As much so I can organize my thoughts and take a more thorough look at Modern Horizons from an Estrid standpoint as anything, here are all the cards that seem relevant to a more controlling Bant enchantress list.
White
Astral Drift - In the event that I wanted to retool into some Life from the Loam plans, this could work. Having two copies of the effect is a good place to start. That's a very different deck from what I have now, though.
Generous Gift - This probably replaces Beast Within for mostly aesthetic reasons. There's a weak argument that costing W instead of G is better with Serra's Sanctum, but that's realistically minor with how much of each color the deck produces.
On Thin Ice - Would require retooling into a snow manabase. Additional early removal is nice. I don't like that it's creature only, sorcery speed, and weak to land removal in addition to enchantment removal. I don't think I'd take this over any of the numerous O-Ring effects I'm already not running.
Recruit the Worthy - Mostly a consideration because of Estrid's mana generation and the light token themes. This would also play nicely with Wilderness Reclamation, which I've considered before. It's worse than Sprout Swarm in the absence of any tribal synergies so it probably wouldn't be a consideration until I wanted two copies. The big argument against that, discounting the CMC difference (because you can convoke Swarm with the fresh token, as long as you're making more than one), is that Recruit can be paid for using only Serra's Sanctum. If that's active, I usually have more white mana than I know what to do with. If I ever retool into an Earthcraft list, that synergy probably flips the two as well.
Blue
Marit Lage's Slumber - This would obviously require a shift to a snow manabase and I'm still not sure it would be good enough without going even heavier on basic lands. Enchantment based filtering that turns into a large threat late is always worth a look. I don't think it works in this list.
Green
Ayula's Influence - When enchantress gets going, it usually draws more cards than you can use. Turning excess lands into tokens is a decent use for them. The big problem here is that there aren't a lot of other synergies with lands going to the GY and it doesn't do much until you already have an engine going, at which point you should be in good shape.
Land/Artifact
Hall of Heliod's Generosity - Snap include. Rebuilding after enchantment hate currently relies on Estrid's ult, Replenish, Hanna, Ship's Navigator, or drawing out of it. Having another repeatable way to do that that's a littel tougher to disrupt and only occupies a land slot is very desirable. For what's likely the more common case, it also rebuys the protection or hate pieces that tend to draw a lot of removal. Having another powerful utility land also stretches opposing removal - there are only so many Strip Mines at a table, and this, Serra's Sanctum, Gavony Township, and Maze of Ith are almost always worthy targets, even ignoring the more situational ones. I'm very happy to see this.
Prismatic Vista - This deck runs plenty of basics. There's usually an incentive for basics because they're more resilient to land hate and it's always nice to have a basic forest down in case of Utopia Sprawl for pretty much the same reason. This feels like an easy include over a plains or an island.
Waterlogged Grove - While getting choked on cards is usually not a problem outside of a lot of hate or some very bad draws, it does happen. Being able to turn lands into fresh draws is useful in those scenarios or when you already have more mana than you know what to do with, which does happen with Estrid and Sanctum. Having that option on a multicolored land that comes in untapped is great. There's some danger with too many lands that have pain on activation, but I'm usually OK with running several and this only brings the count to two. Outside of games where I see both this and Horizon Canopy early, I wouldn't expect it to be a problem and the potential upside outweighs that heavily in my opinion.
The big wins here are the lands. I'll be adding all three of those, probably in place of Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree, Island, and Plains. That maintains the same number of white sources and adds a blue source and a green source. It also increases the effective basic forest count, which is useful for Utopia Sprawl. Overall basic count drops slightly, but that's less important unless I add Earthcraft. Not a ton of enchantress support here, but the one card is a big one and the overall manabase improvements are very welcome.
I'm considering swapping out some of the hateful/super defensive stuff, mostly so I can play this without drawing the ire of my group a little more often. I'm thinking of making changes along these lines:
Despite my love of Humility, it's not a friendly card and it tends to drag the table down, which is not what I want to be doing most of the time I play. I've had my very successful interminably grindy game with this list, so it's time to friendly it up a bit. Similar reasoning applies to Moat. Kor Spiritdancer isn't a reliable enough draw engine and has never been a primary or even secondary wincon. Adding a few more auras might change that, but they all cantrip already and I wanted to fit another mana sink. Ghostly Prison/Propaganda both suffer from not protecting walkers, and I'm hoping that I can establish a board presence with tokens after survivng the early game fairly quickly. These may need to come back in at some point - combat damage is definitely a thing in my meta. The three auras are coming in because I've found myself masking lands with Estrid regularly. I typically have some spare mana early, so I might as well burn it on cantrips that play well with everything else the deck is doing.
On the whole, the idea is that I make the deck a little more proactive, which I think will be a good plan. I still turtle up pretty well in a pinch, too.
The other way I could take the deck, continuing to avoid the really stax-y elements like Stasis, Winter Orb, and Static Orb (which I do either have or am planning on grabbing, for when I do want to play something tediously hateful), is to shift to some Solemnity combos. The big things to add there aside from the namesake card would be Force Bubble, Delaying Shield, and Dark Depths. I don't really like Phyrexian Unlife because of how soft it leaves you to removal. It works better in 60 card formats where you're less likely to see maindeck enchantment hate. Both defensive enchantments can still do something without Solemnity and Solemnity is a decent hate piece on its own. Depths is aggressively mediocre without cheats, but Estrid can actually push enough mana over a couple turns to make it feasible and it's obviously much better with Solemnity. This also allows for things like Mystic Remora, which is already great but borderline busted with no upkeep, and Glacial Chasm, for even more turtle. If I go this route, I probably add in a cycling land package and Life from the Loam (similar to darrenhabib's list) as well.
I'm not used to having a commander with such good enchantment support, so I'm revisiting all of the ideas I've toyed with for enchantress lists. I have no idea if I'll play any or all of them. The nice thing is that a lot of the support cards are going to be constant - I'm going to want land auras for ramp, enchantress effects for draw, etc. no matter which concept I'm playing with, so I can treat the deck as modular to some degree. It makes it very easy to play around with the different themes that could be interesting.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest is a great combo for enchantress lists. Neither half is useless on its own and they obviously play nicely with all the existing enchantress synergies. If I take this down a combo route, that's easily the first change I make.I updated the list in the OP to reflect a couple changes I've made over the last few months. I still feel like I could use more ramp and more hate, but when it works it's a lot of fun. I had a game a couple weeks back where Estrid untaps and a masked Gavony Township got half a dozen angel tokens large enough to attack through Meishin, the Mind Cage. Lots of fun even if I lost the game after an Aura Shards came down and picked my board apart.
I initially wasn't a fan of anything from RNA, but after thinking on it a little I might give Wilderness Reclamation a shot. Estrid already promotes building with mana sinks thanks to the untap ability, so it wouldn't take much tweaking to support that more heavily.
I also added the slightly outdated and not very well taken pictures of the deck, so if shiny enchantresses are your thing you should take a look.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Yeah, GSZ is basically just a second copy of Argothian and Wargate is a land tutor. There are some secondary uses for each of them, but I'd guess that's how they're playing out the majority of the time where I haven't seen those cards already. Humility is one of my go to cards for enchantress, especially in EDH. There aren't as many creature decks that are just cold to it as there used to be, but people still like their value creatures and skew towards removal on dudes. Not a card to just jam ASAP every game, but entirely worth having access to.
Mystic Barrier looks like a great time and I have a soft spot for cards I don't usually play. I still like the Propaganda/Prison despite not protecting Estrid because this deck has 0 early defense and the chip damage (which is definitely a presence in my meta) adds up. Probably replaces Kumena's Awakening, which is overkill here with all of the enchantresses and mostly filler. Township should definitely be here. Downside is almost nil because I'm not being excessively greedy for a change and it's a trump for Humility. Also works as a passable win con with the tokens despite being a pain to track.
I'll end up playing something pretty close to the list up there now for the first couple games, then start tweaking things. I'm probably too light on mana and not thrilled with my GY hate as it stands, so there are definitely places to improve. It's also moderately pimped out so far, so I'm planning on showing progress in the pimp thread sometime either this weekend or early next week (shameless plug).
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
I like his list a lot (realistically, any list that has Intuition + Life from the Loam + cycling lands is off to a good start in my book). I wanted something a little softer and a little less combo-y. Still plenty of hate available and it won't get hated off the table as quickly as something with more lock pieces.
How have the 3 CMC ramp one + upside auras been working for you? I don't really like spending that much for that small an effect, even if the general is immediately going to refund most of the cost. I'm not sure if I would rather go for those or more traditional green land ramp like Nature's Lore/Three Visits/Farseek when I inevitably bump up my ramp.
I'm going to try and get some games in with my list early next week, assuming I'm able to make it out to our regular night. Odds are good that I'll come back from that with a better idea of what kinds of changes I want to make.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Almost always when I'm playing more controlling lists. I don't really do combo finishes (which works for my group), so I usually try and prioritize resilient win cons over explosive ones. I've already subbed in Celestial Colonnade and Faerie Conclave for a plains and an island, which should help get damage in. I'm hoping that the token producers, Tuvasa, and Angelic Destiny will get there when the goal is to be disruptive enough that speed is less important. I'm also considering Luminarch Ascension which turns the corner much more quickly.
I'm much lighter on mana than I usually like to be here with only 37 lands and 6 ramp spells. The density of draw spells will make up for some of that (as well as helping find the win cons). I likely still need to tinker with the proportions of everything here.
It's all a little theoretical right now, despite playing a lot of enchantress in the past, because I'm still waiting for a few cards to come in. I can pull the entire list together. I just have a lot of pimp enchantress cards already and a few more in the mail, so I'm holding off on playing it until all of those show up for a more blinding grand reveal.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
It's veering a little too close to hard lock territory for me. Obviously powerful but not well suited to my group. It's more likely that I'll tone down the prison elements than ramp them up.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
This is a lightly stax-y enchantress list (as if there was any other kind). The plan is to disrupt opponents and then slowly beat them to death with tokens.
The early tweaks, reflecting a few months of light play and adjustments. A lot of that was spent tracking down the foils that I was missing, so it's fairly minor changes. The biggest thing is the addition of ways to kill people in the manabase. Vitu-Ghazi is super inefficient, but there aren't many ways to generate tokens on lands and this is sadly one of the best. I'm only including the flying manlands in these colors because of Moat, so I can limit the number of ETBT lands I have. Gavony both plays nicely with tokens (even if it's a pain to track sometimes) and breaks symmetry on Humility in addition to making enchantresses threats.
Lots of what you might expect to see in an enchantress list. I'm trying to stay away from hard locks and infinite combos, but the base goal of disruptive enchantments into some kind of win condition is the typical enchantress game plan. There's also the potential for a couple other disruptive artifacts. I don't want to go too heavy on those because of the artifact hate in the list, but Torpor Orb and Damping Matrix are both strong possibilities that don't interfere much with my plans. I'm also very tempted by Words of Wind, which is nuts in enchantress lists with cheap land auras like Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl. The thing holding me back there is the same as Stasis - I'm trying to keep this at least a little friendly to my group so I don't wear people out on it.
This deck is still young so I'm likely to keep tweaking. Enchantress was my first legacy deck and one of my first EDH decks, back before it had nearly the level of support that it does now, so I'm a long time fan and familiar with the archetype. Most of the tweaks are finding the balance where it feels like an enchantress deck without being miserable to play against, which can be a fine line.
White
- Astral Drift - In the event that I wanted to retool into some Life from the Loam plans, this could work. Having two copies of the effect is a good place to start. That's a very different deck from what I have now, though.
- Generous Gift - This probably replaces Beast Within for mostly aesthetic reasons. There's a weak argument that costing W instead of G is better with Serra's Sanctum, but that's realistically minor with how much of each color the deck produces.
- On Thin Ice - Would require retooling into a snow manabase. Additional early removal is nice. I don't like that it's creature only, sorcery speed, and weak to land removal in addition to enchantment removal. I don't think I'd take this over any of the numerous O-Ring effects I'm already not running.
- Recruit the Worthy - Mostly a consideration because of Estrid's mana generation and the light token themes. This would also play nicely with Wilderness Reclamation, which I've considered before. It's worse than Sprout Swarm in the absence of any tribal synergies so it probably wouldn't be a consideration until I wanted two copies. The big argument against that, discounting the CMC difference (because you can convoke Swarm with the fresh token, as long as you're making more than one), is that Recruit can be paid for using only Serra's Sanctum. If that's active, I usually have more white mana than I know what to do with. If I ever retool into an Earthcraft list, that synergy probably flips the two as well.
Blue
- Marit Lage's Slumber - This would obviously require a shift to a snow manabase and I'm still not sure it would be good enough without going even heavier on basic lands. Enchantment based filtering that turns into a large threat late is always worth a look. I don't think it works in this list.
Green
- Ayula's Influence - When enchantress gets going, it usually draws more cards than you can use. Turning excess lands into tokens is a decent use for them. The big problem here is that there aren't a lot of other synergies with lands going to the GY and it doesn't do much until you already have an engine going, at which point you should be in good shape.
Land/Artifact
- Hall of Heliod's Generosity - Snap include. Rebuilding after enchantment hate currently relies on Estrid's ult, Replenish, Hanna, Ship's Navigator, or drawing out of it. Having another repeatable way to do that that's a littel tougher to disrupt and only occupies a land slot is very desirable. For what's likely the more common case, it also rebuys the protection or hate pieces that tend to draw a lot of removal. Having another powerful utility land also stretches opposing removal - there are only so many Strip Mines at a table, and this, Serra's Sanctum, Gavony Township, and Maze of Ith are almost always worthy targets, even ignoring the more situational ones. I'm very happy to see this.
- Prismatic Vista - This deck runs plenty of basics. There's usually an incentive for basics because they're more resilient to land hate and it's always nice to have a basic forest down in case of Utopia Sprawl for pretty much the same reason. This feels like an easy include over a plains or an island.
- Waterlogged Grove - While getting choked on cards is usually not a problem outside of a lot of hate or some very bad draws, it does happen. Being able to turn lands into fresh draws is useful in those scenarios or when you already have more mana than you know what to do with, which does happen with Estrid and Sanctum. Having that option on a multicolored land that comes in untapped is great. There's some danger with too many lands that have pain on activation, but I'm usually OK with running several and this only brings the count to two. Outside of games where I see both this and Horizon Canopy early, I wouldn't expect it to be a problem and the potential upside outweighs that heavily in my opinion.
The big wins here are the lands. I'll be adding all three of those, probably in place of Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree, Island, and Plains. That maintains the same number of white sources and adds a blue source and a green source. It also increases the effective basic forest count, which is useful for Utopia Sprawl. Overall basic count drops slightly, but that's less important unless I add Earthcraft. Not a ton of enchantress support here, but the one card is a big one and the overall manabase improvements are very welcome.Dawn of Hope
Abundant Growth
Nylea's Presence
Urban Utopia
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Kor Spiritdancer
Ghostly Prison
Humility
Moat
Propaganda
The other way I could take the deck, continuing to avoid the really stax-y elements like Stasis, Winter Orb, and Static Orb (which I do either have or am planning on grabbing, for when I do want to play something tediously hateful), is to shift to some Solemnity combos. The big things to add there aside from the namesake card would be Force Bubble, Delaying Shield, and Dark Depths. I don't really like Phyrexian Unlife because of how soft it leaves you to removal. It works better in 60 card formats where you're less likely to see maindeck enchantment hate. Both defensive enchantments can still do something without Solemnity and Solemnity is a decent hate piece on its own. Depths is aggressively mediocre without cheats, but Estrid can actually push enough mana over a couple turns to make it feasible and it's obviously much better with Solemnity. This also allows for things like Mystic Remora, which is already great but borderline busted with no upkeep, and Glacial Chasm, for even more turtle. If I go this route, I probably add in a cycling land package and Life from the Loam (similar to darrenhabib's list) as well.
I'm not used to having a commander with such good enchantment support, so I'm revisiting all of the ideas I've toyed with for enchantress lists. I have no idea if I'll play any or all of them. The nice thing is that a lot of the support cards are going to be constant - I'm going to want land auras for ramp, enchantress effects for draw, etc. no matter which concept I'm playing with, so I can treat the deck as modular to some degree. It makes it very easy to play around with the different themes that could be interesting.
I updated the list in the OP to reflect a couple changes I've made over the last few months. I still feel like I could use more ramp and more hate, but when it works it's a lot of fun. I had a game a couple weeks back where Estrid untaps and a masked Gavony Township got half a dozen angel tokens large enough to attack through Meishin, the Mind Cage. Lots of fun even if I lost the game after an Aura Shards came down and picked my board apart.
I initially wasn't a fan of anything from RNA, but after thinking on it a little I might give Wilderness Reclamation a shot. Estrid already promotes building with mana sinks thanks to the untap ability, so it wouldn't take much tweaking to support that more heavily.
I also added the slightly outdated and not very well taken pictures of the deck, so if shiny enchantresses are your thing you should take a look.
Mystic Barrier looks like a great time and I have a soft spot for cards I don't usually play. I still like the Propaganda/Prison despite not protecting Estrid because this deck has 0 early defense and the chip damage (which is definitely a presence in my meta) adds up. Probably replaces Kumena's Awakening, which is overkill here with all of the enchantresses and mostly filler. Township should definitely be here. Downside is almost nil because I'm not being excessively greedy for a change and it's a trump for Humility. Also works as a passable win con with the tokens despite being a pain to track.
I'll end up playing something pretty close to the list up there now for the first couple games, then start tweaking things. I'm probably too light on mana and not thrilled with my GY hate as it stands, so there are definitely places to improve. It's also moderately pimped out so far, so I'm planning on showing progress in the pimp thread sometime either this weekend or early next week (shameless plug).
How have the 3 CMC ramp one + upside auras been working for you? I don't really like spending that much for that small an effect, even if the general is immediately going to refund most of the cost. I'm not sure if I would rather go for those or more traditional green land ramp like Nature's Lore/Three Visits/Farseek when I inevitably bump up my ramp.
I'm going to try and get some games in with my list early next week, assuming I'm able to make it out to our regular night. Odds are good that I'll come back from that with a better idea of what kinds of changes I want to make.
I'm much lighter on mana than I usually like to be here with only 37 lands and 6 ramp spells. The density of draw spells will make up for some of that (as well as helping find the win cons). I likely still need to tinker with the proportions of everything here.
It's all a little theoretical right now, despite playing a lot of enchantress in the past, because I'm still waiting for a few cards to come in. I can pull the entire list together. I just have a lot of pimp enchantress cards already and a few more in the mail, so I'm holding off on playing it until all of those show up for a more blinding grand reveal.
1 Estrid, the Masked
//Creatures
1 Academy Rector
1 Argothian Enchantress
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eidolon of Blossoms
1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Kor Spiritdancer
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Satyr Enchanter
1 Tuvasa the Sunlit
1 Verduran Enchantress
//Artifact
1 Null Rod
//Enchantments
1 Act of Authority
1 Copy Enchantment
1 Divine Visitation
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Enchantress's Presence
1 Energy Flux
1 Estrid's Invocation
1 Exploration
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Grasp of Fate
1 Greater Auramancy
1 Ground Seal
1 Humility
1 Land Tax
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
1 Moat
1 Mobilization
1 Privileged Position
1 Propaganda
1 Sacred Mesa
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
1 Soul Snare
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Sterling Grove
1 Stony Silence
1 Sylvan Library
1 Control Magic
1 Darksteel Mutation
1 Dawn's Reflection
1 Fertile Ground
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Market Festival
1 Overgrowth
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Squirrel Nest
1 Treachery
1 Utopia Sprawl
1 Wild Growth
//Instants
1 Beast Within
1 Nature's Claim
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Teferi's Protection
//Sorceries
1 Austere Command
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Replenish
1 Wargate
1 Wrath of God
//Lands
1 Breeding Pool
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Command Tower
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Flooded Strand
8 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Island
1 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
5 Plains
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Savannah
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Strip Mine
1 Temple Garden
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
Divine Visitation
Mobilization
Wrath of God
Celestial Colonnade
Faerie Conclave
Gavony Township
Horizon Canopy
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
Kumena's Awakening
Angelic Destiny
Winds of Rath
Island
Island
Plains
Plains
Plains
This deck is still young so I'm likely to keep tweaking. Enchantress was my first legacy deck and one of my first EDH decks, back before it had nearly the level of support that it does now, so I'm a long time fan and familiar with the archetype. Most of the tweaks are finding the balance where it feels like an enchantress deck without being miserable to play against, which can be a fine line.