Instill Energy

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature can attack as though it had haste.

{0}: Untap enchanted creature. Activate this ability only during your turn and only once each turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

SufferFromEDHD on Dead Men Tell No Tales | Xavier Sal

5 months ago

Of all the spoilers this dude was the most interesting.

Instill Energy and Thousand-Year Elixir might be useful.

Michigone on snakes, squirrels, and self-mill

10 months ago

I really want to play against this deck to test it out! This idea sounds super cool! Also, anyway to get some good untaps going in order to activate your commander multiple times per turn? I saw Patriar's Seal, I also like Thousand-Year Elixir, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, Instill Energy, Quest for Renewal, Illusionist's Bracers, Seedborn Muse, and Vitalize. There are probably other options out there

legendofa on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

Interesting history, thanks for sharing it. (I'm pretty sure Instill Energy should actually grant haste.)

As a bit of random trivia, the first card that granted creatures an activated ability with a tap cost (thereby using haste without attacking) appears to be Torrent of Lava, which has additional weirdness in that it only grants an activated ability when it's on the stack. The first card that has a more permanent ability like that is Fire Whip and even that has functional errata, moving the ability from the enchantment to the creature. The first permanent to use (almost) the current templating, using text that explicitly grants the creature an ability, is Samite Blessing, narrowly beating out Citanul Hierophants. So now I'm wondering how and why Nether Shadow and Instill Energy diverged, since Nether Shadow, with the same wording, could use these effects then and still can now, but creatures with Instill Energy could then, but can't now.

enpc on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

With Instill Energy, it's not you, its a really dumb way of errata-ing the card. I think it comes from the Alpha text on the card which says (per the card) "Target creature may also attack the turn it comes into play", however I think also has to do with how haste is defined (as this has changed over time). Have a read of this, it's got some history there.

legendofa on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

I feel like my lack of experience with combo is showing... Between the earlier Clockspinning/Jhoira's Timebug suggestions and the not-quite-haste on Instill Energy, I need to get better at seeing what's actually there and not just what I expect to be there. I'll keep Instill Energy in for now, and see what happens.

So why doesn't Instill Energy grant pure haste? Every tournament legal version of the card clearly states "Enchanted creature is unaffected by summoning sickness." or "Enchanted creature has haste." I know the errata text takes precedence, but what were the grounds for errata-ing this card at all?

enpc on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

That's fair wir regards to the untappers. Just be careful on the wording for Instill Energy though, it doesn't actually grant haste, the oracle wording is "Enchanted creature can attack as though it had haste." which means combat yes, abilities no. Which is in fact very annoying. My wife has a Captain Sisay deck and this also frustrates her.

As for Whir, the triple blue is annoying but it being an instant kind of makes up for the cost.

legendofa on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

enpc I like the Isochron Scepter combo here. Don't know why I didn't think of it. I have a Scepter available, too.

Whir of Invention was a maybe; I was unsure of the triple {U}. It's getting a trial run.

The other three are good untappers. Instill Energy looks like the strongest of the three in a vacuum, and it will find a place in here. I'll slot the other two in for now, but I'm a little worried this will be too much redundancy using up card slots.

enpc on There is No Future, There is Only Now

1 year ago

Since you're running a bunch of mana dorks, adding Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal could be strong here. All you need to do is hit 2 mana worth of dorks/rocks and you're good from there.

Whir of Invention is another card worth adding since right now all your combos use an artifact.

I would also look to add stuff like Kiora's Follower - while it doesn't work inside of combo, outside of that it's still a mana dork and an untapper.

Instill Energy and Nature's Chosen are both interesting card here, again they aren't combo cards but let you generate a lot of value with your commander.