There are few things more irritating in a game of Magic than losing a key creature to removal. While interaction is undeniably part of the game, it still stings to have to reroute your strategy following a kill spell or board wipe. If you’re running up against this problem a lot in your Commander games, then Enduring Renewal may just be the MTG card for you. While its downsides are steep, this enchantment makes your creatures very difficult to get rid of. It also packs impressive combo potential, to boot.
Enduring Renewal MTG
While Enduring Renewal is in play, any of your creatures that die are immediately returned to your hand. This is an immensely powerful ability, giving you an endless stream of chump blockers, as well as letting you use your powerful enters and dies triggers as many times as you’d like. Naturally, such power comes at a cost, and in this case, the cost is a hefty one indeed. Thanks to the draw replacement downside, adding more creatures to your repertoire after Enduring Renewal resolves is quite difficult.
Fortunately, there are several ways you can get around these downsides. For starters, running other draw replacement effects, like Underrealm Lich or Abundance, will let you completely ignore this aspect and get creatures into your hand as usual. Creature tutors, like Recruiter of the Guard, are a great workaround here, too.
Alternatively, you can make use of topdeck manipulation cards, like Sensei’s Divining Top, to ensure you’re dodging creatures when you need draws. Scroll Rack is particularly good with this plan, since it can grab creatures you tucked away for later.
If you’d rather face Enduring Renewal’s downside head-on, you can build around that too. Simply running creatures that want to be in the graveyard, like Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam, greatly reduces the impact of the replacement effect. You can also go deep on hand recursion effects, like Eternal Witness and Oversold Cemetery, to get back any key creatures you lose.
Eternal Loops
The potential for constant value with Enduring Renewal is high, but it’s also a nasty MTG combo enabler. Since there’s no restriction on the number of times its ability can trigger each turn, you can easily create infinite loops with the card.
The easiest way to do this is to leverage creatures that can be cast for zero mana, like Walking Ballista. These will enter as 0/0 creatures, die immediately, then bounce right back to your hand thanks to Renewal. You can then cast them for free again to enjoy infinite enters and dies triggers. This also works with creatures that can sacrifice themselves to pay their own costs, like Skirk Prospector and Blood Pet.
Widening our scope a bit, you can actually loop a ton of different creatures, provided you have access to Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod’s Altar. Phyrexian Altar can sacrifice any one drop while giving you the mana to replay it right away, and Ashnod’s Altar does the same for colorless two-drops. Depending on the creatures used, this can go infinite in a number of ways. Doomed Traveler, for example, can net you infinite 1/1 Fliers, or Cacophony Scamp can ping the whole table to death.
If you want to loop bigger creatures instead, you can do so by adding Deathrender into the mix. Sacrifice a creature equipped with Deathrender, and you’ll get to cheat any creature into play from your hand. Sacrifice that creature, and you can stack the triggers so Renewal puts it back in your hand, and you can cheat it right back out again. With this, you can loop haymakers like Ashen Rider to wipe out everything in play, or even Archon of Cruelty to just end the game immediately.
A True Hidden Gem
Despite its huge potential, it appears most MTG players have been put off Enduring Renewal by its sizable downsides. According to current EDHREC data, just under 3,000 decks run the card, which represents a mere 0.08% inclusion rate.
While it’s certainly not for every deck, this feels like a criminally low play rate for such a potent card. Even beyond the synergies we’ve discussed here, Enduring Renewal has a ton to offer. In a creatureless deck, like Codie, Vociferous Codex, it serves as a free way to get around Commander tax without impacting your draws at all. It’s also great in self-bounce strategies, where you can use cards like Vedalken Mastermind to avoid the downsides.
That more Commander players aren’t enjoying these fantastic synergies really is a crying shame. That said, it does mean the card can be had for a song right now. Near-mint copies of either the Time Spiral Timeshifted version or the Ice Age original can be had for around $1.50 at present. While adding Enduring Renewal to your deck can be a bit of a risky proposition due to its downsides, this low price at least means it isn’t a financial risk right now. If you like the look of it, consider giving this hidden gem a spin in your next Commander game.
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