4 Guard Duty
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Lightmine Field
2 Luminarch Ascension
4 Day of Judgment
4 Wall of Omens
4 Mesa Enchantress
4 Sun Titan
4 Steel Hellkite
4 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
20 Plains
Last week was mono white aggro, this week is the other end of the spectrum - mono white control. Besides control, the theme here is the lovely Mesa Enchantress. The enchantress wants you to cast enchantments and that's just what you're going to do. This deck features 16 enchants. Twelve of them are removal: Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and Guard Duty. Two Lightmine Fields provide some defense and two Luminarch Ascensions provide some offense.
As far as creatures go, Wall of Omens buys you time and the "kill team" consists of Sun Titans and Steel Hellkites. A full set of Day of Judgements gives you time and card advantage, and a full set of Emerias work great in mono white control providing long term inevitability.
I usually build aggro decks so this is a bit of a departure for me. I'm used to trying to end the game before my opponent can cast his biggest spells, but as the control player I'm really just trying to make the game go as long as possible. If I can survive by constantly removing my opponent's permanents (enchantress drawing cards along the way) and wiping the battlefield at key moments with Day, then it should be only a matter of time before my Sun Titans and Hellkites clean up. The Sun Titan can dig up Enchantresses or Wall of Omens from the graveyard, or any of the enchants that have been destroyed. Steel Hellkite is one of my absolute favorite finishers. I cannot tell you how many times he's soared over some scary ground dwellers, dealt 5 damage, then blew up said ground dwellers.
I eventually arrived at this deck by reading a Modern Mono White Control thread over at mtgsalvation. I was impressed with the list and built a more budget friendly version (but the lack of extremely expensive cards was one of the reasons I liked it). I added the enchantress because the list had so many enchantments, then I realized it had a ton of standard legal cards so I made some substitutions (including more enchants) and this is the result.
I played ten games in the causal room.
Game 1: Vs Eldrazi spawn, Beastmaster Ascension, Furnace Celebration. I don't remember much about this game except right away I recognized the usefulness of Oblivion Ring (in this deck it hits non-creatures more than creatures) and I thought that this enchantress theme might actually work. Cantripping o-rings and journeys is serious. He concedes after my Sun Titan returns an enchantress and says "no mana", but he had four lands.
Game 2: Vs Treasure Hunt / Zombie Infestation. Seems a little goofy, but I o-ring a Quest for Ancient Secrets. I didn't think I wanted him recurring the treasure hunts, and I had plenty of creature removal. Eventually I got enough mana to cast titans and hellkites. Emeria was firing too.
Again, I'm thinking enchantress is for real. Last game I had two in play and I was just throwing down journeys and o-rings on zombie tokens to draw cards. Divination stapled to o-ring...
Game 3: Mulligan'd to five. Lost to red bloodthirst/aggro deck. I got too greedy with my Day of Judgement. I should've got a two for one on turn four, but I held it and kept taking hits. Then he plays a Chandra, the Firebrand, which I o-ringed (still taking hits). By the time I Day I had taken too much damage. Remember Day is more than card advantage but also is supposed to keep you alive. A good lesson.
Game 4: Beat a green ramp deck: Lotus Cobra, Garruk Wildspeaker, a huge Hydra. Two key Days allow me to survive long enough to get out two Sun Titans who revive a few enchantress. I top deck another enchantress to make three on the battlefield. Guard duty becomes Ancestral Recall. I throw one on his creature, draw three, throw down another on the same creature and he concedes.
Game 5: An early enchantress puts me off to a good start. I get two lightmine fields out, but they aren't doing too much. He o-rings my enchantress, I o-ring his o-ring (was worried the universe would implode, but I think it takes three o-rings to do that). I get a hellkite. He casts Liliana Vess and tutors up his best. The hellkite hits him and blows up liliana. Next turn we see his card of choice was Day of Judgement, but my two Emerias bring back the hellkite and an enchantress on my next upkeep. He concedes.
Game 6: I get a turn two Luminarch Ascension while he stumbles out of the gate. A wall of omens and guard duty let me get four counters on the ascension. He concedes when I start making angels.
Game 7: Vs red/blue bounce I'm stuck on three lands with four six drops in my hand...Finally I get the fourth land and Day of Judgements flow. I'm down to eight life and have an enchantress and titan in play. He casts Act of Treason on the titan. I'm saying goodbye to the enchantress except the attack trigger on my (his) titan digs up an Aether Adept out of his yard which bounces my blocker. I'm down to two and am just waiting on the burn to finish me, but inexplicably he concedes. You gotta draw for the burn in that case. He had at least a few turns.
Game 8: Beat some kind of artifact deck. The key moment was when hellkite flew over an army of golem tokens then obliterated them all for zero mana.
Game 9: Lost on turn 17 vs zombies. Call to the Grave was killing me. Only got one enchantress and she was immediately Doom Bladed. O-ring and Day should be able to handle Call to the Grave, but he drew more calls then I drew answers.
Game 10: One land in my opening hand. This deck can basically never keep one land hand. Mull to six: one land. Mull to five: one land. Mull to four: one land. OK then. Sometimes you keep a one land hand. Vs super aggressive mono white I almost stabilized. Needed a Day bad, but no luck.
7-3. I hate losing the last two. Ah well.
I really like this deck. We got a month or two before standard rotation. A decent chunk of the deck rotates out, but a lot sticks around so we'll see what Innistrad has to offer.
Some potential improvements may be to work in some enchantment life gain via Sunspring Expedition and maybe cutting down on some of the six drops? I feel there may be one or two too many. Timely Reinforcements would work well in this deck. Also Lightmine Field did almost nothing for me over ten games.
I hope you like it! This will be my last standard deck before the rotation, but I don't think this is the last we've seen of Enchantress Control.
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