Chain Veil Estrid (Primer)

Commander / EDH Competitive Enchantment GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Primer Stax

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Land (39)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 2x Forest
• 1x Forge of Heroes
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 3x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 2x Plains
• 1x Razorverge Thicket
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Seachrome Coast
• 1x Serra's Sanctum
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (30)

• 1x Abundant Growth
• 1x Arcane Laboratory
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Banishing Light
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Enchantress's Presence
• 1x Energy Field
• 1x Frozen Aether
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Greater Auramancy
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Leyline of Sanctity
• 1x Lush Growth
• 1x Market Festival
• 1x New Horizons
• 1x Overgrowth
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x Rule of Law
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 1x Sheltered Aerie
• 1x Starfield of Nyx
• 1x Stasis
• 1x Stasis Snare
• 1x Sterling Grove
• 1x Stony Silence
• 1x Unbridled Growth
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Verdant Haven
• 1x Wild Growth

Creature (6)

• 1x Argothian Enchantress
• 1x Captain Sisay
• 1x Lodestone Golem
• 1x Mesa Enchantress
• 1x Satyr Enchanter
• 1x Thrasios, Triton Hero

Commander (1)

Instant (11)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Condemn
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Artifact (10)

• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x The Chain Veil
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Winter Orb

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Wrath of God

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So, let’s talk about Estrid.
Estrid, the Masked is a fairly absurd planeswalker, especially in a Stax list because of her +2 ability. Throwing down a Winter Orb or a Static Orb or a Stasis with Estrid out breaks the symmetry as you untap your ramp lands. This ability as well as the playing of both Null Rod and Stony Silence leads me to run little to no mana rocks, as the ramp auras that you see in decks like Modern Ponza and Tooth and Nail is just more effective at ramping Mana. The mana also allows us to circumvent the various tax effects that are being played by just having enough mana to play around it.

Combos Show

Finally, Estrid’s untap ability also allows us to win with The Chain Veil by producing infinite mana and infinite Replenish effects and infinite storm with infinite mana by casting Estrid infinite times. This is a two or three card combo, depending on Estrid’s loyalty count.
In order to solely make infinite mana, alls you need is a net of 1 activation of Estrid and a way to produce more than 4 mana with enchanted permanents. So you tap your lands for The Chain Veil activation. If you need to cast The Chain Veil as well, you need to have lands, the lands don’t need to be enchanted, to generate 4 extra mana. Then you use Estrid, the Masked’s -1 to put a mask on The Chain Veil. Then you tap 5+ mana in enchanted lands to use The Chain Veil’s ability to give Estrid another activation, adding two counters and untapping The Chain Veil. This is strictly an infinite mana combo, not necessarily winning the game in the spot. You can filter the mana naturally, but you need a Laboratory Maniac + Thrasios, Triton Hero or a Helix Pinnacle to win. If you don’t run labman or Helix Pinnacle, then in order to win you have to use the infinite cast triggers in the combo below. These two combos are fundamentally different because unless you had estrid out previously, and you ticked her down to an odd number and have a mask on The Chain Veil you cannot win without another card.

So this combo requires the ability to produce 16+ mana, scaling with the number of times you’ve cast Estrid from the command zone (+2 generic for each time) now, if you are just casting Estrid this turn, you need to have a Forge of Heroes out to put Estrid up to 4. Then you cast and activate The Chain Veil. If you already cast The Chain Veil, you only need 11 mana. If you already cast Estrid, then you need 7 mana. So you tap for 7 mana, and activate The Chain Veil for 1 CV activation. If CV isn’t masked, you -1 Estrid to mask CV. Then you activate Forge of Heroes to put a loyalty on Estrid to bump her up to three, if CV isn’t masked. If CV is masked and Estrid is on 2, 4, 6, or 8, you need to mask something. Essentially, you need to get Estrid in a position where that you will ultimate Estrid and kill herself, have 6+ mana left over, and multiple CV activations. Since The Chain Veil’s ability is linked to a player, not a planeswalker, if you kill Estrid and then recast her from the command zone, she will be able to activate Estrid’s abilities multiple times without activating CV. This leads to decking yourself, getting Blind Obedience on the battlefield, hopefully without Rule of Law and Arcane Laboratory. Since you win by casting Estrid infinite times and paying an additional mana to extort (draining) your opponents to death, a Rule of Law effect will stop you from winning. The alternative to casting Estrid is using Thrasios, Triton Hero’s ability to draw your deck, cast Blind Obedience, and then proceed to cast everything.

If you need The Chain Veil, there are two ways of finding it. The first is tutoring it with either Captin Sisay or Enlightened Tutor. This is the most effective way of finding The Chain Veil, and you can find Sisay with Worldly Tutor. Sisay’s other purpose is to find Thrasios, Triton Hero, which is also a target for Worldly Tutor.

The second method is straight draw, generally either from all-star Search for Azcanta   and Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. One of the best plays is to enchant Azcanta for multiple searchings. Sisay and Thrasios are basically the only targets of importance that Azcanta can’t grab.

Some of the hate pieces that this deck runs actually stops our combo. As stated earlier, the Rule of Law effects will prevent you from recasting Estrid and having a Null Rod and Stony Silence would shut off The Chain Veil. You need to remove these before comboing off. This becomes an even greater problem when you have Greater Auramancy or Sterling Grove out. If the grove is out, you just sac it to it’s ability. Greater Auramancy needs to leave first.

Stax Show

So this version of Chain Veil Estrid is more Stax based than combo based. Similar to Derevi, this deck focuses in on tap and tax effects. We can untap our lands with Estrid and use our enchantments to accelerate us to a position where the tax does not matter. Unfortunately, this does lead us to have to get Estrid out as soon as possible. It’s fairly impossible to achieve a nonsymmetrical lock without Estrid, the Masked. We have many Stax pieces to play, but they aren’t very good without Estrid breaking the symmetry. You want to ramp, play Estrid, then Stax.

Weaknesses Show

There are some silver bullet cards against us. Generally, if there is a tax effect preventing Estrid, we will lose. This is true for all commander-based decks. But specific cards of hate would be planeswalker hate like Solemnity, anti-enchantress cards like Aura Shards and Aura of Silence, and faster combo decks before the Stax.

If you are seeing a lot of these hate cards, putting cards to protect them like Torpor Orb and maybe ghostly prisons May be necessary.

Alternative Builds Show

Instead of focusing in solely on Stax, you could potentially go for a more tokens-based route with Doubling Season, Parallel Lives and Annointed Procession. With this you have the potential to cast an Armegeddon and have totem armor save all of your lands.

Stax pieces are also interchangeable. In a creature meta, you could run Overburden and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Against more artifact based decks, Energy Flux can be used.

So thank you for reading this primer. Please give me suggestions on how to improve this deck and upvote!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Laboratory Maniac + Thrasios, Triton Hero
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.49
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Mask