Nice card, but it would be far better if its deck had G to get to 8 mana consistently. As it is, it's... weird. Reminds me of Apex of Power, except this isn't hot garbage.
Will probably see far more play in UG decks than Aminatou herself.
So here's the "surprise for Kamigawa fans" we've been hinted at.
At first I read it as "When Yuriko deals damage" and I honestly thought it was pretty fine because she also dodged Commander Tax, but then I reread it and it said "whenever A NINJA deals damage". I mean... wow. This is actually pretty good.
I'm just super mad that Tetsuko isn't a Ninja. Once again, I'm well aware of why she isn't, but come on, just look at her!
Yawn.
They played it too safe here.
Did it *really* need to only work on basics and only work if you're two or more behind?
As repeatable Scry it's not bad, but the ramping ability is really damn narrow.
It's one of those "we're trying really hard to make monodecks not terrible" cards that Wizards likes to do from time to time.
Whatever deck it is in (likely Esper), it's probably meh because you'd rather have fixing, but in a mono-Anything-Not-Green, it has almost no drawbacks and ramps you if you're playing vs. Green.
That's one hell of a card to use Octopus Umbra with. 16 swinging on the air, tapping down blockers while doing so and making your whole team stronger? I like it.
I think either Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots are a given in the deck as well.
1) You need good cards to make another card good, 2) Said good cards must survive for Aminatou to get any extra value out of it and 3) Aminatou herself must survive as well.
How is what you said any different than Estrid? You literally need another card stapled onto a creature/land in order to get any any value out of Estrid.
a) The fact that there's a massive difference between ANY permanent and specifically a card with an ETB effect.
b) The fact that Point 2 is irrelevant for Estrid because she protects your good cards.
c) The fact that Estrid provides her own synergy for her +2 while Aminatou relies almost entirely on outside support.
d) The fact that every one of Estrid's effects give you both a reason and a reward to strengthen your board, while Aminatou's Ultimate only rewards you if you DON'T have a board.
e) The fact that there's a big difference between a +2 and a +1 when it comes to survivability for a Planeswalker.
^ This is pretty much a summary of a lot of the stuff I already said. I've been repeating myself a lot and things are getting quite derailed on this thread, so if there's any further discussion to be made, I think we can make a thread in New Card Discussion.
All planswalkers are susceptible to removal. They all have to be protected by your deck building. Maybe Aminatou isn't your cup of tea and that's fine, but I think you are over evaluating one card and devaluating another for similar reasons. Those masks are going to fall off on an unsummon. And her ultimate can be just as situational as Aminatou's and will always be done blindly where Aminatou's is not. While there are better blink commanders Aminatou has another color, and can manipulate things like miracle cards to the top of your deck. There are also twoplaneswalkers who do similair + abilities without those permanents being enchanted like Estrid.
Me: "Aminatou is too vulnerable because too many pieces need to be in place and well-protected for her to be any good."
You: "How is this any different from Estrid?"
Me: "Because Estrid protects the pieces that protects her, as well as being overall more resilient."
You "Every Planeswalker needs to be protected."
What are you even trying to say here?
Besides, Estrid's Ultimate is never blind. It reanimates your entire Graveyard, plus every Enchantment in the top 7 cards of your Deck. Meanwhile, Aminatou's Ultimate never being blind is irrelevant since, as I just mentioned, the board where Aminatou's Ultimate thrives (opponents with many big threats for you to steal, while you have little or none of them) is exactly the kind of board that will NEVER allow her to Ultimate as long as your opponents have the average mental capability of a paperweight.
Finally, Indestructible permanents can also be bounced/exiled. Does that makes Indestructible irrelevant in most scenarios?
1) You need good cards to make another card good, 2) Said good cards must survive for Aminatou to get any extra value out of it and 3) Aminatou herself must survive as well.
How is what you said any different than Estrid? You literally need another card stapled onto a creature/land in order to get any any value out of Estrid.
a) The fact that there's a massive difference between ANY permanent and specifically a card with an ETB effect.
b) The fact that Point 2 is irrelevant for Estrid because she protects your good cards.
c) The fact that Estrid provides her own synergy for her +2 while Aminatou relies almost entirely on outside support.
d) The fact that every one of Estrid's effects give you both a reason and a reward to strengthen your board, while Aminatou's Ultimate only rewards you if you DON'T have a board.
e) The fact that there's a big difference between a +2 and a +1 when it comes to survivability for a Planeswalker.
^ This is pretty much a summary of a lot of the stuff I already said. I've been repeating myself a lot and things are getting quite derailed on this thread, so if there's any further discussion to be made, I think we can make a thread in New Card Discussion.
The thing is that you CAN actually get value from Aminatou [-1], where as Estrid [-1] assumes that opponents might be interacting specifically with those card, otherwise it literally does nothing.
Jack - "I've got totem armor!"
Jill - "Cool, I'll assemble my combo and win."
I'm not saying that there's no value to be had with blinking. I specifically said that it's Aminatou's only saving grace. Doesn't change the fact that 1) You need good cards to make another card good, 2) Said good cards must survive for Aminatou to get any extra value out of it and 3) Aminatou herself must survive as well.
Estrid can also potentially untap half your board with a plus ability, making her a stricly better Teferi -1, but Magic is not about what happens when everything is going well. That's the main difference here, if things aren't going as planned, Estrid can still advance your game state with the threat of an all-upside Ult, or start ramping up with the Land Masks, while Aminatou... digs for cards very poorly and threatens an Ult that is only relevant if Aminatou is at risk of dying.
Additionally, the opposite could also be said for Aminatou, because she's a combo piece stapled to the most vulnerable card type ever.
Jill - "I'll cast this to start assembling my combo."
Jack - "Cool. I'll kill you AND your main combo piece."
Or do you really want to wait until like turn 9 to cast all your combo pieces in one go in colors without fast mana?
I actually have no idea what you're referring to, but in other news, Aminatou at it's very least can provide you an extra mana each turn, by blinking out a land. This can make a huge difference in competitive games, and being at 3 mana to cast, means that you can curve out more consistently in vital turns.
Sure, I guess that's fair at least. I wouldn't call casting a 3 mana spell to ramp up 1 mana a winning play, but I'll confess it was not an option I had considered. Estrid can kinda do the same in reverse, Masking a land and using her +2 during her next turn. In both cases, you can ramp up 1 mana but it takes 2 turns to do so (as Aminatou can't offset her own cost the turn she hits the board).
Your whole thing has been about how Aminatou is bad (Tibalt bad, just to make sure we know how bad it is), and now you're introducing unfun and tryharding. As long as the distinction is made clear. It's consistent with your bias, so I understand the way you've approached this whole subject. Infinite combos are a thing in commander, so I can see you're from a pool of casual players. This is absolutely fine, but you've been pushing an argument of specifically calling a card bad, without really having the proper knowledge, both in a competitive sense and card knowledge.
Yes, that part is a personal opinion, as I mentioned in the original post before someone commented about combo-ing her Ult with other effects and everything spiraled into other topics, even though it is not an unpopular one AFAIK, but it's not exclusively about personal taste either way. Planeswalkers are terrible combo pieces because, as I said on the first point, they are the most vulnerable type of card in the game. Drawing hate in Commander isn't just about the "feelbad", it's about politics, and trying to assemble combo pieces where one of said pieces is so vulnerable is a losing game. If you want a good Infinite Combo deck for Commander, go play General Tazri, Sharuum the Hegemon or Saffi Eriksdotter like all the other cool kids, as they are more resilient and have better combo potential.
As for the rest of the post, once again, using other cards to make Aminatou's abilities work. Tibalt is also good when you load your deck with Graveyard/Discard matters but he's still a bad card. I'm not saying Aminatou is as bad or worse than Tibalt, but it's close. And Aminatou provides no advantage. IF she had an inherent way of providing advantage, then yeah, I'd agree she's good. But she doesn't, her +1 only digs for a single card on its own with no inherent CA (and as a dig ability, it's pretty bad) and her -1 is useless without the right cards. Which, once again, wouldn't be terrible if she could either protect herself OR have a high enough Loyalty / Loyalty Gain to be relevant in the lategame once you assemble the right cards, but once again she doesn't. She's extremely vulnerable on her own, and once she hits the table in a point of the game where she COULD be relevant, your creature-based opponents will have more than enough firepower to kill her.
So, once again, what is the ideal game state for Aminatou to thrive? A stalled Pillowfort board where no opponent can attack Aminatou, despite these same opponents having big threats for you to steal? Not only is this a "best case scenario" which is extremely irrelevant (because all Planeswalkers could benefit from such a board), but it's also bad with her -1, because Pillowfort decks don't usually use powerful ETB effects for her to abuse. Or is it an board full of ETB creatures? Which, as I said, could be the best application for her, but in that case, you're minusing her, which makes her Ult, once again, irrelevant.
The thing is that you're saying these things, and I'm thinking exactly the same semantics about Estrid. Here is "my" thoughts..
You need to be using other cards to make Estrid's abilities work. Tibalt is also good when you load your deck with Graveyard/Discard matters but he's still a bad card. I'm not saying Estrid's is as bad or worse than Tibalt, but it's close. And Estrid's provides no advantage. IF she had an inherent way of providing advantage, then yeah, I'd agree she's good. But she doesn't, her +2 does nothing on its own with no inherent CA and her -1 is useless without the right cards. Which, once again, wouldn't be terrible if she could either protect herself OR have a high enough Loyalty / Loyalty Gain to be relevant in the lategame once you assemble the right cards, but once again she doesn't. She's extremely vulnerable on her own, and once she hits the table in a point of the game where she COULD be relevant, your creature-based opponents will have more than enough firepower to kill her.
You see how you're just arguing the same points which put Estrid in the same boat?
I personally think both these commanders are powerful with the right decks. I'm building a deck for both of them. I can see where they will shine with the right 99. Aminatou has a few infinites with her [-1] and her access to tutors like Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor will mean that I'll pull them off probably quite consistently. I've built a few enchantment decks before, but Estrid does make me more excited about playing one.
1) Estrid protects your beefy big creatures that can in turn protect Estrid. This is called "synergy", something that Aminatou lacks.
2) Are you really comparing "needs permanents with benefical ETB effects" with "needs any permanents"? Alrighty then. In other news, all decks are now Combo decks because cards need to combo with lands.
3) I actually can provide a board where Estrid thrives - any board with beefy creatures where your opponent have beefy creatures so your creatures can be beefier than your opponent's. Once again, people here are providing meaningless combos with Aminatou's Ult and situational 3-card infinite combos that, as I said, could be a potential way for Aminatou to see play but provides unfun gameplay for precon decks and will draw board hate. If you're tryharding in Commander with infinite combos, then sure, I guess Aminatou is not awful?
Cool effect. But why is it 4 mana? That's... That's a lot for a card that can whiff a lot.
Guess they're just like "it's land themed if we slap on retrace!"
Retrace is very very powerful. Reminder that Oona's Grace is actually playable in Pauper, while Raven's Crime is playable in other formats as well. Plus, I'm not sure what you mean by "whiff", it's guaranteed to hit a card, and if it is a bad one... well, that's the point of Retrace.
I would love that, but the fact that the best Manland cards are in the exact colors that Windgrace isn't would tilt me so much.
I don't really follow you here. These things have absolutely nothing to do with eachother. I mean, you raise a completely valid point--Colonnadeis the best, (I think it's arguable), but that's not a reason that the Windgrace deck can't be about achieving victory by way of Man Lands or just animating lands into 'man lands'.
The point is that I want to use my cards in a trading card game to play the game? And the best cards to do so are in the wrong colors, so I can't do that because color identity?
If Commander decks were all new cards, sure, but sadly we need pre-existing cards to be able to make a decent strategy. WUG would be the best colors for the strategy.
Estrid actually has a game plan that rewards you to protect her. Getting strong cards to protect Estrid to Ultimate means you get more targets to Mask. In other words, she has synergy between her game plan and her being a Planeswalker. Yes, her +2 is her most underwhelming aspect, but she as a card provides the resources (Masks) so that it's actually useful without outside support. Finally, her Ultimate provides a mill on her own so that, even in the worst case scenario, it can potentially give you some benefit in a pinch.
With Aminatou, you're actively trying to make your board as bad as possible to not give your opponent too many good cards, while still having just enough cards to protect her and having an opponent's board worth stealing in either your left or right, a board that for some reason didn't just punched Aminatou in the face as soon as she got to Ultimate range. And if none of your opponents have anything worth stealing, then Ultimating her will hurt you instead. And you want to do all that while building a deck that has synergy with her -1, because otherwise that effect is wasted and does nothing, because unlike Estrid, she has no inherent synergy between her own effects.
With Estrid, you're jumping through the hoops to make her good. With Aminatou, you're jumping through the hoops to make her work.
Plus, your math is off. Drop Estrid, +2, she goes to {5} immediately, then {7} on her 1st turn and Ultimates on her 2nd. That's 2 turns that she needs to survive on the board, 1 less than Aminatou's Ultimate, making Aminatou's 1 cost less irrelevant to the Ultimate equation. Yes, you shouldn't rely on your Ultimates, reason why I keep saying that relying on the "synergy" between Aminatou's Ultimate and -1 is stupid.
I'm pretty sure your math is off. Cast Estrid, she ETBs at {3}. +2 she goes to {5}. Next turn +2 she goes to {7}. Next turn -7. Three turns to ult, not two.
Just because you have Aminatou's ultimate available doesn't mean you need to use it, you can wait till you draw a Eerie Interlude, or Teferi's Protection, or Ghostway, or say a Parallax Wave. In the three colors that have access to tutors for any one of these cards or all of them at the same time(Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor. All three of these cards also synergies with Aminatou's "Top Deck matters" theme as well). Sure Aminatou is not a play me and use my abilities until you Ult and win the game kind of PW/Commander, but she doesn't need to be. She's a value engine that comes down T3 and has two powerful value effects as well as an Ultimate that can win you the game if you have some creativity in how you build/play your deck.
I said she needs to survive 2 turns to Ult. By the time she hits the board, your opponent has 2 of his turns to deal with her, and that's what really matters. And once she Ults, the turn isn't over either, so it would be incorrect to say she "takes" a 3rd turn to Ult.
As for the rest of the post, once again, using other cards to make Aminatou's abilities work. Tibalt is also good when you load your deck with Graveyard/Discard matters but he's still a bad card. I'm not saying Aminatou is as bad or worse than Tibalt, but it's close. And Aminatou provides no advantage. IF she had an inherent way of providing advantage, then yeah, I'd agree she's good. But she doesn't, her +1 only digs for a single card on its own with no inherent CA (and as a dig ability, it's pretty bad) and her -1 is useless without the right cards. Which, once again, wouldn't be terrible if she could either protect herself OR have a high enough Loyalty / Loyalty Gain to be relevant in the lategame once you assemble the right cards, but once again she doesn't. She's extremely vulnerable on her own, and once she hits the table in a point of the game where she COULD be relevant, your creature-based opponents will have more than enough firepower to kill her.
So, once again, what is the ideal game state for Aminatou to thrive? A stalled Pillowfort board where no opponent can attack Aminatou, despite these same opponents having big threats for you to steal? Not only is this a "best case scenario" which is extremely irrelevant (because all Planeswalkers could benefit from such a board), but it's also bad with her -1, because Pillowfort decks don't usually use powerful ETB effects for her to abuse. Or is it an board full of ETB creatures? Which, as I said, could be the best application for her, but in that case, you're minusing her, which makes her Ult, once again, irrelevant.
Uhm, yes? You give to an opponent a couple of permanent, steal all their fatties, then you aso get back your couple of permanents and leave them with nothing?
I mean, for a 3 mana walker that can be casted repeatedly what do you expect? Yeah she is stoppable. Learn to play, learn to build in a way that it's hard t stop her. You can't pretend to have the single card doing all the work, you have the other 99 too.
So, let's just summarize your trip to Magical Christmas Land. What you need is:
Make your Planeswalker survive 3 turns in a multiplayer game, without taking any damage
Only using her underwhelming +1 ability to do so
Not having a sizable board that will benefit an opponent as you shift your permanents away...
...while still having a single permanent worth returning to your control...
...but STILL having enough stuff to protect her somehow, because she can't do it herself
An opponent actually having a board worth shifting into in either your left or right
Enough mana to recast her after Ulting, so you can immediately -1 her
And what you get if EVERY step above succeeds? One of the cards you gave away come back. Congratulations, you do that while I'll be here playing Estrid and casting my one-sided, non-Artifact Open the Vaults without having to rely on my opponent's board. Sure, she costs 1 mana more, but requires 1 turn less to Ultimate, so...
OK, I think you're being short-sighted here.
Estrid, the Masked [+2] literally does nothing without other cards. She also does not protect herself. She takes 3 turns to ultimate. Even your ultimate might fail to produce anything of worth.
These planeswalkers both have "what if's", but with the right deck design are both interesting and powerful.
If you read through the posts so far, Estrid, the Masked getting dumped upon big time, but this is just because people are not seeing a greater deck design. So might pay to hold off on saying the same thing about Aminatou's until you've thought about deck content and design.
Estrid actually has a game plan that rewards you to protect her. Getting strong cards to protect Estrid to Ultimate means you get more targets to Mask. In other words, she has synergy between her game plan and her being a Planeswalker. Yes, her +2 is her most underwhelming aspect, but she as a card provides the resources (Masks) so that it's actually useful without outside support. Finally, her Ultimate provides a mill on her own so that, even in the worst case scenario, it can potentially give you some benefit in a pinch.
With Aminatou, you're actively trying to make your board as bad as possible to not give your opponent too many good cards, while still having just enough cards to protect her and having an opponent's board worth stealing in either your left or right, a board that for some reason didn't just punched Aminatou in the face as soon as she got to Ultimate range. And if none of your opponents have anything worth stealing, then Ultimating her will hurt you instead. And you want to do all that while building a deck that has synergy with her -1, because otherwise that effect is wasted and does nothing, because unlike Estrid, she has no inherent synergy between her own effects.
With Estrid, you're jumping through the hoops to make her good. With Aminatou, you're jumping through the hoops to make her work.
Plus, your math is off. Drop Estrid, +2, she goes to {5} immediately, then {7} on her 1st turn and Ultimates on her 2nd. That's 2 turns that she needs to survive on the board, 1 less than Aminatou's Ultimate, making Aminatou's 1 cost less irrelevant to the Ultimate equation. Yes, you shouldn't rely on your Ultimates, reason why I keep saying that relying on the "synergy" between Aminatou's Ultimate and -1 is stupid.
Uhm, yes? You give to an opponent a couple of permanent, steal all their fatties, then you aso get back your couple of permanents and leave them with nothing?
I mean, for a 3 mana walker that can be casted repeatedly what do you expect? Yeah she is stoppable. Learn to play, learn to build in a way that it's hard t stop her. You can't pretend to have the single card doing all the work, you have the other 99 too.
So, let's just summarize your trip to Magical Christmas Land. What you need is:
Make your Planeswalker survive 3 turns in a multiplayer game, without taking any damage
Only using her underwhelming +1 ability to do so
Not having a sizable board that will benefit an opponent as you shift your permanents away...
...while still having a single permanent worth returning to your control...
...but STILL having enough stuff to protect her somehow, because she can't do it herself
An opponent actually having a board worth shifting into in either your left or right
Enough mana to recast her after Ulting, so you can immediately -1 her
And what you get if EVERY step above succeeds? One of the cards you gave away come back. Congratulations, you do that while I'll be here playing Estrid and casting my one-sided, non-Artifact Open the Vaults without having to rely on my opponent's board. Sure, she costs 1 mana more, but requires 1 turn less to Ultimate, so...
Will probably see far more play in UG decks than Aminatou herself.
At first I read it as "When Yuriko deals damage" and I honestly thought it was pretty fine because she also dodged Commander Tax, but then I reread it and it said "whenever A NINJA deals damage". I mean... wow. This is actually pretty good.
I'm just super mad that Tetsuko isn't a Ninja. Once again, I'm well aware of why she isn't, but come on, just look at her!
Whatever deck it is in (likely Esper), it's probably meh because you'd rather have fixing, but in a mono-Anything-Not-Green, it has almost no drawbacks and ramps you if you're playing vs. Green.
I think either Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots are a given in the deck as well.
Me: "Aminatou is too vulnerable because too many pieces need to be in place and well-protected for her to be any good."
You: "How is this any different from Estrid?"
Me: "Because Estrid protects the pieces that protects her, as well as being overall more resilient."
You "Every Planeswalker needs to be protected."
What are you even trying to say here?
Besides, Estrid's Ultimate is never blind. It reanimates your entire Graveyard, plus every Enchantment in the top 7 cards of your Deck. Meanwhile, Aminatou's Ultimate never being blind is irrelevant since, as I just mentioned, the board where Aminatou's Ultimate thrives (opponents with many big threats for you to steal, while you have little or none of them) is exactly the kind of board that will NEVER allow her to Ultimate as long as your opponents have the average mental capability of a paperweight.
Finally, Indestructible permanents can also be bounced/exiled. Does that makes Indestructible irrelevant in most scenarios?
a) The fact that there's a massive difference between ANY permanent and specifically a card with an ETB effect.
b) The fact that Point 2 is irrelevant for Estrid because she protects your good cards.
c) The fact that Estrid provides her own synergy for her +2 while Aminatou relies almost entirely on outside support.
d) The fact that every one of Estrid's effects give you both a reason and a reward to strengthen your board, while Aminatou's Ultimate only rewards you if you DON'T have a board.
e) The fact that there's a big difference between a +2 and a +1 when it comes to survivability for a Planeswalker.
^ This is pretty much a summary of a lot of the stuff I already said. I've been repeating myself a lot and things are getting quite derailed on this thread, so if there's any further discussion to be made, I think we can make a thread in New Card Discussion.
Estrid can also potentially untap half your board with a plus ability, making her a stricly better Teferi -1, but Magic is not about what happens when everything is going well. That's the main difference here, if things aren't going as planned, Estrid can still advance your game state with the threat of an all-upside Ult, or start ramping up with the Land Masks, while Aminatou... digs for cards very poorly and threatens an Ult that is only relevant if Aminatou is at risk of dying.
Additionally, the opposite could also be said for Aminatou, because she's a combo piece stapled to the most vulnerable card type ever.
Jill - "I'll cast this to start assembling my combo."
Jack - "Cool. I'll kill you AND your main combo piece."
Or do you really want to wait until like turn 9 to cast all your combo pieces in one go in colors without fast mana?
Sure, I guess that's fair at least. I wouldn't call casting a 3 mana spell to ramp up 1 mana a winning play, but I'll confess it was not an option I had considered. Estrid can kinda do the same in reverse, Masking a land and using her +2 during her next turn. In both cases, you can ramp up 1 mana but it takes 2 turns to do so (as Aminatou can't offset her own cost the turn she hits the board).
Yes, that part is a personal opinion, as I mentioned in the original post before someone commented about combo-ing her Ult with other effects and everything spiraled into other topics, even though it is not an unpopular one AFAIK, but it's not exclusively about personal taste either way. Planeswalkers are terrible combo pieces because, as I said on the first point, they are the most vulnerable type of card in the game. Drawing hate in Commander isn't just about the "feelbad", it's about politics, and trying to assemble combo pieces where one of said pieces is so vulnerable is a losing game. If you want a good Infinite Combo deck for Commander, go play General Tazri, Sharuum the Hegemon or Saffi Eriksdotter like all the other cool kids, as they are more resilient and have better combo potential.
1) Estrid protects your beefy big creatures that can in turn protect Estrid. This is called "synergy", something that Aminatou lacks.
2) Are you really comparing "needs permanents with benefical ETB effects" with "needs any permanents"? Alrighty then. In other news, all decks are now Combo decks because cards need to combo with lands.
3) I actually can provide a board where Estrid thrives - any board with beefy creatures where your opponent have beefy creatures so your creatures can be beefier than your opponent's. Once again, people here are providing meaningless combos with Aminatou's Ult and situational 3-card infinite combos that, as I said, could be a potential way for Aminatou to see play but provides unfun gameplay for precon decks and will draw board hate. If you're tryharding in Commander with infinite combos, then sure, I guess Aminatou is not awful?
Retrace is very very powerful. Reminder that Oona's Grace is actually playable in Pauper, while Raven's Crime is playable in other formats as well. Plus, I'm not sure what you mean by "whiff", it's guaranteed to hit a card, and if it is a bad one... well, that's the point of Retrace.
The point is that I want to use my cards in a trading card game to play the game? And the best cards to do so are in the wrong colors, so I can't do that because color identity?
If Commander decks were all new cards, sure, but sadly we need pre-existing cards to be able to make a decent strategy. WUG would be the best colors for the strategy.
As for the rest of the post, once again, using other cards to make Aminatou's abilities work. Tibalt is also good when you load your deck with Graveyard/Discard matters but he's still a bad card. I'm not saying Aminatou is as bad or worse than Tibalt, but it's close. And Aminatou provides no advantage. IF she had an inherent way of providing advantage, then yeah, I'd agree she's good. But she doesn't, her +1 only digs for a single card on its own with no inherent CA (and as a dig ability, it's pretty bad) and her -1 is useless without the right cards. Which, once again, wouldn't be terrible if she could either protect herself OR have a high enough Loyalty / Loyalty Gain to be relevant in the lategame once you assemble the right cards, but once again she doesn't. She's extremely vulnerable on her own, and once she hits the table in a point of the game where she COULD be relevant, your creature-based opponents will have more than enough firepower to kill her.
So, once again, what is the ideal game state for Aminatou to thrive? A stalled Pillowfort board where no opponent can attack Aminatou, despite these same opponents having big threats for you to steal? Not only is this a "best case scenario" which is extremely irrelevant (because all Planeswalkers could benefit from such a board), but it's also bad with her -1, because Pillowfort decks don't usually use powerful ETB effects for her to abuse. Or is it an board full of ETB creatures? Which, as I said, could be the best application for her, but in that case, you're minusing her, which makes her Ult, once again, irrelevant.
Estrid actually has a game plan that rewards you to protect her. Getting strong cards to protect Estrid to Ultimate means you get more targets to Mask. In other words, she has synergy between her game plan and her being a Planeswalker. Yes, her +2 is her most underwhelming aspect, but she as a card provides the resources (Masks) so that it's actually useful without outside support. Finally, her Ultimate provides a mill on her own so that, even in the worst case scenario, it can potentially give you some benefit in a pinch.
With Aminatou, you're actively trying to make your board as bad as possible to not give your opponent too many good cards, while still having just enough cards to protect her and having an opponent's board worth stealing in either your left or right, a board that for some reason didn't just punched Aminatou in the face as soon as she got to Ultimate range. And if none of your opponents have anything worth stealing, then Ultimating her will hurt you instead. And you want to do all that while building a deck that has synergy with her -1, because otherwise that effect is wasted and does nothing, because unlike Estrid, she has no inherent synergy between her own effects.
With Estrid, you're jumping through the hoops to make her good. With Aminatou, you're jumping through the hoops to make her work.
Plus, your math is off. Drop Estrid, +2, she goes to {5} immediately, then {7} on her 1st turn and Ultimates on her 2nd. That's 2 turns that she needs to survive on the board, 1 less than Aminatou's Ultimate, making Aminatou's 1 cost less irrelevant to the Ultimate equation. Yes, you shouldn't rely on your Ultimates, reason why I keep saying that relying on the "synergy" between Aminatou's Ultimate and -1 is stupid.
So, let's just summarize your trip to Magical Christmas Land. What you need is:
And what you get if EVERY step above succeeds? One of the cards you gave away come back. Congratulations, you do that while I'll be here playing Estrid and casting my one-sided, non-Artifact Open the Vaults without having to rely on my opponent's board. Sure, she costs 1 mana more, but requires 1 turn less to Ultimate, so...