This deck is designed to be highly tuned, efficient, and effective. but its not designed for competitive EDH, and can't effectively answer those decks, nor do I plan to add those answers. This deck is also designed to not be a drag on the game (as such it doesn't run many staxy elements, even if they would be good.) and not to annoy players the whole game (
Rhystic Study
,
Aura of Silence
,
City of Solitude
,
Energy Flux
etc.) this deck flies under the radar for most of the game, doing somewhat minor and durdle-y things with enchantments. then all of a sudden this deck generates insane mana and slams enchantment after enchantment until the game is locked up. While the cards themselves are of a high power level, the deck's power level is intentionally held back with a lack of generic answers outside of the single
Counterspell
.
(
Overburden
probably crosses the line I set, but I haven't had a chance to properly test it yet)
Enchantress is a deck archetype involving a truckload of enchantments and the namesake "enchantresses" to cycle through your deck, while the enchantments themselves protect you from getting run over. Enchantress Decks have a couple different ways to win, which will vary based on the colors you have in your deck.
- Enchantment Lock, make it hard/impossible for anyone to play.
- Make a swarm of Tokens and hope they can survive a turn rotation
- Enchantment Combo kill people
- Slap on
Ancestral Mask
and/or
Ethereal Armor
and try to melt face
- Animate all your enchantments into shitty creatures
- Enchantment Combo kill everyone
Of these options, the vast majority of enchantress decks go for the Lock, gives you the best defensive options for an enchantress deck, and that is the main win condition of this list.
So here are our lovely ladies, the enchantresses:
Argothian Enchantress
,
Enchantress's Presence
,
Verduran Enchantress
,
Mesa Enchantress
,
Satyr Enchanter
,
Eidolon of Blossoms
these cards let you rapidly cycle through your deck while casting enchantments that protect you.
Terminology Show
"pillowfort" is the term used for cards that make it hard to attack you, such as
Propaganda
or
Sphere of Safety
. these pillowfort cards are what let you continue to build up your board without creatures and not get decimated by the other players.
"enrampments" Unlike most Commander decks, enchantress decks dont typically run ramp spells like
Cultivate
instead we run enrampments, which come in three flavors;
Playing the deck Show
The main gameplan for the deck is to play an enchantress as soon as possible, while playing as much pillowfort as you can get up safely. Don't play any major threat to the board without some sort of protection. (i.e. Dont play
Luminarch Ascension
without a reasonable amount of pillowfort, and ideally have a "cant target" enchantment up like
Sterling Grove
). and eventually lock everyone out, giving you a slow but inevitable win. or just doing good ol' angel beatdown.
Early Game Show
For mulligans: 3 lands > Enchantress > Enchantress tutors > Early card draw > Enrampments > Pillowfort > Oblivion rings
Starting the game you'll want to start slow, playing too many enchantments too early puts a giant target on your forehead, keep pace with everyone else. (land auras being an exception to this, people seem to undervalue them heavily). Find an enchantress and just keep one down (even if you can play more), keep an eye out for threats to oblivion ring to play politics, and slowly build up the pillowfort.
Cards like:
Serra's Sanctum
,
Luminarch Ascension
,
Sigil of the Empty Throne
,
Stony Silence
are all cards that can put a massive target on you. hold off on these until you get a bit set up to defend yourself.
Cards like:
Overburden
,
Burgeoning
, and
Mystic Remora
can also paint a target on your head, but these ARE best played early. if you think your hand can handle the early aggression that might come your way, get these down, otherwise hold off a bit.
Play politics with your Oblivion rings and cards like
Stony Silence
to keep others from comboing off, keep an eye on your available mana, and start setting up your "go off" turn, get estrid down with some land auras , find/cast a mana doubler. at this point you will be exceeding the pace of the rest of the table most likely. If you think you are starting to become the table focus you'll want to try and either hold back a bit or go into the "go off" turn.
alternatively if you think someone is about to combo and you dont have a way to stop it, going into the "go off" turn is recommended.
"going off" Show
Going off is split into 2 phases: Cycling the deck and Establishing the lock.
Cycling the deck:
- Don't tap any more mana than you need to, and focus on tapping enchanted lands first and hold off on estrid until you cant cast anymore without using her +.
- Focus on drawing as many cards as you can, this can mean using oblivion rings on useless stuff, but it is worth it. be efficient
- be wary of decking yourself, it can sometimes happen with 3 or 4 enchantresses,
Abundance
prevents you from EVER dying to no cards in library, even if you have 0 cards left.
- be careful with your mana colors, white is the easiest color to mass produce with
Serra's Sanctum
and
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
so it is the best color to spend on generic mana costs. but it is still a balancing game, If I have 5 and 3 and go to cast
Sphere of Safety
I generally will use 4/3 and 1/2 to cast, so I still have mana of both colors left over.
Establishing the lock:
- there are 3 main locks in this deck to lock down the game:
-
Words of Wind
: with a lot of mana floating, play a cheap enchantment, pay 1 for words of wind, and bounce another cheap enchantment and repeat the cycle. (i.e. cast
Authority of the Consuls
, pay 1 for words, return
Land Tax
. then play
Land Tax
, pay 1 for words, return authority to your hand)
Try maintain this loop until everyone else has their whole board (including lands) in their hands.
-
Solemnity
+
Decree of Silence
: this combo just straight up makes it so opponents have every spell countered, there is no real trick to this like words of wind. the only neat thing you can try to do is use
Sterling Grove
to tutor
Decree of Silence
to top then ult estrid to put decree straight into play
-
Enchanted Evening
+
Cleansing Meditation
: enchanted evening is natural to play, it boosts
Serra's Sanctum
,
Sphere of Safety
and makes mass enchantment removal so brutal, it heavily deters anyone from using anything other than a
Bane of Progress
. cleansing meditation is the tricksy part of this combo, getting threshold usually happens naturally but if someone is
Bojuka Bog
ing you or something you'll need to fill it yourself on the go off turn.
Faith Healer
is the easy card for hitting threshold, otherwise casting a
Supreme Verdict
or
Slaughter the Strong
usually do the job. ulting estrid also usually hits 3-4 nonenchantments.
Some neat Synergy in the list:
-
Abundance
+
Sylvan Library
-
Eidolon of Blossoms
+
Enchanted Evening
+
Sigil of the Empty Throne
- slaughter of the weak strong considering the total power of the whole deck is only 11.
-
Mana Reflection
+
Serra's Sanctum
/
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
, reflection truly doubles, unlike every similar enchantment, I've had serra's generate 50 mana before because of that
-
Mana Reflection
+
Wooded Bastion
/
Mystic Gate
/
Flooded Grove
, Pay 1 mana to get 4 back
-
Mana Reflection
+
Copy Enchantment
/
Estrid's Invocation
, they are cumulative, so 2x mana reflection is 4x mana
-
Solemnity
+
Elephant Grass
/
Mystic Remora
, no cumulative upkeep
-
Wargate
, = 0 lets you tutor
Serra's Sanctum
into play untapped for only 3 mana
-
Mana Bloom
, = 0 kinda like
Phyrexian Arena
as long as you have an enchantress, can also color fix 1 mana.
Other Fun Enchantress Cards/Combos
-
Opalescence
/
Starfield of Nyx
+
Parallax Wave
: infinite creature exile and infinite ETB triggers. wave has the old o-ring template, and with it being a creature it can target itself, Fun stuff.
-
Gossamer Chains
is the bastard love child of
Flickering Ward
and
Maze of Ith
(Note you have to have a target to activate the ability, so it doesn't function as a second
Flickering Ward
unless you have a
Leyline of Anticipation
or similar effect. )
-
Cloud Cover
can function similar to
Privileged Position
, actually not as bad as it looks, I do run it in my IRL list due to the price of
Greater Auramancy
-
Skybind
is extremely flexible, you can use it on opponents lands to turn off countermagic for example. or on your own lands to "untap" them, I run this in non-estrid enchantress for that reason. but estrid has too many enchanted lands to run it. also a good way to make friends by blinking someone's
Wood Elves
or the like.
-
Auratog
/
Thaumatog
function as
Faith Healer
copies 2/3, I haven't wanted more than one copy myself, my oblivion rings dont get removed easily as is, and the other uses are niche enough that one is sufficient.
-
Rancor
+ Enchantment sac outlet: basically
Whip Silk
with 0 to return it, is harder to mass produce than but still alright.
-
Aegis of Honor
is good if you have a storm player that kills with
Tendrils of Agony
or
Ignite Memories
, or some other deck that kills with instant sorceries rather than
Guttersnipe
or
Sentinel Tower
. super niche.
-
Sacred Ground
is anti-stax tech
-
Spiritual Focus
is anti-discard tech
-
Dovescape
is similar to the
Solemnity
+
Decree of Silence
lock, and is what I used before solemnity was printed, much less effective but much more fair. also 1 card versus 2.
-
Vernal Equinox
/
Leyline of Anticipation
/
Vedalken Orrery
are ways to flash enchantments
-
Conviction
/
Whip Silk
/
Shimmering Wings
are alternate
Flickering Ward
s also cheaper dollar wise.
-
Energy Field
+
Rest in Peace
/
Wheel of Sun and Moon
works as a second
Solitary Confinement
but much weaker.
-
Heliod, God of the Sun
,
Ajani's Chosen
,
Monastery Mentor
,
Sacred Mesa
are alternate token producers
-
Remove Enchantments
: to simplify the ridiculous text here it basically says "return all enchantments you control to your hand and destroy all enchantments attached to attacking creatures" (worth noting it will destroy auras you own attached to permanents you don't control). its niche as hell, but it is a 1 mana response to
Merciless Eviction
-
Seal of Cleansing
,
Seal of Primordium
,
Seal of Removal
; not a fan of the seals, but I know plenty of people love the
Naturalize
seals at least.
-
Energy Flux
can easily be even more brutal than
Stony Silence
-
Chamber of Manipulation
,
Squirrel Nest
,
Nylea's Presence
are interesting with estrid.
-
Gift of Paradise
,
New Horizons
,
Sheltered Aerie
,
Elvish Guidance
, are other enrampments I dont run
-
Martyr's Bond
+
Enchanted Evening
+
Faith Healer
; you can start making people sac anything, even their lands.
-
Holistic Wisdom
is one of the best repeatable ways to return enchantments from grave to hand, but the cost is steep. I would run it before
Auramancer
or
Hanna, Ship's Navigator
, but I would still only run it if
Naturalize
effects are running rampant in your meta.
-
City of Solitude
is basically "spells cant be countered"
-
Concordant Crossroads
lets the tokens have haste to swing out, not bad, just too niche because it is symmetrical.
-
Mirri's Guile
is a shitty
Sylvan Library
but can act as a second copy.
-
Soul Snare
can act as a shitty enchantment version of
Swords to Plowshares
or you can see it as a massively improved
Divine Verdict
.
-
Cloud Key
can work as
Herald of the Pantheon
#2
-
Semblance Anvil
can work as a mega
Cloud Key
at a cost.
-
Sylvan Scrying
,
Hour of Promise
,
Tempt with Discovery
,
Weathered Wayfarer
,
Reap and Sow
,
Expedition Map
are other ways to fetch
Serra's Sanctum
-
Sungrass Prairie
/
Skycloud Expanse
+
Mana Reflection
= Pay 1 get 4.