Three Unique Enchantress Decks for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Standard

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Two thousand years later and finally we are in Kamigawa again! Yes, I know that many of you probably didn’t play during our first visit to Kamigawa (that was 17 years ago)… Many others probably have also stopped playing during that time, but there’s no better time to be playing MTG than now.

Although not everyone might be excited to know that we were returning to this plane (for some, the first visit left something to be desired), I was very happy about it when it was first announced and working on this column reminds me why. Even if not all the things that defined Kamigawa at the time are present in Neon Dynasty (like spirits), many others are: Ninjas, legends, samurais, dragons… all of these accompanied with a bunch of unexpected artifacts and enchantments.

After reviewing the set, I strongly believe two things.

1. NEO Limited is going to be amazing and
2. Standard is going to have a lot of new decks. Even if there’s a lot of cards that can reinforce all the tier 1 decks, there are many others that can present new and interesting strategies.

In this column I’m going to present three decks list. Two are going to be new strategies and one is an improved version of an old acquaintance.

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Golgari Enchantments Rock

One of the first cards of NEO that caught my attention was Tatsunari. One of the main goals of the deck is making Tatsunari be a nuisance for our opponents. We have 21 enchantments in our deck (8 of them are creatures too!); that means that Keimi, the frog token that Tatsunari makes, when we cast an enchantment is going to be there almost all the time, which translates to two 3/3 bodies that are going to be attacking with evasion + many life draining triggers from Keimi.

Our three other creatures are also from NEO. We’re not a heavy sacrifice centered deck, but having Dockside Chef seems like it would be incredible in this shell. His most important function is triggering Tatsunari and Keimi for just one black mana, but nonetheless, having a 1B sacrifice ability that lets us draw a card, makes him work well with our other creatures. If one of our creatures is going to die, we can sacrifice it to recover the card.

Kami of Transience and Weaver of Harmony require a special mention. Both cards look very promising, not only in this shell but in many others (as we can also see in our next deck). With 21 enchantments, Kami of Transience is going to be huge almost every single game and it has trample! Attacking with a trampling 3/3 on turn 3 makes me reminsce about Pelt Collector in some way. The incredible part here is that it can go back to our hand if one of our enchantments goes to the graveyard, something that’s very easy to do with Binding the Old Gods,, multiple copies of The Meathook Massacre, or Dockside Chef sacrificing an enchantment creature. That kind of recursion is what makes rock decks what they are!

Weaver of Harmony is one of my favorite cards in the set. It can give +1/+1 to enchantment creatures, but in this deck it’s its second ability that shines the most. For 1 green mana, it lets us copy any triggered or activated ability from an enchantment we control. That means: double wolf or double +1/+1 counter from Ranger Class, bigger The Meathook Massacre (yes, the -x/-x is a triggered ability), double removal and ramp with Binding the Old Gods, and last but not least, more skeleton tokens with Skeletal Swarming. That’s a lot of value!

3 Infernal Grasp and 1 Bloodchief's Thirst complete our list. Without a doubt this looks very interesting and surely is one of the first things I’m going to try this Thursday. The only new lands are Takenuma, Abandoned Mire and Boseiju, Who Endures. Many would say that these new legendary lands are one of the most powerful lands printed in the last years, and they are not wrong. Boseiju is particularly the best one (probably sharing the spotlight with Otawara, Soaring City). Imagine having a modal land, just like the Zendikar Rising ones that could do a mix between Disenchant and Field of Ruin that can even cost 1 if we have Tatsunari or Keimi on the field. With all the artifacts and enchantments that this set is bringing, plus all the AFR creature-lands, Boseiju is going to be around for a while. The reasoning for the 27 lands is held up by these legendary lands. If we have 1 Boseiju on the field, our other three lands are probably going to be channeled, so we prefer to count them as spells.

Our sideboard is pretty straightforward: discard and more skeletons for grindy match-ups, removal for aggro and threats.

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Selesnya Enchantments Stompy

There can’t be a new format without a new aggro deck. Yes, many times some aggro decks get improved and succeed, but here, my friends, we have a new beast in front of us: Enchantments Stompy! (I didn’t think those two words could be in the same sentence until now, haha).

This is the deck with the highest number of new cards. The reason behind this if that many creatures in Neon Dynasty are also enchantments, which allows us to take advantage of Weaver of Harmony‘s first ability. Generous Visitor is some kind of baby Luminarch Aspirant (that is also in our deck). With both, our creatures can get out of range of any damage removal spells very quickly. This in combination with Jukai Naturalist allows us to swarm the board quickly enough while making a lot of heavy threats at the same time. With Naturalist, 18 of our cards cost 1 less mana, 15 of them going down to one. Ranger Class, Weaver of Harmony, Spirited Companion are all good cards, but for one mana they became amazing!

We already talked about Kami of Transience. Having it in combination with Generous Visitor + Luminarch Aspirant could make the game get out of control in a snap, and having the chance of recovering the Kami when almost any other of our creatures dies makes this creature very important to keep the aggro swinging at our opponent’s life total.

Leaving aside our package of instants that protects our plan (winning and swinging with creatures), there’s a very fun and interesting card. Remember Myr Enforcer? It’s back in form of Sky-Blessed Samurai, and now it flies! Without a doubt, this kind of deck core is going to be his best way of shining in this new upcoming Standard.

It has already become clear how we should consider the new legendary lands while assembling our mana base. We play 6 one mana cards and the rest (besides Wedding Announcement and Sky-Blessed Samurai) are two mana cards. Most of the time we are good with just two or three lands in play so, we play 21 lands, including a pair of Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, plus 3 Boseiju, Who Endures + 2 Sejiri Shelter, making a very healthy total of 23.

Something important to mention about our sideboard is the single Plains there. That basic land is there because just like we said, we are a very low curve deck. If we want to play Guardian of Faith in game 2 or 3, putting the extra land would help us to assure Guardian is going to be there when we need it.

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Selesnya Enchantments Landfall/Tokens

Selesnya Ramp is a deck that has an interesting history in the present standard. When Innistrad: Midnight Hunt was released, Storm the Festival quickly became one of the best cards. In combination with Wrenn and Seven, many ramp strategies try to play the green sorcery as soon as possible. For a while, Storm the Festival was the way to go for competitive play. Sultai, Bant and many other combinations try to exploit the card to the fullest. With the passing of the weeks and the rise of other strategies, the deck stopped seeing play.

During the past few days though, the deck started winning tournaments in Magic Online. The formula change a little bit, now the deck only plays 1 Storm the Festival and uses Starnheim Unleashed and Felidar Retreat as ways to maximize win conditions. This in combination with Wedding Announcement brings the deck back to life once again.

Studying the archetype and NEO spoilers made me realize one pretty strong interaction:

Kodama of the West Tree gives two buffs to modified creatures: trample, that is very good against blockers, but most importantly, whenever a modified creature deals damage to our opponent we can search for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. When we put a land into play, Felidar Retreat lets us: create a 2/2 token or put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control. Creatures with +1/+1 are considered as modified, so…

Imagine we have one 2/2 cat beast in play. We play a land, put a +1/+1 counter on it and then attack having Kodama in play. That means that we are going to put two more lands into play, triggering Felidar Retreat two times.

This, in combination with the old Selesnya Ramp shell gives us an incredible amount of relevant threats and win conditions, making our opponent stumble trying to stop all of them.

Besides the legendary lands, we also include another new card. Even if we play just 10 enchantments, Jukai Naturalist enables amazing turns for us: turn two Jukai Naturalist > turn three Circle of Confinement + Wedding Announcement, removing a creature and starting our token/card advantage engine. This plus the capability of playing Felidar Retreat for three mana makes me think Jukai deserves a slot in the archetype, at least for testing purposes. The numbers of Jukai Naturalist, Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, Prosperous Innkeeper and Tangled Florahedron probably will change during future testing, but without a doubt, the combination of Kodama of the West Tree + Felidar Retreat and Selesnya Ramp is going to be there as a tier 1 contender.

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Round Up

I just can’t wait until Thursday. Kamigawa is bringing a lot of amazing cards. Many known archetypes are going to be upgraded, but most importantly, many new ones are going to emerge. Besides enchantments, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has a lot of artifacts, which is going to be relevant in the new meta. There are other good enchantments in Standard to build around like Hallowed Haunting or Spirit-Sister’s Call too!

NEO is definitely something that we were waiting for for a long time. A set with a promising limited format, amazing cards for our decks, and many others for brewing new ones. There are cards like Commune with Spirits that can also be tested in all of the presented decks. From the three presented lists I will probably first play the Rock one. Tatsunari, Toad Rider has to be one of my first Kamigawa cards to put into play, but the Enchantment Stompy one looks very very promising. Who knows, surely Selesnya Ramp is going to carry many to Mythic, and in the meanwhile, a Mono Red with Reinforced Ronin could surprise us all. May time fly by and allow us to discover it together soon!

Until the next time, don’t forget to smile. ^ -^