Alesha, Who Smiles At Death EDH

Commander / EDH*

Tustac

Creature (42)

• 1x Anathemancer
• 1x Avalanche Riders
• 1x Balefire Liege
• 1x Beetleback Chief
• 1x Big Game Hunter
• 1x Blade Splicer
• 1x Blind Zealot
• 1x Bone Shredder
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Duergar Hedge-Mage
• 1x Earsplitting Rats
• 1x Flame-Kin Zealot
• 1x Goblin Settler
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Haunted Cadaver
• 1x Hypnotic Specter
• 1x Liliana's Specter
• 1x Magmasaur
• 1x Magus of the Disk
• 1x Manic Vandal
• 1x Master Splicer
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mind Maggots
• 1x Mogg War Marshal
• 1x Monk Realist
• 1x Nekrataal
• 1x Ponyback Brigade
• 1x Ravenous Baboons
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Rotting Rats
• 1x Savage Firecat
• 1x Sensor Splicer
• 1x Sewer Nemesis
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Sin Collector
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Stingscourger
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Thought Gorger
• 1x Thunder-Thrash Elder
• 1x Viashino Racketeer
• 1x Zo-Zu the Punisher

Land (36)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 7x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 7x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Marshal's Anthem
• 1x Tooth and Claw
• 1x Waste Not

Artifact (9)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Dolmen Gate
• 1x Hammer of Purphoros
• 1x Mardu Banner
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spear of Heliod
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Whip of Erebos

Instant (2)

• 1x Entomb
• 1x White Sun's Zenith

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x Dark Deal
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Victimize

Commander (1)

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Maybeboard

Creature (17)

• 1x Disciple of Phenax
• 1x Flamekin Harbinger
• 1x Ghitu Slinger
• 1x Goblin Lackey
• 1x Gwyllion Hedge-Mage
• 1x Hellhole Rats
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
• 1x Monk Idealist
• 1x Monk Realist
• 1x Netherborn Phalanx
• 1x Priest of Gix
• 1x Priest of Urabrask
• 1x Sanity Gnawers
• 1x Urbis Protector
• 1x Viashino Firstblade
• 1x War Priest of Thune

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The primary point of this deck is to fill your graveyard with 2 or less power creatures that have powerful etb effects or "Deals damage to a player effects" and then activate them with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and other reanimation effects. To achieve this, we utilize several sac and discard outlets, as well as some dredge effects. In the end, we try to swarm down your opponents with a combination of tokens and two or less attack creatures.

Because every creature we run except for Reveillark can be targeted by Alesha, Who Smiles at Death It becomes advantageous to fill our graveyard with them. To accomplish this, we run several discard outlets. Dark Deal, Burning Inquiry, Faithless Looting, Earsplitting Rats, Mind Maggots, Rotting Rats, Sewer Nemesis, Stinkweed Imp, Thought Gorger, and Viashino Racketeer all allow us to fuel our graveyard. Many of these effects can also be recurred through the use of a sac outlet and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

Speaking of Sac outlets, we run a few in this deck. The presence of sac outlets allows us to recur any etb effect that we may need from creatures that are already on the battlefield. It also doesn't hurt that the outlets give us additional benefits for essentially free. The sac outlets we run are as follows: Disciple of Bolas, Ashnod's Altar, Victimize and Tooth and Nail.

We also run some creatures with echo costs. In conjunction with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, we can let these creatures etb and then sac themselves so that we can repeat the process and continue to recur their effects. The three cards with echo costs that we run are Avalanche Riders, Bone Shredder and Stingscourger each of which have extremely good effects when they can be recurred.

I had previously mentioned that our end game strategy consists of swarming over our opponents with a multitude of creatures. In order to facilitate this, several of our cards create tokens. Beetleback Chief, Blade Splicer, Master Splicer, Mogg War Marshal, Ponyback Brigade, Sensor Splicer, Siege-Gang Commander, Hammer of Purphoros, Tooth and Claw, Waste Not and White Sun's Zenith all allow us to produce a very dense set of threats that can potentially overwhelm our opponents.

Since we run so many token generators, we also run cards that have synergy with tokens. Cards like Dark Prophecy and Grave Pact allow us to generate ridiculous amounts of card advantage should our tokens die. This can get pretty ridiculous when used in conjunction with sac outlets. Mentor of the Meek can activate with essentially every creature in this deck, but is also extremely good with tokens. Banner effects such as Spear of Heliod, Balefire Liege and Flame-Kin Zealot all synergize very well with our swarming strategy.

The deck also runs some cards that can potentially kill very quickly under the right circumstances. Of particular interest are Thunder-Thrash Elder and Sewer Nemesis, both of whom can be summoned attacking from the yard with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

The rest of the deck consists of a lot of creature based utility, mana rocks and reanimation effects. If the deck is working as intended, we should be growing our graveyard pretty quickly in order to create a toolbox that we can access through Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and our Reanimation effects.

Of course, the most apparent weaknesses of this deck are graveyard hate and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death being tucked into the deck. The game isn't lost if this happens, but it becomes much harder to win because the deck becomes what is essentially a mediocre swarmy deck. The goal will become trying to maximize the value of the cards in your hand, as several are rather expensive due to the deck's goal of maximum Alesha, Who Smiles at Death synergy.

Date added	9 years
Last updated	9 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.33
Tokens	Beast 3/1 R, Cat 2/2 W, Enchantment Golem 3/3 C, Goblin 1/1 R, Morph 2/2 C, Phyrexian Golem 3/3 C, Zombie 2/2 B