Strands of Undeath

The card splits in two directions that have nothing to do with each other. The enters-the-battlefield clause is a two-card hand-rip, a stapled Mind Rot that hits a target player regardless of which creature wears the Aura; the activated ability protects whatever you actually enchanted. So the natural line is to put it on your own creature, take the discard as a one-time bonus aimed across the table, and keep a regenerator stocked against removal and combat going forward. That double-duty is what dates it: this is an early-era idea about how to make an Aura worth the card disadvantage, bolting a tempo-neutral disruption trigger onto a permanent that otherwise just shields a body. The cost rarely justifies the package. Four mana for a Mind Rot and a soft protection shell is a lot, and the regeneration costs black mana every time a wrath or a chump-trade comes calling, which adds up against a deck built to keep killing things. Black has since gotten both halves cheaper and cleaner in separate cards, leaving this as a holdover from the period when stapling effects onto Auras still looked like a path to efficiency rather than a tax you pay twice.