A few years ago I was doing one of my major overhauls of my collection's organization. I'd just built a new piece of furniture to organize my stuff, and was going through various pieces to get them where they belonged. As I did it, I realized that despite having over 20 Commander decks in active rotation, I had a bunch of powerful cards I wasn't using, just sitting in binders. The reason was, I think, a good one: I pretty reliably value fun and kindness over winning, so I didn't play game-breaking cards which might be considered overly powerful for a casual game.

However, I decided I was going to build two decks to actually use some of these cards. The first was a Narset, Enlightened Master Superfriends deck which leveraged extra turns (don't let me attack with Narset, because if I do I'll probably win). That deck works swimmingly and normally wins on turn six; it could be faster but I intentionally don't have any ways to give Narset haste so the table has a chance to respond before I take all the rest of the turns.

The second was Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

I like Alesha. I like the color combo of Mardu, I like the ability including the limitation, I like the background story of Alesha; I felt like it would be a good place to run some really cool, powerful cards. So I built the following deck, but before we look at it, here's the thing: it never really works. I've had friends play it, and they're like "wow, that is a strong card" when they draw a Sword of Light and Shadow or Entomb or Stoneforge Mystic, but really, unless the deck cheats Master of Cruelties into the graveyard early, the deck just loses. Here's the deck as it currently stands.

Alesha Commander | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

• Creatures (34)
• 1 Agent of Erebos
• 1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• 1 Anger
• 1 Ankle Shanker
• 1 Beetleback Chief
• 1 Bounty Agent
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Devout Witness
• 1 Disciple of Bolas
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Falkenrath Noble
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Iroas, God of Victory
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knight-Captain of Eos
• 1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
• 1 Manic Vandal
• 1 Master of Cruelties
• 1 Mentor of the Meek
• 1 Murderous Redcap
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Ponyback Brigade
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Soltari Visionary
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Urabrask the Hidden
• 1 Vampire Hexmage
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Vulturous Aven
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Instants (7)
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Crackling Doom
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Ride Down
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Utter End

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Citywide Bust
• 1 Dusk // Dawn
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Tormenting Voice
• 1 Tragic Arrogance

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Key to the City
• 1 Mardu Banner
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spawning Pit
• 1 Sunforger
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Call the Bloodline
• 1 Goblin Bombardment

• Lands (38)
• 1 Akoum Refuge
• 1 Bloodfell Caves
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Forsaken Sanctuary
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 High Market
• 1 Lavaclaw Reaches
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 5 Plains
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Stone Quarry
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Tainted Field
• 1 Tainted Peak
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Buy This Deck Export text format

I thought it might be fun and helpful both for me and for the system to use this last article on my Top Five Deckbuilding Tips for Beginners to use the system to rebuild Alesha, with no budget. There's a good chance I'll use a number of the cards I've already got, but I'd like to see if building in this way actually helps make a playable deck, and because I actually own it and will make the changes, I'll take it to my playgroup and see how it hangs once it's been altered. As it stands, I have no reason to keep it together - it's currently an unplayed resting place for some of the coolest cards I own, so I may as well take it apart.

The theory of the deck is, I thought, fairly straightforward: play Alesha, then play some other cool creature with an ETB ability we like. Sacrifice it for value (or discard it to something), then attack with Alesha and return it from the 'yard, gaining its ETB effect over and over. Sunforger and its package are in there because it can be, but the Swords of X and Y (plus Stoneforge) are great at making sure Alesha can get through, which is a reliable problem. The deck also stumbles on mana, because even though the cards were cheap, I often didn't have enough to clear the way for Alesha, activate her ability, and play something else to stay alive. Finally, it sacrifices card draw for graveyard shenanigans, choosing to rely on whatever it draws off the top and reusing it, which works great if no one decides to use Bojuka Bog or something. Hopefully, the deckbuilding tips will help to shore up some of the weaknesses and make a deck which can actually attempt to win.

We start with mana. We'll set aside 40 slots for land. The current deck has 38, so upping the land count should help.

Next up is ramp (eight pieces, since we have a three-mana Commander) and card draw (10 - 12 pieces, depending on reusability). Without Sol Ring or some other absurdly expensive ways of powering out a turn-two Alesha, we're not going to be getting her faster than turn three (I'm not springing for an Ancient Tomb, and I don't think it's worth one-shot ways of doing it), so we can worry about playing out our ramp after we've played Alesha. So Sol Ring, yes, but also Chromatic Lantern, Corrupted Grafstone, Arcane Signet, and Commander's Sphere. We've also got Skyclave Relic, which is a great one early or late. You'll notice two things: first, everything taps for multiple colors. We have a lot of color requirements in this deck, so that's worth the extra cost, and second, that's only six. Our remaining pieces are Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart, both of which can be recurred with Alesha, thinning our deck even further.

Our first method of draw is Welcoming Vampire and Mentor of the Meek. Almost every creature we have has power 2 or less, so they'll always be active, not to mention our Commander is going to be bringing creatures of that size onto the 'field all the time. Plus they're both targets for Alesha as well! Then there's Vampiric Rites and Vulturous Aven, both of which sacrifice something in exchange for a card or two. The Rites is helpful as a sac outlet which hangs around; sometimes we may be returning something which will die in combat immediately (since it's always brought back tapped and attacking), and a card may be worth more than just letting it go back to the 'yard. Vulturous Aven is fun because it can exploit itself every time it comes back.

Village Rites is a one-shot version, and Disciple of Bolas is a fantastic way to refill our hand over a couple of turns, as well as gain some life back. Seize the Spoils is a nice way to get a creature into the 'yard as well as draw a couple, and we make a fair amount of tokens in this deck, so Skullclamp is a worthwhile addition. Solemn Simulacrum pulls double-duty in this deck as a card-draw source as well. Sword of Fire and Ice is another source, which is a great way of getting Alesha through defenses and drawing cards. Most of our card draw options are reusable, too, so 10 should be plenty.

We definitely want some interaction, and because we can reuse our creatures, putting our options on creatures seems useful. Ravenous Chupacabra, therefore, is an obvious choice. Play it, kill something. Attack with it or sac it, bring it back, kill something else. Rinse and repeat. Murderous Redcap is similar, if a smaller effect, but with a sacrifice effect, it can do up to six damage in a single turn - play it and deal two, sac it and deal one more, then recur it with Alesha, deal two more, and finally one more when it persists the second time. Duplicant is really nasty, since it'll steal the power and toughness of whatever it exiles but is two-power for our purposes. Exile someone's Jin-Gitaxias. They love that.

Attrition seems like a good fit. Anguished Unmaking, Dire Tactics (Alesha's a Human!), and Utter End are all quality. Ride Down is a pet card of mine, though in this particular case where we're attacking a lot it can do some serious work. For mass removal, we've got Citywide Bust, Dusk // Dawn, Slaughter the Strong, and Tragic Arrogance. That makes lots of ways to break the symmetry as best we can.3

With our remaining cards, we get to build to our Commander. We're going to cut the Sunforger package and build on the Aristocrats method from the original deck. That means we want creatures which make more creatures, so Siege-Gang Commander and Sling-Gang Lieutenant are both great. Knight-Captain of Eos, too. Ponyback Brigade sounds like fun. Callous Bloodmage is good too, and options (including to draw a card) are always useful. Then we throw in stuff like Cruel Celebrant and Falkenrath Noble to make all of those tokens hurt more. While we're at it, how about Ankle Shanker to make blocking our stuff that much harder?

We also need to get our Commander through safely, so we have a number of ways. Iroas, God of Victory does that, as does General's Enforcer. Whispersilk Cloak, Thieves' Tools, Key to the City, and the two Swords both help, and Stoneforge Mystic can fetch a necessary piece of Equipment for us (then get another one and another one via Alesha).

We have some ways to play with our graveyard, both getting things in it (Entomb, Buried Alive, Vile Entomber) and get things out of it (Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Sevinne's Reclamation). Strionic Resonator lets us use Alesha's ability twice per turn, though we do have to pay for it both times. Gonti, Lord of Luxury coming in and out all the time is too much fun to pass up.

One final thing. The last rule is avoid combos, but we're going to ignore that one. Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Master of Cruelties are both ways to end the game reasonably quickly. Gary is a bit slower, but having it enter the battlefield over and over is a pretty familiar way to end a game. Master of Cruelties brought back by Alesha is more direct: into an unblocked opponent off Alesha, the defender just dies, because Alesha hits along with Master and, well, kills them from 1.

We're running plenty of basics for Sad Robot and Burnished Hart, and a few duals with basic land types to help turn Anger on. We've also got a couple ways to make additional tokens and fix our colors, plus Castle Locthwain for some extra draw and Rogue's Passage as another ways to push Alesha through. High Market, too, as an additional sacrifice effect.

Alesha 2.0 | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Ankle Shanker
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Callous Bloodmage
• 1 Corpse Knight
• 1 Cruel Celebrant
• 1 Disciple of Bolas
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Falkenrath Noble
• 1 General's Enforcer
• 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Iroas, God of Victory
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knight-Captain of Eos
• 1 Master of Cruelties
• 1 Mentor of the Meek
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Murderous Redcap
• 1 Ponyback Brigade
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Vile Entomber
• 1 Vulturous Aven
• 1 Welcoming Vampire

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Corrupted Grafstone
• 1 Key to the City
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Skyclave Relic
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strionic Resonator
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Thieves' Tools
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Dauthi Embrace
• 1 Nahiri's Machinations
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Instants (6)
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Dire Tactics
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Ride Down
• 1 Utter End
• 1 Village Rites

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Citywide Bust
• 1 Dusk // Dawn
• 1 Seize the Spoils
• 1 Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1 Slaughter the Strong
• 1 Tragic Arrogance

• Lands (40)
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 High Market
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Lavaclaw Reaches
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Needle Spires
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Shambling Vent
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Springjack Pasture
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 9 Swamp
• 6 Plains
• 3 Mountain

Buy This Deck Export text format

What did I miss? Anything I should absolutely add? I hope to circle back to this deck sometime and let you all know how it turned out!

Thanks for reading.