For the most part, mana rocks in MTG don’t have the luxury of flying under the radar. Due to past precedent, these cards grab players’ attention immediately, and often end up in heavy demand when they launch. That said, as with every rule in Magic, there are a few exceptions. The Enigma Jewel, for example, is a powerful mythic MTG mana rock which has somehow managed to slip into the underplayed budget card category. While it’s not a card for every deck, it punches well above its current financial weight in the power and utility departments.
The Enigma Jewel MTG
Unfortunately for The Enigma Jewel, the first thing about it that really stands out is how poorly it compares to MTG classic Sol Ring. This is a one-mana rock that taps for two, sure, but it also requires colored mana to cast, enters tapped, and can only pay for abilities.
Even when confined to just abilities, however, there are a ton of ways to spend mana from The Enigma Jewel. The card is at its best alongside Commanders with crucial activated abilities, like Urza, Lord High Artificer or Jhoira of the Ghitu. Since you’ll almost always have a guaranteed outlet for The Enigma Jewel’s mana in these decks, it makes for an elite inclusion.
Similarly, The Enigma Jewel also plays well in decks that generate a lot of Clues and Food, such as Lonis, Cryptozoologist and Brenard, Ginger Sculptor. In these decks, the extra mana can go towards cracking tokens in the worst-case scenario. Notably, The Enigma Jewel doesn’t just work with activated abilities on the board, as Cycling and Ninjutsu costs are also fair game.
Of course, The Enigma Jewel really gets cooking when you Craft it into its second phase. Here, you get a passive doubler for all your activated abilities, an effect previously exclusive to Rowan Kenrith. While it is expensive, the value this can provide over the cost of a game is absolutely obscene.
Whether you’re drawing cards with Idol of Oblivion, doubling planeswalker loyalty abilities, or even racing for a The Millennium Calendar win, the sky is the limit. On top of this, The Enigma Jewel also gains all the activated abilities from the cards used to Craft it. At the very least, this allows you to recur your best activated abilities from the graveyard, providing added consistency.
Crafting Up Combos
While it’s great as a fair value card, The Enigma Jewel is also more than capable of fueling some busted infinite combo lines. These all require that you Craft it into Locus of Enlightenment first, but that’s a small price to pay for an explosive instant win.
For starters, the ability-doubling passive on Locus immediately opens up some infinite mana combos. Basalt Monolith is the easiest enabler for these lines. With it in play alongside Locus, its untap ability is doubled, letting you untap it, tap for three more colorless, then untap it to the extra trigger and repeat the process. You can do something similar with Voltaic Key, but you will need a separate mana rock as well, like Worn Powerstone.
Excitingly, you can take infinite turns with The Enigma Jewel by Crafting it with Magistrate’s Scepter and Staff of Domination. Since all the triggers are doubled, you can get two Charge Counters per Scepter activation, before untapping with the Staff. After enough setup, you can use Magistrate’s Scepter’s second ability to get two extra turns, enabling an infinite loop.
While it does take more work, you can even more infinite enters and dies triggers out of The Enigma Jewel. With Urza, Prince of Kroog, Radiant Lotus, and Thousand-Year Elixir in play, you can create two copies of Radiant Lotus with Urza. Since these can instantly be sacrificed thanks to Thousand-Year Elixir, you can instantly pay for Urza again. Throw in Altar of the Brood, and this infinite combo provides an easy instant win.
A Not-So-Priceless Treasure
Considering it’s a Mythic Rare with a wide range of fair and broken applications, you’d expect The Enigma Jewel to carry a hefty price tag to match. For whatever reason, however, this simply isn’t the case. You can find near-mint copies of the card on TCGplayer right now for around $0.90, which makes it a fantastic budget pickup. Even if you want to get a little fancy and grab the Extended Art printing, you’ll still only be paying about $1.80 at present.
This is likely due, at least in part, to the card’s underplayed nature. Outside of a few scattered appearances, The Enigma Jewel has never made a mark in constructed Magic. Even in Commander, where its potential is huge, only around 20,000 decks run it according to EDHREC. While it’s a staple inclusion in niche Commander decks like Tetzin, Gnome Champion and Gogo, Master of Mimicry, the card hasn’t made the jump to the mainstream yet. This makes it an excellent pickup right now, as a cheap, but extremely powerful, mana rock. It’ll only get better in the future as more activated abilities enter the card pool, too.
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