Eden

What you start with

The mechanics that actually govern this character.

• Costs one Eden Token per run. Tokens are awarded for defeating Mom's Heart, It Lives!, Ultra Greed or The Beast, but not for killing Mom's Heart or It Lives inside The Void. From Afterbirth+ onward, holding R to reset also consumes a token.
• Stats are Isaac's, randomised: damage 3.5 plus or minus 1.0, tears +0.75 to -0.515, shot speed 1.0 plus or minus 0.25, range 6.5 plus or minus 1.5, speed 1.0 plus or minus 0.15, luck 0 plus or minus 1, plus a random mix of red containers and soul hearts.
• Starts with one random active, one random passive, one of a trinket / pill / card, and 0-2 bombs, 0-1 key, 0-5 coins.
• The noeden tag blocks a short list from her starting roll: Knife Piece 1, Knife Piece 2, Dogma, Dad's Note, Recall and Hold. Broken Glass Cannon is only excluded in Repentance+, so on 1.7.9 it is still a possible start.

How to play them

• Read the whole start before you move: the active's charge cost, the passive, the trinket or pill or card, and the stat bar. The run's plan is decided in the first room, not the first treasure room.
• If the passive is a tear replacement (Brimstone, Mom's Knife, Dr. Fetus, Ludovico, Technology), commit to it and treat treasure rooms as synergy hunting rather than upgrade hunting.
• If the active is a reroll die (D6, D20, D infinity, Eternal D6), play the run like Isaac: route through more rooms to charge it and save charges for multi-pedestal rooms.
• A token is spent either way, so play the roll out rather than resetting. Resetting on console just burns the token.
• Check her luck before investing in luck-scaling items. A -1 start quietly ruins Sacrificial Dagger, Tough Love, Little Horn and Euthanasia.
• When the start is weak, lean on the structural bonuses that do not depend on items: hitless floors are +99% deal chance, a blown-up beggar is +35%, a blown-up Shopkeeper is +10%, and Sacrifice Rooms roll toward Angel Rooms on the 3rd, 5th and 6th sacrifice.

Items to hunt for

Strong on this character specifically, not just strong.

• Birthright: picking it up as Eden spawns three items drawn from three random item pools and lets you keep one. It is the largest single pedestal choice available to any character.
• Genesis: using it as Eden rerolls the character entirely, giving new starting items, stats and hairstyle, without costing another token.
• Any battery item (9 Volt, The Battery, 4.5 Volt, Car Battery): you did not choose your active and cannot rely on its charge cost being reasonable.
• Schoolbag: lets a mediocre starting active be kept while you carry something better, which matters more on Eden than on characters with a fixed active.
• Sacred Orb: with a random start, raising the quality floor on every subsequent pedestal is worth more to Eden than to characters who already have a plan.
• Spindown Dice or any D-item: converts an unusable starting passive into something the build actually wants.

Traps to refuse

Picks that are neutral or good elsewhere and bad here.

• Do not use Glowing Hourglass in the starting room hoping for the pre-Repentance reroll. In Repentance it sends you to Home's starting room, and using it again there strips all starting items and trinkets except Glowing Hourglass itself.
• Do not hold R to reset. On Afterbirth+ and later that spends a token.
• Do not take a second tear replacement without checking the first. Two tear replacements overwrite each other and you can lose the better one.
• Do not assume the noeden exclusion list is bigger than it is. It only blocks Knife Piece 1 and 2, Dogma, Dad's Note, Recall and Hold, so anything else in the game can and will show up.

Cheese and techniques

Verified against 1.7.9 on console — anything patched, PC-only or Repentance+ only is called out rather than listed.

• Genesis is Eden's free reroll button: an entirely new character generation for zero additional tokens.
• Any run that reaches Mom's Heart, It Lives!, Ultra Greed or The Beast pays for the next Eden run, so main-path and Beast routes are self-funding while a Mother route is not.
• You can win as Eden without earning a token: kill Mom, take a Void portal and beat Delirium. It counts as a victory but awards nothing.
• Her Birthright roll is a real reroll of the run: three pedestals from three different pools in one room, and unlike the D6 it costs no charge and cannot delete anything.

Getting the marks

• Every Eden mark costs a token, so route deliberately. The four mutually exclusive endings (Isaac plus ???, Satan plus The Lamb, Mother, The Beast) each need their own clear.
• Main-path clears refund their own token via Mom's Heart or It Lives!, and a Beast clear also awards one, so only the Mother run is a net token loss.
• The Delirium mark is cheap for her: kill It Lives (token refunded), then Hush, which is the only guaranteed Void portal on 1.7.9.