Fort of Pillows and Pain

Commander / EDH Enchantment Pillow Fort RUW (Jeskai, America)

spellshaper.quixote

Enchantment (33)

• 1x Copy Enchantment
• 1x Enchanted Evening
• 1x Estrid's Invocation
• 1x Fiery Emancipation
• 1x Frozen Aether
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Greater Auramancy
• 1x Jeskai Ascendancy
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Manabarbs
• 1x Mindmoil
• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Opalescence
• 1x Out of Time
• 1x Parallax Wave
• 1x Pendrell Mists
• 1x Possibility Storm
• 1x Pyrohemia
• 1x Repercussion
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Roiling Vortex
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 1x Smoke
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Soothsaying
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Starfield of Nyx
• 1x Sulfuric Vortex
• 1x Underworld Breach
• 1x War's Toll

Land (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 6x Island
• 6x Mountain
• 6x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Serra's Sanctum
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunbaked Canyon
• 1x Training Center

Creature (7)

• 1x Archon of Sun's Grace
• 1x Aura Thief
• 1x Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip
• 1x Forgeborn Oreads
• 1x Kykar, Wind's Fury
• 1x Mesa Enchantress
• 1x Monastery Mentor

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Cleansing Meditation
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Replenish
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Commander (1)

Instant (11)

• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Resculpt
• 1x Rewind

Artifact (7)

• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip

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The Fort of Pillows and Pain

Building the Fort

Ideally, the first few turns should be spent ramping and setting ground rules. Sol Ring and the Talismans are the deck's main forms of ramp, with Land Tax and Thaumatic Compass   also serving as solid ways of keeping up with other players. An early Smoke , Ghostly Prison , or Pendrell Mists can often be enough to blunt early-game aggression, allowing the deck to pivot to focusing more on card advantage and/or selection through Search for Azcanta  , Mesa Enchantress , and similar effects.

Once the basics are covered, more elaborate rules and defenses are called for. Frozen Aether keeps opponents one turn behind, and, when paired with Smoke , can be absolutely devastating to go-wide strategies. Taxing effects like Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe make opponents choose whether access to their own resources is worth the cost of giving Elsha more cards and mana to work with. Copy Enchantment , Estrid's Invocation , and Mirrormade allow a degree of fine control in tuning the deck's defenses--or, later, offenses--by offering the option of doubling up on certain effects. Of course, while the deck is primarily focused around enchantments, there are also more conventional pieces of removal, which can prove invaluable in maintaining control over the board. Of particular note is the combination between  Out of Time and  Opalescence : if Out of Time is a creature when its enters-the-battlefield trigger resolves, it will phase itself out as well. Since phasing out isn't leaving the battlefield, and phased-out permanents are treated as though they don't exist, this play permanently phases out all creatures on the battlefield with no chance of recovery. Notably, this includes commanders, which cannot be returned to the command zone instead of phasing out.

The various rules and punishments the deck puts in place are likely to draw more than a little enchantment removal, which Greater Auramancy and Hall of Heliod's Generosity try to work against. In a less direct way, Possibility Storm also tries to blank removal by turning it into something else entirely, but that's going to be less consistent. The deck will always be vulnerable to Tranquility effects, but can rebound from them with Replenish , Underworld Breach , or Starfield of Nyx , while Karmic Justice can sometimes be enough to dissuade opponents with less-developed board states from taking that particular plunge.

Bringing the Pain

After establishing a degree of control over the game, the next step is to begin chipping away at opponents' life totals. While Roiling Vortex , Sulfuric Vortex , and Manabarbs may not end the game quickly on their own, there is a certain inevitability to them--triply so if Fiery Emancipation is on the board. Forgeborn Oreads can serve as an additional clock or, if combined with Opalescence and Parallax Wave , a way to close out the game entirely. Pyrohemia can also be a consistent source of damage, especially when combined with Repercussion . Moreover, wiping the board with Blasphemous Act while Repercussion is on the battlefield can be yet another game-winning play in and of itself.

Unfortunately, even the most dedicated pillowfort deck can't always avoid combat, and Elsha's prowess triggers can sometimes be enough incentive to swing--especially if doubled by Jeskai Ascendancy 's triggers. Tokens from Monastery Mentor , Kykar, Wind's Fury , and Archon of Sun's Grace can supplement her attacks, especially if bolstered by Jeskai Ascendancy and/or Fiery Emancipation . And, in later stages of the game, an all-out assault with enchantments animated by Starfield of Nyx or Opalescence can be overwhelming enough to knock opponents out of the game. Of course, while Smoke blunts opponents' offensive capabilities, it can also dampen the effects of the deck's token generators, so Goblin Bombardment offers the solution of literally just throwing tokens at opponents or their creatures.

Notably, when combined with Kykar, Wind's Fury or Birgi, God of Storytelling  , Sensei's Divining Top allows Elsha to draw her entire deck, trigger prowess an absolutely absurd number of times, and generate an absolutely silly number of tokens from Monastery Mentor . With either Repercussion forcing the damage through or Cyclonic Rift clearing away any blockers--both fairly easy to arrange when the entire deck is in hand--the combo can be enough to remove an opponent from the game entirely. With an appropriate board presence, it can even be possible to take out all opponents in a single turn. Finally, if necessary, Commit / Memory or Echo of Eons can reset Elsha's library to a pristine state.

Some Enchanted Evening

A number of synergies and combos in the deck revolve around leveraging Enchanted Evening to do terrible things. The most straightforward interactions are Serra's Sanctum generating ridiculous amounts of mana, Sphere of Safety making it unrealistic for opponents to attack at all, and Aura Thief stealing control of all permanents. Cleansing Meditation , however, also becomes particularly mean when combined with Enchanted Evening and Threshold. Notably, Cleansing Meditation does not specify enchantment cards put into the graveyard, just "cards". As such, it serves to destroy all permanents Elsha doesn't control and merely flicker the ones that she does. Unfortunately, Copy Enchantment and friends will not be able to re-enter the battlefield as copies of anything, as the enchantments all return to the battlefield at the same time, due to the way replacement effects work. Still, often a small price to pay for a one-sided board wipe.

The interaction between Enchanted Evening and Opalescence is, however, quite possibly the most important one of all. When both Opalescence and Enchanted Evening are on the battlefield, all permanents are creatures with power and toughness equal to their converted mana costs. This means that any 0-cmc permanents--such as tokens, moxen, or lands--are immediately put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. What's more, any subsequently-entering 0-cmc permanents will also be put into their owners' graveyards before any actions can be taken. This move should only be made to secure a victory, as it more or less locks in the current board state. It is important to be aware that Starfield of Nyx has the same interaction with Enchanted Evening, but only on Elsha's side of the board, so such a combination should be avoided if possible.

There are a few other less game-defining interactions with Enchanted Evening. Notably, with Forgeborn Oreads and Enchanted Evening on the battlefield together, the Sensei's Divining Top combo mentioned earlier will result in 1 damage to any target each time the Top resolves. Archon of Sun's Grace , meanwhile, will immediately draw the game unless you control the Oreads, have  Goblin Bombardment out, or have removal in hand to get rid of the Archon.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.28
Tokens	Elemental 4/4 UR, Manifest 2/2 C, Monk 1/1 W, Pegasus 2/2 W, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	More EDH