Wild of Eldraine’s Enchanting Tales set, with the WOT set code, isn’t our first bonus sheet to come with a Standard set. The concept began with Strixhaven’s Mystical Archive, cataloging instants and sorceries throughout Magic’s history with unique art and frames. Artifacts and legendary creatures have also had their time in The Brother’s War and March of the Machines, respectively.
While I was on hiatus during Strixhaven and can’t comment on the quality of the Mystical Archives, the Enchanting Tales bonus sheet is my favorite. It has a tangible impact on the Limited enviroment without defining it. The cards that aren’t Limited playable feel like exciting pulls worth grabbing to flesh out your collection.
This article examines each color’s Enchanting Tales to see which ones are worth picking in Limited. We’re looking for cards that provide tangible value, usually by impacting the board or generating another advantage, such as mana or cards. I’m also evaluating them on how often they’re playable. For example, I’m not going over Impact Tremors in the article; you could convince me to play it in a specific RB deck loaded with multiple copies of Edgewall Pack and Veracious Vermin, but that’s such a narrow configuration it’s hard to do with any regularity. This guide is more interested in the cards you can see and utilize draft after draft.
Each color will also have a list of honorable mentions. These cards are not good in Draft but are expensive/staples in other formats, like Commander, and are worth sacrificing a draft pick for if you want to expand your collection. Think Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. It’s also worth noting that the rares and mythic rares on the bonus sheet have anime alternate arts, which tend to be worth a bit more money than their standard counterparts.
White
Honorable Mentions (not for Limited): Blind Obedience, Greater Auramancy, Leyline of Sanctity, Smothering Tithe, Rest in Peace.
Knightly Valor
While Auras can be hit-or-miss in Limited because of the potential two-for-one they offer your opponents, Knightly Valor does a lot of work. This card stabilizes you well against aggressive decks, which are powerful in WOE. You get a large vigilance creature and a second body to block with. Most mid-size blockers become excellent with a +2/+2 buff, and vigilance grants offensive and defensive power to help close the game. Valor also works with the set’s mechanics. This triggers celebration on its own and provides two sources of bargain fodder.
Griffin Aerie
Making a 2/2 flying creature when you gain three life is a strong ability. Thankfully, Food tokens gain us just enough! Griffin Aerie is secretly a multicolor card. White’s Food production is practically nonexistent, so it needs to be paired with at least green for access to lifegain. Aerie is best when splashed in a GB food shell. It’s a pretty easy situation to get yourself into. Nobody else wants Aerie, and there’s plenty of solid fixing, like Prophetic Prism and Brave the Wilds, at common.
Grasp of Fate
Grasp of Fate pulls double duty as a Commander staple and fantastic Limited card. Oblivion Ring effects always offer solid removal at three mana. Grasp of Fate isn’t splashable, but it’s still something any white deck is happy to play. Your opponents can disrupt it with some enchantment removal, but that’s often light in game one, and the removal is still worth playing. Your opponent has to have one of a few cards, or you’ve exiled their creature for three mana.
Land Tax
Land Tax is a deceptively powerful card advantage engine. Drawing a bundle of lands is fantastic. It smooths out your draws, increases your library’s spell density, and even provides fixing. Land Tax greatly increases your range of keepable hands; anything with a Plains and a Land Tax is keepable in most situations. Just make sure to board it out between games if you’re on the play, as you’re unlikely to have fewer lands.
Blue
Honorable Mentions (not for Limited): Fraying Sanity, Intruder Alarm, Kindred Discovery, Omniscience, Rhystic Study.
Compulsion
Firstly, I wouldn’t play Compulsion in Arena Bo1, as it’s a fairly slow card. This is likely better in Sealed than Draft overall since the former is slower and gives you much more time to discard lands. It’s also a fine sideboard card to bring in if you’re playing against a grindy deck and want to get rid of excess lands. It’s a little narrower since you need to be a grindy deck, but it’s also easy to get late since most people don’t want one.
Copy Enchantment
Honestly, I’m still on the fence about whether Copy Enchantment is a powerful draft card or not. This is an enchantment-themed set, but it’s more subtle than the Theros sets that had enchantment creatures. Using this to copy a Role or something just isn’t worth the mana investment. I’d lean towards Copy Enchantment being good in decks with enchantment-based removal spells, like Cooped Up and Grasp of Fate. This card feels like it’s toeing the line of being a secret UW multicolor card or falling into the same trap of Impact Tremors where it needs a hyper-specific shell to work.
Curiosity
Another Aura well worth the risk, Curiosity has the potential to be a powerful card draw engine. It’s at its best in UB faeries, where you can slap it on cheap creatures like Barrow Naughty or Snaremaster Sprite while holding up protection. You only need to draw one card to make it worth playing, and the potential of multiple cards wins a game. It also combos incredibly with Unruly Catapult.
Hatching Plans
I’ve had so much fun playing with Hatching Plans in this format. It’s been incredible. It doesn’t go into every blue deck. Hatching Plans is a build-around card, but one well worth the effort. You need a high concentration of bargain cards for this to work out, but there are tons of fantastic options at common, like Candy Grapple, Torch the Tower, and Johann’s Stopgap. Tacking Ancestral Recall onto your bargain cards is great, especially since most blue decks in the format want to be controlling, and you’re often using it to trade with one of your opponent’s cards.
Spreading Seas
Spreading Seas is completely fine in a deck stocked with bargain cards. Enchantments that either replace themselves or generate value, like Hopeful Vigil’s Knight token, are great cards to bargain away. Spreading Seas also has the benefit of attacking your opponent’s mana. IT occasionally wins the game by denying them a colored source, which can stop them from double spelling or even casting spells of a certain color if they get unlucky. You can’t count on this mana screwing your opponent however; it’s just gravy on top of an enabler that draws a card.
Black
Honorable Mentions (not for Limited): Grave Pact, Leyline of the Void, Necropotence, Polluted Bonds, Sanguine Bond, Waste Not
Bitterblossom
Bitterblossom is one of the few bombs in the Enchanting Tales bonus sheet. It’s not at its best when drawn super late in the game, but it’s nearly impossible to lose if you play this on turn two. It provides endless board presence to be aggressive, act as chump blockers, or provide bargain fodder. The faerie tokens also work with UB’s archetype. Even the life loss isn’t bad; Food tokens can offset it, or you can bargain it away if your life total is in danger.
Dark Tutelage
Dark Tutelage is at its best in an aggressive deck with a low curve. You don’t want Tutelage in a GB deck with Hamlet Gluttons and Scream Puffs holding down the top of your curve. I took like fifteen damage to learn this lesson. To borrow LSV’s comment about Wrenn’s Resolve in MOM, playing Tutelage is the reward for keeping your curve low. The card advantage ensures you have plenty of resources to pressure your opponents. It’s worth grabbing a few bargain cards in case your life gets too low, and you may want to board this out in aggressive mirrors.
Stab Wound
Stab Wound is a solid removal spell but also a powerful burn card. Slapping this onto a 2/3 is ideal, as you get to burn your opponent while they have a useless creature (until they chump block with it). The two damage adds up quickly, especially in a stalled board state where neither player has profitable attacks. It’s perfectly playable, though I’d prefer the first Feed the Cauldron as a three-mana spell that removes a cheap creature.
Vampiric Rites
Vampiric Rites primarily wants to get played alongside Rat tokens, so it’s fair to call this a secret RB multicolor card. When you can generate excess Rats, this does a great job of refilling your hand. It’s especially useful alongside Voracious Vermin and Tontentanz, Swarm Piper. The former grows into a formidable threat, while the latter provides plenty of fodder to feed the Rites.
Red
Honorable Mentions (not for Limited): Aggravated Assault, Blood Moon, Fiery Emancipation, Mana Flare, Shared Animosity, Sneak Attack
Dragon Mantle
Red’s share of Enchanting Tales that are good in Limited is rather lackluster, but Dragon Mantle is still okay. It replaces itself, which is important for bargain and just value. Giving your creature firebreathing is an okay way to push some extra damage. Slapping this on a Rat or a similarly low-value creature can force your opponent to trade a better creature in exchange for your token and some mana. Dragon Mantle falls into the territory of a card that’s playable, but terribly unexciting.
Goblin Bombardment
Goblin Bombardment, on the other hand, is a stone-cold bomb. It’s at its best in aggressive decks, but I’d play it in any red deck with a bunch of creatures. It provides tons of pressure and board control, but it’s also a surprisingly powerful tool against Adventure cards. Cards with Adventures only go on the Adventure if the spell side resolves; if its target gets removed, it goes straight to the graveyard. Goblin Bombardment invalidates the Adventures of cards like Beluna’s Gatekeeper, Gingerbread Hunter, and any other Adventure that targets one of your creatures.
Green
Honorable Mentions (not for Limited): Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Parallel Lives, Primal Vigor, Prismatic Omen, Unnatural Growth
Defense of the Heart
Limited is all about playing to the board, so most opponents will have enough creatures to trigger Defense of the Heart. If they decide to hold their creatures back, that’s also pretty beneficial. This isn’t great in decks with a super low curve; you want to get impactful creatures with this. A few cards like Hamlet Glutton and Beanstalk Wurm are perfect. That said, while getting Grizzly Bears isn’t ideal, that still works out to two 2/2s for four mana, so you are still on-rate. It’s just not as much value as possible.
Garruk’s Uprising
Garruk’s Uprising is similar to Hatching Plans in that it takes a bit of conscious deckbuilding to make it work, but it has a strong payoff. When your biggest creatures replace themselves, it puts your opponents in a tough position, especially if they need to trade multiple creatures for your one. Providing trample gives you a bit of inevitability, as chump blocking no longer becomes an option.
Ground Seal
Ground Seal is the epitome of just barely fine. It’s best in a deck filled with bargain cards, as a two-mana enchantment that draws a card is okay bargain fodder. It’s always your 23rd card, but one that replaces itself. It can also have some incidental value as a sideboard card in a format with Fell Horseman, Back for Seconds, and Tenacious Tomeseeker as value-generating cards.
Season of Growth
The Enchanting Tales cards are riff with secret multicolor cards, with Season of Growth secretly acting as a GW card. It’s at its best in a deck with Role-granting cards like Royal Treatment and Besotted Knight. These provide plenty of draw triggers for Season but open you up to blowouts with your Adventure cards. GW isn’t the best archetype, but this can provide a value engine to help make the most of your weaker cards.
Utopia Sprawl
One-mana accelerates are incredibly powerful. Utopia Sprawl requires you to have a lot of Forests, but you needed that anyway to help cast this on turn one. Getting to choose the color it taps for is excellent in WOE, as the format encourages abundant splashes with powerful cards and creatures with off-color Adventures. Getting a mana advantage is a great way to leap ahead of your opponent from turn one, leaving them in the dust.
Conclusion
WOE’s Enchanting Tales has been a blast to play with in Limited. Many cards are useful in the Limited format, from roleplayers in specific decks to cards worth building around. Many of the enchantments that aren’t playable feel like exciting pulls unlike some of the rares in BRO’s bonus sheet.
Understanding which Enchanting Tales are worth playing helps deepen your ability to deckbuild. They can provide extra dimensions to your decks and let you play with older cards you might not have seen before. Magic, and especially Limited, is all about context, so viewing these cards through the lens of their current format instead of the older one is a great way to elevate your Limited game.
