Alesha, Lady of Stax

Commander / EDH RBW (Mardu)

Dischord

Stax (23)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Fulminator Mage
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Leonin Arbiter
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Rule of Law
• 1x Sire Of Insanity
• 1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
• 1x Stranglehold
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar

Removal (9)

• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Gorilla Shaman
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder
• 1x Meltdown
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Wear / Tear
• 1x Withered Wretch

Card Draw (4)

• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Tymna the Weaver *f-etch*

Land (31)

• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Inspiring Vantage
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mountain
• 5x Plains
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Recursion (5)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Reanimate

Tutor (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets

Commander (1)

Combo (11)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Goblin Sharpshooter
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Splinter Twin
• 1x Village Bell-Ringer

Ramp (11)

• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

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Introduction

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is one of the most unique commanders for a stax build. By utilizing hate bears, such as Leonin Arbiter , and removal creatures, like Fulminator Mage , you can slowly lock people out of the game, while simultaneously recurring the hate bears through Alesha's triggered ability.

The goal of the deck is to slow down the game, then win off of a Buried Alive pile to win the game right then and there.

The Win Cons

Buried Alive is the most important card in the deck. You can immediately win if Alesha is on the battlefield, Buried Alive is in hand, and you have 5 additional mana to do the combo. Here's how it works:

1. Have Alesha, Who Smiles at Death on the field, Buried Alive in hand, and 8 mana.
2. Cast Buried Alive . Your targets will be Karmic Guide , Razaketh, the Foulblooded , and Reveillark ( Fiend Hunter works in place of Reveillark, although it's a bit riskier).
3. Swing with Alesha, using her ability to bring back Karmic Guide to the battlefield.
4. Karmic Guide will bring back Razaketh to the battlefield.
5. Sacrifice Karmic Guide and Alesha to Razaketh, searching up Reanimate and Goblin Bombardment to your hand.
6. Cast Reanimate on Karmic Guide, bringing back Reveillark.
7. Cast Goblin Bombardment. You now deal infinite targeted damage - sacrifice Karmic Guide to Goblin Bombardment to deal 1 damage to an opponent, then sacrifice Reveillark to deal another point of damage to an opponent. Reveillark's ability triggers, bringing back Karmic Guide to the battlefield, which brings back Reveillark to the battlefield.

Alternatively, if you have Goblin Bombardment already in hand, you can choose to do another Buried Alive pile.

1. Have Alesha, Who Smiles at Death on the field, Buried Alive in hand, Goblin Bombardment in hand, and 7 mana.
2. Cast Buried Alive . Your targets will be Karmic Guide , Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , and Village Bell-Ringer .
3. Swing with Alesha, using her ability to bring back Karmic Guide to the battlefield.
4. Karmic Guide brings back Kiki-Jiki to the battlefield.
5. Use Kiki-Jiki to copy Karmic Guide, bringing back Village Bell-Ringer. This untaps all of your creatures, including Kiki-Jiki.
6. Create an infinite amount of Village Bell-Ringers by copying them with Kiki-Jiki. You have infinite Village Bell-Ringers with haste, but you can't win through combat damage since you already attacked this turn.
7. Cast Goblin Bombardment, and fling all of your Village Bell-Ringers at your opponents for the game.

Finally, we have a Goblin Sharpshooter loop.

1. Have Goblin Sharpshooter on the battlefield, then have Splinter Twin & Blood Artist in hand with 6 mana.
2. Cast Splinter Twin, targeting Goblin Sharpshooter.
3. Cast Blood Artist.
4. You now go infinite. Have Goblin Sharpshooter make a copy of itself using Splinter Twin, then have the copy of Goblin Sharpshooter tap to deal 1 damage to itself. This will kill the copy, untapping the orignal Goblin Sharpshooter with Splinter Twin attached to it, and allowing Blood Artist to ping someone for 1 damage. Repeat until the table is dead.

Stax

We got hate bears on top of hate bears here. We don't mess around.

Most of the hate pieces are pretty self-explanatory. Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter stop fetches and tutors, Eidolon of Rhetoric and Rule of Law forces our opponents to slow down, blah blah blah. Notably, you can reanimate a lot of your hate bears using Alesha, Who Smiles at Death 's triggered ability to let your opponents know that they can't play anything until you win.

What makes stax super difficult to play well is the timing of when to play your cards. For example, it's probably good to hold Armageddon until you either have enough mana rocks to sustain yourself, or if your opponents ramped deep enough to where Armageddon puts them out of the game. This is the key difference between a stax player and an annoying player that doesn't know how to end games. A stax player that can play well is a very beautiful thing to see - weaving all of their stax pieces in between their opponents plans and sealing them shut quickly.

Tutors

Not including Buried Alive , we have 5 effective tutors in the deck. Mausoleum Secrets is an extremely underrated card, and it doesn't see as much play as it should. For 2 mana, you can search for Buried Alive at instant speed if you have 3 creatures in the bin! At 1 creature in the bin, you can search for Entomb and bin a powerful card like Karmic Guide in the graveyard for Alesha, Who Smiles at Death to bring back.

Card Draw

We don't really need too much card draw, since our card draw pieces are incredibly strong. And, we'd rather be playing stax pieces anyways, so we upped the stax count and lowered the card draw for this deck.

Necropotence basically draws us to the combo. It's nuts, it sees play in almost every deck that runs black, and it's a kill on sight card.

Phyrexian Arena generates us a lot of card advantage over time, and it isn't too necessary for our opponents to remove right away.

Mindblade Render draws us a card every time Alesha, Who Smiles at Death gets a hit in. It can also attack to draw us a card, too. Similarly, Tymna the Weaver also rewards us for getting in with our creatures, drawing a ton of cards.

Lines of Play

One particularly hard deck to play against is Yawgmoth, Thran Physician , and similar decks. These decks can constantly remove Alesha from the battlefield, leaving us with very little outs to win. Against these decks, you want to search deep and find Cursed Totem or Linvala, Keeper of Silence . This stops almost their entire deck, essentially putting them out of the game.

Against control, Grand Abolisher lets you combo off in peace. Karn, the Great Creator stops the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter combo, which is huge. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are always solid cards against control, as well as Stranglehold . Realistically, control decks are an easier matchup for Alesha due to how stax naturally counters control.

Big Upgrades & Conclusion

The first card I would add to the deck is Lion's Eye Diamond , then Lotus Petal . These two cards are unbelievably important to making sure you can combo off early. If you have both LED and Lotus Petal, you only require 5 mana to combo off with Alesha and Buried Alive. Here's how it works with LED and Lotus Petal:

1. Have Alesha, Who Smiles at Death on the field, Buried Alive in hand, and 5 mana.
2. Cast Buried Alive . Your targets will be Karmic Guide , Razaketh, the Foulblooded , and Reveillark ( Fiend Hunter works in place of Reveillark, although it's a bit riskier).
3. Swing with Alesha, using her ability to bring back Karmic Guide to the battlefield.
4. Karmic Guide will bring back Razaketh to the battlefield.
5. Sacrifice Karmic Guide and Alesha to Razaketh, searching up Reanimate and Lotus Petal to your hand.
6. Cast Lotus Petal, sacrifice it for a black mana, then cast Reanimate on Karmic Guide, bringing back Reveillark.
7. Sacrifice Karmic Guide to Razaketh to search up Lion's Eye Diamond , then sacrifice Reveillark to Razaketh to search for Goblin Bombardment . This also brings back both Karmic Guide and Reveillark to the battlefield.
8. Cast Lion's Eye Diamond, then crack it to cast Goblin Bombardment. You now deal infinite targeted damage - sacrifice Karmic Guide to Goblin Bombardment to deal 1 damage to an opponent, then sacrifice Reveillark to deal another point of damage to an opponent. Reveillark's ability triggers, bringing back Karmic Guide to the battlefield, which brings back Reveillark to the battlefield. Rinse and repeat.

Next, I would add fast mana, like Mana Crypt , and fix up the manabase. I would also add Vampiric Tutor and other stax effects like Sphere of Resistance . Even without those though, Alesha still puts up a really good fight against almost any deck.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 28 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.67
Tokens	Copy Clone, Treasure