Deck & Commander Strategies
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed
A non-creature spell focused deck that chips away at opponents’ life totals with incremental damage while drawing cards and gaining life. It leverages spells of mana cost three or greater to deal damage to all opponents and benefits from Curiosity to draw more cards.
Varina, Lich Queen
A zombie tribal deck that draws cards and gains life through combat damage with zombies. It uses graveyard exile to create zombie treasure tokens and leverages discard and sacrifice outlets to control the board and generate value.
Bello, Bard of the Brambles
Ramp and value focused, generating mana with creatures that have enter-the-battlefield triggers and ramp abilities. The deck aims to build mana advantage and deploy impactful threats to control the game.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Utilizes discard and sacrifice mechanics with zombie tokens to find key cards and control the game state. It combines graveyard recursion and token generation to maintain pressure and disrupt opponents.
Gameplay Insights
- 1
Y'shtola’s ability to deal damage and gain life each time a non-creature spell of cost three or greater is cast provided steady incremental pressure and card advantage.
- 2
Varina’s zombie attack triggers enabled card draw and life gain, creating a powerful engine for resource management combined with token creation from graveyard exile.
- 3
Peripheros, God of the Forge’s damage trigger on creature ETB forced opponents to lose life repeatedly, synergizing well with token and creature-heavy decks.
- 4
The use of spells like Risky Shortcut and Transpose created symmetrical damage to all players while drawing cards, leveraging Y'shtola’s abilities to maximize impact.
- 5
Players balanced between ramp, board development, and incremental damage rather than all-out aggression initially, setting a slow build-up for mid to late game plays.
- 6
Sacrificing tokens for effects like those from Diabolic Intent and Talon of Pain allowed for flexible removal and card selection, enhancing control over the game flow.
Notable Cards
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Authority of the Consuls
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Thought Vessel
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Talon of Pain
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Risky Shortcut
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Curiosity
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Codex Shredder
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Diabolic Intent
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Transpose
Gameplay Summary
The game started with all players establishing their mana bases and deploying early utility cards like Authority of the Consuls and Thought Vessel.
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed came out early, providing card draw and incremental damage whenever non-creature spells were cast.
Varina, Lich Queen focused on zombie token generation and card draw through combat, leveraging graveyard exile for treasure tokens.
Bello, Bard of the Brambles played a ramp and value game, generating mana and casting creatures with beneficial enter-the-battlefield effects.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll used discard and token sacrifice strategies to find key pieces and control the board. As the game progressed, players deployed synergistic and aggressive threats such as Peripheros, God of the Forge, which dealt damage to opponents upon creature entries, and Talon of Pain, which accumulated counters for direct damage removal.
Strategic non-creature spells like Risky Shortcut and Transpose dealt incremental damage to all opponents while drawing cards, triggering Y'shtola’s life gain and damage abilities.
Curiosity was attached to Y'shtola, amplifying card draw from damage dealt.
Combat phases involved life gain and card cycling from Varina’s zombie attacks, while Bello and Arabella set up their board states for future plays.
The game was marked by steady attrition damage, graveyard interactions, and incremental value generation, setting the stage for potential combo or overwhelming board presence to clinch the win.
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