Sean from NY here!  This time I've got a deck I'm helping a friend build for his Magic: Online account.  I hit upon the idea while examining the time-shifted Mesa Enchantress.  I've always had a soft spot for the enchantment creatures that appeared in Urza's Block, and the new Opal Guardian that they printed reminded me of them so much I though, "hey, why not build a deck around these old cards!"  So, the object of this deck is to play the enchantments out and force your opponent to contribute to your war effort, and if he/she should choose to hold back and rely on a couple nasties they drop on the board, well, that's what Condemn and Wrath of God are for.  Oh, and Opalesence is left out simply because I want these enchantments to reach their full potential, though perhaps in retrospect it might be better to include a couple copies.  Only problem is, I can't figure out what to take out/exchange!  Any suggestions would be appreciated, I want to polish this deck up for my friend as much as possible!  Thanks!!!

Opal Enchantress
7  Creature Spells:          Mana Cost:
4  Mesa Enchantress             1WW
3  Celestial Ancient            3WW

31 Non-creature Spells:
4  Condemn                      W
3  Opal Caryatid                W
3  Opal Gargoyle                1W
4  Dawn Charm                   1W
3  Opal Acrolith                2W
3  Opal Champion                2W
3  Opal Guardian                WWW
2  Opal Titan                   2WW
4  Wrath of God                 2WW
2  Opal Archangel               4W

22 Land:
22 Plains

I had to look up all those Opals to remind myself what they do.  Basically, each one is an enchantment similar to Halcyon Glaze of more recent sets.  Each one says, "Whenever an opponent plays a creature spell, if ~ is an enchantment, it becomes a _____ creature."  I did find one other Opal, which triggers not on your opponent's spells but on you having 10 life or less.  You're not running it, but it may be worth looking into, in case you get tired of relying on your opponent to bring your beautiful ivory statues to life.

Next, let's talk about Opalescence.  You mentioned it, but you also said you wanted your Opals to be all that they could be.  Almost ever Opal turns into a creature bigger than what Opalescence would make it, but hold on!  After examining the wordings of the Opals and the 'Escence (which coincidentally is the name of an old fairy tale my grandma used to tell me), my conception of the rules suggests that Opalescence wouldn't have such an effect on your other Opals.  The key is that the Opals' abilities all say, "if [CARDNAME] is an enchantment" and Opalescence says "It's still an enchantment".  SO, if you play out some Opals, and then play Opalescence, any Opals in play will become "Creature Enchantments" (not to be confused with Auras with enchant creature) with P/T equal to their converted mana cost.  Any further Opals you play out will also be Opalescented.  But the next tiem your opponent plays a creature spell, all of your Opals' abilities will trigger, and their P/T will change to whatever their ability says they will.  Also, any Opals that gain flying or whatnot will not lose flying if an Opalescence comes into play.  Opalescence only sets P/T; it doesn't care about any other abilities the enchantments might have.  (That's why an animated Form of the Dragon can swing for 7 and still deal 5 each turn.)

Okay, now that you're all nice and confused (I wish Judge Bill were still writing for the site) let's talk strategy.  What do you do if your opponent won't play any creatures?  Creatureless decks do exist, but they often struggle because they get overwhelmed by creatures.  Your deck is almost "creatureless", except for Mesa Enchantress and Celestial Ancient.  Moreover, a lot of creature-light decks are control decks, countering spells and killing creatures (though often running fairly light enchantment removal due to the rarity of decks that depend on more than one key enchantment).  What do you do in this case?  Well, you could try Celestial Ancient beatdown, but most decks of this nature will simply kill the creature.  In this case Dawn Charm is your friend, sincethese decks often rely on one big Consume Spirit/Demonfire/etc.  Opalescence could also help in this case.  However, most such decks do have at least a few creatures as win conditions.  Just get as many Opals as possible out, and try to outlast all the countermagic.  This is a fight you can win, since most players won't bother countering something as innocuous as an Opal enchantment until you play the fourth or fith one, at which point it's too late.  And you have Mesa Enchantress to help you keep drawing more enchantments while your opponent may run out of counters quickly.

Then there's the global effects.  Wrath or Damnation after your creatures jump to life, or Tempest of Light before they do.  What then?  Well, there is a card that could wreck your opponent's hopes of a reset, but I almost don't want to suggest it.  It's too tech.  Too gruesome.  Too much of a beating.  But that's exactly what you want, isn't it Sean?  You want to make children cry and teenagers quit Magic and revoke their friendships with you, don't you?  Well, you asked for it!

REPLENISH.

I'll give you a minute to go look that one up, if the webmaster hasn't put a picture up of it just to the right here.  But yes, that's right.  You get to play reanimator with white enchantments.  And they ALL come back, even your opponent's ones.  I am not responsible for any friends you lose due to this deck, mind you.

So what do you cut to put all this stuff in?  Actually, maybe you don't need to cut anything.  Dawn Charm sort of looks like a sideboard card to me.  Maybe you could make a sideboard, move Dawn Charm to it, and work from there.  Opalescence could come in against creatureless decks.  Replenish could come in during any Game Two after a savvy opponent goes and gets his enchantment hate.  Maybe throw in some Thunder Totem against an opponent where you need more mana, or more reliable creatures?  Incidentally, if you animate Thunder Totem and Celestial Ancient puts a +1/+1 counter on it, then the counter stays there when the artifact stops being a creature.  It has no effect while the Totem isn't a creature, but the next time it becomes a creature, it'll be that much bigger.  Same goes for the Opals.

I think that's enough to think about today.  Goodness knows I could go on, what with the opal being my birthstone and all, but I'll wrap up here.  Good luck!

~BMoor