Warrior Eternal

Commander / EDH* Aggro RBW (Mardu) Reanimator

JRaynor

Board Wipes (4)

• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Mythos of Snapdax
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Card Advantage (3)

• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Perpetual Timepiece
• 1x Twilight Prophet

Combat Assets (8)

• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Reconnaissance
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Dolmen Gate
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Anger
• 1x Embercleave
• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Land (31)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x High Market
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 3x Plains
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Savai Triome
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Champions

Payoffs (2)

• 1x Elenda, the Dusk Rose
• 1x Marionette Master

Ramp (12)

• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum

Reanimation (5)

• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Sun Titan

Sacrifice Outlets (4)

• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Targeted Removal (11)

• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra

Tutors (7)

• 1x Entomb
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Imperial Recruiter

Commander (1)

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My signature deck.

pending reconstruction

Thoughts on Alesha as a Commander

You will not get to attack with Alesha nearly as much as you might imagine. Not only are games shorter in the number of turn cycles than we typically believe, but board states, mana shortages, and removal will often lock us up after a few hits with our commander's ability. As a result, it is crucial to build your deck so that it does not rely on the commander being on board to function. Many Alesha decks will contain 40 reanimation targets, when you're only ever really going to reanimate 5 things in a game. It's critical to balance your deck so you have backup reanimation abilities so the deck does not rely solely on Alesha being on the battlefield.

Another important facet for Alesha is having evasion built into your reanimation targets. While we will be including a few Dolmen Gate effects, those are far and few between and they can't take up too many deck slots. Thus, Dimir House Guard with fear is a more attractive reanimation target than Viscera Seer. If you wanted to run an aristocrats build, Falkenrath Noble would be much easier to reanimate than Blood Artist since flying makes it more likely he'll survive the attack. Keeping cheaper CMC options like Blood Artist and Viscera Seer in the deck is still important when playing from hand, but you'll want to keep an eye on the optimal reanimation version of a card for Entomb effects.

Let's Discuss Card Selection by Category

Optional Picks

Optional Sac Outlets:

• Viscera Seer - Top tier in terms of efficiency.

• Spawning Pit - 2CMC Sac outlets are great. This is better than most of your options.

• Ashnod's Altar + Phyrexian Altar - These are incredible sac outlets buuuut... They are infamous cards, enabling multiple high profile infinite combos and are generally considered "remove on sight" threats at most tables. If you want to play a combo heavy version of Alesha, these are shoe-ins. If you have a couple just laying around, these will serve you well too. Just be aware of their reputation for degeneracy. I don't run the infinite combos that require the altars, so to avoid aggro, I don't play these.

• Yahenni, Undying Partisan - The former top end sac outlet for Alesha. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician replaced him, but Yahenni is still a great choice.

Optional Anthems and Combat Assets

• Mirror Entity - An underrated card. Mirror entity functions as a flexible anthem baked into a reanimation target and can also sneakily operate as a sac outlet by paying 0 to kill everything.

• Loyal Unicorn - Extremely on brand for Alesha, and my personal pick when I want a 5th way to get the team in.

• Eldrazi Monument - Surprisingly good! This is often a must answer threat and the fact that you have to sac a creature each turn plays into your strategy. It's a feature, not a bug! Definitely a good card. Just remember, you won't be 'flying' under the radar with this on board as it attracts all kinds of aggro.

• Filth - Pair with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for incredible results. This would be a must run if there were more reliable ways to tutor Urborg to the table.

Optional Payoffs

• Siege-Gang Commander - The original top end token producer. Still very good if you want to remove some tutors and build up your token producer category.

Optional Board Wipes / Removal - Fire Covenant - Formerly a great budget alt for Toxic Deluge. Not so budget anymore, but still a good card. Fire Covenant becomes more effective the more cutthroat and competitive your meta. If your opponents don't run a lot of mana dorks and low toughness utility creatures, this loses a significant amount of value, though it's never a bad card. Overall, highly versatile.

• Tragic Arrogance - A strong argument can be made for including this and I wouldn't contest you.

• Austere Command - A great versatile card that only barely got edged out.

Optional Card Draw - Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Incredible card draw packaged with other relevant abilities.

More Ramp?

• Dockside Extortionist - My single copy is sitting in (The Mecha Mercenary Company) but this guy is great!

Meta Dependent Picks

All the Death and Taxes cards...

There are a lot of D&T style creatures that have 2 or less power, making Alesha a very potent choice for D&T style decks. Beware though! This only works in a very efficient, competitive meta. If you try to stax/tax your casual table you will be in for some boring games where no one can do anything.

Red Elemental Blast and/or Pyroblast For more blue heavy metas, one of these in the 99 to make your opponents wary is great, and even catch em off guard on occasion.

Traps

Phyrexian Arena - Twilight Prophet is pretty much strictly better for our strategy so I'd avoid this staple entirely here.

Dusk / Dawn - It looks tailor made for this strategy but it's a trap. Not only does Alesha get caught in the Dusk portion, but you really do not want to bring your creatures back to your hand en-mass so the second half is mostly useless too.

Master of Cruelties - Another trap; albeit an awesome trap. The likelihood of you being able to successfully pull off 3 consecutive kills is practically nill and nothing is more sad than eliminating one person, becoming the arch enemy and getting knocked out second. It's a stylish way to wrap up a game when it's down to 1v1, but you really don't want to see this before then.

Stand Out Cards

Buried Alive - Best card in the deck. Remove the other tutors if you want, but keep hold of this one.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician - Next best card in deck. Holy crap! He does everything!

Reconnaissance - Simply your best Combat Damage Immunity option.

Burnished Hart - The fact that you can cycle this without a sac outlet in play is really important.

Karmic Guide - Turns your limited reanimation with the commander into unlimited reanimation.

On Budget

Alesha is an extremely budget friendly commander as all the core components are inexpensive, and Alesha herself is a bulk rare. You just need a way to let our commander attack with impunity, a 2 power creature to reanimate for value, and something to allow you to sacrifice your creatures on demand. None of these categories are occupied by expensive exclusives, so just swap out the pricier cards for cheap options and you're off to the races.

Mentor of the Meek is solid repeatable card draw. Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice, and Cathartic Reunion perform double duty throwing cards to reanimate into the yard while drawing more resources to your hand.

Ponyback Brigade, Marionette Master, and Siege-Gang Commander are all top tier token producers for cheap, providing massive value engines.

Key to the City - Surprisingly effective. Gets your commander through unharmed, discards when you need to, and draws you cards when you need to. It's the versatility that makes this a stand out. Nahiri's Machinations and Behind the Scenes keep Alesha alive for pennies. Loyal Unicorn is another great option to push your team through for an attack.

Dimir House Guard - the fact that you can discard him to go get Solemn Simulacrum (or another 4 Mana Value target), allowing him to be a reanimation target, and then he has built in evasion, and can regenerate... well it's quite good. :) Probably the top tier budget sac outlet.

There is such a plethora of interesting creatures with 2 power that can be added into your deck, and paired with one of the dozens of cheap sac outlets it really makes Alesha a compelling budget commander.

Top Ranked	Achieved #27 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #20 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aggro 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH RBW (Mardu) 4 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	88
Avg. CMC	2.81
Tokens	City's Blessing, Elephant 3/3 G, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders	Possible Future Builds, Mardu