Basandra, Battle Seraph: Empyrial Enchantress (EDH / Commander)

"Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him."
—Sun Tzu, Chinese general, 6th century BCE
"Catapult" by Position Music: https://youtu.be/WoiEYpK_Eyw

=== P L E A S E _ N O T E ===

I disassembled this deck in April 2019.

=== I N T R O D U C T I O N ===

In most cases, it's not the power level of a legendary creature which makes me want to build an EDH deck around it, but rather its flavor - and most of all, its artwork.
Since I started playing Magic during Mirage block, the outstanding art of Terese Nielsen accompanied me during the years as I explored this extraordinary game. Unfortunately, Terese Nielsen hasn't been assigned only powerful cards to illustrate, but also rather mediocre ones. Hence one of the least played Boros commanders got one of the most amazing artworks in all of Magic: Basandra, Battle Seraph. But as I said before, for me its not all about power, but more about flavor and fun, and I really enjoy a deckbuilding challenge.

=== S T R A T E G Y ===

My initial design lacked a central theme and turned out to be too unfocused, so I returned to the drawing board and came up with this enchantress deck, utilizing prison and pillowfort spells to stall the game until I draw into my win conditions.

Game plan:
a) Get myself some mana.
b) Make attacking me a futile endeavour.
c) Get the upper hand by forcing my opponents to attack each other.

Win conditions:

1. Beatdown with hordes of creature tokens and/or Starfield of Nyx.
2. Purphoros, God of the Forge plus any creature token generator.

Mentionable cards & synergies:

• Enduring Ideal
  I know, it's highly unusual to play an Epic sorcery in Commander; that's exactly why I do it.
• Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor and Planar Bridge plus Mindmoil
  The tutors find the enchantment, the enchantment digs for Enduring Ideal. Apparently, Magus of the Wheel is also happy to help.
• Rule of Law
  This is the first enchantment I want to bring into play with the Epic sorcery. If I'm limited to one spell per turn, so are my opponents.
• Knollspine Invocation
  Just because I am not allowed to cast any spells doesn't mean I can't discard them for value, does it?
• Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Starfield of Nyx, Planar Bridge and Sun Titan
  Means to circumvent the Epic ability of Enduring Ideal by cheating permanents directly onto the battlefield.
• Mistveil Plains
  Puts any enchantment from my graveyard on the bottom of my library, so I may return it to play during my upkeep. Soft lock and (almost) guaranteed win with Planar Collapse and any token generator.

Tips & tactics:
Whenever I play this deck, the game switches into archenemy mode sooner or later, which is expected and fine by me. Once I established my defense it is difficult to deal damage to me, and True Conviction makes me even harder to kill.

=== E V A L U A T I O N ===

The deck performed well so far, but playtesting revealed some minor flaws, of which the most grave was a lack of win conditions. Adding a few more bombs and enhancers at the expense of some defensive cards should have fixed this issue.
If you like my design (or if you have suggestions), feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!