The 30 Best Selesnya Card Draw Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 23, 2024

Rite of Harmony | Illustration by Rovina Cai

Ensuring your deck has access to plenty of card advantage is important, especially in Commander, where games go long with four players duking out a battle of resources. Keeping your hand full is one of the easiest ways to win a game of Magic, as you’ll cast and see far more spells than your opponents.

But not all card draw is created equal. While blue and black have access to raw card draw in spells like Divination and Night's Whisper, other colors often need to lean into their themes to extract card advantage.

What does this mean for Selesnya decks? Let’s find out!

What Is Selesnya Card Draw in MTG?

Camaraderie | Illustration by Sidharth Chaturvedi

Selesnya card draw is card advantage from cards with a color identity. Green card draw and white card draw aren’t exactly amazing, though that’s been amended quite a bit in recent years. The color pair still has plenty of ways to keep its hand full, revolving around one of its core themes: creatures!

Selesnya is all about creatures. Often small ones, but occasionally large. As such, its card advantage is primarily tied to creatures. Drawing cards when they come into play, based on the number of creatures you control, or just putting creatures from your deck into your hand are the primary means Selesnya decks generate card advantage.

If creature-focused decks aren’t your jam, Selesnya has a tertiary form of card advantage in enchantresses, which leads you down the route of filling your deck with enchantments, like Ghostly Prison and Sterling Grove.

Selesnya card advantage is fairly restrictive; you need a high density of creatures or enchantments to make it work. You can’t just sit back on your laurels and let your hand fill itself the way blue and black can. But with that bit of work, you can find your hand overflowing with goodies to beat your opponents down.

#30. Ajani, Valiant Protector

Ajani, Valiant Protector guarantees a creature with its +1 ability, but at a relatively steep mana cost, held back further by the other abilities being pretty weak. There are better ways to do everything this planeswalker does, making it relatively unexciting.

#29. Ajani, Sleeper Agent

3-mana planeswalkers have a history of being quite powerful, but Ajani, Sleeper Agent fails to live up to the expectations. The card draw is just a little too narrow; you need a high creature count, and even then it still whiffs. The ultimate is lackluster. Casting enough creatures to get your opponents to a lethal amount of poison likely means you have the board presence to win the old-fashioned way.

#28. Sumala Woodshaper

Sumala Woodshaper is on the expensive side, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get some value out of it. Working with creatures and enchantments helps it stay flexible in Selesnya colors, and white is no stranger to flickering creatures with cards like Teleportation Circle. It’s relatively simple to get multiple triggers out of this elf.

#27. Woodvine Elemental

The strength of Woodvine Elemental falls to the whims of the table. Needing to attack is a fairly steep hurdle, but giving the table cards is a lovely political piece. Overall, this might be a little slow, but worth considering, especially for group-hug decks.

#26. Siona, Captain of the Pyleas

Seeing seven cards is quite a lot, so Siona, Captain of the Pyleas often draws an aura on ETB. The board presence is a welcome addition, allowing this narrow creature to generate two different types of card advantage for relatively little mana.

#25. Ohabi Caleria

Ohabi Caleria offers card advantage to a very niche card type, perhaps too niche. It’s also pretty costly to keep paying 2 mana, but this is still a fine card. It’s also quite interesting in concert with cards like Elven Chorus that turn all your creatures into mana dorks.

#24. Sigarda, Champion of Light

Sigarda, Champion of Light provides human typal decks with a strong source of card advantage, though it has some limits. Enabling coven isn’t the easiest since it requires a constant board state that’s always vulnerable to removal, and Sigarda can easily die before you see the first card.

#23. Park Heights Pegasus

Getting two creatures into play is a nasty requirement, but it’s fairly easy to do in token decks. Cards like Raise the Alarm and Skrelv's Hive go a long way towards enabling Park Heights Pegasus, which is efficient enough to sneak in a card before it dies.

#22. Calix, Destiny’s Hand

Calix, Destiny's Hand promises a stream of enchantments. This one’s for the enchantresses and doubles as an interesting mode of removal by turning any enchantment into an Oblivion Ring.

#21. Sigarda, Font of Blessings

Sigarda, Font of Blessings provides several powerful abilities. Giving your team hexproof is a great roadblock for your opponents since they need two pieces of interaction to kill anything that's not Sigarda, but the card advantage is what you want. Future Sight variants are always powerful. Getting the card draw is excellent, but the information can be invaluable, making this a solid option for decks playing tons of humans and angels.

#20. Femeref Enchantress

Of all the enchantresses, Femeref Enchantress is among the hardest to trigger since you generally don’t want to send your enchantments to the graveyard. But this has changed. There’s been a surge in saga support, both with commanders like Tom Bombadil and Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, and just large numbers of the card type coming from various sets. While still narrower than its siblings, Femeref Enchantress seems stronger than ever.

#19. Yasharn, Implacable Earth

Card advantage doesn’t necessarily mean drawing anything. Getting two lands off Yasharn, Implacable Earth is often quite powerful as it promises access to 6 mana over the next few turns. When that card advantage comes stapled to an efficient body with disruption, you get a respectable card.

#18. Leinore, Autumn Sovereign

While assembling coven can be tricky, the counters from Leinore, Autumn Sovereign go a long way towards helping. Even without coven, this is still a valuable source of free counters and can be intimidating once you’re drawing extra cards each turn.

#17. Huatli, Radiant Champion

A planeswalker’s ultimate isn’t the most reliable source of card advantage, but it doesn’t take much for Huatli, Radiant Champion to reach 8 loyalty with that +1. This plays best with tokens, which will generate enough bodies to enable and pay off the powerful emblem.

#16. Glittering Wish

The possibilities of Glittering Wish are nearly endless. You need a Rule 0 conversation for this to work in Commander, making it more of a Constructed card. In formats with sideboards, this does a lot of work, finding narrow answers to opposing threats at all points in the game.

#15. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes offers a lot of power. It’s always nice to have options on your card draw; getting to choose something other than a creature gives this much more flexibility than other options. The first ability is also a fantastic way to spread counters, especially with cards like Abzan Falconer and Skatewing Spy.

#14. Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee is a perfectly respectable hobbit and a valuable tool to many decks. While it’s foundational to quite a few combos, many revolving around Bill the Pony or Cauldron Familiar, a cheap creature that produces tokens and returns your best cards to hand is still a worthy companion.

#13. Gluntch, the Bestower

Of all the Selesnya card draw spells, Gluntch, the Bestower is the most friend-shaped. It’s also very respectable. Everybody loves a group hug player, and all three of these modes are valuable, even if you’ll want to be drawing cards or making Treasure more often than anything else.

#12. Camaraderie

Camaraderie is almost amazing. It would be if it was a true Overrun, but this is still respectable. You need a deck that produces a bunch of tokens or small creatures to make this worth the cost. It’s rather like the inverse of Rishkar's Expertise, rewarding you for going wide rather than tall.

#11. Ajani Unyielding

6-mana planeswalkers need to do a lot, but Ajani Unyielding makes a decent case for its inclusion. A deck with enough creatures can draw two cards off its uptick, which adds up quickly. This Ajani’s other abilities provide convincing enough interaction and a win condition that it’s solid for many casual decks.

#10. Torsten, Founder of Benalia

Torsten, Founder of Benalia is pretty expensive, but green decks excel at getting expensive cards out early. The reward is a massive burst of card advantage, often three or four cards. Torsten keeps the board advantage flowing when it dies, making this a well-rounded threat your opponents struggles to handle.

#9. Sergeant John Benton

Sergeant John Benton is a fascinating take on group hug card draw. Not giving this card advantage to every player makes it harder to keep it around but could make other players more willing to protect it. Once you start bolstering Benton’s power with anything from auras to +1/+1 counters, you can draw cards and kill your opponents before they can use them.

#8. Ellivere of the Wild Court

Ellivere of the Wild Court is a fantastic card design. Aura-based commanders often encourage Voltron builds that stack and equip everything on one massive creature, but the nature of roles and Ellivere’s powerful card advantage ability encourages going wide instead. And that’s a very tantalizing card draw ability, potentially netting three or more extra cards each combat.

#7. Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar

Like most modern cards, Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar has a lot of text. I love every bit of it. Between counters, auras, and anthems, it takes little to no effort for Selesnya decks to boost the power of their creatures. Coupled with the potent stax piece that kills countermagic and instant-speed removal, this card offers a powerful, proactive 3-drop.

#6. Selvala, Explorer Returned

Selvala, Explorer Returned is far fairer than its mono-green counterpart, but it’s still fiercely strong. Every player drawing a card is a downside that’s easily overcome by the mana advantage Selvala gets, and the information about which players are holding counterspells comes in handy.

#5. Satyr Enchanter

Satyr Enchanter is exactly what you want. Three mana is the standard rate for enchantresses, and triggering on cast is what’s expected of the archetype. There’s nothing spectacular about this card among its peers, but it belongs in basically every enchantress deck.

#4. Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant

Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant, AKA Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist, does many things, but you’re most interested in the card advantage. This card’s evasion ensures it basically always connects itself, but another Toski variant is just good. This creature is excellent in any go-wide creature deck that wants to hit its opponents.

#3. Captain Sisay

It takes some work to maximize Captain Sisay’s activated ability. But every set introduces more and more legendary cards, so this continually gets stronger, especially as you get legendary versions of other cards—like Skrelv, Defector Mite functioning as a legendary Mother of Runes.

#2. Sythis, Harvest’s Hand

All the enchantresses are powerful, but Sythis, Harvest's Hand is the best. It’s among the most efficient but being an enchantment pushes it over the top. It triggers other enchantments when cast late while benefiting from effects like Sterling Grove and Calix, Destiny's Hand.

#1. Rite of Harmony

Rite of Harmony would be an amazing card even if it didn’t have flashback. This works in every kind of Selesnya deck, from enchantress to creatures to tokens. The only requirement is plenty of mana to get multiple triggers, which isn’t an issue in green decks. This card fits into pretty much everything, making it the most flexible card draw spell as well as one of the most potent.

Best Selesnya Card Advantage Payoffs

Selesnya card advantage revolves around a high density of either creatures or enchantments. The best payoff is ensuring your deck has as high a density of those card types as possible, so they draw as many cards as possible.

For enchantment decks, make sure you reach for as many enchantment-based effects as possible. As good as Avacyn's Pilgrim and Path to Exile are, it’s important to fill your ramp and removal suite with effects like Utopia Sprawl and Journey to Nowhere that work with cards like Sythis, Harvest's Hand, and Rite of Harmony.

As for the creature decks, keeping them cheap is often ideal. Swarming the battlefield with small, powerful creatures, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Skyclave Apparition, and Loran of the Third Path is a great way to push the advantage you get from having so many cards in hand. The cheaper your spells are, the easier it is to capitalize on having so many of them; no matter how many 6-drops you draw, you’re still likely to play just one a turn for most of the game.

Wrap Up

Tadeas, Juniper Ascendant | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

One of the first things new Commander players are told is to stack their deck with card advantage, which makes sense, as drawing cards is one of the strongest game actions you can take. Selesnya’s card advantage revolves around creatures and enchantments, two card types with a wealth of support to build around and maximize.

What’s your favorite color pair? Are your Selesnya decks built around creatures or enchantments? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Twitter!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!