Anafenza, the Enchantress Revamped (Primer)
Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Combo Constellation Enchant Enchantment Multiplayer
Card Advantage (12)
- 1x Argothian Enchantress
- 1x Dark Confidant
- 1x Eidolon of Blossoms
- 1x Enchantress's Presence
- 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
- 1x Mesa Enchantress
- 1x Necropotence
- 1x Satyr Enchanter
- 1x Setessan Champion
- 1x Sylvan Library
- 1x Sythis, Harvest's Hand
- 1x Verduran Enchantress
Combos (6)
- 1x Cloudstone Curio
- 1x Concordant Crossroads
- 1x Grim Guardian
- 1x Living Plane
- 1x Opalescence
- 1x Parallax Wave
Control (4)
Lands (31)
- 1x Arid Mesa
- 1x Bayou
- 1x Bountiful Promenade
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Deserted Temple
- 1x Flooded Strand
- 1x Gaea's Cradle
- 1x Godless Shrine
- 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
- 1x Indatha Triome
- 1x Isolated Chapel
- 1x Marsh Flats
- 1x Misty Rainforest
- 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
- 1x Overgrown Tomb
- 1x Savannah
- 1x Scrubland
- 1x Serra's Sanctum
- 2x Snow-Covered Forest
- 2x Snow-Covered Plains
- 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
- 1x Sunpetal Grove
- 1x Temple Garden
- 1x Undergrowth Stadium
- 1x Vault of Champions
- 1x Verdant Catacombs
- 1x Windswept Heath
- 1x Wooded Foothills
- 1x Woodland Cemetery
Protection (11)
- 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
- 1x Destiny Spinner
- 1x Faith Healer
- 1x Flickering Ward
- 1x Grand Abolisher
- 1x Greater Auramancy
- 1x Heroic Intervention
- 1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
- 1x Solitary Confinement
- 1x Sterling Grove
- 1x Teferi's Protection
Ramp (13)
Recursion (3)
Removal (12)
- 1x Aura of Silence
- 1x Aura Shards
- 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
- 1x Doomwake Giant
- 1x Force of Vigor
- 1x Grasp of Fate
- 1x Kenrith's Transformation
- 1x On Thin Ice
- 1x Pernicious Deed
- 1x Phyrexian Scriptures
- 1x Swift Reconfiguration
- 1x The Meathook Massacre
Tutors (7)
- 1x Academy Rector
- 1x Crop Rotation
- 1x Demonic Tutor
- 1x Eldritch Evolution
- 1x Enlightened Tutor
- 1x Green Sun's Zenith
- 1x Vampiric Tutor
Commander (1)
Maybeboard
"We do not pile the skulls of our enemies, nor make them into ornaments. We grind them into dust. We leave nothing for their families to weep over, nothing for their descendants to honor." ~Anafenza, the Foremost
This is an enchantress deck, modeled after the legacy archetype which uses effects like Verduran Enchantress and Argothian Enchantress to create insurmountable advantage, while preventing our opponents from executing their game plan until we can assemble a game-ending combo. We are all-out on a combo plan, and so other strategies (tokens, voltron) have been completely excised from the deck.
As the format has become faster over time, this deck has necessarily needed to trim some of its weaker strategies and increase its interaction. However, we've also gotten lots of toys and powerful cards over time. This deck can keep up with most tables, becoming downright oppressive against graveyard strategies, artifact strategies, or decks with little enchantment removal.
is Abzan's secondary color, acting as support for our enchantment strategy. Green gives us the majority of our card draw and all of our ramp, as well as creature tutors used to find our enchantress effects.
is Abzan's tertiary color, and the reason we are playing Abzan rather than using a more consistent Sythis, Harvest's Hand shell. Black affords us unconditional tutors, opens up a few combos with Doomwake Giant and Grim Guardian, and gives us the best enchantment ever printed, Necropotence.
Early Game/Mulligans
Our initial goal is to land an enchantress and a ramp effect. The ideal opening for this deck is a Turn 1 ramp spell (Utopia Sprawl or whatever else) into a Turn 2 enchantress. We also want to start thinking about our opponents' strategies as well. If you are playing in an established pod, you may want to tailor this deck towards your meta; this list is meant to apply to a broad variety of decks. If you are facing graveyard decks, play out Anafenza, the Foremost. Use a Stony Silence effect against artifact and treasure decks. Land a Grand Abolisher against control decks, Pernicious Deed against token strategies, or Darksteel Mutation against voltron. We won't be able to stop everybody at first, so focus on the decks that will outpace us, or had an explosive start.
Mid game (Turns 4-6)
Once we've landed some enchantresses, we will begin to draw through our deck very quickly. Our slow, intention early game should transition to an explosive midgame; we want to draw and generate mana in the double-digits every turn. Our gameplan is on-board and very heavily telegraphed, so prepare to protect your board. Play out top-end protection pieces, like Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Sigarda, Host of Herons. You should never need more than three enchantresses on board - keep the others on hand in case the board gets wiped.
Feel free to push out your combo pieces provided you can protect them. They all have powerful effects on their own, some of which can end the game. With sufficient board presence, for example, Opalescence can easily wipe out a player with few blockers. Grim Guardian also provides a lot of value simply by being on the board.
At this point, you will likely be the archenemy of the table. Be ready to fend off attackers. Some players will want to remove whichever piece is preventing them from executing their game plan. Others will try and destroy your entire board. We can rebuild very quickly with cards like Replenish, but beware of mass-exile effects. Farewell is probably the card this deck is most afraid of; hold a Teferi's Protection or use a Faith Healer to avoid this.
Late Game (7+)
This deck wins almost exclusively through combos. Our primary combos are the lines which we ordinarily use to win the game. Typically, these combos have a unique piece and a few redundant pieces, which we'll discuss further below. Typically, the redundant pieces will be innocuous enough to slip below our opponents' notice, unless they've played against this deck a number of times. The unique pieces, in contrast, should be held back until we are ready to win.
The combos we employ are fairly expensive, and often require a third piece to truly end the game. However, they have the benefit of being extremely difficult to interact with. Our Parallax Wave line requires several pieces of instant-speed interaction to remove, while our Living Plane lines, if played out correctly, require a stifle effect.
This deck can endure a very, very long game. You will have matches where a Solitary Confinement or a single lock piece keeps you in the game. In these situations, you may end up winning through beats; we have some very large angels, and even cards like Setessan Champion can get very large over time.
Current Inclusions
Bloom Tender - This card is excellent in a permanent-heavy deck, tapping for up to three mana. It also lets us play our commander for 'free', in that we can spend three mana from land sources, and follow it up with a three-mana tap from Bloom Tender.
Carpet of Flowers - There's almost always somebody playing blue at the table. This scales wonderfully throughout the game, providing the extra mana we need late game to power our more explosive plays.
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove - One of the deck's biggest pain points is managing mana colors. We have lots of color pips, and we can't always predict what cards we are going to draw into. Dryad helps by acting as both a Prismatic Omen and an Exploration, giving us a lot more flexibility.
Exploration - Decks with lots of card draw end up with lots of lands - this helps us play out those lands a bit more quickly, while also ramping us in the early game. The faster we can get an enchantress down, the faster this deck gets going.
Growing Rites of Itlimoc - With a lot of low-cost creatures, its not terribly difficult to flip this card. It also digs a bit, letting us grab an enchantress if we need it.
Herald of the Pantheon - Once we get our engine going, we end up playing lots of spells every turn. Cost reducers, then, become very useful, saving us increasing amounts of mana as we play out more spells. Herald has lifegain as a nice bonus.
Devoted Druid - Taps for up to 2 green mana by itself, but can tap for more if you get some counters on it. Anafenza, the Foremost works nicely with this card, but its really here because of its synergy with Swift Reconfiguration.
Smothering Tithe - This card is too powerful to ignore, even considering our use of Stony Silence.
Starfield Mystic - Similar to Herald of the Pantheon, this guy gets bigger as enchantments go to the graveyard. Good for the same reasons as Herald, and can occasionally end up a massive creature.
Utopia Sprawl - Ramp and fixing at one mana, with only the caveat that we have a forest. This piece of ramp is excellent, and sets us up for a much more effective turn 2.
Wild Growth - While it doesn't fix our mana, it is more flexible than Utopia Sprawl in that it can be applied to any land.
Possible Inclusions
Birds of Paradise and friends - There have been iterations of this deck that have run mana dorks. The reason we currently don't is because they don't serve our game plan when drawn late, and this deck doesn't have many ways to capitalize off of them (no Skullclamp, sacrifice strategies, etc.)
Cryptolith Rite- Effective in a go-wide token based strategy. A fairer version of this deck might run this with enchantment-based token producers and pump effects.
Mana Reflection and others - Mana doublers are very "win-more", in that the cards that generate tons of mana in this deck (Cradle, Sanctum, Nykthos) don't usually need more help. In a slower meta, they can be very good.
Dawn's Reflection and friends - A bit too slow for this deck, especially given our lack of untappers.
Current Inclusions
Enchantress Effects - These cards are very similar, so I'll talk about them based on their unique qualities:
Verduran Enchantress, Mesa Enchantress, Satyr Enchanter - These are our so-called 'classic' enchantress effects. They trigger on-cast, cost three mana, and have no additional flashy effects.
Argothian Enchantress - The best enchantress in the deck, as its the only one with built-in protection. The best counter-play to this deck is killing our draw engine, so being virtually immune to spot removal makes this a must-have
Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Enchantress's Presence - We love an enchantress who is also an enchantment. Sythis is particularly strong with 2 CMC and incidental lifegain.
Eidolon of Blossoms, Setessan Champion - These are "Constellation" style enchantment effects, which trigger on ETB rather than cast. Usually, this is better, as we have a few ways of flickering our enchantment effects.
Other Card Advantage Sources
Erebos, God of the Dead - This shuts down lifegain strategies and is extremely difficult to remove. While its card draw is overcosted, its also consistent and difficult to remove in a deck where running out of gas is a death sentence.
Necropotence - The most powerful card in the deck, it only gets stronger with all of our lifegain. Use it to draw 30 cards and immediately win the game on your next turn.
Sylvan Library - Drawing three every turn is very powerful, and helps offset weaker hands. Even if we just use it as a Mirri's Guile effect, its still useful for fishing through our deck.
Possible Inclusions
Nessian Courser - We aren't usually in want of lands in this deck, but its a potential option.
Femeref Enchantress - Though its helpful when our enchantments get blown out, Femeref is very unreliable.
Black Market Connections and other engine cards - While powerful in the right deck, drawing one per turn just isn't the rate at which we want to draw cards.
Current Inclusions
Avacyn, Angel of Hope - When I initially made this deck, Avacyn was an all-star. Most board wipes were "destroy" effects, and thus completely shut down by casting her. However, as removal has moved more towards exile effects, Avacyn has become less effective over time. At the moment, she still merits a slot in the deck, but that will likely change over time.
Destiny Spinner - Prevents our things from being countered. This is such an subtly powerful effect, allowing us to play safely against control decks, while also making it more likely that blue players at the table will spend their countermagic on our opponents' threats. The land animation ability is also relevant, occasionally winning games by creating a few 15/15 elementals.
Faith Healer - If our enchantments get destroyed, that's not a huge deal. Its exile effects and steal effects which concern us, and which Faith Healer helps us avoid. We can also use this to play with the stack, turning Parallax Wave into "Exile 5 creatures".
Flickering Ward - Provides protection for our enchantresses while also acting as a reusable draw effect. Having it on hand means we won't run out of gas anytime soon.
Grand Abolisher - While we normally prefer enchantments, this outmatches City of Solitude enough to merit its inclusion. Your opponents will watch helplessly as you draw out your entire deck.
Greater Auramancy - We don't want our opponents interacting with our board. Combine with Sterling Grove to have all of the shroud. Our combos which require targeting can also (conveniently) toss this card out of the way when we need it.
Heroic Intervention - The second-best protection spell in this deck, this also hits creatures, which most of our protection cards do not.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - Sacrifice effects can be devastating for this deck. We don't typically have a lot of creatures out, and our enchantresses are required for us to win, so Sigarda provides a way of turning off those effects.
Solitary Confinement - The ultimate protection spell, preventing us from losing in a myriad of ways. The downside is easy to mitigate as well, especially in conjunction with Necropotence.
Sterling Grove - Greater Auramancy plus a tutor effect is exactly what this deck wants. Don't be afraid to use it to tutor aggressively, especially if we need to for a win.
Teferi's Protection - The first iteration of this deck was, when running properly, almost invulnerable. The only cards which could overcome its defenses were Cyclonic Rift and exile effects. Now we can dodge even those!
Possible Inclusions
Elephant Grass, Koskun Falls, Ghostly Prison - If your meta is very creature heavy or very aggressive, consider adding more of these effects.
Karmic Justice - While this is a great rattlesnake effect, our cards don't usually go down to targeted destroy effects. We have lots of proactive measures against destruction, so this can often end up being a dead card.
No Mercy and Aurification- I'm not a big fan of cards that dissuade opponents from attacking us when there are options that can completely shut off attacks altogether. Solitary confinement, for instance, is both cheaper and more effective at protecting our life total.
Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void- Anafenza fulfills the grave hate requirements this deck needs. Consider using this in metas with noncreature graveyard strategies.
Current Inclusions
Aura of Silence - Two extra mana for an artifact or enchantment is backbreaking, and can completely ruin our opponents' curves when played early. We can cash it out later when we need to remove something particularly obnoxious.
Aura Shards - This is grossly undercosted, letting us passively blow up our opponents' enchantments and artifacts. While we don't run a ton of creatures, we really only need to trigger Shards twice or thrice to get real value out of it.
Boseiju, Who Endures - The opportunity cost on this is absurdly low.
Doomwake Giant - Landing this can make the board extremely hostile for enemy creatures. Does a great job against token decks or decks with lots of utility creatures.
Force of Vigor - We love free spells! Our card draw makes the exile clause on this one easy to bear.
Grasp of Fate - Great rate and lots of flexibility, this clears a lot of troublesome permanents at once.
Kenrith's Transformation - There are a lot of effects in this vein. Darksteel Mutation is a bit stickier, as an indestructible 0/1 is harder to remove. Lignify is nice as well, and Song of the Dryad, while one mana more, hits any permanent and is crazy difficult to remove. Pick which one makes the most sense for you; we opt for KT because it cantrips.
On Thin Ice - One mana creature removal with the downside of needing a snow land, being sorcery speed, and being potentially temporary, but with the upside of being easy to recur and triggering our enchantments.
Pernicious Deed - A controllable board wipe that can clear out tokens at instant speed for free. In an emergency, wipes most permanents off the board.
Phyrexian Scriptures - Board wipe that lets us save one of our own creatures. Follows up with some grave hate to boot. Very solid inclusion all around.
Swift Reconfiguration - Instant-speed pseudo-removal for problematic creatures which also turns our Devoted Druid into an infinite green mana machine.
The Meathook Massacre - Flexible board wipe with lots of lifegain attached.
Possible Inclusions
Seal of Cleansing and Seal of Primordium- We don't generally want cards that trade one-for-one in a multiplayer format. The seals are easily recurred, however, and could be useful in an artifact-heavy meta.
Seal of Doom- Its too expensive for a one-shot effect, and doesn't hit black creatures. If you're really hurting for creature removal, there are better options.
Soul Snare- Much higher quality of removal than Seal of Doom. Additionally, acts as a pretty nice rattlesnake (one cheap and effective enough to merit consideration).
Swords to Plowshares and friends - Great cards that we eschew for additional enchantments. Worth running if you need more spot removal.
Wrath of God and friends- Worth considering if you need more board wipes.
Current Inclusions
Gloomshrieker- Finally, an Eternal Witness that is also an enchantment! The downside of this card is negligible considering we don't aim to use our graveyard anyways. Its also a bit easier to cast in this deck than Witness, though feel free to run both if you need the recursion.
Replenish- The most powerful recursion spell in the deck, this gets back every enchantment in our yard for a very low price.
Starfield of Nyx - Starfield is a powerhouse in the deck, acting as a combo piece, turning our enchantments into a win condition, and repeatably recurring our enchantments. Beware that it requires five enchantments to activate its main ability, so it only combos with Parallax Wave if we have a substantial board.
Possible Inclusions
Eternal Witness - Feel free to run this if you need this effect on multiple cards. We aren't generally trying to flicker or recur things, though, so we can't abuse the ETB on this.
Auramancer- Too narrow of an effect. We have access to green, allowing us a variety of E-wit effects. I'd consider something like den protector before auramancer.
Crystal Chimes- Too expensive for a to-hand effect.
Faith's Reward- I think reward works best in decks that really want to control when their permanents hit the bin. It would be too volatile for this deck.
Lifeline- Anafenza breaks this card in half, making a busted, symmetrical effect into a busted, asymmetrical one. We just don't have enough ways to abuse this to make it worth it, but it is worth mentioning.
Sun Titan - Strong, repeated recursion. I may add this later, as its very useful.
Sevinne's Reclamation - Another staple recursion spell that specifically can hit our enchantresses. May be added later.
Animate Dead and friends - They're fine, but don't reach their full potential in this style of deck.
Current Inclusions
Academy Rector - Best enchantment tutor in the deck, putting our card directly into play. With Eldritch Evolution, you can tutor Living Plane with Rector and Doomwake Giant with Evolution and lock the board.
Crop Rotation - Our deck gets supercharged by some of its busted lands, so we want to grab those as frequently as possible. Crop rotation does so at instant speed, and can often act as a ritual.
Demonic Tutor - In my opinion, this is the best tutor in the game (though vampiric gives it a run for its money). Picks up whatever we need at any stage in the game.
Eldritch Evolution - Once we have a strong board presence, we can cash in some of our enchantress effects or other small creatures to grab a combo piece.
Enlightened Tutor - With dozens of great targets, Enlightened Tutor helps us consistently fetch ramp, card draw, or win conditions.
Green Sun's Zenith - Reusable tutor that fetches our enchantresses early game and utility creatures in the late game.
Vampiric Tutor- One of the most powerful tutors in the game. Instant-speed, unconditional, and powerful.
Possible Inclusions
There are tons of other tutors in the game, and if you are looking to make a budget shell of this deck, this is the first category where replacements can be easily made.
We run a light control package in order to slow down or stop strategies that are especially popular, and can pose unique problems to this deck. As of time of writing this, the most popular strategies on EDHRec are, in order, artifacts, lifegain, treasure, equipment, and counters.
Authority of the Consuls - This comes down early and stops hasty strategies while giving us a nice life buffer. Its surprisingly relevant at all points of the game, and opponents will often go out of their way to remove it.
Blind Obedience - While having the same benefits as AotC, this also slows down fast mana and treasures. The extort is a nice mana sink as well.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence - Stops mana dorks, lots of utility creatures, and combos with Living Plane. Its rare that I have a game where this doesn't affect something.
Stony Silence - Probably the single best hate card in the deck, this shuts down lots of artifact strategies, equipment strategies, and treasure strategies. Enormously powerful. Consider running Collector Ouphe if you want more of this effect.
Potential Inclusions
Hate cards are determined by your meta. You may have noticed that many cards in this deck serve double duty, shutting something down while providing a positive effect for us. Other cards you might consider include:
Rule of Law and friends for storm decks, or decks that run through tons of spells (like ours). These effects are almost all symmetric, making them a little weaker in this deck.
Solemnity for counters strategies.
Rest in Peace and Ashes of the Abhorrent for non-creature graveyard strategies.
And so on and so forth - tailor your hate cards to your meta!
Current Inclusions
Opalescence + Parallax Wave - This funky little combo relies on the blank text between Parallax Wave's two abilities. Essentially, Parallax Wave is formatted like Oblivion Ring, in that its exile trigger and return trigger are separate, and thus we can abuse their order to our advantage. Opalescence renders all of our enchantments into creatures, meaning Parallax Wave can target itself. - We can exile a creature we control, such as Grim Guardian, allow that exile to fully resolve, then exile Parallax Wave. Parallax Wave will leave the battlefield, returning itself and whatever creature we exiled. We then get infinite ETB/LTB. - We can exile a creature we want to get rid of. With that exile trigger on the stack, we can exile Parallax Wave. Parallax Wave will exile itself, return as a new permanent, the targeted creature will be exiled, but it is now tied to a non-existent parallax wave. Its gone forever. - We can protect our combo from creature-based interaction. Parallax Wave can remove itself in response to removal. Note that Opalescence DOES NOT become a creature, and is thus vulnerable to removal.
Doomwake Giant + Living Plane - This destroys all of our opponents' lands and makes playing lands difficult for the rest of the game. Most opponents, upon hitting this lock, will concede. We can also execute the same thing with Linvala, Keeper of Silence or The Meathook Massacre (though Meathook will kill our lands too).
Devoted Druid + Swift Reconfiguration - This combo requires some sort of outlet to actually win the game. When Devoted Druid becomes a vehicle, it no longer has a P/T (as long as it is uncrewed). Thus, untapping it comes at no real cost. We can then generate infinite green mana.
Cloudstone Curio + Concordant Crossroads - Infinite bounce with any mana-positive creatures will generate infinite mana. This is worth it outside of combos, in that it lets us replay our enchantments for enchantress triggers.
Removed Elspeth, Knight-Errant, as she provided relatively little utility, Daxos the Returned for being too slow and mana intensive, Planar Collapse in favor of better board wipes, Rune-Scarred Demon for being too slow, Shield of the Oversoul for providing relatively little for its cost (compared to other three drops), and Titania's Song, which I am quite fond of, but might not be necessary when considering Stony Silence and Austere Command.
8/28/16- After extensive playtesting, I've found that most of our wins come from combos. Token and voltron strategies could probably be effective if I supported them more, but given the deck's ability to combo out reliably, I've restructured the deck with that in mind. I've cut all tertiary win conditions and land destruction in favor of more tutors, draw, and ramp cards. So far, its been very effective!
11/15/22 - Big revamp of this deck, making it more focused and interactive. We have considerably more removal, and have updated with some of the bonkers powerful stuff from THB and MH2.
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Revision 13 See all
(2 years ago)
| +1 | Arbor Elf | main |
| +1 | Avacyn's Pilgrim | main |
| +1 | Birds of Paradise | main |
| +1 | Dark Confidant | main |
| +1 | Elves of Deep Shadow | main |
| -1 | Exploration | main |
| +1 | Jukai Naturalist | main |
| -1 | Smothering Tithe | main |
| -1 | Snow-Covered Forest | main |
| -1 | Snow-Covered Plains | main |
| -1 | Snow-Covered Swamp | main |
| -1 | Starfield Mystic | main |
| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 2 years |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 11 - 0 Mythic Rares 65 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.54 |
| Folders | Current EDH Decks, Anafenza Concepts, Commander |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
| Shared with | |
| Views |