Enduring Ideal represents both the most free form enchantment toolbox in the game and the only one of the Epic spells that easily workable in Commander. The Red and Green ones are extremely hard to ever make work and the Blue and Black ones require them to be copied a few times for them to work to the fullest. Ideal by comparison takes the deck you have built and deploys it over the course of the rest of the game to increasing advantage to you if it has been worked correctly.
History
I have been playing Commander since 2013 and Enchantments have always hung around decks but eventually I built a Zurgo Helmsmasher deck that was a v[u]ery slow Enchantment Control deck that would then drop Zurgo and smash opponents in weakened positions from the enchantments. This eventually morphed into a Queen Marchesa with very much the same theme but I had obtained a Solitary Confinement and that set me down the path of making this nightmare Enchantment control deck here in 2019.
Choosing A Commander
So far playing Ideal I have made these Commanders:
Zurgo Helmsmasher - Mardu versions of this deck play very brutal a lot of destruction and wrath and a lot of painful drawing cards to make all the pieces come together
Queen Marchesa - The Monarch smooths draws out incredibly while with the addition of Solitary Confinement makes a neat little lock that people have to work to break
Zur The Enchanter - The enchantment master puts a lot of the important pieces of this deck into play for free and sets up some impressive ideal turns accelerated into even further with Amonkhet and the printing of Solemnity(more on this card later)
Narset, Enlightened Master - I wanted to make a Narset but had seen a lot of the Extra Turns / Extra Combat step variety, however flipping her into Ideal was something I hadn't seen and worked really well
Saskia the Unyielding - I want to take the Mardu builds from earlier and add more Ramp and the good ramp enchantments and then Saskia also plays interestingly with some of the creatures I was running at the time
Ramos, Dragon Engine - If the deck works 10 mana does a lot in an Ideal deck one of which is cast the ideal, also the first 5 Color deck I made that brought together all the pieces of the previous versions.
Jodah, Archmage Eternal - 5 Mana Ideal tell me more Mr. Wizard, this is the version of the deck I make most often
Playing the Deck
This deck has two very distinct modes Before Ideal and After Ideal, and the concerns and cards being focused on are completely different since most of the cards used Before Ideal can't be used once it is active therefore I broke this down into two segments.
Before Ideal
This deck runs close to 40 enchantments at most times so the slots taken up for non-enchantment cards tend to be the ones that offer the most bang for your buck in pushing the Ideals of the deck forward and to completion. Ways to find the Ideal, ways to stay alive, ways to draw more cards or see more cards ways to stay on pace with mana either through artifacts or ramp (often in cheap enchantments like Explore).
The one thing this deck generally does not play with is Enchantresses, which may seem a bit strange but the deck generally doesn't want to draw any of the big ticket enchantments pre-Ideal, now there are ways to fix this (Scroll Rack being one of the better cards to have out when Ideal resolves for this very fact)
After Ideal
You just cast Enduring Ideal, how is your life total? Do you have a measure of protection already on board? Does someone seem very close to winning? If you have copied the Ideal (ie with a Increasing Vengeance) or you have Paradox Haze in play you should jump ahead to locks at this point otherwise read on for enchantments to pull out for each situation, the toolbox is opened.
Disruption
Fall of the Thran - Thank you Dominaria for printing this wonderful backbreaking piece of disruption that can be Ideal'd to immediately turn off a lot of your opponents next plays. Due to how Sagas work it will enter Trigger 1 and then on Draw Step will trigger 2 giving everyone two lands in play. I have taken now to following this up next turn with Oath of Teferi(more on why this in here later) which will exile the Fall until end of my turn and then next turn Solemnity locking the Saga at 1
Humility - Deals with all creature threats if you have one to play it is a wonderful card to run in an enchantment deck
Solitary Confinement - Typically buys enough time to set up something more permanent
Rest in Peace - Graveyard hate that interacts poorly with some parts of the deck but is required against certain strategies especially with being unable to cast other spells
This combination prevents the casting of any spell flipped off of Possibility Storm, therefore it allows for any cards not cast from your hand.
This Combination is asymmetrical therefore it can be used as a lock outside of Ideal because we can still cast spells through it. It also stops all the casting that the above combination does not
This one creates a lot of dead creatures with no abilities and stops a lot of stuff
Combos
This deck tends to run one major combo when it does and it is.
Both Paradox Haze and Starfield of Nyx are amazing cards in the deck in general and Necropotence represents a great draw card effect that can set life total very easily.
Nombos
Obviously Rest in Peace clashes with the multitude of GY effects these decks tend to run and Stony Silence can lock out the few artifacts, if you are planning to run Enchanted Evening be warned of running it next to Starfield of Nyx and other small things can clash.
Win Conditions
One of the biggest questions in my head is how many and how locked in the win-conditions should be in a deck like this.
Mogis, God of Slaughter for example represents an eventual win of the game from behind a lock or an infinite turn loop but often I like running cards that bring about victory quicker.
Assemble the Legion represents an escalating win condition that also interacts poorly with a Solemnity for example so it might not always be the best, but with a Purphoros, God of the Forge it can quickly close the game out from nothing.
With the printing of some cards it has become possible to sneak Planewalkers into play through the Ideal and/or the locks which makes them a fun and viable wincon as well.
Important Single Enchantments
Sneak Attack - Allows for creature ETBs and other uses to happen while Ideal is active or a Lock is active, so in the case of Arena Rector planeswalkers can be put into play
Omniscience - Always a consideration with making enchantment decks which then can also lead into the realm of Sneak Attack or Flash for the Rectors and other creatures in the deck with potent abilities
Animate Dead/Necromancy running these can also make it possible to sneak Worldgorger Dragon combo into the deck (the Dragon can also be Snuck into play as a weird way to save a board from a wipe)
This is where the deck exists at this moment, I am still trying to tweak how much survival vs. win conditions vs. draw vs. ramp the deck is running and it is a fun puzzle to try and solve.
This is a really interesting write-up and I would just like to thank you for posting it. I don't have any experience with the Epic cards, so I can't contribute to the strategy, but I will say that the combination of protection enchantments (Privileged Position and Sterling Grove and the others) is still weak to mass enchantment exile such as Merciless Eviction. I think that's just something that you have to live with though: sometimes your opponent just has the perfect card.
Otherwise though, this is super cool, and I'll be interested to see its development.
This is a really interesting write-up and I would just like to thank you for posting it. I don't have any experience with the Epic cards, so I can't contribute to the strategy, but I will say that the combination of protection enchantments (Privileged Position and Sterling Grove and the others) is still weak to mass enchantment exile such as Merciless Eviction. I think that's just something that you have to live with though: sometimes your opponent just has the perfect card.
Otherwise though, this is super cool, and I'll be interested to see its development.
Generally the protection waits for the lock to seal the deal but yeah a downside to just putting enchantments into play is that if done in the wrong order opponents can pull some miraculous stuff off in the face of it.
Enduring Ideal represents both the most free form enchantment toolbox in the game and the only one of the Epic spells that easily workable in Commander. The Red and Green ones are extremely hard to ever make work and the Blue and Black ones require them to be copied a few times for them to work to the fullest. Ideal by comparison takes the deck you have built and deploys it over the course of the rest of the game to increasing advantage to you if it has been worked correctly.
History
I have been playing Commander since 2013 and Enchantments have always hung around decks but eventually I built a Zurgo Helmsmasher deck that was a v[u]ery slow Enchantment Control deck that would then drop Zurgo and smash opponents in weakened positions from the enchantments. This eventually morphed into a Queen Marchesa with very much the same theme but I had obtained a Solitary Confinement and that set me down the path of making this nightmare Enchantment control deck here in 2019.
Choosing A Commander
So far playing Ideal I have made these Commanders:
Playing the Deck
This deck has two very distinct modes Before Ideal and After Ideal, and the concerns and cards being focused on are completely different since most of the cards used Before Ideal can't be used once it is active therefore I broke this down into two segments.
Before Ideal
This deck runs close to 40 enchantments at most times so the slots taken up for non-enchantment cards tend to be the ones that offer the most bang for your buck in pushing the Ideals of the deck forward and to completion. Ways to find the Ideal, ways to stay alive, ways to draw more cards or see more cards ways to stay on pace with mana either through artifacts or ramp (often in cheap enchantments like Explore).
The one thing this deck generally does not play with is Enchantresses, which may seem a bit strange but the deck generally doesn't want to draw any of the big ticket enchantments pre-Ideal, now there are ways to fix this (Scroll Rack being one of the better cards to have out when Ideal resolves for this very fact)
After Ideal
You just cast Enduring Ideal, how is your life total? Do you have a measure of protection already on board? Does someone seem very close to winning? If you have copied the Ideal (ie with a Increasing Vengeance) or you have Paradox Haze in play you should jump ahead to locks at this point otherwise read on for enchantments to pull out for each situation, the toolbox is opened.
Disruption
First there is a distinction in Commander between a Lock and a Full Lock. With the printing of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, World Breaker and the probable printing of much more Cast triggers any of these combinations of cards can be broken through by these creatures being cast. The way to transform these locks into complete is to play a combination of 2 of Sterling Grove, Privileged Position, Greater Auramancy and Copy Enchantment that will seal our Enchantment board impenetrably
This combination prevents the casting of any spell flipped off of Possibility Storm, therefore it allows for any cards not cast from your hand.
This Combination is asymmetrical therefore it can be used as a lock outside of Ideal because we can still cast spells through it. It also stops all the casting that the above combination does not
This one creates a lot of dead creatures with no abilities and stops a lot of stuff
Combos
This deck tends to run one major combo when it does and it is.
Both Paradox Haze and Starfield of Nyx are amazing cards in the deck in general and Necropotence represents a great draw card effect that can set life total very easily.
Nombos
Obviously Rest in Peace clashes with the multitude of GY effects these decks tend to run and Stony Silence can lock out the few artifacts, if you are planning to run Enchanted Evening be warned of running it next to Starfield of Nyx and other small things can clash.
Win Conditions
One of the biggest questions in my head is how many and how locked in the win-conditions should be in a deck like this.
Mogis, God of Slaughter for example represents an eventual win of the game from behind a lock or an infinite turn loop but often I like running cards that bring about victory quicker.
Assemble the Legion represents an escalating win condition that also interacts poorly with a Solemnity for example so it might not always be the best, but with a Purphoros, God of the Forge it can quickly close the game out from nothing.
Heliod, God of the Sun represents a win-con that isn't stopped by Solemnity
The old stand by Enchantment Win-Con is a card that exists too in Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond
With the printing of some cards it has become possible to sneak Planewalkers into play through the Ideal and/or the locks which makes them a fun and viable wincon as well.
Important Single Enchantments
1 Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Creature
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Academy Rector
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Arena Rector
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Mogis, God of Slaughter
Enchantment
1 Sylvan Library
1 Necropotence
1 Infernal Tribute
1 Humility
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Pestilence
1 Second Chance
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Decree of Silence
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Copy Enchantment
1 Privileged Position
1 Paradox Haze
1 Phyrexian Unlife
1 Propaganda
1 Stranglehold
1 Stony Silence
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Exploration
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Starfield of Nyx
1 Grasp of Fate
1 Sneak Attack
1 Solemnity
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Rest in Peace
1 Oath of Teferi
1 Fall of the Thran
1 The Mending of Dominaria
1 Doubling Season
1 Omniscience
1 Glacial Chasm
1 City of Brass
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Arid Mesa
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Halimar Depths
1 Command Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Blood Crypt
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Steam Vents
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Watery Grave
1 Mana Confluence
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Scroll Rack
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Chromatic Lantern
Instant
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Teferi's Protection
1 Flash
1 Mission Briefing
Sorcery
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Replenish
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Enduring Ideal
1 Life from the Loam
1 Show and Tell
1 Farseek
Planeswalker
1 Ral Zarek
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
This is where the deck exists at this moment, I am still trying to tweak how much survival vs. win conditions vs. draw vs. ramp the deck is running and it is a fun puzzle to try and solve.
Thanks for taking a look.
Otherwise though, this is super cool, and I'll be interested to see its development.
Generally the protection waits for the lock to seal the deal but yeah a downside to just putting enchantments into play is that if done in the wrong order opponents can pull some miraculous stuff off in the face of it.