Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Type Fun's Top 200 Enchantments: Part XLI

#45: Megrim
There aren't too many good enchantments for discard decks. Megrim is something of an exception. It's a great concept and can be a really fun card. I've used multiple decks either relying on it or using it as a bonus. Hypnotic Specter, Hymn to Tourach, Duress, Pox, and so on. With Megrim to deal damage for those cards your opponent discards and The Rack to deal damage when his hand becomes too small, you discard strategy can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Not every discard deck should necessarily use Megrim, but I do think it should almost always be a consideration. Megrim is also useful for its synergy with certain spells. Memory Jar is probably the most famous, dealing up to 14 damage to each opponent through Megrim while giving you access to more spells. Urza's Guilt is a fun one for U/B discard decks. You take 4, but your opponents take 10 while you also have the opportunity to draw into new spells (like another Urza's Guilt). Some people hate discard strategies, but if they can't see that Megrim is cool, well, too bad for them.

#44: Runed Halo
Here's the card that really almost didn't make the list. Then in March, while writing one of these, I noticed that I'd accidentally put an instant into the list (because I got the name mixed up with an enchantment that was already on the list). That freed up a spot, so I listed all the enchantments I'd already noticed were left out and probably shouldn't be, then Al0ysius chose Runed Halo, which was, I think, a fine choice. Runed Halo is a versatile quasi-removal tool that can stop a big creature from killing you, prevent opponents from burning using Duress or Diabolic Edict or Lightning Bolt or whatever on you. It's not the ultimate defensive enchatnment that Solitary Confinement is, but as long as you have some idea of what your opponent wants to do, it can really mess with his game plan. Runed Halo isn't the best at anything, but it's quite a jack of all trades. As for those other cards that should have made the list but were missed, I'll try to do a post featuring them at some point.

#43: Mirari's Wake
There are two things keeping Mirari's Wake from being one of the scariest powerhouse enchantments ever. Firstly, it costs five mana. And secondly, it has a double-color requirement, which constrains deckbuilding. Despite these issues, Mirari's Wake can be scary. Like we already noted with Sterling Grove, it's good to have two separate abilities that are both good. Mirari's Wake pumps up your creatures and lets your lands produce an extra mana each. It's the second ability that's clearly more powerful, but having both is what makes this such a good card. You have an advantage in combat and an advantage in playing spells, which will, if you're not already too far behind, allow you to dominate. If nothing else, your big creatures will be easier to play and a little bit bigger all because of this enchantment. It's also good in multiples. The first one makes subsequent copies easier to cast and both abilities stack for larger creature boosting and larger mana production.

#42: Fecundity
Fecundity is another enchantment that probably deserves its own long article. There's a lot of variety in the decks that can use this effectively and I don't intend to cover them all. Primarily, Fecundity is a card-drawing engine. This might seem obvious, but one could use it for minor card-drawing here and there and that's not what I'm talking about because this card can easily be very explosive. Drawing cards lets you play more creatures, and those are used to fuel draws with Fecundity. In multiples, with token generation, or both, it's quite possible for a Fecundity deck to draw out its entire library. A broken way to do this is with goblins (Skirk Prospector lets you sacrifice your goblins for mana). But better known might be the combo with Ashnod's Altar. And like I said earlier, adding Saproling Cluster to the Fecundity/Altar engine provides an easy kill. Drawing cards is always good and Fecundity lets you do it with no drawbacks, so this is a great card for any player to build a deck around.

#41: Stasis
Literally one of the oldest enchantments (along with about a dozen other enchantments that made this list and a bunch of other enchantments that are mostly pretty bad), Stasis has had plenty of time to become famous. Or infamous. And it seems that the latter is usually the case. People fear Stasis. They don't want to play against it because it means a slow, agonizing death. Well, for those of you who aren't crybabies, this is a good lockdown card. From Kismet to Root Maze to Howling Mine to Chronatog to Temporal Adept, there are lots and lots of ways to cripple your opponent through Stasis. Perhaps the best card to use with Stasis, and one that I think is overlooked, is Black Vise. By itself, it might not be much, but as long as the rest of your deck can keep Stasis active, Black Vise can easily kill your opponent by itself and it's a really good card anyway. If you do get the hard lock, you can always just deck your opponent, but Black Vise is faster and more reliable.

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