Enchantments EDH

Hey Guys!

Today I thought I would take a little change of direction from my usual tournament reports. I could write an article about my Wildspeaker Jund list I took to the Modern PTQ in Manchester, however I feel the Modern format as a whole has been dominating the report side of things. So this article is going to be about my new found love - EDH! 

As most of you are aware, EDH is a casual fun format (well it should be!) and so I felt the need to stick to a theme and a theme which is both competitive (I don't mind losing but not all the time!) and fun to play at the same time. I needed inspiration, however inspiration is only around the corner when you work at Manaleak, so when sorting through cards I found a card I fell in love with - Attrition. I then began to think of all the insane token producing enchantments (Bitterblossom, Awakening Zone, Assemble the Legion, Luminarch's Ascension) and at that point I knew I had my EDH theme figured out - I would play Enchantment Control! From the token generators stated above, I would be playing Black, Green, White and Red so I may as well play Blue too and go 5 colour, which leads me on to my commander choice. 

Good 5 colour Legendary Commanders:

- Progenitus - The ultimate bad-ass creature, it is rather expensive being 10 mana and all, but the fact that is has PROTECTION FROM EVERYTHING surely makes up for it.

- Child of Alara - A very popular EDH 5-colour commander, who would want to destroy your commander if it meant everyone else's non-land permanents got destroyed? I know I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for that sort of carnage.

- Cromat - If you want flexibility, Cromat is your man. He destroys creatures, he flies, he regenerates, he can pump himself and he can be put on top of your library. He is good in almost all scenarios.

- Sliver Legion/Queen/Overlord - These are amazing commanders in the right decks (i.e Sliver decks), although I can see Sliver Queen being awesome in a non-Sliver deck.

Out of these, I choose Cromat to be my commander, I love versatility in my control decks and so he seemed like the obvious choice (although I was very tempted to go with Progenitus). So we have a commander and a core theme (enchantments), so lets get to the engines the deck has.

Protection:

Both in Multiplayer and 1vs1 EDH, you will need time to establish a winning position, this time is given to you by protective enchantments, I felt the following were acceptable starting points:

- Ghostly Prison

- Propaganda

- Sphere of Safety

- Aurification

- Dissipation Field

- No Mercy

These Enchantments give an opponent an undesirable effect if they attack you, be it paying mana, having their creatures die as a result or just turning them into walls! These effects are much better in Multiplayer games, where diplomacy is king.

- Martial Law

- Detention Sphere

- Faith's Fetters

- Prison Term

- Oblivion Ring

- Arrest

- Seal of Doom

- Attrition

These Enchantments are used as point-removal to deal with those nasty threats that otherwise would go unanswered. These are much better in 1v1 EDH, however they are also necessary in Multiplayer too. It is always good to have a balance of point-removal and mass protection, neither one can protect you by themselves.

- Pernicious Deed

- Grave Pact

- Moat

These offer some unique protection, Deed, when played correctly is a one-sided wrath effect. Grave Pact offers a great deterrent in Multiplayer EDH to kill your commander and tokens, it also combos well with Attrition. Then there is Moat, well Moat is Moat, everyone loves to hate it (do not play this early in a multiplayer game, you will be targeted almost immediately!). 

Draw:

Drawing cards is extremely important in EDH matches and so having a dedicated section devoted to it is important, I currently have the following draw engines in my deck:

- Mind Unbound

- Enchantress's Presence

- Abundance

- Argothian Enchantress

- Underworld Connections

- Phyrexian Arena

- Mesa Enchantress

- Sylvan Library

These are what I currently have, I am missing one more enchantress effect and perhaps a few staple draw effects in EDH, such as Staff of Nin, Consecrated Sphinx. Although I feel I could afford a few of these non-Enchantment draw-effects, I cannot overlord on them due to the nature of my win conditions (coming up).

I have the basic tutor effects also, such as Idyllic, Enlightened and Demonic Tutor.

Win Conditions:

So we have drawn lots of cards and have a nice defence set up, now it is time to strike! How does this deck strike at the opponent? Well it has several ways. The least exciting way to win the game is via a slow beatdown strategy using tokens generated by Bitterblossom, Assemble the Legion, Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty Thrones. I feel that in an enchantment deck, Sigil is the best win condition out of the aforementioned token generators, make a 4/4 angel every time I play an enchantment? Yes Please!

Another way to win the game is to do it with one massive lethal attack, notice the cards I have in this EDH deck and then take a look at the card to the right - Opalesence. This card will win you the match on the spot and is a key reason to why we play so many enchantments.

If beating down isn't your thing, then the deck also has a combo win-condition. This combo has seen quite a bit of legacy play and involves having Rest in Peace on the battlefield at the same time as having Helm of Obedience or Energy Field, although Energy Field doesn't mean an auto-win, it can effectively do so against the right deck.

Planeswalkers are another key route to victory, especially with cards such as Doubling Season and Jokulhaups.

  

Well that is about it for my EDH deck! No matter what you build in EDH, just remember to have fun and make your deck as fun as possible!

Thank you for reading guys!

Chris Delo

Modern U/W

Hey Guys! Well it has been a while since my last article, I haven't felt the need to write anything new, although I was tempted to write an article about the SCG invitational, in which I had two of my car-pooling friends in the top8 (Jono Randle and Tom Buettner), one of which is fairly established at this magic thingy, the other is an up-and-coming potential pro-tour player. 

Talking to players of this caliber day-in and day-out is making the Manaleak group one of the better groups to play magic with in the entire country, which is showing with Manaleak players taking down the majority of the most-recent PTQs. Therefore testing new decks against these players will give you a good indication to the viability of said chosen deck, which leads me on to Modern.

Modern

The Modern format has been thrown a lifesaver, the banning of Bloodbraid Elf has meant that Jund has become alot weaker, although not unplayable as the core of the deck (Bob, Goyf, Shaman and Co.) are still around. The solution many people have sought is to replace BBE with another 4-drop, like Huntmaster, Olivia or Thrun, of which it seems the latter two are favoured. I am still not sure of this approach, the slot which was once occupied by BBE does not have to be taken by a 4-drop (which everyone is focusing on), why not lower the curve and go more aggro? These questions make magic interesting and so the banning gets a big thumbs up from me!

Moving on to what I played at the recent GPT in Worcester, I felt that people will be playing the Thrun/Olivia Jund lists and so decided to play a UW control variant.

I give you, Blinkin' and Slammin': 

Creature (16):

3x Kitchen Finks

3x Vendilion Clique

2x Wall of Omens

3x Restoration Angel

2x Snapcaster Mage

2x Sun Titan

1x Phantasmal Image

Instant (14):

1x Sphinx's Revelation

4x Path to Exile

4x Mana Leak

4x Cryptic Command

1x Dismember

Sorcery (2):

2x Supreme Verdict

Enchantment (1):

1x Detention Sphere

Artifact (1):

1x Batterskull

Important Lands (8):

4x Celestial Colonnade

4x Tectonic Edge

The Blinkin' section of the deck is the synergy between Restoration Angel and the other creatures in the deck, whereas the Slammin' section is referring to the power level of cards such as Sun Titan, Sphinx's Revelation and Cryptic Command! The deck tested well at the tournament, finishing 2nd place to Aaron Biddle's Birthing Pod deck, I must admit that I am uneducated in the interactions of the Birthing Pod deck and therefore most likely did not play optimally. However, the matchup felt close and the matchup against Jund seemed heavily in U/W's favour (which is always a good sign). The addition of Phantasmal Image to the deck has really made a difference, if it copies a Kitchen Finks, it can block and then persist back as anything you like! It can be bought back with Sun Titan and also has the added bonus of killing all the legendary creatures making their way into the new Jund lists! Perfect! 

Standard

Standard is looking very diverse at the moment and we seemed to have finally moved away from the mind-boggling boring meta-game of throwing Hellriders at each other! Yay! Of course Hellrider has found a new home in the Naya and RG Aggro decks that have arisen, however this has allowed the emergence of Supreme Verdict control decks (Bant and Esper), which makes UWr less favourable in my eyes. Here is the meta-game analysis from the Pro-Tour:

Deck	Win Percent	Matches
Jund Aggro	60.00%	100
The Aristocrats	57.83%	83
Human Reanimator	57.02%	121
Jund Midrange	55.60%	241
Bant Control	53.19%	94
Jund	52.73%	110
Gruul Aggro	50.65%	154
UWR	49.82%	275
Naya Humans	46.88%	128
Saito Zoo	46.32%	95
Esper Control	46.29%	229

Make of it as you will, the statistics are here and like many statistics they can be interpreted in many different ways. I was playing Bant before the PT and I will still be on that plan after it, UWR and Jund are very popular decks and I feel that Bant simply crushes these decks. However, there is an argument to play a vast majority of the decks listed here and so it is your personal choice to which you prefer. 

That is all folks! Next Weekend is a Standard GPT, hope to see you all there!

Chris Delo.