Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Network Graphs in MTG: Mapping Blessing of the Nephilim’s Card Relationships
In Magic: The Gathering, every card lives within a web of relationships—color identities, mana costs, tribes, and textual abilities all connect like nodes and edges on a dynamic graph. A well-tuned network graph helps players spot synergy opportunities, archetype lanes, and even price ripple effects across sets. Today we zoom in on a modest white enchantment from Dissension that, on the surface, looks simple: a single white mana, an aura, and a single line of text. Yet when you map its connections, Blessing of the Nephilim reveals how a card can thread color pie theory into tangible board impact 🧙♂️🔥💎.
The card itself is an enchantment—Aura with the mana cost of {W}. Its text is straightforward but surprisingly scalable: “Enchant creature. Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each of its colors.” That means a mono-white creature gets +1/+1, a white-and-blue creature gets +2/+2, and a true rainbow creature with five colors potential would theoretically sit at +5/+5. The graph, therefore, often points to color-diverse bodies as primary beneficiaries, and to multicolor strategies as the most dramatic edges. In the Dissension era, where color pie tension and three-color shards were in focus, this aura acts like a bridge between pure white themes and the broader color spectrum 🪄🎨.
Card snapshot: where it sits in the graph
- Name: Blessing of the Nephilim
- Set: Dissension (DIS)
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Mana cost: {W}
- Type: Enchantment — Aura
- Oracle text: Enchant creature. Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each of its colors.
- Flavor: "Before the first stone was laid or the first elf-child born, the power of the nephilim was gathering. Let that power be spread by my hands." — flavorful edge to the graph, hinting at the network’s birth and expansion 🔗
- Illustration: Greg Hildebrandt
- Legality note: Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander, etc.—a card with surprisingly broad cross-format relevance, especially in formats that appreciate evergreen auras and value-rich creature strategies
“The power of the nephilim was gathering—let that power be spread by my hands.” — flavor text that hints at the network’s spreading influence across colors and boards 🧭
When you look at the graph, a few obvious vertices pop out. First, the enchanted creature becomes a central hub: the aura’s value scales with the creature’s color count, so edges multiply as you connect to creatures of increasing color diversity. Second, the aura itself is a bridge to multicolor synergies. In Dissension’s tri-color playground, Blessing of the Nephilim often neighbors cards that grant or rely on multi-color identity, such as gold cards that enable color-intensive strategies. This creates a web where the aura links not only to the creature it enchants, but to the broader color pie ecosystem—purple threads of synergy weaving through multicolor ramp, board control, and late-game power 📈🪄.
Edges and neighbors: how the graph grows around a single aura
Let’s trace some typical connections you’ll see on a network graph featuring Blessing of the Nephilim:
- Multicolor creatures: Creatures that span several colors maximize the aura’s buff. The edge weight from the aura to such creatures increases with each added color, turning every multi-hued creature into a towering node on the graph.
- Enchant effects and auras: The aura is a natural connector to other enchantments and auras. Cards that grant additional +1/+1 beyond color-based scaling or that flicker or reattach auras open dynamic edges—edges that can stretch across turns as the board state evolves.
- Color identity and color-pie theory: Because its buff is strictly color-based, the graph emphasizes color-pie metrics. White’s classic themes—protection, life gain, and efficient creatures—meet the broader spectrum where knights, angels, and other color-pinned archetypes intersect.
- Formats and legality nodes: The card’s presence in Modern, Legacy, and Commander adds edges across formats. In Commander, for example, you’ll find creatures consistently centered in five-color or at least tri-color pods, multiplying the aura’s practical value in multiplayer rounds 🏰⚔️.
Network strategies: turning theory into board presence
In budget or casual decks, Blessing of the Nephilim might look like a cute, niche include. But in a thoughtfully constructed network graph, it shines as a strategic enabler. Consider building a white-heavy, color-diverse deck where your commander or a chosen creature can reliably be multi-colored. The aura then amplifies your battlefield presence by turning modest stats into a torrent of power as colors accumulate. It’s not about brute force alone; it’s about the rhythm of color synergy and tempo. When the board state allows, you can cast the aura on a creature that is already dishing out value through modal spells, anthem effects, or other auras—creating a cascading chain of buffs that radiate across your edges 🧙♂️💥.
From a collector’s perspective, Blessing of the Nephilim sits in a neat price tier for an uncommon aura: modest raw value in nonfoil at around a few tenths of a dollar, with foil variants climbing higher in a pinch. Its rarity and artwork by Greg Hildebrandt contribute to its enduring charm, a perfect node for discussions about set design and flavor connections within Dissension’s color-laden narrative. If you’re exploring the graph for EDH/Commander play, it’s an approachable pivot to explore color diversity without breaking the bank—a nice balance of function and flavor 🧩🎲.
Flavor, art, and the design logic behind a color-scale aura
The decision to tie the buff magnitude to the number of colors on the enchanted creature is a clever alignment of design and graph theory. It creates a non-linear edge weight: every added color dramatically shifts the creature’s threat level. It encourages players to chase color diversity as a tangible, countable measure of power. The art and flavor text reinforce the sense that nephilim power is not limited by a single hue but is a spreading influence—an idea that translates beautifully into a network graph where edges proliferate as color identity expands ⚔️🎨.
Practical tips for builders
- When possible, target creatures with three or more colors to maximize the payoff of Blessing of the Nephilim’s buff.
- Pair with other color-aware effects that reward rainbow creatures, such as global anthem-like buffs or mana acceleration that keeps the aura in play across turns.
- In EDH, consider commanders with strong color identity or those that enable multicolor boards, so the aura has multiple valid targets and keeps growing with each play.
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