MTG’s Newest Enchantress Deck Is Worse than the Rest

The final deck Enduring Enchantments is a bit tough to talk about. On one hand, it functions well in a limited environment. Because of the low enchant hate most pre-cons have and the high recursion ability of the deck, it’s very strong. The problem is most players had bigger expectations for the financial value of these decks, and that’s only fair because of the vastly increased price of the product.

Does this deck justify the high monetary cost? No, absolutely not. But, as prices have settled a little lower, at least it’s a more reasonable value proposition even if the land base leaves much to be desired. There are far more powerful ways to build an Abzan Enchantments deck for the same amount of money, though, so is this deck fun enough to warrant purchasing? Let’s take a look.

A Solid Commander

Just like all of the other decks Anikthea, Hand of Erebos Anikthea, Hand of Erebos Menace
Other enchantment creatures you control have menace.
Whenever Anikthea enters or attacks, exile up to one target non-Aura enchantment card from your graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of that card, except it's a 3/3 black Zombie creature in addition to its other types. perfectly enables Enduring Enchantments. Getting double value from practically every card in the deck is helpful and having an endless stream of 3/3 Menace attackers with additional abilities gives the deck significant staying power. However, that’s really it.

Sometimes you can recur enchantments that are big impact like Battle at the Helvault Battle at the Helvault (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I, II — For each player, exile up to one target non-Saga, nonland permanent that player controls until this Saga leaves the battlefield.
III — Create Avacyn, a legendary 8/8 white Angel creature token with flying, vigilance, and indestructible. but other times a 3/3 Love Song of Night and Day Love Song of Night and Day Read ahead (Choose a chapter and start with that many lore counters. Add one after your draw step. Skipped chapters don't trigger. Sacrifice after III.)
I — You and target opponent each draw two cards.
II — Create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying.
III — Put a +1/+1 counter on each of up to two target creatures. gives you a non-optional draw two effect…for an opponent. The quality of options is highly variable and so is the deck’s power level. In any environment where there is significant enchant destruction or graveyard hate, Anikthea is hard pressed to do its thing, but in a limited environment without that it can seem extremely effective. Your mileage will vary, considerably.

The nice thing, though, is that the alternate commander in Narci, Fable Singer Narci, Fable Singer Lifelink
Whenever you sacrifice an enchantment, draw a card.
Whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga you control resolves, each opponent loses X life and you gain X life, where X is that Saga's mana value. is all sorts of good. You can use her in your Tom Bombadil Tom Bombadil As long as there are four or more lore counters among Sagas you control, Tom Bombadil has hexproof and indestructible.
Whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga you control resolves, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a Saga card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. This ability triggers only once each turn. decks, you can move the deck into a more Saga heavy theme, or get value for a completely different Abzan enchants archetype entirely. I would be willing to bet that Narci will see significant amounts of Commander play long after Anikthea is relegated to the pages of “commanders that attack” history.

Still, for five mana, the Hand of Erebos offers a solid value package that can give you a nice advantage if it stays in play and attacks every turn. How often will that happen with virtually zero protection effects and no haste? It’s not that likely.

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This Costs Two Mana?

Much like all of the other Commander Masters pre-cons, the two drop slot is very well done as practically everything here makes a ton of sense and is high impact. However, Composer of Spring Composer of Spring Constellation — Whenever an enchantment you control enters, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. If you control six or more enchantments, instead you may put a creature or land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. is a great draw at virtually any stage of the game. Turning your commander triggers into additional creatures, enchantments and land drops amps up Anikthea’s value considerably. The same can be said of both Nessian Wanderer Nessian Wanderer Constellation — Whenever an enchantment you control enters, look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a land card from among them and put that card into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. and The Binding of the Titans The Binding of the Titans (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Each player mills three cards.
II — Exile up to two target cards from graveyards. For each creature card exiled this way, you gain 1 life.
III — Return target creature or land card from your graveyard to your hand. .

Having two drops that work both early and late is something this deck does a little bit better than the others. Most of the other two drops accelerate you or give you value. It’s important to have at least one excellent two drop in your opener so be mindful of taking a needed mulligan.

Unique Cards

Look at how generous you are, giving your opponent a +1/+1 and deathtouch buff on their creature! Now they can use it to deal with the threat at the table that isn’t you. Ghoulish Impetus Ghoulish Impetus Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1, has deathtouch, and is goaded. (It attacks each combat if able and attacks a player other than you if able.)
When enchanted creature dies, return this card to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step. as an aura cannot be recurred by Anikthea but that’s alright because it comes with recursion built in. This is a very cool and fun card that is also quite decent. Sometimes it’s better not to kill something but to keep it in play neutralized until later and this version of the Impetus and Vow cycle of cards is well done.

Cacophony Unleashed Cacophony Unleashed When this enchantment enters, if you cast it, destroy all nonenchantment creatures.
Whenever this enchantment or another enchantment you control enters, until end of turn, this enchantment becomes a legendary 6/6 Nightmare God creature with menace and deathtouch. It's still an enchantment. is a very unique card being a one-sided board wipe when you cast it that then turns into a 6/6 with menace and deathtouch until end of turn. While you cannot recur it as a wipe, you do get a 3/3 that easily turns into a 6/6 with menace and deathtouch whenever another enchantment hits the field. Having a board wipe is good. Having a one-sided wipe is better. But having a one sided wipe that turns into a huge monster is very unique. Does that save this deck? Unfortunately not really.

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Mixed Metaphors

One other aspect of Enduring Enchantments that sticks out is the lack of a consistent game plan. Sure, you’re going to play a lot of enchantments and get value from them but the deck can go both tall and wide. Demon of Fate’s Design Demon of Fate’s Design Flying, trample
Once during each of your turns, you may cast an enchantment spell by paying life equal to its mana value rather than paying its mana cost.
{2}{B}, Sacrifice another enchantment: This creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the sacrificed enchantment's mana value. can slap for a lot in the air and gives you a sacrifice outlet to let Anikthea reanimate for extra value. Archon of Sun’s Grace Archon of Sun’s Grace Flying
Lifelink (Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life.)
Pegasus creatures you control have lifelink.
Constellation — Whenever an enchantment you control enters, create a 2/2 white Pegasus creature token with flying. and Felidar Retreat Felidar Retreat Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, choose one —
• Create a 2/2 white Cat Beast creature token.
• Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Those creatures gain vigilance until end of turn. can spit out an army of tokens as can Arasta of the Endless Web Arasta of the Endless Web Reach
Whenever an opponent casts an instant or sorcery spell, create a 1/2 green Spider creature token with reach. if your opponents enable it. The only problem is, there is no road to always get there for this deck. It seeks to gain incremental advantage every turn in a relatively linear way, so playing it is simple and not very deep.

Whereas the other pre-con decks have interesting game states that you have to navigate, Enduring Enchantments sort of forces you to pick the strategy that aligns with the first few cards you encounter and then hope for the best. Many board states end up with Anikthea and two or three 3/3 enchantment zombies while the rest of the table has something crazy going on. It’s hard to win from that kind of position.

Full Graveyard Deck or Something Else?

There’s already a mill sub-theme that works well in the deck, so one option is to take that to the extreme and play some massive cards that will take your entire enchantment based graveyard and put it directly into play. With multi-faceted options like One Ring to Rule Them All One Ring to Rule Them All (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — The Ring tempts you, then each player mills cards equal to your Ring-bearer's power.
II — Destroy all nonlegendary creatures.
III — Each opponent loses 1 life for each creature card in that player's graveyard. and The War in Heaven The War in Heaven (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — You draw three cards and you lose 3 life.
II — Mill three cards.
III — Choose up to three target creature cards with total mana value 8 or less in your graveyard. Return each of them to the battlefield with a necrodermis counter on it. They're artifacts in addition to their other types. you can have your cake and eat it too. You get value from Sagas, baseline. You fill your graveyard with mill triggers. This allows you to be choosy about what you reanimate with Anikthea, for example, the mana ramping enchantments, while leaving the bigger game enders stored in your graveyard.

Finally, even if you don’t have the budget for an expensive card like Replenish Replenish Return all enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. (Auras with nothing to enchant remain in your graveyard.) there are much more budget friendly cards like Brilliant Restoration Brilliant Restoration Return all artifact and enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. , Resurgent Belief Resurgent Belief Suspend 2—{1}{W} (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay {1}{W} and exile it with two time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Return all enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. (Auras with nothing to enchant remain in your graveyard.) or Triumphant Reckoning Triumphant Reckoning Return all artifact, enchantment, and planeswalker cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. . For a few dollars more Eerie Ultimatum Eerie Ultimatum Return any number of permanent cards with different names from your graveyard to the battlefield. just works. In this version of the deck you go from zero to a dozen or more enchantments all in play at once with a gazillion triggers on the stack. If that doesn’t win, well, you can recreate your board with Anikthea.

Alternatively, you can put in some combos with protection. As mentioned previously, Angelic Renewal Angelic Renewal Whenever a creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, you may sacrifice this enchantment. If you do, return that card to the battlefield. is excellent for the deck and allows you to save creatures, multiple times, thanks to Anikthea. Furthermore, cards like Sun Titan Sun Titan Vigilance
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, you may return target permanent card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. are great for a graveyard interactive deck. These cards offer strong synergy no matter which build direction you take.

There are plenty of enchantment friendly tutors but it depends on how much of a combo deck you’re trying to build versus what your local meta tolerates. Certainly Enlightened Tutor Enlightened Tutor Search your library for an artifact or enchantment card, reveal it, then shuffle and put that card on top. is always excellent but Stirling Grove is very inexpensive, adds a protection angle and can be used twice so it’s worth considering for sure. Alongside tutors, adding in combo kills like Sanguine Bond Sanguine Bond Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life. and Exquisite Blood Exquisite Blood Whenever an opponent loses life, you gain that much life. is going to be entirely up to the power level expectations of your group. Some groups find these types of effects too fast to allow a game to develop, others are playing at a much more competitive level and say bring it on. Certainly many players who pick up this deck will try these cards.

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Ultimately, Is it Worth it?

More so than the other pre-cons, Enduring Enchantments could work well or it could be pretty bad. If the table lets you keep your commander in play, accruing value every turn, it’s a somewhat solid deck. If your commander gets removed a couple of times early, you’re out of luck.

The fact that the deck has no real protection means that you are counting on the table running out of steam and then, eventually, your value engine will pull ahead. The problem is if the other decks are better than pre-con level, you’re going to struggle. Most of your big spells are six or more mana and if anyone is playing blue you might just run into a counter at the worst time. Destiny Spinner Destiny Spinner Creature and enchantment spells you control can't be countered.
{3}{G}: Target land you control becomes an X/X Elemental creature with trample and haste until end of turn, where X is the number of enchantments you control. It's still a land. alone is not enough insurance against the threat of open mana and the deck plays poorly at instant speed with only a few effects and cards. Exile is always a problem, but here it really hurts your value and you don’t really have anything to answer it unlike the other decks which have limited interaction but none-the-less something.

While the general market consensus is that Planeswalker Party is a worse buy, I think Enduring Enchantments gets my pick as the least “good” deck. Does that means it’s bad? No, it’s a fine deck and it works on a pre-con level. It’s not one of the better pre-cons from this set or the last few. It seemed like Wizards was promising these decks were going to operate at a higher power level but unfortunately that just is not the case here.

Furthermore, the way the deck is setup is very formulaic. Attacking and making 3/3s is just not that fun or strong as is. When the deck was first spoiled it reminded me of Myrkul, Lord of Bones Myrkul, Lord of Bones As long as your life total is less than or equal to half your starting life total, Myrkul has indestructible.
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that card, except it's an enchantment and loses all other card types. from Baldur’s Gate, and, Anikthea is sort of a reversed version. While this deck has a more linear path forward, it looks like the optimal path is to ignore that and do something completely different, particularly combo based. In that case, I always wonder why bother playing this particular commander?

In any case Narci, Fable Singer Narci, Fable Singer Lifelink
Whenever you sacrifice an enchantment, draw a card.
Whenever the final chapter ability of a Saga you control resolves, each opponent loses X life and you gain X life, where X is that Saga's mana value. looks like the more interesting commander especially with a stronger Saga sub-theme and mass graveyard reanimation win con so that is where I am taking my copy and I do think it will be pretty fun once built.

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