Type Fun's Top 200 Enchantments: Part XIV

#164: Island Sanctuary
Island Sanctuary ranks as highly as it does because it does one thing very well. For only two mana, you can completely and permanently shut off attacks against you except by flyers and islandwalkers. For white-based control decks, this effect can be devastating. Some opponents will lose the game outright simply because they can't deal with Island Sanctuary. Now for the bad news: as good as Island Sanctuary is, there are some better options out there. Tournament decks rarely use this card because Moat (coming soon to a list near you) is better. But Island Sanctuary is cheaper and can more easily be used in multicolor decks. It's also possible to acquire on a budget (Moat is a rare from Legends and all good Legends rares are in high demand). Just be sure to compensate for Island Sanctuary's weaknesses by having a way to deal with flying creatures and a way to draw cards. With proper support, this is one powerful card.

#163: Compulsion

I've actually never used Compulsion, but I've seen it in action and the card is better than it looks. Compulsion allows you to repeatedly discard any cards in your hand you don't need for fresh draws. If you have the mana to do this a lot, you'll probably win the game. How it happens is up to you. But it's hard not to win when you get the cards you want. Compulsion isn't perfect for every deck. And the decks it works well in vary a lot, but if you can use it, you'll want to. One very powerful deck that uses Compulsion is the Worldgorger Dragon combo deck, which provides Compulsion with all the mana it needs to rip through the library and find a kill condition and needs an easy way to discard cards, which Compulsion provides. I don't know if I've seen anyone actually use Compulsion's second ability, but it's there if you need it.

#162: Eladamri's Vineyard

If you read this blog carefully, you may remember Eladamri's Vineyard from one of my old Belcher decklists I posted last month. Vineyard is a good card in Belcher decks because it can easily be played first turn and provide free mana every other turn. Of course, it can be used in other decks too. The only thing to be wary of with Vineyard is that the effect is symmetrical. Your opponent gets the free mana too. It's worse than that, actually, your opponent starts receiving mana before you do (unless you somehow get this into play before your main phase). But the symmetry also has some good use. If your opponent doesn't have a sink for this free mana, Vineyard will be hitting him for 2 life in every main phase until he can find a mana sink. Your deck, however, is built with Vineyard in mind and will always put the mana to good use. When that's happening, you'll fall in love with this card. Getting extra mana every turn and using it while your opponent is taking mana burn from your card is a rare experience indeed.