You've probably seen a card, maybe in the deepest, dustiest corners of your bulk rares bin, that made you squint and go, "Wait... is this Equipment for lands?" Congratulations! You've likely stumbled upon the Fortify mechanic, one of Magic: The Gathering's most obscure mechanics, and quite possibly the loneliest keyword in the Multiverse.

That's by no means an exaggeration either. I mean, there are more legendary Octopi in Magic than cards with Fortify (And for those curious, there are 10 Legendary Octopi out there!).

So why does this mechanic exist? What does it do? And why, like a beautifully engineered bridge in the middle of nowhere, does it seem to have no real reason to exist at all?

Well, grab your nearest indestructible land, because in today's Mechanics Overview Segment, we're tunneling deep into Fortify!

What Is Fortify?

Fortify [cost] ([Cost]: Attach this Fortification to target land you control. Activate only as a sorcery.)

Fortify is a keyword ability that only appears on Fortifications, a subtype of artifact. It works just like Equip, except instead of slapping swords onto your new, shiny Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER, you're bolting battlements onto your Forest.

So, imagine, if you will, the Equip mechanic, but for lands.

No, really, that's it.

One Card to Fortify Them All

May I introduce you to Darksteel Garrison, the undeniable flagship Fortify card. First printed in Future Sight (2007), Darksteel Garrison is a Fortification artifact that:

• Costs {2} to cast.
• Has Fortify {3}.
• Makes the land it's attached to indestructible.
• Triggers whenever that land becomes tapped, giving a creature +1/+1 until end of turn.

And quite frankly, it's solid enough. It protects one of your lands from being nuked by Stone Rain, and it tosses out a cheeky creature buff whenever you tap the Fortified land. But that's it. That's essentially the entirety of the Fortify keyword's print history for 17 years.

Until...

Fortify's Seventeen-Year Hiatus

In 2024, C.A.M.P. miraculously reappeared in the Universes Beyond: Fallout (2024) Commander decks!

Are you feeling it now, Mr. Krabs, Penny Pincher? Is this the long-awaited resurgence of Fortify?!

Well, kind of.

It's still just one new card. And it apparently took an entire nuclear apocalypse to make it happen.

So why the long hiatus?

Mark Rosewater, Magic's head designer and king of "maybe someday," has explained why: "The problem is there aren't many things you want to attach to lands. We have explored it. It's just very limited design space."

Oof.

But, Mark's clearly in the right here: if you're going to put a bonus on a land, why not just enchant it? After all, Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth already exist. And unlike creatures (which die all the time), lands tend to always stick around, so the primary upside of Equipment (in that they stick around to be reequipped later), when the creature dies, really doesn't matter much here.

The Future of Fortify

So, will Fortify ever return in a big way?

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Mark Rosewater has said everything that needs to be said. Lands don't die easily, and Fortify doesn't offer much more than an Aura already could.

But Magic has certainly done weirder things. Remember, we're living in a post-Ravnica: Clue Edition (2024) world now. Truly, anything's possible.

And let's not forget: Universes Beyond is the ultimate Wild, Wild West. So, if we ever get a StarCraft crossover, you'd better believe I want to Fortify a mineral field.

We Forti-Tried

In all seriousness, I like to think of Fortify as the MTG equivalent of building a nuclear fallout shelter in your backyard, you know, just in case. You could do it. You did do it. But now you're just standing in the middle of your backyard with a shovel and a thousand-pound steel door going, "Okay, now what?"

It's a mechanic that feels like it certainly had some potential (that may still have some potential), but was released into the world with not much to go alongside with. Most players have never seen Fortify in action. And I'm willing to bet many don't even know it exists. And those who do will often look at Darksteel Garrison like it was meant to be more of a Mystery Booster (2020) Test Card.

But that's part of what makes Fortify so lovable.

If you've been keeping up with my segments, you'll know that Magic has a long history of one-off mechanics: Ripple, Frenzy, Offering, Convoke for Auras (okay, that last one's made up, but you believed me for a second, didn't you?). Fortify fits right in with that crowd: a daring, weird mechanic that didn't quite land, mostly because the thing it's trying to do (enhance lands?) just isn't something players or designers are in a rush to further optimize.

Yet, similar to its clan of unpopular mechanics, there's something undeniably pure in Fortify. It's not splashy. It doesn't make infinite mana. It's (probably?) not going to combo off and win you the game. But it does do something unique, and it does it in a clean-cut way that actually does what it wants to do. And that alone makes it yet another fascinating relic of Magic's future-past.

And with that, it's time for me to raise the drawbridge on Fortify. As always, happy brewing, and may your lands remain Fortified as you explain to your opponents, "Oh, it's like an Equipment but for my Restless Cottage. Entering Combat?" Until next time!