The 18 Best Enchantment Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on October 17, 2025

Sythis, Harvest's Hand | Illustration by Ryan Yee

Verduran Enchantress haunted the game for many years. Although powerful enchantments like Necropotence (then called “global enchantments,” which I miss, just a bit) could dominate the game in the ‘90s, auras (then called “local enchantments,” which nobody misses) were always a mistake. The enchantress promised to solve the card disadvantage of playing an aura on a creature and then having one card, like Lightning Bolt, destroy both.

It took many years for that dream to become playable, but it was definitely in full force by the time EDH emerged as a format. After the past few years of MTG design, we have a profusion of enchantment commanders for almost all color combinations, not just classic Selesnya (), and they play many different styles of deck. Some focus on auras, but some have more expansive interests.

Ready to get, well, enchanted?

What Are Enchantment Commanders in MTG?

Yenna, Redtooth Regent | Illustration by Justyna Dura

An enchantment commander is a commander that rewards you for playing enchantments, sometimes in broad strokes, and sometimes with particular types of enchantments in mind. These decks are traditionally called “enchantress decks” after Verduran Enchantress and subsequent cards in its vein, and that's become more generalized MTG slang for the effect of drawing a card upon playing an enchantment. But not all enchantment commanders give that particular bonus.

Of note, I give attention to enchantment commanders that don’t specifically focus on auras, like Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice. Of course, heavy use of auras can easily be the build for any of these commanders, and there’s some overlap on the lists, but I look toward some broader build options here.

#18. Aphemia, the Cacophony

This is an odd, underpowered tokens deck that just got a lot better with recent sets. Aphemia, the Cacophony is best played as a tokens commander, rolling enchantments into the graveyard and then making Zombies. There’s also a bit of a drain element with cards like Wicked Visitor and Grim Guardian that can be supplemented with an aristocrats package, as well. You run enchantments that make zombies like Liliana's Mastery and then use Aphemia to make more. Recent black enchantments like Case of the Stashed Skeleton, Chthonian Nightmare, Necrodominance, Ripples of Undeath, and The Creation of Avacyn give it more tools to play with.

#17. Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea

This one is a bit of a dark horse. Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea as a Voltron commander is really fun to play. It doesn’t specifically seem to care that much about enchantments, but it turns out that a safe way to pump devotion is enchantments, especially stax pieces like Propaganda. Curiosity effects and Aether Tunnel effects are both welcome, as are removal auras like Amphibian Downpour. The real teeth here are enchantments like Leyline of Anticipation, Reconnaissance Mission, Future Sight, Rhystic Study, and especially Corrupted Conscience.

I like playing it as a sort of stax/control deck that waits until the game gets to 1v1.

#16. Ovika, Enigma Goliath

Most folks play Ovika, Enigma Goliath as an Izzet () spellslinger commander, but don’t we have like 473 of those? Ovika triggers off anything noncreature, and a huge number of the tokens wincons in that deck are already enchantments, like Impact Tremors, Goblin Bombardment, City on Fire, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Sorcerer Class, Shared Animosity, Shark Typhoon, Sunbird's Invocation, Fiery Inscription, Mana Echoes, Cavalcade of Calamity, plus a dozen more, so perhaps just lean in?

Leaning in would mean playing some fun cards that have no other home, like Confusion in the Ranks, Forgeborn Oreads, and various other blue enchantments you like. Is this good? I think it’s close to the spellslinger version but with more style, for what that’s worth!

#15. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

The former shrines commander, Sisay, Weatherlight Captain is most often a cEDH adjacent legends-matter toolbox deck. But there are some nifty ways to use this as an enchantment commander if you can weather the storm of players immediately suspicious of your deck. You can simply get Sythis, Harvest's Hand as soon as possible, which can give you a sort of slightly slower 5-color Sythis deck. I think using this card to focus a deck around some powerful newer legendary enchantments is a fascinating proposition. There’s all the “Joins Up” cards like Rakdos Joins Up. There’s Proft's Eidetic Memory and Necrodominance, and I want to try to build that with Kruphix, God of Horizons and Phenax, God of Deception and tap to mill out an opponent. 

I know that’s a terrible plan, but I need to try it. I’ll just tuck Sisay, Weatherlight Captain here at the bottom of the list and move along.

#14. Yenna, Redtooth Regent

Yenna, Redtooth Regent can generate a lot of constellation triggers for things like Archon of Sun's Grace and can ramp pretty nicely with cards like Wild Growth, but is that better than running a more efficient Selesnya commander with a card draw ability? Probably not. Still, this is a fun, if underpowered deck to play, and it does allow for some fun mixing and matching of an auras strategy and a general enchantment strategy.

#13. Calix, Guided by Fate

Freddie Mercury here was pretty awesome during it's run with Standard Selesnya enchantments decks, but Calix, Guided by Fate doesn’t quite cut it as a commander. Still, it can make many more copies than Yenna of a killer enchantment like Sigil of the Empty Throne so that you can be the champion, my friend. But until some good +1/+1 counter effects mixed with enchantment synergy cards are printed, this one kind of bites the dust.

#12. Tuvasa the Sunlit

Oh, for the days when this card seemed pushed! Tuvasa the Sunlit gives you a gated enchantress effect while going tall and adding blue. There are some good enchantments to play in blue, including Rhystic Study and Amphibian Downpour, but the spine of the deck is Selesnya, and I’m not sure adding the third color is worth it for the slim chance this card will Votron someone out.

The Bant colors allow for the infinite mana Sanctum Weaver plus Freed from the Real combo, but there are better decks that allow for the Simic () colors as we progress up the list.

#11. Daxos the Returned

There’s a cool deck with Minthara, Merciless Soul, Underworld Coinsmith, and cheap enchantments, but it feels like the only way for such a Daxos the Returned deck to be competitive is to populate the whole thing with control and stax pieces, or at least as much Ghostly Prison action as you can sleeve up. That’s not to everyone’s taste, and I’m not sure there’s a convincing wincon if you can keep your experience counter creatures alive.

#10. Wildsear, Scouring Maw

Wildsear, Scouring Maw is a burst of red as a cascade commander on this list, and rides on the value of one of Magic's most powerful mechanics in cascade. Ramp up and load in your favorite green and red enchantments and don't overcomplicate it.

#9. Tatsunari, Toad Rider

Half of the time people play Tatsunari, Toad Rider as frog typal, since the unblockable part is really nice, especially with cards like Psychic Frog and Yargle and Multani. And sometimes it’s aristocrats since Keimi is easy to make and sacrifice. There's even a mutate deck, since you can mutate over Keimi and the name changes.

But I really like it as an enchantment commander. Green enchantress effects are in the deck, and often the idea of the rest is cheap auras, especially things like Curiosity to do a sort of tempo/drain pile. There’s not a good reason to be a Sultai () enchantments deck aside from Tatsunari, but the Simic colors will help you protect it, and with auras to boot.

#8. Ghen, Arcanum Weaver

Ghen, Arcanum Weaver is a pet favorite deck of mine. I love the enchantment recursion ability in this deck and the ability to play dangerous cards with downsides like Treacherous Blessing and just sacrifice and recur. You want things that fill your graveyard with enchantments, like Bitter Reunion and Ripples of Undeath. If you can’t protect Ghen, you can even look for early cheat-outs of expensive cards like Captive Audience, Debtors' Knell, and Overwhelming Splendor. High Noon is another sweet addition.

The trouble is that Ghen doesn’t have a card draw effect, and without green, the rest of the deck doesn’t go quite fast enough if Ghen and/or the graveyard is whacked. I like to add plenty of protection cards like Favorable Destiny or these, because Ghen can aura up to protect itself at instant speed if these cards are in the graveyard.

#7. Narci, Fable Singer

Narci, Fable Singer squeezes a ton of value out of each saga card you play and summons give you more board presence than a typical saga. Slot in some lifegain payoffs to really put the hurt on opponents.

#6. Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin

The long awaited 5-color shrines commander, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin made a huge splash and is one of the most popular commanders in this space. Although there's recursion text on the card that is useful without the shrines package, it's very rarely used to command anything but a shrines deck.

The deck typically adds the Selesnya enchantress package to the 17 shrines that exist, including enchantment tutors like Idyllic Tutor to seek up key engine cards like Sanctum of All.

#5. Zur, Eternal Schemer

Esper () doesn’t do a lot for us in the enchantment creature typal space, aside from a few blue bangers like Thassa, Deep-Dwelling. But Zur, Eternal Schemer is about, as you’d imagine, scheming. You take powerful enchantments like Rhystic Study and Lethal Vapors to dominate the game and then animate them with Zur when needed.

A Zur, Eternal Schemer EDH deck does the thing you want, which is to seemingly break the rules by turning enchantments into attackers or blockers, like the fun of animating walls. The jankier, but probably more fun version uses things like Demonic Pact and then animates them when needed to give to an opponent with a card like Wrong Turn.

#4. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos

Face commander of the Enduring Enchantments Commander Masters precon, Anikthea, Hand of Erebos was a very welcome addition to the space. There was no reasonable enchantments commander in the Abzan () colors before this excellent Abzan card came along, so folks turned to Myrkul, Lord of Bones, of all things. And it was the first commander to incentivize you to play enchantment creatures, introduced in the Theros block, the majority of which are in its colors.

You can play the classic Selesnya enchantress cards with Anikthea, Hand of Erebos to take advantage of the graveyard recursion and also utilize black for classics like Doomwake Giant.

#3. Yuna, Hope of Spira

Yuna, Hope of Spira is narrowed down to enchantment creatures, for the protection of super-helpful ward . What forces you to sit up and take notice is the automatic reanimation of your enchantment cards. If you have a way to remove that counter, you enter infinite territory very quickly. As is, this Final Fantasy legend is really strong.

#2. Zur the Enchanter

Being a tutor for Necropotence on a stick was once enough for Zur the Enchanter to be a reasonable cEDH choice, but that time has passed in the meta. Still, that build, which looks to grab Ad Nauseam, haunts the imaginings of Commander players who’ve been around a while, so if you play a more casual Voltron-style Zur the Enchanter deck, you might need to do some table persuasion to convince them to let you live.

#1. Sythis, Harvest’s Hand

The ultimate enchantress card on rate, Sythis, Harvest's Hand is the only cEDH viable enchantment commander because you can’t beat its efficiency. cEDH builds use the card draw engine to grab obnoxious stax pieces like Stony Silence and Root Maze, while more casual Sythis decks tend to supplement the speed with pillow fort strategies using cards like Sphere of Safety.

I tend not to play this card as a commander in casual circles because your fast start often confirms the other players’ suspicions that you’ll be the archenemy. But as an enchantment creature, Sythis is very tutorable in other decks (hint, hint).

Best Enchantment Commander Payoffs

Enchantress decks mean drawing a lot of cards. But then how do you convert that into a win? There’s a few classic ways.

Auras Packages

Full aura commander micro packages can be set into these decks for fun and profit, taking advantage of the overall value engines with a kind of Voltron wincon, especially with All That Glitters, Nettlecyst and Tempest Technique style effects, some of which can just be tossed onto the commander for the win.

Selesnya Combo Finishes

cEDH Sythis decks tend to rely on stax and slowdown pieces to extend the game to find combo wincons, which are things like Sanctum Weaver plus Gauntlets of Light, Solemnity plus Nine Lives, a variety of Devoted Druid mana combos, or all the stuff in the Scurry Oak and Heliod, Sun-Crowned space.

Tokens

The other classic finishers are Felidar Retreat, Sigil of the Empty Throne and Archon of Sun's Grace. You don’t have access to these in the few decks that don’t run white, but those tend to have their own built-in wincons.

Cheap Enchantments

Mystic Remora, Land Tax, and Exploration are just a few of the most powerful one-mana enchantments that turn into absurd value with the commanders in today's ranking. I'm a fan of Wild Growth for my budget builds when these are too expensive.

Enchantment Lands

Valgavoth's Lair, is a versatile land that also counts as an enchantment. Haven of the Harvest itself isn't amazing, but it's a strong option on the backside of Strength of the Harvest, and Urza's Saga isn't one you'd think to run with an enchantment commander, but it is an enchantment land that has unrivaled utility if you can afford it.

Commanding Conclusion

Anikthea, Hand of Erebos | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

There are enough varied options in the enchantress space to make all the Magic boomers who grew up with only the wisp of a dream of cards like these happy forever. If you need a fresh perspective on enchantments, look to visit planet, Adagia, Windswept Bastion{/card] for a powerful and repeatable way to create copies of your enchantments.

But are there more? Did I miss an awesome non-aura enchantments commander? If so, let us know your sweet idea in the comments or on Draftsim's Discord so we can explore all the cool brews.

Thank you for reading, and have an [card]Enchanted Evening. Or morning. Do they make enchanted afternoons?