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STORE CATEGORIES

An Emperor-Sized Choice

Craig Symonds

By Craig Symonds
05/18/2005

Here's what I think are the top three multiplayer enchantments:

Collective Restraint
Honden of Infinite Rage

Honden of Life's Web

Okay, so they might not be the three best possible enchantments — but they work well in my deck, and worked really well in this multiplayer game.

So here's my deck list:

Collective Restraint
Featured by Craig Symonds on 2005-05-15
As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9650.html
Print this deck!
Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Clearwater Goblet
2 Ornate Kanzashi

Creatures
1 Charging Troll
2 Joiner Adept
1 Necravolver
1 Noble Panther
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sunscape Battlemage

Enchantments
1 Collective Restraint
3 Ghostly Prison


Instants
1 Beacon Of Immortality
4 Sprouting Vines

Legendary Creatures
1 Cromat

Legendary Enchantments
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
2 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Honden of Life's Web
1 Honden of Seeing Winds

Sorceries
1 Beacon Of Unrest
1 Coalition Victory
3 Last Stand
3 Planar Despair

Basic Lands
8 Forest
3 Island
4 Mountain
4 Plains
5 Swamp
Stats:
Average mana: 2.32
Average creature mana cost: 2.73
Average creature power: 2.09
Average creature toughness: 1.91

Deck Composition:
Basic Lands: 40.00%
Legendary Creatures: 1.67%
Sorceries: 13.33%
Creatures: 16.67%
Artifacts: 5.00%
Enchantments: 6.67%
Legendary Enchantments: 8.33%
Instants: 8.33%



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As you have probably figured out, it's a Five-Color deck... And a pretty random one at that.

So, how do these three enchantments work in my deck? Well, when I have WUBRG out, Collective Restraint is awesome. Each opponent has to pay five for each creature to attack. When combined with the Ghostly Prisons, each opponent needs a lot of mana just to attack with one creature. This is really useful, as my deck tends to be a little slow at times.

For when they have enough mana to actually attack me, I have my Honden of Life's Web. I use the tokens to chump block whatever creatures actually make it past the Restraint and Prisons. With multiple Hondens in play, I can actually chump block and build up an army at the same time.

The Honden of Infinite Rage allows me take out opponent's creatures as well as attacking them directly. Then I can swing through with my 1/1 tokens. With several Hondens in play, the better, as theses two Hondens work great when dealing three or four damage, and creating three or four tokens a turn.

While the opponent is stalled, I can pull out cards like Legacy Weapon to take out the greatest threat to me. I can also pull off the Cromat/Coalition Victory combo — but that's pretty cheap, so I usually don't do it. Instead, I notify my opponents I would have one, then keep playing.

Beacon of Immortality and Clearwater Goblet allow me to survive burn spells and beatdowns. My Necravolver, fully kickered, works quite nicely as well. I can deck my opponents with Ornate Kanzashi, or — seeing as I have a five-color deck — I can usually play their own spells against them. Last Stand is great, especially if I get into trouble, hence the name. And we can't forget Planar Despair. Army of creatures? What army? Then just use Beacon of Unrest to bring back their creatures under your control and swing away.

Joiner Adept is useful early game if I get color-screwed.... though by the time my opponent kills them, I usually have WUBRG anyway thanks to my Tribe Elders and Sprouting Vines. A few random creatures fill out my deck and also help to stall my opponent or attack them, depending on board position.

When I saw this topic, I remembered a game of Emperor I had with my friends, where I realised how useful some of my enchantments were. I'll use this game as an example. For those who don't know what an Emperor game is, I'll give a quick explanation:

There are two teams of three people. Each team has an Emperor flanked by two bodyguards.

Each person gets a turn, usually moving in a clockwise direction. The aim of each team is to kill the other team's Emperor. The bodyguards have a range of one — so spells, abilities, and creatures, can only attack the closest person. At the start of the game, this means that Bodyguard 1s can only attack the other Bodyguard 1, and so on.

Emperors have a spell and ability range of two — in other words, they can help out their body guards using spells and abilities. They can't attack opposing bodyguards with creatures until their bodyguard has been killed off.

I was one of the Emperors.

My Bodyguards, Peiran and Joseph, were playing an Ire of Kaminari deck and a Green spirit deck of some sort respectively. I can't remember what they were playing for a reason, which will be explained in a moment.

The opposing emperor, Jack, was playing his elf deck. His bodyguards, Yan and Yil, were playing a 5-Color Honden deck (complete with a couple of Myojin Of Cleansing Fires and Shining Shoals) and a White Soldier deck respectively.

My deck started out slower than usual, and I didn't get much out in the first few turns except land. The game progressed on. Peiran Ire of Kaminari'd Yan for over ten damage. Yan responded with Shining Shoal, removing Final Judgment. Yan got his Myojin out, and proceeded to beat down Peiran with it.

On my other side, Joseph wasn't faring too well, either. He wasn't drawing enough creatures, whereas his opponent Yil was drawing plenty of soldiers. His soldiers ended up getting +1/+2 and he had a Neurok Hoversail in for good measure.

My bodyguards were killed off in about ten minutes. (So it's no wonder I couldn't remember exactly which decks they played.)

By this time I managed to get Collective Restraint and Ghostly Prison, along with Ornate Kanzashi. As I had WUBRG out, my opponents had to pay seven to attack me. Yil didn't have this much mana, so I could ignore him for the meantime. I had a Honden of Life's Web in my hand — but since playing a Honden deck, he could play one of his own to destroy mine, and where I only had one in my deck, he had about three. I used Ornate Kanzashi — and lo and behold, I drew his Honden of Life's Web! What luck!

By this time, Yan had plenty of mana and was able to attack me with his Myojin. The Honden couldn't have come at a better time. I could use the little tokens made by it to chump block his Myojin.

Then to my horror, Yil pulled out a Viridian Longbow, while Yan pulled out a Honden of Infinite Rage. They could now ping me for damage — a way around my Collective Restraint and Ghostly Prison. It also got rid of my chump blockers.

It was then that I top-decked Beacon of Immortality, which boosted my life total to a level that could withstand the relentless pinging. I ended up playing a Honden of Infinite Rage myself later in the game, destroying Yan's in the process. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Later, I played my second Honden, thereby also increasing the number of chump blockers I had, as Yan was starting to play small creatures such as Sakura-Tribe Elder that became much larger with the help of Jack's elvish pumping magic.

Now what was Jack, my opposing Emperor, doing? He was busy pulling elves out left, right, and center. He was gaining life from his Well-wishers and amassing an army of elves. Luckily, he couldn't attack me as Yan was in the way, and he didn't have enough mana. He had some big creatures out such as the Heedless One, stuff with Mythic Proportions on it, and 7/7 tokens thanks to his Voice of the Woods. My Planar Despair took care of most of his elves, but he still had quite a lot of big elves in play. It also took care of my one remaining Joiner Dept, but as I already had WUBRG out, it didn't really matter too much. As I was decking Yan with my Ornate Kanzashi (the only way I could kill him) I realised I should stop decking Yan, and start trying to kill off Jack's army. Yil was still sitting there, largely ignored by me, pinging away with his Longbow.

It was then that the gods of Magic smiled upon me. With double WUBRG in play, Yan with two creatures, Jack and Yil with not enough mana to attack, I topdecked Legacy Weapon. As Yan's creatures were soon removed, they realised that they had no way to defeat me, and conceded defeat.

So just over an hour after both my bodyguards were defeated, I won the game.

Basically, you need to stall your opponent's creatures with Collective Restraint, then ping opponents with Honden of Infinite Rage and use spirit tokens gained from Honden of Life's Web to block any attacking creatures that manage to get through. And that is why I believe that the Top Three Best Multiplayer Enchantments are Collective Restraint, Honden of Infinite Rage and Honden of Life's Web.


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