The 37 Best Auras in Magic Ranked

Last updated on July 13, 2026

Spectra Ward | Illustration by Ryan Alexander Lee

Hello Planeswalkers! Your aura seems to be glowing. Flattery aside, auras have become a universal enchantment type that infiltrates many decks and formats. These permanents provide a wide range of benefits from buffs to removal. You don’t have to be as dedicated to auras as Eriette of the Charmed Apple, but you should be aware of their power.

So what can these auras do for your builds? Do you have to dedicate yourself to an aura-matters deck for them to be effective? Let’s see if we can answer these questions and look at the best auras to add to your decks now!

What Is an Aura in MTG?

Rancor | Illustration by Kev Walker

Auras are an enchantment subtype that attaches to a permanent or player. These evergreen permanents require a target to cast and resolve and each aura has some specific card types it card target. Auras cover many uses from removal like Pacifism to massive pumps like Super Strength.

If you're a longtime player, you’ve experienced these cards since MTG was founded, but usually by different names like “local enchantments” or “enchant creature” cards.

#37. Daybreak Coronet

Daybreak Coronet is a massive stats and keyword buff for a creature that already has an aura attached to it. This shouldn’t be such a hard requirement to achieve if you have role tokens through cards like Ellivere of the Wild Court.

#36. Sticky Fingers

Sticky Fingers is the early curve enabler for aggressive red decks. This aura gives a creature menace for evasion and ramps up your mana with Treasure tokens, which means it refunds its own cost almost immediately. It even replaces itself if the enchanted creature dies.

#35. Hydra’s Growth

Hydra's Growth starts off slow, giving just a single +1/+1 counter. The true value lies in doubling the counters on the enchanted creature each turn. If it isn’t removed quickly, you’ll have a massive creature in a few turns. Playing this aura on top of cards like Doubling Season speeds this up even more.

#34. Kaya’s Ghostform

State to your opponents which creature or planeswalker truly matters to you by enchanting it with Kaya's Ghostform. This aura saves a bomb creature, planeswalker, or even your commander from exile or death.

#33. Moonlit Meditation

Most token creation cards are balanced by their tokens being somewhat small for the cost; Raise the Alarm is a fair card because, in essence, it’s a Grizzly Bears. Moonlit Meditation breaks that balancing mechanism. Why not make two Terror of the Peaks? Or Agent of Treachery? This is very Commander-coded, but so much fun there.

#32. Spectra Ward

Spectra Ward makes one of your creatures almost unstoppable (board wipes ruin anyone’s time). This aura gives a creature protection from all the colors, making it unblockable and untargetable by spells. As an added bonus, this aura doesn’t remove already attached auras on a creature, though it does prevents you from attaching future auras.

#31. Gift of Immortality

If you liked returning a dying creature to the battlefield with Kaya's Ghostform, you’ll love Gift of Immortality. A creature enchanted by this aura comes back indefinitely. Sounds better than it is in practice though, since exile removal breaks up the loop, and the creature can be perma-killed a second time before the aura re-attaches.

#30. Fraying Sanity

We’ll discuss the curse subtype further down this list, but I wanted to highlight Fraying Sanity. This enchantment only fits into mill decks, but doubles your milling potential against one unlucky opponent. You can even eliminate players by pairing this with a card like Traumatize.

#29. Mechanized Production

Mechanized Production is not a highly publicized alternative wincon. The goal is to maximize your artifact production to get to at least eight artifacts of the same name and win with this aura attached to one of them. Artifact tokens are likely the quickest way to achieve this, with cards like Myrel, Shield of Argive or Academy Manufactor looking like promising enablers.

#28. Pain for All

If there aren’t enough Stuffy Dolls that match your taste, Pain for All lets you make any creature of your choice mimic that classic 5-drop. The baseline is a removal spell that zaps a creature, and the ceiling busts your opponents’ doors down. It works extremely well with fight spells and lifelink.

#27. Journey to Eternity / Atzal Cave of Eternity

Journey to Eternity is one of the easiest dual-sided cards to transform from the Ixalan block. Attach it to a creature, and when it dies you return it and this card transformed into Atzal, Cave of Eternity. You then have a wonderful engine for reanimating creatures. This card is loaded with potential advantage-shifting interactions.

#26. With Great Power . . .

With Great Power . . . iterates on a familiar space: an aura that scales based on the number of auras you control, like Sage's Reverie and All That Glitters. It’s on the pricier side at 4 mana, but the damage redirection is juicy. Slap this on an indestructible creature and your opponents will have serious issues winning fairly.

#25. Oblivion Ring Auras

Auras based off the famous Oblivion Ring exile a permanent for as long as the aura is on the battlefield. Oblivion Rings are risky removal spells as they can be removed, but enchantment removal is less common than other forms of interaction. Ossification is hyper-efficient, Sheltered by Ghosts is great for aggressive decks, and Imprisoned in the Moon and Song of the Dryads turn bomb permanents into lands. Hardlight Containment is a notably efficient variant on the effect.

#24. Sage’s Reverie

Sage's Reverie was made for an aura-matters deck; there isn’t much use for it anywhere else. You get a large burst of card draw and pump depending on the number of auras you have attached to creatures when this enters. It's a narrow but powerful payoff for sticking to the archetype.

#23. Brilliant Wings

Brilliant Wings spins a protection spell by spreading the love around; this is effectively Swiftfoot Boots for the aura player. It’s weaker than the Boots without dedicated enchantment/aura synergies, but it gives that deck just enough protection to be useful. The flying is also quite dangerous once you start eyeing All That Glitters and similar effects.

#22. Shadowmoor Auras

From the Shadowmoor block came 2-color hybrid auras that pump enchanted creatures depending on how many of the two colors they are. Steel of the Godhead is an Azorius example that gives lifelink to white creatures and unblockable to blue ones. Other examples are Shield of the Oversoul, Clout of the Dominus, and Runes of the Deus.

#21. Curiosity Auras

These auras are usually cheap enchantments attached to evasive creatures that draw you cards whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player. Cards like Curiosity give you huge advantages if used properly. Other examples of these auras are Combat Research, Keen Sense, and Ophidian Eye.

#20. Mantle of the Ancients

Imagine a mass enchantment reanimator with the pump of an Ethereal Armor. Well, that card is Mantle of the Ancients, a great inclusion for aura- and equipment-matters decks. Bring back all your equipment and aura cards from the graveyard, attach them to your enchanted creature, pump that creature for each of those cards, and profit!

#19. Timely Ward

Timely Ward gives indestructible for a reasonable price of 3 mana. That’s good, but the real value lies in flash letting you save your commander at instant speed. Protecting any commander is great, but some have extra benefits, like Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice or Wyleth, Soul of Steel. Shielded by Faith is another protective enchantment with an ability to transfer between creatures when they enter.

#18. Celestial Mantle

Celestial Mantle is a cool aura enchantment that can double your life total multiple times. Attached to an evasive creature like Invisible Stalker, this card ensures your life total never gets close to 0. The high mana value and ease of removal are significant downsides, though.

#17. Curses

These auras enchant a player and reward you or punish the enchanted player whenever something specific happens. These can apply pressure like Torment of Scarabs or incentivize your opponents to attack other players like Curse of Predation. Curse of Opulence and Curse of Bounty are my favorites.

#16. Curse of Misfortunes

This curse gets its own ranking because of its effectiveness in a curse deck. Curse of Misfortunes fetches other curse enchantments from your deck with different names than curses attached to the enchanted player. In 1v1 this can be a devastating way to curse your opponent with cards like Overwhelming Splendor and Maddening Hex.

#15. Aqueous Form

Aqueous Form is a super cheap way to make a creature unblockable. This aura is great when pumping up creatures or aiming to win with commander damage. The low mana value and high evasion makes this a great option if all you're missing is evasion.

#14. Level Up

There are effects similar to Level Up but none quite so efficient. If the cheap power weren’t enough, this puts the first counter on the creature and even comes with card advantage once you make it large enough—which should only take a few attacks, assuming you’re running this in a deck with other +1/+1 counter support.

#13. Nerfing Auras

These auras “transform” an opponent’s best creature into a vanilla card. The quintessential example is Kenrith's Transformation. It's a great tradeoff to transform an opponent’s best creature, hopefully their commander, into a minor threat. Similar auras include Darksteel Mutation, Lignify, and Witness Protection. I especially like Amphibian Downpour for storm decks. Unable to Scream is the most efficient of these options, so much so that players joke about it being the blue Swords to Plowshares.

#12. Land Auras

Auras that enchant lands to provide more mana are great for getting ahead of curves. These auras often play slower in the early game to help you out-pace your opponents later. Some of them help to fix your mana like Fertile Ground, and others help you leap ahead of your curve like Overgrowth. I also like Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Abundant Growth, and Buried in the Garden.

#11. Ancestral Mask

Ancestral Mask is a wonderful aura for the green enchantment decks. +2/+2 is just a large bonus, and it even counts enchantments that your opponents control. This card attached to something like Kor Spiritdancer is a recipe for success.

#10. Impetus Auras

The impetus auras provide a wonderful boost to your creatures or incite chaos in a multiplayer game. With these auras, you benefit whenever the enchanted creature attacks, and goading an opponent's creature makes sure other players take the damage. All the impetus auras have potential, but I particularly like Shiny Impetus, Ghoulish Impetus, and Parasitic Impetus.

#9. Breath of Fury

Breath of Fury is an enchantment that continually gives you value. With the right cards (including Splinter Twin below), you can create tons of or potentially even infinite combats. This aura is perfect for token- and clone-creating decks.

#8. Splinter Twin

Splinter Twin exists to create infinite combos. A few cards that do this include Village Bell-Ringer, Port Razer, and Fear of Missing Out. This aura has immense value for all sorts of strategies, from infinite loops to big-body stompy.

#7. Alpha Status

Get your typal decks ready and throw in Alpha Status. This aura pumps the enchanted creature for each other creature that shares a creature type with it, which can be an absolute game-ender. If you don’t feel like running a typal deck, a card like Maskwood Nexus could still justify including Alpha Status in your deck.

#6. Umbras

I’m cheating and throwing all the Umbra cards into one category. The umbras are auras that give different keywords and pumps depending on the color, and totem armor. That nulls the effect of dying by sacrificing the aura instead, protecting your valuable creature. Many of the umbras are valuable but I believe the best three are Bear Umbra, Snake Umbra, and Hyena Umbra.

#5. Super State

If you need a big, flashy aura suited to Commander, look no further than Super State, part of the Sonic the Hedgehog Secret Lair that makes any creature into a powerful threat. It levels the playing field for aggro in Commander by damaging all your opponents at once, which makes it far easier for aggro and Voltron decks to close the game.

#4. Eldrazi Conscription

Eldrazi Conscription is another expensive, over-the-top colorless aura. This fits into any Commander deck and gives a creature a massive pump, an evasive keyword, annihilator. Include this aura with already beastly Eldrazi like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, or just conscript one of your many other creatures.

#3. Rancor

The pump and keyword Rancor gives to an enchanted creature is not the reason it makes this list. This aura is great because when it is put into a graveyard it returns to your hand, making this a reusable and cheap pump. Angelic Destiny has a similar return condition, but Rancor's much more widely played.

#2. Ethereal Armor

Ethereal Armor is one of the main reasons aura-based decks are successful. It has one of the highest cost-to-pump ratios on a board full of enchantments, and first strike makes the enchanted creature virtually unstoppable in combat.

#1. All That Glitters

All That Glitters differentiates itself from Ancestral Mask and Ethereal Armor by counting two types of permanents. This aura fits well into so many different kinds of enchantment-matters or artifact-matters decks. All your enchantments and artifacts help pump up the enchanted creature, and a card like Mycosynth Lattice greatly improves this buff.

Best Aura Payoffs

We might as well start with the auras-matter commanders. Commanders like Sythis, Harvest's Hand, Uril, the Miststalker, and Eriette, the Beguiler benefit immensely from all of your bomb auras. We can even include some more general enchantment commanders like Zur, Eternal Schemer and Tuvasa the Sunlit. 

Enchantress cards are key to pair with auras. Cards like Enchantress's Presence and Eidolon of Blossoms provide many draw triggers from your auras.

To get ahead of the curve and your opponents you can include cards that reduce the cost of your auras. Cards like Hero of Iroas, Danitha Capashen, Paragon, and Jukai Naturalist help you cast plenty of auras.

For those of you who like Voltron decks, Wyleth, Soul of Steel, Valduk, Keeper of the Flame, Kor Spiritdancer, and Kellan, the Fae-Blooded are prime candidates to load up on auras.

Heavenly Blademaster is a solid way to move around auras to try and sneak in some big combat steps. Glamer Spinners does the same thing, though only when it enters.

You want to benefit as much as you can from the auras you play beyond just the text on those enchantments. To ramp, use a card like Kodama of the West Tree; to trigger constellation use a card like Ajani's Chosen; and to copy your auras, try out Calix, Guided by Fate.

Bestow creatures help solve an issue that aura decks can run into. Springheart Nantuko, for example, can become an aura, or be the creature onto which you enchant other auras.

Can You Put an Aura on Any Creature?

Auras specify which permanents they can target and be attached to. Most auras that simply say “enchant creature” can target your own or an opponent's creature. Some auras will specify that they can only enchant your creatures.

How Do I Remove an Aura?

Auras are enchantments so any enchantment hate will work. Cards that destroy enchantments like Reclamation Sage, or even cards that remove permanents like Anguished Unmaking work.

Removing the target of the aura causes the aura to go to the graveyard after everything resolves. Any way you can remove a permanent will work, even other auras like Sheltered by Ghosts.

Is Enchant Creature the Same as an Aura?

Yes. Enchant creature was the original type used by cards to denote an enchantment that targets something. This type was later changed to aura to clear up some confusion between enchant creature and enchantments. They are the same card type, just updated, and work the same way and interact the same with triggers. Screams from Within has been updated to be an aura, and works perfectly fine with Eriette of the Charmed Apple, even if you're using an original printing with “enchant creature” in its rules text.

Wrap Up

Ethereal Armor | Illustration by Daarken

Well, my aura is spent. Hopefully all this hard work has shown you some of the best and most useful auras to include in your builds. This enchantment subtype can create powerful interactions and there will be plenty more auras to come in the future sets of MTG.

Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think of these rankings. If you want even more content, the official Discord channel, and check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

MTG is a wonderful game, so stay enchanted!