Aminatou, The Fateshifter
"Aminatou is an incredibly young human planeswalker, from an undisclosed plane. Her spark ignited at a young age, and for seemingly no reason at all, although if one were to ask her why it happened, she would tell them "because I foresaw it would one day, and I decided I didn't want to wait for that." Aminatou's magic revolves around fate and the manipulation of destiny. She can perceive the matrix of fate and foresee the destinies of others...
...When one of her wisps of power lands on a person it nudges their fate in whatever direction Aminatou chooses. That shift in destiny can be as small as stepping on a thorn or as broad as shifting the day of someone's death, and Aminatou is fairly dispassionate about how firmly she adjusts a stranger's fate. Those who know what she can do go out of their way to keep her happy; they know better than to literally tempt fate. Despite a power suite that could easily destroy existence, Aminatou largely serves her own needs, as she is eight..."
This is my current Aminatou EDH deck that I have been tinkering with. Aminatou was the commander I was most excited about from C18 before I even began brewing anything up because I could just immediately see so much potential with her.
The deck is focused to be a 75% competitive deck with room to upgrade to full competitive with a bit of $$$, but this is what I've developed so far.
The goal of the deck is to control the board state with taxes, board wipes, and counterspells in order to set up a stable time to combo off with ETB trigger effects. By manipulating the top of the deck with Aminatou's +1 you can easily set up miracles and get an extra look into the deck when you are in a pinch for a particular answer. This helps with the control aspect of the deck by setting up cards like
Terminus
and
Devastation
tide and then having instant speed card draw through a few different cards to hit them on other players' turns, and cards like
Entreat the Dead
and
Entreat the Angels
can set up lost creatures that are a piece of a combo or just load the board with 4/4 flyers.
While this is all dandy and makes up for a consistent control deck in EDH where extra cards are always welcome and removal runs rampant, this is not the ability on Aminatou that I focused the deck around. The -1 ability allows for one piece of an infinite blinking combo to always be available, and that is the primary method of winning the game that this deck aims to achieve.
The combos all revolve around going infinite with ETB triggers, whether it be from Aminatou and Felidar Guardian blinking each other back and forth infinitely or finding a spell to double up one of their blink effects to be able to blink another win con on the battlefield. Combos are not the only wincon in the deck so as to avoid getting locked out from
Rule of Law
or
Eidolon of Rhetoric
, and Aminatou isn't the only other blink option to pair with Felidar to get an infinite blink going. The other primary win conditions are
Entreat the Angels
and
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
to steal opponents beaters.
The winning combos in the deck are as follows:
There are tons of different combos that can be assembled with these ETB triggers and cards to double up on them. More competitive lists (and what I plan to upgrade to) will also run better counterspells, more graveyard recursion, and better ramp in order to combo more reliably and quicker. At the moment, I'm gonna save a couple hundred bucks and just stick with this list as it is fast, consistent, and super fun to play!
Aside from the combos, the deck just focuses on countering problem cards, removing non-creature permanents that can hinder our plan or win the game for another player, keeping the board clear, and disincentivizing fast play with
Rhystic Study
and blockers for the early game.
This has been my favorite EDH deck that I've built thus far and feels like at the current state it is already approaching a competitive level. Perfect for non-competitive, but focused playgroups!
I hope you enjoy my deck!
