"Enduring Enchantments" Precon Upgrade Guide | Commander Masters
Commander Masters preconstructed decklists have been revealed and with it comes another round of my precon upgrades. We're going to do a thorough analysis of each deck, highlighting its goals and how well it accomplishes them, check out its deckbuilding fundamentals, identify its strongest and weakest cards, then use all that information to create an optimized $50 upgrade path!
Check out all the Commander Masters precon upgrades here:
Enduring Enchantments is a White / Black / Green Enchantress deck that does the usual Enchantress things but with a Graveyard subtheme this time around. The deck is entirely about casting and supporting enchantments: ramping them out with cards like Jukai Naturalist, draw cards with Sythis, Harvest's Hand, wiping opposing creatures with Doomwake Giant, and eventually overwhelming the table with cards like Sigil of the Empty Throne.
This precon adds a small twist to the archetype by adding a Graveyard subtheme, milling yourself of enchantments with cards like Nyx Weaver and placing a greater emphasis on recursion with cards like Starfield of Nyx.
So if you wanted to add Black to your White / Green Enchantress deck and wanted a precon to offer a great base to build off of, Enduring Enchantments is the deck for you!
The Precon List
Before we talk upgrades, let's take a look at the stock list to see what we're working with:
While it won't win any points for originality, Enduring Enchantments does do a great job sticking to its Enchantress theme: I count a whopping 43 enchantment cards and 28 cards that directly support enchantments like Mesa Enchantress or Boon of the Spirit Realm. This isn't really a surprise considering the staggering amount of support for Enchantress especially in White / Green colors but the end result is still sweet.
What did surprise me though is how nice the Graveyard subtheme ended up being: I count 20 cards that interact with the graveyard directly with a very generous definition, including anything that recurs (Starfield of Nyx), puts itself in the graveyard (Binding the Old Gods), puts other enchantments in the graveyard (Nyxborn Behemoth), or triggers off enchantments going into graveyards (Narci, Fable Singer). The Graveyard subtheme really does compliment the primary Enchantress game plan and adds some much-needed flavor to the deck.
The end result is a precon that knows what it wants to do and does it very consistently and competently.
Choosing Our Commander
There are two potential commanders for the precon deck: Anikthea, Hand of Erebos and Narci, Fable Singer. Both deal with Enchantments and the Graveyard but do so in very different ways and both are excellent choices to lead an upgraded precon.
- Anikthea, Hand of Erebos provides steady graveyard recursion for the deck, bringing back your enchantments as 3/3 creature tokens that trigger ETBs and also can attack. Her ability is triggered by either ETB or attacking which can be very powerful when built around but awkwardly the precon doesn't do much to support this as there's no way to give Anikthea evasion (except her own subpar menace) or blink her. A deck properly built around Anikthea will want more evasion, more blink, and populate cards like Song of the Worldsoul to take advantage of her token making.
- Narci, Fable Singer is a steady card advantage engine that benefits the most from Sagas to draw cards and drain, but she works with any enchantment that sacrifices itself like Seal of Cleansing or Omen of the Hunt. Again there's less support in the precon for Narci than I'd like but she's very sweet when properly built around.
Of the two, I think Narci is the stronger commander: it's easy to fill the deck full of sagas and enchantments that sacrifice themselves and then you've got a very reliable and consistent card draw engine in the command zone. She certainly has the higher power floor of the two. However, I'm going with Anikthea here because I find her abilities more interesting: she requires more setup as you want not just enchantments in the graveyard to recur but also evasion / blink engines / populate to take advantage of her which is going to lead to consistency issues, but once the deck starts popping off things get wild! Also one notable advantage Anikthea has over Narci is being an enchantment which is very relevant in an Enchantress deck, triggering constellation (Doomwake Giant) and benefitting from things like Sterling Grove.
So yeah, we're sticking with Anikthea!
Analyzing the Precon & Identifying Weaknesses
Now that we've glanced at the stock list and settled on our commander, let's take a closer look at the deck itself to identify what parts benefit the most from upgrades.
As I often explain in my Budget Commander articles, every time I build a rough draft of a deck, I make sure I have a certain ratio of mana, interaction, card advantage, etc. This gives me a reference point to compare to the deck and see which areas may need improvement. My general ratio is:
- 50 mana; lands and ramp, usually a 37–13 split
- 10 card draw; cards that net you 2+ cards in hand
- 8 targeted removal; split between creature / artifact / enchantment removal and countermagic
- 3 board wipes; creature-light decks might want one more, creature-heavy decks might want one less
- 2 graveyard recursion
- 2 flexible tutors; higher budgets I recommend more tutors
- 1 graveyard hate; since you need to keep Graveyard decks honest
- 1 finisher; something that can win games the turn you cast it without too much setup
That's always my starting point, which is then tweaked to suit the individual deck's strategy and further tweaked with playtesting. I always find it immensely useful to figure out some quick ways to improve the deck in question.
Let's see what the rough ratios are for Enduring Enchantress and how it compares. I count:
- 54 mana; 37 lands and Composer of Spring, Herald of the Pantheon, Jukai Naturalist, Sanctum Weaver, Starfield Mystic, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Greater Tanuki, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Kodama's Reach, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Font of Fertility, Khalni Heart Expedition, Omen of the Hunt, Binding the Old Gods, Mirari's Wake
- 12 card draw; Nessian Wanderer, Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Courser of Kruphix, Mesa Enchantress, Satyr Enchanter, Setessan Champion, Verduran Enchantress, Eidolon of Blossoms, Narci, Fable Singer, Calix, Destiny's Hand, Enchantress's Presence, Love Song of Night and Day
- 6 targeted removal; Erebos, Bleak-Hearted, Calix, Destiny's Hand, Path to Exile, Grasp of Fate, Binding the Old Gods, Cast Out
- 5 board wipes; Doomwake Giant, Culling Ritual, Extinguish All Hope, Cacophony Unleashed
- 4 graveyard recursion; Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, Nyx Weaver, The Mending of Dominaria, The Binding of the Titans
- 0 flexible tutors;
- 1 graveyard hate; The Binding of the Titans
The ratios for this deck is very good: lots of amazing mana advantage cards that really take advantage of the archetype like Sanctum Weaver, tons of Enchantress for card draw like Mesa Enchantress, great one-sided board wipes like Doomwake Giant etc. I think the targeted removal is a bit lackluster but the deck is very well-developed. With Enchantress being such a popular archetype with so much support it would honestly be surprising if the designers somehow messed it up but I'm happy to confirm that they did indeed make a good Enchantress list here.
$50 Upgrade
Disclaimer: Card prices are volatile and may be different at the time you read this article.
Enduring Enchantress is a great Enchantress deck to upgrade off of. The ratios are good and there's tons of Enchantress staples. The major issue with the deck is 1) the lands kind of suck and 2) the decks don't do enough to support the commander options Anikthea, Hand of Erebos or Narci, Fable Singer. To be fair, Enchantress is such a strong archetype that you don't really need to worry about your commander doing too much, but building around them does make the deck better.
My upgrade goals are:
- Add even more enchantments with a focus on self-sacrifice
- Add more support cards to Anikthea to trigger her ability more
- Add token support cards, most notably populate
- Start upgrading the lands
This precon was by far the hardest to upgrade because Enchantress is so popular and its card pool is so robust that it's hard to narrow down what cards to add to the deck, but we finally got to a spot where I was happy with.
I wanted the upgrade path to build around Anikthea, Hand of Erebos more, which isn't necessarily a stronger path than just being a generic Enchantress deck that occasionally casts Anikthea for value, but I think it's more interesting. I wanted Anikthea to be better protected so I added some staple Enchantress protection Sterling Grove and Privileged Position to protect from removal and Angelic Renewal which sacrifices itself to be recurred later. I also added Agent of the Shadow Thieves as a cheap way to let Anikthea attack without fear of dying and Teleportation Circle to blink her and potentially trigger her ability twice per turn.
I also added a Tokens theme to the deck to take advantage of our commander's powerful ability. Calix, Guided by Fate is the single best upgrade to the deck since he too makes enchantment tokens and can buff our team. Token doublers like Anointed Procession are way out of budget but I've added the next best thing, populate, with super sweet cards like Song of the Worldsoul.
Finally we round out the upgrades with more Enchantress staples like Wild Growth for enchantment ramp, Hallowed Haunting as blockers and finisher, Brilliant Restoration for mass reanimation, etc. Also land upgrades!
Additions:
Cuts:
Here's how the deck looks with the upgrades added:
Further Upgrades
Enchantress has an absurdly large card pool so there's tons of upgrade options, more than you could ever fit in a single deck:
- Lands: Serra's Sanctum, Urza's Saga, Hall of Heliod's Generosity, all the relevant fetchlands / shocks / ABU duals / bondlands / checklands / slowlands
- Ramp: Utopia Sprawl, Birds of Paradise, Smothering Tithe
- Card Draw: Argothian Enchantress, Femeref Enchantress
- Removal: Aura of Silence, Aura Shards
- Recursion: Replenish, Whip of Erebos
- Tutors: Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, there's also Idyllic Tutor but my hot take is 3 mana tutors ain't good enough
- Tokens: Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives
- Protection: Sphere of Safety, Timely Ward
All Done!
I hope you enjoyed my precon upgrade guide for Commander Masters! I'll be back next week with my usual Budget Commander series, so let me know what commanders you're interested in seeing me cover!
