Commander Deck Of The Week: Estrid, The Masked

When Commander 2018 came out, I got my partner Wendy the Adaptive Enchantment preconstructed deck.  She loved it, and together we tweaked the list, and it has been a mainstay of her stable of Commander decks ever since.  Along the way I picked it up and played it a few times and had a lot of fun with it. As new cards came out, I had ideas for how to change and update it, but since that was her deck, not my deck, I eventually decided to build an Estrid, the Masked deck of my own that I could make changes to without bothering hers.

A Higher Power

The deck is a lot of fun, but the synergies are quite powerful and rather relentless, so I only bring it out at higher-powered games where people are packing interaction.  The deck can generate a ton of mana due to Estrid’s +2 ability untapping lands that have been enchanted with mana-producing Auras, and there is a bunch of enchantment-triggered card draw in the deck as well; big mana plus card draw are two pillars of doing busted things in Commander. 

Estrid’s -7 ability provides the relentlessness for the deck, allowing you to get any enchantments your opponents have destroyed back from the graveyard to the battlefield. If your opponents are unable to disrupt your plans, the deck will march on to victory pretty quickly.  It’s why I don’t run any counterspells, and no way to make all my key permanents have shroud or hexproof, even though there are plenty of enchantments that can do just that.  I prefer to see if I can grind through my opponents’ interaction and pull out victory anyway, and if not, I’ve usually had fun along the way, and that’s what important!

Okay, let’s dig into the deck.

Mana Ramp

I learned early on that the deck runs a lot differently depending on whether you have early Aura-based mana ramp, so I consider this the most crucial part of the deck.  It’s a little wild that you can often cast Estrid early thanks to the mana ramp, use her plus ability to untap a few lands, and then have enough mana to cast something else in the same turn. A fairly recent addition to this group is Nature’s Embrace; I like to put this on one of my three creature-lands if I can (such as Lumbering Falls), so I can use it for ramp early on, and when I animate the land later, it can take advantage of the +2/+2 boost.  Of course, sometimes I will slap it on a creature on the battlefield if I’m not really in need of the mana ramp.

Removal Enchantments

I’ve got interaction of my own in the form of enchantment-based removal.  A brand-new addition is Exchange of Words from Unfinity.  As an enchantment, it synergizes with what I’ve got going on here, and can be used to swipe the text box from an opposing threatening creature in exchange for one of mine that presumably won’t be nearly as helpful.  I haven’t had a chance to cast it yet, but I expect it to be a hoot.

Enchantments/Auras Matter

Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has been making “enchantments matter” cards for a long, long time, from the early days of Verduran Enchantress and Serra’s Sanctum to the more recent goodies Protean Thaumaturge and Weaver of Harmony.  This line-up has changed over the years, but there are a lot of payoff cards for playing enchantments.  One recent addition is Faith Healer because I’ve found being able to sacrifice an enchantment to protect from an exile effect has been clutch, and occasionally the life boost has been a literal lifesaver.

Enchantment Creatures

From the original Theros block, to Theros Beyond Death, and most recently in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, enchantment creatures are fantastic in an Estrid deck. They trigger all the enchantment synergies, and when you activate Estrid’s ultimate ability, any of them in the graveyard will come right back. I was excited to slot in Colossal Skyturtle this year, which can be channeled early for some interaction or utility, and then brought back with Estrid as a formidable evasive body.

Don’t overlook Destiny Spinner’s activated ability, which can be a real win condition in this deck, cashing in the mana ramp to turn two or even three lands into massive beatdown creatures.

Auras

While I used to have a fair number of Umbra Auras like Bear Umbra and Felidar Umbra in the deck, over time I replaced them with enchantment creatures and the Runes from Kaldheim. I like the Runes because they’re cheap, they draw you a card right away, and in a pinch you can enchant a land with them and get to untap the lands with Estrid’s +2 ability. 

I love Colossification, and was super-excited to slam it into my Estrid deck.  You can enchant one of your creatures on your turn, activate Estrid’s ability to untap all of your enchanted permanents to untap the creature with Colossification, and then attack with your mighty +20/+20!

Other Enchantments

Finest Hour is the last of my “fun-of” enchantments from my initial build of the deck. I’ve always loved the enchantment, and appreciate having the ability to crash in for an extra attack step outside of red.  Shark Typhoon jumped in not long after Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths was released; cycle it early for a little flying Shark, then bring it back with Estrid’s ultimate, and then every time you cast a noncreature spell, you get more flying Sharks!

Wizard Class got added to round out the lower mana curve, providing a little extra card draw and eventually adding +1/+1 counters to make a threat even more threatening.

Other Creatures

I’ve still got a few creatures that don’t exactly fit the enchantment theme, though I think they still warrant slots.  Dragonlord Ojutai is a great target for Estrid’s -1 ability, since it has hexproof so long as it’s untapped, and the Mask Aura protects it from most destroy effects.  If it survives with the Mask token, then Estrid’s +2 ability will untap it after you attack with it.

Monastery Mentor spits out Monk tokens for all the noncreature spells in the deck, and we’ve got around 36 of them, including our commander.  I recently found room for “Sky Noodle” Yorion, Sky Nomad; it can reset Estrid if loyalty has gotten too low, and there are a lot of enchantment-triggers that we can take advantage of again by exiling them and bringing them back with Yorion.

Planeswalker/Commander Stuff

Since our commander is a planeswalker, I was happy to add Oath of Gideon and Oath of Teferi to the list. The Chain Veil might even count as a flavor win, since you could say the Veil counts as a mask, right? 

Even if that’s a stretch, in terms of sheer power, The Chain Veil is one way the deck can “go off” into combo mode.  What you’ll need are enough lands enchanted with Auras to provide four mana when tapped, and then put a Mask Aura from Estrid onto The Chain Veil itself; keep in mind one of the Runes can work as well. Activate The Chain Veil to activate one of Estrid’s loyalty abilities again this turn, and +2 her to untap all our enchanted permanents. You can do it over and over until you’ve got enough loyalty to ultimate Estrid and get back all the enchantments in your graveyard.

Sanctum of Eternity can do a similar thing if you’ve got enough mana from enchanted lands and Sanctum is also enchanted.  Tap for a bunch of mana, activate Estrid’s +2 ability to untap, and in response activate Sanctum to return Estrid to your hand. Recast Estrid, and do it all over again. You’ll do this basically to generate a ton of mana.

Forge of Heroes won’t really let you go off, but if you’ve enchanted it, you can use it twice when Estrid enters the battlefield to add two more loyalty to Estrid, which should ramp you up to seven loyalty right away.

Interaction

Some of my enchantments provide a level of interaction, like Confounding Conundrum to slow down land ramp strategies and Ghostly Prison constricting go wide strategies. I’ve also added the new Malanthrope from Warhammer 40,000 for some nice graveyard interaction. Alchemist’s Refuge is great for letting us dodge sorcery-speed removal by playing during an opponent’s end step, or as a trick in the middle of combat.

Removal

I rounded off the deck with a few of your standard white and blue creature removal options to handle situations that my enchantments might otherwise struggle with.

Okay, here is the full decklist:

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

What must-have cards might I have missed including in my Estrid, the Masked deck?  Are there any newer cards I might have overlooked?

Talk to Me

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.

I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can.  If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel.  You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews. 

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.