Alesha decklist here - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/alesha-warriorcratic/
The deck plays a lot of aggressive creatures, Your goal is to be attacking relentlessly. I cut most of the artifact mana, only running Orzhov Signet, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt. That Signet made the cut because it is the only one that can pay for Alesha's trigger. Similarly, we don't have space in our 34 land deck to get fancy, so everything produces colored mana except Miren and Mystifying Maze. Miren is to eat a juicy creature for some extra life points, while Maze serves as a foil to blocking Alesha or large attackers. We are playing low to the ground and want to get multiple plays off while everyone else is still ramping.
The card that drew me to aristocrats as a style for warriors is Blood-Chin Fanatic. He can do significant work in this deck. We have a multitude of sacrifice effects and Doomed Traveler-esque effects, several of which are warriors themselves. I eschewed a number of the normal tribal synergies to build a grindy sacrifice deck instead. Without further ado, here are the warriors:
Arashin Foremost
Blood-Chin Fanatic
Bloodsoaked Champion
Boldwyr Intimidator
Brion Stoutarm
Brutal Hordechief
Furystoke Giant
Goblin Rabblemaster
Jazal Goldmane
Lifebane Zombie
Manic Vandal
Mardu Strike Leader
Merciless Executioner
Mogg War Marshal
Ponyback Brigade
Reassembling Skeleton
Sandsteppe Outcast
Stonehewer Giant
Tymaret, the Murder King
A good number of these are zombies, which considering the sacrifice nature of the deck plays quite well with Gravecrawler. There are obviously a number of drawbacks to that card if we don't have another zombie but its not as if the body is useless. We also don't have to have a zombie right away to make him good. However, we do want to max our zombies as an ancillary tribe, so Zombies!
Anathemancer paired with Zo-zu is a real way to get people in range of death. Carrion Feeder is the most old school of infinite manaless sacrifice creatures and Sidisi is the new hotness, finding you whatever you happen to need while also acting as a one time sac outlet. We need more than Carrion Feeder to make the deck work though. Other outlets not already mentioned include:
While not all of these are repeatable, they are all outstanding uses for our dorks. The Aristocrats can still pick up the bonus from Shared Animosity, though its admittedly easier for Cartel. Flesh Carver bridges the gap between sac outlets and food dudes.
That rounds out creatures, but they need support from our non-creature buddies.
Entomb
This is a solid mix of tutors, removal, card drawing, and equipment. The equipment helps us push through damage and either draw cards or get extra resources. Deathrender lets us cheat mana and a couple of different inclusions would let it go infinite. That might be worthwhile, but I decided against it for theme reasons. Erebos is included here since his primary purpose is to draw some cards and prevent people from gaining life. We are an aggro deck so keeping people low is important for us. While Alesha can't get tucked anymore, I still very much want to protect her since getting her trigger is going to be very important for us to be able to go long with this deck.
Various directions or inclusions you could make.
Necropotence - Totally legitimate. It would play out a bit like the old necro decks where you just try to use all your mana every turn. I decided against it since triple black is pretty rough, but I also didn't include Urborg so as not to potentially help my opponents. These would bear some testing.
Elesh Norn. I almost included her. She is just so damned scary. Eventually I decided that she's a bit too off theme and costs a little too much, but if I wanted to play a real curve topper she would be it. We want to be attacking and boy does she help that.
Sun Titan - I would probably find room for Sun Titan in the first testing cycle. He's really good at rebuilding from board wipes and gives you fantastic value. He's also a great attacker, which is a nice bonus for this deck. Like Elesh Norn, he is really expensive for a deck running essentially no artifact mana or land ramp.
True Conviction - the triple white is really hard to ensure we hit appropriately. Its also six mana and while getting to six mana won't be too hard for us, we want to be paying two a turn for Alesha as well as Skullclamp equips and other in play mana sinks. Worth it if you are going a bit more turn everything sideways a la Jor Kadeen.
Most of the rest are just mana constraints. This deck has the lowest average cost of any EDH deck I've ever built with 2.27. I hope that the rush is enough to run over people since you can eat about 3 wrath before you start being in real trouble.
Thanks for reading and I'll be back next week.
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