, which was quite unexpected.
G - enchantress
W - loves enchantments
B - loves to draw
U - loves to draw
Then again we never received a true minotaur general (all they had to do was switch giant and minotaur). This is all speculation, too, so I am sorry.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
They're going with four-color next year. I picture BRGW as tokens, WUBR as artifacts, UBRG as fatties or spellslinger, and GWUB as enchantress or reanimator. That leaves the question, whither RGWU?
(Of course, we're getting ten legends, possibly fifteen since they usually have "two new legends and a reprint", but they don't have any four-color.)
But my basic point is GWUB could be enchantress. Or reanimator.
On phasing: