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Alesha Toolbox Nightmare (Primer)

Commander / EDH Aggro Casual Combo RBW (Mardu) Reanimator Tokens

Mento712

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Commander: foil Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

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Welcome to my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH Primer! I'll be expanding this guide over time, but for now the following tabs should cover most of the key concepts within the deck and explain most of the card choices. Suggestions for how I could make this guide better or be more informative are appreciated, as are questions about the list or myself. feel free to link your decks in the comments I always enjoy looking at other Alesha decks for ideas or at other similar deck types. Enjoy!
Hello Commander players! I am MeNTO712. I've been playing magic for about eight years and this deck constitutes the bulk of my current Magic collection. As soon as Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was spoiled, I knew I needed to make her my dedicated commander. The deck contains a lot of little synergies and combinations and really is a blast to play. I've been playing the deck since Alesha was released in 2015 now and consider myself fairly knowledgeable as an Alesha player. For anyone thinking of building the deck, I'll go over some of the concepts and card choices for the deck, as well as some tips for playstyle and game philosophy. I'd love to discuss Alesha, review other decks, or just talk general EDH theory.
Alesha is currently by far my favorite legendary creature, I've always been enthralled with white's theme of recurring small creatures or permanents with things like Sun Titan or Reveillark , and I enjoy persistent, grindy decks that can play a control or tempo role at the commander table. Alesha Is an excellent choice for players who:

  • Want a graveyard deck that can play through hate cards.

  • Like to play toolbox decks and enjoy using their knowledge of their deck to their advantage.

  • Want every game to be different.

  • Like grindy value engines and synergies.

  • Are looking for a deck that doesn't play broken EDH colors.

So as for mindset, the main philosophy of the deck is this:

  • Get cool stuff in the graveyard

  • Get cool stuff out of the graveyard

    The Deck's big playstyle is to use any of your many discard and looting-type effects to get reanimate/Alesha targets into the grave, and then try to get something sweet out ahead of curve. In a more casual or lower budget version of the deck, I think self-mill with cards like Balustrade Spy is a great strategy, but I prefer to use lots of looting effects, as they are versatile and allow me to play niche cards and a higher land count. Also, Alesha isn't like a lot of other graveyard decks in that having a critical mass of creatures in the graveyard is not really important, unless you are setting up for a Living Death play, so the deck allows you to play conservatively to minimize the effects of graveyard hate, which is another benefit you would not get with the self mill version. In fact, if you get the right ramp cards, you could easily be hard casting your Seige gang commanders and Noosegraf Mob s early game, no Alesha required. This lets the deck play in many different ways and use Alesha either as an early game mana cheating tempo tool, or as a mid game recursion engine for more resilience. The most important thing to keep in mind when playing this deck is not to over-extend onto the board or into the graveyard, and always have a backup plan, as graveyard hate is so prevalent in this format.

    • - Mindless Automaton

    Now this a fantastic little magic card. This hidden gem does everything we want in Alesha; it gives us a discard outlet, draws us cards, and it can sacrifice itself, which I find can be incredibly useful especially in the early game.

    - Sneak Attack

    This card is so underplayed in decks like this. Note: I would not play this card in every Alesha deck, but in a high-value high-card draw version like this, the ability to put any creature onto the field and then into the grave for just one mana at instant speed is just so powerful. Obviously sneaking out an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or another huge beater to reanimate back later is incredibly strong, but even sneaking out a Solemn Simulacrum or an Imperial Recruiter on an opponents end step just feels so nice. This card basically acts as a discard effect with an added bonus of triggering ETBs.

    - Mogg War Marshal

    Maybe a weird pick, as it is really low impact and doesn't really do much in the game, but the more I play with this little fellow the more I like it in the deck. It provides a fantastic curve with Alesha, sacs itself, is great with clamp, and allows you to get early value from Alesha without an entomb or discard effect, any new Alesha player should definitely try this one out.

    - Pentavus and Noosegraf Mob (and also Siege-Gang Commander )

    Now on to some cards that are a little less unconventional. This Is why we play Alesha boys. you're going to want to entomb or discard one of these guys ASAP. Getting one of them out early enough in the game can do a ton of work, and they're even better when paired with any of your token support cards such as: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Purphoros, God of the Forge Skullclamp etc..

    - Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

    Alright So this card might be a little bit over the curve of this deck, but she is one of my favorite cards in magic and I needed a big sweet finisher-type card as a reanimator target. This card could easily be something like an It That Betrays , a Sheoldred, the Whispering One, a Chancellor of the Annex , or whatever big sweet Entomb + reanimate effect target fits your style.

    I do get asked about these cards a fair bit, and some of them are cards which most people see as auto-includes in any Alesha deck, so I figure I'll cover them in order to avoid the inevitable questions. (Yes, it is okay to build your decks sub-optimally)

    - Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

    Long story short, this card Just doesn't facilitate fun game play. Even if the deck didn't have combos with Kiki, the game becomes warped around him whenever he hits the board, and I don't think I'd play him without the combos, so because of this he is excluded. If you want a more combo heavy version of Alesha, Kiki should by all means be in the deck, I just don't like that style.

    - Mentor of the Meek

    This one could easily be an include, and I honestly believe that in a lower budget Alesha deck I'd certainly add the Mentor. It simply just wasn't a card I ended up playing when I had the option to and I often felt that card advantage was not the issue in the deck, but rather that win conditions and mana were more important. Again, by all means this is an amazing card and I'd definitely include it in most Alesha decks, just not this one.

    - Master of Cruelties

    This card is really dumb. A card in the deck whose only purpose is to once in a while just instantly kill a player doesn't really seem fun to me. I'm more of a fan of playing magic than just cutting a player out of the game turn 4 or 5. This card is just in no way fun, and I'd highly recommend excluding it if you want to keep your friends.

    - Sadistic Hypnotist

    Again, this card just isn't fun. It was in the deck for a while but I find I never feel good playing with this card. Unless you are, in fact, a sadist yourself, making everyone discard their hands in one turn for very low cost just doesn't seem fun or interactive. At times this card seems even less fun than Master of Cruelties , so this was also cut from the list.

    This deck has a few different ways to win. The most important of these win conditions is the damage from cards like Purphoros, God of the Forge or Zulaport Cutthroat . While it might be tempting to tutor for buried alive and combo out every game, I highly recommend exercising some constraint, as EDH is a social format and you're gonna want to let people play their decks.. for a while at least. These cards are a perfect way to weaponize what the deck already does, and i'd way about 65 percent of my wins are going to be due to these kinds of effects.

    Your second win condition is one of the coolest cards ever made, or possibly one of the most frustrating, depending on which side of the table you're sitting at. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is wonderful with the abundance of token creation in this deck. Elesh can easily be a great finisher or simply offer some marginal value, killing off little creatures while making your attack step feel a little easier.

    Okay okay. I know everyone wants to combo, so here we go. This final win condition can manifest itself in a few ways. with cards like Karmic Guide , Fiend Hunter , Sun Titan , and Reveillark , I'm sure you can find a few ways to go infinite if you so choose. Now really I can't stress this enough: you do not want to pick up this deck and start combo killing the table every game. It is okay to lose a game or two sometimes, and try and keep a positive attitude when you are playing. I've never had problems with people getting frustrated at me for using this deck, but that is due to the fact that I often choose to play the long game and grind it out with Alesha's resilience and value as opposed to trying to always win as fast as possible. Now of course once and a while you will need to finish a game quickly, and the many tutors and draw engines in the deck allow you to do so with ease, but I would recommend trying to let people play as much magic as you can. I promise it will be much more rewarding even if your winrate isn't 100%.

    Again, I'm always more than happy to answer or discuss any Alesha- or EDH-related questions and I appreciate any type of input. Happy commandering

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    Date added 5 years
    Last updated 4 years
    Exclude colors UG
    Legality

    This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    10 - 0 Mythic Rares

    53 - 0 Rares

    21 - 0 Uncommons

    11 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 2.89
    Tokens Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin 1/1 R, Pentavite 1/1 C, Snake 1/1 B, Soldier 1/1 W, Zombie 2/2 B
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