Having the right enchantment on the field can change the whole face of a game in Magic: The Gathering. Enchantments are permanents that stay on the field until they are removed by the player you’re using them on. They can either add a new condition to the game, make your own creatures stronger, or cripple your opponent’s creatures. With a single enchantment you can completely change the tide of battle—making your weaknesses your strengths. Every block—from expansion sets to the annual core—usually has a useful enchantment for all mana types, and here are our favorites.
Sigil of the Empty Throne
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Sigil of the Empty Throne is a angel-making powerhouse! If your opponent doesn’t have any enchantment removal, the game is as good as won. The best way to use Sigil is to make it the staple in your enchantment deck, using it to pump up your creatures and get a 4/4 flyer in the process. After all, the only thing better than a Sigil is four Sigils! It’s pretty hard to stop four flying angels with each enchantment. The Theros block had tons of enchantment creatures and constellation abilities, so adding a Sigil to your Theros enchantment deck will make sure your deck goes out with a bang as it cycles out of standard.
Sphinx’s Tutelage
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Sphinx’s Tutelage is a staple for your evil mill deck. For those of you new to Magic, milling is when you make your opponent dump their library (deck) into their graveyard (discard pile). If you have to draw a card and there are none left in your library, you lose the game. So, the goal of a mill deck is to get your opponent to put their entire library into their graveyard, starving them of valuable spells and mana. Sphinx’s Tutelage is extremely effective against monocolor decks, since if they mill two nonland cards that share a color, they mill again. Once you get deeper into the game, you can trigger it’s activated ability, but you should have cards that allow you to draw for cheaper. Artificer’s Epiphany can help you out with that.
Flameshadow Conjuring
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You might not find much use for Flameshadow Conjuring in a monocolor red deck since most monored decks are extremely aggressive and filled with annoying weenies, but this is the perfect card for hybrid decks with useful creature abilities that activate when entering the battlefield. With only one mountain needed to use this enchantment, it makes it easy to add to any hybrid deck. You can use it to get two 5/5 demons with Priest of the Blood Rite while only having to worry about sacrificing one creature to get rid of it’s pesky bleeding effect, or using it on a Woodland Bellower giving you two creatures on the battlefield and one 6/5 bear with haste ready to attack.
Zendikar’s Roil
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If you know how green decks operate, you know why Zendikar’s Roil is such a beastly enchantment. If you get this enchantment on the field early enough, you’ll have an army of elementals in no time. There’s no special combo you have to do either, just throw this card out and ramp lands* as your normally would and watch your army grow. This is the simplest enchantment to use. *Land ramping is when you use cards to add more mana to your battlefield. This a strong suit for green cards.
Shadows of the Past
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This card is great for decks searching for their win condition. As you defend against your opponent, you’re awarded with the ability to scry. This could be considered the weakest enchantment of all the ones featured, but its utility doesn’t go unnoticed. I would probably put this in a deck that would have me casting cards from the graveyard to add a little pressure to my opponent by taking away two life and gain that much. I feel like this is a card that’s going to prove useful with the release of future blocks, because this card is missing a link to it’s devastating combo.
Honorable Mention: Demonic Pact
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The only reason this card wasn’t the choice for black is because this card’s combo is tricky. You would need to use Daring Thief which can only work if your opponent has an enchantment to trade for it. This is simply fixed by enchanting one of their creatures and trading for it in the future. With the newer blocks being released in the coming month, it only makes this a standard solution for about less than a year. This is why building decks from the core set up is useful, since you can use your deck for a longer period of time.
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