The Best MTG Enchantress Commanders

Enchantress decks have appeared routinely throughout MTG’s history, attacking games in a way that players often aren’t prepared for. Playing almost exclusively enchantments and drawing tons of cards with effects like Argothian Enchantress, these decks often win by making your opponent’s game plan pointless.

Nowadays, Enchantress strategies have expanded to include any and all decks that focus on the enchantment card type, but that doesn’t mean they are any less powerful. If you want to build a Commander deck focused on enchantments, these are the absolute best Commanders you can play.

5 | Marina Vendrell

Despite her focus on the Room enchantment subtype, Marina Vendrell is currently the go-to five-color Commander for enchantress decks, at least according to EDHREC. With over 3,200 different Enchantress decks, this is shockingly the most popular Commander for the archetype.

While you can focus on Marina’s entry ability, flickering it with cards like Teleportation CircleTeleportation CircleAt the beginning of your end step, exile up to one target artifact or creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control. to keep a constant slew of enchantments going to hand, this is really just a Room Typal deck. Still, since all Rooms are enchantments, all of the usual Enchantress support, like Eidolon of BlossomsEidolon of BlossomsConstellation — Whenever this creature or another enchantment you control enters, draw a card., Jukai Naturalist, and Setessan Champion make appearances here. Notably, you can also run some more niche Enchantress support, like Zur, Eternal Schemer, since Marina is five-color.

Using Marina’s activated ability, alongside cards like Keys to the House, Marina can create a ton of value with Room enchantments like Charred Foyer and Dollmaker’s Shop. Eventually, with enough Rooms unlocked, you can go for a Promising Stairs win, ending the game in true Enchantress fashion.

4 | Estrid, the Masked

Thanks to her +2 ability, Estrid, the Masked works best with Auras that enchant your lands. Cards like Fertile Ground and Utopia Sprawl ramp you into bigger enchantments and let Estrid’s ability untap your lands. Then, once your get your Enchantress effects like Enchantress’s PresenceEnchantress’s PresenceWhenever you cast an enchantment spell, draw a card. into play, you can draw a ton of cards with your extra mana, leading to Storm-like sequences.

Once you start getting extra Planeswalker activations and loyalty with cards like The Chain Veil, Teferi’s Talent, and Oath of Teferi, Estrid can build up to multiple Ultimate effects per turn. The Chain Veil is particularly nasty here, since Estrid can start untapping the artifact multiple times per turn after attaching a Mask to it. With all the mana you have from your Auras, you can easily Ultimate Estrid, recast her, and Ultimate again.

With the ability to generate ludicrous amounts of mana, Estrid, the Masked is the Enchantress Commander that can take advantage of cast- and enters-related Enchantress payoffs the most. That said, because the Commander doesn’t draw cards herself, she can run into consistency issues, so you’ll need to load up on tutors to make sure she functions properly.

3 | Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin

Offering another five-color Enchantress strategy that focuses on a certain mechanic, Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin rewards you for playing Shrines. Creating a Shrine Token each time one of these cards enters play, Shrines like The Spirit Oasis and Southern Air Temple can create absurd amounts of value.

Since you’ll be generating a ton of enchantment tokens, other cards that care about enchantments entering, like Eidolon of BlossomsEidolon of BlossomsConstellation — Whenever this creature or another enchantment you control enters, draw a card. and Setessan Champion, are particularly strong here. While Enchantress effects like Mesa EnchantressMesa EnchantressWhenever you cast an enchantment spell, you may draw a card. won’t work for your tokens, you’ll still draw tons of cards with them.

Instead of being the core focus of the strategy, Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin’s reanimation effect is more of an added redundancy, bringing back any Shrines that may have been destroyed. That said, you can sacrifice Shrines like Kyoshi Island Plaza that create a ton of value on entry and recur them.

Sadly, since Shrines are a critical-mass strategy, this Commander is particularly weak to enchantment board wipes like Cataclysm or Farewell, but you can run reanimation effects like Replenish or something like Teferi’s Protection to try to counteract this. With this in mind, Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin does offer a solid game plan that can be pretty fun to pilot.

2 | Anikthea, Hand of Erebos

Instead of focusing on a niche enchantment subtype, Anikthea, Hand of Erebos cares about enchantments in your graveyard, reanimating them into enchantment creatures to attack with. Thanks to this, Anikthea commonly runs a suite of high-cost enchantments like Cacophony Unleashed and Privileged Position to reanimate on the cheap. With lots of graveyard tutor effects like Entomb and Final Parting, it’s rather easy to get these enchantments into the grave.

Interestingly, this also means that Anikthea is quite powerful with Sagas like The Eldest Reborn and Battle at the Helvault, taking advantage of the card type’s innate downside. After it sacrifices itself, Anikthea can bring it back, getting twice the value out of one card.

Of course, since the enchantments that Anikthea reanimates come back as creature tokens, signature token-doubling enchantments like Parallel LivesParallel LivesIf an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead., Doubling SeasonDoubling SeasonIf an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.
If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead., and Anointed Procession are auto-includes here. Throw in some populate effects like Song of the Worldsoul or Growing Ranks, and Anikthea can easily amass an army of enchantment tokens to close the game with.

While Anikthea does favor certain styles of enchantments, her ability to excel with any type of enchantment puts her ahead of a lot of other MTG Enchantress Commanders. She also closes the game out in an unorthodox way for the archetype, relying on creatures. For some Enchantress players, this can actually be a downside, since the playstyle is known for its solitaire-esque pillowfort feel. If you’re not a fan of that, however, Anikthea is certainly the enchantment Commander for you.

1 | Sythis, Harvest’s Hand

The biggest draw to playing Enchantress decks is the sheer amount of card draw that your namesake support generates, and Sythis offers this ability right in the Command Zone. Suddenly, cheap ramping enchantments like Exploration and Carpet of Flowers become cantrips, finding you cards to play with all your extra mana. You can then funnel all your extra mana into an X-spell like Finale of Devastation, winning the game on the spot.

Thanks to this, the most efficient way to play Sythis is to use a bunch of cheap enchantments that either give you mana, or play a sort of stax-y role for your opponents. Cards like Aura of Silence and Blind Obedience can slow your opponents down, while Darksteel Mutation and Swift Reconfiguration remove their Commanders for extended periods. This should give you plenty of time to assemble a game-ending combo with something like Earthcraft, closing the game out.

While Sythis may not be the most exciting Enchantress Commander to play with, she is most certainly the best. Getting the Enchantress archetype’s signature payoff for just two mana in the Command Zone is a rate that’s extremely difficult to beat.

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