Sharing my list soon for reviews!!
#MagicTheGathering
Alrighty, deck list time https://archidekt.com/decks/19627348/enchant_dsenchante_enchantment_sac_recursion_control?sort=cmc&stack=multiple
I have added way too much details in the description but that should help contextualise the deck and give an idea of what we’re doing here
For context, I have struggled with keeping consistent land drops and I end up lagging behind especially since the deck also doesn’t have much ramp. I feel like it takes time to find tangible value in my plays, and I often end up in a situation where my commander is cast and the turn after it gets swooped into a board wipe, and I can’t do much, as casting it for 5 mana as a do-norhing feels awful when I’m not keeping up. Which may be an issue with the concept of the deck and the commander itself, so I am aware my plan may not be viable overall haha
I also feel like I often end up in situations where I have a handful of cards that do nothing with each other, so I think that shows a lack of focus and misevaluation in card quality, and most importantly, a deck relying too much on its on synergy to work.
I think in the meantime I will try to sort of overhaul the whole deck and laser focus it better, cutting cards that don’t quite do what I need and simplify it to its core mechanics, adding more low mana card draw. My aim is also to add one more land to the mix to have 40 lands + 2 land-ish cards which should allow comfort for playing control and offering good mulliganing options (my personal preference recently in my decks has been to run 38 as a bare minimum (besides a few exceptions) and usually more lands, but any polite suggestions or feedback is welcome to help me in that process, I’m feeling a bit self-conscious because I know I am terrible at evaluating card quality and building decks so be gentle pls
Thank you for reading me

The Master of Keys - Commander deck Control • Sacrifice • Enchantments • Graveyard • Enchantress • Self-Mill (1) Commander • (9) Altars • (6) Burn • (7) Cardboard fetching • (11) Cardboard treats • (41) Land • (8) Mass Disruption • (11) Mill • (3) More MORE!!!! • (12) Protecc • (4) Ramp • (10) Recursion • (10) sparkly fodder • (12) Targetted Disruption • (3) whimsical rat combo Overview Enchanté & Désenchantée is my personal take on building an enchantress deck in Esper colour with a sacrificing twist. The deck is a control deck, aiming to gain value from playing and sacrificing its own enchantments, grinding out opponents in value by recurring enchantments from the graveyard while burning them slowly, until it has accrued enough resources to give an explosive coup de grâce. Soundtrack Around the deck Inspiration The deck was inspired by the Wilds of Eldraine mechanics, in particular its role enchantment tokens combined with the Bargain mechanic, and different payoffs for putting enchantments in the graveyard like [[Warehouse Tabby]] combined with [[Twisted Sewer-Witch]] combined. I wanted to build a deck where these two cards could live without being overshadowed or concentrating the deck on a gimmick. Game plan The main game plan is to use the graveyard as an extended hand to cast enchantments from, and to recurr removal to control the game while burning opponents by casting or sacrificing enchantments. The spot removal suite is entirely made of enchantments, and most of them do not need to stick around to achieve what they need to do (some even benefit from being sacrificed, more on that later). The deck wants to win by burning players via a large amount of enchantments enterring the battlefield or being sacrified, using a payoff like [[Grim Guardian]] or [[Wicked Visitor]]. To achieve control, the deck wants to: Fill the graveyard with enchantments to cast and duds to exile, using predominantly repeatable mill effects. Remove threats or value engine using enchantments, cast from the hand or from the graveyard via [[The Master of Keys]]'s ability. Sacrifice the enchantments to put them in the graveyard, and allow them to be escaped again and again using [[The Master of Keys]]'s ability, while building up card advantage and mana. Rinse & repeat until you can push for a win. In-depths [[Asinine Antics]] This is one of the most explosive enablers in the deck list, as this can spawn a huge amount of enchantments according to how many creatures are on the battlefield, and is the easiest finishing combo to pull off as it does a lot on its own as long as it's combined with burn payoff like a [[Grim Guardian]], which makes it function like a [[Rakdos Charm]] affecting only your opponents on top of debuffing their creatures and generating a supply of fodder, and at its floor, it is a mass disruption spell to turn off big creatures. Another interesting aspect of [[Asinine Antics]] is that it can trigger any Constellation or Eerie payoffs (not just burn), so you can: generate card draw with [[Entity Tracker]]; generate mill with [[Sage of Mysteries]]; board-wipe your opponent's creatures with [[Doomwake Giant]]; phase out non-enchantment permanents with [[Skybind]]. [[Amphibian Downpour]] This enchantments provides similar value to [[Asinine Antics]], with a few key differences. While it cannot generate nearly as many auras in a single spell, it offers the benefits of turning off the abilities of the creatures it is enchanting and being repeatable from the graveyard if the original card gets destroyed or sacrificed. [[Estrid's Invocation]] This is such a fun toolbox card. You can tutor for it with an enchantment like [[Gravebreaker Lamia]] or [[The Cruelty of Gix]], then cast it to flicker the enchantment to tutor for something else, potentially on each of your upkeep; you can generate Wicked tokens on each of your turn with [[Lord Skitter's Blessing]] [[Nashi, Searcher in the Dark]] This deck was originally a Dimir deck using Nashi as the commander, where most enchantments were also creatures to allow them to be recurred in Dimir colour (the lack of white makes it nearly impossible to recurr enchantments from the graveyard). I loved Nashi so much that I initially wanted him to be a secret Commander in the deck as a main mill engine, and that's the reason why I had added a fair amount of low-mana tutors to attempt playing him consistently at the start. Unfortunately, Nashi is hard to play late into the game when the deck isn't built around him being in the command zone, you need some form of evasion, and it becomes costly in terms of card slots and mana on such a tight deck list to allow him to connect every turn. He's still good in the opening hand and can easily scale with the +1/+1 as you can always leave the enchantments in the graveyard though, so he remains in the deck.
Guys, we did it. I updated the list, added a bit more redundancy and it still has some issues but the deck worked a lot better last night. I think adding more repeatable creature recursion and another enchantment sac outlet really helped, as I could use my graveyard as a form of protection against creature removal.
I think I must underestimate how strong the things that I do are, because despite having only value pieces and regularly milling and not pressuring much life total, I was still perceived as a massive threat next to the player who was ramping, sacrificing and recurring lands constantly, pinging us easily for 20-30 damage (he ended up winning), but I suppose that’s control-combo-ish decks for you haha
First game, I had a pretty great opening hand, making the game plan set up very smoothly and fast. Was crippled pretty hard by having my commander removed, greedily chose to put it into my graveyard as I had an enchantment to flicker to get it back to my hand, then got all my enchantments destroyed on the next player’s turn before it got to mine
Second game, I lagged behind when I decided to keep a hand without white mana to speed up time and missed land drops, but I turned the game around in my favour when I sandbagged a bit, kept my commander in the command zone, ate a Bojuka bog before casting a Singularity Rupture when everyone but me had wide creature boards. It really helped me recover as I then could cast my commander for 3 mana, and had half my library in my graveyard, ready to be escaped.
I think I could have won or pressured heavily if I sequenced my turn correctly, as I tried to pull off the rat combo but we ran out of time. I may have been short on mana, but if not, Skybinding a Twisted Sewer Witch for a double ping would have been funny lol (and now I am curious if both in play means I could repeatedly flicker it and constant burn on each end without being able to remove her step unless Skybind gets removed first)
Interestingly, someone also said after the games that they got more scared initially than my deck really was when I described it as a control deck, because according to them, I didn’t play it as a control deck, expecting me to counterspell everything. I am still learning how to play MTG and piloting the deck, and to be fair didn’t play as many removal as I should have while I could, but maybe I am also misunderstanding control as an archetype.
I am not sure how one would describe the deck considering the foundation is accruing value via a removal and a card draw engines, trying to slow down the game by sherriffing any greedy plays or high-value pieces until I have enough mana and cards to push for a win. To me, that’s exactly what control is, and while it can also be by fully denying any plays, I am not sure it’s as viable as a strategy at a multiplayer table even if you have a removal engine, but maybe I am wrong.
I do think that next time, I need to spend more resources on removal during my earlier turns, especially once the engine is set up instead of trying to add more value pieces or trying to move my game plan forward.
I think I am conscious of multiple things:
– I don’t want to appear too threatening;
– I don’t want to remove things that are not a problem for me (as I used to try to be a team player against The Threat™️ to then see other players just keep to themselves and leave me to die first, so I try to learn to be more selfish)
– get very protective of my value pieces, so I do not fully tap out because I don’t want to leave my stuff open to be removed, as 3 turns feel like plenty of opportunity to cripple a deck that current lacks resilience;
– and finally, I can be overly conscious of people’s feelings and do not want to create too many feelbads lol
I also feel like I am fighting against the clock when playing against green decks, I feel the need to pressure the game with threats before they can get 30 lands into play because I don’t see how I can win against that.
That’ll be my homework for the future and my next games
but also can we make Sol ring a GC thanks
@SqueletteCool i think your definition or control is accurate. To me, control is puting effort to slow down the game enought to be able to win with something a bit late. Tho its not crasy to fear a control deck will be about mass counterspells and locking the game^^
@SqueletteCool
You have a lot of tutors, and expensive ones at that. Are they worth taking a turn off to go find a specific card?
Muddle the Mixture - Dunno if this is worth it
Step Through - 5 mana is way too much unless that wizard is critical to your deck's function
Gravebreaker Lamia - I'm iffy on this one. 5 is a lot for anything that's not payoff
Skybind - Not sure if you plan to target your own or opponents stuff. I don't know if it's worth 5 mana
@SqueletteCool Mill package
Founding the Third Path - I see that it sacs itself, but there's gotta be better mill than this
Ancient Excavation - this is win more, and there are better mill cards
Extravagant Replication - this looks like a lot of fun, but I think it'll end up doing nothing. Slow and expensive and vulnerable
I do like Demon of Fate's Design. He looks rad.
@SqueletteCool
Fear of Imposters - Cool card, but I'm wary of counterspells in commander, especially 3CMC. You have to hold up the resources and only maybe use it. Then you cast it and spend the resources and 2 other people benefit for free.
Nimble Obstructionist - Same as for above, but it's not even an enchantment. I'd only put it in a deck if I felt like countering abilities was very important.
Buried Ruin - Unless you have a specific artifact you absolutely need, I'm super meh on this.
@SqueletteCool
I like everything in your sparkly pile except the extravagant replication, and that only because I think it'll be too slow to have fun with
Your whimsical rat combo isn't the most in tune with the deck, but you knew that already. As with anything I list if you like it, you like it! Have fun with it! It might only work 1% of the time but if that's worth it, then go for it.
@SqueletteCool If you feel like you need ramp, then maybe pick 5 cards to take out and put in 5 mana rocks and see how it feels for a couple games.
Oooh random thought add Search for Azcanta. I bet that'll work well in the deck
@Artemis201 thank you so much for those suggestions, I think they're going to be very valuable!!
I had considered Search for Azcanta but I was not feeling the use for the land ability once flipped and I had other similar “Surveil 1 once a turn” cards I preferred, but ended up cutting in favour of mill (though I also considered leaning more into surveil than mill, but that's a conversation for another day lol)
Would you have any suggestions for some good later game threats to pressure wins that would be on theme please? I find that the combos I have can work but need assembling and don't do much on their own so even on occasions when my deck was successfully doing its sac-recur value engine, I wasn't able to pressure the game even after roadblocking other players and the games can turn into slogs.
Some I had considered:
- Starfield of Nyx, a potential cute addition to keep a control-value theme but potentially able to pressure by animating enchantments
- Archfiend of Despair, I like that it's effectively a ticking clock for the game, and would still support my actual wincon of burning even when I cannot combo, but it is super expensive without necessarily winning the game instantly
- some mana explosive cards like Matzalantli, the Great Door or Serra's Sanctum
A lot of mill strategy win by reanimating a large board of creatures but I don't think this deck can achieve that in a way that's impactful enough to be a threat
@Artemis201 good call, I think you're right, Extravagant replication just doesn't do enough on its own, thank you.
For context, the rat combo is actually what inspired the deck haha, I loved the interaction between the two cards (Twisted Sewer-Witch and Warehouse Tabby) and was looking for a home for them. I had considered them in a rat token deck, but I feel that they really get outshined in that archetype (Warehouse Tabby doesn't do anything without specifically putting enchantments in the graveyard), so I came up with an enchantment sacrificing theme after finding out about the suite of enchantments with ETBs or triggered abilities when put into a graveyard
I am not sure I quite achieved the perfect home for it, they're not good cards, but it does give an interesting variance when starting the game with a Warehouse Tabby
@Artemis201 that’s the category that needs the more work, I agree. I wanted to load up on repeatable counterspell and stifle effects to protect the graveyard against hate but I am not sure I have use for them now as my meta doesn’t have too much of that. I am not sure how to balance it tbh
Some other pieces here are meant to be effects to deter attackers, as early pressure on Black control is the main counter to it, but Ogre Slumlord was there mostly for the synergy with the rat combo that inspired the deck, it will probably be cut for something cheaper or more effective
@Artemis201 agreed with you here overall.
Founding the Third Path was included more as a silver bullet for recurring instants and sorceries (I have some very key ones I want to avoid leaving stuck in the graveyard) while also offering mills when needed but it’s definitely not the best at milling, it was chosen more as a versatile piece
@Artemis201
So there’s a significant number of tutors to try to improve the redundancy, overlap and consistency early on (as there aren’t a ton of enchantment sac outlet, let alone free ones) and fetching key pieces for finishing combos or big threats at the end, but maybe these should be cut for more redundancy or card draw
Step though’s tutoring is its wizardcycling ability at 2 mana, it’s meant to be a wildcard for Sage of mysteries if I need mill, or for some of the stifle effect pieces (which may see a cut so will see if it sticks around)
Gravebreaker is expensive, but does other things on top of tutoring being a body with some life gain (which I find super helpful in black control), it also reduces the cost of stuff I cast in the graveyard (which the deck benefits from as it is mana hungry), and at its ceiling can fetch Estrid’s Invocation to be flickered each turn. I agree that at its floor, it’s a bit overcosted so may see a cut but I’ve never felt bad seeing it in my hand
Skybind is definitely one I am not sure of, as it feels like a splashy synergy piece where the ceiling is insane but the floor doesn’t feel particularly good on its own. The idea was to repeatably be able to pseudo-phase out opponents’ things and turn anything I cast into a form of removal
@Artemis201 Shadow of the Second Sun is very expensive for a value piece but I really like that it effectively doubles the mana I have to play at instant speed every turn, without needing to untap, as well as having cool synergies to double some upkeep or draw shenanigans. It definitely a lot feels better when it can be cheated in. But yes, agreed, i don’t have a tons of instant-speed plays, I am not 100% sure about it, it’s also a bit of a pet card
Nashi is a definitely a pet card. The deck used to have him as a commander. I agree, it works well early on as it can get its damage through with menace and will be able to keep up with its +1/+1 counters but it often feels hard to keep him away from whiffing when I haven’t built around him to have some extra evasion
Ancient Excavation I am likely to keep for its modality, land cycling on it make it feel like a free inclusion as a MDFC half-land especially early on, and later in the game it feels amazing when I need to dig for answers or threats and it helps fill the graveyard (with my commander out, it’s card advantage by discarding enchantments or fodder to exile). Maybe I am very wrong though lol