#100: The Abyss
We begin anew with a true icon. The Abyss, like the already featured Moat, has the annoying distinction of being a never-reprinted Legends rare. Getting your hands on one will almost certainly be expensive. But nothing else is quite like it. Control decks can shut opposing creature hoards down with this one card alone. Unlike Drop of Honey, it sticks around even if the board is clear. That it doesn't get rid of artifact creatures is both a blessing and a curse. You can pack artifact creatures to take advantage of this, but if you run up against an artifact-heavy deck, The Abyss will also be missing most of your opponent's creatures. This can be compensated for pretty easily. The strangest feature of The Abyss is that it targets the creatures players choose, rather than forcing them to sacrifice creatures (and unlike any other similar cards I can think of). So watch out for Morphling and other creatures that can escape this enchantment.#99: Parallax Tide
I explained this cycle of enchantments when we featured Parallax Nexus. Parallax Tide is a lot better. The former has a sorcery speed ability that lets the opponent have a say in what gets removed. Instant speed removal in which you make the choice is a lot better. The most popular use of Parallax Tide is probably as a way to block the opponent from doing anything for a short amount of time while you strike the finishing blow. This was made infamous in Attunement/Replenish decks that would play Replenish, bringing Parallax Tide, Parallax Wave, and Opalescence all into play at once, usually in multiples. With Parallax Tide removing the opponent's lands from the game, disruption is difficult and beatdown commences the next turn. Parallax Tide can also be used successfully as part of resource-denial strategies, often including some other enchantments already featured on this list, like Back to Basics and Propaganda.#98: Humility
Humility might actually be best known for being part of interactions that cause rules problems (like with Opalescence, a card that I find myself mentioning yet again in this post). But it really is a good enchantment in its own right. When it comes to defensive white enchantments, we've already featured a few. Humility beats the mighty Moat because it affects all creatures. No matter what. Pick the most threatening creature you can. Go ahead. Humility makes it a 1/1 with no abilities. Are you afraid of 1/1's with no abilities? I know I'm not—unless there are a lot of them. That's the other good thing about Humility. Knowing in advance that creatures are going to be 1/1's with no abilities, you can take advantage of it it by using effects that would kill them, sweeping the board. Or better yet, you can start making lots of 1/1 tokens with Decree of Justice or Kjeldoran Outpost or whatever. Under Humility, each token is just as good as any other creature.
Humility might actually be best known for being part of interactions that cause rules problems (like with Opalescence, a card that I find myself mentioning yet again in this post). But it really is a good enchantment in its own right. When it comes to defensive white enchantments, we've already featured a few. Humility beats the mighty Moat because it affects all creatures. No matter what. Pick the most threatening creature you can. Go ahead. Humility makes it a 1/1 with no abilities. Are you afraid of 1/1's with no abilities? I know I'm not—unless there are a lot of them. That's the other good thing about Humility. Knowing in advance that creatures are going to be 1/1's with no abilities, you can take advantage of it it by using effects that would kill them, sweeping the board. Or better yet, you can start making lots of 1/1 tokens with Decree of Justice or Kjeldoran Outpost or whatever. Under Humility, each token is just as good as any other creature.#97: Words of Wilding
It's yet another Words enchantment. I promise, this is the last time an enchantment from this cycle will appear on the list. Words of Wilding appears so much higher than the others because, well, it's better. Also, it's more fun. Like the other ones, it can be used in Enchantress decks, where it works better than the other ones both because it makes 2/2 tokens and simply because it's green. Token generation is useful enough that as long as you have some form of card-drawing to fuel it, Words of Wilding is always good. Sylvan Library (coming soon to a list near you) is great because skipping both of the draws it would give you negates the drawback, so you get two tokens for simply paying the mana to activate Words of Wilding (and any time you feel like it, you can start using Sylvan Library to actually dig for cards).
It's yet another Words enchantment. I promise, this is the last time an enchantment from this cycle will appear on the list. Words of Wilding appears so much higher than the others because, well, it's better. Also, it's more fun. Like the other ones, it can be used in Enchantress decks, where it works better than the other ones both because it makes 2/2 tokens and simply because it's green. Token generation is useful enough that as long as you have some form of card-drawing to fuel it, Words of Wilding is always good. Sylvan Library (coming soon to a list near you) is great because skipping both of the draws it would give you negates the drawback, so you get two tokens for simply paying the mana to activate Words of Wilding (and any time you feel like it, you can start using Sylvan Library to actually dig for cards).#96: Oath of Ghouls
Speaking of cycles of enchantments, Exodus introduced the "Oath" cycle of enchantments. I like Exodus a lot, but this particular cycle of cards was a remarkably bad. Three of them are nearly useless. Of the remaining two, one is Oath of Ghouls (and as for the other, let's not get ahead of ourselves). Oath of Ghouls is one of those special enchantments that a whole deck can be built around, but that still manages not to be too good. It's trickier to use than it looks. Used with the wrong creatures, you won't be getting much out of this enchantment. But if you use the right creatures, Oath of Ghouls is an excellent recursion machine that will give you a huge advantage. Black in particular offers plenty of creatures that can be sacrificed to do things or that have "leaves play" abilities. And Oath of Ghouls has a small enough color requirement that using creatures from other colors is another option.
Speaking of cycles of enchantments, Exodus introduced the "Oath" cycle of enchantments. I like Exodus a lot, but this particular cycle of cards was a remarkably bad. Three of them are nearly useless. Of the remaining two, one is Oath of Ghouls (and as for the other, let's not get ahead of ourselves). Oath of Ghouls is one of those special enchantments that a whole deck can be built around, but that still manages not to be too good. It's trickier to use than it looks. Used with the wrong creatures, you won't be getting much out of this enchantment. But if you use the right creatures, Oath of Ghouls is an excellent recursion machine that will give you a huge advantage. Black in particular offers plenty of creatures that can be sacrificed to do things or that have "leaves play" abilities. And Oath of Ghouls has a small enough color requirement that using creatures from other colors is another option.
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