Alesha's Old Frame Festival of Horror [EDH]

[Oversoul]

When the "Time Spiral Remastered" set came out in 2020, I pulled an old-frame copy of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Because Alesha is remarkably good with several old creatures that normally don't see play in EDH, I came up with the idea of building an Alesha deck consisting exclusively of cards printed using the old card frame. I procrastinated, and this project sat on a table, buried under empty deck boxes, for a few years. Well, I'm finally making the dream become reality.

Ordinarily, I build a spooky Halloween deck every year. The theme has been different every time, and the only real rules for this conceit of mine are that the deck should prioritize style at the expense of some function and that it must use the card All Hallow's Eve. I had a rough idea of building a deck helmed by Skeleton Ship this year, but I decided that I really, really wanted to finally finish this Alesha deck. No problem: I'll just combine the two projects.

This is a spooktacular theme deck. It's also an all-old-frames deck. Clever? Not really. Ill-advised? Most certainly.

Commander:
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

1 Abomination
1 Abyssal Gatekeeper
1 Abyssal Horror
1 Aerathi Berserker
1 Anarchist
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Anger
1 Arid Mesa
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Badlands
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Blazing Rootwalla
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bone Dancer
1 Buried Alive
1 Burnished Hart
1 Burnt Offering
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Culling the Weak
1 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Disenchant
1 Enduring Renewal
1 Entomb
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Filth
1 Fire Covenant
1 Flicker
1 Flickering Ward
1 Fling
1 Flooded Strand
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Goblin Grenadiers
1 Goblin War Drums
1 Gravedigger
1 Hell's Caretaker
1 Hellfire
1 High Market
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Infernal Medusa
1 Karmic Guide
1 Lesser Werewolf
1 Lim-Dûl's Paladin
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mindwarper
1 Mother of Runes
6 Mountain
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Polluted Delta
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Reconnaissance
1 Sandskin
1 Scrubland
1 Sentinel
1 Shallow Grave
1 Shrieking Mogg
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
11 Swamp
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 The Abyss
1 The Wretched
1 Tortured Existence
1 Triskelion
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Victimize
1 Vindicate
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Wrath of God
1 Zulaport Cutthroat

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck twice. Unlike most of my "holiday" decks, this one was an existing project that had been on hiatus, so I'll be keeping it around in some form. First game, my deck did some coold stuff. I kept bringing back Karmic Guide and using it to bring back other creatures. Lim-Dul's Paladin put in work! Buried Alive dumping both Anger and Filth into my graveyard was another nice touch. The deck exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately, one of my opponents was playing a poison deck that operated at higher power level than the rest of the table. I survived for a long time, but couldn't compete with spells that simply forced poison counters onto me. Norn's Decree is stupidly good against a combat-oriented deck that has both first strike and regular damage. Ouch.

In the final game of the night, I had lousy luck with my topdecks. I was a bit manadrowned and couldn't really do anything. Circumstances and dumb luck saw the player with all the weird "Dr. Who" cards give me a bunch of tokens for some reason, and none of my opponents could finish the whole table off all at once, so we ended up in a spot where everyone took big hits, two players were eliminated, and my last remaining opponent was down to 10 life. I was able to tutor for Goblin Bombardment and finish him off.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck last night. I thought it was going well at first. One player hit me with Traumatize for no apparent reason and another player followed it up by activating Scavenger Grounds. I scooped to go join a PreDH table.

 

[Oversoul]

Took this deck to another game where it was probably a bit outclassed. While I did ultimately lose, the deck held its own and did some interesting stuff. Blazing Rootwalla was really pretty good value here.

 

[Oversoul]

Won my most recent game with this deck. One opponent dropped due to time concerns and a second conceded after I Disenchanted the one card that might have saved him. My final opponent built an overwhelming board state, but couldn't break through a lock I put in place: looping Stonehorn Dignitary via Hell's Caretaker (later with help from Oversold Cemetery). Eventually, Siege-Gang Commander ping damage gave me the win. But it was a slog.

 

[Oversoul]

-1 Aerathi Berserker
+1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

If I'd thought to spend more time on it, I'd have cut some of the silly stuff I did for Halloween and properly strengthened this deck. For now, I'm just making one swap. Might do more later. I'm still enamored with this dumb "all old frames" concept.

 

[Oversoul]

Although I got a bit manascrewed and didn't survive my last game of the year with this deck, I did live long enough for Anarchist to loop Wrath of God a couple of times.

 

[Oversoul]

-1 Abomination
-1 Infernal Medusa
-1 Lesser Werewolf
-1 The Wretched
-1 Hellfire
+1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
+1 Shapeshifter
+1 Vile Entomber
+1 Sevinne's Reclamation
+1 Gamble

 

[Oversoul]

-1 Sentinel
-1 Swamp
+1 Master of Cruelties
+1 Scalding Tarn

 

[Oversoul]

Master of Cruelties lives up to its name. Although I just added it to the deck, the card put in work. I managed to sneak in a kill on one opponent by hitting him with Master of Cruelties and then Flinging it at him. He was the dominant threat in the game and would likely have won on his next turn or at least flooded the board with enchantment shenanigans if I hadn't killed him right then. Managed to bring another player down to 1 life with Master of Cruelties, then my hard work was undone by Crypt Incursion. Despite the setback, I had enough value coming in to close the game out with old-fashioned creature beatdown.