Wilds of Eldraine will deliver plenty of new cards to be excited about when it releases on Sept. 8, but it will also have a bonus sheet called Enchanting Tales. This add-on full of Magic’s most desired enchantments will show up in Draft, Set and Collector boosters, much like we saw with March of the Machine’s Multiverse Legends and The Brothers’ War’s Retro-frame artifacts.
This collection of 63 reprinted enchantments features stunning showcase frames and treatments, including alternate anime art! These cards are also playable in Limited formats as well, injecting even more power into the format. But with so many cards to chase, which are the ones you’ll want to get your hands on? Our guide is here to help.
The More the Merrier
To start, it’s worth mentioning that most of these cards will be of high interest to Commander players. That’s because while Commander is an amazing and fairly accessible format thanks to a steady stream of precons, beginners can have a hard time getting high-demand staples at a relatively affordable cost.
No matter how some cards are reprinted, the cost continues to go up. For example, The Great Henge has already been reprinted twice it’s release in 2019, and it still demands a hefty price.
The best way to remedy this is to just keep printing them with regularity. Wizards of the Coast took this to heart with Enchanting Tales by reprinting several cards that are in incredibly high demand in the format.
Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe are the two best examples of this need. If your Commander allows you to play either of these, they should really be in your deck. They both force your opponents to pay a tax for doing something they tend to do all the time, and if your opponent is unable to pay (or chooses not to), you get a huge bonus.
Whoever draws the most cards and spends the most mana tends to win games, and these two cards give your opponent the option of choking themselves on mana or giving you a card and mana advantage. It’s a pretty brutal decision to force your opponent to make.
Doubling Season and Land Tax may not quite be as heavily played as Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study, but they are also incredibly powerful cards that become an insane engine in the right deck.
Doubling Season’s ability to double your tokens and counters makes it useful in green decks that care about those two very popular themes. It also makes all of your planeswalkers pretty insane, as they are often able to enter the battlefield with enough loyalty to fire off an ultimate right way.
Meanwhile, Land Tax is the most impressive white card advantage engine in the entire game. Sure, it only lets you get lands. But if you use it correctly, you can draw three cards a turn with it. If your deck needs to stock the graveyard or discard cards for effects, Land Tax is one of the best ways to enable such strategies.
Much Needed Reprints
More than just staples need to be reprinted, though. Some cards have more niche uses while still retaining a really high price because they haven’t been reprinted in a very long time. Enchanting Tales include several of these types of cards.
If Doubling Season wasn’t enough for you, let me introduce you to Parallel Lives and Primal Vigor, which received their most recent sealed product printings in 2011 (Innistrad) and 2013 (Commander 2013), respectively. They offer you a couple of additional ways to double your tokens that you should definitely consider in any token deck.
Primal Vigor is strictly worse than Doubling Season because it only doubles +1/+1 counters, but it feels pretty darn close to having a second Doubling Season in your deck, and that’s something you’re definitely going to want.
But of all the cards in Enchanting Tales, Defense of the Heart and Repercussion were the most in need of a reprint. Apart from its original printing in 1999’s Urza’s Legacy, Defense of the Heart has only ever appeared in Mystery boosters. Meanwhile, Repercussion hasn’t appeared in any booster packs since its original printing in 1999!
For four mana, Defense of the Heart lets you tutor up two creatures and put them directly on the battlefield. It can be used to assemble two-creature combos or you can just search up two fatties. The downside is the enchantment has to survive until your upkeep and it only triggers if one opponent has three or more creatures. That said, that’ll be the case more often than not due to the nature of Commander.
Repercussion is a little more niche because it features a symmetrical effect that can be awkward at times. However, if you’re playing a deck that’s interested in burning out your opponents, it can be a pretty great addition.
Otherwise, Necropotence (Iconic Masters, 2017) and Omniscience (Core Set 2019) are two of the most powerful Enchantments ever printed — and you can get both of them from this bonus sheet. Both have the potential to win games practically by themselves, which is exactly why they haven’t been reprinted very often.
Necropotence lets you pay life to draw cards and Omniscience lets you play spells from your hand without paying for them. If you can ever get them both in play at the same time, they make for quite the combo, especially if some of those cards you play for free happen to gain you life.
Not all decks want them, but when put in the right deck, there’s a good chance either one of these will be the best card in your 99.
In addition to their demand for Commander players, these two cards also both see play in multiple 60-card formats, so more than just Commander players will be very happy to open these two in their Wilds of Eldraine boosters.
Next up, Greater Auramancy (Shadowmoor, 2008) is a great way to protect your enchantments. And Karmic Justice (Commander 2015) is an underappreciated card that allows you to heavily punish your opponents for destroying your noncreature permanents.
Karmic Justice is especially useful in decks interested in utilizing artifacts and enchantments, as it lets you turn anything that destroys your important noncreature permanents into a 2-for-1 in your favor.
Budget Pickups
So far the cards we’ve talked about would not be described as “budget” because they either haven’t been reprinted in a long time or they are in really high demand. However, this isn’t true of all the cards in Enchanting Tales.
But I also want to take a look at cards that are likely to hit that sweet budget price window and cards that are likely to continue to bottom out the more the set gets opened in search of chase cards.
Impact Tremors and Goblin Bombardment do a great job of slotting into any token deck, as they allow you to do insane amounts of damage in a hurry. Bombardment is also excellent in sacrifice decks, like all free sacrifice effects are.
When you don’t have to spend mana, that leaves you a lot more room to go off with crazy combos. For example, combining it with Shambling Ghast and Liliana, Untouched by Death allows you to go infinite!
Hardened Scales is a must-have for any +1/+1 counter deck, plus it’s another card that is relevant for 60-card formats, too. Then there’s Garruk’s Uprising, which is an enabler and a payoff for any Green deck interested in playing a bunch of big ol’ creatures.
The fact Uprising pays you off for already having a big creature in play and pays you off every time you play one after it’s on the battlefield makes it particularly attractive.
Finally Grasp of Fate is a powerful Oblivion Ring that lets you take out one nonland permanent from each of your opponents and Mana Flare is arguably the most powerful way to ramp your mana in a Red deck. Just keep in mind that Flare’s effect is symmetrical, so be careful about when you deploy it.
End Step
Those are some of the highlights from the Enchanted Tales bonus sheet. Like the other recent bonus sheets, it seems like they did an excellent job of providing reprints that will satisfy players of all of Magic’s formats. This was far from an exhaustive list, and if you take a look at the card gallery, you’ll probably find many more enchantments you’r e excited to get your hands on.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.