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
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Crow-Umbra on Crow-Umbra

2 months ago

Thank you Gleeock! I'd say that Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was my first favorite EDH deck, & commander that showed me how fun the Mardu combo could be. I've admired how much design space diversity Mardu has received for commanders in the past few years.

I'm happy that Abzan & Jeskai are seemingly getting more design attention now. I've really wanted to make an Abzan deck for a while. Although I'm interested in Thalia and The Gitrog Monster, I'm also holding out for the Abzanchantress precon thats dropping with March of the Machine.

Yes! My actual playgroup's meta is a lot of fun. We haven't had any Breena Mirror matches yet, but at least one hits the table each game night. We lean fairly aggro in our meta, but have some decent combo decks that managed to stay viable.

My playgroup doesn't get together super often anymore, since a couple folks moved away from the area. I hit up LGSs with my good friend wolfsack. He's not active on TappedOut anymore, he's mostly on Moxfield now. He's a best friend from college that got me into MtG, and on TappedOut about 10 years ago

Sleepysherlock on Attacks

2 months ago

Backdraft Hellkite, Scourge of the Throne, Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, Grave Titan, Urabrask the Hidden, Big Score, Unexpected Windfall, Deadly Dispute, Hostile Negotiations, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Goldspan Dragon, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, Balor, Explorer's Scope, Strionic Resonator, Parhelion II, Hall of the Bandit Lord, Legion Loyalty, Utvara Hellkite, Tyrant's Familiar, Gorex, the Tombshell, Greven, Predator Captain, Graveyard Trespasser  ^Flip, Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, Kaalia of the Vast, Inferno Titan, Olivia, Crimson Bride, Tajic, Legion's Edge, Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice, Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

Crow-Umbra on Frog and Blonde Real Estate

3 months ago

Here is my Slimefoot and Squee decklist Poly_raptor. I'll likely publish the Tappedout version within the next day or two. I do have tags enabled if you want to sort through those. The primer as of now is just a brief summary of the two combo lines currently in the deck, and basic objective.

I'll check out your Slimefoot and Squee list to see what you have brewing.

Aristocrats and Reanimator are a lot of fun. I haven't played Aristocrats/Reanimator since I took apart my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck to build my Isshin deck, and also since I retired my Araumi of the Dead Tide deck last year. Both were fun but I wanted to try something different.

Niko9 on What's your dream play?

3 months ago

That's actually a really cool combo with Alesha and Master of Cruelties I can't really wrap my head around how the attack step works with MOC's "attacks alone" and Alesha's need to be attacking to activate. It's an awesome interaction : ) it just makes me scratch my head. Would it need something like Ephemerate to take Alesha, Who Smiles at Death out of combat? Or does it just work because Master of Cruelties isn't initiating the attack?

Ha, either way, such a fun one : )

Crow-Umbra on What's your dream play?

3 months ago

I don't have a current dream play, besides sharing the same one as CoarselyRefined.

If anything, I think I played out a personal dream play already. Here's the basic beat:

• I was playing my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck a couple years back.

• I pitched a Master of Cruelties in my yard on someone's end step before my turn, using a Thrill of Possibility.

• At start of my turn I immediately move to combat, using Alesha's ability to recur the Master of Cruelties.

• In response to MoC entering the battlefield, I use Key to the City to pitch a basic land, and make MoC unblocked. It hits an opponent taking them down to 1 life.

• I move to second main phase and cast a Goblin Bombardment, which I immediately use to sac the MoC, and throw the 1 damage at the player it just hit in combat.

The last two players proceeded to rightfully focus me and knock me out on their subsequent turns. It was worth it lol.

Crow-Umbra on The Ghost of Kamigawa

3 months ago

From my time playing aristocrats/reanimator (Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Araumi of the Dead Tide respectively), and Isshin, I have some feelings on pros and cons for reanimation:

• I think reanimation is certainly strong, but for something like Isshin, you might want effects more like Faith's Reward which can reanimate your entire board in response to a board wipe.

• Single target reanimation like Animate Dead is strong, but I think gets a little more mileage in reanimator decks that are more focused on that strategy, and perhaps have creatures with Enter the Battlefield effects that can be re-used with the reanimation.

• Reanimation in Isshin can be a little slow, since you might be able to only reanimate one creature at a time, depending on your reanimation package, and may have to wait for the creature to be summoning sick.

• I think Isshin benefits most from board protection effects like Unbreakable Formation that can be used more reactively to preserve as much of your entire board as possible. You want to make sure that your board stays as intact as possible to maintain momentum.

• Living Death is another mass reanimation spell that can also potentially be a draw back if you're playing against graveyard decks, or opponents have strong creatures in their graveyards that can also be brought back.

• Sidenote: In a recent game, I used a Plumb the Forbidden in response to a Living Death to sacrifice my board so it could be brought back with the Living Death.

• Blink spells like Semester's End or Eerie Interlude are another set of options, but have the draw back of losing your creature tokens in the process.

Crow-Umbra on You're Not The Boss Of Me Now

4 months ago

Lol well I also have an Isshin, Two Heavens as One deck that is turning into my most expensive deck as I continue to upgrade and bling it out lol.

My Shanid list is in my "View Other Decks" tab. Luckily for you, Mardu is probably my favorite 3 color combo, so here are all of my Mardu decks:

• Shanid, Clout Conquistadors: Aggro focused with a reanimator sub-theme from some of its Legends. Takes a lot of cues from my Isshin deck.

• Isshin, Musashi's Mosh Pit [Primer]: My favorite deck. It's a tokens go-wide strat with some group-slug to speed games up. A little over half of the creatures are legendary.

• Alesha, Awkward Eye Contact with Death (retired): My first Mardu deck. I absolutely love Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. She was my longest running deck until Isshin came along. She served as the basis for my Isshin deck.

Isshin and Alesha definitely informed my Shanid brewing experience quite a bit lol.

UrzasUnderstudy on Official missing/incorrect card/token thread

4 months ago

That seems weird if only because Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar technically doesn't have a 'cost' cost and only an ability that costs {R} or {B} and yet she ends up in the gold color identity column and not over with poor accidentally uncolored Greasefang and the Hope of Ghirapur. I guess she has the little pip next to her types. I mean I can see that you might not be using these cards in a format that doesn't rely on color identity, but they still have it and a lot of people use it for deck construction.

I guess if I were to make a suggestion for functional options maybe adding a color identity button would be good.

Oh and couldn't find Jorn, God of Winter  ^Flip or Svella, Ice Shaper just looking for 3 mana legendary green creatures, unless I add in 'legendary snow creatures' which makes it feel like I'm expected to know snow creatures before actually looking for them.

Anyhow you caught me in the middle of typing up the following when I noticed the quick reply:

I have a slightly more complete list of cards that don't seem to have the appropriate color identity at least as far as searching them out and organizing them on my side goes. I was looking for a list of all the possible Tiny Leaders a person could use (so legendary 3 mana value or less creature cards that could serve as a commander in a game that uses commanders) and these are the cards I could not find if I searched by color identity or if once I found them they didn't fit their color identity (in all cases they show up under a single color category instead of 'gold'). There are probably several other cards that have this issue that exist outside my search parameters.

• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death appears under {R} cards even though it is {R}{W}{B}
• Greasefang, Okiba Boss appears under {C} cards even though it is {W}{B}
• Jorn, God of Winter  ^Flip appears under {G} cards even though by rights the card as a whole should be counted as {B}{G}{U} because of its backside being Kaldring, the Rimestaff  ^Flip
• Ken, Burning Brawler appears under {R} cards even though it is {R}{W}
• Plargg, Dean of Chaos  ^Flip appears under {R} cards even though by rights the card as a whole should be counted as {R}{W} because of its backside being Augusta, Dean of Order  ^Flip
• Ryu, World Warrior appears under {W} cards even though it is {R}{W}
• Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest appears under {U} cards even though it is {U}{R}{W}
• Tatsunari, Toad Rider appears under {B} cards even though it is {B}{G}{U}
• Yasova Dragonclaw appears under {G} cards even though it is {G}{U}{R}