Once you enter Duskmourn, your fate is sealed. The second ofMagic: The Gathering’s horror-based planes is a living house that feeds off of your fear until you finally succumb to death’s cold embrace. It seems hopeless without some kind of miracle.
The Miracle Worker preconstructed deck reintroduces Aminatou, who can manipulate fate and create exactly the miracles you need to survive Duskmourn. By adding the miracle mechanic to existing enchantments, you can manipulate fate to not only survive the house but to dominate your table. It’s time to pierce the veil and learn about Miracle Worker.
One with the Multiverse
Thriving Moor
Underground River
Each precon from Duskmourn: House of Horror also comes with ten scheme cards, which can be used to play the Archenemy Commander variant. The Miracle Worker deck includes the following ten schemes:
You Cannot Hide from Me
Miracle Worker Commander Deck Themes
The deck’s name suggests that it’s chock-full of cards with miracle, but there are only three in the entire deck.The real theme is enchantments, which Aminatou, Veil Piercer enhances by providing miracle to them.
Enchantments are reasonably safe permanents becausemost players focus on removing creaturesand only run limited enchantment removal in their decks. So, while they might have an answer to one or two of your early threats, they’re likely to run out soon so that you can set up freely.
Your commander, Aminatou, Veil Piercer,enhances your enchantments by giving them all miracle, with a miracle cost four generic mana lower than the mana cost. This means that not only can youcast enchantments for up to 80 percent less than their mana cost, you’re able to cast enchantments as instants.
Miracle costs can only be paid when the miracle card is the first you draw on a turn, soAminatou also helps you manipulate the top of your deck. At the beginning of your upkeep, she allows you to surveil two, looking at the top two cards in your library and putting them back in any order or putting any of them in your graveyard.
Aminatou’s power in Magic lore is to manipulate fate, which the deck represents with lots of options totinker with the top of your deck. Blue staples like Ponder and Brainstorm are especially strong in this situation, and the deck even includes all three on-color temples so that you can scry just from playing your land for the turn.
Use instant-speed card draw to cast instant enchantments and enchantment creatures in response to your opponents' spells and attacks.
The Miracle Worker deckalso includes several payoffs for enchantments, like Starfield Mystic’s ability to grow as your enchantments are destroyed, or the growing protection afforded by Sphere of Safety as you play more enchantments. These allow the deck to function without relying on Aminatou’s presence, although the deck will run best with her in play.
The Master of Keys is the alternative commander in the Miracle Worker deck. After enchantments and miracles,the deck has a tertiary recursion theme, with several ways to bring enchantments and creatures back into play from the graveyard. The Master of Keys leans into this theme by giving all of your enchantments escape, with a cost equal to the mana value plus exiling three cards from your graveyard.
WhereAminatou, Veil Piercer makes enchantments less expensivewhen cast as miracles,The Master of Keys makes them more expensivewhen cast from your graveyard. The deck already runs lots of expensive spells, relying on Aminatou to make them affordable, so she’s a better optionunless you’re playing as the archenemywith the included scheme cards.
Miracle Worker Deck Analysis
The Miracle Worker deckbuilds value out of enchantments, gaining the extra benefit of being able to cast them at drastically reduced costs via Aminatou’s miracle effect. you may only take advantage of that once per turn, but you are able to set yourself up to do it on your opponents' turns, too.
Preconstructed commander decks often split their focus between two themes, but in Miracle Worker we find that it has a split secondary theme: the deck is eitherenchantments with a miracle subtheme or enchantments with a recursion subtheme.
The recursion subtheme supports Aminatou, Veil Piercer, by making it a little easier to decide to throw stuff into your graveyard via surveil. However,the miracle subtheme doesn’t do much to enhance the recursion subthemeif you put The Master of Keys in your command zone, since it becomes unreliable.
Rather than upgrading the deck for The Master of Keys, consider building a more cohesive deck with additional mill and mana acceleration for it. Meanwhile,there are some solid upgrade optionsfor Aminatau, Veil Piercer at the helm.
Dream Eater
Nightmare Shepherd
Bottomless Pool is a slower Unsummon, which is already a weak removal option. Locker Room adds additional functionality, but it’slimited by the fact that you only get one card draw, regardless of how many creatures you attack with.
Spirit Sister’s Call is a fine recursion option if you have a bunch of extra permanents like creature tokens, butthis deck doesn’t include many options to enable it. In order to activate it, you’ll need to keep sacrificing important permanents, and there are better options for your limited deck space.
Although the deck is starving for more card draw, Read the Bones, Thirst For Meaning, and Brainstone are allunderwhelming draw optionsto the point that they should be replaced by more efficient options. Commander’s Sphere fits into the same category: it’s a three-mana rock that you can sacrifice to draw a card, and both effects have better options.
Verge Rangers does give you the ability to look at your top card but not to change it, and itonly offers a little ramp in really specific situations. You’ll be better off with something more reliable.
Athreos, Shroud Veiled and Nightmare Shepherd both offer a little recursion and protection against board wipes, but only for creatures.You’re more worried about enchantments, which they don’t protect.Keep them if you decide to add more destruction-based board wipes and enchantment creatures. Otherwise, they don’t pull their weight.
Reason
Starfield of Nyx
Starfield of Nyx adds a little more enchantment recursion, allowing you tokeep bringing back your most important enchantmentsand biggest enchantment creatures. With Metamorphosis Fanatic, it’s a two-for-one. It alsoturns your noncreature enchantments into enchantment creatureswith power and toughness equal to the mana value, which is really high on a lot of the included enchantments.
Zur, Eternal Schemer
Zur gives all of your enchantment creaturesdeathtouch, lifelink, and hexproof, making them a much bigger threat as soon as he comes into play. He also turns enchantments into enchantment creatures for just two mana, allowing you to build up an army without Starfield of Nyx.
Inquisitive Glimmer
A lot of the enchantments in the deck are prohibitively expensive without Aminatou, Veil Piercer in play, so you may struggle if your opponents keep targeting her. Inquisitive Glimmer can help byreducing the casting and unlock costs of your enchantments, along with providing a decent early-game blocker. With Aminatou, Veil Piercer in play, it still reduces enchantments you don’t play as miracles.
Entity Tracker
Classic green/white enchantress decks use cards like Mesa Enchantress to replenish their hands while casting lots of cheap enchantments. Miracle Worker does include Mesa Enchantress in the 99, but no other similar effects. This provides thematic redundancy so that you can keep your hand full more easily.
Mind Unbound
Mind Unbound’s effect is a lot like “cumulative upkeep: draw a card.” In a big deck like Commander, it’s a really strong draw effect, but expensive at six mana. Aminatou, Veil Piercer lets you get it out for just two blue mana, which should really make up for the lack of reliable card draw in the original decklist.
Aminatou, the Fateshifter
The original Aminatou is a fantastic addition, allowing you to draw a card and put a card from your hand on top of your deck on each of your turns. You should use this toset up the next card you want to miraculously castbefore your turn ends. She also allows you toflicker one of your permanentsat the cost of a loyalty counter, so you can trigger enter effects, untap a land, or recover missing stolen permanents.
Talisman of Dominance
The biggest hurdle the Miracle Worker deck faces is that itrelies on the commander to function properly. Without Aminatou, Veil Piercer in play, a lot of the enchantments are too expensive to cast before you fall way behind your opponents. Additional mana rocks in the form ofTalisman of Dominance, Talisman of Hierarchy, and Talisman of Progresswill help you get her out early and stay in the game when she’s stuck in the command zone.
The Reality Chip
The Reality Chip is a solid addition just for the ability to peek at the top of your library. Then, if you reconfigure it into an Equipment and attach it to a creature, you functionally get an extra card in your hand. You can play lands and cast spells from the top of your deck, allowing you toget rid of the low-mana spells and lands while looking for bombs to cast via miracle.
Escape Tunnel
Any precon that includes either Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse should immediately swap it out for Escape Tunnel. It maintains the exact same functionality but includesthe extra ability to make a creature with power two or less unblockable. Even if you only have a couple of creatures that you can target, that functionality detracts nothing from the primary effect and can be used to negotiate with other players who need to attack with small creatures.
Other Upgrade Options
Playing The Archenemy
The schemes that come with Miracle Worker synergize better with The Master of Keysthan with Aminatou, Veil Piercer. The loss of Aminatou’s miraculous cost reduction doesn’t hurt as much when My Wealth Will Bury You generates piles of Treasure tokens, and Only I Know What Awaits and I Am Duskmourn allow you to cast free spells.
Three more of the schemes buff your commander or another creature, encouraging you to play more aggressively. The Master of Keys also benefits more from these schemes, allowing you torack up damage fast with your flying Horror.
The schemes that most benefits from Aminatou, Veil Piercer is Time Bends to My Will, which gives you an extra turn but does not allow you to untap on that turn. Lacking in ways to untap or creatures with vigilance, this may not seem useful. Aminatou benefits from it by gettinganother opportunity to cast a miracle, though at a steep cost reduction.
