Top 10 Card-Draw Cards in Magic: The Gathering for Strategic Advantage

The Power of Card-Draw in MTG

Draw cards in Magic: The Gathering are extremely powerful cards, as they are in most trading card games. Being able to see more cards than just the top deck each turn can help you find the pieces you need to pull off a winning combo or just get that final attacker into play that gives you just enough damage to win the game. Of course, draw cards come in many different variants. Some are just straight up draw and will say something like “draw 2 cards”. Some trigger when something else happens during the battle e.g. “When you play an instant or sorcery card, draw a card”.

Each mana colour has draw cards, but some (we’re looking at you blue) are blessed with more than others. Unlike games like Pokemon, MTG is a bit more limited in its draw cards and there are several that are considered too powerful and have been banned from multiple formats. Today we are going to take a look at our top 10 draw cards in Magic: The Gathering and what better place to start than one of those banned cards.

Top 10 Card-Draw Cards Overview

10. Treasure Cruise: Low-cost, high-reward card-draw

9. Rishkar’s Expertise: 2 spells for the price of 1

8. Esper Sentinel: White's rare card-draw capability

7. Sphinx’s Revelation: Card-draw combined with life gain

6. Beast Whisperer: Turning creature plays into card-draw

5. Rhystic Study: Drawing cards through opponent's spells.

4. Faithless Looting: Red's premier card-draw and discard option

3. Sylvan Library: Continuous draw with a life trade-off

2. Skullclamp: Turning creature sacrifice into card advantage

1. Brainstorm: Instant card-draw and deck manipulation

Deep Dive into Each Card & The Strategic Use of Card-Draw

10. Treasure Cruise

Treasure cruise is so powerful that it has been banned from most formats. It usually costs 8 mana to cast and allows you to draw 3 cards. However, it also has delve. Delve allows you to exile cards from your graveyard in exchange for paying the mana cost. For each card you exile in this way, you can reduce the mana cost by one. Which means most people exile 7 cards and pay only a single blue to draw 3 cards. No wonder this one got banned!

9. Rishkar’s Expertise

Rishkar’s Expertise is often seen as a late game card, due to its 6 mana cost. However, it can often give you that extra dig that you need for that game ending card. Rishkar’s Expertise allows you to draw a number of cards equal to the greatest power creature you control. As this is a green card, I’m pretty certain you’re going to have some big beasts in play! But wait, there’s more! Once you have drawn a massive handful of cards, you can also play a card with a converted mana cost of 5 or less straight from your hand without having to pay its cost. That is bonkers good, it’s basically 2 cards in 1!

8. Esper Sentinel

When Esper Sentinel was first released in Modern Horizons II, players of white decks could be heard rejoicing all over the world! White has traditionally struggled with draw and Esper Sentinel went a long way to filling that gap. Although not as strong as some others on this list, the fact that it is often so critical to white decks has helped it to join this list. Whenever your opponent casts their first non-creature spell each turn, you may draw a card, unless your opponent pays X (where X is Esper Sentinel's power). This means that if you are able to get some +1 counters on it or it is being buffed by other cards then X could be pretty high and almost guarantees you a card draw each time. Esper Sentinel is also a Human, which is a very relevant creature type, particularly in white decks and so it’s no surprise to see it make our list.

7. Sphinx’s Revelation

Sphinx’s Revelation is fantastic for making those late game comebacks and offers plenty of flexibility thanks to its cost. It costs X +3, and when played you gain X life and draw X cards. That is amazing for those players that are staring down defeat, only for them to draw up a full hand of cards and gain enough life to get them through the next turns. The combination of ‘unlimited’ card draw and life gain is definitely not to be sniffed at in the Magic world.

6. Beast Whisperer

Beast Whisperer is a great support for green decks. With a 4 mana cost, this 2/3 creature really rewards you for getting creatures into play, something that green decks tend to like doing anyway! Its text reads “Whenever you cast a creature spell, draw a card”. As simple as that, what more do we need to say? This means that you will probably be drawing an extra card every single turn. What’s even better is that even if your spell is countered, you can still draw that extra card. Beast Whisperer can be a real game changer for you whenever it is in play.

5. Rhystic Study

Rhystic Study should be played with caution as you may not have many friends left after the game! It is one of the most frustrating cards for your opponents to play against. It is a 3 cost blue enchantment that allows you to draw a card each time an opponent casts a spell, unless they pay 1 mana to stop you doing so. This can be incredible in multiplayer commander as you can be drawing a ton of cards! It’s always a fun mini game to see which of your opponents stops paying the cost first!

4. Faithless Looting

Often argued as Red’s premier card draw in Magic: The Gathering, Faithless Looting has found its way into tons of decks on a consistent basis. As is so often the case with the best cards, it only costs you 1 red mana, perfect start! It then allows you to draw 2 cards, but you also have to discard 2 cards. This just means you have to be a little bit smarter when building your deck and include cards that maybe need to be in the discard pile to use an effect or just know which cards you won’t need in certain matchups. What makes this even stronger is that it has a flashback cost of 3 mana, so you can cast it from your graveyard before you exile it, meaning you can get 2 uses out of this great card!

3. Sylvan Library

Sylvan Library is a fantastic bit of draw support for green decks. The card is an enchantment which lets you draw an extra 2 cards at the beginning of your turn. Out of the 3 cards you draw for turn you may put 2 of them back on top of your deck or you can keep them, but you will pay 4 life for each one that you keep. So you can keep 1 and put 2 back or even keep all 3 and pay 8 life. It’s a severe trade off but it can be really helpful if you know that those cards can win you the game that turn. Even putting cards back on top of the deck can help you control your draws and the flow of your game. It is a much needed help for green and with a mana cost of only 2, you’re going to be able to get this into play pretty quickly and be seeing 3 every turn.

2. Skullclamp

Skullclamp is widely regarded as the best equipment card in the game and has been since its release. It has a 1 mana cost and it costs 1 to equip. When equipped to a creature, it gives +1/-1, which may seem odd at first glance. But really, this plays into the strength of Skullclamp because whenever the creature it is attached to dies, you draw 2 cards. This is a super way of killing off your own creatures to guarantee you a 2 card draw. If you are able to go wide on your board and flood it with toughness 1 creatures, then you can pretty much just pay 1 mana to draw 2 cards as much as you like. Some decks combine this strategy with cards that punish your opponent each time your creatures die (such as Blood Artist), and this has seen lots of success in winning decks.  

1. Brainstorm

There are lots of reasons that Brainstorm tops our table, as well as many others out there! For starters, it only costs one mana to cast and is an instant. That means you can throw it down whenever you want, as long as you have 1 blue mana available. Brainstorm lets you draw 3 cards and then put 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck in any order. This doesn’t even have to be the ones you drew into, it could be dead cards that you have in hand already or a couple of lands for the next turn. So not only do you get to see extra cards, you get to stack your deck for the next turn too! There is a reason that Brainstorm is restricted in certain formats!

Incorporating Card-Draw into Your Deck

As we can see, additional card draw is available for every colour, so there are options for all your favourite decks. Drawing cards in Magic is so important and can make a big difference to your win ratio! But make sure you are incorporating cards which can also be discarded, as draw cards often have that secondary effect. Spend some time considering all your options and how the cards best synergise to get the most out of the cards and have the best playing experience.