How to play Replenish

Replenish is the enchantment-based combo-control deck that, for most of 2025, sat at the very top of the Premodern food chain. The plan is deceptively simple: stuff your graveyard full of powerful enchantments, then cast Replenish — a 3W sorcery — to return every one of them to the battlefield at once, assembling a board state the opponent cannot climb out of. Through 2025 the deck posted a format-leading 54.9% win rate against the rest of the top ten, won Italian Nationals in the hands of Andrea Mengucci, and claimed the South American Championship for Martin Dominguez.

Then, on January 18, 2026, format creator Martin Berlin banned Parallax Tide — see the Parallax Tide ban — and stripped the deck of its single most devastating combo piece. Replenish did not die. It rebuilt around Decree of Silence and the Pandemonium + Saproling Burst burst-kill package, and it has kept winning: robgladiator90 took an MTGO Premodern Challenge with a perfect 9-0 record on March 12, 2026. But the inevitability is gone. This primer covers the engine, the post-ban shell, sequencing, mulligans, sideboarding, and the matchups that decide your tournaments.

Game plan

Replenish wins by separating two halves of a normal Magic turn and slamming them back together. First you spend several turns loading enchantments into your graveyard with cheap card-filtering effects. Then you cast Replenish, which returns all enchantment cards from your graveyard to play simultaneously. The marquee payoff is the “Opal-Wave” engine: Opalescence turns every non-Aura enchantment into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana cost, and Parallax Wave — now a 4/4 — uses its fade counters to exile your opponent’s creatures permanently through a stack trick (detailed below). One Replenish clears the board and leaves you with a wall of giant enchantment-creatures.

There are two routes to that turn, and choosing between them is the central skill of the deck. The Replenish route discards enchantments via Attunement, Careful Study, or Intuition, then reanimates them all with a single sorcery. The hard-cast route ignores the graveyard and uses fast mana — Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors — to simply deploy four-mana enchantments under their own power. As deck-builder Andy Culpepper put it, “deciding which path to go down is the main decision point in piloting the deck.” Your opening hand dictates the answer: a hand with Replenish wants to dig and discard; a hand without it wants to cast its threats the long way.

Pre-ban, the kill was a one-card affair. Resolving Replenish with Opalescence, Parallax Wave, and Parallax Tide in the yard exiled every creature and every land the opponent controlled — a one-sided Armageddon that ended the game on the spot. Post-ban that button is gone. Mengucci summarized the new reality directly: “Now you’re still able to create a powerful combo turn, exiling your opponent’s creatures with the Opalescence + Parallax Wave combo, but your opponent will be able to untap and take their turn to try to have a comeback.” The modern deck therefore needs a closing mechanism — Decree of Silence to lock out spells, or Pandemonium for direct damage — to convert the board advantage into an actual win before the opponent rebuilds.

Why it works in Premodern

Premodern’s card pool gives Replenish three things no other format-legal combo deck gets all at once: a critical mass of cheap, powerful enchantments worth reanimating; a one-card mass-recursion spell with no graveyard-quality requirement; and a fast-mana base that lets a four-mana payoff land on turn two. Attunement is the glue — it draws three and discards four, is itself an enchantment that Replenish returns, and turns your dead combo pieces into kindling. Intuition functions as a triple-tutor when you want cards in the bin: name three copies of a piece, the opponent gives you one and the other two fall straight into the graveyard.

The deck is also unusually resilient to spot removal. Targeted creature kill does nothing to a graveyard plan, and because the payoffs are enchantments rather than creatures, they dodge most of the format’s interaction until they are already attacking. Against fair midrange and control decks that lean on Swords to Plowshares-style answers, Replenish simply attacks from an axis they did not pack removal for. That redundancy — four Replenish, four Opalescence, four Parallax Wave, four Attunement — is why it grinds through discard from decks like The Rock better than the more fragile Enchantress does.

What it lost when Tide left was inevitability. Berlin’s ban rationale noted that Tide had a gravitational pull on the format — UW Landstill was largely replaced by UW Tide Control because “you simply couldn’t play control without Tide.” Across 34 tracked 2025 events (3,949 players, 271 top-8 decks), 30% of all top-8 finishes were Tide decks, and the three Tide archetypes combined for 35% of first-place finishes. Replenish alone posted a 59.5% overall win rate. Stripping Tide turned a near-unbeatable lock into a strong-but-answerable board state, which is exactly what the ban was designed to do.

Representative decklist

The post-ban consensus build, as piloted by robgladiator90 to a perfect 9-0 finish in MTGO Premodern Challenge 32 on March 12, 2026. The exact flex counts below reflect the MTGGoldfish aggregate of recent post-ban lists (fractional numbers are averages across lists, rounded for a 60-card build); the core is fixed.

Count	Card	Role
4	Replenish	Mass enchantment reanimation
4	Opalescence	Animates enchantments
4	Parallax Wave	Permanent creature exile loop
4	Attunement	Graveyard filler (draw 3, discard 4)
3	Intuition	Triple-tutor into the yard
3	Decree of Silence	Spell lockout; Tide replacement
4	Swords to Plowshares	Early creature removal
3	Tsabo’s Web	Card draw vs. utility lands
2	Seal of Cleansing	Removal + Replenish target
4	Ancient Tomb	Fast mana
1	City of Traitors	Fast mana
4	Flooded Strand	Fetch / fix
4	Adarkar Wastes	UW dual
3	Skycloud Expanse	UW dual
5	Plains	Basic
5	Island	Basic

Sideboard (aggregate): ~3 Defense Grid, ~3 Exalted Angel, ~3 Orim’s Chant, ~3 Meddling Mage, ~3 Hydroblast — with Wrath of God and Abeyance seen in some lists.

For historical reference, here are the two marquee pre-ban winning lists. Both predate the Parallax Tide ban and ran cards no longer in the modern shell — note in particular that these lists used Frantic Search, which has since been removed from the legal pool; they are preserved here exactly as they were registered, not as a deck to build today.

Andrea Mengucci, 1st place, Italian Nationals 2025 (pre-ban): 4 Replenish, 4 Opalescence, 4 Parallax Wave, 4 Parallax Tide, 4 Attunement, 3 Frantic Search, 3 Intuition, 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3 Tsabo’s Web, 3 Seal of Cleansing; lands: 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Adarkar Wastes, 4 Skycloud Expanse, 5 Plains, 3 Island. Sideboard: 4 Exalted Angel, 4 Meddling Mage, 3 Blue Elemental Blast, 2 Arcane Denial, 2 Warmth.

Martin Dominguez, 1st place, South American Championship (pre-ban): 4 Replenish, 4 Opalescence, 4 Parallax Wave, 4 Parallax Tide, 4 Attunement, 3 Frantic Search, 3 Intuition, 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3 Seal of Cleansing, 2 Chain of Vapor; lands: 4 Ancient Tomb, 1 City of Traitors, 4 Flooded Strand, 4 Adarkar Wastes, 4 Skycloud Expanse, 4 Island, 4 Plains. Sideboard: 4 Blue Elemental Blast, 4 Defense Grid, 3 Chill, 3 Orim’s Chant, 1 Seal of Cleansing.

Core cards breakdown

The combo engine. The non-negotiable core is 4 Replenish, 4 Opalescence, and 4 Parallax Wave. These three assemble the Opal-Wave permanent-exile loop and are the reason the deck exists. Replenish is the payoff, Opalescence is the animator, and Parallax Wave is both the removal engine and — once Opalescence is online — a recurring 4/4 body.

The graveyard fillers. Attunement is the premium enabler: four copies, every list. Because it is itself an enchantment, Replenish returns it, so you rarely feel bad discarding it. Intuition (three copies) is the highest-value tutor in the deck — naming three of the same combo piece guarantees one of them ends up exactly where you want it, in your hand or your graveyard. Careful Study appears in budget and PandeBurst shells as a one-mana draw-two, discard-two that smooths the early turns.

The Tide replacement. Decree of Silence is the primary post-ban addition (~3 copies). It is an eight-mana enchantment that counters the next three spells cast — completely uncastable in normal play, but Replenish cheats it directly onto the battlefield, where it also becomes an 8/8 under Opalescence. Mengucci’s verdict is worth internalizing: Decree “can lock the game after casting Replenish” but is “too bad to draw outside of your combo kill,” so you run a measured count rather than a full playset.

Interaction and card advantage. Swords to Plowshares (4) is your cheapest answer to early beatdown. Seal of Cleansing (~2) removes problem artifacts and enchantments and doubles as a Replenish target. Tsabo’s Web (in roughly two-thirds of lists) cantrips while shutting off the format’s many activated-ability lands. Some lists round out the flex slots with Mana Leak or extra Counterspell.

The mana base. Four Ancient Tomb plus one City of Traitors provide the sol-land burst that powers a turn-two payoff. Flooded Strand, Adarkar Wastes, and Skycloud Expanse supply the white-blue fixing alongside basics. Note that the sol lands cut both ways: the life loss from Ancient Tomb is a real liability against Sligh.

Five of the deck’s staples carry Reserved List status and will never be reprinted — Replenish, Intuition, City of Traitors, optional Serra’s Sanctum, and (in the PandeBurst variant only) Mox Diamond. Opalescence is not Reserved List thanks to a judge-promo reprint, and neither is Ancient Tomb.

How to play / combo lines

The dream is a turn-two Replenish kill: turn one Ancient Tomb into Attunement, discarding payoffs; turn two land plus Replenish. More realistically you combo on turn three or four. A clean line runs: turn one Ancient Tomb, Careful Study discarding Opalescence and Parallax Wave; turn two land, Attunement discarding more enchantments; turn three Replenish, returning everything and executing Opal-Wave.

The Opal-Wave exile loop is the line you must be able to execute in your sleep. With Opalescence and Parallax Wave both in play, Wave is a 4/4 creature carrying five fade counters. Activate Wave’s ability, removing fade counters to exile up to several of the opponent’s creatures, and let those exile triggers sit on the stack. Before they resolve, remove the last fade counter targeting Parallax Wave itself. Wave exiles itself, and its leaves-the-battlefield trigger returns every creature exiled by this Wave — including Wave, which re-enters as a brand-new object with five fresh counters. When the original exile triggers finally resolve, the Wave that exiled those creatures no longer exists as that game object, so those creatures are exiled permanently. Repeat until the opponent’s board is empty.

Closing the game. Post-ban you must actually win after clearing the board. With Pandemonium also in play, every time Wave re-enters it deals 4 damage through Pandemonium — an infinite-damage loop that ends the game immediately regardless of board state. Without Pandemonium, you ride the Opalescence-animated enchantments in for combat damage while Decree of Silence prevents the opponent from interacting for three spells.

Protecting the turn. Because your kill flows through a sorcery, countermagic is the thing that beats you. Orim’s Chant cast before Replenish stops the opponent from casting anything that turn. Defense Grid taxes their instants by three on your turn, effectively blanking Counterspell. Abeyance does Orim’s Chant duty while replacing itself, and post-board Meddling Mage can name their single most important answer.

Mulligan guide

No formal mulligan guide exists for the archetype, but the principles are consistent. A keepable hand needs three things: mana, an enabler, and a path to victory. The gold-standard keep is Attunement + Replenish + lands — Attunement dumps your payoffs, Replenish returns them, and you are off to the races. Hands with fast mana (Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors) plus deployable enchantments are keepable on the hard-cast route even without Replenish in hand.

Ship the trap hands. All-enchantments-no-mana is uncastable. All-lands-and-counterspells has no engine. And a hand of expensive cards with no fast mana will simply be too slow against the format’s aggressive decks. The deck is fairly mulligan-tolerant because Attunement’s draw-three-discard-four and Intuition’s triple-tutor dig hard, so mulliganing aggressively to find an enabler — especially on the play — is correct more often than it feels.

Sideboard guide

Three packages define the board. The anti-red package — Chill and Hydroblast / Blue Elemental Blast, plus Warmth where available — is essential against red aggro; Chill taxing red spells by two often shuts those decks off entirely. The anti-counterspell package — Defense Grid, Orim’s Chant, Abeyance — comes in against blue decks to force your combo turn through. The transformational package — Exalted Angel and Meddling Mage — lets you sidestep dedicated enchantment and graveyard hate by attacking from an entirely different angle; a morphed Exalted Angel dodges enchantment-focused removal completely.

Against Stiflenought: bring in Orim’s Chant, Abeyance, and Defense Grid. Their counterspells are the only obstacle; neutralize them and Replenish resolves. Meddling Mage naming Stifle or Daze is excellent.

Against Burn and Sligh — your worst matchups — bring Chill, the blue blasts, and Warmth, cutting your slowest combo pieces. Chill is your single best card here; resolving it early can swing the game. Be disciplined about Ancient Tomb’s life loss.

Against Goblins: similar plan — Chill and blue blasts come in. Parallax Wave handles their boards well, and the matchup is more forgiving than Burn because Goblins is the slower clock.

Against Enchantress: bring Seal of Cleansing for their key enchantments and prioritize raw speed — race to combo before their engine buries you.

Matchup notes

Stiflenought — roughly even (was favorable). Pre-ban you could exile their lands with Tide; now both decks have lost their Tide plan and the matchup has flattened to a counterspell war. Win the war (Defense Grid, Orim’s Chant, Meddling Mage) and you win the game.

Enchantress — the big swing. Pre-ban this was the most lopsided major matchup in Premodern: Replenish held Enchantress to roughly a 21% win rate (a ~79% clip for Replenish). Mike Packer specifically warned Enchantress could become “tier 0” without its predator. Post-ban, with no way to exile their lands, the matchup has likely shifted toward even-or-worse for Replenish. Seal of Cleansing and speed are your tools.

Goblins — slightly favorable. Historically Goblins is sub-40% against Replenish; the goblins-vs-replenish page tracks the data. Opal-Wave dominates a creature board, and Goblins is slow enough that you usually assemble the combo first. Respect the Chill/blue-blast plan they may bring after board.

Burn / Sligh — unfavorable, pre- and post-ban. This is the deck’s worst matchup. Your sol lands hurt you, your combo is a turn too slow against a fast clock, and you are racing a deck built to ignore your board. Chill is the difference between a loss and a coin flip.

The Rock — favorable. Their discard (Duress, Cabal Therapy) is irritating but Replenish’s redundancy overwhelms it; the matchup has historically sat sub-40% for Rock. Exalted Angel is strong post-board against their removal-heavy plans.

Other notable matchups: Landstill (even, returning post-ban as the default control deck), Elves (slightly favorable — Opal-Wave still handles their board), and Reanimator (an even, speed-dependent race).

Budget and upgrade path

Full-power UW Replenish runs roughly $2,400–2,600, driven almost entirely by Reserved List cards: three Intuition ($645), four Replenish ($560), one City of Traitors ($450), and four Ancient Tomb ($340). Opalescence, not on the Reserved List, adds only ~$188 for a playset.

Many Premodern events explicitly allow gold-bordered World Championship cards, and that is the budget unlock. Gold-border Replenish runs ~$10–15 versus ~$140 black-border, City of Traitors ~$5–10 versus ~$450, and Ancient Tomb ~$5–10. Cutting Intuition entirely — replacing it with extra Careful Study — assembles a gold-border UW Replenish for roughly $450–600. The key caveat: Intuition has no gold-border printing and cannot be substituted this way, so it is the single hardest card to acquire on a budget.

Recommended path: start gold-border with Careful Study over Intuition; first acquire black-border Opalescence (cheap, not Reserved List); next pick up black-border Replenish as funds allow; then add Intuition one copy at a time, since each meaningfully improves consistency; finish with City of Traitors and optional Serra’s Sanctum.

FAQ

Is Replenish still playable after the Parallax Tide ban? Yes. Since the Parallax Tide ban the deck has posted multiple MTGO Challenge wins and 5-0 leagues, including a perfect 9-0 on March 12, 2026. It is weaker — opponents now untap with their lands intact after Replenish resolves — but Opal-Wave plus Decree of Silence is a potent replacement plan. Consensus places it around Tier 2 rather than its former Tier 1, and format creator Martin Berlin still lists it among the format’s top decks.

What replaced Parallax Tide? Decree of Silence is the primary replacement, at ~3 copies in current aggregate lists. Some players pivoted instead to the PandeBurst variant, which never relied on Tide.

Which variant should I play? UW Replenish with Decree of Silence is the most proven post-ban build. PandeBurst — Pandemonium + Saproling Burst for a 21-damage burst, with an infinite-damage backup via Opalescence + Parallax Wave + Pandemonium — is viable if you own Mox Diamond but is the most expensive deck in the format (~$6,000–8,000). A green-white “SuPar Wave” toolbox built on Survival of the Fittest sidesteps the ban entirely and is worth a look if you prefer a creature-based plan.

Will Parallax Wave be banned next? Several community members have floated it — Rich Shay gave “even odds” on a future Wave ban. Martin Berlin acknowledged monitoring both Parallax Wave and Opalescence but made no commitments.