Defending My Cornerstone Crown at the Top Deck Games With Enchantress
Woke up at 9:30 a.m. I prepped my bag and gear the night before so I could sleep longer and be ready to do my morning rituals, get dressed, and walk out the door.
From my house to the Morris/Tasker stop on the Philadelphia Broad Street line, to the 15-16th Patco, to Woodcrest Station. Who says Philly’s public transit system is lackluster? On the last mile, I got a ride to Top Deck Games because South Jersey is a hellscape of stroads upon which I would have had to risk my immortal soul to travel on foot.
I’m playing Enchantress. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for a year, you know I’m playing {Enchantress}. One of the great things about Sorcery: Contested Realm is that playing the same deck and telegraphing information is not much of a hindrance, especially this late in the metagame. Players have to reveal their Avatars, and you can't hide much at that point. The only meaningful information is the elements and specific cards in your deck. An Avatar tells you a lot about how the match should play out. Some Avatars have several builds, but few stray so far from their Aggro/Midrange/Control roots that you are likely to mulligan wrong.
I won’t bury the lede: I won the tournament, going 8-0, undefeated on the day; quite impressive even to me. If there is one thing to take away from this article, one piece of advice I can offer: account for your opponent’s Avatar and assess your hand accordingly by asking:
“Is this the best start I can have start against this Avatar’s most common build?”
I asked myself that question every game. It always helped me identify the better cards in my deck to start the game with. I’ll use examples as I dive into each match. I was incredibly rewarded for answering that one question. Almost every time I mulliganed with the opponent’s Avatar in mind, I found the appropriate hate card. It felt like my opponent’s Avatars' only ability was [tap]: play or draw a site.
Round One vs. Pathfinder
Travis was on Mono [fire] Aggro {Pathfinder}; the deck I fear most. If {Pathfinder} can get under my auras, I’m in real trouble. I was fortunate that Travis’s opening was relatively soft compared to what I’m used to losing to.
Travis was on the play with a turn two {Vile Imp} for no value. As we developed the Realm, I removed the {Vile Imp} and established {Thin Ice} adjacent to my {Perilous Bridge} at square 8 (top center). {Atlantean Fate} submerged a {War Horse} and {Sinterfree}.
{Wildfire} cleared some other threats and began attacking. Travis to 16. The following turn, I cast {Whirlwind{ on {Wildfire} to wipe another threat and land on his Avatar for an additional 4 damage. Then, I attacked his site and burned his Avatar for a total of 11 damage. Putting him to 7.
A {Major Explosion} and {Toolbox} for {Zap!} ended the game in subsequent turns.
Round Two vs. {Deathspeaker}
Nick on {Deathspeaker}, a match-up I was only incidentally prepared for. In 2025, I played {Pillars of Zeiros} in my Atlas. I had since swapped it for {Garden of Eden}, which remained a solid hate piece.
{Funeral Pyre} did some heavy lifting. I sandbagged it in my opener to ensure it got maximum value. Two {Forgotten Tomb}s hit {Ajaro Exorcist}s and a {Grandmaster Wizard}. I knew it was time to burn Nick’s dead minions.
My {Orm Infestor} started the damage run, and I was keen to turn it sideways. After a couple of turns, I brought it up for site attacks since I was at 20 life, felt safe from damage, but realized that he had a full grip from a {Grandmaster Wizard}. {Order of the Sacred Oak} and another hit from an animated {Thunderstorm} took Nick to Death’s Door. I had sufficient board presence to close the game from there.
Round Three vs. {Druid}
Case’s Druid deck was another in the line of decks I feared in the early game. Early value with {Tawny} and a combination of {Quarrelsome Kobolds} and {Colickly Dragonettes} can put me under. I did my best to keep the board clear. {Sir Agravaine} was sneaky-good as I started to get aggressive. I forgot his +1 Movement and lost my {Order of the Sacred Oak}.
Eventually, Case flipped his Druid and summoned {Bruin}. I set up a nice swing by catching several of Case’s minions in a {Major Explosion} from my {Merlin’s Tower}, but I lost my {Order of the Sacred Oak} in the exchange. I followed up with a {Daperyll Vampire} that was killed immediately. {Thunderstorm} finally broke through for damage: 17-13-6-door.
Round Four vs. Savior
Kevin’s Steam {Savior} list was intense! {Goswhit Helmet} was really tough to deal with. His deck had all the hallmarks of the Dank {Necromancer}’s Control suite, with an aggressive [fire] half that I had to respect. {Ring of Morrigan} was my saving grace. I would have mulliganed hard for it, but I fortunately had it in my opener.
I pivoted to attacking after the {Ring of Morrigan} plus removal/auras did their job. Kevin unleashed {Lilith}. I’m not minion-lite, but my deck had fewer than most. Thankfully, {Lilith} saw {Whirling Blades} before I promptly killed her.
I was fortunate that the {Garden of Eden} was in the Realm when {Morgana Le Fay} was summoned. She would have reloaded the Realm with threats when it would still take 10 hits from me to get him to Death’s Door. {Garden of Eden} was worth its weight in gold!
Round Five vs. Necromancer
Sean’s {Necromancer} was a pretty solid mono [water] build with a few spicy updates. {Tufted Turtles} never hit the board against me, but I know from experience that they are a real pain. I stayed in the driver’s seat for most of the game by lining up my board wipes and removal for max effectiveness.
I don’t remember if I cast {Poison Nova}, but I did cast {Wrath of the Sea} to submerge five minions to leave only my {Coy Nixie} against some of Sean’s Frog tokens. {Gilman House} did a lot of work. He summoned three {Horrible Hybrids} from his Collection. {Coy Nixie} had to start attacking so a {Wildfire} could land on {Necromancer}’s head to end the game.
Undefeated Through the Swiss
Holy crap, 5-0! The games didn’t feel easy, but they were decisive! I never felt like I was in a situation where I needed a lucky top deck. Three of the five matches I closed swiftly once I became the aggressor.
The changes I made after Pittsburgh were extremely impactful. I’ll never leave home without three {Whirling Blades} again.
I took a moment to refocus and finish my chicken sandwich, which was excellent. Top Deck’s new food counter is a great improvement.
Quarterfinals vs. Archimago
Bryan’s {Archimago} didn’t put up much of a fight against me. I {Silence}d a {Kettletop Leprechaun} for value. {Mismanaged Mortuary} nerfed his Avatar. His Omphalos didn't offer him much.
{Cemetery Rats} is not favorable against {Wildfire}. {Order of the Sacred Oak} and {Wildfire} put in work pretty fast, and he was at Death’s Door quickly. Once there, Bryan conceded, so I didn’t need to find a way to finish him off. Hell of a run for him, though, in his first event!
Semifinals vs. {Sorcerer}
David is a known quantity in the NJ scene. I met him last year at the Gothic Release party waaaaaay deep in South Jersey. When he flipped over {Sorcerer}, I knew my best tool was {Garden of Eden}. It was not in my opening three sites, so I sent them away despite providing all the threshold I’d need.
BOOM! {Garden of Eden} was in my mulligan cards, and my elements were present! If you correctly build your Atlas, you can get a little greedy for hate.
I was top seed, so I took the play every match. I started with {Oasis} on square 3. David did something on his turn that colored the entire game: developed {Hamlet} and summoned {Grey Wolves}, but then took it back and developed a different site. Unfortunately for him, that reveal changed the game for me.
Seeing that David was playing Wolves, I decided I would make him come to me. My next sites were in square 2, then square 4. Playing to my back row and knowing that I would be in the perfect spot to watch him play the {Hamlet} on square 8 on his turn three and drop three wolves. The wolves were 3 power, and I placed my fourth site and cast {Wildfire} to remove all three wolves before they could overwhelm me.
That plan worked out exactly as planned. David’s response was “I think I just lost.”
Between the three-for-one and turning off his Avatar, I had to agree that I was pretty favored, but I played with the knowledge that any hubris on my end could be my undoing.
I maintained control for the rest of the game, but had trouble turning the corner as my hand was all removal. David continued to keep me on my toes with soldiers and double {Torshammer Trinket} — I was willing to take a hit from a soldier if I could find out they were two of his remaining three cards in hand.
{Poison Nova} cleared a couple of Wolves and the soldier. I drew threats to close the game. I was so fortunate to have seen him play the early wolf and take it back because I would have been 9 life down early and his wolves could have spread out.
Finals vs. Archimago
I love a good underdog story, so I was rooting for Matt in the top 8. Last year, he was my opponent in round five and in the finals. As last year's cornerstone runner-up, it would have been a real Karate Kid moment for him to climb all the way back and defeat me. It’s not a spoiler that I made my heel turn and won, but the match is worth talking about.
On the play, I developed {Mismanaged Mortuary} on my home square. Turn two, Matt cast {Common Sense} for {Land Mass}. My turn three was {Orm Infestor}. Matt’s was {Sinkhole}, {Landmass}.
I sent my {Orm Infestor} onto Matt’s side of the Realm. He developed {River of Flame} and cast {Firebolts}; smart play to kill the {Orm Infestor}! I returned with a turn four {Order of the Sacred Oak} to blank his {Sinkhole}.
On turn five, I summoned another {Order of the Sacred Oak} and attacked Matt to 16. He retorted with {Heirloom Lost} on my {Mismanaged Mortuary}, {Common Sense} again for {Land Mass}. On my turn seven, I attacked him to 10 with the {Order of the Sacred Oak}s and established {Abundance}, hoping I’d never have to draw a site for the rest of the game.
Matt’s turn seven was summoning {Gargantula} to web one of my {Order of the Sacred Oak}s. On turn eight, I took him from 10 to 7 life with the free {Order of the Sacred} and then cast a {Major Explosion} to send him to Death’s Door.
Matt had reasonable positioning and would have removed my {Order of the Sacred Oak}, but I just had to step over to him and cast {Ring of Morrigan} and another spell to ping him for the win. I had {Scatter}.
With that, I defended my Cornerstone crown, and it felt pretty good. I’ve been playing CCGs since I was 15 with a variable amount of good runs (e.g., Grands Prix Day Twos), but mostly I run in the middle of the pack in Magic: The Gathering.
Part of that is the speed with which cards in decks change and how well I know my deck at any point. Sorcery: Contested Realm moves slower and allows me to retain that deck familiarity and match-up matrix for much longer. For a guy like me who has a lot on his plate and not much time to practice outside of tournaments, that cycle is really nice.
Something my buddy Harry said to me as he was driving me to the train station was not that this was an impressive run with a deck of my own construction. For the most part, he’s correct.
My previous Cornerstone was just a tweaked version of Zalem’s [air][fire][water] pre-Gothic Enchantress. This cornerstone version was my own concoction. I took elements from other decks, I saw packages from other builds, and decided that Enchantress can play a “fair” minion suite with the best [water] threats, the best [air] spells, and splash [fire] for the must-play auras and control cards while making mana base, which is the true weakness of Enchantress, less of an issue.
I can’t say I got there alone, but the choices on this build were mine, and I don't know anyone else playing this build. I wear that badge proudly.
As I got onto the train, I put on my headphones and queued up Fight to Survive by Stan Bush (The Touch/Dare fame from the 1986 Transformers Soundtrack) and did my best the Warriors impression on the Patco.
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Featured image: {Crown of the Victor} by Elvira Shakirova