Card/Deck How to execute a minimalist Enchantment theme

Diakonov

Diakonov

Unfortunately this seems a bit more difficult to do than artifacts since enchantments aren't colorless. A few people gave some great suggestions in my cube thread, so I'll be putting those up on here too.

Some possible routes worth exploring include constellation-type strategies, auras, or both. The auras strategy goes well with aggro and could overlap nicely with a minor heroic theme.

Some possible incentives:



For brainstorming purposes, brace yourself for the following wall of cards.

Various non-aura (and non-bestow) enchantments:



Incentives for auras specifically:



Various auras:



Cards like Griffin Guide and the totem armor auras also seem like they could be worth looking into.

Does anyone have any specific ideas they'd be willing to share?
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I like a lot of the engine cards that would go into this theme (Argothian Enchantress, Eidolon of Blossoms), but the payoff cards are few and far between. Doomwake Giant is one of the better ones, but black doesn't have a whole lot else to contribute when it comes to cards that glue this archetype together. If the focus isn't on auras, perhaps the best way to go with this archetype is heavy WG, with green providing the engine cards, and white the payoffs with Opalescence and Starfield of Nyx?

It feels janky, but Helm of the Gods could provide a finisher for this deck, too.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Diakonov said:
What's the deal with Frontier Siege? Is it worth it? I assume Dragons mode doesn't get activated very often.


Agreed.
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Its basically contingent on the presence of hornet queen in your hand, and even then not much.

If you're hardcore about this, there's a pile of random spells we all run that can be swapped for enchantments:








Sure, every one of these swaps you make for mostly similar effects makes young pyromancer a bit worse, but that usually just means you don't have to go chasing 40$ foil copies :p
(Man I hope there's a promo version of that bastard at some point, both for price and art reasons)
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I recently added this to my cube in Abzan's colors. I found Argothian Enchantress was too heavy handed, but Eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant are both very much playable with minimal support. White is an ideal pairing for this because of all the great enchantments we already run there (O-ring and friends in particular).

My 2 cents is you don't need much payoff outside eidolon and doomwake. Drawing cards and getting a repeatable sweeper are both very solid build around effects.

I found less to be more with this theme but I'm not the expert Enchantress guy by any stretch of the imagination so YMMV.
 
vennythekid

vennythekid

Don't forget that casting enchantments triggers prowess!


And while we're talking about enchantment armies-in-a-can, what are people's thoughts about my favorite card from RTR, Assemble the Legion
 
Diakonov

Diakonov

RavebornMuse said:
I've always thought about trying this card:

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That card is pretty interesting, actually. I wish there were more ways to recur it a la Executioner's Capsule & Academy Ruins.

I think my initial plan may be to do what ahadabans suggests. Introduce a few basic and broad enchantment incentives, and up the enchantment count a bit. I may also push heroic with auras a bit harder. FSR, if you're reading this, do you have any tips on how to do this minimally? I know you have a lot of experience with that angle.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

vennythekid said:
Don't forget that casting enchantments triggers prowess!
monastery mentor

And while we're talking about enchantment armies-in-a-can, what are people's thoughts about my favorite card from RTR, Assemble the Legion
Click to expand...

I've always found Assemble to be an incredibly boring way to win. I ran it for a while and cut it because, while it's powerful, it was kind of strictly better than a Planeswalker that spews tokens, because enchants are much harder to deal with in my format. Since token-generating Planeswalkers generally feel unfun anyway, this enchantment was quite the offender, especially seeing as how it had no further value than puking tokens for the win. I prefer my multicolor cards to be fun, exciting and intriguing options; Assemble fulfilled none of those roles for me, I'm afraid.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I like Assemble. It's a natural fit for an RW control deck, enables something other than the usual burn & weenies strategy that color combination entails.

Edit: I.e., while the effect itself may not be that interesting, it's interesting in light of the other tools available to {R/W}.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I think Raveborn is right on the money. Assemble the Legion looked interesting on paper... and then was busted in an uninteresting way in practice. It doesn't actually contribute much to an enchantment theme, because it more or less guarantees that you'll win over the next few turns, without any additional assistance. It's a card that, after four or five drafts, I found myself surprised that I was cutting on power level at the high end, not on the low end.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
A couple months on, how are people feeling about this theme? I've run a small enchantress package for a while now, and it's landed with a dull thud. Some of the enablers like Herald of the Pantheon have proven too narrow for a cube environment, as have the win conditions like Starfield of Nyx.

ahadabans is probably correct above when he says that Eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant are all you really need for this theme to work, and everything else that says "enchantment" in its rules text is too heavy-handed. I think I'm inclined to agree. Has anyone - other than FSR - had any luck with a bigger enchantment theme in an otherwise non-themed cube?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Eric Chan said:
A couple months on, how are people feeling about this theme? I've run a small enchantress package for a while now, and it's landed with a dull thud. Some of the enablers like Herald of the Pantheon have proven too narrow for a cube environment, as have the win conditions like Starfield of Nyx.

ahadabans is probably correct above when he says that Eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant are all you really need for this theme to work, and everything else that says "enchantment" in its rules text is too heavy-handed. I think I'm inclined to agree. Has anyone - other than FSR - had any luck with a bigger enchantment theme in an otherwise non-themed cube?
Click to expand...

Still testing it out. The deck was drafted once, didn't do really well, but the drafter had a blast playing the games.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
For my next iteration of this theme, I think I'll trim out the fat, hopefully keep in all the fun parts, and stop some of the bad cards from tabling forever.

Engine + Payoff


Assorted Incidental Enchantments in Abzan


Crappy and/or Narrow Cards Getting the Axe
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Who knows! I'm hoping my players can tell me.

I also tried this card, because I thought it was a great intersection of graveyard + enchantment themes... all it did was kill me via self-mill by 'randomly' returning Satyr Wayfinder to the field three times in a row (!), even though on that last gamble it was something like a 1 in 18 shot.

 
Ferritovore

Ferritovore

I wish Hero of Iroas puts its +1 counters on any creature you control. Then you could be somewhat less vulnerable to bounces and other single target stuff that would otherwise ruin your whole day.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I guess I remain suspicious that an aura-based theme can work in any environment outside of a dedicated one, such as Theros block, or an FSR cube. Auras are a narrow card type by design, requiring some specific board presence before they can even be cast, and even when they work it can feel very swingy to the other player if they don't have the removal spell.
 
shamizy

shamizy

I've cut out the Enchantment subtheme from my cube; the payoff just wasn't there to entice drafters into going into that archetype often enough. I feel like it's two creatures away from being a real viable archetype, but it's just not working for me right now. I don't want to go double Eidolon of Blossoms at 420 either because it's so bad if two aren't in the draft pool.
 
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