I've got 99 enchantments but a creature is one - WIP

BHC
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Post by BHC » 3 years ago

I decided it would be fun to limit myself and build an all enchantment deck. I was interested in Sanctum of All and using the shrines from M21 and the hondens from Kamigawa as a potential wincon. I knew I wanted the deck to be WUBRG which limits my commander options but opened up every enchantment for me. Most options seemed relatively weak or non-synergistic. The most obvious one is Sisay, Weatherlight Captain since she could search up Sanctum of All and then just not be paid attention to anymore. The basic idea behind the deck is to ramp with enchantment acceleration while setting up a pillowfort while either you get your shrines online, or make a ton of creatures with your enchantments (or both).


I'll share the deck then talk about some of things I found with it.


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So after playtesting this deck I found it to be very consistent, almost too much. There's a giant caveat here though, it's very consistent if someone doesn't throw an Austere Command at you. I've only done a small amount of playtesting in a group along with a lot of playing it solo without drawing hands and this deck starts really popping off around turn 6 or 7. To show this I took a random hand on my deck from Moxfield and played it out to see what happens. Assuming no disruption of my enchantments this was my board state on turn 6:

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And at the start of my main phase I just drew 26 cards. I gain 6 life and opponents lose 6, and two of my opponents discard 6 cards. Play this turn out and move on to turn 7:

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On turn 7 by the start of my main phase I would draw 36 cards, make 18 1/1 spirit tokens, gain 18 life, make 2 opponents discard 9 cards each, each opponent would lose 18 life and I would gain 18,I could tap any creature for 1 white mana of which I can make about 50 of it with serra's sanctum and I have 42/42 in flying sharks ready to swing.

So it can get pretty nutty pretty quickly if people don't disrupt you.




Generally how you want to play the deck is to get Sisay, Weatherlight Captain out and then as soon as you can (hopefully turn 4) tutor for Sanctum of All. On your first upkeep grab Honden of Seeing Winds then the next turn grab Sanctum of Calm Waters and you'll draw 3 and discard 1 (presuming you didn't play any other shrines normally). Each turn after you'll want to grab whatever shrine helps you the most, for instance perhaps Honden of Life's Web if you need some chump blockers or Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest for acceleration.

One of the star cards is Paradox Haze, you double up on Sanctum of All's tutoring effect and you get the upkeep shrines (the Hondens) twice. If you can copy Paradox Haze with a card like Estrid's Invocation you can have a third upkeep and it gets insane very quickly. The enchantment copying spells are overall super useful, copy a Sigil of the Empty Throne for lots of angels or Mana Reflection for a ton of mana. The utility is super nice.


So what about Austere Command or Tranquility or other effects that destroy all enchantments? The best option, as far as I can tell is: Declaration of Naught which isn't the most ideal card, but if you feel like no one is running mass enchant destruction you can always name an enemy commander. Also I'm considering adding Leyline of Anticipation in, in which case the Declaration basically reads UUU: counter target spell. I looked up the mass enchant destruction on EDHREC and Austere Command is by far the most run one. A lot of the green ones, are under 1000 decks. The second most is Nevinyrral's Disk and third is Akroma's Vengeance.

As an aside if you don't want to fully commit to the only enchantment thing and wanted to make an exception for one spell you could run Primal Surge and put your entire deck into play then use your card draw replacement effects to not deck yourself for however many turns you needed (it wouldn't be many, likely just 1 upkeep). But for me I'm going to stick to only enchantments for this theme.

My main concerns with this deck are how linear it is. You basically want to do the same thing every time, get Sanctum of All out and get it going and you'll probably win. I'm going to consider other options that are still all enchantments but eschew the shrines and look for alternative wincons, but as far as an effective all enchantment deck this one is pretty good!

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Sisay+Sanctums is a done to death theme.

If you wanted to give yourself some more variance then you could play the The Prismatic Bridge as your commander and then lean into cards like Doomwake Giant, Kestia, the Cultivator, Nyxbloom Ancient, Destiny Spinner, Eidolon of Blossoms as potential targets. Still enchantments.
This way you can truly have an all enchantment deck and not have Sisay stick out as the Elephant in the room.

Starfield of Nyx is a way to recover from enchantment removal. However it can make all your enchantments creatures which makes them vulnerable to creature removal as well. Archetype of Endurance would be a nice The Prismatic Bridge hit in this instance.

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