Welcome to Enchantress, the Avatar of Transcendent Triumph.

Primer by Thibault (@iamtib)

(F)(W)(A) Commence the primer!(F)(W)(A)

Introduction - Why Enchantress?

Enchantress is a deck that harkens back to the Magic: the Gathering eponymous strategy. It is tough not to see parallels between what Enchantress in Sorcery does and how the old MtG archetypes operated. Enchantress was a beloved archetype and when I picked up Sorcery I was very happy to see that the same strategy more or less existed.

I was also captivated by this Avatar’s artwork, and by how distinct its gameplay is from the other Avatars. While your friends fill the board with Minions and removal spells, you weave Auras! Enchantress gets to play weird cards and it gets even weirder when you start to see how the cards work together and witness the intricate interactions between them. Ultimately, giving form to "formless auras" is also a very cool way to battle your opponents, the same way the old MtG card Opalescence did.

Mind you, Enchantress probably isn't the most competitive deck ever. But it attacks the meta from such an unexpected angle that it can absolutely steal games from unprepared opponents. The deck rewards players who understand the rules, who see hidden interactions, and who play with precision. In this primer, I’ll share tips, tricks, and insights to help you pilot the deck successfully — whether you’re playing my list or crafting your own version of the Enchantress dream.

Philosophy: The magic behind Enchantress

At its heart, Enchantress is about turning Auras into Minions. But there’s much more to it than that.

The real magic of the deck lies in how it transforms Auras from simple enchantments into engines of card and board advantage. Each Aura already brings some inherent value when it enters play, but once Enchantress animates them, that value multiplies. Suddenly, your Auras become living Forms capable of dealing damage, applying pressure, and removing threats.

One of the greatest strengths of turning Auras into creatures isn’t just the ability to attack, it’s mobility. Animated Auras can move across the board, impacting new Sites and Minions turn after turn. This constant repositioning ensures your opponent can never truly escape their influence.

Strengths

Attacks the game from a completely different angle: Enchantress approaches Sorcery in a way few decks do: turning Auras, often seen as support cards, into your primary engine and win condition.
Animated Auras are hard to interact with: most opponents are ill-equipped to handle this kind of threat efficiently, and they represent the bulk of your damage output. Indeed, animated Aura are only considered as Minions during one turn and so puts pressure on the opponent to have the right way to deal with your animated Aura in a small window.
You don’t need many Auras to win: the deck includes a pool of powerful Auras, and just a few well-timed ones can swing the game in your favor.
Board-wide reach: because Auras can be summoned anywhere on the board (not just your Sites), Enchantress can influence the entire battlefield without limitation, something most decks can’t do.
The Avatar itself counters Auras: Enchantress is, fittingly, an anti-Aura Avatar. I'll tell you more about that later but keep in mind that enemy Auras are not a problem for you.
Excellent card advantage: the deck is rich in draw effects, allowing it to out-grind slower opponents over time.

Weaknesses

Vulnerable to Disenchants and Dispels: you’ll often get hit by random enchantment removal, and because these answers are cheaper than your Auras, they can set you back on tempo.
Demanding thresholds: this version of the deck runs three Elements - (F)(W)(A), which I like to call “Garde" (same name as [[Joyous Garde]]). Balancing these thresholds can be tricky. Sorcery’s abundance of multi-threshold Sites helps, but it still requires careful planning. Thankfully there are a lot of fixing in the Sites. But for good measure, I run [[Four Waters of Paradise]] more as a fixing piece but it can also double as acceleration of course.
Unlike diamonds, Auras aren't forever: with the exception of [[Silence]], [[Abundance]], and [[Atlantean Fate]], your Auras eventually vanish. You can mitigate this, but it means your windows of opportunity are limited. Use them wisely.

“The world bends for those who know how to move their magic”: a few things to keep in mind when you play with Enchantress.

"What it did cost?" - Nothing.

Enchantress' ability costs nothing and can be used multiple times during a turn. Contrary to the large majority of Avatars, Enchantress' special ability does not cost her to tap and is not limited to "once per turn". The only thing you need to animate an Aura is just to.. play a Spell (not a magic spell, any spell). That means you can animate multiple Auras during a turn provided you play enough spells. Which leads to the conclusion that Enchantress loves to have lots of spells in hand, and above all, spells that draw cards... to animate more Auras. Draw spells serve a double purpose here: animating your Auras and churning through your deck to find the Aura cards.

It also means you always have a way to animate an Aura during your turn. Simply draw from your spellbook and you have a way to animate an Aura on your board.

"The Demiurge gave shape to the shapeless, form to the formless": from Aura to Minion.

Speaking of Auras, they can be played on intersections to affect a 2x2 area of the Realm (only exception here is [[Wildfire]]) anywhere. You do not need to control Sites where you play the Aura and you don't need the area to be filled with Sites. In the context of Sorcery, where you are normally limited where you can play your cards, I find this incredibly powerful and is one of the great appeals of playing Auras and Enchantress.

But beware, when you animate an Aura, they become an Oversized Unit. That means that it occupies 4 locations at a time (check the Codex entry for this specific ruling). The most important rule to remember: never animate an Aura if the 2×2 area it’s in contains a Void location. Animated Auras do not have Voidwalk (unless you find a super cool way to give them), and by the rules as written, if they occupy a location that includes a Void, they will immediately die. So, don’t do it, keep your Auras safe in areas fully covered by Sites. The same applies when moving: never move an animated Aura into a 2×2 area that includes a Void location. It will dispel instantly.

As I said earlier, one of the best aspects of animating your Aura is to simply move them and affect other sites and/or Minions. And pay attention to your spells, some do not require you to target and therefore you can cast them, animate your Aura, and use them on your Aura even though it was not a Minion at the start of your turn! This is the case for [[Blink]]: you can cast it; as you cast it, animate a [[Thunderstorm]] for example, blink the Thunderstorm and then still be able to move and attack with the Thunderstorm. This is the same with [[Riptide]]: it targets a (W) location, you can cast it, target a (W) location, animate your Aura in the process and move it to this (W) location (a 2x2 area where that (W) location is), and then move it again or move and attack for example. The possibilities are endless.

"The Enchantress giveth and the Enchantress taketh away."

I mentioned it earlier: Enchantress has a hidden anti-Aura mode. Take a good look at how the ability of Enchantress is written: "Whenever you cast a spell, you may animate target Aura until your next turn." Nowhere does it say that you are limited to your Auras. See the implications? Let me help you. Your opponent plays an early [[Jihad]] on a spot to prepare for a big assault next turn. Good riddance: if the 2x2 area has a Void location, just cast a spell, animate the Jihad and let it fall into the Void. Need a big powerful Aura of your opponent removed? Cast a spell, animate it, and either attack it, or deal damage to it via the multiple burn spells of the deck.

Some examples of plays I did in various matches to inspire you:

"The 2 for 1 Scarabs": My opponent had a [[Jihad]] and on one of the sites affected by it, a [[Sacred Scarab]]. He was playing mono (F) so I knew I had to kill the Jihad to prevent Minions from bursting from this spot. I played a [[Lightning Bolt]] from my hand, targeting the Sacred Scarabs location and when I cast it declared "I animate Jihad". The Lightning Bolt resolves, the only Minion at the location are the Sacred Scarabs that die. They then trigger their Deathrite ability dealing 3 to Minions at the location, that Jihad now occupies, killing it in the process. Job well done: a classic 2 for 1 and problem solved.

"The ultimate Poison Nova": I was a bit behind on the board and my opponent had an [[Atlantean Fate]] cutting me off some threshold and a few Minions. I was sandbagging a [[Poison Nova]] for that occasion. I positioned my Avatar in the middle of everything and cast Poison Nova. As I was casting the spell I declared "I cast Poison Nova and animate Atlantean Fate", the Nova resolves, killing the Minions and the now-animated Aura, clearing the board and letting me regain my thresholds. You can do the same with [[Death Dealer]].

"The pull of the Void": My opponent had a [[Jihad]] that I needed to get rid of to stop the +1 power bonus it granted to a [[Redcap Prowies]] so that my [[Wildfire]] would kill them at the end of my turn. Thankfully, Jihad was next to a 2x2 area where there was a (W) location and a Void location. I cast [[Riptide]] targeting the (W) location adjacent to Jihad, animated Jihad when I cast it, pulled Jihad to this new 2x2 area, it fell into the Void and my Wildfire killed the Prowies at the end of the turn.

That goes to show that, with some crafty gameplay you can deal with problematic Auras and Minions while taking advantage to your spells. Now to be honest, it rarely comes up but when it does it's very powerful and it's next to impossible for the opponent to prepare against it.

"An Aura of simpler times": the beauty behind Silence.

[[Silence]] is secretly the best card of the deck. And I mean it. And if you know its secrets you can definitely raise eyebrows.

At face value, Silence is already a very good card. Minions that are played in competitive decks are played because they have great abilities. [[War Horse]], [[Vile Imp]], [[Boudicca]], [[Daperyll Vampire]] and many many more are great because they have great abilities. Silence blanks all that. It also blanks Genesis effects. So no super cool effects for Minions that enter the Realm like [[Land Surveyor]], [[Grandmaster Wizard]], or any card with Charge (yeah no Charge for you!). It also means Minions lose "Airborne", lose "Spellcaster", and yes.. lose "Burrowing" and "Submerge". So already, you see that a Silence that affects a Site where a burrowed Minion is instantly kills it because the Minion somehow unlearns the ability to burrow. Looking at you [[Root Spider]]!

So already you see that Silence can be both a defensive play to prevent your opponent's Minions to do what they are supposed to do, and also a proactive play to kill a Minion. Always cool to Silence something with Stealth and kill it or an [[Askelon Phoenix]] to burn it. In very rare corner cases, you can also cast it in the Void to make a Minion there lose "Voidwalk" and die.

Add to the mix the fact that you can animate Silence and move it. Thankfully the FAQ on Silence says that when it is animated, it still silences other Minions (and silences itself - meaning it is also a plain 3 power Minion). Moving it is terrorizing. It means that the opponent is nowhere safe from its effects. It is a 3 power Minion so it is fragile but sometimes it is worth moving it to affect new Minions.

Now, earlier in the Primer I told you that one of the weaknesses of the Auras is that they are not permanent. They all have an expiration date. Easiest example is [[Thunderstorm]]: it lasts 3 turn and then goes away. That's where Silence comes into play. If your Thunderstorm is due to be dispelled this turn, animate it, and put it where Silence affects it. It is now a 4 power Minion with no text and won't dispel at the end of your turn. At the beginning of your next turn, it resumes being an Aura and you can repeat it. And while it's a Minion it can attack and move as well, maybe to deal its final Bolt to a Minion it couldn't reach before.

Let's do the same exercise with [[The Black Plague]]. Oh shoot, there's no more Minions in its square and it will dispel! Animate it under Silence. And it will stay there. Or just animate it, move it to a different place where it can eat more Minions. The value you can get from Auras that are designed to dispel eventually is unprecedented with this deck!

But what I said remains true: Auras are fleeting. And your time to use them to kill your opponent is limited. And that's why Enchantress is tough to pilot: you have to know when to use you damage dealing Auras to actually kill your opponent, rather than their Minions. Because at one point, you won't have a way to win the game. Silence helps you with that to extend the lifespan of your Auras while being an already super strong Aura itself.

“A prudent man foreseeth the evil: but the simple pass on, and are punished": a word of warning about your fleeting Auras.

Still with me? Now there is another layer of rules you need to know so that you know how to perfectly use your Auras.

First, [[Thunderstorm]]: While animated, Thunderstorm can target itself. Bit anti-climatic but dura lex, sed lex! It means that if Thunderstorm is in Minion form, there's a chance that it will deal 3 damage to itself at the end of the turn because it is on affected sites. So, if you attack with it, always attack the Site to not take damage on it and have it kill itself. Remember that Avatars deal 1 point of damage when they fight. So if you fight Thunderstorm with them, there is a chance the Bolt will kill it since it is a 4 power Minion. So if you can, attack the Site the Avatar is on (Avatars are usually tapped so they can't defend)

Same thing with [[Wildfire]]: it deals 3 damage to every Minion at the location it is on. So if you fought with something, at the end of the turn, it will deal 3 damage to kill itself since it is 4 power Minion. So again, attack Sites to deal damage while not taking damage. Again, you can attack the Site the Avatar is on, and then deal 3 again and not die. Also remember that Wildfire triggers at the end of each turn.

[[The Black Plague]] and [[The Great Famine]] can eat themselves. If animated and if Great Famine is the strongest minion, it will eat itself. You can work around it and position it when there's a stronger Minion but Great Famine is already a 4 power Minion. That's why Black Plague is the better of these two in this deck. Black Plague is usually the stronger Minion and so can eat weaker Minions on affected sites. Just be mindful of that. But again, under Silence, there are just 4 power Minions with no text, which sometimes is beneficial.

"For nothing is secret... neither anything hid": explaining the deck.

Key Auras

Those 18 Auras are the best right now. They combine disruption, power and damage very well. I already sang the praises of Silence so let's move on.

[[Wildfire]] and [[Thunderstorm]] are you damage dealing Auras, they are your path to victory. There are sequences where, positioned on the Site of your opponent's Avatar, animating them, attacking and using their damage ability nets 7 damage which is a third of the life pool.
[[The Black Plague]], [[The Great Famine]] and [[Atlantean Fate]] are your control Auras that sometimes turns into threats. When you move Atlantean Fate, the affected Sites change, make sure to keep track! If there's a Site giving you trouble, move the Fate to affect it, it will flood, only provide (W) and lose its abilities. It only Submerges the Minions on Genesis though.
[[Abundance]] is a messed up card. I don't get why this card is in (W) and not (E) but hey, we take it! 4 more mana is absolutely huge. With so many draw effects, being able to have double mana to cast the spell you drew in the same turn is very powerful. Also, with this in play, you don't need to draw Sites at your draw step. All gas from now on! Also, yes, if you move and attack with this Aura, your opponent will gain some mana since their Sites are affected. Use it wisely. But it's a 5 power Minion, it slaps.

Gothic added a few new Auras for the strategy : the first one is [[Acid Rain]]. The effect is very strong. As more and more special Sites are played, I think having this kind of effect is very useful. A lot of Sites come to mind when I think about it and we were already very excited when [[Fields of Phyxis]] was spoiled; Acid Rain does that, and more. Silencing Artifacts sounds phenomal, even if the bearer can move out of the way (and we can animate the Rain to move it as well!). I also like that it is a low threshold Aura like Wildfire. Additionally, now that this card exists, I think we can play without Disenchant in our maindeck. I explain in the Primer how Enchantress has a secret anti-Aura mode and Acid Rain solves the Artifact side.

The second one is [[Sphere of Animosity]]. What a card. The card feels incredibly powerful. The 3 effects are all very useful. "Avatars can't escape" means that you can position your damage-dealing Auras with great efficiency ; "can't heal" is self-explanatory and was a problem for the deck ; "can't be defended" means that Sphere of Animosity is a 100% kill at Death's Door. Basically, play the Sphere, put your opponent at Death's Door, draw a spell, and animate the Sphere to attack the Avatar, they will be on a Site the Sphere can attack, by design, and they cannot defend. It feels very easy!

One quick note I want to make as well: Acid Rain and Animosity are Auras that don't Dispel by themselves, unlike many other Auras we have, which is great, and that's why I think they are even more valuable for the deck and strategy.

We were also graced with [[Salt the Earth]]. (F)(F)(F) threshold is pricy but I think the deck can afford it. The effect is very strong. First, it deals with a problematic site and God know there are many now! It also can help you remove a line of attack for you opponent, making your defensive sites even more powerful to stem the attack. Also destroying a water site with a submerged Minion underneath it, kills it. And it is a big Aura than you can animate without fearing a Void location (see higher why).

[[Drought]] is perfectly playable if you have a Water heavy meta.

Artifacts

I used to play the 3 (F)(W)(A) Cores and Philosopher Stone but ultimately decided to remove them and only play [[Four Waters of Paradise]] as acceleration to free more slots and be more efficient as every draw counts in the deck.

[[Ring of Morrigan]] is here because it's a very powerful card and, with Abundance and the draw spells you can "machine gun" the board. Life gain in a Control deck is also always welcome. And [[Angel's Egg]]s are here for even more lifegain to give you time to play your Auras.

With Gothic, it became even more important to have a plan against aggressive strategies. That's why I included [[Chains of Prometheus]] a tried and trusted card to stem the bleeding when multiple Minions attack you. I also helps, when you stabilized, opening the way for your animated Aura to deliver the killing blow.

[[Cage of Sidrak]] is another great control card that pairs with [[Pied Piper of Hamelin]] to battle against [[Necromancer]] and get rid of small creatures like Skeletons and Frogs.

A single [[Torshammar's Trinket]] completes the Artifacts list, to have a repeatable way to animate your Aura and equip them to be even beefier.

Minions

[[Pied Piper of Hamelin]] is many here to not lose to Skeletons. Also deals with Frogs and Soldiers. And remember you control the minion and therefore you control the Genesis. If someone play a Grandmaster Wizard, Highland Princess etc, you control the Genesis.
[[Fey Changeling]] is a good old Man-o'-war. Let's deal with that problem later ! It can be defensive play to just gain time but sometime you can get back one of your Minions and redraw with [[Grandmaster Wizard]] or kill everything again with [[Death Dealer]]. And once in a blue moon, you can unsummon an animated Aura to reset it.
[[Morgana le Fay]] is more card advantage. 3(F) can be tough to assemble but it is manageable as the deck want more (F) than (A) or (W) and therefore has more (F) sources. Also the new double threshold sites help a lot.
[[Orm Infestor]] serves the same purpose as Angel's Egg while being offensive.
[[Monstruous Lion]] was a late inclusion to the deck. I was looking for something that could help me deal with large minion while allowing me not to loose pace and expanding my board position. Lion allows me this. It's a Minion that can double as removal since you can just charge it into an enemy and it is something your opponent has to deal with.
[[The Green Knight]] is a messed up card and I love it. It blanks attacks which is exactly what you want and doubles as removal when dying. Also remember that it says : "Whenever an enemy can attack The Green Knight, it must." which translates in the game as a Mandatory Action, and they HAVE to resolve mandatory actions during the main phase, before doing anything else. Therefore is something can attack the Green Knight, your opponent has to do it before playing a site, playing a buff, playing another Minion, performing a special action etc. This is really good.
[[Death Dealer]] is the 5th board wipe after [[Poison Nova]] and [[Fields of Camlann]].

Magic

There are a lot of Burn spells here that double as board control. The deck can sometimes turn into a super aggressive deck if the cards fall that way.

[[Riptide]] is worth mentioning: you can target your opponent's Minions. And I am playing [[Troll Bridge]]. It is totally acceptable to Riptide a Minion and drag it to the Troll Bridge so that your opponent has to chose whether it kills their Minion or discard a card.

[[Pollimorph]] works well with Pied Piper.

[[Call of the Sea]] is a bit pricy but the effect is terrific and in a metagame where there are lots of water site that you can target, I really like this card.

Atlas

To briefly go over the Sites selection: [[Joyous Garde]], [[Caerleon-Upon-Usk]], [[Lighthouse]], [[Oasis]], [[Ruins]] and [[The Colour Out of Space]] are your threshold fixing ; [[Active Volcano]] is here to satisfy the (F) threshold for many important spells that you have to play early. You need them. There's an argument for playing [[Pristine Paradise]] but that's not a must-have. Then you have your utility Sites: [[Troll Bridge]]s for messing with aggressive decks, [[Mirror Realm]] as a jack of all trades, [[River of Flame]] to have more casters (important for [[Wildfire]]) and [[Fields of Camlann]] for mass removal and [[Babbling Brook]] for board control.

Babbling Brook is better than [[Bog]] as it disables a Minion. Disabling a Minion prevents it from striking, taking steps, shooting projectiles, being tapped to pay costs, AND (crucial part) strips them of all non-basic abilities. This is a Silence effect. This is a very useful and important effect in the deck. Babbling Brook cares about Sites affected (nearby) and you can bring Minions on the affected Sites to be disabled after the Site has come down. This opens up new plays like with Riptide to bring Minions closer to the Babbling Brook and disabling them. Again, it effectively blanks the textboxes of Minions so you can safely kill things that would normally have a Deathrite effect or some sort of protection. But you can also have an animated Aura in its area of effect and make it so they have no abilities. This is a KEY part of the gameplay for Enchantress to keep your Auras around for additional turns and not have to dispel them too early: go check the Silence paragraph. Keeping a Thunderstorm, a Great Famine, a Black Plague around thanks to this effect is great.

A few words about the Collection : it is very much in testing and adaptable. A few cards I believe are mainstays : [[Zap!]] because it is way to powerful not to play, [[Grapple Shot]] for a surprise blow out with an Aura or to move a Lion very fast, [[Angry Mob]] is too good not to play. The rest can be tinkered with.

Well I hope this helps you on your next Enchantress game whether you play it or play against it!

I will keep an eye on Gothic to see if there are more cool things we can do with this deck and archetype !

Keep weaving Auras!

Opalescence

@Thibault