46 win Alessi + Guide

Original deck by Barefoot Farmer (https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/d/nF-CyriWgrE/alessi-herooooo)

I modified it slightly for this tournament to include some Dark Frontier cards. Hero is Alessi, Combrei Archmage.

Mulligan: This deck will work with most opening hands. You ideally want 2-3 power, with one of those being not depleted. Mulligan the first time if you only have 2 power cards. Only mulligan again if you do not have all 3 colors AND do not have scout lands/things to play on the first two turns. Seek Power and Cargo cards count as power here.

The most important thing in this deck: It is usually wrong to play Alessi as a 1/1 and pass turn, especially towards early game when your opponent is likely holding silences and removals. Hold her if possible. Getting it nuked by Vara's Favor/suffocate/torch/etc sucks. Try to only play her when you can buff her to 2/2 or more this turn and 4/4 or more next turn, OR when you can drop a site next turn and believe you will be ahead on tempo and your opponent has no removals (if they leave your bazaar trickster/awakened student/warleader alone, they probably don't have ways to remove Alessi). This deck greatly benefits from good game sense to protect Alessi and proactively fetch cards from the market to play on curve.

You usually want to play your 2 mana units (except an untriggered Cryptic Master) on turn 2 over activating your special to grab Alessi. Bait your opponent to nuke your other units first, and then play Alessi when you feel they have no other removal. The best powerups are:

1. Aegis. Makes your opponent have to waste 2 removals on her while you buff her every turn. If you bring her back it's even more awkward for your opponent.
2. Entomb draw a card. Your opponent will kill her a lot.
3. Infiltrate draw a card. This refreshes every time you bring her back, which can get you multiple cards.
4. +2 hp. Makes her more resilient to some removals.
5. Unblockable. Just go face until you win if they can't remove her.
Spark and Tribute are the worst ones. She's going to become big if she survives, no point in getting greedy.

You usually want to be playing Alessi on turn 3-4 and buffing her. If you have a merchant, try to time a merchant on 5 power to grab Sword of Unity if you have a 6th undepleted power in hand. Putting that on Alessi and giving her aegis will almost always win you the game. Remember she gets buffed by fast spells during combat, so you can do cool stuff like annihilating a noncombat enemy if Alessi is about to evenly trade with something.

This deck usually wins on turn 7-8 80% of the time if you play it correctly. Late game, you have a bunch of ways to bring back Alessi and a bunch of sites for value. Don't be afraid to merchant away a late game card like Dizo's Site to grab a card you need. Just try to get a decent board (about 10+ attacks worth) and Sword of Unity on them to give them all Aegis, and then grind your opponent down.

If Alessi gets silenced or killed, and you don't have a way to bring her back, you will still have lots of ways to win, and there are many scout cards to make sure you consistently draw what you need.

Other tips:
- This deck runs a lot of silences. It is usually correct to save them for the enemy hero, especially in matchups vs Shadow when they can return units.
- It's almost always better to return Shadowlands Guide instead of Alessi to your hand, since playing Guide will summon Alessi for free. This is especially true with Last Chance.
- Take a few minutes to learn the merchants. Not all of them can grab cards you need since this is a 3 color deck, and merchants can only grab cards of their color.
- While you have Alessi or another high priority target out, it's usually better to hold Corrupt than to play a 2 mana card that won't do much that turn. Stealing an enemy's removal and using it on their unit will usually just win you the game.
- There is a token in the market in case you really need a color. Don't be afraid to use it if you really need it.
- Sandstorm Titan will mess up your Dredger, so be careful of that. I included Titan because it's just a giant body for 4 mana.

Out of my 6 losses, 2 were from mana screw and 3 were to early Sabin cheats or Martyr's Chains when I didn't draw enough early game pressure. If you start encountering a lot of relic decks, replace Grinva in your market with Burglarize.