Would it be simpler to remove "enchant creature", etc, assume auras can be played on any permanent, and just say that "enchanted creature does x" has an effect only if it's currently enchanting a creature?

It seems like, they would do about what people would expect, but with less words.

The small minority of auras that have a more specific restriction could have it spelled out, or say "if enchanted creature is X, it has Y". And you'd incidentally remove the clumsy wording with auras which have targeting restrictions only.

Then what about things that don't enchant permanents, such as curses?

That's true, but those are very very much the exception, and they're nearly all curses. Either they could have an except "this may enchant a player", or you could say "auras may target anything that matches all 'enchanted x' on them", or you could errata the exceptions,

• curses can say "When this enters the battlefield, target player gains control of it"
• Spellweaver Volute can be an enchantment that exiles the next instant to be cast.
• Psychic Possession can say "Choose a player"

I think that can be worked round, I'm more worried whether the wording for creatures, or specific types (eg. "enchant island") is ugly, that could prevent it working at all.

Players are stupid. If you can put something like "enchanted creature gets +1/+1" on a land, players will assume the land becomes a 1/1 creature.

Players are stupid. They don't realize that when a land-creature stops becoming a creature that the Enchant Creature is supposed to fall off.

Even if this change was a good idea, I believe it's too late in Magic's life to initiate.

They changed how Auras were written quite a bit when they introduced auras instead of local enchantments: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/af77

I'm less convinced it's a good idea, but if it is, and it can express all the same functionality, why can't they change?

They changed how they were written, but that didn't affect the functionality of any of the cards-that-became-Auras. I guess it changed cards that cared about Auras a bit, but mostly to make them with the way you'd expect. Your suggestion makes them functionally different and work different than how'd people expect.

It's not so crazy to image this format though:

Holy Strength
­
Enchantment-Aura
If enchanted permanent is a creature, it gets +1/+2.

Sure, there's some extra words in there. But "If... permanent is a" takes marginally less space than "Enchant Creature" with a line break. And it would make all auras functionally simpler.

It wouldn't work well with cards that specifically ask for an Enchant Creature. But it wouldn't be the first time previous cards were altered when a functional change appeared.

The Bonds of Faith treatment could be valid, I suppose. Of course, I feel this is pretty similar to the flash/instant supertype problem.

Auras can be attached to stuff other than permanents; they may potentially be attached to any object or player. Therefore, the "enchant" ability should not be omitted. I think that the rules are OK how it is (although I dislike the rule that creatures can't be attached to anything).

The rule that you can't attach creatures to things is purely there to make the board state readable. Otherwise you can have a situation of "Hang on; is that a creature equipped with that artifact; or is the artifact {whatevered} with the creature?"

It CAN still happen, but it's much more difficult to arrange with the rule in place.

Changing mechanic so that an irrelevant enchantment no longer falls off, it just doesn't do anything... I don't really see any benefit. If it can't be a useful thing to do, why allow it to happen? Again, keeps the board cleaner. (I know you wanted to buff your land before you animated it. But it's hardly going to be a surprise when you do, and the minor extra utility of being able to re-order that is probably not worth the faff.)

Oh, and of course, auras are themselves permanents. So "Is that A enchanting B, or B enchanting A?" pops up again...

In situations where the state is unclear (not only in this situations but many others too), you can figure out ways to be represented, and different situations may require different representations. This can apply if there are any situations that you do not remember (there are many others in the game, too), for any reason, not only this one.

Oh certainly it can be worked out - but all such complexity is a cost. So you have to work out whether there's benefit to having that cost.

And... I just don't see any real benefit here. It doesn't make the cards shorter or cleaner, it just potentially opens up messier game states.

What would make things shorter is if you could have a term of art for "Thing you are enchanting" that is nice and short. Then you could do something like: "Creature Aura" "Enchantee has +1/+2". But the cost of THAT simplicity is that we once again have rules-bagge in the type line; which seemingly most people dislike.

I really wish there was a term for enchanted/equipped/fortified objects, because it feels wrong to have to call enchanted permanents "permanents that are enchanted" instead.

There's "attached" I think?

But the "attached permanent" is the Aura/Equipment/etc. rather than the enchanted/equipped/etc. permanent.

I also don't see how it solves the issue with Guardian's Magemark's wording since it just replaces an adjectival participle with another one.

Huh; the natural wording is "Flash; Enchant creature; All of your enchanted creatures get +1/+1"

('All of' being optional, but makes it clearer) I guess that's not sufficiently templatey?

in this case, it's -ing vs -ed.

Attaching = enchanting = equipping

Attached = enchanted = equipped

@SecretInfiltrator- Kamigawa Neon Dynasty leaks imply that the set will use Modified for permanents that are enchanted, equipped, or have counters on them.

I know about modified, and it does part of what I want; it probably is sufficient, too. I am looking forward to designing with it in the tool box.

An Aura is attached to a permanent. The permanent has an Aura attached to it. It is not the permanent that is attached, but the Aura.

An Aura is enchanting a permanent. The permanent is enchanted by an Aura. It is the permanent that is enchanted, not the Aura.

> Looking at those "attached = enchanted" appears incorrect.

To look at the same issue through the present participle lense (-ing):

The player/effect attaches the Aura [to an permanent] :: The Aura enchants the permanent.

I'd talk about the attaching player/effect before I'd talk about an attaching Aura.

...

The issue is that for "enchant" Aura is the subject and the permanent is the direct object, but for "attach" Aura is the direct object and the permanent is the indirect object. Past participles (-ed) as adjectives describe the direct object, while prsent participles (-ing) describe the subject.

Accordingly the attached Aura is enchanting the permanent. The enchanting Aura is attached to the permanent.

> It follows: "attached ~ enchanting".