By Jeremy Rose
Welcome back to Foxy Gaming’s Best of EDH series! We will be going through the top
card, by card type, in each color and colorless when appropriate. We will be sticking with mono-colored cards for this first series. This is our fourth entry in the series, and it will be discussing enchantments. To see our previous entry, which discussed instants, click here!
DISCLAIMER: This list is based on Foxy Gaming’s playgroup and the cards we see, run in our
decks, and get donked by week in and week out. Our playgroup tends to play in the six to eight range on the power level scale, so keep that in mind as we go through our list. If you and your playgroup see different cards or value some differently than we do, we would love to hear about it so please leave a comment letting us know what you think!
For our enchantments list, we excluded the cards Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study. We
decided they were the obvious choices in their colors, and we wanted to keep the conversation a little more fun and interesting.
WHITE: Grasp of Fate
An Oblivion Ring effect in Commander is perhaps a little obsolete these days with all the access to more efficient removal, but an O-Ring effect that hits one nonland permanent from each opponent and for the same mana cost is still dang good. Exchanging a colorless mana for a white mana seems like a low opportunity cost for being able to snag two or more additional troublesome things on your opponents’ boards. Triple target removal certainly seems better than single target and white needs that extra bit of power to keep up sometimes. This enchantment is an efficient removal spell and being in white means you can blink Grasp of Fate to hit three even more dangerous things in the later parts of the game. White has some incredibly powerful enchantments and Grasp of Fate holds its own with its efficiency and versatility.
BLUE: Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
I understand this might be pushing the rules a little bit considering this enchantment is also a creature, but it is too good not to talk about. There are certainly more efficient enchantments in blue, but Thassa, Deep-Dwelling was chosen for its ability to slice as well as
dice. A four mana indestructible Conjurer’s Closet effect is already an impressive rate, but staple onto that the ability to tap any creature on the field and the potential to become a 6/5 creature that is still indestructible, and you’ve got yourself a stupid Magic card. Thassa obviously goes great in flicker decks, but there are a ton of ETB effects in blue that are worth
repeating every turn. The value generated every turn for no investment beyond the initial four mana is nuts and the tap ability can act like a clutch removal spell when you are facing down a huge attacker.
BLACK: Necropotence
Who decided this card was okay?
“Uh, but you have to skip your draw step and it punishes you for discarding cards. And you have to wait until your end step to get the cards so it’s fair and balanced.”
Yikes. There is not much to say about a card as strong as this except that most heavy black decks should be playing this, assuming you can afford the price tag, or your group is cool with proxies. Paying life for cards is an effect that we see banned in Commander all the time. Yawgmoth’s Bargain? Banned. Griselbrand? Griselbanned. Even Fastbond? Yep, Fastbanned. Too much? Okay, okay. Point is, somehow this three mana version of Yawgmoth’s Bargain has escaped retribution. I understand there are more significant downsides to this card, including triple black for its mana cost, but it is still reminiscent enough of these cards that there are not any other black enchantments that come close.
RED: Underworld Breach
Aside from the game-winning combos with Brain Freeze and Lotus Petal, this card is also criminally underplayed for what it does in a more general application. Red decks sometimes need help reaching a critical mass of graveyard recursion and this card helps them take advantage of their discard and draw spells like Faithless Looting and Cathartic Reunion. Because it allows for every nonland card to be escaped from the graveyard, it improves the versatility of red decks and their ability to recur threats or key combo pieces from the bin. Decks with a Kiki-Jiki combo put this card to great use, but sometimes all it takes is reanimating a big hasty boi to close out the game.
GREEN: Guardian Project
Beast Whisperer is an auto-include in just about every green deck and Guardian Project should be too. In singleton formats, this card essentially says, “Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.” This card is stronger than Beast Whisperer for a couple reasons: first, it is on an enchantment which makes it harder to remove. Second, the draw trigger being on ETB instead of cast makes it a lot more abusable. Flicker effects will take advantage of repeatable ETBs, doubling those triggers with a Panharmonicon or Yarok means you are drawing multiple cards every time a nontoken creature enters the battlefield. This card is a huge enabler for green decks, which have been getting better and better cards recently. Guardian Project is something you are going to want to use to help you draw into those good cards.
HONORABLE MENTION: Anointed Procession
This is one of the most fun effects I have played with in Magic and it is certainly
powerful. Token decks can be fun to watch develop an unreasonably large board state and Procession just puts them over the top. One thing to keep in mind is that this enchantment doubles all your token production, not just creature tokens. That means some real synergy with cards like Smothering Tithe and Dockside Extortionist which will now create twice the amount of Treasure tokens. It will also work with cards like Vizier of Many Faces (embalmed) which enters as a token copy of another creature, so you will end up with two tokens that can each copy a different creature. This card has a high ceiling and a lot of potential for crazy plays that make Magic fun and interesting while also playing white.
This concludes Foxy Proxys’ list of best enchantments in Commander! What
enchantments do you and your playgroup think fit on this list? What enchantments do you
think we highly overrated? Let us know in the comment section below and be sure to stay
tuned for our next entry in the series!
Jeremy Rose is a relatively new Magic player, having only started in Battle for Zendikar. When he's not being a filthy, filthy blue player, he enjoys jamming fun games with his friends. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a professionally employed teacher. He sometimes paints minis adequately. Find out more about him on his Twitter @jermytrose.
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