Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

Legendary Creature — Human Warrior

First strike

Whenever Alesha, Who Smiles at Death attacks, you may pay {WB}{WB}. If you do, return target creature card with power 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped and attacking.

Combos

• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Reconnaissance
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Maze of Ith
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Breath of Fury
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Breath of Fury + Rogue's Passage + Sword of Feast and Famine
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Breath of Fury + Sword of Feast and Famine + Whispersilk Cloak
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Key to the City
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Selfless Spirit
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Karmic Guide
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Master of Cruelties
• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death + Blinding Angel

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Crow_Umbra on Favorite plane and why?

2 months ago

Tarkir is definitely up there for my favorite planes. I think it's a toss up between Tarkir and Theros for me, mostly because those were the two newest planes when I first started playing around 2013.

I'll give the edge to Tarkir, mostly because at the time I was bummed out that I missed out on Kamigawa, and Shards of Alara seemed really cool as a three color set, so Tarkir was like a combination of aesthetics and concepts that I missed out on.

One of my key MtG related memories from that time was the day that Tarkir was spoiled by WotC. My best friend and I were still in college. We bought and devoured an entire Costco pizza between the two of us as we watched the Tarkir reveal. Mardu's key art from Mardu Ascendancy stood out to me most from the reveal, and I knew that was the faction that I wanted to play most.

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was one of my favorite characters from Khan block, and would go on to be one of my first favorite commanders a few years later. Her story is one of my favorites from MtG, so I was glad when she returned in Foundations.

Overall, I'm pretty excited for Dragonstorm on the horizon.

Flarhoon13 on Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Oops, I Did it Again

5 months ago

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, Oops, I Did it Again won, Comboed off on my fifth attempt thru lots of disruption. Ian and Madison didn't team up, on their Ren and Stimpy, err, Rin and Seri, Inseparable and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic decks. Murderous Redcap entered at least 5 times and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit about three before the combo finally stuck, with Karmic Guide out and then Renegade Reaper milled a Reveillark, starting a new combo that finally won the game.

Flarhoon13 on Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Oops, I Did it Again

5 months ago

May 3, 2024 I started a new quest. Having built 52 decks, I endeavoured to play them all, in roughly the same order as I created them.

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death Oops, I Did it Again lost again, bringing my record to 14-15. Used search to find removal for Logan's Chatterfang, Squirrel General instead of finding pieces of my own combo win. Plus, Will's The Scarab God shut me down very hard--exiled a lot of cards. Win percentage .483

GhostB3N on Silvar & Trynn - Human tribal

7 months ago

Easy swap for a more fitting 3 mana mana rock:

Commander's Sphere > Patchwork Banner

Better fitting creature

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death > Witch Enchanter  ^Flip

5 mana aristocrat card for a impact tremmor like effect with +1/+1

Syr Konrad, the Grim > Warleader's Call

card draw replaced by more reliable carddraw:

Disciple of Bolas > Idol of Oblivion

Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar > Caretaker's Talent

Garna, Bloodfist of Keld > Wedding Announcement  ^Flip

Better token makers:

Oath of Eorl > Forth Eorlingas!

Brazen Cannonade > Distract the Guards

Cathar's Call > Apothecary White

_AoxomoxoA_ on Veni, Vidi, Vici

8 months ago

09/07/2024 Revisions

Why?

The focus of these changes were to increase the token generation ability of the deck. Many of the removed cards interacted with cards that have been killed/allowing me to profit off of the death of tokens/creatures. Often, this would lead to me having a board of creatures that Caesar couldn't make use of which would stall my boardstate.

11 Card Changes

Removals

Creatures

-1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death: Limited Graveyard recursion that didn't do much for many of my creatures

-1 Athreos, God of Passage: Tokens are what mainly die in my deck and those can't be in my hand

-1 Deathgreeter: Hard choice to make with this one, but at the end of the day, I wanted to remove this aspect of the deck. I don't care as much about longterm survivability if I can win early.

-1 Desdemona, Freedom's Edge: Similar to Alesha and Atheros

-1 Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim: Another hard choice to make, but I want to focus on tokens entering the battlefield and the attack phase rather than sacrificing and graveyard.

-1 Morbid Opportunist: Good card but similar to Elas, I want to focus on ETB and Attacking rather than killing

-1 Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy: I don't want many of my creature cards attacking and honestly the CMC of many of my creatures doesn't make this card worth it

-1 Pitiless Plunderer: Same as Morbid

-1 White Glove Gourmand: Ended up being a card that read: 4 mana create 2 humans, which is not ideal

Artifacts

-1 Ashnod's Altar: Never really panned out how I wanted it to, make room for better cards

Enchantments

-1 Battle of Hoover Dam: Choosing NCR runs into the same issue as Alesha and Desmonda, choosing Legion is fine but also not amazing. I would rather buff all my cards or keep them small to help with McCready

Additions

Creatures

+1 Hero of Bladehold: Great consistent token generator, and it creates soldiers

+1 Iroas, God of Victory *list*: Keep my tokens alive and able to consistently hit face against tall boards

+1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus: I LOVE this card, similar to Isshin being able to trigger Caesar's ability multiple times per turn is super strong. Also, I have many other attack phase triggers

+1 Myrel, Shield of Argive: Better Hero of Bladehold + Grand Abolisher, this card is a no brainer. Plus it has soldier synergy

Enchantments

+1 Anointed Procession: Stupid to not include this card in a white token deck

+1 Court of Embereth: This card is STRONG, consistently generates targets for Caesar to sacrifice if needed, and it does Caesar's strongest ability automatically every turn. Also Monarch is fun and I can consistently fight to keep it.

+1 Warleader's Call: Purphoros and a static +1/+1

Instants

+1 Grand Crescendo: At worst, it's 2 mana to make my board indestructible, at best it generates tokens for me

Sorcerys

+1 Finale of Glory: Token generator

Artifacts

+1 Mana Vault: More fast mana!

+1 The One Ring: Card draw plus protection from everything

golgarigirl on Edh options

10 months ago

That kind of sounds like almost any deck depending on how it's built imo?

I run a Marath, Will of the Wild deck that is aggro at it's core, but the card choices are inherently toolbox-y and can pretty handily find answers to problems.

My Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is built opposite, a midrange toolbox deck that can go aggro, but she could have easily been built aggro with a control kit to find if needed.

I would just start with...are there any commanders, colors, or core strategies (token aggro, voltron, big beats, tribal aggro) that are interesting to you? We can narrow something down from there. Otherwise people are just gonna throw out what they're familiar with.

As for out of the box, I guess of the decks I've played I'll agree with the Breena, the Demagogue recommendation. But eh, your mileage will vary a lot to get the deck to do all of that well, especially control-wise, depending on your pod.

Crow_Umbra on Terrenos de Don Windgrace [Retired]

1 year ago

Thanks for checking out my decks as of recent, Profet93 I appreciate it. This is my second go at trying out a Lands strategy. Zimone and Dina were pretty interesting, but they felt like they were being pulled in a couple of different directions.

Since this deck is fairly new, I haven't had a chance to try it here yet. I used to run Insidious Dreams in my old Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck. I liked it the times I played it there, but felt it was kinda clunky at 4 cmc, especially for a Mardu deck. I figured the mana cost wouldn't be as big of a deal in a deck with Green in it lol. I'm also playing it here because my one copy of Demonic Tutor is currently in my Burakos deck. I also figured I'd (ideally) be pitching Lands to the Discard requirement. If it under performs, It'll be one of my first swaps out.

1. Petrified Field seems interesting. I agree that I'd want to limit the number of colorless mana producing lands I run, but could swap it for one of the others already in the deck.

2. Lol I picked up a copy of Natural Affinity during one of my ordering batches. I'm sure that I'll give it a shot at some point.

3. As for the Shamanic Revelation, I currently have about 6 creature token production effects in the 99. Still getting a feel for how consistently I can draw into at least one. In terms of a similarly costed draw effect, I was considering Stinging Study. 5 for always 5 seems decent.

capwner on "Master of Cruelties" - Budget but Strong?

1 year ago

As an x/4 in a no fury meta I think this card could potentially be good. The deck really wants Ragavan but yeah that's not very budget. Bowmasters too.

About 'understanding what to replace,' the way I think of it is, you know there are always more potential good cards than you can actually run in any deck, usually there are multiple good ways to build a deck. Every card should play into your synergy, except for sideboard cards which can attack something very specifically. And every card should be the best possible option for its slot (most versatility, most synergies with your other cards, most favorable in specific interactions vs. specific cards). Example, this is why I love Apostle's Blessing in here, it's versatile because it protects and evades, and these are both things your deck REALLY needs. And it's a cheap instant. Great card.

But now look at Goblin Tunneler, I see a card that is part of the gameplan, but it's also an x/1 non hasty creature and a 2 drop. This is going to fall short a lot of the time. Maybe a card like Wedding Invitation or Key to the City could be better in this slot. Generator Servant is great for the haste but it has the same weakness. Splitting that with artifact ramp like you did is good, maybe consider options like Pentad Prism but go with what you think plays the best. Molten Collapse is a strictly better Dreadbore and not expensive. Sunken Citadel might be a good land to combo with Rogue's Passage, maybe then Field of Ruin instead of Ghost Quarter? And Graven Cairns? On the lands topic I really like the idea posted above of adding Leechridden Swamp but you do need the fetches to really make it work.

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death has a nice effect but doesn't really synergize with anything besides bringing your Master back, which it can't even do vs. LB and Solitude. Maybe adding cards that combo with her like Fulminator Mage or Augur of Skulls could make her better. Lightning Greaves also makes her and a lot of your other creatures better too, this is a card I'd consider for a 1 or 2 of. But without adding more support, you might consider cutting Alesha and adding something along another angle.

I like Brainspoil, the tutor is nice because finding the Master is definitely a bottlneck in the deck. Grim Tutor is an option but a bit more expensive, Profane Tutor is affordable but has some problems. Having at least one other tutorable 5 drop would make your BS a lot better. 1 of Glarewielder would be kind of cute.

Hand disruption is another angle you might consider, it's really good for a slightly slower combo deck like this to nullify your opponent's big early plays and buy you a couple extra turns to combo them out. Collective Brutality is a pretty decent flexible card that also finishes your opponent.

In the end I think tuning your list and making cuts is about trying to make as many of these meaningful synergy connections between different cards as possible, getting the right amount of each type of effect you want (3 vs 4 of a specific effect like Dreadbore matters a lot vs some decks!), and then you cut either your lowest synergy cards, or effects you think you could safely go down a count on. Usually you want 6-8 ways of getting your key card in action, or 6+ of each combo piece/synergy if it involves multiple cards, and in a perfect world you want 4+ post board copies of HATE for particular meta decks, like 4 Leyline of the Void vs. Living End, or 8 killspells that can kill a Primeval Titan or Sheoldred. Your board cards should address aspects of other decks that really threaten you, no need to run those Leylines if you already beat that deck most of the time. It often comes down to having the right reactive cards, so you want good numbers of the ones you'll need the most.

Sorry for the whole ass book! It seemed like you wanted the help and I liked the concept/got into it a bit once I started looking. I think there's a lot of work and playtesting you could do to really optimize this, and maybe it could end up being pretty good+still affordable!