This is one enchantment where it really helps to read the Oracle text, so here it is: "If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, that player discards a card instead. If the player discards a card this way, he or she draws a card. If the player doesn't discard a card this way, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard." In addition to punishing opponents who play spells to draw lots of cards, you can use Chains with cards that force your opponent to draw cards, milling him if his hand is empty. But mainly, it shuts down card advantage strategies. It does a very good job of this, is cheap, and grows much stronger in multiples. Chains often makes appearances in black-heavy decks, especially in Vintage, where card-drawing runs rampant.#178: Spirit Link
I've seen this card used a lot. It's certainly one of the most popular creature enchantments of all time. Spirit Link is cheap, which is important. For the meager cost of a single white mana, you can give one of your creatures the "lifelink" ability (and the keyword name was inspired by this card) or negate all future damage from one of your opponent's attackers. Life gain is sometimes dismissed as a suboptimal strategy by players, likely the same ones who scoff at creature enchantments as being bad invesments because they die when the creatures enchanted by them die., but Spirit Link can either gain you lots of life (that can be paid to other cards or simple kept to buy time for other cards) or render your opponent's biggest attacker harmless against you.#177: No Rest for the Wicked
Some of the enchantments on this list behave almost like sorceries, except you can save them for later, since you don't need to sacrifice them until you want to take advantage of their effects. So really, they're quite a bit better than sorceries and arguably better than instants (you trade suprise for being able to save the effect until you need it). And yet, No Rest for the Wicked is pretty cheap. Although it can, if necessary, be used like Raise Dead to bring back a single creature (and a stored Raise Dead effect is actually decent even by itself), No Rest for the Wicked is most powerful with board sweepers, that is, spells that destroy all creatures in play. It can either act as insurance against such spells played by an opponent, or, more likely, be used alongside your own board sweepers, leaving you ready to replay your creatures before your opponent can recover.
#176: Charisma
There's just one thing that I don't like about this card, and that's the triple-blue mana requirement. It makes using this in even a two-color deck difficult and I don't think I've ever seen it done. But Charisma is cool. I'd love to see someone use it with Plague Spitter. My preferred combo so far, one that I've actually played both with and against, is putting Charisma along with Hermetic Study (or Psionic Gift) on a Horseshoe Crab, which gives you U: gain control of target creature. It's a risky investment though, since the Crab dying ruins everything. Still, taking control of creatures is, has always been, and always will be awesome. Charisma provides a reusable way to to just that. If only it didn't cause you to lose control of the creatures when it left play.
Some of the enchantments on this list behave almost like sorceries, except you can save them for later, since you don't need to sacrifice them until you want to take advantage of their effects. So really, they're quite a bit better than sorceries and arguably better than instants (you trade suprise for being able to save the effect until you need it). And yet, No Rest for the Wicked is pretty cheap. Although it can, if necessary, be used like Raise Dead to bring back a single creature (and a stored Raise Dead effect is actually decent even by itself), No Rest for the Wicked is most powerful with board sweepers, that is, spells that destroy all creatures in play. It can either act as insurance against such spells played by an opponent, or, more likely, be used alongside your own board sweepers, leaving you ready to replay your creatures before your opponent can recover.#176: Charisma
There's just one thing that I don't like about this card, and that's the triple-blue mana requirement. It makes using this in even a two-color deck difficult and I don't think I've ever seen it done. But Charisma is cool. I'd love to see someone use it with Plague Spitter. My preferred combo so far, one that I've actually played both with and against, is putting Charisma along with Hermetic Study (or Psionic Gift) on a Horseshoe Crab, which gives you U: gain control of target creature. It's a risky investment though, since the Crab dying ruins everything. Still, taking control of creatures is, has always been, and always will be awesome. Charisma provides a reusable way to to just that. If only it didn't cause you to lose control of the creatures when it left play.#175: Overburden
I already wrote a post about my old Overburden deck. It's not really a tournament-worthy enchantment, but it has a cool effect for casual play and I'm sure there are lots of tricks with it. I'll leave those to an exercise to the reader, but my old Overburden decklist can also be found here.
I wasn't planning on posting more than five enchantments at once for this project, but I'll do it this once.
#174: Soul Link
Soul Link is much less popular than Spirit Link. It has a two-color requirement and costs three times as much mana as the original. I wouldn't argue that it's a better card, but the rankings here are more based on a "coolness" factor than on raw power. And Soul Link is cooler than Spirit Link. The most awesome use I've seen for this card was putting it on Serra Avatar, which Al0yisusHWWW did (and I think he invented the combo by himself, although it's fairly intuitive). Soul Link has lots of cool combos though. You can use it with Pariah, Plague Spitter, Ageless Entity, and pretty much anything. Soul Link behaves sort of like a super Spirit Link, giving you even more life to play around with.
I already wrote a post about my old Overburden deck. It's not really a tournament-worthy enchantment, but it has a cool effect for casual play and I'm sure there are lots of tricks with it. I'll leave those to an exercise to the reader, but my old Overburden decklist can also be found here.I wasn't planning on posting more than five enchantments at once for this project, but I'll do it this once.
- I've missed the past several days and need to make up for it.
- I don't want to end a post on a card I already featured in a previous entry.
- The next card on the list is similar to another card in this post, so it's fitting that they appear together.
#174: Soul Link
Soul Link is much less popular than Spirit Link. It has a two-color requirement and costs three times as much mana as the original. I wouldn't argue that it's a better card, but the rankings here are more based on a "coolness" factor than on raw power. And Soul Link is cooler than Spirit Link. The most awesome use I've seen for this card was putting it on Serra Avatar, which Al0yisusHWWW did (and I think he invented the combo by himself, although it's fairly intuitive). Soul Link has lots of cool combos though. You can use it with Pariah, Plague Spitter, Ageless Entity, and pretty much anything. Soul Link behaves sort of like a super Spirit Link, giving you even more life to play around with.
No comments:
Post a Comment