Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

Legendary Creature — Human Warrior

First strike

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

Discussion (50)

arsenicide33 on Alesha, Who Gets Things Done

3 weeks ago

Cool deck!

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was one of the first generals I built a commander deck around and I've been tuning mine ever since.

Replacements I would make

• Replace Dolmen Gate with Reconnaissance since it costs 1 less and also can untap your creatures after damage has been dealt to give them pseudo-vigilance.
• Replace Angel of Invention with Marionette Master since if you get infinite ETBs on marionette master, you can sac the infinite tokens to deal infinite damage.

Other cards I might suggest

• Add Moriok Replica is the best card I have in my Alesha deck, it can draw you so many cards every turn.
• Add Panharmonicon/Flameshadow Conjuring so you can get double ETB triggers.
• Add Torch Fiend and Kami of Ancient Law for repeatable artifact/enchantment removal.
• Add Remorseful Cleric for repeatable graveyard hate.
• Add Magus of the Disk for a repeatable board wipe.
• Add Yahenni, Undying Partisan since he's a free sac outlet that can draw you cards and can also be recurred using Alesha.

Combos I might suggest

• Add Reveillark/Sun Titan + Karmic Guide + a sac outlet + a creature with an ETB trigger like Murderous Redcap = infinite ETBs.
• Add Vesperlark + Felidar Guardian + a sac outlet = infinite sacrifices.
• Add Sun Titan + Gift of Immortality + a sac outlet = infinite sacrifices.
• Add Zealous Conscripts + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker = infinite hasty pirates.

Cards I recommend ditching:

• Remove Carrion Grub Its basically 4 mana for 4 cards milled, that isn't worth it.
• Remove Sunforger You only have 6 legal Sunforger targets, it isn't worth it to keep it in.
• Remove Dictate of Erebos You don't need this if you can just get a Ravenous Chupacabra out and keep recurring it.
• Remove Mindclaw Shaman This was a card that I found didn't do much when I played it, there are alot of other creatures with better ETB effects.
• Remove Relic Seeker There isn't much of a need to fetch a piece of equipment since you only have Sunforger, Sword of the Animist, and Skullclamp.

Feel Free to check out my RBW Alesha's Beautiful Smile combo deck for ideas.

Reznorboy on Slivers Except Not

1 month ago

So, I was thinking, and I had kind of a realization. Why is it that EVERY person who plays Slivers (in EDH of course) uses a Sliver as their commander? Now, there's obvious upsides to doing this, but at the same time, I was thinking, this is somewhat limiting. For example, what if someone were to play Alesha, Who Smiles at Death as commander in a deck of Slivers. Alesha revives a good majority of the Slivers, and gives access to most of the colors necessary. Name one Sliver commander who can do reanimator/extra combat shenanigans. Other possibilities that come to mind are Karador, Ghost Chieftain, Illuna, Apex of Wishes, as well as Chulane, Teller of Tales. I think that as long as the commander has 3 colors, and is able to benefit the overall gameplan, they can see success as a Sliver commander. What do you think? (Or what ideas do you have)?

Player3.14 on Sword of Body and Mind …

1 month ago

I've played a lot of 60-card constructed magic but have little background in commander.

I am developing a mono-white commander deck and have been pleased about how it plays. I am considering adding a Sword of Body and Mind.

What gives me pause with this particular sword is the "mill 10" part of the damage trigger. For each of the other Swords, the abilities are largely beneficial (except, I guess, in rare instances, Sword of Feast and Famine's discard trigger could theoretically set up some reanimation shenanigans). Yet the mill portion of the damage trigger seems to be a distinct disadvantage because many better decks utilize the graveyard as a resource and milling out a 99 card deck is unlikely.

Some commanders especially focus on using the graveyard as a resource, such as Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Karador, Ghost Chieftan, and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. I imagine "mill 10" is quite a gift to these players.

For those of you who run Sword of Body and Mind in a higher-tier casual (i.e. non-cEDH) deck, how much has this been an issue for you?

(In particular, I'm targeting levels 6-7 using Wizard Tower's 10 point scale, but insight for lower or higher levels of play is also welcomed).

Thanks!

cwldarling on Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist vs Alesha, …

2 months ago

Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist prevents more than one creature from attacking her controller when she is tapped. Alesha, Who Smiles at Death when she attacks brings another creature out tapped and attacking. Can that additional creature attack Mirri’s controller if Alesha is already doing so?

multimedia on Call the Army

2 months ago

Hey, good start upgrading the precon on a budget.

28 lands is not enough land for an avg. CMC of 3.4 which is high. I recommend 36 lands and adding Knight of the White Orchid. First strike with a two drop Human is good with +2 pump from Jirina. You want to take more advantage of Jirina who's a four drop anthem effect for Humans. This means you want to consistently be able to play more impactful one drops (Champion of the Parish)/two drops (Thalia's Lieutenant)/three drops (Frontline Medic) to attack with the turn you play Jirina.

Tribal creature strategies in Commander fold to board wipes. To combat this play more repeatable instant speed indestructible protection (Etchings of the Chosen), creature recursion (Phyrexian Reclamation), reanimation (Alesha, Who Smiles at Death) and noncreature repeatable sources of Humans (Outlaws' Merriment).

---

Budget lands to consider adding:

• Unclaimed Territory
• Exotic Orchard
• Nomad Outpost
• Caves of Koilos
• Battlefield Forge
• Smoldering Marsh
• Rakdos Carnarium

Cards to consider cutting to add more lands and other suggestions:

• Bonds of Faith
• Street Riot
• Hope Against Hope
• Kamahl, Pit Fighter
• Dreamshaper Shaman
• Cone of Flame
• The Akroan War
• Fireball
• Rising Populace
• Lavabrink Venturer
• Makeshift Battalion
• Hardened Berserker
• Warded Battlements
• King Macar, the Gold-Cursed

Would you like more help?

Good luck with your deck.

StopShot on Help me foolproof this infinite …

2 months ago

@SynergyBuild, Ah well I wanted to leave what kind of deck this would be open-ended so that if it couldn't fit well in my deck it may still serve someone else's deck better. What strikes me about this combo is you could play Ashnod's Altar for , Seasoned Pyromancer for and if you produce two tokens you can cast Nim Deathmantle practically for and still have enough resources to initiate the combo without any additional mana expenditures meaning the combo has the capability to be used with as little as mana total. I feel like this is really low to the ground and may find use in either Legacy (or Modern if Ashnod's Altar is ever printed into that format). Though I haven't played in the Legacy format so perhaps that remark is a bit of a stretch and I'm sure there's loads of reasons to doubt Ashnod's Altar will ever end up in Modern, but having this sort of open-ended conversation I think can serve a lot of good even if its for commander or a different format.

As for my deck I am running Alesha, Who Smiles at Death so . So that does happen to bar me from great suggestions such as Unlife's Thassa's Oracle/Laboratory Maniac suggestion or RambIe's Abundance suggestion. I do want to thank both for bringing everyone's attention to those cards. Also due to the constraints of my deck I want to not run creatures with power 3 or greater and I don't want to run cards with CMC 5 or greater (if I can help it). That said I do want to thank PhotogenicParasympathetic for their card suggestion of Bone Miser and RambIe's suggestion to use Garna, the Bloodflame. Even if these cards don't fit into the constraints of my deck it is wonderful that they were brought up as I feel they actually do the combo a lot of good if you can run them.

I believe the cards suggested that help me the most for my deck are RambIe's suggestion of Shadow of the Grave and most importantly dingusdingo's suggestion to use Library of Leng which I am absolutely kicking myself for, for not being able to think of it around the time I made this thread. Library of Leng as I see it practically answers holes A and B and is so incredibly cheap to cast on top of that. I'm kicking myself because before coming up with this combo I was trying to come up with a two card draw engine using the library as one of the pieces.

I also want to thank dingusdingo and enpc for better explaining how this combo is non-deterministic which better exemplifies why holes A and B are so important to fill. It's also why Library of Leng was such a critical card to be noted as it turns the combo from undeterministic to deterministic.

That all being said however Library of Leng well may bring up a very hazy rules interaction into question that I feel I must have to consult a judge on. If you go onto the Gatherer page for Library of Leng and check the card rulings below on that page it specifies: "Since the card goes directly to the library, the card is not revealed unless the spell or ability requiring the discard specifically says it is."

Because of this ruling the cards discarded aren't revealed, however Seasoned Pyromancer says you can only create tokens based on what cards were discarded. So would this interaction mean that I could discard two land cards, not reveal the fact they are two land cards due to Library of Leng's ruling and then claim the two cards I discarded were actually nonland cards just to produce the tokens? Obviously that scenario wouldn't work, but this begs the question how does this work? Remember the card ruling says the cards aren't revealed unless an effect specifically says to reveal the discarded card and no where does Seasoned Pyromancer say the discarded cards must be revealed because typically the contents of any player's graveyard is common knowledge to everyone. So this effect would only apply to cards such as Nephalia Academy, Noxious Vapors, Cabal Therapy, etc. where reveal is explicitly stated. But I might be wildly misinterpreting this effect as it could also be abusive with cards that have transmute or Seismic Assault where what you discard matters except the rulings for Library of Leng also states: "You can’t use the Library of Leng ability to place a discarded card on top of your library when you discard a card as a cost, because costs aren’t effects." Transmute and Seismic Assault use the discarded card as a cost, but Seasoned Pyromancer doesn't so is this a blind spot in the rules?

But excluding what I just mentioned there Library of Leng is probably the best answer for countering Holes A and B so far, but it's still not a 100% perfect solution. There's always the risk of running into a massive land block before drawing into it and there's also the concern of if your deck has an odd number of cards, then if its the bottom card of your library you'd need some additional effect to draw into it as drawing two cards at a time would cause you to deck out and lose the game before you could even cast it. While I'm fully aware both effects are still very unlikely they do exist and that probability is a non-zero entity even if for it being very unlikely.

One card I'm already running in my deck that may help mitigate one of those issues however is Conjurer's Bauble which I can use to guarantee the bottom card of my library won't be the Library of Leng. And if I choose not to put a card on the bottom of my library, that can trip can be used to turn a library with an odd number of cards in it into a library with an even number of cards in it. It's also helpful in the event I mill either it or Elixir of Immortality into my graveyard whether by some dredge effect or through milling caused by an opponent from earlier in the game. I thought I'd bring everyone's attention to Conjurer's Bauble as the cheap cost and can trip makes it an accessory to this combo that won't be a dead draw in the event you don't have the combo out.

SynergyBuild on enpc

2 months ago

Sadly, you need to get to 6 power for Sisay, since Sisay, Weatherlight Captain says 'costs less than' rather than 'equal to or less than.'

No worries, the use of Jegantha as a companion is it lets you get Sisay to 4 power on it's own, which allows the whole combo to occur with no extra pieces. Yes 11 mana is a ton, but 3-3-5 isn't too bad, when it's a 5 color, 0 card combo, you can work with anything in deck. Radha while not bad for the deck, will often be worse than other ramp pieces like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, or just normal ramp.

The actual legends in more competitive Sisay lists (according to lists I've seen) are Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Anafenza, the Foremost, Gaddock Teeg, Tymna the Weaver, Thrasios, Triton Hero, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, Teferi, Time Raveler, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, Dack Fayden, Aminatou, the Fateshifter, The Chain Veil, Umezawa's Jitte, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician/Najeela, the Blade-Blossom (and Samut, Voice of Dissent optionally for this combo).

Optionally (on EDHREC) Helm of the Host, Hammer of Nazahn, Reki, the History of Kamigawa, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, Domri, Anarch of Bolas, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, Saffi Eriksdotter, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Captain Sisay, Brago, King Eternal, Kunoros, Hound of Athreos, Ashiok, Dream Render/Narset, Parter of Veils/Teferi, Master of Time/Linvala, Keeper of Silence (non-Jegantha variations)

Sadly, while Radha seems okay? Tutoring it is really bad, since you could fetch value pieces like Wrenn and Six, or better ramp like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, and I doubt you need an extra green if you can cast Sisay and activate her, and she also already needs to have a 1 color legend out. If you are looking to use Radha for pumping Sisay, run more of the optional legends. Idk, I could be wrong but I don't see it being popular, I hope you have the best of luck with it, it seems pretty fun for the deck on terms of a flavor include!

jakeyuki12 on Boros Controller

2 months ago

Hiya!

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is not legal to include in a Boros deck as it includes a black mana symbol, so its color identity is Mardu.