Ever since Alesha was spoiled, I have wanted to build a deck around her. She fits into one of my favorite aspects of EDH: recursion. The problem was, it always seemed like any deck she led would be underpowered. After all, to make use of her, the creatures need to be small but also powerful. This means that I wouldn't have much board presence or the creatures would be overcosted.
This led me to putting off building a deck around her for a long time. When I finally decided to build the deck, I found there is a lot the deck can do and a lot of "cheap" small creatures to still allow her to be fairly fast.
With cards like Solemn Simulacrum, Burnished Hart, Kor Cartographer, and Knight of the White Orchid I can ramp and mana fix. They also make decent reanimation targets later on (especially Solemn).
Then, Duplicant, Bone Shredder, False Prophet, Necrotic Sliver, Big Game Hunter, and Crypt Rats offer creature based removal. A nice piece of synergy is Rune-Tail and Crypt Rats. As long as I have enough mana (and life) I can keep staying my opponents' board and my creatures survive.
Otherwise, Noosegraf Mob, Ponyback Bridge and Siege-Gang Commander give me tokens to go wide and the Lieges (while a bit of a nonbo with Alesha and the recruiters) pump everything up while also given other removal options.
Bomat Courier is there to draw cards and fill the graveyard. Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul do the same. Karmic Guide and Sun Titan are further methods of recursion and Guide can be reanimated by Alesha to give me a way to get back the few bigger creatures Alesha can't normally get.
For the most part, the rest of the cards represent sac outlets or other utility cards to help make the deck more resilient. Gravity Sphere in particular is there because this deck folds hard to flyers and it can be tutored up by Rector.
As of now, the deck is basically final though I understand that there may be cards that would be good for the deck (Angel of Invention specifically) but I am not sure what I want to cut.
Suggestions are certainly welcome, but I don't expect to be making many changes to the deck as I like how it plays currently.
And, just to share, here is a link to a thread showing all the cards in the deck since I have it foiled out as much as I can:
I have decided to cut all the off color fetches in all my decks so Wooded Foothills and Windswept Heath had to go. In their place, I added another Mountain and added in the new on color cycling land, Canyon Slough.
I then went through some of the creatures and found that I didn't like the two Lieges that Alesha could not reanimate: Deathbringer and Ashenmoor. Ashenmoor was already weak and was just there to complete the cycle but I didn't find the abilities of Deathbringer to be relevant all that often. So they ended up getting cut to tighten up the list a bit. Ponyback ended up being cut because it often didn't do enough. Siege-Gang at least can sacrifice the tokens it creates along with itself (allowing for more recursion) but Ponyback was just 5 power for 6 mana (or 3 + 5).
Instead of adding other creatures, I decided to add a Sunforger package. I already had a couple cards that were good with it and then added Forsake the Worldly and Rakdos Charm to make it a bit more potent.
I then decided to cut Wrath of God to include Dusk//Dawn in its place. Dusk//Dawn fits the theme of the deck so much better and, with cutting 2 of the Lieges, it will be very infrequent where Dusk will hit my creatures.
I decided to move further into developing a Sunforger package. As such, I felt that Boros Charm should really be in the deck. It helps against most board wipes and it can help get in the last few points of damage against opponents.
Looking through my list, Mirror Entity is the one card that I could see that has done literal nothing. I had it in to help pump up things for an alpha strike and kill everything off (X=0) in the event my stuff was being exiled. I never did either one. As such, it felt like a slot that wasn't doing much and would be better off as Boros Charm.
Ever since building this deck and tweaking my other decks, I have been finding this one has some of the worst chances of winning due to a variety of factors. Most of the time I am finding it is because I behind on lands, but the lower power of the creatures compared to other creatures makes it difficult to get in with damage. The deck really wants to swarm the board, use some recursion with Alesha, and control the board with the EtB triggers from each creature. This means it is very reliant on Alesha and I need a lot of mana to make sure I can cast her and pay for her trigger. So, really, it comes down a lot to mana issues.
As such, there are a number of cards that really are not pulling their weight. Either their mana cost is too high or their effect is too small. Here are the cards I am looking to cut:
Vicious Shadows - This is a 7 mana enchantment that does very little in this deck (or so I am finding). I have a few sac outlets to make it worthwhile and the wraths are a good way to get a bunch of triggers. But, if I am waiting to cast a 7 mana enchantment to then Wrath the board, I am probably losing. Basically, I usually need to wrath first and I don't have enough creatures to sac to trigger it enough. So, I am going to cut it to make my curve lower.
Balefire Liege - Anthems are not really where I want to be as they generally reduce the creature count. Obviously Cathars' Crusade is really good in this deck since creatures (should) keep entering the battlefield. But, the Liege cycle I have found has been less than ideal. It is 5 mana for a 2/4 and the triggers rarely matter. I almost always want anything in my hand besides this.
Dauthi Embrace - Giving something Shadow has been a way to get my creatures to get in with damage a bit easier but, other than the one anecdote above, I don't think I have ever actually used it to good effect. It just costs too much to target my whole board and most opponents have more than a couple blockers so giving their creatures Shadow is just as difficult.
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - The random aspect of this is offputting. I once had a game where I activated it about 7 or 8 times over the course of 2 turns and I hit (maybe) one creature. I had ordered a Reito Lantern to make this a bit more consistent but then I realized I was putting in one card to make one other card work (and yes, I realize it helps out Sunforger too). While Lantern is gravehate, it is expensive and somewhat easy to play around. I just realized I would rather not play either card.
Merciless Eviction - I really need wraths in this deck and the few I have do their job well. I have found though that Eviction, in this deck, is often too expensive for the effect. Plus, I don't often want to exile my creatures as I then can't get them back. False Prophet exiles but that is on a creature that I can recur so it is re-usable.
Academy Rector - Unlike other decks I have built with Rector in them, this really doesn't have good enchantments to search out. And, now that I have cut two enchantments, the choices are even more limited. So, right now, I would basically always search out Cathars' Crusade and maybe Gravity Sphere if I absolutely needed it. There are a couple other good enchantments in the deck, but no "silver bullets" that really make the card worth running.
So, with those cuts, and with the current issues with the deck, here are the cards I am going to slot in:
Austere Command - The deck really wants wraths and this is a bit more versatile than Merciless Eviction since I can often save my own creatures from destruction while blowing up larger creatures and either enchantments or artifacts. It is still 6 mana which is high, but the effect in this deck I think is worth it as it can be a one-sided wrath. I have thought about adding Wrath of God back in (which I may still do) but I want to see how these changes pan out to see if I still need it.
Mountain and Plains - I mentioned above that I have found I often find myself short on mana so I have decided to add in 2 more basics. I went with basics over something like Reflecting Pool since Burnished Hart is the main way this deck ramps. If I find I am often color screwed, I will add the Pool. I went with Mountain because Alesha needs Red to cast and I went with Plains since my wraths and a few creatures need White. I might change this to a Swamp if I find I am often short on black mana.
Orim's Thunder - This is a versatile removal spell that I can get (and kick) off Sunforger. I had a game recently where this would have been an awesome play if I actually ran it in the deck (I had looked specifically for it and was disappointed to remember I didn't run it). And, it is another form of creature removal if I need to get rid of anything that is really causing me issues (depending on having an artifact or enchantment to blow up of course).
Stoneforge Mystic - This is a bit of an odd inclusion since I only have two cards in the deck it can get. However, getting Sword of the Animist starts me ramping and getting Sunforger gets me into my entire suite of instants to deal with a variety of threats. I feel that the impact of those two cards are great enough to warrant its inclusion. Since I feel mana issues are a big part of the underperformance of this deck, using Stoneforge to get to Sword can help this in a big way.
Custodi Soulbinders - This last card is a card I am testing out. It is potentially a large creature which can gain me a lot of life off Diamond Valley and it fuels itself. But, more importantly, it produces fliers. I included Gravity Sphere because fliers are pretty devastating to the deck since I have no real way to deal with them. Soulbinders gives me chump blockers as long as I have the mana and I can always get it back with Alesha if it dies which means it is hopefully bigger and bigger each time since I created a bunch of tokens the first time it was on the field.
After consideration of land drops and a few other things, I felt that Weathered Wayfarer may warrant inclusion in the deck. I am still trying to tweak it to be more resilient but making land drops can help considerably.
I ended up cutting Guiltfeeder. It is a good card, but it is not great and I have very rarely gotten it to do much in the deck. As a 5 drop, it just feels that it is overcosted for a fairly minimal effect.
This led me to putting off building a deck around her for a long time. When I finally decided to build the deck, I found there is a lot the deck can do and a lot of "cheap" small creatures to still allow her to be fairly fast.
So, here is the deck list:
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Lands
1 Arid Mesa
1 Badlands
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Canyon Slough
1 Command Tower
1 Diamond Valley
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 High Market
1 Marsh Flats
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Mistveil Plains
7 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
7 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scrubland
1 Smoldering Marsh
4 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Instants
1 Boros Charm
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Path to Exile
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Return to Dust
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Austere Command
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Wheel of Fortun
Creatures
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Anger
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Bomat Courier
1 Bone Shredder
1 Burnished Hart
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Crypt Rats
1 Custodi Soulbinders
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
1 Duplicant
1 False Prophet
1 Filth
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Hanweir Garrison
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Iroas, God of Victory
1 Karmic Guide
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Kor Cartographer
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Noosegraf Mob
1 Pack Rat
1 Priest of the Blood Rite
1 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sun Titan
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1 Sunforger
1 Sword of the Animist
Enchantments
1 Attrition
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Gravity Sphere
1 Reconnaissance
With cards like Solemn Simulacrum, Burnished Hart, Kor Cartographer, and Knight of the White Orchid I can ramp and mana fix. They also make decent reanimation targets later on (especially Solemn).
Then, Duplicant, Bone Shredder, False Prophet, Necrotic Sliver, Big Game Hunter, and Crypt Rats offer creature based removal. A nice piece of synergy is Rune-Tail and Crypt Rats. As long as I have enough mana (and life) I can keep staying my opponents' board and my creatures survive.
Otherwise, Noosegraf Mob, Ponyback Bridge and Siege-Gang Commander give me tokens to go wide and the Lieges (while a bit of a nonbo with Alesha and the recruiters) pump everything up while also given other removal options.
Bomat Courier is there to draw cards and fill the graveyard. Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul do the same. Karmic Guide and Sun Titan are further methods of recursion and Guide can be reanimated by Alesha to give me a way to get back the few bigger creatures Alesha can't normally get.
For the most part, the rest of the cards represent sac outlets or other utility cards to help make the deck more resilient. Gravity Sphere in particular is there because this deck folds hard to flyers and it can be tutored up by Rector.
As of now, the deck is basically final though I understand that there may be cards that would be good for the deck (Angel of Invention specifically) but I am not sure what I want to cut.
Suggestions are certainly welcome, but I don't expect to be making many changes to the deck as I like how it plays currently.
And, just to share, here is a link to a thread showing all the cards in the deck since I have it foiled out as much as I can:
Foil Images
-Windswept Heath
-Wooded Foothills
-Ashenmoor Liege
-Deathbringer Liege
-Ponyback Brigade
-Wrath of God
+Canyon Slough
+Mountain
+Dusk // Dawn
+Forsake the Worldly
+Rakdos Charm
+Sunforger
I have decided to cut all the off color fetches in all my decks so Wooded Foothills and Windswept Heath had to go. In their place, I added another Mountain and added in the new on color cycling land, Canyon Slough.
I then went through some of the creatures and found that I didn't like the two Lieges that Alesha could not reanimate: Deathbringer and Ashenmoor. Ashenmoor was already weak and was just there to complete the cycle but I didn't find the abilities of Deathbringer to be relevant all that often. So they ended up getting cut to tighten up the list a bit. Ponyback ended up being cut because it often didn't do enough. Siege-Gang at least can sacrifice the tokens it creates along with itself (allowing for more recursion) but Ponyback was just 5 power for 6 mana (or 3 + 5).
Instead of adding other creatures, I decided to add a Sunforger package. I already had a couple cards that were good with it and then added Forsake the Worldly and Rakdos Charm to make it a bit more potent.
I then decided to cut Wrath of God to include Dusk//Dawn in its place. Dusk//Dawn fits the theme of the deck so much better and, with cutting 2 of the Lieges, it will be very infrequent where Dusk will hit my creatures.
Looking through my list, Mirror Entity is the one card that I could see that has done literal nothing. I had it in to help pump up things for an alpha strike and kill everything off (X=0) in the event my stuff was being exiled. I never did either one. As such, it felt like a slot that wasn't doing much and would be better off as Boros Charm.
-Mirror Entity
+Boros Charm
As such, there are a number of cards that really are not pulling their weight. Either their mana cost is too high or their effect is too small. Here are the cards I am looking to cut:
So, with those cuts, and with the current issues with the deck, here are the cards I am going to slot in:
I ended up cutting Guiltfeeder. It is a good card, but it is not great and I have very rarely gotten it to do much in the deck. As a 5 drop, it just feels that it is overcosted for a fairly minimal effect.