Anti-Magic Aura

It took Wizards a few years to realize that cards like this and White Ward literally didn't work. It wasn't a rules change that made them stop working -- they simply had no actual in-game effect because no one bothered to think about the effect of protection and protection-style effects granted by colored auras (just enchantments back then). Eventually Wizards issued errata for the Ward line, which became official with the Fourth Edition reprints. I don't know when this card was re-jiggered to not nix itself, but it's got that errata now, likely to bring it in line with the rest of the Ward-style auras.

This is a prime example of early Magic shenanigans, though. Note the first line could have been templated as a triggered ability, but it's not -- it's a part of the spell's resolution. The early designers didn't really feel there was anything wrong with permanents doing spell-like things as they resolved, leaving little details like the timing of when the aura enchanted its permanent vs. when it blew up all enchantments on that creature up to the better judgment of players. Also note the bizarre use of "target" -- it's used on a static ability here, an ability that would never be able to actually target! Today, both lines would read "enchanted creature." It's a common problem in early sets -- the jargon is banded about in often-nonsensical ways. The way they wrote rules text was often by intent, rather than by execution; it's a little like listening to 5-year-olds talking, where they grasp the idea of language, but not quite the way it ought to be used. (For example: When my sister was a small child, she was obsessed with being picked up and held, something she demanded with an insistent, "Hold you!")

As far as the card itself, I think it came out of the pre-card-advantage days when creature enchantments were among the more popular cards in Magic. (In an unusual twist, this card was a harbinger of the problems that would eventually drive auras into Magic's basement.) There was a strong sense of "build-your-own-dude" in the early sets, with plenty of cards like Lance that would have been equipment in a different universe. On the flip side were "lol-tear-down-your-dude" enchants like Paralyze, which were much, much better. (It's generally better to spend a card to neutralize a card than it is to spend a card to buttress a card.) Both types were still pretty common sights during Revised, at least in casual circles; between the high number of such enchantments and the attraction most new players have to such cards, they were relevant in many games. In that sense, Anti-Magic Aura was a relevant card, too -- it could single-handedly wipe out handfuls of buffs or debuffs and stop more from flowing in. The problem is that it's an inelegant answer to those cards -- and it's an answer to a narrow problem.

The Oracle wording is truer to the original card -- as it should be -- but I don't like the weirdness of the whole thing. (That "except" clause is so ugly and clumsy.) Also, three mana? Yeah, no thanks. Additionally, that wording's not a common level of complexity -- compare it to, say, Protective Bubble to see an appropriate aura of this type at common -- and the effect is incredibly narrow. Bubble wasn't a bad card, within the context of the set appeared in, because it had two functions besides shroud: first, it let players attack troublesome planeswalkers (remember, Lorwyn was the first set to have those guys, no one knew if they'd be tough to deal with); and second, it allowed players to break through stalled games in a heavily creature-based set. Anti-Magic Aura allows you to un-Paralyze a clutch dude, I suppose, but not much else.

A better comparison for Anti-Magic Aura is Diplomatic Immunity, another card that just isn't that good. It's got the same problems as Angelic Voices -- it's a meta card designed to address an imaginary problem. Instead of the false crisis engendered because Crusade gives other white guys +1/+1, the false problem with Anti-Magic Aura and Diplomatic Immunity is that the better answer to targeted removal is multifaceted, and includes higher threat density, more draw or filter spells and flexible answers. Anti-Magic Aura's other imaginary problem is pretty simple: "I keep getting killed by my opponent's first-striking, firebreathing, fear-inducing Scryb Sprites! What do I do?" The answer, of course, isn't to run a subpar aura; it's to kill the creature -- or to just run better dudes up front. Swords to Plowshares and Tarmogoyf are both far, far more efficient than a 'chantment-nuking 'chantment (what nukes 'chantments).

What I'm getting at is this: Anti-Magic Aura needs some oomph to it to make it more than an also-run aura. I think I know what  that oomph could be:

Now this I can get behind. It doesn't have that awkward and pointless nonsense of destroying auras; it protects your duder, an important function for finishers in blue control; and it can be used to knock out that Wrath of God, which gets around shroud, at a reasonable cost. I'm not sure where to put this, rarity-wise; I can see arguments for both common (where the original would go if its wording weren't so obnoxious) and uncommon, mostly on the back of its counterspell. I'm going to leave it at common, but I just thought I'd leave that note there for anyone who thought it had an unusual rarity.