Type Fun's Top 200 Enchantments: Part XXXIX

Well, it's been a while. That delay was a bit unexpected. And we're almost to the top 50! If I'd only known, I could have arranged it that way intentionally. Oh well. If you're into Magic, around the time I was gone you were probably looking at all the new Alara Reborn cards or something, so we weren't missed at all.

#55: Solitary Confinement
We've done other white protective enchantments. Story Circle, Moat, Humility, etc. Solitary Confinement is, without a doubt, the best there is. It's not perfect for every deck though, because of its obvious drawback. To use Solitary Confinement, you simply must find ways to get cards into your hand. You'll be skipping your draw step and discarding a card every upkeep for the rest of the game. There are lots of ways to do this and some of them are better than others. But however you do it, the result is fantastic. You'll be invincible. You might even face some decks that are stopped dead in their tracks by a simple Solitary Confinement/Squee, Goblin Nabob combo. But a real card-drawing engine makes Solitary Confinement even more menacing. Your opponent(s) can't damage you, can't target you, and even if the enchantment is eventually killed, you drew enough cards that the time it bought you should let you win the game. Certainly one of the most powerful white enchantments ever and possibly the best purely defensive enchantment too.

#54: Overgrowth

Wild Growth is good and all, but for mana acceleration, Overgrowth is even better, albeit a bit slower. Unlike Wild Growth, it can't pay for itself. Over time, though, the bigger mana boost really helps and Overgrowth is a great card to help power out big creatures in casual decks. That makes it at least more fun than Wild Growth. But the reason we're ranking Overgrowth so far ahead of the smaller version is because Overgrowth allows for combos, mostly with things that untap lands. Used with the right cards, Overgrowth can even help create infinite combos. I've used it this way myself alongside Intruder Alarm and alongside Earthcraft. There are others, almost certainly including some I've never heard of. Even if the combo you use isn't infinite, Overgrowth can still accomplish a lot. Lands that tap for three mana are very useful. And Overgrowth gives you one.

#53: Artificer's Intuition
Artificer's Intuition to a great extent, lives in the shadow of Trinket Mage. While the enchantment is reuseable, the creature can find the same things without requiring you to dicard an artifact and leaves you with a 2/2 attacker or blocker as a bonus. The effect is generally the same, though and that reuseability makes a difference in the right deck. Artificer's Intuition acts as a toolbox and lets you dig for Lion's Eye Diamond, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt, Sol Ring, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Skullclamp, and Pyrite Spellbomb, among others. It's a solid card and we're partial to toolbox strategies, which is what Artificer's Intuition is all about. Oh, and I should mention that it's great with Auriok Salvagers. There's also a really cool combo with Sensei's Divining Top and Locket of Yesterdays to generate infinite storm count. Really, there's a lot of cool stuff here.

#52: Quicksilver Dagger

The color requirement might be considered unfortunate, but Quicksilver Dagger is way cooler than Hermetic Study. Actually, it's cooler than almost any creature enchantment. Really. I'd even be tempted to throw it into a blue/red deck that didn't fit the ability just because it's an underused card. But blue/red really isn't that common and even when you do build such a deck, it will probably be based around artifacts or something and this gem won't be suitable for it. That said, this thing is amazing. Dealing targeted damage is good. We've been over that with Hermetic Study. Here you're combining it with drawing a card. That means by itself (well, with a creature to enchant), Hermetic Study is dealing a damage to your opponent and drawing a card for each of your turns. Think Library of Alexandria (only better). Use it with a creature that can untap itself and you've got a damage-dealing, card-drawing engine. Use it with Mind over Matter and you win.

#51: Test of Endurance
Simply better than those other alternate win condition enchantments. I believe we've already included six on this list (not counting Divine Intervention, which is sort of in the same category). Test of Endurance is better because it's so very easy* to get your life total above 50. And it's more interesting too, because lifegain strategies often allow for a lot of fun and/or weirdness. Probably the easiest thing to do is just use an infinite combo. In fact, Test of Endurance is one of the preferred win conditions for infinite life combo decks (often named "Life" after the cereal because naming decks after breakfast cereals is funny or something). With infinite life, it's even possible to just wait around for Test of Endurance and play it when you get the chance, as attacks and other non-infinite damage sources aren't going to bother you. Test of Endurance also works with more modest lifegain and I've seen it put to excellent use with Congregate.

*While typing that, I remembered that a recent rules change makes the ease of generating a win condition also favorable for Chance Encounter (or moreso than when I published the post including it, anyway). Frenetic Efreet can generate infinite coin flips again (it had an erratum stopping that, but it was just undone), fulfilling Chance Encounter's win condition single-handedly. It seemed like a cool thing to point out...