For bigger creatures Retribution of the Meek and Elspeth, Sun's Champion can be great additions. For smaller creatures Fire Covenant can be a great one-sided wrath (at the cost of a hefty chunk of life). Malicious Affliction can usually deal with two creatures for only two mana. Big-Game Hunter is an Alesha recurrable creature that can help deal with bigger creatures as well. In similar vein, Boneshredder can work as well. Neither is recurrable sadly with Alesha, but Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless Executioner can help deal with larger creatures too. Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos can also do wonders against other creature decks.
On the protection side, I really like Iroas, God of Victory as a way to push damage through and protect your creatures. You could also consider playing Archangel of Tithes and Break through the Line as other ways to push damage through. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad are great at making your swarm bigger.
I think these are some of the best cards to use. Otherwise focusing more on building out the combo aspect of the deck could be an alternative, as you would thus be able to bypass your opponents larger creatures.
I have, it used to be in the list over Sword of Light and Shadow. It's obviously quite good, particularly if you have a lot of aggro decks in your meta. Overall though Sword of Light Shadow helps to negate on of the weaknesses of the deck in recurring creatures with greater than 2 power. It also provides life like Jitte and a permanent pump plus very relevant protections. I value the recursion more than the conditional removal, hence why Jitte was replaced.
How has Loyal Retainers been for you. Is it worth investing the money for?
It's quite a good card because it combos with both Kiki-Jiki and Liliana, Heretical Healer. It can also do nice tricks with Alesha as it forms a type of protection from spot removal for Alesha because if she gets hits you can just return her with Retainers, and Alesha can then return Loyal Retainers. It's nowhere near essential in the list however and you wont' notice a huge difference playing without it. Body Snatcher is a pretty good cheaper replacement as Alesha recurrable reanimation.
Glad to hear you love playing the deck! Overall your list looks good and I wouldn't have too many changes to recommend.
Out of the cards that I think you could benefit a lot from adding are: Sneak Attack - It's an expensive card but it is absolutely worth it because of the sheer amount of utility it provides you: it accelerates, it can give flash, it can put creatures into the graveyard for you to recur with Alesha, it grants haste. Overall it's one of the best cards in the list so if you can get a hold of it I would definitely add it. Shadows of the Past - You play more token producers than I do, which should make this even better in digging deep. Ophiomancer - It's my favorite token producer as with a sac outlet it can produce a token each turn, which is amazing.
Some cards I think you can for these are Hell's Caretaker (slow and tap abilities don't synergize well with Alesha), Daretti (Shadows of the Past is better), Beetleback Chief (you already have Siege-Gang Commander).
Because you have a lot of WW/BB/RR mana costs, adding the filterlands (Fetid Heath, Rugged Prairie, Graven Cairns) can help out with that. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth can also be a good land to add. I would also reorient your mana a little bit more to WB with less red, for example taking out 3 mountains and Boros Signet to add the three filters + Urborg. With your number of basics and the ability for Alesha to recur it every turn and then sac it again, Magus of the Moon also starts looking attractive as a hate option.
Finally I really like Tithe here as a replacement for a land slot, as its the cheapest 2 for 1 in WBR. With the number of basics/plains you play you could also consider Land Tax, Gifted Estates and the new Commander card Oreskos Explorer.
How have you found Mangara of Corondor to be? I've often looked at it but felt it was too much work, so it would be great to hear of your experiences with it.
Thanks everyone for the replies. I think in the end I will start buying the blue fetches and then the others in the coming weeks to round off the full set.
Prices on magiccardmarket for BFZ expedition fetches have been going up steadily over the last two weeks, now nearly equalling SCG prices. Is this just a number of people getting scared and driving the price up in Europe by buying up expeditions or do you think it's likely to stay this way and go up further (in the US as well). I'm looking to get the ten fetches and wondering if I should wait or just buy it now.
Although Kaalia can be linear if you build her in the standard way, she actually can support a wide range of decks. She's a cleric, so she can work well as a general for cleric tribal with some angels/demon/dragon support. As there are a number of good angels/demons that synergize with lifegain/life loss she can support that deck too. She also works well for a control deck, particularly a flying one with Moat and Island Sanctuary. You'll probably get hated on the first time you play it, but once your playgroup realizes that you didn't build Master of Cruelties + mass land destruction, it will die down too.
Otherwise though Glissa, the Traitor and The Mimeoplasm are good choices for generals with a lot of variation in how they play out. Ojutai is very voltron/control focused, so unless you like playing UW control I would avoid it.
I think they will do allied decks, but I sincerely hope they don't. Azorius for example already has 25 generals to choose from which allow you to play pretty much any deck you would like.
I would much rather see either four color generals following the 2UW with activated ability RB template, or wedges or shards come back than see allied colors.
It's very solid in artifact-based Marchesa builds, otherwise I can't think of too many good uses for it as most decks that play with +1/1 counters don't run too many artifacts.
I have played Mardu aristocrats - first Kaalia and then Alesha for quite a while now (the list you can find in my signature). Overall I think there is a great variety of deck types you can build for aristocrats, with a more aggro, control or combo focus. In addition to the cards mentioned previously I have found Sneak Attack and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to be key cards that make BRW better than straight black white. You also get more removal options, Imperial Recruiter (which is quite crucial), additional sac outlets such as Goblin Bombardment and utility cards like Gamble or wheel effects. I also find Alesha to be the perfect general for this deck, as its reanimation ability synergize very well with all of the cards that make the aristocrats deck type.
I have found Kolaghan's Command to be very useful in my Alesha deck. Granted it's multiplayer and has more creatures that can't be reanimated with Alesha making the disentomb mode better. I've played with it a lot in modern as well and it just gets a lot of work done for 1RB, as it is nearly always a 2 for 1. It strengthens your other discard by generating greater redundancy, many decks play artifacts, and in French there's a lot of creatures to shock. And you won't always have Alesha online, or you may have more creatures in your graveyard than you can recur in the first couple of turns. Compared to the list in the OP, I imagine it would be better than Wear // Tear (how often can you fuse it?) or Dreadbore (lacks instant speed and never creates card advantage).
I love your Alesha and her Aristocrats EDH deck in your link. Awesome, awesome deck!
Thanks! Some further suggestions: Valorous Stance - Its both removal and can save Zurgo from destruction (can make for a high impact play on someone else's turn as it's very unexpected). Death Pits of Rath - Zurgo is immune to it on your turn and it means that you can kill every creature with earthquake for just 1R. Soul Link on Zurgo can gain you a lot of life over the course of a game. Pestilence effects (Pyrohemia / Crypt Rats) - can also be pretty good, as you can often keep Zurgo on the board.
If I'm building a Bx control deck with relatively few creatures, this is one of the first spells I choose. If you don't have any creatures to sacrifice you're generating so much value for 1 mana. Outside of control, similar cards like Fleshbag Marauder are probably better choices through greater synergies with reanimation, sacrifice, ETB/LTB abilities, etc.
Innocent Blood is a great card though.
On the protection side, I really like Iroas, God of Victory as a way to push damage through and protect your creatures. You could also consider playing Archangel of Tithes and Break through the Line as other ways to push damage through. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad are great at making your swarm bigger.
I think these are some of the best cards to use. Otherwise focusing more on building out the combo aspect of the deck could be an alternative, as you would thus be able to bypass your opponents larger creatures.
It's quite a good card because it combos with both Kiki-Jiki and Liliana, Heretical Healer. It can also do nice tricks with Alesha as it forms a type of protection from spot removal for Alesha because if she gets hits you can just return her with Retainers, and Alesha can then return Loyal Retainers. It's nowhere near essential in the list however and you wont' notice a huge difference playing without it. Body Snatcher is a pretty good cheaper replacement as Alesha recurrable reanimation.
Out of the cards that I think you could benefit a lot from adding are:
Sneak Attack - It's an expensive card but it is absolutely worth it because of the sheer amount of utility it provides you: it accelerates, it can give flash, it can put creatures into the graveyard for you to recur with Alesha, it grants haste. Overall it's one of the best cards in the list so if you can get a hold of it I would definitely add it.
Shadows of the Past - You play more token producers than I do, which should make this even better in digging deep.
Ophiomancer - It's my favorite token producer as with a sac outlet it can produce a token each turn, which is amazing.
Some cards I think you can for these are Hell's Caretaker (slow and tap abilities don't synergize well with Alesha), Daretti (Shadows of the Past is better), Beetleback Chief (you already have Siege-Gang Commander).
Because you have a lot of WW/BB/RR mana costs, adding the filterlands (Fetid Heath, Rugged Prairie, Graven Cairns) can help out with that. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth can also be a good land to add. I would also reorient your mana a little bit more to WB with less red, for example taking out 3 mountains and Boros Signet to add the three filters + Urborg. With your number of basics and the ability for Alesha to recur it every turn and then sac it again, Magus of the Moon also starts looking attractive as a hate option.
Finally I really like Tithe here as a replacement for a land slot, as its the cheapest 2 for 1 in WBR. With the number of basics/plains you play you could also consider Land Tax, Gifted Estates and the new Commander card Oreskos Explorer.
How have you found Mangara of Corondor to be? I've often looked at it but felt it was too much work, so it would be great to hear of your experiences with it.
Otherwise though Glissa, the Traitor and The Mimeoplasm are good choices for generals with a lot of variation in how they play out. Ojutai is very voltron/control focused, so unless you like playing UW control I would avoid it.
I would much rather see either four color generals following the 2UW with activated ability RB template, or wedges or shards come back than see allied colors.
Valorous Stance - Its both removal and can save Zurgo from destruction (can make for a high impact play on someone else's turn as it's very unexpected).
Death Pits of Rath - Zurgo is immune to it on your turn and it means that you can kill every creature with earthquake for just 1R.
Soul Link on Zurgo can gain you a lot of life over the course of a game.
Pestilence effects (Pyrohemia / Crypt Rats) - can also be pretty good, as you can often keep Zurgo on the board.
Innocent Blood is a great card though.