Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - Punishing Enchantments

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - Punishing Enchantments

Misc. Instants & Sorceries

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About the Deck

This deck is a group-slug/punisher deck that aims to basically punish your opponents (and you!) for trying to play the game. There are a number of red enchantments and some artifacts that punish people for taking various actions and most of them have been included in this deck. This is one of my oldest decks so it has undergone numerous changes over the years, and it was inspired by a very similar 60 card deck that I played ages ago (where being able to have four of cards like Spellshock was brutal).

Generally you win with some combination of punishing effects, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight herself swinging, and/or animated enchantments swinging. Your general gameplan is to sit back and throw out various punisher effects to drain the table's life totals, and some other elements to slow others down. This is not a very reactive deck.

Once Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is in play, you take minimal/no damage from most of the punisher effects in your deck unless you have another damage doubler/enhancer such as Furnace of Rath in play (which is totally worth it, you will take normal damage and opponents will be taking quadruple damage).

Since this is a boros deck, it is not the quickest as far as ramping is concerned. This is why the deck plays cards like Null Rod and Stony Silence, to hopefully temporarily slow artifact based mana, and Stranglehold to try to shutdown land search functions.

Cards like Smoke, Mudslide, Ghostly Prison, Lightmine Field, and Silent Arbiter all serve to buy you time against more aggressive decks.

Solitary Confinement can be fantastic at buying you some time once you have some punisher effects in play. You can play it and just buy yourself a turn, failing to discard a card to keep it in play. If you have Sun Titan in play, you can forget about the upkeep discarding and then return Solitary Confinement to play every turn. Starfield of Nyx allows you to have Solitary Confinement in play every other turn without being concerned about discarding cards to keep it in play. The discard upkeep requirement can also be used to advance your gameplan by discarding enchantments to return with Starfield of Nyx or Replenish effects.

This deck runs the classic Parallax Wave + Opalescence or Starfield of Nyx combo. With Parallax Wave and either of the other two cards you can, at instant speed, exile all creatures you do not want in play. With Opalescence, since all other enchantments become creatures, you can exile any enchantments you don't like as well. The way this combo works is Parallax Wave targets a creature and removes a fading counter, you hold priority and then target Parallax Wave itself (since it is a creature). Once the the stack starts resolving, Parallax Wave is exiled first and then returns to play immediately. Other creatures you targeted for exiling will then be exiled but since the Parallax Wave left play and returned before this happened it is treated as a new Parallax Wave and the creature you want permanently removed will stay removed forever since it never sees the original leave play while it itself is in exile.

Other Cards to Consider

Purity - This card has actually been in the deck until fairly recently. It turns all of the group-slug aspects into lifegain for you instead. I've only removed it just to try out Keeper of the Accord.

Sigil of the Empty Throne - This card has been in and out of this deck over the years. It really can add up to a significant amount of tokens. I exchanged it for Court of Grace since they serve similar functions but the Court is one mana cheaper.

Axis of Mortality - This card combos wonderfully with Sulfuric Vortex and without the combo, makes sure you have the highest life total on the board every upkeep. I had it in the deck until fairly recently but removed it to try something else out (can't remember what card exactly).

Zo-Zu the Punisher - I've had this card ready to put into the deck for a while now but I just haven't found the space to try it out. It very much fits the gameplan.

Karn, the Great Creator - If you want a third Null Rod/Stony Silence effect, this hits the spot. It is one sided as well, which is great. The activated abilities are pretty negligible, although occasionally you can use the +1 ability to kill off an opposing artifact with creature kill or the Parallax Wave/Opalescence combo. I've played it before in the deck and it is worth trying if you want to give it a shot.

Sphere of Safety - If you think you need even more anti-aggro, this is a good card to include. I haven't felt the need to include yet another one of these effects.

Norn's Annex - Another solid anti-aggro card that you can include if needed.

Obliterate - I've played it in the past and it works great but I had enough games where I was staring at it in my hand without it being ideal to play and eventually I ended up dropping it. This card does work since most of the cards you care about are enchantments and it doesn't touch them.

Rule of Law - This and similar cards could easily be included. It is tough to find space for everything. If you find yourself less in need of anti-aggro effects, this could probably be swapped in.
Last edited by Ruiner 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Man I love this deck! I am not a huge fan of punisher decks but gisela makes it really neat for some reason - speeds up the clock and provides a better gameplan than most of these builds I've seen.

I do think you could support a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in this deck, and I'd add that I think Weathered Wayfarer and Expedition Map are both worth playing I think even with stony silence, because the value of having one of your big mana lands is so high.

Despite the counter-synergy with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight I think that the timing would work out for you to play Planar Collapse. The soft lock of Hall of Heliod's Generosity with that spell is very mana efficient and can really slow the game down to let your punisher effects close it out.

An oldy but a goody that I really enjoy that is great at closing the game with Parallax wave combo is Exclusion Ritual. Permanently exiling everything is usually enough to generate a scoop.

I was also always surprised at how good Story Circle was in my mono white deck that was similar to this. It functions as a back up Gisela for you (to shut off damage from your punishing enchantments) but also lets you blank attacks at an efficient rate.

And finally, Fall of the Thran is pretty amazing when you recur Serra's Sanctum that taps for 9 and everyone else gets Overgrown Tomb or whatever.

Really neat deck, thanks for sharing!

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

I definitely need to include Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I usually overlook it in multi-color decks but I think you are right that this could easily support it.

Planar Collapse is definitely effective. I run it in my Hanna, Ship's Navigator enchantments deck and it is great there. I might think about it here too.

The rest definitely seem like worthwhile experiments too. Thanks for the input!

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Ruiner wrote:
3 years ago
The rest definitely seem like worthwhile experiments too. Thanks for the input!
Welcome. It's always hard figuring out where cards fit in an established deck where it's clear you've chosen every card carefully so its' always possible there are duds in there, just lesser known cards sometimes it's nice to be aware of.

I was always surprised at how good Hall of Heliod's Generosity loops could be with stuff that sacs itself (e.g. Seal of Cleansing too).

One question I had that I forgot to ask is - how has Court of Grace been for you? I'm jamming that into my Monarch Mangara deck and I'm pretty curious as to whether you've been able to get that grind going with that. My expectation is it's the type of card you really want to cast quite a bit later unless you curve it out of Ghostly Prison - since you'll want like a maze effect or some kind of removal/blocker to defend yourself.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

I haven't actually had a chance to see what Court of Grace does for this deck yet since I haven't drawn it since adding it to the deck. I've only played this deck a handful of times in the past few months. However, I have played it with my Nahiri, the Lithomancer deck and after seeing it in action there, I am sure it will work here, especially with my anti-aggro stuff to help on defense. Also, worst case I put the monarch ability into play, lose it and then maybe others fight over it with damage doubler effects in play. I am pretty sure it'll work out.

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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

I've done a bit of an update to this deck based on some recent cards and some of the previous comments by @pokken:

Added Cards
+1 Weathered Wayfarer - Previous suggestion on this was a good one. It's a solid card that can tutor up great utility pieces and help when you are missing land drops.
+1 Plargg, Dean of Chaos // Augusta, Dean of Order - Plargg just seems really good for this deck. The discard ability can help set up Replenish and other recursion effects while drawing deeper into the deck. The second ability can put a huge portion of the non-land cards in the deck out and I don't think there is anything I'd be particularly disappointed to see get randomly flipped up into play for the most part (possibly Cursed Totem since it shuts Plargg off, but if it is needed to deal with other board threats I'd totally take that trade).
+1 Jeska's Will - It's great temporary ramp/card draw and based on experiences with other decks I think it's good here.
+1 Archaeomancer's Map - I've got this in a few other decks and I'm never disappointed so it seems like a no-brainer.
+1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - I totally think it is worth trying based on the previous suggestions.
+1 Thespian's Stage - In other decks with Weathered Wayfarer I like running this just for random utility. It has no particular synergy with the deck but it's just generally useful.

Removed Cards
-1 Mountain
-1 Plains
-1 Mox Diamond - I've had enough games where I have this in hand and discarding a land is just not a good idea. If I had a lot more card draw it would be better but I think replacing this with the Archaeomancer's Map is a better option in this deck as it stands now.
-1 Verge Rangers - I like this card, just needed to remove something to try new cards.
-1 Keeper of the Accord - Just needed to remove something to try new cards. It's a good card.
-1 Norn's Annex - I haven't found I need this as much, if things get going more aggro I might throw it back in.


A few other cards that didn't make the cut yet but are on my radar for future consideration:
Out of Time - I really like this card in theory but I don't know about it for this deck. This has some funky interactions with Opalescence and Starfield of Nyx. Combined that with Replenish effects and I don't know that I want to risk accidentally sabotaging myself. Maybe I'm overthinking the risk but for now I have a copy set aside just in case I want to try it in this deck.
Resurgent Belief - I think this will probably be a good card for the deck but I just didn't know what to remove to try it out at this point.
Flame Blitz - I have a copy set aside in case some people in my playgroup end up going planeswalker heavy sometime, since it could really shine in that case, but I don't think it's worth throwing in despite the cycling.
Fall of the Thran - Previous suggestion on this makes total sense and I have a copy set aside. I think I want to try a few games with the current changes first and then maybe I'll find room.

NZB2323
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Post by NZB2323 » 2 years ago

What do you think of An-Zerrin Ruins or Mesa Enchantress as a potential cards for this deck?
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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

NZB2323 wrote:
2 years ago
What do you think of An-Zerrin Ruins or Mesa Enchantress as a potential cards for this deck?
An-Zerrin Ruins seems a little limited in scope unless someone is playing a tribal deck. If I needed to lean more into anti-aggro I'd probably just run more sweepers or things like Meekstone, Crawlspace, Portcullis.

Mesa Enchantress is probably a card I should have put in years ago since it's an enchantress staple and I just keep forgetting about it for whatever reason.

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