Issues for Enchantments:

• Boring, noninteractive.

• doesn't tap. Just sits on the table, never touched again for rest of the game.

• few cohesive, interesting mechanics and themes.

• auras provide less value than equipment.

Etc.

Resolutions:

Please suggest ways to catapult enchantments into status that rivals artifacts.

Global enchantments probably ought to be big build-around cards. When you see an opponent drop a new rule of reality, that ought to both be a big "Oh, you're attempting THAT" moment as well as feeling like it's changing the rules of the game.

Less "All creatures you control have +1/+1" and more "There are two combat phases each turn" or "All dragons are indestructible".

To allow them to be bigger and flashier (without forcing huge cmc) maybe bring back a variant of enchant-world, so that each player gets to choose only one world-shaking effect.

And for activated abilities - honestly, I'd have them take over the role that planeswalkers usurped. Limited number of activations per turn, maybe limited total.

Auras are a bit of a different. As you say, they're basically equipment that dies when the creature does and you can't move and...

There've been different ways of addressing this in the past (totem, those 'cast as either creature or enchantment' ones) and those seem ok?

Probably the biggest drawbacks of auras have historically been:
1. It makes a single creature in a 1-for-2 target.
2. You need a creature to put it on. Replacing the aura with a second creature is often better for making your play consistent.

But.... both of those apply to combat tricks too. And people love those!

So - there's the solution. All aura's now have flash. Those that already do get cantrip.

(Edit: I hate markdown. That was meant to be 'ordered list item' not 'Header 1'.)

In my Silmarillion fan set I tried out tapping enchantments as a mechanic with the following keyword:

> Chant (Your enchantments can enhance this effect. Copy this effect for each enchantment you tap in response.)

I have longer description of my thoughts on it on the mechanics page of that set. As the name implies, there is a theme of playing in unison to power a singular effect (unlike say artifacts which tend to work more like clockwork pieces). Light Before Fall and Glorious Theme are two example cards.

I think it's one interesting direction though it's somewhat difficult to design for and I'm unsure about the size of the design space.

Somewhat related but even wilder idea I came up was in this "husk" set where I explored potential color pie divisions within colorless itself which lead to the direction of creating subcolors and new types of basic lands. So Monument and Sigil Carrier where the "new type of mana" could even appear without the new basic... Hmmm, seems at the time I also noted it being related to chant given how I used the keyword for that card as well.

One idea that that inspired Scene card type were Quest enchantments that earned victory points upon achieving some criteria. Each color has different modus operandus. Intended to be somewhat viable in draft, like milling. For every set.

The problem was inconsistent ways to get victory points. Hard to balance, and may seem too try-hard designwise. So Scenes streamlined that process. Furthermore Scene cards are laid in landscape mode (like Planes cards), which make them stand out from other card types.

I don't mind Enchantments not tapping. I've never seen a point in going that route beyond trying to squeeze some unnecessary design space where they may as well become colored artifacts at that point. That being said, I can get behind a mechanic like Tahazzar's Chant, assuming it's showing up as a set (or formerly block) mechanic.

As for being non-interactive, perhaps more global effects can be pushed (something I'd be happy to see on permanents in general). Barring some enchantress decks, there usually don't seem to be too many enchantments out to cause serious consideration over this imo.

A lack of cohesive and mechanical themes- fair enough. I can't recall the last time there was a mechanic unique to or at least heavily used in (nomcreature) enchantments. Totem armor, a decade ago?

I feel that auras, generally having colors, are typically more powerful, or at least versatile, than equipment (barring sets taking place on Mirrodin). Is it still worse when that aura goes to the graveyard? Absolutely, but I do not believe this makes auras useless.

I thought of many ideas. One is: "Enchanted permanent has totem armor."

I think the recent Shrines have been examples of excellent enchantments. But then again enchantments are just a valid permanent type that I use all the time. I wish enchantment creatures were as common as artifact creatures (e. g. any number of Illusions, Elementals etc.)

­Maul of the Skyclaves, Utility Knife, etc. Equipments that attach on arrival. Who needs Auras?

We presume the difference between artifacts and enchantments is artifacts are colorless and enchantments never tap. However they are willing to create colored artifacts, but never tapping enchantments.

Thus they can innovate artifacts without rules, but enchantments must be bound by the strictest constraints among all card types.

Artifacts are colorless when the set wants them to be colorless. If a set wanted colorless enchantments, the set could very well have them potentially exist, though I'm inclined to believe any potential colorless enchantments not directly relating to the Eldrazi (a la Eldrazi Conscription) would likely be appearing as auras. My reasoning is that global enchantments being static, need a color definition in order to something, so leaving one generically colorless could be giving colors access to abilities they shouldn't be able to access at no repurcussion. An aura could have just a generic stat boon and be fine, if uninteresting and likely worse than a generic equipment, assuming the aura did not have an ability like Totem Armor.

I would have argued that artifacts and enchantments biggest difference was that artifacts' abilities need to be activated while enchantments' are static, though that was never fully true for enchantments, and War of the Spark and Throne of Eldraine seemed to have leaned back to the times when artifacts could be static. I'd argue there are some cases where the artifact exists as a colorless artifact solely to allow more players the option include the card in their deck should the format need such a card, e.g. Grafdiggers Cage. Glass Casket, on the other hand, is a significant offender, where neither the card nor ability are colorless and the ability has had historic frequency in enchantment cards.

If anything, the static planeswalker abilities that planeswalkers had in War of the Spark was a greater threat to the territory of enchantments' identity than are a bigger threat to enchantments' space than artifacts have been in general as far as recent years are concerned.

Without a sound, adding a tap ability offers little benefit that can't be done by designating a time for the ability to occur. Sorry, I'm tired right now and not quite coherent.

I will end on this. For me at least, I'd would argue that enchantments are actually such a root concept of Magic that many cards or features of cards seem to be enchantments built in to another card or dolled up in a fancy appearance.

No doubt planeswalkers have encroached on enchantments. We all knew it would come to that for several reasons.

1. Planeswalker is a new type with vast unexplored design space.
2. Planeswalker type is more attractive, marketable.
3. Power level and features that enchantments lack.
4. You're better off adding more creatures and planeswalkers into your deck, than enchantments.

Exactly what I mean about this topic. Why do we need enchantments when it can be replaced and no one would notice or care.

Consider what if Enchantment was a subtype of artifact. Type line would be Artifact -- Enchantment. Then Auras could be instants and sorceries using similar technology to Haunt and Cipher. Instants even have built-in "Flash". But better because instants and sorceries have far far far more support than Auras. Of course we still have reusable Auras in the form of colored and colorless Equipment.

For non-Bogles constructed decks, auras could use a boon. I'm even tempted to say just outright power-creep them. Auras do serve purpose in limited. Also, auras themselves have plenty of theoretical untapped design space, for enchanting artifacts, Planeswalkers, and even other enchantments. Of course, such designs would need a home where those were aplenty.

I would rather use global enchantments than Planeswalkers and certainly creatures (though I'm of the opinion anti-planeswalker abilities and effects should have been introduced long ago and with more frequency). There is no more reason to make enchantment an artifact subtype than their is making artifact an enchantment subtype. Non-aura enchantments tend to have a pretty significant impact on the board, and make for a lasting threat when one isn't packing enchantment removal. In fact, not being attached to the body of a planeswalker or creature is what I believe allows some beloved enchantments to be as powerful as they are, such as Doubling Season and halved children. Even if a planeswalker had Doubling Season as an ability, it'd likely be an ultimate and not something the player is even guaranteed to get use of depending on the board state. I can't say that a creature or planeswalker is innately better than a non-aura enchantment for that reason that enchantment immediately grants the player access to the ability they're looking for.

Specific rebuttals
1. Planeswalkers have little more unexplored design space than any other black-border card type. Aside from the static abilities introduced in War of the Spark, Planeswalkers are usually effectively X: instant/sorcery ability, Y: another instant/sorcery ability, sometimes an enchantment, and Z: instant/sorcery ability or enchantment.
2. Planeswalkers do move product with their popularity. I no rebuttal to this.
3. I have previously stated enchantments are more likely to offer direct, immediate access to the ability desired, thus increasing their power level. Though the planeswalker may have more versatility, the planeswalker has no guarantee of getting to an explosive effect desired. This is not to disparge the + and smaller - abilities Planeswalkers have, this is only for the comparison to enchantments. The smaller abilities more often imitate instants and sorceries.
4. That seems entirely dependent on what the deck is looking for.

This last point may be irrelevant, but having no concern for damage to separate them from creatures and planeswalkers, and not tapping gives enchantments a very different feel from artifacts. When playing artifacts, I expect the artifacts to be pieces of a combo in a specific set of cards, something that explodes like a bomb upon the opponennt once all the pieces are together. In contrast, enchantments have a feel of a boulder rolling down a hill, not necessarily together but overwhelming as they appear and alter the state of the board.

EDIT: Why omit an entirely functional, existing card type from the game? This seems only to hurt potential design space by losing out on an item that cards can care about and interact with?

Additionally, this would probably uneven the color pie, because enchantment's spaces in colors don't overlap with artifact's spaces in colors.

1. Green and White have both the most favorable interaction with enchantments in general, with enchantress and other enchantment matters abilities being in these two colors primarily. I believe blue is a distant tertiary and rarely cares about enchantments in a positive way. In contrast, red and black are almost never care about enchantments in a positive manner. If we contrast between artifacts and Planeswalkers, your proposed replacements, white and green seem to be the two colors most supportive of the planeswalker card type, so that checks out and no change is necessary. However, general artifacts are blue and red's domain, with white being tertiary with a strong equipment focus and occasional general artifact focus. Removal of enchantments doesn't affect black much in this regard, but effectively puts green into the caring about artifacts camp and expands white care about artifacts with increased generalization.
   
2. Green and white are both the primary colors to destroy enchantments, something that almost always appears to be interchangeable with artifact destruction. Red also destroys artifacts gleefully, but cannot touch enchantments. Black has recently been given a tertiary space for removing enchantments, under the caveat that it can't remove its own. While white and green are once again not affected, omitting artifacts suggests that black now may have access to generalized artifact destruction and gives red access to removal to cards that red formerly could not interact with. This goes towards back to the issue that generally artifacts should require activation, and need agency while on the battlefield more often than not while enchantments are more static. For the enchantment slots replaced with Planeswalkers, a greater disadvantage comes in that black is the only color that has yet had direct planeswalker removal. The quality and usefulness of Red's burn spells vary from set to set, while green hasn't had the "destroy target noncreature" option for several years now. Which additional colors get destroy target planeswalker? White seems to have recently gotten the ability to hate on Planeswalkers, but it seems that planeswalker destruction was willfully removed from green in favor of Acidic Slime wording options.
   
3. Using Planeswalkers in place of enchantments at all would require significant design shifts in sets. I hardly expect see War of the Spark type sets appear with frequency, let alone become the norm. More planeswalker removal and interaction would need to be included.

I also forgot that auras include cards like Pacifism that hinder opponent's creatures. Also, Curses have plenty of untapped design space.

Now I think about it, enchantments do tend to break down into:
* Negative auras, which work ok (minor inconvenience being on the wrong side of the board)
* Positive auras, often a bit weak but still have a good place. Ideally there might be something inbetween auras and equipment in "how hard they are to deal with"
* Enchantments with a static effect. Ideally these would be exciting things that change the rules of the game, but in practice, they too often they just play better if they were on a creature. Or benefit from the extra options of being an artifact with tap, or a planeswalker with a once-per-turn ability.

I'm not sure if there's some clever way of rebalancing all those niches and the artifact niches to make it better than it is now, or not :)

Many Auras can be used on either your own cards or opponent's cards, including many which give bonuses and those which give penalties, and that makes it useful. Also, some combinations of abilities and other changes may be useful for different purposes for different players. (Maybe some people don't like the possibility to put -1/-1 on your own creatures, or whatever, but I do like such possibilities; you can put it on whatever player's cards you want to do.) Also, I like stuff such as totem armor together with -1/-1, or defender with +1/+1, or the Aura itself has phasing, "When this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on enchanted creature", and "Enchanted creature gets -2/-2", so that it does more than one things at once.

Also, consider world enchantments with "when this enchantment dies, ..." (this can also apply to other permanents that are world, other than enchantments). This makes world able to do more.

Another thing I would suggest is deleting the rules which prohibit creatures from being attached to anything. Deleting those rules would allow more to be made with them.

> Another thing I would suggest is deleting the rules which prohibit creatures from being attached to anything. Deleting those rules would allow more to be made with them.

That's a bad suggestion. Creatures attached to other stuff have a hard time moving to the red zone.

What red zone?

.... yeah; no idea what 'red zone' means here.

Soulbond did the whole "attach a creature to another creature" thing, and it was just fiddly. It's just really fiddly to keep track of what is attached to what, and then you want to tap one of the creatures and not the other thing it's attached to; and it all just gets messy.

"The red zone" is a pretty common slang for "attacking/blocking". I think it originally comes from some two-person playmats which had a row for lands for each player, a row for creatures for each player, and a separate row that was red where you put the creatures that are attacking or blocking.

The point is very sensible. With a big declaration of attackers, it's important to be able to tell which creatures are attacking. Imagine a Commander board of 12ish creatures where 6-8 of them attack and a few hold back. Now imagine a few of those are attached to lands, global enchantments, other creatures, but able to attack independently? That's going to be a total mess just in terms of physical table layout.

Also, high level tournament play sometimes includes a table with a literal red zone between both players, for players to put their attacking creatures into. It helps the audience keep track of what's going on.

Another idea I had about Auras: Make one with haunt; once the Aura dies, it now haunts something else, having a different effect on that other thing. (See also my generalized rules for haunt; you can haunt any object or player which is permitted by the ability; the existing haunt cards are now "haunt creature".)

Many other things are also possible with Auras, and other enchantments, such as making one which is also a adventurer, making a Aura with ninjutsu (of course it can't attack, but it can still enter the battlefield), etc. You can also put equip or fortify on a Aura to allow moving it after it is initially cast (although only onto creatures (or lands) you control, even if that wasn't its original target, but it is something). Like any other permanent card, graft and modular are also possible, as well as protection, shroud, echo, etc.

There are also a lot of effects that are possible to be made with enchantments, both official ones and some unofficial ones, including some of my ideas you might look for too. (My currently designing custom set so far as only two enchantments, one of which is a Aura, but I intend to add some more.)

But there is a solution about that "red zone", which is to use a piece of string or something to denote such things, perhaps. (Doing that can help in other circumstances too, not only attack/block, but other things you might need to keep track of, including soulbond and other stuff; and sometimes it might be better to take a paper and write a note, in case it requires you to choose a color or choose a name or whatever and then use that one, or to mark the kind of counters, etc)