Ensnare
Instant
You may return two Islands you control to their owner's hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Tap all creatures.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- U
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Nemesis
- Price
- $0.67
- EDHREC rank
- #13124
Ensnare taps all creatures your opponents control — at instant speed, for free if you discard your hand. That zero-mana floor makes it a genuine panic button, and in Hylda of the Icy Crown decks it doubles as a tap-trigger engine that generates value while locking down the board.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Hylda of the Icy Crown
Ensnare taps every opposing creature at once, giving Hylda of the Icy Crown a flood of simultaneous triggers to cash in for tokens, card draw, or +1/+1 counters — one card doing the work of a full combat step worth of freeze effects.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Ensnare earns its slot as a one-sided board stall that scales with the number of opponents — tapping twelve creatures across three players for zero mana when you're hellbent is the kind of blowout that wins games on the spot. Legacy and Vintage give it a home in prison or control shells that can deliberately empty their hand, though its ceiling there is lower than in a multiplayer context where the math is more favorable. Oathbreaker mirrors the Commander use case at a smaller table. Outside those formats, Ensnare is not legal, which keeps demand narrow and the price stable.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.67 bulk tier
At $0.67, Ensnare sits firmly in bulk territory — cheap enough to slot in without deliberation. Given that its primary home is a niche tap-synergy commander deck rather than any staple-level shell, don't expect meaningful price movement in either direction.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.