I completely overlooked Greenwarden's potential here, I thought it was target creature, but target CARD is ridiculously good. I'm gonna try it out and report how it performed.



I tried 3x Scryfish/Jace but it didn't significantly improve my early game unless the Starfish had a 2/2 to block. However, even then I'd rather have delayed my ramp and played a turn 3 Retreat to Kazandu. The lifegain over the course of a game is insane and easily negates the damage of 1-2 weenies. Lategame I wanna cry when I draw the fish. Jace was pretty useful though and probably deserves the slot.

You probably meant I couldn't board clear until turn 4. Well, I'm not too afraid of aggro decks in this meta. I never faced a turn 4 defeat (not saying it doesn't exist, it just never happened), so even without early plays I'm theoretically able to safe the game just in time and things get better with some lifegain, an early removal/tempo spell or a blocker. Imo this deck can get away with very few 1-2 cmc spells and the huge amount of taplands doesn't always give you an opportunity to play them on curve anyway. The 3 cmc bottleneck still looks ugly, but you should regard these spells as lategame cards with the potential to buy you some time when played early.

I did however change the removal selection quite a bit. I lost some very frustrating games because I ran out of steam. Ramp and lands in general do not affect the board and are an investment, so you're kinda behind in the spellcount – you'll make up for this with the dual purpose awaken spells later. However, I had too many tempo spells in there that further increased the card disadvantage in the long run, sometimes to a point beyond repair. So I switched to removal that leaves me even or with an advantage (removal + awaken).

Changes to the deck:

Clutch of Currents and Displacement Wave had to go – I need more permanent answers. Hixus is also out for now – again, he's usually not a permanent answer and susceptible to combat tricks. Kiora is out, because she doesn't do enough for the deck. I liked how she basically ramped up 2 mana by untapping a land and a creature land, but by the time you have a creature land you don't really need it anymore. As there are basically no creatures to fetch, her second ability is pointless too. I much prefer the Flipwalkers and our new Gideon.

I added Sheer Drop as solid removal with awaken – ok, you need to get punched first, but we're running lots of lifegain (I often end up with 40+ life). Celestial Flare also helps to slow early aggression and can deal with a lot of nasty stuff later on. The most surprising addition might be Nissa's Renewal. I absolutely love it in this deck. With Retreats or Offshoots the lifegain is insane, it thins your deck and most importantly brings you to 9 mana. I mean the deck runs ok with 6 mana, but with 8+ you can really take advantage of Part the Waterveil and Planar Outburst. Sometimes you also want to keep mana open to make your Lumbering Falls Hexproof. Did I mention how much I love this land? Give it awaken 4 and it is basically a Plated Crusher that doesn't even die to mass removal. They would need to make you sac it, or hit it with a second instant removal spell while Hexproof is on the stack.

I'm gonna edit my first post whenever I'm convinced that I improved the deck.

My Bant Enchant list for B4Z, to be discussed in Duels Diaries week 17 (link in signature)

1 x Kiora, Master of the Depths
4 x Tightening Coils
3 x Retreat to Emeria
1 x Retreat to Coralhelm
3 x Retreat to Kazandu
2 x From Beyond
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 x Heliod's Pilgrim
2 x Suppression Bonds
2 x Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 x Herald of the Pantheon
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
3 x Zendikar's Roil
4 x Evolving Wilds
1 x Azorius Guildgate
2 x Sunpetal Grove
2 x Glacial Fortress
2 x Hinterland Harbor
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Canopy Vista
2 x Lumbering Falls
1 x Blighted Steppe
4 x Forest
2 x Plains
2 x Island

Covert i think your missing 4 cards for your list

Note that Heliod's Pilgrim can only fetch for Auras.
With just 2 Suppression Bonds as the only auras in the deck, running 4 pilgrims seems ambitous.

Yeah, as is my bad habit, I missed a line of cards. 4 x Tightening Coils is the primary Heliod's target and I forgot to include them in the list.

Sweet i will try the deck out

Tested 7 games with Coverts list at rank 40 (now a bit less ).

Hard deck to mulligan and play. No smoothing of the draws means you pretty much depend on your topdeck all game. Did extremely well as expected vs mid range and even ramp. Lost twice in a row vs a good RDW player, made a few mistakes due to being very unexperienced with it but it feels the decks' clunky nature can really bite it in the ass. Emeria's retreat is great at blocking and Kazandu makes it better. But it's expensive, and early on trample is a huge problem. I'd say the deck would be way better in a best to 3 environment with sideboard offshoots +more heralds. Currently RDW feels just way too fast for this deck.

Done only a few matches but wanted to let you know that the deck looks extremely promising mostly because it's just interesting and feels different but results are good so far too (not met any red aggro with it yet however). Will post more on it when i test it more thoroughly later, but just wanted to congratulate you with something that feels very unique so far.

Thanks for the testing, I appreciate the feedback

I like it. Looks like the enchantment deck I always wanted to build, but couldn't without expansion cards.

I'd probably try to squeeze in the Offshoots as they proved to be amazing to buy time for slow setups. Maybe cut a Gatecreeper or a Heliod's Pilgrim. And isn't Ulamog dead weight in a lot of games without ramp? I'm a little skeptical about Kiora too. I think I'd rather advance my winconditions than pay 4 to draw stuff.

Oh and have you tried Valor in Akros? You have a lot of tokens entering the battlefield. It's probably less situational than Coralhelm.
I'd also like to see Evoleap in here. It's fuel for many turns to trigger all your stuff.



Btw, I edited the awaken deck again. Greenwarden is good enough and with Nissa's Renewal there's enough mana to support Ulamog as removal and a wincon.

BTW geg i've also played your list a bit, first by trying a couple of starfish instead of the retreats to kazandu, but in the end I agree that the fish are less strong and went back to retreats. I've been running greenwarden since the start, and jace too. which both perform very well. Unsure about dead drop yet, haven't seen enough well piloted aggro when playing this deck to tell you wether it is enough, but my suspicion is that it's too slow. I'm currently running 2 celestial flare and 2 dead drop, 1 displacement wave.
What I do like alot is the ramp turn 3 which turns on your awaken very quickly/allows you to whipe board T4. This is for instance a problem in covert's list that generally is too far behind t4 to be making a few tokens and hope to survive from there. I also run a singleton angelic edict. I find the lands to be wincon enough with Part the Waterveil but maybe cutting 1 spout for Ulamog might be good too.
It's a real fun deck to pilot too.

Keep up the good work, both of you

I think i just played against you! gg

GG.
Still salty.

That's two games I sortof lost today because of bugged features. Although even if greenwarden would work correctly, its unlikely I couldve beaten those two consecutive topdecks.

Just lost right after to thopters because for some reason, interface said 'nope, don't feel like casting scatter to the winds, no matter how often you click. What? that's a ravaging blaze for 5 ? yeah, deal with it bro, still not casting !'

Ya the bugs can definitely get annoying, I've been having a lot less trouble with them though lately

accept my friend request!!

Another remark on Geg's list : too many awaken costs/effects that cost 6. Just lost another game vs a curved out gruul.

Had 3 land, a natural connection, Coastal discovery, an offshoot, and a deaddrop as starter. Drew into double retreats, waterveil and another dead drop, discovered a 5th land and jace. the guy went T4 incarnate (dead drop after taking 5). Jace got bolted, guy drops a colossus (dead drop after taking 6), drops Gaea.
Now if I hit my 6th land I go deaddrop with awaken on colossus then renewal into 9/9 plume and point my finger and laugh at gaia; so I got very unlucky to not hit 2 land in that entire sequence, still; it's a huge issue : too many 6 drop effects.

0/3 so far I'm sad to say. 1 Loss due to bug on counterspell, 1 due to Murasa's bug / skillfull Coexist topdecks (seriously, empty board, no cards in hand, he goes Gideon into Ob nixilis, lol), 1 due to possible structural issue with the deck.

Ended 3/3 beating a control deck and 2 more gruul coockie cutters.

It's clunky but it's fun and playable Geg. A+

I had 2 minions in play! the 2/2 and 1/3

wasn't it just the 2/2 ? I already forgot ^^

It's interesting that we both ended up with pretty much the same changes independently. Take a look at the post above yours: I also cut the dead drops and celestial flares to 2 copies each, in order to make room for Ulamog and Greenwarden. I agree that Ulamog isn't needed as a wincondition (although it can't hurt) - he's mainly there to exile 2 targets. With all the ramp I feel he's the better Angelic Edict (unless you desperately need something earlier). I updated the list with my changes and it should look very similar to yours now. I don't run Displacement Wave anymore though.

I've had good results with the updated list and I think you got a little unlucky with your 3/3 score lately. When you build your decks to compete in a broad meta without sideboarding, there's little you can do about getting the wrong cards from time to time. If you feel like it's more than that and you want more options against gruul and aggro alike, you could go 4x celestial flare and 0x sheer drop. After all you mentioned there are too many 6 mana awaken spells for your taste anyway.

Your recommendations seem to lead the deck to a very different road, which may be the right thing to do. One thing I think I am sure of is that I want Offshoots in there because in just one day I have learned how much work they do against red. Anyway, I'm very aware the deck needs testing and work, and it is probably far from a finished product, just something I wanted to try. Thanks for the feedback.

I just took it for a few games and the results were crushing. I didn't draw nearly enough lands to make use of landfall. It is also incredibly slow to build up - much slower than it looks on paper. I think my awaken deck can actually play Ulamog earlier than this deck gets a good swing in. This was with Evolpea and I assume the first problem is even bigger without.

I don't know what to suggest right now. There is no room for Nissa's Pilgrimage and even if there was, I think it would actually slow the deck down and require many more forests, which would mess up the mana base.