Land (35)
- 1x Adarkar Wastes
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Arcane Sanctum
- 1x City of Brass
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Drowned Catacomb
- 1x Emergence Zone
-
1x
Fetid Heath
- 1x Fetid Pools
- 1x Flooded Strand
- 1x Forge of Heroes
- 1x Glacial Fortress
- 1x Godless Shrine
- 1x Hallowed Fountain
- 1x Irrigated Farmland
- 1x Isolated Chapel
- 1x Mana Confluence
- 1x Marsh Flats
- 1x Morphic Pool
-
1x
Mystic Gate
- 1x Nimbus Maze
- 1x Polluted Delta
- 1x Prairie Stream
-
1x
Reflecting Pool
- 1x Sanctum of Eternity
- 1x Scrubland HP
- 1x Sea of Clouds
- 1x Spire of Industry
- 1x Sunken Hollow
-
1x
Sunken Ruins
- 1x Tendo Ice Bridge
- 1x Tundra MP
- 1x Underground River
- 1x Underground Sea HP
- 1x Watery Grave
Enchantment (2)
Creature (22)
- 1x Cloud of Faeries
- 1x Corpse Knight
- 1x Snapcaster Mage
- 1x Eldrazi Displacer
- 1x Flickerwisp
- 1x Spellseeker
- 1x Archaeomancer
- 1x Brago, King Eternal
- 1x Clever Impersonator
- 1x Felidar Guardian
- 1x God-Eternal Kefnet
- 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
- 1x Restoration Angel
- 1x Spark Double
- 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
- 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
- 1x Peregrine Drake
- 1x Sun Titan
- 1x Torrential Gearhulk
- 1x Vela the Night-Clad
-
1x
Rune-Scarred Demon
Artifact (13)
Commander (1)
Instant (17)
- 1x Brainstorm
- 1x Enlightened Tutor
- 1x Mystical Tutor
- 1x Vampiric Tutor
- 1x Brought Back
- 1x Cyclonic Rift
- 1x Despark
- 1x Flash
- 1x Narset's Reversal
- 1x Anguished Unmaking
- 1x Ghostly Flicker
- 1x Release to the Wind
- 1x Teferi's Protection
- 1x Comeuppance
- 1x Mystical Teachings
- 1x Return to Dust
- 1x Utter End
Planeswalker (5)
- 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- 1x Kaya, Ghost Assassin
-
1x
Tezzeret the Seeker SL
-
1x
Venser, the Sojourner
- 1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Sorcery (5)
--This deck description is currently a Work in Progress-- stay tuned for revisions, please excuse formatting
Oh the wonders that Aminatou, the Fateshifter
can perform with just a few twists of fate! This deck has evolved through many phases (once a Superfriends deck deemed "Fated Friends") and still continues to be refined. It is technically a flicker deck, but I like to think it's a little off-beat in approach. The flavor is all about having the power to manipulate fate in an instant and being able to respond to a shifting board state without sacrificing our own power and strategy. If things go to plan, which they should with your influence, you can pull a win from seemingly out of nowhere (until your playgroup catches on and you need to be a little more "inevitable").
+1 The biggest strength of this ability in this deck is pulling top-of-library tutor targets off the top and immediately into my hand. It synergizes beautifully with God-Eternal Kefnet too.
-1"The Bread Winner" - The beauty of her -1 ability is that it can hit any permanent type and since it works on a permanent you own, you can use it to retrieve pieces that may have left your control throughout the course of the game. Being able to flicker a planeswalker means you get 2 activations in a turn and being able to hit mana rocks can eke out that last burst of mana to finish off a combo.
-6This ability doesn't really doesn't factor in anymore as she wins long before she accrues enough loyalty, but in earlier versions she could ulti and Teferi's Protection in response to lose nothing while gaining an opponent board. It was cute, but it wasn't worth pursuing.
You will need one of these to end a game by combo:
- Altar of the Brood
- Pro: Lowest CMC, no color, easily tutorable
- Con: Fails against "When X is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles their graveyard into their library"
- Corpse Knight
- Pro: Low CMC, trigger deals damage to each opponent
- Con: More color intensive, easily removed
- Vela the Night-Clad
- Pro: Dodges hate against ETB triggers specifically, trigger deals damage to each opponent, allows for unblocked attack potential
- Con: Expensive CMC, easily removed
They each have better and worse scenarios depending on your matchups, but we always want to have choices to make our strategy less fragile. In order to get one of those cards to "go off" you'll need to set up your infinite flicker engine, of which there are several depending on the trigger you're looking to exploit - either a Permanent entering or a creature entering or leaving. It's very easy to win immediately when the conditions are right and there are several pieces that you can use to win so you aren't dependent on just one combo in case you lose a piece to exile. The key is to bide your time and play your pieces based on the game flow.
Depending on if you have combo pieces in hand or tutors in hand your next goal becomes [Short Path] getting them on the field or [Long Path] getting them into your hand to put on the field.
The optimal choices are Vampiric Tutor,Imperial Seal,Demonic Tutor as they don't force a reveal and keep your combo hidden, followed by Mystical Tutor which can also look for any of the other tutors; similarly Mystical Teachings can grab instants and key creatures with flash like Torrential Gearhulk, Snapcaster, and Restoration Angel and it comes with Flashback. Enlightened Tutor is next as it grabs Altar of the Brood or Phyrexian Metamorph which is one of our key pieces, but watch the timing on this as revealing the Altar signals our plan is moving in and allows time for opponents to prepare removal.
As far as permanent-based tutors go Spellseeker is an all-star here. She picks up all aforementioned tutors besides Mystical Teachings and hits several juicy instants Narset's Reversal Brought Back Flash. She can be flickered or copied, sometimes at instant speed, and she puts it in hand to be used immediately. The game can change in a moment with Spellseeker. Beyond that we have Wishclaw Talisman which interacts well with Aminatou because remember she retrieves permanents we own, control notwithstanding, so the talisman can be sent back after an activation providing no benefit to our opponents. Rune-Scarred Demon is made better in this deck due to Flash and Scroll of Fate + Flicker Effect as he won't always need to be hard-cast. Lastly Tezzeret the Seeker allows us to grab any artifact in the deck and put it straight onto the field which includes 2 potential combo pieces Altar of the Brood and Phyrexian Metamorph.
Once you've assembled what you need to win then you only need to make it stick to the field which can be much easier said than done, especially when your playgroup knows how diabolical your deck can be...
T3 Win with Corpse Knight (Best Hand) Show
T3 Win with Altar Show
The duals are just examples as there are several lands that can accomplish the same job and fetch lands can ensure you get the color you need untapped, so it's not too hard to get close to this hand often and the number tutors should allow to find the rest of what you need. Additionally there are several combos included in the deck for "redundancy" so that you aren't reliant on just 1 or 2 things going right out of the whole deck.
Making a combo go off is ALL about flexibility and how much you can slip in right where you need to. If you've got the hard-cast mana then the path is straight-forward, but if you need to space out the pieces over a few turns then you'll need just the right amount of control to make your pieces stick.
Shifting Fates - How to Control your Destiny
Fate's Toolbox of All Purpose Tools
Although Aminatou's path to victory is pretty linear (assemble flicker combo ASAP), the game play rarely goes exactly to plan especially when you're playing against opponents who know your potential combos. Many of the cards included in this deck are selected because they serve direct and indirect purposes alike or transform when exposed to other effects. Using Release to the Wind as an example, in this deck it can:
- act as protection to save any nonland permanent
- it stays in exile until you cast it again so it can survive wraths
- act as psuedo-removal to temporarily bounce a difficult nonland permanent blocking a win condition
- provided it doesn't have flash they'll need to wait until their turn to bring it back
- be a combo piece
- for a mere you can recast any of your ETB goodies to trigger a combo
Each card is examined like this for variable usage/synergy depending on context to adapt to as many contexts as possible, without steering too far away from the main plans.
Immediate Cards in this category have flicker effects that re-enter instantly and can cause us to win on the spot
good body; ability doesn't tap so can go infinite with mana; flickers in tapped which can punish opponents creatures
Delayed These flickers come back at the beginning of another step making them harder to abuse, so these are more utility focused
- Release to the Wind remarkably versatile and can save any nonland permanent from even Merciless Eviction which is valuable when you essentially run a glass cannon; also great for sending away a bothersome opponent's piece that may be blocking a win for you. If used on Aminatou as protection she can remain in exile safely until she needs to be recast for a win - and she'll be free.
- Flickerwisp wide range - any permanent; can slow down/disrupt opponent; flying blocker; retrievable with Sun Titan and flicker Titan to find an additional target at EoT
- Kaya, Ghost Assassin Her 0 can send away any target creature or herself, resetting her loyalty, until YOUR next upkeep for the loss of 2 life. This ability allows
- Oath of Teferi any other permanent you control; allowing planeswalkers to activate twice a turn becomes 4 times a turn with a flicker from Aminatou and 6 times a turn with 2 flickers from Aminatou!
- Venser, the Sojourner hits any permanent you OWN; -1 allows Brago, King Eternal through and Brago can reset Venser after combat damage; not very difficult to ulti especially with Oath of Teferi out and that's a tough emblem to fight against
Snapcaster Mage Spellseeker Archaeomancer Venser, Shaper Savant Sun Titan Torrential Gearhulk Rune-Scarred Demon
The Shields:
Teferi's Protection is a personal auto-include if you're in white; its perfectly on-flavor and does exactly what it needs to for this deck and it's easily tutored by so many effects so it's always close by. Comeuppance acts like a younger sibling of Teferi's Pro since it protects your life as well as saving PWs and can turn a potential one-shot into a backfire on your opponent.
The Guns:
All of this deck's removal is intended to be responsive, not proactive, so hold 'em til you need 'em. Although we have ways to recur our removal, we don't want to invest in those play-lines unless we're against a wall. Supreme Verdict and Cyclonic Rift clear the stage when you haven't assembled your pieces yet and you're dealing with creature-heavy opponents. Although the deck is flexible to many scenarios, we are susceptible to being closed out if a handful of nasty permanents hang out on the field too long. The targeted removal package is designed to focus on exiling, not destroying. Exile gets around indestructible and is more effective against enemy recursion than destroying as we don't have the resources to waste on constantly defending ourselves. For this deck we also want to make sure that the removal hits a wide variety of possible target permanent types and is efficient in speed/cost. Despark Cyclonic Rift again Anguished Unmaking Utter End Return to Dust
The Unknown:# (ways to surprise your opponent with specialty effects
Bounce Elements Venser, Shaper Savant and Narset's Reversal these can either benefit us or halt an overwhelming spell from the enemy. Many times you will only need one more turn to secure a win and these can buy the needed time. Narset's Reversal is best used on our own spells to gain a "second-life" to our tutors or protection spells, but it's always available to turn a tide in your favor.
Sneak Attacks The element of surprise is important to this deck and playing with timing allows us Recursion Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster can bring back a tutor, Obzedat's Aid can return a permanent right to the battlefield which can win the game should the right pieces already be on the field.
Scroll of Fate can be a marvel. The key is that it allows you to instantly and freely put any card from your hand onto the field to be a 2/2 creature. At the base level that means you'll never have a dead draw as it can become a flash 2/2 blocker, but that's nothing compared to the potential. Since the deck contains many ways to flicker a creature you will often use scroll of fate to cheat in a permanent. You may even manifest a creature card, but typically you will want the ETB effect so flickering is the preferred method here. As an added bonus you can effectively "hide" your combo pieces on the board until you are ready to enable your win condition which is important when your opponents know what the deck can do.
Archaeomancer does so much for this deck as we have a high volume of possible targets and a penchant for casting inexpensive spells that we'd like to see again. Although 4CMC is a bummer initially, flickering repeatedly for little investment is what the deck is designed to do.
Beyond our winning combo pieces we do have several other notable interactions that produce value
Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake is by no means a new combo, nor does it need to occur for the deck to win, but if it happens it enables a number of pathway
Brago, King Eternal + Venser, the Sojourner create "free unblocked attacks" which let Brago do his thing without expending you of net resources. Activating Venser's -1 makes creatures unblockable this turn so Brago can connect to flicker nonland permanents you control which include himself and Venser. Venser enters as a new object with fresh loyalty and ready for a new +2 activation which lets you walk away having gained loyalty and a delayed flicker for almost nothing
Aminatou, the Fateshifter + God-Eternal Kefnet repeatable spells; Aminatou's +1 lets us draw a card and then put a card from your hand onto the top of your deck while Kefnet can turn your first draw into a discounted copy if it's an instant or sorcery. If you keep stacking the same spell on the top you can continuously cast a copy of it each time you draw it. So with Demonic Tutor you can cast a copy for each turn and with Temporal Manipulation you can get infinite turns for per turn - that should give you enough time to assemble a win combo.
Brought Back + Flash is a lovely and inexpensive pair that lets you turn the tables at instant speed with virtually no drawback. Brought Back lets you retrieve up to 2 permanents that were put into your graveyard this turn, so you can let your creature die and get it right back along with another permanent you lost in the same turn. For you can Flash in Sun Titan to get 1 trigger, let him die, use Brought Back to pull him onto the battlefield again for a second trigger - totaling to 4 possible permanent retrievals in one turn. Since it can all be done at instant speed it's great way to shake off a (non-exiling) board wipe before your turn begins again. If Archaeomancer also died in the turn you can make him your second BB target and bring back Brought Back for future fun!
Vela won't get completely shut down by Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, or Hushbringer which means we can still grind a win even when most of our plays would be stifled by those cards.
Altar of the Brood + Aminatou, the Fateshifter + Spark Double
Aminatou, the Fateshifter + Corpse Knight + Felidar Guardian
Aminatou, the Fateshifter + Felidar Guardian + Vela the Night-Clad
Altar of the Brood + Felidar Guardian + Spark Double
Land Choices - we want as much color option as possible, but we also want to be able to reliably access should we need Eldrazi Displacer. The filter lands are perfect for this task as they help us fix double color costs while allowing us to make .
Weaknesses Unfortunately as most combo decks go, disruption will be a major weakness. Countering, Hate-bears, and Stax decks are going to pose the biggest problem to our combos. Creatures losing printed abilities is a death sentence for us, so our target removal is meant for permanents we can't get around with our creature effects. Keeping key pieces in your hand until you are ready to go off is the safest because even when we are forced to discard we may be able to recur to get us back on our win-path again. Eventually you will need to commit to the board and it's best to do it all in one turn or start at the end of an opponent's turn and finish after you untap on yours.
Life - there are a lot of "Lose Life" effects in our deck so we do need to watch how far down we take our life total. Most of our creatures are utility pieces and aren't meant for heavy defense so we risk taking a lot of damage to the face while we try to assemble our combo. This also makes us very susceptible to big burn effects - Red can be rather tricky for us indeed.