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An All-Encompassing Enchantress Engine

Commander / EDH GWUB

taco194


This description is currently under construction, please excuse the dust.

Theros Beyond Death (THB) upgrades incoming!

Welcome to a most enchanting deck to pilot! Originally this was set out to be a unique and custom built enchantress deck inspired by Melissa de Tora's Karametra, God of Harvests led deck, Karametra Enchantress - Melissa | Game Knights #5, but more focused on the constellation mechanic from Theros. However, when the C18 decks were released I went ahead and decided to optimize this deck while throwing out a lot of the Theros flavoring. This resulted in the deck being much less creature heavy but more enchantment focused. If you're curious I'll be (eventually) uploading and linking here the decklist for what became my Theros deck when this happened. Unfortunately, I did not keep a changelog of this deck's previous updates. However, with all the new cards that came in I will be keeping track of the changes. I plan on updating the list here soon as I have been working on this deck quite a bit lately.

So, why _this_ deck? Well, why not?

Initially I knew that for the best consistency an enchantress deck absolutely needs to include at least Green and White with any other extra colors being splashed for added versatility. When C18's Adaptive Enchantments came out the cards included in that deck essentially cemented this deck's identity as Bant with a splash of Black.

But wait... with those great new commanders like Estrid, the Masked or Tuvasa the Sunlit that have a very obvious enchantment focus why keep Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix and Ravos, Soultender as commanders? The reason for this is because when I first thought of the deck, not only was it late 2017 (so C18 was nowhere near), but I also realized that with just two enchantresses on board the value engine could get very out of hand. And why stop at just card advantage when Kydele can offer the added luxury of more mana to play what you just drew? That's when I figured, since an enchantment deck wouldn't be aggro and the enchantresses provide good card advantage I could probably use Ravos best of all the partner commanders. He provides the much needed access to White, as well as access to Black which can add great consistency with tutors or Necropotence and flexibility in terms of removal.

Furthermore, Ravos' upkeep ability to return a creature from the grave to your hand can offer a strong tutor engine with Fauna Shaman or simply bring back a much needed creature, like an enchantress, in a pinch. By comparison Tuvasa is a much more Voltron oriented commander while Estrid being a planeswalker is enough to draw attention depending on your playgroup. I personally find that these two commanders provide that extra bit of umph without instantly turning heads. And, of course, Kydele and Ravos offer great support to the deck and its main strategy but they are by no means required in order for the deck to be effective.

Enchanting your Opponents

In typical enchantress fashion the main goal is to get your value engine online. Once that is set up your board-state will naturally develop, and rather quickly at that. In order to survive long enough to get your board developed, or even to keep it and finish strong, a decent amount of pillow-fort and/or control may be needed. I manifested this in the form of the obligatory pillow-fort package (missing Dissipation Field), some counter spells (still in need of upgrading), some pseudo-removal enchantments & auras, and a couple of instant speed answers with Cyclonic Rift and Teferi's Protection.

Keeping them Spellbound

Once you do have an enchantress engine up and running the deck quickly turns into a toolbox given you have the mana to keep up. In this regard Karametra, God of Harvests was splendid in Melissa de Tora's deck but for this deck she falls short since it is rather light on creatures. For this reason it's important to run strong enchantment based mana ramp, such as Mirari's Wake or Estrid, the Masked in combination with enchanted lands. Once you've built up your board-state you'll find that your opponents will be dazed and seeing stars. If you've managed to draw into something like Reliquary Tower there will be little that can be done to stop you from winning since you'll probably have most of your library in your hand. All that's left is to lay down a win condition!

Sealing their Fate

The win conditions in this deck are something I need to work on but as it stands they boil down to a couple of options. Either you swing out with an army of enchantments thanks to Starfield of Nyx or you slowly grind through your opponents' decks with Psychic Corrosion and/or Sphinx's Tutelage. This deck definitely has the ability to mill the table but it's unlikely anyone will enjoy that. I personally don't enjoy it but I found the deck lacking in flexibility when it came to winning. Although I don't run the card because it's not aesthetically fitting Psychosis Crawler is a great, and slightly faster way to grind your opponents out of the game (granted there's not a life-gain deck around) while also providing a huge beater. I was recently pointed toward using Revel in Riches to compliment card:Smothering Tide. Another good suggestion has been Helix Pinnacle, though it is a bit expensive and slowly climbing in price (almost $20 as of this description's typing). I'd love to hear any further suggestions on improving this deck's ability to close out games! But small disclaimer, I cannot be helped to include cards older than 8th edition. I simply dislike the old styled card borders and sometimes the art isn't very appealing either.

Rising to the Stars

Unfortunately, the game may not always go your way. Perhaps you kept what looked like a good hand but it really wasn't. Or you had a good starting hand but drew into cards that didn't quite help you develop in the following turns. Maybe your friends know that Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix can combo off hard on wheel-like spells, or they've already seen what your deck can do and you get aggro'd out relatively early or just kept in a bad position. In cases where the odds are against you chances are you'll need to focus more on a defensive or controlling playstyle. Given that you don't get outplayed by your own mana base, it'll be important to keep counter spells whenever possible and establish some sort of deterrent as soon as possible. As it is, this deck struggles to break through under difficult conditions or on the off chance that you either don't get a couple of enchantresses or they keep dying to boardwipes or other removal. The best way to mitigate this would certainly include upgrading some cards. I already mentioned that I'm missing cards like Dissipation Field, and Necropotence can offer an amazing chance to turn a game in your favor if you have the life for it (and a flawless mana base for that triple black cost). Other notable upgrades may include wider protection for your enchantresses. I'll be further discussing cards that can be forgone and which cards would work better with certain upgrades in a following section.

The Enchantress Package

I want to start off with the enchantress package. It's not exactly anything crazy or special but it is the core of the deck and will enable some other interactions so it's worth knowing well. Thanks to C18 and M19 there are now seven iterations of the classic enchantress effect, i.e. draw a card when you play an enchantment. Within the seven there are a few distinctions to keep track of. There are two "may" triggers seen in Mesa Enchantress and Verduran Enchantress as opposed to the other five which are mandatory. There is also one "enter the battlefield" (ETB) trigger, seen in Eidolon of Blossoms, which also counts itself on ETB, as opposed to all other triggers which are on cast. Lastly there is Tuvasa the Sunlit which deviates slightly (and understandably so with that +1/+1 effect) by limiting the enchantress effect to only take effect on the first enchantment you cast each turn. This works nicely in conjunction with Leyline of Anticipation or any enchantments that happen to have flash, if you run them, letting you get card advantage on even your opponents' turns.

Seeing these enchantresses early is absolutely vital, having one can be enough but usually having two or more is what makes the deck really go above and beyond. Coming in at 42 enchantments, with almost half the deck triggering your enchantresses having two of them on board means you're almost guaranteed to always have an enchantment in hand. For added consistency the deck could really use tutors, which I have a few of but could definitely improve upon. I currently run Fauna Shaman, Diabolic Intent, Diabolic Tutor, and the rather silly Archmage Ascension which has beautiful synergy with another card that also helps you dig for enchantresses early on: Sylvan Library. Having Tuvasa and the Leyline also helps the Ascension trigger more quickly and once ready it really just turns into a wincon. I'll discuss further upgrades on the tutors in a following section.

Mana Ramp and Lands

The next most important thing to understand well is the deck's mana base and ramping capabilities. Unlike most decks, this deck runs not only aura based ramp but also filter lands. The aura based ramp is used to maximize the card advantage gain provided by our enchantresses. We run nine auras that will either ramp, mana fix, or both. In addition to enchantress synergy the auras have stupid synergy with Estrid, the Masked, allowing us to double up on the mana from enchanted lands with her +2. While Estrid has great utility outside of ramping she also allows Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix to become a huge problem so I listed her under ramp since more often than not ramping will be her primary role on your board.

Speaking of Kydele, if you get the chance you'll want to cast either Aspect of Mongoose or Gift of Immortality onto her. These will give her much needed protection as well enabling the synergy with Estrid without having to spend a turn to give Kydele a mask aura. To add to Kydele's ramping the deck runs her patron god, Kruphix, God of Horizons. Having the god on board instantly enables this deck immensely. With it you can draw to your heart's content and you can tap Kydele without worrying about any excess mana going unused since it'll carry over. Ironically enough, though, you will need to worry about it and keep track of it but this is a blessing! To better aid the use of colorless mana, whether from Kydele or Kruphix, I run a set of five filter lands. The best of these is Cascading Cataracts which is indestructible but, more importantly, filters five mana at a time. I'm thinking of lowering the number of filter lands in favor of at least dual lands and getting a Crop Rotation since drawing into more than two of these while developing your mana base during early game is not a fun time, especially in a four color deck. Honestly, the general mana base listed could use a major overhaul but that can be expensive and I'll work on it slowly over time.

Control and Pillow-Fort

The control package in this deck is very straightforward. It consists primarily of five counter spells and five "pseudo-removal" enchantments. I call them pseudo-removal because they don't necessarily cause an indefinite removal of permanents in the traditional sense, like a Path to Exile or a Beast Within would. But they can manage to do a better job than the average removal spell. Nothing hurts quite like having your commander Imprisoned in the Moon and thus being able to interact with it only as a nonbasic land that makes colorless. Like I mentioned earlier, you'll want to use the control package to protect your board from big threats like boardwipes or to stop combos from going off.

To help in keeping you in the game this deck has the obligatory pillow-fort package. Sphere of Safety is a real trooper when it comes to deterring attackers from swinging your way but for early game having access to either Propaganda or Ghostly Prison should be enough to mitigate damage and let you make it to mid or late game.

All Other Utility

Typing up neat interactions here...

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Comments

91% Casual

Competitive

Date added 6 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 0 Mythic Rares

31 - 0 Rares

28 - 0 Uncommons

18 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.00
Tokens Angel 4/4 W, Bird 2/2 U, Mask, Treasure
Folders Gay Bros
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