Greet Death with sword in hand.
Primer
Overview
Welcome to the Alesha, Who Smiles at Death primer. This primer revolves around ETB effects (specifically their abuse), graveyard recursion, and other synergies that take us to the late game. This decklist does not use any hatebears such as
Hushwing Gryff
or
Aven Mindcensor
. That is a Death and Taxes approach. A primer for that deck is found here at Mishraharad's channel. This decklist is not to be used for very competitive crowds. As a very strong 50/50 deck, expect to win many games at a midrange power level. (The competitive meter has a rather high competitive rate for this deck, yet is definitely not on par with extremely competitive decklists.)
Opinions
You enjoy graveyard strategies
You like to have answers to certain plays
You enjoy decks that require creatures possibly swinging for the kill
You are obsessed with ramp
You don't mind the lack of card draw
You hate combos that require nothing but one card and a braincell
You love bigger creatures
So what do we hate most?
Graveyard exiles such as
Tormod's Crypt
and
Grafdigger's Cage
work well against this deck. Exiling key combo pieces from our graveyard is the best way to shut this deck down. This is not primarily a toolbox deck, so exiling creatures from our graveyard might result in the need to switching combo strategies/synergies.
Strategy
The general strategy is rather simple - get combo pieces into our graveyards/battlefield and win. Either through slower methods such as hardcasting cards, or
sneaking them out.
The early game is all about getting key cards for our combos with our many tutors and cantrips (card draw spells). Early game protection with
Lightning Greaves
or
Swiftfoot Boots
is also incredibly valuable.
Protections have been set up, mana ramp is as strong as we can make it, and it is time to use those tutors of ours.
Demonic Tutor
and
Vampiric Tutor
are amazing for this deck, but the best tutor card
by far is
Buried Alive
. In this deck, it has the potential to immediately win games with combos from our graveyard. I'll discuss combos and valid targets later on.
There you have it. You've achieved it: The perfect setup. Winning can be done through many ways here.
Sneak Attack
,
Living Death
, Alesha's triggered ability, or any other way necessary. ETB's trigger, and
BOOM, you've done something massive.
Remember, the combos in this deck are meant to win, not to have 'really high synergies'.
Combos
Before we get into how we get the combos onto the battlefield, let us discuss the combos themselves.
Kiki-Jiki is an allstar in this deck. While on the field, he can tap to create a token of a creature that
reenters the battlefield. This is crazy important for many synergies, like doubling the effect of
Faceless Butcher
, or even stronger possibilities like
Karmic Guide
.
Kiki makes tokens of creatures that enter the battlefield, so various cards such as
Village Bell-Ringer
re-enter, and
untap all creatures,
including Kiki-Jiki. This is important because we can then tap and untap Kiki-Jiki (targeting the Village Bell-Ringer) infinitely for infinite tokens of Village Bell-ringer
with haste. Do this before combat, and win the game by swinging.
Step 1. Have
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
in play.
Step 2. Have
Village Bell-Ringer
enter the battlefield, untapping your creatures.
Step 3. Make a copy of VBR with Kiki by tapping him, targeting VBR.
Step 4. VBR's token enters the battlefield, untapping Kiki.
Step 5. Repeat Steps 3 & 4 infinitely.
Step 6. Swing at every person on the table for infinite damage.
Note: that this combo works with
Felidar Guardian
in place of VBR as well, repeat the same steps above.
Reveillark
is the
only creature that we cannot bring back with Alesha, and for very good reason. When Reveillark leaves play, it brings back 2 of our creatures from our graveyard. This is important because of a creature called
Karmic Guide
, a powerful card in this deck that creates a loop with Reveillark to infinitely bounce creature cards
from our graveyard. All you need is a sacrifice outlet,
Karmic Guide
, and
Reveillark
. You need Reveillark go into the graveyard/leave play in order to start this combo.
Step 1. With Karmic Guide and a sacrifice outlet on the field or a creature based outlet in the graveyard (such as
Viscera Seer
), evoke Reveillark to the graveyard.
Step 2. Reveillark will trigger, targeting a creature sacrifice outlet and Karmic Guide.
Step 3. Karmic Guide and the Reveillark and the sac outlet will enter the battlefield.
Step 4. When
Karmic Guide
enters the battlefield, bring bac k_any of your creatures in the graveyard_.
Step 5. The returned creature has their ETB's go off.
Step 6. Sacrifice the chosen creature, Karmic Guide, and then finally, sacrifice Reveillark.
This will then infinitely run through Steps 2 through 6. You may choose ANY creature in this deck to infinitely bounce with this combo. With this engine built, the possibilities are endless:
Step 1. Sacrifice M-Cap to any sac outlet.
Step 2. Due to Persist triggering, M-Cap is back onto the field.
Step 3. M-Cap trigger is then put onto the stack.
Step 4. Anafenza's Bolster triggers, resolve this one first.
Step 5. Redcap deals damage to target player or creature.
Repeat all the steps ad infinitum for a complete win through infinite damage.
What are these sac outlets you speak of?
Sacrifice Outlets
Tutors
Buried Alive
only creates a surefire way to win the game the same turn it is cast.
Imperial Recruiter + Recruiter of the Guard
both tutor for almost any creature in our deck. (Infinitely recurred = all creatures in our hands)
Gamble
is very interesting in this deck, as there is seemingly no drawback to have discarded a creature card on accident - we kind of want that, don't we?
Buried Alive
is monstrous in this deck. Tutoring for three creatures and putting them in our graveyard is a very powerful effect in this deck. For an instant win, buried alive Karmic Guide + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Village Bell-Ringer
and swing with Alesha. Pay the mana, bring back Karmic Guide which then brings back Kiki-Jiki. Tap Kiki-Jiki and create a copy of Karmic Guide. The new token will enter the field, and you target Village Bell-Ringer, bringing it back to the field, thus untapping Kiki-Jiki. Now you have the one-shot combo discussed earlier setup: tap Kiki (targeting VBR), and win the game.
Cheating
Cheating creatures onto the field or into our graveyard are easy ways to create the solid effects that we need from them.
Sneak Attack
, for obvious reasons is very strong, and even if the creature gets sacrificed at the end step, we can just bring it back with Alesha.
Animate Dead
brings back a creature from our graveyard for 2 mana....
_Another solid way of putting creatures into our graveyard is through discard outlets.
Putrid Imp
discards cards into our graveyard whenever we want.
Zombie Infestation
needs 2 cards to discard in order to work, but hey, discarding both Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Village Bell-Ringer
seems pretty strong to me.
