Top 10 Library Manipulation Enchantments

September 13, 2024 by DougY

(Aminatou, Veil Piercer | Art by David Palumbo)

I Am Waiting On A Miracle

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Search for Azcanta is the only top of library manipulation enchantment that flips into a land?)

New Aminatou just dropped, and thank goodness, they didn't Ghostbusterify her! Look, I get it, you wanted to do horror movies, but where does the weird sci-fi imagery come into it? Certainly wasn't in the story...

Anywho, Aminatou!

Aminatou wants to put big enchantments on top of your library to flip them up for a Miracle! Surveil 2 seems a little light to me, however. So, with that in mind, is there a way we can pursue Esper Enchantress with some enchantments that will help us in our quest to get the big ones on top? The more enchantments we have in the deck, the more likely we are to be drawing them off the top and casting them for less.

Top 10 Esper Topdeck Manipulation Enchantments

First off, I know I led you in with a headline of all top of library enchantments, and I also know that there will be some decks that put Aminatou in the 99 of a deck with access to more colors. So, let's head that off at the pass by doing my favorite thing: Adding additional sideshow Top Ten lists to my Top Ten listicle.

Top 10 Gruul Topdeck Manipulation Enchantments

Honestly? It's too bad you can't shove some of these into an Aminatou brew, because a lot of them would do work. Getting lands in your hand and keeping enchantments on top would do Aminatou a world of good.

As it is, though, let's focus our main list on Esper colors, and see what there is out there that is an enchantment we could take advantage of with Aminatou.

Hang on, I see an issue here. Miracle seems like such a miracle that it feels like it draws you a card, but it doesn't. The card you draw and can cast for cheap is just the card you would've drawn for turn. So, if we're really looking for the enchantments we can play with Aminatou to take advantage of her Miracle ability, do we really want to be including these non-reducible enchantments with no generic in their cost in our list? Well, maybe in our list of 99, but probably not in our top ten.

Criteria: Esper enchantments with generic mana in their cost that allow you to look at the top of your library in some fashion, then put/keep some of said cards on top of your library. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Medomai's Prophecy

(3,639 Inclusions, 0% of 2,195,154 Decks)

At first glance, Medomai's Prophecy and Aminatou seem like a match made in heaven. As you think about it, however, several issues arise:

If you have Aminatou in play, she'll have you Surveil 2 after you choose a card name, therefore removing whatever card you thought you had on top.
Even if you manage to work that out, you still can't do the Miracle thing and draw two cards with Prophecy's Chapter III, as you'll cast the Miracle card during your draw step, and you won't go to Chapter III until the beginning of your precombat main phase.

Even with all that, however, I still think Medomai's Prophecy might be a decent include. With lots of topdeck manipulation in the eventual list, it should be easy enough to catch up to a new card on Chapter II, then reveal it in Chapter III, even if things don't work with your commander in play. After all, it's fairly likely that our commander will probably get removed a lot anyhow, as people assume that we're about to land an Omniscience.

9. Shadows of the Past

(4,105 Inclusions, 0% of 2,271,419 Decks)

So here's the issue with Shadows of the Past in an Aminatou deck: We are, in all likelihood, an enchantment deck, and Shadows of the Past wants us to be a creature deck. Luckily, that's not entirely a hard no, as there's two avenues we could go down that could make that viable. Avenue one is the unkind route of playing a lot of board wipes.

This obviously relies on your opponents playing a lot of creatures, which is a fairly safe bet, and if you are a deck full of enchantments, also aids you in surviving. The only downside? You're going to have an entire table angry at you, every time you pull the deck out. Steep price to pay!

Avenue two is a little safer, in enchantment creatures. So why not take a look at what we've got there?

Top 10 Esper Enchantment Creatures

These days, the well goes quite a bit deeper than the top ten, with 101 different enchantment creatures available in Esper. With that in mind, you could go fairly deep on this idea with Aminatou, and you definitely play Shadows of the Past in that deck. If not, however, then I think this one probably gets left on the wayside.

8. Gift of Compleation

(4,691 Inclusions, 0% of 1,826,246 Decks)

Gift of Compleation bears a lot of resemblance to Shadows of the Past, except it goes even further in wanting you to have not only creatures, but Phyrexian creatures specifically. The fact that it supplies you with a build-your-own-Phyrexian kit for one in no way makes up for this further restriction.

7. Baneful Omen

(5,111 Inclusions, 0% of 2,271,419 Decks)

I'm very torn on Baneful Omen. It seems like a card that was made with Aminatou in mind, but I'm not sure that it's worth doing, even at the still-restrictive cost of . My issue is that Baneful Omen feels like a trap card in the same vein as Lava Axe is in Limited. Sure, it's going to do a ton of damage to your opponents, but it doesn't actually do anything to the board state. If you were losing before you stuck a Baneful Omen, you're still losing after you stick it. The only difference is your opponent wins with a lower number than they would've won with otherwise.

With that said, I don't want to be too dismissive of Baneful Omen as a control win-con. If you have a deck that can keep the game going, then this is a very decent clock to put on a table, especially with Aminatou stacking the top of the deck for you.

6.Precognition Field

(5,187 Inclusions, 0% of 2,195,154 Decks)

Finally, we get to the cards that are going to be the best in an Aminatou deck: The ones that let you play cards off the top of your library. The only problem? Precognition Field cares about instants and sorceries, not enchantments. While that's not a deal breaker in a deck that's looking to go a bit more balanced, with our version caring about enchantments, I think we'll pass.

5. Assemble the Players

(8,300 Inclusions, 1% of 943,394 Decks)

In general, I really like Assemble the Players. Utility creatures abound, they're cheap, it's cheap, it all just works. Except when you're playing an Enchantress deck, in which case it doesn't.

4. Scion of Halaster

(Backgrounds 3,196 Decks; 9,407 Inclusions, 0% of 2,271,419 Decks)

If you're looking for cheap and generically useful, however, then there's Scion of Halaster! You do have to have your commander in play, which is more of a drawback than many Background fans take into account, but seeing two cards is well worth it. Even better, the card you don't select goes into the graveyard, which is also something we'll be doing with Aminatou quite often. Seems like something worth looking into, doesn't it?

Top 10 Esper Enchantment Recursion Cards

Well, there's some real gas to work with. While normally I shun Resurgent Belief in deference to its partners like Open the Vaults and Dance of the Manse, with Aminatou I think it shines as time goes on, rather than being a liability. Starfield of Nyx continues to be boring, in that it's the best Enchantress card out there. And then lastly, how have I never seen Harnessed Snubhorn before? At the very least, Voltron decks should be playing this thing non-stop so that you can make it evasive and then grab back things as they die.

3. Search for Azcanta

(28,420 Inclusions, 1% of 2,195,154 Decks)

It's rare that I choose a card for the intro that I know is in the top ten, but what can I say? I'm a Search for Azcanta fan. Cheap topdeck manipulation that can also become cheap mill, it then transforms into a land, making it cheap ramp, and has a card draw ability tacked on. How could you not be a fan?

2. One with the Multiverse

(33,853 Inclusions, 2% of 2,074,420 Decks)

My original idea for this list was to put a restriction of "three or more generic mana", but sadly, that list comes up a bit short. Still, we did eventually get there with the standard list in One with the Multiverse! As a payoff card, an eight-mana enchantment you can Miracle out for four that then helps you fix your later draws is pretty darn good, even before you read the text that says you get to cast something for free every turn. Yeah, it's still bad Omniscience, but if you ask me, that's better from a gameplay perspective than good Omniscience is.

1. Retreat to Coralhelm

(53,283 Inclusions, 2% of 2,195,154 Decks)

Those that don't know will be wondering why this rather innocuous enchantment is seeing so much play, and the answer is: Not for the half of the card we're looking to abuse here.

Just in Esper, Retreat to Coralhelm has 47 different known combos available, all more or less playing around with a creature that allows you to tap to put a land into play, and a means to keep on returning a land to your hand. Most of those, however, just give you infinite Landfall triggers without doing much else, so the question remains: If you were going to play Retreat to Coralhelm in an Aminatou deck, then which combos would you actually want to go for with it, if any?

Well, first off, the no-combo option isn't hard to do, and Retreat to Coralhelm is a great addition to the top of library plan. You'll have to answer the "are you playing the combo" question a lot for the more knowledgeable folks out there, but assuming they take your answer at face value, Retreat to Coralhelm isn't inherently scary.

As for which particular combo you would go for if you did go for it, however, you could do worse than the top of the list in Esper that we've already covered. Meloku the Clouded Mirror is expensive, but gives you 1/1 fliers even without the other combo pieces, which is nothing to sneeze at. As for the other third, Walking Atlas will be the linchpin for many Retreat to Coralhelm combos, so its inclusion also lets you easily play Ghost Town to make infinite mana in addition to infinite Landfall triggers, even if you can only do so on opponent's turns. The combo I think we should be aiming for, however, should involve more enchantments. With this in mind, I would suggest we abuse one of my favorite cards: Trade Routes.

Now, you'll note that this combo only gives you the infinite Landfall triggers, but given that that's true of all of the Walking Atlas combos outside of the Meloku combo, more or less, there's an easy out there in just playing a Landfall win-con.

Don't get me wrong, we can probably squeeze in a Felidar Retreat while we're at it, but I honestly don't know that combo is how we want to win anyhow. That said, Retreat to Hagra allows us to drain opponents out directly with any of the Retreat to Coralhelm combos, and gives us lifegain and free aggro damage or removal along the way, so it's an option!

Honorable Mentions

The big hit we took this week on our list was by eliminating enchantments that didn't have generic mana in their casting costs. While that is by and large what we want, there are a couple exceptions that still need talking about.

While seeing Soothsaying with Aminatou's Surveil ability will feel disappointing, the opposite is really where this card will shine with her. When you look at the top two and only see stuff you won't be able to Miracle with Aminatou, you can then pay into Soothsaying to get another crack at a cheap enchantment. In other words, this is a great, cheap enchantment to trigger all of your Enchantress abilities, and a second chance for when you whiff with your commander.

Speaking of cheap enchantments that will let you change what's up on top, Aqueous Form provides a great avenue to get some chip damage in and to dig a card deeper than Aminatou would allow you to. Throw in a Harnessed Snubhorn, and now you're really cooking with gas.

Counterbalance is another avenue entirely, not so much providing topdeck manipulation as being the pay off for it. With that said, it will, in all likelihood, let you know what card you have on top, and whether or not you want to remove that card via a shuffle or more top of library manipulation.

And with that, we've got the essentials of our list here that will let us abuse Miracle with Aminatou. So... where's the list, Doug?

Commander (1)

1 Aminatou, Veil Piercer

Draw (15)

Ramp (12)

Top (14)

Recursion (8)

Aggro (3)

Removal (13)

Land (34)

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Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

And finally, what do you think of Aminatou? Do you think her Surveil does enough on its own, or are more enchantments to dig deeper a good idea?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table. You know the one.

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DougY

Doug has been an avid Magic player since Fallen Empires, when his older brother traded him some epic blue Homarids for all of his Islands. As for Commander, he's been playing since 2010, when he started off by making a two-player oriented G/R Land Destruction deck. Nailed it. In his spare time when he's not playing Magic, writing about Magic or doing his day job, he runs a YouTube channel or two, keeps up a College Football Computer Poll, and is attempting to gif every scene of the Star Wars prequels.

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