Aminatou Miracles: Just Top Decking

Commander / EDH* Budget Casual Jank Midrange WUB (Esper)

Craven183

Land (33)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 3x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Piranha Marsh
• 2x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Counterbalance
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Oath of Teferi
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x Rhystic Study

Instant (21)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Artifact (10)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Planeswalker (5)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Commander (1)

Creature (13)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Eldrazi Displacer
• 1x Felidar Guardian
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Naru Meha, Master Wizard
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Trinket Mage

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Temporal Mastery
• 1x Terminus
• 1x Windfall

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Maybeboard

Instant (6)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Negate
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Whir of Invention

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Oath of Jace
• 1x Omen of the Sea

Creature (1)

• 1x Sower of Temptation

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Diabolic Tutor

Artifact (2)

• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Thought Vessel

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Hi, welcome to Aminatou Miracles: Just Top Decking

This is my list for a high power/borderline cEDH build for Aminatou, the Fateshifter. The deck started out as a precon I played for fun until it ascended to my most dedicated deck. It’s fun to play in high power casual groups and it also holds up well in cEDH pods against decks such Breakfast Hulk, UPS, and many others.

You might be interested in this deck if:

1. You enjoy playing control. Countermagic, removal, Rest In Peace effects, all make you smile.

2. You enjoy a lot of thought. Your commander here doesn’t strictly win you the game on her own- but she gives you tools with which to do so. Piecing together of winlines can be hazy and difficult to achieve.

3. You enjoy interaction. This deck runs instants and instant-speed abilities. A lot of them.

If these things don’t appeal to you, then Yeet on outta here. If that sounds sweet then read on:

First of all: let's all take a moment to appreciate this absolutely stunning art done by Seb Mckinnon. Definitely one of the reasons I wanted to try this card out in the first place. How about those mechanics though?

AMINATOU MECHANICS

Colors:

Aminatou is providing us with Esper colors. We definitely know we'll be running control because of this- the counters of blue, exile effects of white, and tutoring/graveyard shenanigans that come with black will give us the ability to assemble our win without needing a commander like Yisan or Vannifar to do so for us.

Mana Cost:

Aminatou costs 3 mana- an amount we should normally have by the start of turn 2 or 3. Most games we won’t cast her until the turn we are winning (or if we desperately need to see some cards).

Abilities:

1. +1: "Draw a card then put a card from your hand on top of your library." We can easily manipulate the top of our deck with our own commander, ensuring that the miracle in our hand can stay on top of our deck instead of having to be hard cast. This can come in handy if we ever need to cast something like Terminus at instant speed on someone else's turn. We can consistently draw cards while putting our miracles back on top to be used when needed. Temporal Mastery comes in great use here. Additionally, we can use this abilities to draw our Vampiric Tutor or Mystical Tutor target we placed on top. However, if there is a separate way to draw that card like a Sensei top, that should be used first and foremost so as to allow us the accessibility of Aminatou’s blink effect- the next one we’ll be looking at.

2. -1: "Exile another target permanent you own, then return it to the battefield under your control." This is the bread and butter of what makes Aminatou cEDH-capable. While commanders like Brago require combat damage to blink, we can activate this ability as soon as Aminatou hits field. Many of our permanent cards use ETBs that can be abused by the planeswalker. With infinite blinks, it’s hard not to win.

3. -6: "Choose left or right. Each player gains control of all nonland permanents other than Aminatou, the Fateshifter controlled by the next player in the chosen direction." This basically never happens but when it does it means the Urza player that forgot about your stupid ultimate ability is about to pop off.

0 Wincons

I want to start this panel by saying I’m working towards making this deck virtually wincon-less. Each card in here shall eventually be a useful piece in its own right and not a dead draw. We’re not going to draw a walking ballista or aetherflux reservoir and release a sigh of frustration. Everything in here should be useful on its own and allow us to get closer to what we need.

Currently, the only dead draws appear to be Oath of Teferi and Spark Double. These don’t offer much advantage on their Owen but they do allow us infinite blinks of any permanent we own if our commander is additionally on field. Original Aminatou blinks spark double to enter as a copy of herself which can be activated twice from oath of Teferi. Activate once to blink a permanent and activate the second time to blink original Aminatou. Rinse, repeat. Generates infinite mana at the very least but hopefully infinite draw with Mikokoro, Center of the Sea or infinite life loss with Piranha Marsh.

So how do we win if we aren’t running strictly wincon cards besides these two dead draws above?

WINLINES

1. ECHO OF EONS LOOP: This wincondition utilizes infinite mana with infinite draw to continuously loop Echo of Eons with Narset's Reversal. This is a budget Timetwister loop which you can read about here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/7t0scl/timetwister_loop_explaination/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

If we have infinite mana and draw our deck, we then resolve either Silence or Teferi, Time Raveler to prevent our opponents from playing or activating anything to interrupt us. We then resolve an on-field way to draw infinite cards (baleful strix with deadeye navigator or Teferi time raveler with oath of teferi, spark double, and Aminatou, or Jace instead of aforementioned Teferi, etc, etc). We cast echo of eons, narsets reversal it to ensure it is shuffled into our library, and repeat the process. Since we draw our whole deck each time to find and recast echo of eons plus narsets reversal, we can play any spell in our deck infinite times with the infinite mana. We can use Generous Gift infinite times to blow up each opponents permanents and replace with beasts that we then Reality Shift infinitely to manifest each opponents entire library. This could then be followed up with a Cyclonic Rift and then a Windfall or another echo of eons to make each opponent draw into an empty deck. Note that Praetor's Grasp allows us to exile each opponents library, as well.

1. ALTAR OF THE BROOD: With infinite blinks alone, we can win via Altar of the Brood with either Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace. This will cause our opponents to draw into empty libraries and lose the game. Infinite blinks can be achieved via Ghostly Flicker + Naru Meha or the Oath of Teferi method with Spark Double or Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake or Aminatou + Felidar Guardian or Eldrazi Displacer + Peregrine Drake + a land that produces colorless mana. Note here that Tezzeret the Seeker can tutor for both mana rocks and Altar of the Brood. This is very handy. Also Muddle the Mixture can be found via Spellseeker and used to nab Rest in Piece (you could also use demonic tutor or vampiric tutor or lim-dul’s vault of course). This will be the method we use most often to win the game.

2. Piranha Marsh: If we have absolutely no other way to win but can blink our lands infinite times then this should do the trick (it’s very useful if altar of the brood and echo of eons both get exiled). Funny enough- I see quite a few decks winning with altar of the brood so we could always try and steal someone else’s with a praetors grasp.

STRATEGY

Early Game:

We want to start out our Aminatou games downplaying the threat level that we pose while also still getting some use out of our cards. No matter what, we want to keep making sure we know the top card of the deck (it's safe to play Precognition Field and Sensei's Divining Top early on even though they can piece together our wincons- most people won't recognize Precognition Field as a way to run through our deck with infinite mana). We use these cards in junction with Aminatou, the Fateshifter's +1 ability so that we can keep our miracles on top (even in early game) just in case we need them.

The other thing we want to do early game is ramp, of course. There isn't too much present in the deck what with our low cost spells and all but we'll surely need it later on if we want to cast some of the high CMC cards in the deck (although these are a lot nicer when they're cast via Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign). Again, we will try to play ramp spells that are either below or above 3 CMC so we can cast Aminatou consistently turn 3. Land Tax is a great turn 1 drop since we can make sure we have all 3 colors by the time we cast Aminatou.

Mid Game:

Here is where we want to start abusing our "burn" spells, or life loss triggers from Twilight Prophet, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (note the best cards to use to ninjutsu Yuriko are Baleful Strix, and Gonti, Lord of Luxury), Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Baneful Omen, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and Duskmantle Seer. This way we begin to sort of convince opponents that the deck is trying to win via straight burn. This is especially handy if we're able to put Aminatou's Augury or Skull Storm on top for massive burn. This strategy can potentially win by itself depending on the meta, especially if the game is closed out with Entreat the Angels. During this time is also when we will be using most of our removal effects and potentially gaining them back with Archaeomancer bounces that are particularly effective with Panharmonicon.

The mid game is also when we should secretly be piecing together our wincon. If we manage to keep looking at the top and scrying with Crystal Ball, Sensei's Divining Top, Aminatou, the Fateshifter, and Precognition Field we can dig our way to the cards we want. If there's ever a bunch of cards on top that we don't want, we can shuffle them away with Evolving Wilds, Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Mystical Tutor, Land Tax (even if we fail to find), etc.

Late Game:

At this point we can start diving into the miracles strategy. We can use the blinking effects of cards such as Reflector Mage in combination with Sensei's Divining Top/Counterbalance to keep our opponents under control. Always keep Mystical Tutor around in case someone's trying to end the game and we can mystical tutor for Pact of Negation, place it on top, draw it via the top and counter their wincon. Go hard on the removal here. Play Merciless Eviction, Cast Out, Darksteel Mutation, Vindicate, Swords to Plowshares, Ravenous Chupacabra, Reality Acid, etc. to eliminate the stuff we don't like.

And as for the miracles, themselves- we have to keep cards like Mikokoro, Center of the Sea untapped to draw into those miracle cards when we need them on a different players turn. Irrigated Farmland and Fetid Pools can also allow us to draw a miracle at instant speed via cycling. Sensei's Divining Top and Commander's Sphere both let us draw cards for free (the sphere even gives us mana if we tap before we sac it). Lim-Dul's Vault is an incredible card for getting the miracle we need from the deck on top of the library before we go for the draw. Vampiric Tutor is undeniably useful in this respect, as well. With this oppression now on board that wasn't present before, our opponents will be caught off guard so that we can go in for the kill via one of the wincons of the deck.

WIN CONDITIONS

Infinite Combo Wincons:

1. Aminatou, the Fateshifter + Felidar Guardian + Vela the Night-Clad : This combo is pretty self-explanatory. With Vela and Aminatou on the field, we cast Felidar Guardian and hope it resolves. When it enters the battlefield, we use it to blink Aminatou. We then use her -1 to blink Felidar Guardian and repeat infinitely. With Vela the Night-Clad out, each opponent loses a life every time Felidar Guardian blinks out. Thus, we infinitely drain each opponent.

2. Aminatou, the Fateshifter + Oath of Teferi + Felidar Guardian + Sorin, Grim Nemesis: This combo takes the most cards out of any wincon in the deck. With Oath of Teferi on field, we are able to use Aminatou's -1 ability twice in a turn, this allowing us to use two Sorin, Grim Nemesis +1 abilities before blinking him with Aminatou and then blinking Felidar Guardian to reset Aminatou's abilities. NOTE: Panharmonicon can be used in place of Oath of Teferi in this combo, as each time Felidar Guardian enters we get to blink two nonland permanents (Aminatou and Sorin). Thus we can keep blinking the Felidar Guardian with Aminatou which allows us to infinitely use Sorin's +1 and drain each opponent of life (this might not work if someone has a zillion life- it's EDH, so this can happen- but it's a jankier wincon so we have the next win condition in this list to use in that case).

3. Peregrine Drake + Deadeye Navigator + Precognition Field: This may be one of my favorite win condition in the deck, because people don't recognize it as an on-board win. We generate infinite mana with the Drake and Deadeye since we only pay 2 mana to blink the Drake which untaps 5 lands. We then use this infinite mana to continuously exile the top card of our deck with Precognition Field until we see that Approach of the Second Sun is on top. We cast it, and then tuck it to the 7th card on top. We then exile the next 6 cards and cast it again (since Precognition Field allows us to cast the top card of our library if it's an instant or sorcery).

Non-Infinite Wincons:

1. Burn (Baneful Omen, Twilight Prophet, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, Duskmantle Seer, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Gray Merchant of Asphodel): This is a relatively janky and simple wincon that can be seen from miles ahead. Sometimes things get out of hand, however, with continuously placing Skull Storm or Aminatou's Augury on top of the deck via Aminatou's +1 ability before these triggers happen. These high CMC cards can also be fetched with the likes of Mystical Tutor to put them on top at instant speed. Normally, these triggers won't make us the most particularly popular player at the table.

2. Entreat the Angels: Make a bunch of 4/4 flying angel tokens at instant speed for WWX? Yes, please. This is most often the wincon of miracles in Legacy, so we have to include it here. It has certainly done work winning games before.

3. Approach of the Second Sun: This card doesn't even have to be paired with the cards mentioned earlier. We can simply play it and dig it back up as fast as we can to cast it again Mystical Tutor again does serious work here.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.63
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elephant 3-3 G
Folders	EDH Deck Lists