A Smile a Day Keeps Death Away 2.1 (M21) | PRIMER (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Featured card: Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

A Smile a Day Keeps Death Away 2.1 (M21) | PRIMER

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Primer RBW (Mardu) Reanimator

RJGiel

Creature (39)

Land (36)

Planeswalker (1)

1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Commander (1)

Sorcery (10)

Artifact (5)

Instant (5)

Enchantment (3)

Maybeboard

Creature (3)

Sorcery (1)

1x Buried Alive

Enchantment (2)

Instant (2)

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenienve from it." - Mark Twain

Welcome to my Alesha deck. This deck is awesome to play, it can compete with a lot of other 70-85% decks but can also shift down a couple of gears if you have a more casual playgroup. The deck has a lot of lines and rewards you for learning its playstyle.

Since Alesha's ability allows us to only revive smaller creatures, thus deck is not about making big flashy plays that hit the opponents for massive damage, but rather a death by a thousand cuts playstyle

Alesha's colors and ability allow you to play a lot of different combos. While combos make the deck (obviously) better, I prefer to play a more grindy list that isn't as focussed on combos. I do run the combo Felidar Guardian + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, but only because these cards are amazing by themselves, and "accidentally" happen to combo together. I do not run the Murderous Redcap + Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit combo exactly for that reason, those creatures are far worse in a vacuum. With that said, the deck has the possibility to combo, as a lot of the aristocrat pieces have incidental combo potential.

II. Should I play this deck?

Yes, if you like:

to adapt your gameplan based on your opponents.
to generate value over time.
high-synergy decks.
a "death by a thousand cuts" playstyle.
being more under the radar.
picking off opponents one by one.

No, if you like:

making big, flashy plays.
having one big attack to win the game.
dealing massive amounts of damage at once.

II. Gameplan

I. General Gameplan

The general gameplan is to just accumulate card advantage and hit the opponents for chipdamage. The deck is capable of playing the long game. The creature arsenal of this deck allows you to play more like toolbox deck, always getting the right answer at the right moment. When no answers are required, you can just grind for value with one of the many card-advantage generators in the deck.

II. Getting creatures in the Graveyard

We obviously first need to get creatures in the Graveyard before we bring them back with Alesha's ability. While we could just simply wait around for our creatures to die, there are plenty of ways to get them right where you need.

Entomb and Buried Alive are two obvious choices here, allowing to set up creatures for a relevant Alesha swing. Because these cards basically serve as tutors in this deck, you can always get the right cards for a certain situation.
Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, Wheel of Fortune allow us to dump creatures straight from the hand into the Graveyard, while thinning the library in the process.

III. Attacking with Alesha

Attacking with Alesha can be considered the single most important thing of the deck, as it is the main source for card advantage and toolboxing. While Alesha's 3/2 first strike stats hold up fine in the first few turns of the game, it gets drastically worse as the game progresses. To make sure we can keep the attacks coming, we need to give Alesha some form of combat protection.

Reconnaissance is an absolute all star, allowing not only Alesha to swing without any risks, but also removing the creature that's brought back from combat. Essentially providing free attack triggers.
Rogue's Passage and Shizo, Death's Storehouse allow Alesha to sneak in (almost) unblockable, and thus getting a creature back without running into a fattie.
Iroas, God of Victory also allows Alesha and whatever is brought back to safely ram into opposing blockers.
Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice provide protection versus certain colors, also allowing Alesha to bypass blockers.

III. Win Conditions

As I mentioned before, this deck doesn't necessarily win all by itself, it rather grinds people out and benefits from opponents dealing damage to each other. There are a few ways to win by yourself though:

Purphoros, God of the Forge can deal with the entire table. Since this deck isn't great at dealing a lot of damage at once, you usually pick off low-life opponents. Siege-Gang Commander and Angel of Invention help you to deal a lot of damage with Purphporos.

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Master of Cruelties is an insta-kill combo. While I personally do not really enjoy using this combo, it can be nice to have access to a killswitch. It's also one of the main outs against lifegain decks.

Felidar Guardian + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker creates infinite hasty 1/4 creatures.

Karmic Guide + Reveillark plus any sacrifice outlet creates infinite dying and enter-the-battlefield triggers, combine with cards like Blood Artist to drain infinite life.

IV. The Aristocrats

The deck has a strong-theme of aristocrats, simply because the engine is so efficient at recycling and abusing small creatures. For those of you unfamilair with the term "Aristocrats", it refers to the theme of sacrificing creatures for payoff effects. For this we need three components; something that generates creatures to sacrifice, something that lets us sacrifice creatures, and something that rewards us for sacrificing creatures.

I. The Fodder Producers

These cards care about creating multiple creatures for us to sacrifice, and preferably allow us to bring them back with Alesha's ability.

Angel of Invention creatures two creatures with her ETB and, because of this, is a good target to sacrifce and recur over and over again.

Karmic Guide is essentially free sacrifice fodder since it brings back another creature (ideally one that creates even more bodies).

Reveillark gives immediate value upon sacrificing and also combos nicely with Karmic Guide.

Elenda, the Dusk Rose Strongly listens to creatures dying and provides us a very good payoff once she reached critical mass.

Siege-Gang Commander is the best value we can get in Alesha, making a total of four bodies.

Sling-Gang Lieutenant might not be effective as his red cousin, it's still three bodies and comes with a build-in sacrifice outlet.

II. Sacrifice Outlets

These cards let us sacrifice creatures

Viscera Seer is one of the most popular sacrifice outlet, and for good reason. A very low cost of one mana, and not requiring additional costs to sacrifice anything makes it an-auto inclusion. In a way this card is very similair to Carrion Feeder. I choose Viscera Seer for two reasons; being able to block can be useful and the scry is in this deck more relevant than the +1/+1 counters on Carrion Feeder .

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is an amazing sacrifice outlet that immediately converts the sacrificed creatures into a draw engine.

Phyrexian Tower, is a free sacrifice outlet that can easily generate

Diabolic Intent is just a very efficient tutor.

Victimize is one of the most underrated reanimation spells in Commander in my opinion.

Goblin Bombardment is cheap to play and requires no additional mana to sacrifice creatures.

Woe Strider is the latest addition to many aristocrat decks, and while it's out of reach for Alesha to bring back, the card is still amazing thanks to the fact that it brings both a token into play, and has escape.

III. Aristocrats Payoffs

These cards care about creatures dying.

Blood Artist, Judith, the Scourge Diva and Cruel Celebrant help the "thousand cuts" playstyle.

Erebos, the Bleak-Hearted and Skullclamp provice card draw
Grave Pact provides removal and works great against Voltron-style decks.

An example scenario is if you have Purphoros, God of the Forge + Goblin Bombardment + Blood Artist out and you draw into Karmic Guide. You play Karmic Guide, triggering Purphoros, and bring back Siege-Gang Commander, triggering Purphoros another 4 times. Then you sacrifice everything to Goblin Bombardement. This will deal a total of 20 damage, and you get to do it all again next turn by bringing back Karmic Guide with Alesha's ability. The creatures by themselves seem small and underwhelming, but as cogs in the machine can provide a solid damage output.

V. Cards by function

Here you can find the cards categorized by their purpose in the deck

I. Card Draw

II. Recursion

III. Removal

IV. Tutors

V. Graveyard Hate

VI. Why Do You Play X?

I will explain some card choices you might not see in every Alesha deck.

I have been quite impressed with Charming Prince, it has a nice little toolbox effect that can set up better draws in the early game and let's you re-use one of the many ETB abilities in this deck.
Victimize is a reanimation spell that I've been very impressed with. The sacrifice a creature clause is often not a problem, and it allows you to get your best two creatures back.

VII. Why Don't You Play X?

While most Alesha decks are fairly similair at their base, there are some popular cards I decided not to run.

Mentor of the Meek is a card I recently cut, while I don't think it's a bad card per se, it was always a bit underwhelming, the card did not do enough by itself which made me never want to reanimate it with Alesha.
Ravenous Chupacabra often feels clunky and just ends up as a 4 mana bear. Attacking with Alesha is something you want to do for maximum value, getting back a 2/2 that removes one creature is just not strong enough. Maybe if it exiled the creature I would consider running it.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is a bit too "RNG" for my taste, I rather have a card that I know can get direct value, without being depended on the opponents top four cards.
Disciple of Bolas is a card that I'm usually a big fan off. However, the creature line-up in this deck consists of small, efficient creatures, often making Disciple rather underwhelming
Archetype of Finality has a pretty solid ability to support Alesha on her attacks, but unfortunately is just too damn expensive. 6 mana for a 2/3 with a narrow effect is not good enough in my opinion. Yes, you can bring her back with Alesha, but often enough it just ends up being a dead card in your hand

VIII. Change Log -NEW-

Overview of changes made to the deck as new sets come out.

I. Modern Horizons (v1.1)

Modern Horizons brought three new cool lands for the deck, as well as two insanely powerful creatures in the form of Seasoned Pyromancer and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. I also removed Phyrexian Altar because I felt out of all sacrifice outlets, this one was the most underwheling.

OUT

II. Commander 2019 (v1.2)

OUT

Commander 2019 gave some new toys. Anje Falkenrath does what Rix Maadi Reveler does, but every turn. Dockside Extortionist seems like an absolute powerhouse and just the type of ramp this deck needs. I removed Nahiri, the Harbinger, I love the card, but the slots are getting tight and I feel like Extortionist is a strictly better card.

IN

III. October 2019 (v1.3)

Removed one land to test Elenda, Dusk Rose.

III. March 2020 (v2.0)

It's been a while since I've updated the deck, but I made a lot of changes that significantly improve the deck and boost the aristocrat-like playstyle.

OUT:

IN:

Replacing Restoration Angel with Felidar Guarduan wasn't an easy decision, as the Johannes Voss illustration is one of my all-time favorites. But the fact that Felidar Guardian can be brought back by Alesha makes the Kiki-combo a lot more resillient, and thus was Felidar Guardian the more logical choice.

Grim Haruspex has been replaced with Erebos, Bleak-Hearted. For a single extra mana, Erebos does so much more. It listens to tokens dying, has indestructible and a built-in Sacrifice outlet. This is all we can ask for in a deck like this.

III. July 2020 (v2.1) -NEW-

Both Ikoria and M21 included a ton of new cards that fit the deck nicely.

Savai Triome is a fetchable trio-land and should be an auto-inclusion in every Alesha list.
Ruinous Ultimatum is a bit costly to play but is such a blowout that it's worth the 7cmc
Mangara, the Diplomat allows this deck to compete even more in grindy games by providing you a stream of card advantage.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General was a very obvious inclusion considering the amount of sacrificing this deck does.
Deadly Rollick seems good since Alesha is such a cheap commander to play.

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Casual

91% Competitive

Top Ranked	Achieved #31 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #15 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 5 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	20 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.17
Tokens	City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Goat 0/1 W, Goblin 1/1 R, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Alesha, potential deck ideas, Alesha, Decks to Try, Decks I want to play, Edh decks, Other Decks, 1. Decks I own in Paper, Commander, interesannt
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