Readers!

Last week, I had an opportunity to made good on my promise to feature more Instants and Sorceries in my articles this year, and in a sense I did that. In another, much more real sense, I did something that's not quite the opposite but isn't far off. I think I talk about Enchantments too much and ignore Instants and Sorceries and I wanted to spend 2022 recalibrating how I deal with those cards in my decks. However, I basically never include Planeswalkers in my decks on here, but I play with them sometimes in real life, especially if they're named Liliana and their Ult involves getting their dead creatures on your side. It didn't make sense to say I didn't talk about Instants and Sorceries more but ignore a card type I talk about even less.

That said, if you thought you should have gotten more Instants and Sorceries in that article, I have great news, because after this article, I will have written about Instants and Sorceries an average of 3 times over the last 2 articles. How is that possible? By talking about Triple Instants this week. We're going to delve into the wild world of Charms, something you already figured out from the title. Can you imagine how sick that reveal would have been if you didn't know it was about charms, though? You sitting there all "What?! Triple the Instants and Sorceries coverage? In one article! But how?" and then I show you a pic of like Bant Charm and then you stand up at your desk at work so fast you knock your chair over and then everyone claps. That would have been sick. Anyway, here's the article about Charms.

Charms are modal spells which means you can select what the spell does at the time you need it rather than the card always doing the same thing. I think modal Instants and Sorceries are going to be necessary to get me to accept the terrible rate of 1 effect per 1 card that I spent a lifetime of getting value from Artifacts and Enchantments trying to get away from. You still get 1 effect when you play the card, but you essentially have 3 different types of answers in your hand - a charm not yet on the stack is Schroedinger's Silver Bullet as far as I'm concerned. I play with a few Charms and I've used all 3 modes on all of the ones I play in decks, even when one effect is WAY better than the other two (looking at you, Rakdos Charm).

With 5 new Charms in New Capenna (at least), I wanted to take another look at the Charms in Magic: The Gathering and see if there aren't a few we should probably play more in our 75% lists. If I have to cut an Enchantment or an Artifact to add an Instant to a deck, it should at least be one with a ton of versatility. A few general rules concerning Charms, though, is that the more recent, the more powerful and the more colors, the more versatile. That said, I think there are a few that might surprise you, and if you're running a spell that is any of these modes, you should consider a Charm that can do more. If nothing else, we'll make Dana Roach upset when he sees me advocating for modal spells again.

Abzan Charm

A lot of Black decks run cards like Sign in Blood. Sign in Blood draws cards by exchanging life, and that concept, which we've been OK with since Alpha's Greed, is a solid one. I have seen Abzan decks run Painful Truths. Painful Truths is easier to cast than Abzan Charm, draws one more card and also doesn't do anything else. If you consider the "primary" mode on Abzan Charm its card draw, then you have a card that's slightly worse than a few very commonly played cards but has a built-in removal mode and can save creatures in a pinch. If you're running an Abzan deck that puts +1/+1 counters on creatures, consider this.

Archmage's Charm

It's rare for a mono-Color Charm to be this pushed, but this is a Rare after all. Archmage's Charm is a card that divides people very neatly into 2 camps - the "it isn't worth it to have to keep up Cancel mana in a Counterspell world" camp and the "I have used a Desertion to counter a Day of Judgment" one. I'm in the second camp, and having a hard counter that can gain control of some really annoying permanents in a pinch is worthwhile. If you're desperate enough to pay to draw 2, you'll be grateful for the option most times. This is a very 75% charm.

Boros Charm

Boros Charm seems optimized for 20 life formats. I think maybe people forget you can dome a problem 'Walker for 4 damage in a pinch, but the real money mode is making your board indestructible. I've given plenty of creatures wearing equipment Double Strike with this beast, but saving your whole team from a Wrath, maybe even one you cast, is too good. Maybe I wouldn't play a card that costs two mana and just gave your stuff Indestructible, but if you don't have access to Heroic Intervention, there's really no excuse to not play this in Boros-color decks, which I imagine have a lot of creatures.

Crosis's Charm

I really shouldn't tell people how to deal with Enchantments since I love Enchantments, but there is no color combination worse at dealing with them than Grixis. Now, Crosis's Charm deals with creatures and artifacts permanently, but so do a lot of much better cards in Grixis. I think the ability to deal with a problem Enchantment, even temporarily, is very worthwhile. I see people play cards like Doom Blade in Commander, but even good removal seems like it isn't quite good enough to make up for the additional utility. This is also probably one of the weaker Charms I advocate.

Dawn Charm

Anyone who has been completely blown out by this in Limited respects the punch this little card packs. A fog can potentially block lethal on a big Craterhoof or Insurrection turn, but more than that, any spell that targets you in Commander is going to be pretty nasty. I've saved creatures with this, but if you are a deck with White and no Green, this does as much work as you remember.

Gruul Charm

I am seeing a pattern where Charms that overperformed in Limited but have a "dead" mode that only really applies to Limited seem to be somewhat undervalued. As much as we hate people getting their permanents back, that mode is one of the strongest ever printed on a Charm, and coupling it with what might as well be a Master Warcraft is pretty absurd. This Charm is slept-on.

Naya Charm

If Gruul charm makes blocking awkward, Naya Charm makes it impossible. Couple that with the ability to use it as a Fog and a potential Eternal Witness to boot and you have a potent Charm here that Naya decks should really consider. Three-color Charms SHOULD be good because they're awkward to cast, and this is very good.

Rakdos Charm

Rakdos Charm is the best Charm in EDH and it isn't close. All 3 of these modes are very relevant and this punishes players for comboing off or building a huge but finite army. I barely need to write more about it because the text on the card makes a complete case for the card.

Sultai Charm

Sultai Charm actually has four modes because mode two branches into two sub-modes, making it a more complete removal spell. Sultai decks don't really lack for ways to kill mono-Color Creatures, Artifacts or Enchantments, but a Charm with four modes is going to be clutch so often you won't mind that it's clunkier to cast than a spell you're more likely to run like Naturalize. You shouldn't run Naturalize, though, you should run a card that can do anything, including replace itself and give you a Discard outlet.

While we're at it, why not look at the 5 new Charms from New Capenna?

It wasn't until I looked at a bunch of charms at once that I realized I tend to prefer ones that solve problems that a particular color combination has. I would rather bounce an Enchantment with Crosis's Charm than Destroy one with Brokers Charm. Ideally, a Charm has a mode that does something very good (think Rakdos Charm ending a game) and has two other modes that are gravy. This does 2 things Bant does better with its other cards and one thing that I'm really not interested in. I'm sure this will be sick in Limited, but so what? Arguably, Bant isn't great at fighting a Planeswalker, but I don't know how often that will come up. I'm probably underestimating how useful it is to be able to take a 'Walker out, so I'll likely test a few of these Charms before I decide whether I care about what they do.

This Charm is charming to me because it synergizes with Jetmir. A Jetmir deck will want all of these things, but Jetmir's abilities were picking in part because they're close to what Naya likes to do in a lot of cases. I wish you could blast a player with the first mode, but this is still a very solid card. You'll want to make the tokens a non-zero amount of the time but this seems like a pretty solid mini Overrun. I don't super love this, but it synergizes with Jetmir enough that I think it's not a huge mistake to include it if you want to go wide.

This is really bad. They can't all be great, but this doesn't do anything really all that remarkable and the additional utility of having three bad cards taped together doesn't excuse the fact that this was a bit of a miss. It's OK, they can't all be gems and I'd sleeve this up in 40-card Magic in a heartbeat.

This seems optimized for other formats where people are going to get T3f3ri back with it and wreak havoc. This does everything you want a Charm to do - in Modern. I think this scales sort of poorly into EDH because all of the numbers on it say "3 or less" but I do think this is the most powerful Charm of the cycle, which is funny because it also scales really poorly into the more powerful format. This is a 60-card format card and it's going to make the most annoying kind of deck more annoying but it's also sort of underwhelming in EDH which is all fine but doesn't make me personally excited by it.

Great googily moogily! This is a better Edict than Edict in a lot of cases and it also has that nasty Bojuka mode and an impulse draw mode to boot. This is a very slick Charm in a color combination that it could be argued barely needs the help.

That does it for me this week, readers. Next week we'll have a ton of New Capenna Legendary creatures to delve into and I'm looking forward to digging in so make sure to check back here in a week. Thanks for reading - until next time!