This deck 'abuses' Alesha's ability to wreck havoc on your opponents with persistent threats. It's a toolbox build so feel free to chop and change your toolbox depending on your meta.
Cards like Sin Collector and Mindclaw Shaman are great against spell heavy decks; Bone Shredder, Nekrataal and Big Game Hunter for creature heavy decks; Gonti, Lord of Luxury is great against 'Good Stuff' decks; Thief of Blood and Vampire Hexmage are great against troublesome plainswalkers while Fulminator Mage goes well with our Avalanche Riders for troublesome lands. Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor will stop tutoring. Raving Dead, Noosegraf Mob and Sewer Nemesis are great additional threats while Silverblade Paladin is a big game on your commander or any of the other fatties. War Priest of Thune helps with enchantments while Fiend Hunter and and Tidehollow Sculler over-perform when you have access to a lot of sac outlets and can permanently remove stuff. Grand Abolisher may be a bad omission as your win-con can be pretty weak if your opponent has strong answers. Putrid Imp is available if you want a discard outlet and Returned Centaur can help fill the yard if you're looking for this effect too.
Stinkweed Imp is a special mention here if you're ok with losing your draw, given a perfectly reasonable defensive option is to play this guy, defend behind his psuedo-deathtouch, use a sac outlet if required to bin him, Dredge and replay. This even sets up a big Living Death turn! Just remember to sac. Anger if you hit him so you can still swing.
Special mentions go to Master of Cruelties, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Murderous Redcap and a sac. outlet such as Sadistic Hypnotist, Goblin Bombardment or Viscera Seer. Altar of Dementia is also great because it can mill you for more duders in the yard.
Master of cruelties comes in and can just kill someone, while Anafenza, Redcap and Hypnotist can combo out for the win. Mirror Entity also combo's with the redcap, but this is horrible to execute on MTGO, so he doesn't make the cut.
Another combo I mistakenly came across (lol) was Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Karmic Guide + Altar of Dementia. Goblin Bombardment also represents infinite damage. You can copy the Karmic guide, hold priority and sac. Kiki to the Altar. Then bring back Kiki, rinse and repeat. You can put your whole deck into your graveyard, or mill everyone out. With Panharmonicon you can reanimate all the creatures in the deck with Haste thanks to Anger not to mention an infinite amount of 3/2 flyers! Could even throw in Village Bell-ring for good measure. Also remember Sun Titan + Karmic Guide and Animate Dead with a sac. outlet will give you a loop to abuse also.
Sword of Feast and Famine and Aggravated Assault Combo could go in the deck. While the deck is mainly looking to reanimate stuff, the ease at which you can give stuff skulk Behind the Scenes, menace Iroas, God of Victory or unblockable Rogue's Passage could send you down this perfectly reasonable path. If you'r still using Sunforger with this, I'd recommend adding Master Warcraft to stop people blocking and Stoneforge Mystic for consistancy.
An interesting interaction worth mentioning is Anarchist and Living Death. When the Anarchist triggers, the Living Death is in the yard, so with a sac. outlet you can always have Living Death available! Anarchist value has increased in the deck since adding the Sunforger package.
People will target your graveyard so we include True Believer and would consider Aegis of the Gods and Ivory Mask to get around dedicated graveyard hate. To the same tune, Grand Abolisher can force their hand to execute these moves early and prevent a player from interrupting your combo when using Sadistic Hypnotist which requires sorcery speed, or using removal on your Master of Cruelties.
I haven't included an Academy Rector package because the effect requires you to exile the poor guy.
SPECIAL NOTE!: Battalion effects and other 'when X attacks' effects are no go (Eg. Tajic, Blade of the Legion and Ankle Shanker) as the creatures are never declared as attacking and battalion will not include the incoming creature.
Also with Command Tower, it currently only taps for R in this deck as while Alesha is tri-color her official identity as required for the tower is only red (On MTGO, not sure if this is a bug though).
I've recently added in a Sunforger package to the deck. This includes Eerie Interlude to dodge board wipes, Dawn Charm to fog alpha strikes, Enlightened Tutor to help us get the equipment or to help us find Altar of Dementia. Tithe to help us ramp, but also to get Mistveil Plains which allows us to reuse our answers. Swords to Plowshares, Return to Dust and Anguished Unmaking help to hit other troublesome permanents. Wing Shards rounds out the package and forces our opponents to sac Voltron commanders that look to come our way. All-in-all the package should keep you alive long enough to win! There are more options here too such as Boros Charm to also block Wrath effects and also provide an offensive boost,
wild richochet
if you're being blown out by targeted effects, Pull from Eternity if critical pieces are being exiled, Master Warcraft to force through the win, Utter End and Oblation for more removal although the latter lost much of it's appeal with the changing of the 'tuck' rule.
Panharmonicon is at home nicely in this deck alongside Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker which pair with all the ETB effects.
You can take the deck away from the toolbox approach and look for a tokens and sac. outlet deck however this has not been my goal. Look to Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Beetleback Chief, Ponyback Brigade for more guys while Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos become worht it more if this is more your style. In the current build I've found Falkenrath Noble and Blood Artist-like effects to be ineffectual, but could do work in more token-based build.
Another tip I've got from playing with this deck is that Wrath of God is better than Retribution of the Meek because a big cause for using a wrath will be token hordes and the latter will miss these threats so IMO, stick with the wrath and Austere Command if you want the big upside. You don't want a lot of wrath's because you are fast...ish and creature heavy. Selfless Spirit then hitting your own guys is completely fine!
For other forces stronger than yours, Peacekeeper is worth the investment. Refusing to pay the upkeep, swinging with Alesha and bringing it back, then using Reconnaissance to remove it from danger, means other players won't get to attack, but you still can. Or pay the upkeep and wait until a better time to attack again.
Imperial Recruiter is F#$%ing dear in paper magic, but affordable...ish on MTGO so I'll add it to the Maybeboard. It is stricly better than Recruiter of the Guard in this deck though, as the latter misses some stuff such as our Master of Cruelties and Duplicant. Would probably want to run both still if I could.
Also on the point of price in paper, Wheel of Fortune could be replaced with Tormenting Visions or a wheeling Chandra. The deck will function fine without the old school duels even if you just use basics, but given you're in Mardu, I'd probably opt for Temple of Malice, Temple of Silence and Temple of Triumph.
