2001)

With the introduction of Seventh edition, we are likely to see a big shakeup in the type 2 format. Until recently we were seeing solid shows by Fires decks, Rebel decks and a few other arche-types. Planeshift brought some serious power to the B/R color combo and many B/R speed decks came about led by Pyre Zombies, Phyrexian Scutas and Flametongue Kavus. With the introduction of 7th, we see a return of many old favourites from the Urza's block including solid cards like duress, ostracize, megrim and persecute not to mention abyssal specter and abyssal horror. We are sure to see some hand destruction decks again.

We also got Coat of Arms back and some solid showings in the Gobilin, Elf, Kavu, Rebel and Soldier creature types to use it. Finally, we see the reintroduction of Verduran Echantress (with some nice new artwork to boot). We are still lacking the beautiful Argothian Enchantress, especially with its non-targetability in this heavy control environment; even so, the return of the companion Yavimaya Enchantress makes for a reliable type 2 enchantress variant that may turn a few heads and make the grade as an arche-type in the new standard environment.

To begin, this is not your typical enchantress deck. Since we are a bit light on both card drawing creatures having only one now and also light on good usable enchantments, we need to take a new approach to the deck. The approach I have chosen to take is one of mana efficiency, card drawing, mana accelleration enchantments and the use of Maro as a secondary kill card.

Here's the spell list with mana curve:

4:Spellbook 0
4:Wild Growth 1
4:Seal of Strength 1
4:Whip Silk 1
4:Saproling Cluster 2
4:Fertile Ground 2
4:Howling Mine 2
4:Verduran Enchantress 3
4:Yavimaya Enchantress 3
4:Maro 4

4:Land Grant
16:Forest

The goal of playing the deck is to get a howling mine and a verduran enchantress out as fast as possible to accellerate your card drawing. Spellbook is a good first turn drop if you have nothing else to do and will be used later in the game to fill your hand with tons of cards and never need to discard. This helps you with 2 other kill outcomes. The first is using Maro to make him really large and attack your opponent and the second is to create a weeny assault team of saprolings using the saproling cluster enchantment.

Once an enchantress is in play, you obviously want to start playing enchantments and getting card draws until you reach the cards you want. Use wild growth and fertile ground intelligently on untapped lands to get the maximum mana per turn. Seal of strength is a good choice as an enchantment for this deck because it is 1 mana, lets you pump up any of your kill cards, or possibly save them from shocks if they come out early game. It also can be cast early game if you do not have any creatures in play.

Whip silk is a great addition to this kind of deck because it allows you to return it to your hand for 1 green mana. This is important to prevent yourself from getting "stuck" by drawing non-enchantments from your Verduran ability. In play, if you have 6 mana open and you draw a land, you can simply play whipsilk on your enchantress, draw a card, pay 1 green, return the whip silk to your hand, play it again and draw another card, etc... this kind of play can easily get you through some of the clumps in your deck and get a nice hand size and all the cards you want. It also lets you pump up maro later or get cards to dump to the saproling cluster not to mention it lets you block fliers.

The mana curve on the deck is really light and provides a very fast offensive strike. You need a turn or 2 to get started, and maybe 1 or 2 draws from the enchantress, but after that you should be going really strong by turns 5-7. Land grant is used in place of 4 lands to help you thin out your deck faster and make sure you do not draw lands when you want to drop enchantments.

A few parting notes. A sideboard is not included because we need to see how the new metagame shapes up with 7th edition first. Secondly, the fertile ground and the saproling cluster may be substituted easily for other spells. The cluster lets your opponent create saprolings too, which could be bad since you have no trample or flying abilities on your maro or yavimaya enchantress. This means you have to hack away at them one or two creatures at a time which can become a game loss if your are not careful. The cluster may let you create a weenie swarm victory though.

The fertile ground gives you other colors of mana, but you really do not need that in this mono color deck. It does give you extra mana, but at twice the cost of a wild growth. This card might better be replaced by something else. The key here is to get an enchantment for both of these cards though to feed the card drawing engine. Maybe splashing white for armadillo cloak as an alternative. Blanchwood armor may also be a good spell, but once again lacking trample.

All in all this is a very efficient deck that should do well. It has a lot of spread out targets and several victory paths that make it hard for counterspell decks to choose what to hit. It does have problems with creature removal, but with the saproling cluster, you can out run their removal. The deck is also rather inexpensive compared to the very expensive decks running every power card we see today.

Enjoy and feel free to take this idea to the next level!

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