The 35 Best White Enchantments in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 15, 2024

Land Tax | Illustration by Chuck Lukacs

I’ve always found enchantments feel like living spells. A weave of mana that exists long after the original spellcaster has moved on to new spells or locations, as opposed to sorceries and instants that represent a single, intense act of magic that’s over and done with once it resolves.

This concept mingles beautifully with white’s focus on order, structure, and laws. An enchantment that binds or prevents players from taking certain actions falls in line with what I’d expect from enchantments woven by a mage who dedicated their life to order and the creation and enforcement of laws.

Let’s look at the best enchantments in white!

What Are White Enchantments in MTG?

Sigarda's Splendor | Illustration by Howard Lyon

White enchantments in MTG are cards with the enchantment type and white in their casting cost or mana identity. I’m focused on mono-white enchantments instead of multicolor enchantments, so it’s a great place to find ideas for your next EDH deck with white as part of its color identity.

White’s enchantments tend to be removal and stax pieces. They impose rules and laws upon the table that are often symmetrical effects the table must abide by, though the white player who knows the law gets to play around it the most.

Solidarity is another prominent share of white’s color pie, represented through enchantments that buff one or more creatures. These often take the form of auras, though white is very much the color of anthems and similar effects.

#35. Oblivion Ring

Oblivion Ring is a classic that’s still strong and has a distinct flavor of enchantment-based removal. Enchantments are fairly hard to remove, so the target tends to stay gone. There’s also a fun trick with this card. Since the exile ability and the return ability are separate, unlike in modern design, flickering the Oblivion Ring before its first ability resolves exiles an opponent’s creature for free and forever while putting a second creature beneath the Ring as normal.

#34. Dawn of Hope

White loves life gain to the point it’s a meme that any white card in a cycle gains life. Dawn of Hope is a fine payoff for a deck going hard on life gain. It’s a little slow, but the two mana sinks make this strong in a longer game where you have mana to spare or care about repeatable token production.

#33. Sigarda’s Summons

Sigarda's Summons gives white +1/+1 counter decks an excellent finisher. Turning all your creatures into 5/5 fliers at minimum is enough to snuff out a player before they realize what’s hit them. When paired with cards like Cathars' Crusade and Mikaeus, the Lunarch that gives counters to all your creatures, this card offers a clean win.

#32. Sigil of the Empty Throne

4/4 angels win games. Sigil of the Empty Throne offers you as many Angels as enchantments you can cast. In a color with tons of enchantress support, like Mesa Enchantress and Serra's Sanctum, that’s a lot of enchantments.

#31. Legion’s Landing / Adanto, the First Fort

Legion's Landing is one of the few ramp spells in white, but it’s also a solid card for aggressive decks. Aggro decks can drop off hard in that late game, but Adanto, the First Fort gives the white weenie players a mana sink to keep up some pressure in the late game after generating early board presence as Legion's Landing.

#30. Together Forever

White often bolsters its creatures with +1/+1 counters, especially if paired with green. Together Forever comes at a decent rate, putting two power and toughness into play for two mana, and it gives a go-wide counters deck a bit of wrath insulation. You can also work up some combos by pairing this with Ashnod's Altar.

#29. Felidar Retreat

The biggest weakness of cards like Felidar Retreat is that they require you to have a board state worth buffing or a way to buff a bunch of small tokens. This enchantment’s strength comes from getting both sides of the coin, building up an early board state while giving you a finisher when you draw it later. It’s best paired with green for lots of extra land drops.

#28. Duelist’s Heritage

If you’re inclined to play Voltron in Commander, Duelist's Heritage is a great way to get the last points of damage from your 14/14 commander. It’s also a fun political tool; you can encourage your opponents to attack each other for profit while you remain safe and sound.

#27. Sphere of Safety

Sphere of Safety is an excellent deterrent. You need a deck full of enchantments for this to work, but once your opponents have to pay 4 or more mana to attack you, they just won’t. This card is integral to pillow fort strategies.

#26. Sigarda’s Splendor

White tends to struggle with card draw, but Sigarda's Splendor helps them out. Incidental life gain and card draw are always welcome. It’s easy for white to build a defensive or life-gain deck to ensure you’re always drawing cards extra cards with this.

#25. Authority of the Consuls

Authority of the Consuls is far more irritating than it looks. It’s a fantastic response to aggressive decks, turning their need to develop the board against them. Authority works best with assertive decks using their opponents’ inability to hold up blockers, while the incremental life gain gives you a healthy life advantage.

#24. Teleportation Circle

Teleportation Circle generates endless value. White has a lot of creatures with powerful ETBs worth flickering, like Spirited Companion and Priest of Ancient Lore for early card draw, Solitude or Cataclysmic Gearhulk for removal, or Karmic Guide and Sun Titan for even more value.

#23. Blind Obedience

One of the most common questions about Blind Obedience is its color identity. Yes, there’s a black symbol in the extort text, but that’s reminder text; it doesn’t affect the card’s color identity, so Obedience is mono-white. It’s also an excellent stax piece in a world where Commander plays deal with Dockside Extortionist and any other cards that win the game by generating obscene amounts of artifact mana in a single turn.

#22. Ethereal Armor

Ethereal Armor has led many a bogles player to victory. If you’re going all-in on enchantments and auras, this is one of the best ways to buff your creatures. It’ll add five or more power for a single mana and become impossible to handle in combat with first strike. Just make sure to have a few protective elements, like Loran's Escape and Blacksmith's Skill, so you aren’t blown out by a wrath.

#21. Rule of Law

Rule of Law is one of the fairest Magic cards to exist, and anybody who says otherwise wants to play storm. If you’re running Rule of Law to stifle your opponents, have a game plan that doesn’t need to cast more than one spell. In Commander, pairing it with equipment or planeswalkers gives you plenty of game actions to take on your turn without casting spells.

#20. Moat

Attacking is overrated. Moat shuts down a surprising number of decks, especially those running green. Meanwhile white, the color of angels and birds, won’t have trouble navigating this medieval defense to victory while your opponents pretend combat doesn’t exist.

#19. Tocasia’s Welcome

White is defined by small creatures as green is by large ones, so plenty of cards support casting small creatures. Tocasia's Welcome lets you get a card from the deal. Since it only triggers once a turn, you’ll want cards that let you make multiple cards a turn cycle to utilize this to its fullest potential.

#18. Darksteel Mutation

Transforming a creature into something less threatening is an excellent way to remove a creature without letting your opponent recur it from the graveyard. Darksteel Mutation is also an excellent way to shut down an opposing commander, as transforming a permanent doesn’t cause it to change zones.

#17. Court of Grace

White is the color to protect the monarchy. It gets to play tons of tokens for chump blockers alongside cards like Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse to stop your opponent from ever attacking you. Court of Grace is one of the best payoffs for defending the monarchy because its tokens protect the crown or put your opponents on a clock before they can match your card advantage.

#16. Intangible Virtue

Intangible Virtue is one of the best anthems ever printed, even if it's only for tokens. Extra power and vigilance make it hard for opposing decks to race this, especially if you lean into tokens that have evasion like the Spirits from Spectral Procession and Lingering Souls.

#15. Ghostly Prison

Ghostly Prison is another great defensive option for pillow fort decks that want to slow the game down or at least make your opponents swing at somebody else. It’s cheap enough to get down several copies or at least cast multiple spells in a turn, which is a great rate for a card that wants to be surrounded by enchantresses.

#14. Cathars’ Crusade

Cathars' Crusade is one of the best ways for a token deck to finish a game. Getting five or six counters from a Secure the Wastes making five or six tokens is insane value, but pair this with decks making tons of creatures. It drops off pretty hard if the plan is to play a single large creature.

#13. Overwhelming Splendor

Overwhelming Splendor politely asks a player to scoop up their cards and leave. This isn’t a literal death sentence, but a targeted Humility shuts down tons of decks. If this is attached to a player who isn’t playing superfriends or spellslinger, they likely won’t have much of a game plan.

#12. Chivalric Alliance

Chivalric Alliance is a recent outlet for white card draw. It’s easy to hit the two-creature threshold in a color defined by making tokens. Evasion is useful here to slip through clogged boards. Providing a mana outlet if all those drawn cards is the icing on the cake.

#11. Divine Visitation

Most token decks look for mass pump effects to enhance their swarms of small creatures, but why not make big creatures instead? Divine Visitation has the distinct weakness of doing nothing the turn it comes down for 5 mana, but your opponents only have a small window of opportunity to remove it before you begin summoning fleets of Serra Angels.

#10. Anointed Procession

White loves tokens, and Anointed Procession doubles that love. Making twice what you paid for is a silly way for a game to spiral out of control. This is especially strong with cards that make large tokens, like Finale of Glory and God-Eternal Oketra.

#9. Deafening Silence

Deafening Silence is a great way to shut down unfair decks for a minimal mana investment. The decks you want a Rule of Law against are often looping or spamming instants of sorceries anyway, so the noncreature restriction doesn’t impact what you want from the card while being way easier to build around in a creature-based color.

#8. Aura of Silence

Aura of Silence is a great Commander card because early turns frequently see players throw out a bunch of artifact ramp. Shutting them down makes them understand white’s mana woes. If you draw it late, you get to destroy problematic cards like Portal to Phyrexia or Bolas's Citadel, so this is never a dead card.

#7. Humility

Magic is at its purest when creatures don’t have abilities. Or power, or toughness. If you’re planning to chuck Humility in your deck, you either need an abundance of anthems to break the symmetry or noncreature win conditions, like Approach of the Second Sun or planeswalkers. This is a choice weapon against creature decks, though it doesn’t hold up against artifact or spell-based combo decks, so choose when to cast this wisely.

#6. Worship

Worship demands your opponents have removal or alternate win conditions or they’ll have to bow at your feet. This is a great way to jam up creature-heavy decks that aren’t focused on interaction, especially with white’s ability to defend its creatures with indestructible. It’s also a solid combo piece with Volcano Hellion and Coalhauler Swine.

#5. Smothering Tithe

Smothering Tithe is only relevant in Commander, but in the context of that format, it’s one of the best ways white can ramp. Nobody really pays two mana for this, so you’ll get at least three Treasure tokens a turn cycle before considering how many cards Commander players draw in a turn. If this isn’t killed on sight, the player who controls it often has four or five more mana each turn.

#4. Sigarda’s Aid

A Modern staple thanks to the brilliance of Colossus Hammer, Sigarda's Aid is an excellent example of how broken ignoring timing restrictions and cheating on mana is. I’ve absolutely died on turn two to Hammertime wielding this card to perfection, but getting to equip Swords for instant speed protection in response to removal is also incredibly strong.

#3. Rest in Peace

Shutting off all graveyards for two mana is an incredible effect. The graveyard is a vital resource in Magic, but nobody uses it fairly. Rest in Peace is a choice sideboard card to shut down decks trying to abuse the graveyard and a fine addition to a Commander pillow fort deck that’s not interested in losing to a 1-mana Archon of Cruelty.

#2. Stony Silence

Stony Silence is a great sideboard card that’s proved effective against decks like Modern Affinity in the past, but I find it underrated in Commander. Some decks can’t beat this effect, and most Commander players aren’t packing enough interaction to get around this. With the abundance of Treasure flowing in the format, this is a great tool to slow the game down.

#1. Land Tax

Land Tax is as close as white gets to Ancestral Recall. Drawing three cards and never needing to worry about missing a land drop or colors is incredibly powerful. If you’re doing things with the graveyard, this is a great way to exceed the maximum hand size and get some free discards. Land Tax gets worse on the play, but that doesn’t matter as much in Commander with green players throwing around Nature's Lore and Skyshroud Claim like chocolates.

Best White Enchantment Payoffs

White has some solid cards to payoff running mostly enchantments. Mesa Enchantress provides plenty of card draw, and, if you’re leaning towards auras, Kor Spiritdancer and Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice get in on the fun.

White has some of the best tutors for enchantments, including Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and Moon-Blessed Cleric. These pair well with white’s suite of silver-bullet enchantments that answer various opposing strategies, like tutoring Stony Silence against the Emry, Lurker of the Loch player.

The best cards to back white’s enchantments up are its creatures. White enchantments do their best work when slowing down your opponents, grinding their game plan to a halt. Slowing them down is well and good, but you need pressure to back that up so they don’t just win slower. You can build upon the stax enchantments with stax creatures, like Archon of Emeria and Drannith Magistrate while going wide with cards like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Hero of Bladehold to close out the game.

Wrap Up

Sigarda's Aid | Illustration by Howard Lyon

White has some of the best enchantments to stop your opponents from playing. The stax effects are among the most notable, but its pillow fort and anthem effects aren’t to be ignored.

It’s particularly fitting for the color of law and order to be the color with the enchantments that make the gameplay as tricky as possible for the opponent, forcing them to play by your rules. What are your favorite white enchantments? Do you like stax? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and be strict!