Foundations Home Brew Edition EP: 53 Alesha V Elenda V Zegana V Tinybones #edh #mtggameplay #mtg

Deck Strategies

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  Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate

  Alesha uses first strike and accumulates one-one counters through attacks to grow in power, enabling her to return smaller creatures from the graveyard each turn. This mix of aggression and recursion allows her to maintain board presence and gain incremental advantage by reanimating creatures.

• 

  Elenda, Saint of Dusk

  Elenda’s deck revolves around life gain and vampire tribal synergies, growing stronger as the player's life total increases beyond starting life. With lifelink and menace, she becomes a resilient and threatening attacker that can dominate the board through combat damage and life-based triggers.

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  Prime Speaker Zegana

  Zegana focuses on evolving creatures to become larger threats and drawing cards equal to the largest creature’s power. This creates a recursive cycle of card advantage and board development, allowing sustained pressure and resource accumulation.

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  Tinybones, Bauble Burglar

  Tinybones employs a mono-black discard and exile strategy, forcing opponents to discard cards which are then exiled with stash counters. Tinybones enables playing these exiled cards, effectively stealing resources while controlling opponents through discard tribal synergies and incremental value from exiled spells.

Gameplay Insights

• 1

  Alesha's strategy of growing via one-one counters and recurring creatures from the graveyard is effective for maintaining tempo and board presence.

• 2

  Tinybones' discard and exile mechanic disrupts opponents while generating value by enabling the player to cast exiled cards, leveraging an unusual but powerful resource denial approach.

• 3

  Elenda’s life gain thresholds create a durable threat that can be difficult to remove, especially when combined with lifelink and menace.

• 4

  Zegana’s card draw tied to creature power allows for sustained card advantage, making evolving creatures a core mechanic to maintain momentum.

• 5

  The game balances aggressive combat strategies with resource denial and incremental advantage, creating a dynamic battlefield where synergy and timing are critical.

Notable Cards

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  Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate

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  Elenda, Saint of Dusk

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  Prime Speaker Zegana

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  Tinybones, Bauble Burglar

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  Hypnotic Specter

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  Evolving Wilds

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  Abundant Harvest

Summary

The game features four commanders with distinct strategies: Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate; Elenda, Saint of Dusk; Prime Speaker Zegana; and Tinybones, Bauble Burglar. The early game focused on establishing board presence, with Alesha leveraging her first strike and incremental growth through one-one counters to enable recurring value by returning creatures from the graveyard. Elenda focused on a life gain and vampire tribal theme, aiming to grow larger and harder to remove through life total thresholds. Zegana aimed to evolve creatures and draw cards, creating a cycle of increasing board advantage through power growth and card advantage. Tinybones took a mono-black discard and exile route, disrupting opponents’ resources while leveraging exile-stash mechanics to reuse opponents’ cards and generate value through a discard tribal synergy. Key turning points included players developing their board states with synergistic creatures and incremental value engines. Alesha’s ability to grow and return creatures from the graveyard created pressure, while Tinybones’ discard and exile effects consistently disrupted opponents’ plans, allowing for potential reuse of exiled spells. Elenda’s life gain and tribal synergy made her a resilient threat, especially when surpassing life thresholds that granted additional abilities. Zegana’s card draw and evolving creatures kept her hand replenished and board growing, enabling sustained aggression. The game’s win conditions revolved around combat damage with growing creatures for Alesha and Elenda, while Zegana and Tinybones aimed for incremental advantage through card draw and resource denial respectively. The interplay of sacrificing, recursion, and discard created a dynamic and interactive game state throughout.