Enchantress decks are all about drawing a lot of cards. When people think about mana ramp in Enchantress, most just settle with Enchant Land Aura cards. Kristen argues that there’s an obvious mana engine that lies relatively untapped for Enchantress builds.
Enchantress is one of the most popular archetypes in Commander. It comes in a variety of “flavors”; while Selesnya is by far the most popular one that isn’t a five-color pile helmed by Go-Shintai or Marina Vendrell, people play the archetype in Abzan, Mardu, Sultai, Bant, Orzhov, Gruul, and Esper. The Aura variant of Enchantress is also popular in mono-white, Naya, Boros, mono-green and Simic.
As you can see, Enchantress decks can be found across the color-pie, and it’s for good reason: they draw a lot of cards. Commander players love to draw cards. Another thing they love to do is to make really large creatures piled with auras or equipment as a Voltron style win condition.
With the many styles of Enchantress available, there are different approaches to how to fill out the deck. One consideration, once you’ve chosen your card draw sources (which will mostly be Enchantress creatures, which is what gives the archetype its name) is on how to generate mana.
RAMPING IN ENCHANTRESS
Ramping in an Enchantress deck usually involves using Aura-based ramp that Enchants lands.
The classic one-drop plays in Enchantress are Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth, which are commonly played alongside Sol Ring and Birds of Paradise as the one drops of choice. As you move up the curve, you get access to more expensive ramp like Overgrowth.
The obvious benefit of running these is that once you have an Enchantress draw effect in play, you can then draw a card by playing your ramp piece.
As you pay more for these effects, they tend to get a lot better. A recent one I’ve really loved playing with is Buried in the Garden. Buried in the Garden acts as an Oblivion Ring effect that simultaneously ramps you. Both are effects you want to run, and it can also cantrip if you have an Enchantress in play.
The type of Enchantress deck you are will dictate the other kinds of ramp you want. Many Enchantress decks will be a combination of enchantments and artifacts, and so mana rocks might be a good choice. Others will generate treasure through gameplay, making cards like Smothering Tithe or Revel in Riches much better options.
In a hybrid style of deck, a card like Starnheim Courser pulls a lot of weight – especially if your theme is Auras and Equipments. And, if you’re all in on Enchantments, then Pearl-Ear offers huge cost reduction packaged with some bonus card draw.
BIG MANA PLAYS
Pearl-Ear is a card that can enable big turns, which are a reliable way to win games of Commander. The most common tools in an Enchantress toolbox for this are cards that generate a lot of mana.
Sanctum Weaver is a relatively new one that can give huge bursts of mana, and it’s still a mana dork that eats removal in a lot of games – and for good reason.
Sanctum Weaver is kind of a second copy of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, a card that is most at home in an Enchantress build. Thanks to being heavy on pips and permanents, Enchantress can make these effects sing.
Other forms of bursty mana abound, with Bear Umbra – one of the best Auras that people play even outside Enchantress – bringing not only the best part of Feast and Famine, without even needing to connect… but also Totem Armor, ensuring some survivability.
An underrated effect in this suite is Mark of Sakiko. Sure, you’re only getting green mana, but for the low investment of two mana up front? That’s one hell of a ritual, especially with no Dockside in the format.
Nyxbloom Ancient is perhaps the splashiest of ways to generate a boat-load of mana, but even if you have coin for that boat ride, you’re going to first have to cough up the mana to get it into play. Seven mana means a relatively late-game showing for this one, so outside of reanimator, how can you get it in play earlier?
Well, one such card that can help you get ahead on turns is One with Nature. It’s essentially Rampant Growth on combat damage, which for only one mana is incredibly efficient. Being able to play ahead of the rest of the table while drawing many more cards than everyone else is a potent sounding combo, right? Well, there’s a ramp engine that Enchantress decks can play – if they’re in green – that I believe is currently way under utilized.
Let’s dig into it.
NOT JUST FOR LANDFALL DECKS
The most common time you’ll see Burgeoning and Exploration is in Landfall decks. For the longest time, that’s what made sense for them; sitting in a deck that can benefit from dropping extra lands into play. While you can have a crossover Enchantress and Lands deck in Commander – especially in Bant and Simic – these cards are excellent in any other Enchantress deck, and I’ll tell you why.
First off, they’re only one mana to play. That means you can get them down early, and immediately start ramping. In Enchantress, we should be drawing a lot of cards, which means we should also be drawing a lot of spare lands. These enchantments can help us to get those lands out of our hands and into play where they can do way more for us.
They’re also one-mana ways to draw a card if we draw them late, which in the case of Exploration, is also likely to be “free” given we can immediately drop another land to make up for tapping one.
If you want to make this engine work, you’ll need to run enough lands – which is maybe why so many players shy away from it. EDH players can be very greedy, after all. I advocate running at least 38 lands to make this engine work for you, and it’s so worth it if you do.
What made me invest in this engine? Well, it’s MKM’s Case of the Locked Hothouse. It’s an Exploration for four mana that, when solved, gives you Future Sight for the most common card types in your deck. This is an extremely powerful and broken effect, and considering you can also play lands off the top, and cast enchantments to draw past anything you get stuck on? It’s safe to say that Locked Hothouse is the card I most often want to draw into when playing Enchantress.
END STEP
Not every Enchantress deck is green, but even on the pages of decks that are green on EDHRec, it’s clear to see that this suite of ramp cards are firmly believed by the playerbase to be the realm of mono-green, or just for Landfall decks. I challenge you to think outside of the… Locked Hothouse… and consider what this package can do for you in your Enchantress deck.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.