Magic: The Gathering - Aminatou, Veil Piercer Commander Deck Guide
Being able to see what’s coming is a powerful ability in any game, but especially so in Magic: The Gathering. Knowing what cards you’ll draw means knowing what resources you’ll have to launch attacks, set up defenses, or whether you’ll have that essential component to complete your game-ending combo.
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Posts By Ryan HayAminatou, Veil Piercer doesn't let you see too far into the future, but seeing two cards ahead provides a reasonable peek at what your future holds and if there's a miracle just waiting to happen. Aminatou truly is a miracle worker, provided you give her the right cards to work with.
The Commander: Aminatou, Veil Piercer
Even though she's no longer a Planeswalker in Duskmourn: House of Horror, Aminatou is still an excellent commander. She's a self-contained miracle engine, able to pump out enchantments with a four-mana discount so long as you rip one off the top of your deck.
To make those miracles a little more likely, Aminatou lets you surveil two cards deep every upkeep. With sufficient enchantments in your deck, that's likely to be just enough to consistently get a miracle every other turn or so. Best case scenario, you miracle off a Grave Betrayal or Extravagant Replication the turn after Aminatou comes into play.
Quick, cheap enchantments are a great start, but there's more to this little miracle worker. Some cards have a built-in miracle cost, like Temporal Mastery or Entreat the Angels, providing you with a steep discount for a very powerful effect.
Aminatou's surveil ability can help there too, but she could still use a bit of help. A few blue hand manipulation spells and a few powerful artifacts are a real boon to Aminatou's game plan.
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Posts By Sean MurrayBuilding Your Aminatou, Veil Piercer Commander Deck
Redress Fate art by Julie DillonAminatou's colors of blue, black, and white are usually all about controlling a game of magic, so your deck is going to be an enchantment-heavy control deck. A few instants and sorceries to ensure that nobody gets too far ahead of you, and a bunch of enchantments to sap your opponents and disrupt their strategies. You'll even have a few combos to wield, too.
What ultimately wins you the game could be multiple things. It might be an army of stolen, copied, or resurrected monsters, or a swarm of Spirit tokens, or an indestructible god. But what gets you to that point will be your ability to control the game and maybe a bit of luck.
Enchantments, Enchantments, Enchantments
With Aminatou providing a potential four-mana discount on all enchantments, it makes sense that most of any Aminatou, Veil Piercer deck will be made of enchantments.
Enchantments are an incredibly diverse permanent type that can perform many different tasks. They can be defensive in nature, such as Propaganda, No Mercy, or Sphere of Safety, or they can be offensive like Sigil of the Empty Throne or Shark Typhoon. They can even steal from your opponents like Mind's Dilation of Grave Betrayal.
There are also resource-making enchantments like Rhystic Study, Monologue Tax, and Smothering Tithe, as well as a bunch of enchantments that are also creatures, such as Underworld Coinsmith, Ancient Cellarspawn, and Doomwake Giant.
If your creatures aren't also enchantments, they should have abilities that are triggered by or enhanced by enchantments. Mesa Enchantress and Entity Tracker both draw extra cards whenever an enchantment is played, and Moon-Blessed Cleric tutors out an enchantment to place on top of your library—exactly where Aminatou wants it to be.
In general, you should have a wide range of enchantments that should make up the backbone of the deck.
Miracles Of Another Kind
Just because Amiantou gives every enchantment a miracle cost doesn't mean every card in the deck should be an enchantment. There are several cards with their own built-in miracle costs that could pair quite well with Aminatou.
The first is Terminus, a white board-sweeper that has a miraculous cost of just one white mana. The second is Temporal Mastery, a blue card that lets you take an extra turn for just two mana if you can rip it off the top of your deck. And third is Entreat the Angels, a card that can produce a lot of Angel tokens with just a little mana.
And let's not forget Redress Fate, courtesy of Duskmourn's Miracle Worker Commander deck. It's already a fine card at eight mana, but a miracle cost of four mana to bring back all your enchantments and artifacts from the graveyard is an incredible deal.
There are a few other miracle cards worth considering. Banishing Stroke can be a decent removal spell for one mana. Devastation Tide provides a board reset for just two blue mana, and Entreat the Dead resurrects multiple creatures for a very small mana investment.
Metamorphosis Fanatic is also a really good miracle creature from Miracle Worker, although it doesn't quite fit the themes of Aminatou.
Manipulate Fate With Artifacts And Spells
While being able to surveil two cards every turn is very helpful, every fortune-teller could use a little help from a crystal ball. Or in Aminatou's case, Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack. These two cheap artifacts let you manipulate the top of your library to ensure that your first card draw is always a miracle.
Blue also offers several cheap spells to help fix your draws. Ponder, Portent, Preordain, Brainstorm, Telling Time, Opt, Consider, and Otherworldly Gaze are all fine options. Diabolic Vision and Lim-Dul's Vault do much the same with a little black mana for flavoring.
One fantastic card for Aminatou is Enlightened Tutor. Play it at the end of your opponent's turn to ensure that your next drawn card can be miracled into play for a huge mana discount.
Answers And Board Sweepers
Enchantments can only do so much to keep control of an unruly board. Where things like Propaganda and Ghostly Prison fail, cards like Swords to Plowshares, Stroke of Midnight, and Deadly Rollick hopefully succeed in convincing your opponents to leave you alone.
Where instant-speed removal is the scalpel, board-sweeping sorceries like Terminus, Extinguish All Hope, Time Wipe, Damn, and Supreme Verdict are sledgehammers, breaking a dangerous board back to square one. You'll want to have at least three of these types of spells, of which there are many available in Aminatou's colors.
Depending on your playgroup, you may even want four, five, or even six of these spells to ensure you have one available when you need it.
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Posts By Sean MurrayAminatou, Veil Piercer Commander Deck List
Shark Typhoon art by Caio MonteiroHere's a sample decklist of what a potential Aminatou, Veil Piercer deck could look like.
Sergeant Aminatou, Veil Piercer Commander Deck List
Commander (1)
Aminatou, Veil Piercer
Creatures (17)
Underworld Coinsmith
Inquisitive Glimmer
Starfield Mystic
Moon-Blessed Cleric
Auramancer
Ancient Cellarspawn
Zur, Eternal Schemer
Mesa Enchantress
Entity Tracker
Solemn Simulacrum
Ghostly Dancers
Soaring Lightbringer
Doomwake Giant
Demon of Fate's Design
Ondu Spirit Dancer
The Master of Keys
Athreos, Shroud-Veiled
Planeswalkers (1)
Aminatou, the Fateshifter
Battles (1)
Invasion of Theros
Sorcery (8)
Ponder
Diabolic Vision
Terminus
Damn
Entreat the Angels
Extinguish All Hope
Temporal Mastery
Redress Fate
Instants (7)
Enlightened Tutor
Brainstorm
Telling Time
Swords to Plowshares
Stroke of Midnight
Deadly Rollick
Inkshield
Enchantments (20)
Mirrormade
Smothering Tithe
Rhystic Study
Propaganda
Ghostly Prison
Monologue Tax
Timely Ward
Court of Vantress
No Mercy
One with the Multiverse
Shark Typhoon
Secret Arcade / Dusty Parlor
Sphere of Safety
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Starfield of Nyx
Exquisite Blood
Extravagant Replication
The Eldest Reborn
Mind's Dilation
Grave Betrayal
Artifacts (7)
Sol Ring
Arcane Signet
Azorius Signet
Orzhov Signet
Fellwar Stone
Sensei's Divining Top
Scroll Rack
Lands (38)
Hall of Heliod's Generosity
Halimar Depths
Bojuka Bog
Rivendell
Command Tower
Arcane Sanctum
Temple of Enlightenment
Temple of Silence
Temple of Deceit
Hallowed Fountain
Godless Shrine
Watery Grave
Raffine's Tower
Exotic Orchard
Obscura Storefront
Sea of Clouds
Vault of Champions
Morphic Pool
Caves of Koilos
Adarkar Wastes
Underground River
Plains (8)
Islands (5)
Swamps (4)
Budget Substitutions
Smothering Tithe art by Mark BehmThere are a lot of expensive cards in the above deck, many of which are quite likely to be too expensive for most casual Magic players. Here are some budget substitutions that aren't quite as good, but still pretty good.
Expensive Card
Budget Substitution
Temporal Mastery
Devestation Tide, Banishing Stroke
Enlightened Tutor
Portent, Preordain, Otherworldly Gaze, Opt, Consider
Deadly Rollick
Borrowed Time, Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, Cast Out, Grasp of Fate, Journey to Nowhere, Seal Away, Seal from Existence, Stasis Snare, Trapped in the Screen
Smothering Tithe
Borrowed Time, Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, Cast Out, Grasp of Fate, Journey to Nowhere, Seal Away, Seal from Existence, Stasis Snare, Trapped in the Screen
Rhystic Study
Smuggler's Share, Cunning Rhetoric, Phyrexian Arena, Greed
No Mercy
Whip of Erebos, Cramped Vents / Access Maze, Unholy Annex / Ritual Chamber
Starfield of Nyx
Court of Grace, Grasp Fate, Birth of the Imperium
Exquisite Blood
Whip of Erebos, Cramped Vents / Access Maze, Unholy Annex / Ritual Chamber
Grave Betrayal
Debtor's Knell, Restructed Office / Lecture Hall, Cacophony Unleashed, Virtue of Persistence
Sensei's Divining Top
Brainstone, Portent, Preordain, Otherworldly Gaze, Opt, Consider
Scroll Rack
Brainstone, Portent, Preordain, Otherworldly Gaze, Opt, Consider
Hallowed Fountain, Sea of Clouds
Tranquil Cove, Seachrome Coasts, Deserted Beach, Irrigated Farmland, Glacial Fortress, Port Town
Godless Shrine, Vault of Champions
Scoured Barrens, Shattered Sanctum, Shineshadow Snarl, Silverquil Campus, Isolated Chapel, Brightclimb Pathway / Grimclimb Pathway
Watery Grave, Morphic Pool
Dismal Backwater, Darkslick Shores, Shipwreck Marsh, Drowned Catacomb, Fetid Pools, Choked Estuary, Sunken Hollow, Jwar Isle Refuge, Darkwater Catacombs
Raffine's Tower
Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Mirage Mesa, Conduit Pylons, Escape Tunnel, Contaminated Landscape
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Posts By Jim ZieglerTips For Playing Aminatou, Veil Piercer In Commander
Athreos, Shroud-Veiled art by Igor Kieryluk- Aminatou is a control deck, so try to play passively and keep the game from getting too out of hand.
- Sometimes, though, you'll miracle out an early One with the Multiverse or Mind's Dilation, and then you'll need to go on the offensive while you've got a huge power boost.
- Secret Arcade / Dusty Parlor combos with both Ghostly Dancers and Ondu Spirit Dancer to make infinite creatures. If you ever draw either creature, try to find that Secret Arcade to win the game.
- While you should usually pay to miracle cards as often as possible, you don't have to do it every time. For example, if you've already got Mind's Dilation out, you might want to keep Shark Typhoon in your hand to play in case Mind's Dilation gets removed.
- Inkshield might not be an enchantment, but it's such a great way to turn the tables on an ascendant enemy that it's hard not to include it in any Commander deck that can run it.
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