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Art and Engineering on the Battlefield of Mana
Enchantment design has always traded in promises—promises about how a spell or permanent will tilt the game, bend your opponent’s plans, or coax a quiet corner of the board into a gleaming central stage. Over the years, that design arc has shifted from the aura-laden days of yore to the modern, multi-layered engines we see on cards that feel less like decorations and more like miniature laboratories. The legendary creature Leonardo da Vinci from the Assassin's Creed cross-set is a perfect lens to study this evolution. He stands at the crossroads of two MTG passions: the elegance of art and the precision of engineering 🧙♂️🔥💎.
Two blue abilities, two philosophies
Blue magic has long been the caretaker of tempo, information, and card advantage, and Leonardo wears that mantle with a flourish. First, his activated ability—{3}{U}{U}: Until end of turn, Thopters you control have base power and toughness X/X, where X is the number of cards in your hand—turns knowledge into power. The more you hold in hand, the bigger your flying automata become, at least for a fleeting moment. It’s a direct nod to the old enchantment-era idea of translating information into board presence, but transplanted into a modern, non-aural frame. The design invites you to lean into hand management, draw spells, and tempo plays, weaving a thread from classic enchantments to today’s artifact-synergy engines 🧙♂️🎲.
His second ability—{2}{U}, {T}: Draw a card, then discard a card. If the discarded card was an artifact card, exile it from your graveyard. If you do, create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a 0/2 Thopter artifact creature with flying in addition to its other types—turns the discard pile into a playground. Here we see a deliberate shift from “enchant or aura” to “enchantment-enabled recursion and token generation.” It’s not just card draw; it’s a curated loop that nudges artifacts from graveyard to new bodies on the battlefield, flipping the script on how you value discarded cards. That token-copy mechanic—copying an artifact from the graveyard—echoes Leonardo’s Renaissance spirit: reimagining a relic as something new, functional, and animated with flight ⚔️🎨.
A design philosophy in miniature: why this matters for enchantments
Historically, enchantments often lived in the aura and aura-adjacent space, binding a creature or supporting a game plan with steady, predictable effects. The Leonardo card demonstrates a broader trajectory: enchantment design blended with artifact themes to create engines that scale with game state. Rather than a single, static effect, we get a pair of interconnected actions that reward careful planning and dynamic adaptation. The “hand size as power” mechanic is a direct homage to the tempo-heavy era of blue control, while the discard-and-token loop leans into artifact-centric strategies that many players find irresistibly satisfying—an homage to the inventor’s world where ideas become machines and machines create possibilities 🌟🧠.
“Art is the most precise form of engineering we wield on the battlefield of mana.”
That sentiment feels embodied in Leonardo’s dual approach: a tempo-twisting shell paired with a crafty recursive engine. The card’s flavor text—though not visible in every print—hints at a mind that thrives on bridging disciplines: art, mathematics, and chemistry of materials—perfectly in line with how enchantment design has evolved to embrace cross-domain synergy. The Assassin’s Creed set itself leans into lore-rich storytelling, and this card threads that narrative into playable design. It’s a reminder that enchantments aren’t just “spells you cast”—they’re invitations to build a larger ecosystem of artifacts, tokens, and strategic reads 🧭🎲.
What this tells us about the evolution of enchantment design
- Shift from static protection to dynamic engines: The ability to scale a squad of Thopters based on hand size reframes “enchantment power” as a project you actively manipulate, not a passive buff. It invites players to picture enchantment design as the engine behind broader strategies, not merely auras around creatures.
- Artifact synergy as enchantment ballast: The second ability creates a natural bridge between card draw, artifact decks, and graveyard interaction. Enchantment designers now routinely look to artifact themes for resilience, recursion, and token generation—an evolution from the purely enchantment-focused past.
- Lore-forward design in crossover sets: The Assassin's Creed collaboration shows how enchantment-inspired mechanics can ride IP-driven excitement. When you fuse a historical figure with a modern mana engine, you spark new ways to tell stories at the table while expanding the set’s playability space 🧙♂️💎.
From a practical perspective, Leonardo’s toolkit makes him a fascinating anchor for blue decks that love to dance between dominance and detours. If you’re drafting or building a Commander list that loves artifact synergy, you’ll appreciate how the card rewards both patient setup and mid-game ingenuity. The Thopter swarm you conjure can swing decisively when you’ve stacked enough cards in hand, while the discard-to-copy mechanic can resurrect prized artifacts or generate surprising threats right out of the graveyard. It’s the kind of design that rewards both careful planning and a little risk-taking—classic blue behavior, but reimagined through the lens of Leonardo’s inventive spirit 🧙♂️⚔️.
Collectors will also notice the cross-format appeal. This card is marked mythic rarity in a set with Universes Beyond tie-ins, making it a spotlight piece for fans who chase unique hybrids of flavor and function. It’s legal in Modern and Legacy, and Commander players will find ways to weave it into artifact-heavy or control-centric shells. The foil version, priced around the low single digits in USD, remains accessible yet sought after, especially for fans of the lore-heavy Assassin’s Creed crossover. For those who enjoy the tactile thrill of a well-illustrated card, the art by Wangjie Li—often described as intricate and cinematic—lends a sense of motion to a card that is very much about dynamic possibilities on the board 🎨💎.
As a modern descriptor of enchantment design, Leonardo serves as a case study in how designers reframe old motifs with new mechanics. He invites us to imagine enchantments no longer as mere protections or color-synergy payoffs, but as engines that harvest information, sculpt board presence, and craft future copies of our own artifacts. It’s a reminder that the magic of MTG is as much about the stories we tell with our decks as the tricks we execute with our hands 🧙♂️🎲.
While you mull over your next pick or your next Commander build, consider pairing the elegance of old-world invention with the brisk tempo of blue strategy. And if you’ve enjoyed the tactile thrill of owning a piece of this cross-over saga, you can explore complementary gear while you plan your next play—perhaps a rugged companion for your adventures, like the one linked below. After all, a true strategist needs both a sharp mind and a reliable tool to carry it all 🧭🔥.