The 10 Most Iconic Enchantments in Magic: The Gathering

Enchantments in Magic: The Gathering include some of the most important cards in the game’s history. From cards like Necropotence to Blood Moon, there are plenty of examples of permanents in this category that are both loved and hated by TCG fans.

In this article, we’ll explore some of Magic’s most iconic enchantments, based on their impact on both the competitive and casual scene, as well as consider how each helped shape the game’s design and alter players’ perspectives on certain elements of deckbuilding.

We’ll only cover Enchantment cards, which excludes some historic cards like Urza’s Saga, which fit better into the Land category.

Rhystic Study

“But will you pay the ?” has become one of the most famous phrases at Commander tables around the world, all because Rhystic Study is one of the best enchantments in the format with one of the most efficient effects in a multiplayer format: punishing players for playing the game.

Unlike other pieces, Rhystic Study is not viewed with such disdain because it is a card that is easy to get around as the game progresses and its effect does not impede players, it only offers a relevant advantage to its controller whenever an opponent casts a spell, making it a timeless Commander staple and one of the most well-known effects of the format, also reproduced in other cards released over the years, such as Smothering Tithe.

Necropotence

Necropotence taught an important lesson for the philosophy of competitive card games: life is a resource. When released, this enchantment was considered by many to be one of the worst rares of Ice Age, but it eventually starred in one of the first seasons of oppression in a competitive Magic format, known as the Black Summer.

At the time, Necropotence escaped a ban due to timing issues: there were no frequent bans in the Ice Age era and the card's second appearance in Standard (Type 2) was during the same period as the Urza Block, which brought some of the most broken cards of all time and which were the central focus of interventions and bans - Necro was also responsible for the birth of Sligh, the first strand of what would later be known as Red Deck Wins and, later, Mono Red Aggro.

Its effect has undergone balance attempts several times. Some, like Yawgmoth’s Bargain, proved just as strong as Necropotence despite costing twice as much mana, while others like Phyrexian Arena were in the right space to impact the game in the early 2000s without breaking the competitive scene.

Leyline of the Void

Leyline of the Void was the only one of the original Leylines cycle to have a lasting impact on Magic: The Gathering, and it set the precedent for other cycles to introduce cards that were also relevant in competitive play, like Leyline of Sanctity and the Pioneer-banned Leyline of Abundance.

This enchantment is actually a spin-off of one of the original graveyard hates, Planar Void, but the ability to start the game with it in play means disrupting your opponent's plans from turn one, forcing timely responses from their sideboard while dodging disruptions like Duress or Thoughtseize - making it a staple in multiple formats to this day.

Blood Moon

Blood Moon taught Magic players an important lesson: don't get too greedy. With the introduction of Fetch Lands, the use of multicolored mana bases with Duals (and later, Shock Lands) made three- and four-color stacks an easy and even common possibility if there were no elements to keep them in check - Blood Moon is that element.

Being one of the most hated cards to play against and capable of locking games as early as the first turn in Legacy tables, Blood Moon helps to maintain control of the diversity of archetypes in Modern and Legacy, preventing every strategy from being just a pile of four or five colors with the best cards of the format as we saw, for example, with the Standard of Khans of Tarkir-Battle for Zendikar, where we had archetypes like Jeskai Black, Abzan Blue or Mardu Green.

Doubling Season

Doubling Season never made a difference on competitive tables, but for years it was one of the favorite cards of the casual Magic audience and is still a coveted enchantment for many token-based Commander decks. Being the pioneer of its effect, it became a reference for how to get the most out of commanders of this theme and inspired the launch of other similar effects, such as Anointed Procession and Parallel Lives.

Pernicious Deed

Pernicious Deed is what we can call a historic card. Today, its power level and relevance in the game are non-existent even in casual Commander tables because there are more efficient options, and it is nothing more than a version of Nevinyrral’s Disk with broader applications. But for years, it was the best possible answer for several decks and a staple of various versions of Midrange and Control archetypes.

Mirari’s Wake

Mirari’s Wake does two things that every Magic player, especially the casual audience, loves: it increases the power of your creatures and doubles the amount of mana you generate. It is the combination of very famous effects both at Commander tables and during its Standard era, where it was used together with Decree of Justice to create an army of tokens on the table.

This enchantment also represents the combination of other very famous enchantments in the game, such as Glorious Anthem and Zendikar Resurgent, which guarantees it a privileged space in Commander lists that play with themes that benefit from these effects.

Omniscience

If a player puts Omniscience into play, they will probably win the game. This enchantment is rarely done fairly—it usually involves combos with Show and Tell or a lot of mana with Lotus Field and untap effects to cast it—and usually the play leading up to it will be something absurd: a combo involving sequences of spells that are now cast for free, an Emrakul, the Aeons’ Torn, or Enter the Infinite, or anything in between.

Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest vies for the most powerful enchantment slot in Magic: The Gathering with other historical staples like Necropotence. Since its time in the old Type 2, this card has had powerful toolbox combinations by allowing you to discard a creature to fetch another, and it was used as a “combo” alongside Recurring Nightmare to bring giant creatures onto the battlefield at no additional cost.

Over the years, interactions with Survival of the Fittest have become more efficient: creatures like Basking Rootwalla benefited from discarding, Squee, Goblin Nabob “nullified” its drawback, and the release of Vengevine along with the rise of Stoneforge Mystic eventually created a deck that was too strong for Legacy, leading to the card’s ban in the format.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker was released in 2022 and has become one of the most powerful enchantments in Magic and a staple in all competitive formats. Its versatility represents the game's current design philosophy well, being a card that does a bit of everything: it creates a token on the board to attack and block, accelerates mana, filters its controller's hand and even transforms into a creature whose ability extracts value from any ETB effect present in the game, in addition to having pseudo-combo potential when two transformed copies of Fable are in play.

Its presence was so significant in Standard that the card had to be banned from the format to increase the diversity of the competitive Metagame. In 2024, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is still one of the most played cards in Pioneer in decks like Enigmatic Incarnation and Rakdos Midrange, in addition to being present in other Modern strategies even after the banning of Grief and Fury, which weakened and erased the main archetype where it was present - in Legacy, Fable is an efficient play for the red Ancient Tomb archetypes, being able to copy creatures with the Initiative mechanic and reuse other relevant ETB effects from the Metagame.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!