I have a couple questions I’m hoping someone could answer for me.

1. If I have a Runed Halo in play and I cast Copy Enchantment, do I get to name a new card or does it copy the Runed Halo target as well?
2. It looks like Suppression Field interacts with a lot of cards you play right now as well, has this ever hosed you? Is this far and away better then Stony Silence? I get that it has a wider array of cards it interacts with however I’m concerned about having to play around my own cards as well.
3. If you use the epic on Enduring Ideal to fetch Form of the Dragon, do you get to activate form as well that turn?

Thanks to anyone who answers 😀

I managed to qualify for the online PTQ with this deck:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6066501/ideal.jpg

If people don’t pull the trigger to soon on bans I’m excited to see a world with less BGx

Oh, you don’t even play Meishin, the Mind Cage o.O THAT is a lock down card.

Besides this, yeah, I have some spare money, but I’m currently foiling out Ritual Gifts for w/e reason (probably because the cards are nice in foil ^^ ).

Greetings,
Kathal

I love that kind of opening, but it’s more RW Lockdown to me than it is Enduring Ideal. Magus of the Tabernacle wants to join that party, as does Ensnaring Bridge, and at that point we no longer have the critical mass of enchantments to get things like Sphere or Nykthos to work. Great strategy, though! Just for a different deck.

Enchantress can definitely use stuff like Sigil, but it’s pretty bad in the Ideal version. Maindeck Moon and Chalice are also strong, but I think that lends itself more to the RW Lockdown style of play and less to the Enduring Ideal one. Great cards, just for a different deck. As for Tithe, I initially tested the card both maindecked and sideboarded until ditching it for Path. When it’s good it’s very good, but when it’s bad or mediocre it’s the last thing you want to see. On most turns, you’re using your mana to do something, which means Tithe is really at its best only on turn one. That said, I think Tithe would be great in a Jeskai Delver strategy where you do have early clocks that can exert pressure while you screen your win conditions with white Force Spike.

Don’t buy back in yet! At least, unless the nostalgia factor is too strong to ignore and you have some money to spare on fringe Modern amusement.

Colonnade is great in the UW deck versions, but I’m always leery of too many creature-based win conditions. Starfield falls in this category too. Greater Auramancy makes something like Starfield much stronger, but you’re still turning on a lot of otherwise dead cards in an opponent’s hand. Virtual card advantage via removal-blanking is very real, and this deck can exploit that in a metagame packed with spells to kill creatures.

Elves is a bad matchup but rare enough that I’m not too worried. You can clean it up in the sideboard too so you’re at least closer to 45-55 and not 65-35 or something horrible. Affinity has been much better for me, especially because most Affinity builds gain very, very little after sideboarding whereas we gain a ton. I’m normally on board with making strategies more proactive, but something like Runed Halo is enough of a catchall to help you hold those early turns until you really establish the prison. Overall, it’s hardly Tier 1 material, but the deck has a lot of surprise power in this metagame!

Glad you enjoyed the Enduring Ideal sampling! 3 Leyline is nice in certain metagames because you get an extra valuable slot while maintaining most of your consistency. I also enjoy Nodes and Heliod, but really felt a need for those instant-speed, targeted Paths more than I wanted the recurring Nodes removal. Also, Grids are the bomb against control.

I really like playing the Boros version of prison. My chalice and blood moon with simian spirit guide is sexy for sure. The wincons are a lot less solid, though. Assemble is great, but I feel like running more than 2 leads to clunky starts, which you really want to avoid when setting up the early lock. gemstone caverns is also great and was tech I discovered before the pro tour.

That all said, the strongest draws are for sure a turn 1 chalice or other lock piece, but when I go to follow up with a turn 2 blood moon or really anything else, it just seems so much worse than a thought knot lol.

I am pretty sure the best follow up to a first turn lock piece is eldrazi, not more lock pieces XD

Also, I have a WR version in my paper meta that uses Blood Moon and Chalice MB, it’s brutal.

I do like the Paths though, not sure why most on the primer do not run them… I added Mana Tithe to my friends mono W version for early tempo delay to get some enchants down.

Also, I thought nonteir 1 decks were frowned upon here… Can’t just brew up trash! Only react to successful decks then netdeck!… or is one win enough to do that. 🙂

Just poking fun, keep up the good work, man.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: However, well written but I still miss my petcard 3Sphere, always funny when opponents are desperately trying to get anything going.

I had very similar thoughts about the deck. Is Starfield of Nyx or Grim Guardian too slow of a clock? Other thoughts for a clock include Yavimaya Enchantress, though that puts you in green, and/or Helm of the Gods + manlands. That gives you an even more absurdly powerful Celestial Colonnade.

I want to believe, I really do. I just think the deck needs something to make it more proactive rather than relying on locking down your enemy before they kill you and hoping that they have nothing to deal with enchantments.

Jokes aside, thank you for writing about this archetype. The deck is a blast! Challenging, unique, it has some of the best tools out of the sideboard modern can offer, which make almost anything at least a “fair” match up. There’s many different variants of the deck, I’m a big fan of a naya & abzan builds that I play which utilize cards like faithless looting, Doomwake Giant, and Starfield of Nyx.

Heliod and porphyry nodes are a potent pairing. And I can’t sing the praises of suppression field enough. Runed halo is amazing in the current field of Eldrazi and infectors and greater auramancy (& bigger brother privileged position) can blank quite a few decks.

I think 3 leylines in the main is enough to see it when you need it, but I imagine that’s a meta call. Speaking of our meta, prison decks are notoriously bad against tron and other big mana decks (combo elves comes to mind) and I haven’t seen a ton of those online since Eldrazi started dominanting. So now, in my opinion, is the time for enchantments to shine.

Thanks for a great article, and thanks for calling attention to an under appreciated archetype.

P.S. If you find that during your testing control is an issue, try defense grids out of the board. Don’t forget that the deck can be built to support constellation cards like eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant as well. Seriously, multiple Doomwakes are lights out. And if you’re really into wacky ideas, manabarbs and pyrohemia…good times.