Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate

The reanimation is the reward, and the attack is the price. Where the earlier Alesha, Who Smiles at Death paid mana to return a small creature during her combat step, this version binds recursion to the end step and gates it on the counter she stacks by swinging: every attack grows her power by one, and every point of power raises the ceiling on what she can drag back from the graveyard. That feedback loop is the whole design. The attack trigger resolves before the end step, so her first swing makes her a 3/3 and immediately puts three-drops within reach; keep her alive and attacking and the yard's heavier bodies come into range without ever asking for a sacrifice, a life payment, or mana beyond her cost. First strike keeps the small frame from being a liability on the swing that starts the engine, since she often survives the combat that feeds her. The tension the Raid clause resolves is the classic reanimator problem of tempo: most graveyard recursion asks you to stand still while you set up, but this rewards committing to combat. Note the fragility, though: the Raid ability lives on Alesha, so she has to survive to your end step to fire it. Swing into open removal and lose her, and the return never happens, no matter how much power she racked up. She is a value engine you cannot run defensively, and keeping her alive through the attack she just made is the whole balancing act.