25/03/2025
Had another great event at Knight Ware this last weekend with Enchantress v4.1f. This was a 5 round event, and I finished in 2nd place before chopping in the top 4 to get dinner with the King Slayer himself, Grant Paris.
R1 vs Reanimator 🌱🥀🌱
R2 vs White We**ie 🥀🌱🌱
R3 vs G*T 🥀🌱✏️
R4 vs RG Goblins 🌱🥀🌱
R5 vs Hunting Pack Elves 🥀🥀
For this event, I tested a few things:
• Elfhame Palace as a potential 'dual' land
• Grass back in the main over STP
• Hidden Gibbons in the SB vs Tranquil Domain decks
• Back up to 22 lands from 21
𝗘𝗹𝗳𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲
There were times when I wasn't under immediate pressure that I could casually play this and it would fix my mana. A great example of this was going T1 Forest, Exploration, Elfhame Palace.
However, it wasn't long before I hit a hand w/ Palace & Sanctum (as my only lands), Guile, Enchantress, Presence, and some other stuff. This meant I couldn't play T1 Guile into T2 Enchantress because Sanctum tapped for 0. I lost this game because it was against Reanimator and I was 1 turn away from stabilizing. This turn was the difference between winning this game and losing because it meant an extra attack from Akroma which put me to exactly 1 life on my final turn, meaning I couldn't crack Grove for Parallax Wave the turn prior because my Brushland would deal the final point to me. These margins were razor thin and it was exactly enough to cause a loss.
I cannot stress enough how important singular, untapped, ready-to-go mana on T1 is for this deck. Elfhame Palace is not good enough, and I've had similar problems with Sungrass Prairie. It's also this principle that makes me reluctant to go up to a 2nd Lair land, since it's not a valid T1 source of mana, either.
𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗧𝗣
I've missed Grass main vs decks like Sligh where Grass stifles their quickest, most aggressive draws. STP is great vs utility creatures or go-tall strategies, but is lackluster vs go-wide strategies.
There are also times when I brick off because STP is not an Enchantment. I've played 482 games with STP over Grass in the main lately and wanted to give Grass a try again to see how it would do against an unknown meta in 2025.
• I lost G2 vs Reanimator because a Grass would not have stopped Akroma; STP would have.
• I lost G1 vs G*T because they resolved Mages on both Argothian Enchantress and Parallax Wave. I had multiple Grasses this game and I could have assembled OpalWave and won this game if not for the Mage. They simply paid the Grass tax and beat me down w/ Elephant tokens.
• My Goblins opp just attacked w/ Lackey through a Grass and built a huge board; eventually I had to let the Grass go because I had to develop my board. I barely was able to pull this game out by drawing into OpalWave. If Grass had been STP, this would have slowed down their board development significantly because that Lackey was able to put in a Goblin Ringleader. With STP, it wouldn't have been so close.
• I lost G1 vs Elves because I wasn't able to kill a Priest of Titania. Priest allowed them to play multiple Elves into a Cradle, and that Cradle allowed them to play Kamahl, animating their Cradle, and generating a huge amount of mana. They alpha'd me through Grass and had enough mana to Overrun me. Twice.
• The one place where Grass was good was vs White We**ie, but I've found this to be a historically super favorable matchup that I've never lost, anyway.
This was a meta where a spotlight was cast upon all of Grass's shortcomings. There was a time where Grass felt incredible, but as Premodern has evolved, I think STP is honestly just a better fit right now for what most people are choosing to do in the format. Cutting Grass entirely and moving 3 STP main also provides more sideboard space; something that's always in short supply. I tested Kirtar's Desire last year, and I think this is worth exploring again in conjunction with main deck STP.
𝗛𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗚𝗶𝗯𝗯𝗼𝗻𝘀
There's been a lot of hype about Gibbons over the last few months, mostly in the context of being a SB juke for Dreadnought. The problem is that Dreadnought is already a super favorable matchup for real Enchantress decks and I've never felt that making a 4/4 was worthwhile when our deck is capable of establishing some truly overwhelming boardstates.
Where Gibbons intrigues me most is against Tranquil Domain decks. Domain seems to be picking up steam as a response to Replenish winning a lot of events lately. We take drive-by damage as a result of this. The matchup I wanted to test this against the most was vs Goblins and I got my chance!
In G2, I had T1 Gibbons, T2 Gibbons + STP a Lackey. This felt like an INCREDIBLE start. Over the next few turns I found a Guile and a Grass to slow down the onslaught. They found Tranquil Domain and cast it on my turn, waking up the Gibbons. I attacked into their board of Fanatic, Fanatic, Warchief with 1 Gibbons and held the other back to block in case they had a Lackey which would be hasted. On their turn, they played Ringleader and attacked with Warchief and Ringleader, leaving back the two Fanatics. I blocked the Warchief, and they ping'd that Gibbons down with the Fanatics. This was a 3-for-1! I'm feeling like I've hit all the checkboxes this game: kill Lackey, get my SB cards vs Tranquil Domain, and force them into unfavorable combat.
The problem of course is that they just rebuilt their board quickly, and that Gibbons had to eventually chump a big Piledriver. I lost this game despite having STP on a T2 Lackey and 2 Gibbons vs Tranquil Domain. This was exactly my dream scenario, and it was still not enough. Gibbons failed against Goblins.
G2 vs G*T, I kept a hand with double Gibbons that apparently held off some counters for several turns while I got beat down by a Meddling Mage. They simply played around the Gibbons for the entire game until I finally was able to build a huge board into OpalWave where Domain didn't matter anymore. I ended up winning this game, but it took a long, long time. My opp was in the tank several times because Gibbons made things awkward, and that says a lot considering they're an experienced player that consistently does well at our local meetups. The problem here is that there wasn't enough time left for G3 and we had to draw. It's entirely possible I would have had a more powerful hand that could have closed G2 quicker if I had just mulliganed, but I kept that hand on the back of Gibbons for science. I feel like Gibbons failed here, too.
The opportunity cost for running Gibbons for this event was not testing Call of the Herd further. I tested Call of the Herd briefly last year, but was... called to testing other sideboard cards and never finished exploring it, fully. Having a SB juke that gets around Domain is something that deserves further testing because it's such an anticlimactic haymaker against us, but man, Gibbons was not it.
I do think Gibbons is a fascinating card, but I consistently feel there are better alternatives, even in other decks. I tried Gibbons in the SB of Cataclysmic Oath, but the game I found it vs Replenish, the apes never woke up because I had multiple Spheres and land destruction; Black Vise would have been so much better there instead.
A SB card should, in practice, make a noticeable difference when you find it. Especially in multiples! It felt like Gibbons barely did anything in both games where I found multiple copies. I do think Gibbons deserves a home somewhere in Premodern, but I don't think Enchantress is where it belongs; its effect is too small and too fair compared to everything else we're capable of.
𝟮𝟮 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀
During the course of this event, I flooded more often than I have in the last several months while being on 21 lands. I was specifically looking out for this in my games and I did, in fact, lose some games because I drew too many lands over the course of several turns when I needed to draw a higher proportion of Enchantments.
"That's just magic sometimes, Chris." Yes, of course, but also keep in mind that the spread of variance is more noticeable when you play a higher number of games. At this point I feel like I have a solid pulse on how often this has happened in the last 300 or so games that I've played on 21 lands. I also keep notes that I look back on and have data to garner insights from.
The longer a game goes, the closer to 100% you get for 'total lands found during a game.' The difference between 22 and 21 lands is much less noticeable in these long games because you'll typically find the adequate amount long before you find every land you could possibly find in your deck. Where this difference is most noticeable and impactful is the first few turns of the game, where the game is in its infancy. Enchantress has evolved into a deck with a much lower mana curve than it used to have, and we can get away with a lower land count as a result of this, especially with 4x Guiles.
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In closing, despite some of these hiccups, I still had a solid day performance-wise. While it always feels good to top 4, the most important takeaways were the observations I was able to make about these cards and the scenarios I found myself in because of them. Lobstercon is really just around the corner and every change I make, every test I start, is in preparation for that.
Tests that result in failure like the ones I ran this last weekend are equally, if not more important than the tests that succeed; you learn so much more about your deck and the various ways things can go wrong when a test fails. I've found, at least for me, these scenarios provoke a lot more thought and examination than simply winning, which can be a bit nebulous. Contributions to losses feel a lot more easy to identify.
All that being said, the deck is truly in an incredible spot right now and it feels very close to being optimized completely. Perhaps I've already found the perfect 75, but it's more likely that there's still some nuance left to explore. This process is extremely rewarding for me and I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope it was the latter of the two.
Til then, keep Enchanting in the name of Argoth, my dudes 🌱
