Enter The Guildhall

Call it What You Want (Brawl)

12 Jun 2020 - 10 min read

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Some of the most powerful stories are those of people and characters redefining themselves and rising to a greater challenge. Whether you’re John Wick, the oblivious half of a rom-com couple, or perhaps the greatest comeback champ of all time: Taylor Swift.

Love Story

In our last Brawl Homebrew (found here), we explored the potential of an absolute blast from the past, Hanna, Ships Navigator , the Brawl Guildhall legend of the month. For me, it was love at first sight. Fresh off building an incredible Selesnya Auras deck championed by Siona, Captain of the Pyleas , I felt the switch to Azorius for similar Enchanted shenanigans would be relatively simple. Recursion of our Elspeth Conquers Death and Kiora Bests the Sea God seemed too good to pass up!

But as we soon discovered, Magic has come a long way since Invasion and what was once an absolutely incredible ability comes in just too little too late 9 times out of 10. Legends like Yarok, the Desecrated or Snapdax, Apex of the Hunt continued to have the drop on our build making Hanna feel a bit like a liability. While we didn’t lose those games, they were always incredibly close. In fact our only loss was to…

Another enchantment and artifact commander, except this one has an extra slew of keywords and doesn’t need to be tapped. It was a bloodbath. Alela and her flock (is a grouping of faeries called a flock? A mischief?) dive-bombed poor Hanna until there was nothing left. Absolute tragedy.

But I know this is not the end Taylor Swift would approve of. No, if she were here she’d say to be Fearless, because in the wise words of the rocker herself, “Fearless is getting back up and fighting for what you want all over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost.” I can’t let T Swift down. Maybe Hanna just isn’t the right call for enchantments/artifacts in Brawl right now. Perhaps we’ll get more powerful artifact support down the line that will help her become an absolute powerhouse but for now, I need to look elsewhere if I want to succeed with an artifact and enchantment focused build. Maybe to Hanna’s greatest nemesis in the Brawl Guildhall.

Look What You Made Me Do

That’s right. It’s time to put on our war paint, get our act together, and bring the fight back to Alela. You know what that means:

We’re going to build our own version of the legendary pushed-for-brawl faerie, but better, and it’s going to be absolutely awesome! The disappointing days of dropping enchantments and having to wait for them to leave the battlefield to get value from our commander are gone. As soon as Alela hits the field we’ll be filling it with a Mischief (I’ve decided that’s cooler sounding than a flock) of Faeries that don’t know the word “mercy”.

Probably the biggest change to our deck is going to be a flyer subtheme. While Alela creates 1/1 flyers with every enchantment and artifact cast, she also gives all flyers +1/+0 because Alela takes no prisoners…and needed to sell pre-constructed Brawl decks. Divine Visitation is an absolute must for any token theme, trading all our meager 1/1s in for 4/4 Angels, ready to rain down holy hellfire on all those doubters. “In a relationship each person should support the other; they should lift each other up.” Alela provides Divine Visitation with an endless supply of tokens and Visitation makes them the angels they are. It’s a match made in heaven. Winged Words provides draw at an amazing rate with any flyers on the field, and Luminous Broodmoth makes sure any of our wingless support gets their chance in the sky.

We’ll also be taking advantage of Archon of Sun’s Grace for even more flying tokens and enchantment synergy, as well as Ethereal Absolution to…okay I’m assuming you’re getting the idea by now. We’re going to have sooo many flyers, it’ll be great.

Enchanted

Since this deck was initially a derivation of our Hanna deck, there might be some redundancy in this cardpool but we’ll pick out some specific all-stars for the highlights.

Most of our enchantments are still sitting squarely in Azorius, with Mire’s Grasp as our only mono-black one, but that’s to be expected. Elspeth Conquering death is quite a saga, and with that first turn being able to permanently exile someone’s commander or any real threat is truly Better Than Revenge. Smothering Tithe is a card I only recently invested a wildcard in and man, oh man was I missing out. Generating disposable mana is incredibly potent, especially against draw decks AND provides the perfect chump fodder against a Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God . All That Glitters should win some kind of record for being in all of our enchantment decks to date, but it’s just so good the decision is warranted. Even at its worst, it’ll give a creature +1/+1 and generate a flying 2/1 so I really can’t ever be complaining.

Bad Blood

But Chev, if we’re putting our faith in Alela what happens when we take the black? Well, a lot actually. Turns out adding black to our available cardpool is a great way to throw in powerful removal. Who knew?!

That’s right, this time we’re not messing around. Yes, we’re still running Heliod’s Punishment and Banishing Light as a first line of defense (and synergy), but fool me twice? Baby, now we got Bad Blood and what we’re going to do will be pretty heartless.

…Ready for It?

Here’s the decklist, and don’t worry I’m not telling Hanna that We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. I think she still has an incredible amount of utility because, I mean who can pass up the opportunity to drop Kiora bests the Sea God twice in a single game? Not me, that’s for sure.

I Did Something Bad

This deck is a powerhouse. While including all the control power Hanna’s Azorius shell was able to provide, stopping dangerous commander’s in their tracks with Prison Realm or Didn’t Say Please , and keeping such enchantment must-haves like Archon of Sun’s Grace , we’re able to create a solid board state before Alela even hits the board. Once she hits the board, the pace goes up to 11 as we start generating fliers at insane rates and just keep the fight in the air to close out the game.

In a five-game run we went 4-1, but this loss was incredibly close and was mainly due to drawing nothing but lands for six straight turns. Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God was able to produce just enough flyers to keep us from lethal until finally dropping a Liliana, Dreadhorde General and making us sac our board. A beautiful fight.

One ridiculous highlight I wish I caught on stream was the interaction between Kiora Bests the Sea God and Divine Visitation . It’s all fun and games until the 8/8 hexproof kraken you were counting on becomes a 4/4. Doh.

All-in-all, this was the comeback of the month, showing the likes of Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Yarok, the Desecrated that there are commanders out there who can really utilize the enchantment theme with power and grace. Call It What You Want, but this truly has been The Best Day. Oh, and if you absolutely fall hard and fast for this deck? Don’t blame me. Alela is here to Stay Stay Stay.

More Entries in Enter The Guildhall:

• 18 Aug 2020: Whole Lotta Lands (Brawl)
• 13 Jul 2020: The Godfather (Brawl)
• 28 May 2020: Flight of the Navigator (Brawl)
• 28 May 2020: An Introduction to Brawl
• 14 May 2020: Siona and the Argonauts (Brawl)

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