My deckbuilding has slowed down a bit in the past month or so, mainly because one of the members of my dedicated playgroup moved out to Vegas and playing 1v1 just isn’t the same when EDH was designed to be a multiplayer game. That said, I have been focusing on perfecting my existing decks and trying to figure out what order to build the others in. Sometimes you can get an upgrade here and there for a couple bucks and that’s better than spending $100+ on a new build (saving money) but I also started out building too many at once so a few of them definitely needed some work. Perusing my list of decks over on MTG Goldfish I found at that time I had completed 13 decks but also 13 that were brewed and in some cases I had already set cards aside for them. I realized that building each of those decks was going to take a long time because each requires a sizable investment, meaning I’d only be able to finish one at a time.

Recently I put in an order to Card Kingdom, mainly for picking up some upgrades for my Kaalia and Reaper King decks, but also to finish off one of my brews, Simic Merfolk. Having made that trade for Kumena with my roommate last weekend, I couldn’t wait to finish that one up (plus it was a minimal price point). After putting in the order I was browsing my under-construction decks and had an epiphany: I could combine two different deck ideas into one simply by changing the commander! I also realized that I could refresh an existing deck by changing the leader (and making some tweaks) but that’s a story for another post.

There were two separate tribal ideas that I had brewed around the time the Commander 2017 sets were coming out. The pre-constructed decks were all tribal themed and I was on the same sort of kick, but I wanted to use other tribes not represented by WotC. I created an Orzhov Cleric deck led by the partner commanders Ravos and Tymna and a Boros Solider deck helmed by Tajic. I’ve been looking through my cards quite a bit recently due to trying to tweak my existing decks and I stumbled upon Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

Because of her ability, she falls under the Mardu (Red/White/Black) color identity, and that just so happens to encompass both Orzhov (White/Black) and Boros (Red/White) so I could theoretically take cards from both of the decks I had built and slam them together. The positive here is that I already had a handful of cards set aside for both of these decks, so I wouldn’t have to order many to finish it up. The negative was that the other decks were doing different things individually than they would be trying to do as a single deck. I wanted to be able to shorten the list of decks I’m working on though, and found that enough of the cards from each had synergy together that this could still work! Alesha is an interesting commander that I never really took a look at despite owning her for quite some time. A 3/2 first strike isn’t much to brag about, but the ability to pay either 2 white or 2 black mana to bring any creature with power 2 or less back to the battlefield each time she attacks is a great built-in recursion engine! Granted, 2 power creatures are a dime a dozen and 2 power isn’t going to win you games, but “hate bears” are a thing, especially in these colors.

Grizzly Bear is a card that has existed in Magic: The Gathering forever. A vanilla 2/2 creature for 2 mana, these types of cards have been represented in basically every set and every color over the years. “Bears” have evolved to mean basically any creature that is a 2/2 for 2, and sometimes the definition has expanded to included any creature that has power 2 or less, or is a 2/2 but they now tend to have abusable abilities. “Hate Bears” are usually 2/2’s with these sorts of abilities, and they sometimes cost two mana, sometimes they cost more but they tend to be cards that will elicit a groan from your opponents. Let’s take a look at the cards I’m going to be recurring with Alesha, and how those cards can be used to affect the gamestate.

Many of these Legendary creatures could be their own EDH decks, but I’ve chosen to retain some of the cards from each of the decks I had previously brewed, and also add some new cards to go along with the game plan under our new commander. Ravos himself is a recursion engine and a lord, which is redundancy for the game plan. Tymna and Tajic just happen to fit as they both start with 2 power, though Tajic can get much bigger if we swing with the right amount of creatures. Other cards like Kambal, Masako, and Thalia help control the board, as each will provide benefits like allowing my tapped creatures to block and my opponents’ creatures to enter the battlefield tapped. I can destroy things with ETBs (Ravenous Chupacabra, Avalanche Riders), I can cause damage to those who cast spells (Harsh Mentor), I can draw cards (Mentor of the Meek) and tutor out lands (Weathered Wayfarer)… these low power creatures pack some punch. And if they die I can just bring them back again! It’s a creature heavy deck, so we want all of our creatures to be useful in the place of spells, but I have added some spells to help support the troops.

Here we’re going for cheap removal, and some excellent effects like Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact, which will discourage targeted removal as when my creatures die, opponents have to sacrifice their own. I’ll also have sacrifice outlets that will allow me to kill and recur my own creatures while making them sacrifice as well. Phyrexian Reclamation is more recursion redundancy, and Assemble the Legion can make a shitload of tokens given the chance. Reconnaissance is a neat trick as well, allowing you to pull the recurred creatures out of combat at will, so if you pull them from the graveyard with Alesha you don’t have to worry about them being stuck in combat and dying again!

For Artifacts I mainly went with mana rocks, but this little guy is a cornerstone in this deck. It causes creatures with power greater than 2 to not untap, which means I’ll be able to attack at my discretion, and my creatures will still untap! Evil, I know. But fun nonetheless.

I’m not sure how this one will perform, but I look forward to testing it out!