Enchantment Matters
As with any "X-matters" theme, there are two major components: strong cards of that type and payoffs. As this cube strives to have any given theme be supported in any given color combination, and ideally in both aggressive and controlling shells, these typed-cards and their payoffs should be across all colors and deck speeds. Furthermore, these typed-cards and payoffs would benefit from crossover with other major themes within the cube.
The enchantment matters theme has proven to be more difficult to nail down than the other pillar's of the cube. Here, we'll take a look at what we have so far to support the them, what we can look to add, and where else we can go from here.
What we have
Only four payoffs for enchantments in the cube currently, and three of them also benefit your artifacts. Doomwake Giant stands alone as the sole, enchantment-only payoff in the cube. No payoffs in mono-
or -
. Most of the payoffs currently support a more midrange- or control-style deck.
A mere 21 enchantments vs 55 artifacts makes the payoffs even more difficult to utilize. Some strong interaction such as
Cast Out and
Dress Down presents a way to play any enchantments at all, but its difficult to compete with the shear density of artifacts within the cube. Some of the enchantments are more aspirational than realistic deckbuilding inclusions, such as
Demonic Pact, or are strictly payoffs for other decks, such as
Ghirapur Aether-Grid.
What we could add
Increasing the density of enchantments through enchantment-based removal and enchantment creatures would increase the number of enchantments in decks, making any payoffs more attractive. Many of the enchantment creatures are a little lackluster, but increasing the presence of enchantment-based removal is an easily available route.
Some more payoffs exist that don't break any restrictions imposed on the cube. Hall is especially interesting with more enchantment creatures and removal, but it won't have its partners in crime
Urza's Saga or
Shark Typhoon.
Breaking the rules
Search effects (and thus, shuffling) are probably the least egregious breaks possible as they don't require any additional game pieces.
Likewise, germ tokens don't pose much of a logistical issue relative to other tokens as they will typically only exist in tandem with its equipment.
Sagas are also a reasonable fit here; as they dispose of themselves, their counters are not permanent changes to keep track of and they bin themselves to be easily recurred with Tameshi or Hall of Heliod.
While the flip sagas are offenders twice over (they use counters and transform), there are some reasonable powered options that can bridge themes and increase enchantment creature density.
Where we probably won't go
Repeatedly spitting out tokens, searching, counters, and power level make these unlikely candidates for inclusion. If our typical setting for playing cube makes tokens and counters more attractive, these cards could be included but their strength would require additional consideration towards the cube environment.
Alternative themes
Flickering creatures and artifacts is a possible alternative theme. While normal blink themes are very common amongst cubes, there may be enough crossover with artifacts and artifact blink, such as the new
Nahiri's Resolve, to have sufficient cross pollination between the blink archetypes and all others. It also benefits from being centered in
, replacing the then-defunct
enchantment theme.
