Fateful DiscoveryFateful Discovery | Art by Irvin Rodriguez

It feels nice to come back to Middle-earth! I doubt we swing by again anytime soon, but I’ll enjoy the ride while we have it. There’s a lot to talk about from the set, from the cool commanders to bold new potential staples like Orcrist. Let’s talk about the weird and wacky enchantments, from toys for Tom Bombadil to a potential slot in cEDH lists…

An Unexpected PartyAn Unexpected Party

Named for the first chapter of the book, it feels right to start here. This can start out as an Adventure that creates a bunch of Dwarf tokens for us, but the main event is choosing a creature type and giving them all +2/+2. Giving creatures +2/+2 as a static ability has only been done on nine black-border cards.

Dictate of HeliodDictate of Heliod is the cleanest, having no qualifications, but it’s five mana. Another clear comparison is Rally the RanksRally the Ranks, a modernized Shared TriumphShared Triumph, which is half the cost and half the effect. This is a four-mana card that requires you to be committed to a creature type, but does have the upside of the token-making spell.

I suspect most Commander players are going to see “make X Dwarf tokens” and decide it’s only for decks focusing on that creature type, but I hope to be proven wrong. (Changeling decks will also want this, but any deck with a single-creature-type focus can benefit from the big buff.)

Commanders Considering This:

Uncover the Moon-LettersUncover the Moon-Letters

I love that this is about casting noncreature spells and that it checks for the mana spent. That’s been a recent design tweak that came to us from the Final Fantasy set and it’s welcome. Being mana-gated, it doesn’t have to be a once-per-turn effect either, so chaining two- and three-mana spells to just churn through the deck without really refilling your hand is an option!

The best use case for this is obviously in decks with Big Spells. The noncreature batching goes far and wide — Enchantment, Artifact, Spellslinger, and Unnatural are all popular themes that this works very well in, not to mention various subsets like Equipment or Auras. This will most commonly go for enchantments due to being one itself but also because artifacts have so many tokens now that enters effects are more valued there. No worries — they’ve got their own insane enchantment to draw cards…

Commanders Considering This:

Dancing from Dark to DawnDancing from Dark to Dawn

Bears will love this for their theme decks, but any green deck that likes to play big creature spells (99%?) will get nutty value out of it. This is a strictly better version of Zendikar's RoilZendikar's Roil (outside of dedicated Elemental decks), and that card is a solid pick.

This card is good for catching up after board wipes and for applying pressure to race clocks. The fact that you can put the counters on the tokens shouldn’t be underestimated. Bear lovers will scoop this up in droves, but it’s a wide-use card for sure.

Commanders Considering This:

Roll-Roll-Roll-RollRoll-Roll-Roll-Roll

I have to give love to a Saga or two, and this one caught my eye for doing something unique: giving blue a way to trigger landfall rather than just pay it off with yet another Tatyova, Benthic DruidTatyova, Benthic Druid effect. Exiling lands to bring them back is a fantastic way to do this in blue and I hope to see more and more of it.

Outside of Landfall decks, this is a good engine for Blink decks, comparable to Thassa, Deep-DwellingThassa, Deep-Dwelling. While Thassa itself sticks around the whole game and has indestructible, this little Saga is a mana cheaper and can act as pseudo-ramp. The land comes back untapped, so if you tap it before blinking, it’ll be available to cast spells on your opponents’ turns.

This can’t blink other enchantments, but the Final Fantasy set did include some creatures that happen to also be Sagas, which is another strong use case for this card. There are a lot of little hooks to this Saga, and I expect to see it cast far and wide.

Commanders Considering This:

Fateful DiscoveryFateful Discovery

This card is, like, sooooo not okay. It doesn’t have any of the usual limiters: no “if it was cast,” no “nontoken,” no “once (or twice) per turn,” or even a “during your turn” so you can feel free to hold up flash artifacts alongside your counterspells! There is one safety valve: it’s not a “may” ability, meaning you absolutely need to be careful after landing this for fear of decking out. If only players had some way to win by decking out in blue. Oh well!

This would have been the grand slam number one pick, if not for the final entry. As is, it’s still a shoo-in for any artifact deck with blue in it (which is… most of them). Five mana isn’t a major roadblock to this in an artifact deck full of Signets and Treasure tokens, either, so look forward to this coming down on turn three in many of your games this fall.

Commanders Considering This:

Honorable Mentions…

Before I finish out, quick thoughts on a few of the enchantments that are solid but not the top of the top:

Burn, Burn, Tree and FernBurn, Burn, Tree and Fern’s first chapter can kill over 2,000 commanders in the format before taking out the most annoying artifact on the table and providing bonus mana for free. Don’t knock it — being four mana is slow but more than fair.

Down in the ValleyDown in the Valley is mostly for Elf players or for the occasional Johnny/Jenny who wants to rewind the story to give it multiple instances of its landfall trigger…

Along the Crooked WayAlong the Crooked Way is a Raise DeadRaise Dead that has ongoing value for graveyard manipulators like Syr Konrad, the GrimSyr Konrad, the Grim. That activated ability ain’t nothing in Grub, Storied MatriarchGrub, Storied Matriarch, either.

Gleaming SplendorGleaming Splendor

Here it is — the nightmare. Half the cost of Smothering TitheSmothering Tithe without the explosiveness but also without “do you pay the ?” drawing endless ire. It also provides an outlet for the mana with an effect that will trigger itself while drawing you a card. It’s a raw value engine that can even become a win condition with infinite mana (it says “two target players” but doesn’t require either of those be you, which means you can exclusively target your opponents to deck them).

So, to break it down, this card is:

• Ramp
• Card draw
• Group hug
• Wincon
• For only two mana
• In white

…what a world.

Commanders Considering This: 

Really… all of the ones with white in them, Treasure or Group Hug themes or not.

Going on an Adventure!

I like the spread of enchantments in this set! We have some real heaters, but a lot of really nice utility pieces in the mix. It's also a fresh dose of whimsy. Your mileage may vary, but I get a kick out of the Sagas named for songs like "Burn, Burn, Tree and Fern" and such. Any enchantments I missed that you think deserved the nod?