Alesha is great for triggering enters-the-battlefield abilities and for not caring when your creatures die. For this deck I wanted to create an environment to maximize the frequency of those events and the utility they give you. I preferred using creatures for any given utility (removal, ramp, etc), since they're the easiest card type to reuse. I restricted myself to making every creature in the deck a valid target for Alesha, which is why some admittedly cool stuff like Iroas, God of Victory and Ogre Battledriver has been left out.
For things I couldn't do (cheaply) with creatures, I went to enchantments. They're less likely to die, but harder to retrieve, so I included Auramancer to let me get good ones back.
Any creature that costs more than two mana is significantly easier to get onto the battlefield with Alesha than it is to cast from my hand, so I included some discard and mill effects to facilitate getting them into the graveyard. There are also some sacrifice outlets, to give me the ability to reuse creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers. (Protip: if you see me sacrifice Stonehorn Dignitary and you can't exile him or shuffle him away, you're probably better off forfeiting. :P)
Custom Categories
BackDoors are for accessing cards you generally can't- retrieving them from the graveyard, and/or getting them onto the battlefield from places other than your hand. Alesha is the primary one of these, which is why it's not a large category.
Counters is just a heading for all the cards that make or use +1/+1 counters
DoorPrizes are cards with enters-the-battlefield triggers (for themselves or others), or abilities that are useful with brand-new permanents (most notably Lightning Greaves.)
ExitStrategy is for cards that help put other cards into the graveyard, from which they can get in through Back Doors.
PartyFavors are cards that help maximize the value I get from each creature on the board.
PartyPlanning is for mana production, card draw, and tutoring.
RollDeep is for cards that help make it safe for Alesha to attack even in dangerous board positions.
SpecialGuests are cards that are very powerful while still being accessible with Alesha. More on them in the next section.
UpAllNight is for cards that make me more able to both attack and defend in a single round of turns.
YoureNotInvited is for removal.
GuestList is where I put all the creatures that don't quite fit any other category- generally cheap weenies that are useful on offense.
There's a lot of overlap between categories, since a lot of cards do more than one of these things. Stinkweed Imp, for instance, fits both Not Invited (for its death touch) and Exit Strategy (for its dredge ability). Auramancer only has one ability, but still fits into Door Prize (getting Auramancer on the battlefield provides a reward) and Back Doors (Auramancer lets you retrieve cards from the graveyard). That makes the decklist hard to display coherently, with some cards appearing in two or three places... but it also makes the deck work really well.
Special Guests
I wanted to keep casting costs low for early game purposes and in case of graveyard hate, so I didn't focus much on outright abusing Alesha's ability here, but there were a few cards I couldn't resist.
Savage Firecat can be difficult to use on its own, but with Alesha's cheap recursion and excellent timing, it becomes hilarious. If it doesn't die by the next combat all on its own, you can throw it out with help from an Exit Strategy, and then bring it back at full strength with Alesha.
Palisade Giant protects you and all your creatures.
Raving Dead alone is scary but unpredictable; Alesha gives you a little more control and provides easy relief from enemy removal.
Cool Combos
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Shrieking Mogg
. If you cast the Mogg from your hand, you get a guaranteed hit for 1 while everything is tapped. If you get it onto the battlefield during the declare attackers step, you get a guaranteed hit with *everything*. It's even safe to attack with creatures you wouldn't send into combat, like Fiend Hunter.
Alesha and a battlefield Exit Strategy like Carrion Feeder combine to let you reuse the same ETB trigger (and sacrifice ability) once per round. This is great with simple Door Prizes like Solemn Simulacrum or Mogg War Marshal, but the best application might be Stonehorn Dignitary. Dictate of Erebos and Jar of Eyeballs also love this trick.
Ankle Shanker + Scalding Salamander
kicks your combat phase off with a one-sided board wipe: deathtouch affects all damage dealt, not just combat damage, so once Ankle Shanker's trigger grants deathtouch to the Salamander, the Salamander's trigger deals lethal damage to every defender without flying.
Karmic Guide combines with Alesha to let you retrieve utility creatures from the graveyard without risking losing them all over again in combat. Great for recovering stuff like Stronghold Assassin or Grenzo, Dungeon Warden.
Mardu Ascendancy goes great with most of the Door Prizes and Party Favors sections. (Cathars' Crusade + Mardu Ascendancy
is particularly beautiful; Kolaghan Forerunners + Mardu Ascendancy
is also hilarious, and Dragonscale General + Mardu Ascendancy
is great if you want to use ALL your counters.)
Gleam of Authority is powerful on its own, but really shines when other sources of +1/+1 counters are available. The rest of the Counters subheading is happy to oblige. (For best results, cast Gleam of Authority on a creature that doesn't have the least toughness; that way, each bolster activation will boost two different creatures, not just one.)
Eldrazi Monument combines with Alesha to create a self-sustaining army of indestructible fliers.
Elite Scaleguard has very similar synergy; Cathars' Crusade + Elite Scaleguard
is a thing of beauty.
Beacon Hawk, Gleam of Authority, and Ring of Thune will help you get the absolute most out of Mardu Ascendancy without leaving yourself completely open to retaliation. (Unfortunately they don't help with Dragonscale General.)
Skirk Ridge Exhumer lets you trigger Door Prizes and provide Exit Strategies at the same time. Other battlefield Exit Strategies like Carrion Feeder, Plagued Rusalka, and Stronghold Assassin go great with the tokens' death triggers.
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed + Leonin Bola
= use Macar's inspired ability every turn, without ever sending him into combat.
Mother of Runes + Palisade Giant
is like giving all your creatures and your life total protection from a color.
Similarly, Blinding Powder + Palisade Giant
is a reusable one-sided Fog.
Pilgrim's Eye/Solemn Simulacrum, Alesha, and Viscera Seer provide obscene library control. That can be handy when combined with draw abilities like Mindless Automaton and/or Grenzo, Dungeon Warden.
All the creature-sacrifice abilities work at instant speed. That means that when Fiend Hunter enters the battlefield, you can put his ETB ability on the stack, then respond by sacrificing him. If you do, his death trigger resolves before his ETB trigger does: he'll return nothing to the battlefield, then exile a creature permanently. And if another threat shows up, you can do this all over again next turn.
