In this experiment, we seize the evening by magnifying the magical nature of Planeswalkers’ permanents and then summon the enchantress who revels in that environment.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about using some traditional enchantment synergies along with some new Theros cards to form an aggro deck. This time, I want to use some of those same enchantment synergies but instead walk the path of combo.

One of the cards that always pops up when searching for Enchantresses is Yavimaya Enchantress. Yes, we have Argothian Enchantress, Verduran Enchantress, Mesa Enchantress, Enchantress's Presence, and Yavimaya Enchantress. Which one of these is not like the other? Drawing cards isn’t everything, though. Sometimes, just winning the game can work.

The problem with Yavimaya’s favorite enchantress is: How many enchantments can we really put out? Maybe we have some Wild Growths or Pacifisms . . . With our aggro deck from before, we might even have six or so on the battlefield at once. But we can do better! All we really need is a Mycosynth Lattice.

Oh wait, that’s not the one. How about this one?

Master of Etherium (and Broodstar and Darksteel Juggernaut, with various Nim and Salvage Slasher as runners-up) plays a similar game as Yavimaya Enchantress—and while he does have the advantage of pumping all of its controller’s other artifact creatures, he starts as a 1/1 (counting himself) instead of the Enchantress’s 2/2, and his complement costs 6 instead of the Enchantress’s 5. Oh, and then there’s the big one: Master of Etherium only counts its controller’s artifacts; Yavimaya Enchantress counts all enchantments. That means Enchanted Evening makes her big. Oh, and Ancestral Mask can more than almost triple her size.

I guess that makes this an Enchanted Evening deck.

Game Plan #2

With Yavimaya Enchantress and/or an Ancestral Mask as our first game plan (with one Canopy Cover to push a fatty through), the second game plan is even more of a combo.

Tranquil Grove is a bit of a hypocrite, destroying all enchantments that aren’t itself. Something about a battlefield that consists of nothing but a Tranquil Grove (having destroyed everything else under the influence of an Enchanted Evening) just seems kind of awesome.

Unfortunately, plays like that are what would make my friends never want to play Magic: The Gathering with me again—no one wants to essentially restart the game for no good reason. Fortunately, if we just float 4 mana while making the Tranquil Grove play, we can return all our own stuff with Faith's Reward, and we still are able to enjoy those few seconds of Serenity—err, I meant just regular serenity.

People may not enjoy having all of their permanents destroyed, but at least the game should be ending shortly, and they have to respect such a sweet sequence.

More Evening Synergy

Ajani's Chosen will give us a Cat for most of our spells, but that alone doesn’t make the card worthwhile. However, with an Enchanted Evening on the battlefield, the Cat trigger becomes a landfall ability—our lands will enter as enchantments, thus giving us Cats a la Rampaging Baloths.

Sphere of Safety makes it almost impossible for us to be attacked while we also control an Enchanted Evening. Without some intense Cabal Coffers or infinite-mana situations from our opponents, we’ll become virtually unattackable. Sphere of Safety—unlike Yavimaya Enchantress—does only count our enchantments, but considering the land enchantments we’ll have, there should be plenty.

Rounding It Out

Sterling Grove is an immensely powerful card for this style of deck. Not only can it protect our other enchantments (which will sometimes be everything), but it can fetch many of our different combo pieces, some of which are one-ofs—one Tranquil Grove is sufficient. Sterling Groves are relatively pricey, but you can use other cards as they are available to your collection, such as Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, or Born of the Gods’s new Plea for Guidance.

Wild Growth and Overgrowth are enchantments that can set us off to a good start, and Harmonize is a strong source of card advantage—possibly the best source for Selesnya colors outside of creature-based options. Well, I suppose there are some exceptions when we’re talking enchantments . . . 

Verduran Enchantress is around to keep the deck rolling and to dig us deep for our Groves, Spheres, and Evenings of various varieties. Mesa Enchantress is a fine stand-in, but Verduran Enchantress is castable on turn two after a turn-one Wild Growth.

Finally, Enchantress's Presence is just more fuel for the deck’s engine. I’d almost prefer to just play more weird synergies, but there’s also the issue that I love Rebecca Guay. If you don’t have a lot of the more expensive cards for enchantment decks, I could imagine a version of the deck that had more Overgrowths for acceleration and focused more on resolving relatively expensive spells, such as Plea for Guidance, to fuel the deck.

"Yavimaya Evening"

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Ajani's Chosen
• 4 Verduran Enchantress
• 4 Yavimaya Enchantress

• Spells (26)
• 2 Faith's Reward
• 4 Harmonize
• 1 Ancestral Mask
• 1 Canopy Cover
• 1 Sphere of Safety
• 1 Tranquil Grove
• 2 Enchantress's Presence
• 2 Overgrowth
• 4 Enchanted Evening
• 4 Sterling Grove
• 4 Wild Growth

• Lands (23)
• 6 Forest
• 7 Plains
• 2 Krosan Verge
• 4 Graypelt Refuge
• 4 Sunpetal Grove

Buy This Deck

The deck is almost all green and white; unfortunately for this list, it doesn’t fit cleanly into a Selesnya commander’s colors because of Enchanted Evening’s hybrid nature. However, if you were to assemble a blue list or throw a few of these cards into a Bant deck, other considerations include Aura Thief, Aqueous Form (over Canopy Cover), and Aura Flux—with Phantatog to sacrifice the Flux as necessary.

If you like the idea of having nothing but a Tranquil Grove on the battlefield, or if you’re excited by the prospect of a massive Enchantress, give some of the combinations in this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com