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Dark Alessi

Piloted by
Aetherllama
Team Rankstar

+17

Cost Curve

Type

Faction

Tournament Information

ETS 2018 S4W7 - Top 8
November 3, 2018
1st

Details

Shiftstone Cost
Does not include campaign cost
36,850
Premium Cost
164,000
Influence Requirements
2 2 2
Power Sources
13 13 14 15
Power Calculator
Shiftstoned Icon View Deck on Shiftstoned
Deck Rarities
13 18 31 8
Card Types
24 3 28 0 25
Contains Cards From Campaigns
The Tale of Horus Traver [Set1002]
Archetype
Midrange
Added
November 4, 2018
Views
15,624
Eternal Version
Bug fixes
BBCode For Comments
Deck URL
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Comments

delete_This Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
The stomp potential here is huge, it would be good if there was a way to fit Devastating Setback here without making the grind game too much weaker, Skycrag is all over the ladder and there are also those damn mauls.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
I can't edit this list because it's from a tournament. My updated list is here: Alessi's dark side.
Largekho Eternal Version: 1.40
I feel like the deck needs more units or potentially a board sweeper. The amount of times you just sit there doing nothing is excruciatingly painful as a deck like this loses to to both aggro and control if it doesn't have a board presence early game. I feel like this deck is just so reliant on nut draws that it can't really succeed.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Won ETS, but can't succeed? It's able to win most games if played correctly. The only sweeper that would be reasonable is Setback. Other units that could work are Ripknife or Enforcer, but lower spell count would make Alessi worse.
cloudscraper Eternal Version: 1.40
Still loving the deck. A bit disappointed in Annihilate, have you considered any other removal in that spot or did it work perfectly all The time, for you? Ty again!
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Annihilate deals with the biggest problems on time. Kills Teacher and Dusk Raider on turn 2, and Vara later. Banish would make you fall behind if you go 2nd. Suffocate wouldn't kill Vara unless you sacrifice. Vara's choice is probably the best alternative, but if you use it as removal on turn 2 you are down a card. Vanquish would be nice, but it's late game removal and this deck needs early game, so you would have to replace something other than Annihilate.
BorisBritva Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
How can you see wins on this deck? The deck loses the pace of the game from the start. What% of victories does this deck have?
The deck is designed for luck in the starting hand.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Depends on whos playing it. I have 70% win rate with it.
BorisBritva Eternal Version: 1.40
So your deck is not suitable for everyone?))))
I'm sorry I'm 30%
cloudscraper Eternal Version: 1.40
I am not aetherllama yet i am 15-4 with the deck. It is not easy and requires Experience with Alessi decks. You often are behind on board at the start, it is True. But not trading a piece you know you Will grow is a key part of the strategy. At a certain point aggressive decks Will not be able to Attack anymore. I am 5-0 against skycrag and 1-0 against haunted high way atm.
BorisBritva Eternal Version: 1.40
5-0 against skycrag ? skycrag 4 move ends the game, I can be sure that you are playing against skycrag ?
cloudscraper Eternal Version: 1.40
If you write in english forums, you should make sure that you are speaking english, first.
BorisBritva Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
I'm in shock, I write you that the deck is bad, and you tell me about English. Don't write me any more.
Play further on this deck, all tournaments are yours)
cloudscraper Eternal Version: 1.40
You are an ignorant noob
Ogatu Eternal Version: 1.40
I've been running a few copies of dawnwalker in here and he seems to run quite nicely in the list. We already main and market some killer. Tavrod, Auric and Crownwatch can all bring him back. Just 2 dawnwalker was too juicy for me to leave out of this list. just took out 2 annihilate and it feels fine.Seek and Find the way pretty much always ensure you have the 4 time as well to trigger the affect. Nice list though! Only change I could think to make really.
svrQQ Eternal Version: 1.40
Holy shit this is so much stronger than this list that I worked on together with Westerncancer:
https://eternalwarcry.com/decks/details/i5ZnYPp9KSs/tavrod-now-with-50-more-op

Thank you so much. I knew there was something promising in these 3 colors with Tavrod + Sword of Unity. I tried Crownwatch Press Gang + Alessi at some point but yeah, IDK I couldn't get something about it to work as well as what you have here. THANK YOU!
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Glad you like it. There's a lot of interesting possibilities in TJS, I'm sure there are still some sweet undiscovered builds.
M3D13VAL Eternal Version: 1.40
I'm not sure if this has been done before, but with inspiration from Sedated making a Combreilisk (Combrei utilizing Obelisk and Commando) deck I came up with a really fun, budget deck I call ToJeliSk. It could use a couple of changes, but overall feels really solid. I'll try to get this list posted later, if you'd like to take a look at it.
cloudscraper Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
What matchup is striking Snake formation for? Tokens and Combrei style decks?


Currently 5-0 loving the deck.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Correct. More generally it is for board stalls, which are not as common as they used to be, but I still like to devote one market card to breaking them. It is the least used card, but it swings the game the most when it's played.
SlimHeavens Eternal Version: 1.40
I copied your 80 and went 12-1 to climb from g2 to d3 in ranked. Deck felt really great and powerful. It's also right up my ally for deck style. I had troubles with a westwind combo player, but I did stall out a bit in the early game. Great deck thanks for the list!
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Nice! Glad you're enjoying it. Perhaps adding a Reality Warden in the market would be worth it.
BarnacleEd Eternal Version: 1.40
All due respect, I still dont see the appeal in running Tavrod in an Alessi deck...there's plenty of activators for the Interrogators without needing to sharpen those horns, if you need him to dig for the Press Gang you're probably already far behind in the game, and he doesnt fit the "spells matter" theme of the deck imho. I personally run Shadowlands Guide and Xenan Lifespeaker in my own Dark Alessi deck for added recursion hilarity instead.

That said, congrats on the tournament win and I really like this market setup - I might have to steal it for my own list!
sirgoulas Eternal Version: 1.40
Can I see the math behind it please, I am curious how you came up with that number since the parameters of having tavrod on which turn and also if you already have minotaurs or weapon in hand would overcomplicate the problem. Also the press-gang and find the way would also add fuel to the fire. So how you came with that number??
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
I used a hypergeometric calculator: https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx. The cards you have drawn randomly before Tavrod attacks don't matter when calculating the average case, just that we have Tavrod and 74 other cards (3 weapons, 11 other minotaurs). H(74, 14, 5, 1) = .66; the chance to hit at least 1 card. H(74, 11, 5, 1) * H(74, 3, 5, 1) ~= .1; the chance to hit 2 cards. Then .66 + .1 = .76; average cards drawn.

You are correct that the deck thinning from Pressgang, Seek Power, and Find the Way would increase the average hits, which I didn't account for. I'd guess the thinning effect adds up to .05 average cards drawn depending on game length.
sirgoulas Eternal Version: 1.40
This is clearly incorrect. You won't have cast Tavrod until turn 5 and he will attack at best at turn 6, which means even on the play you will have 63 cards remaining.
The cards before the 1st Tavrod drawn matter. You would need to add a variable about the amount of minotaurs and swords being in hand, meaning the probability would be a function of that. What you claim is basically adding all minotaurs and weapons on rest of deck which is clearly incorrect while you have 0 in hand.
Also you would need to check on what is the optimal probability to have 1st tavrod (this is easily calculated but I think Shiftstone would easily calculate it so you could examine it separately with a geometric distribution and I don't see it being included in the multiplication). Again you assumed you have 100% chance on Tavrod on turn 1.
Hypergeometric distribution won't simply solve this problem because its way more complex than it looks(unfortunately its been 6 months since i last checked my combinatorics and probabilities so I cannot calculate unless I spend a lot of time and I am too busy and rusty ) . But sadly what you say its incorrect but on the right direction.

Anyway, just asked since I was interested if you did the whole math behind it.
Aetherllama Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
H(75-c, 15-(m+w), 5, 1) + H(75-c, 12-m, 5, 1) * H(75-c, 3-w, 5, 1). c = cards drawn, m = minotaurs drawn, w = weapons drawn. Is that the solution you wanted? It doesn't seem very useful to me for evaluating how good Tavrod is in this deck. For clarification, I'm interested in the average cards drawn by Tavrod per attack over all games. I did not assume Tavrod attacks on turn 1, only that my deck was randomly ordered. The cards that came before Tavrod attacked are not treated differently than the cards at the bottom of the deck.

Thought experiment: If you draw through a randomized standard 52 card deck, what is the probability that you draw a Heart immediately after the Ace of Spades? It is H(52, 13, 1, 1) = .25, a hypergeometric calculator is not necessary, nor are any variables to account for when the other Hearts are drawn.
sirgoulas Eternal Version: 1.40
Ye true the hypergeometric distribution has already taken into account the cards drawn but what you initially described doesn't make much sense as part of the problem..
1st of all you already assumed you have 1 Tavrod P(X>=1)=H(74, 14, 5, 1) = .66 while for example when 12 cards are drawn Tavrod has 0.48% to appear (geomertric distribution). Nothing of that sort was taken into account. You just assumed you have Tavrod with 100% probability and relate him to the 5 first cards drawn..
Secondly ,when you state H(74, 14, 5, 1) = .66 it means from a population of 74 cards with 14 being success I draw 5 and want 1 success (minimum). That doesn't much sense either since what you basically do is checking only the 5 first random cards out of the 74 every time and the average probability of that is 0.66. That doesn't help at all regarding the problem either. We are not looking to find out what is going on in the 5 first draws, but how would Tavrod behave when the population varies. At least that is I would like to know or would make more sense to me..
The generalised hypeorgeometric distribution you listed makes more sense but this is the issue I mentioned earlier. The difficulty in this problem is that the population keeps shrinking. And this is why I said that "it depends on what you drew".since optimally we want to check on a dynamic population. I am pretty sure according to what is c, there would be an average estimate for m and w and possibly run a ss for every given deck size. I am going to ask the problem on mathoverflow over the next 2 days when I get more free time but I have to think how to phrase it properly and maybe someone could help reply.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
If I attacked with Tavrod, there was a 100% chance that I drew that Tavrod (unless my Pressgang got unstable formed into Tavrod or something, but I don't care about that). The other cards are randomly ordered, and on average his attack samples a random distribution.

Take the formula I posted and calculate the weighted average over the distribution of (c, m, w). Enumerate every possible combination of values, then calculate the probability the situation arises, and the average cards Tavrod draws in that situation. Math problems have multiple methods which arrive at the same solution. I choose the easy method. You are welcome to use the hard method, but in the end the result will be the same. Don't declare that the hard method is the only way, especially before you have executed it and are able to verify the correct answer.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Tavrod has more hits in this deck than many other decks he's been played in. He draws 0.76 cards on average, and they are all very high impact. He is also great with killer and dark return. I think Dark Alessi decks can be viable with and without Tavrod. I'm considering whether to add Xenan Lifespeaker or Pathlighter to this deck, maybe when Highwayman becomes less popular. Glad you like the market, only thing to note if you're using it in a non-Tavrod deck is to probably switch predator's instinct for something else.
Thanks and good luck with your Shadowlands Dark Alessi.
BarnacleEd Eternal Version: 1.40
Thanks for the response, and for explaining why Predator's Instinct works so well with Tavrod in another answer. Pathlighter also seems like it'd be a neat inclusion, but I've really been liking the Lifespeaker personally...though I can understand why they're less-than-ideal versus Highwayman!
Comment Deleted
Slysoft Eternal Version: 1.40
How often did you find the 1 mana cost of predator's instinct come in handy vs the +1/+1 of xenan initiation?
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
I think everyone's first instinct (haha) is to switch to xenan initiation, but the reduced cost is crucial for giving Tavrod killer on the same turn you play him, so you can draw cards without exposing him to removal. Giving Tavrod killer is a huge value play, even if he dies on the opponent's next turn, you can dark return him later for an immediate 3 for 1 (assuming he draws 1 card and eats something). Xenan Initiation offers very few advantages over the choice of 5 cards currently in the market.
Slysoft Eternal Version: 1.40
Yeah that's a good point with tavrod. I wasn't even thinking of him but about using it on alessi or interrogator. Makes sense and is an inclusion most people probably wouldn't think of.
Mysticlights Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
This deck looks very good and creative. I like SSF in the market a lot. I hope DWD will not nerf Dark Return to 2 mana now though. RIP Safe Return, we hardly knew ye.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
Thanks! I don't think they will nerf Dark Return since they recently added Last Chance. Maybe they will eventually figure out that Alessi + Pressgang is busted and make Alessi a 2/2 for 2.
Ninjacan Eternal Version: 1.40
Considering that they just printed last chance at zero power, i doubt it will be nerfed
Roluth Eternal Version: 1.40
Probably not tier 1 due to newVara being a party pooper, but this deck definitely has some strong highrolls.
kaarataka Eternal Version: 1.40
Wins tourney but not T1, ok.
Mail Edited Eternal Version: 1.40
Winning an ETS definitely does not make a deck T1, it just means it's probably somewhat powerful. The deck will have to be further tuned and played on ladder and in future tournaments to be able to properly evaluate its strength.
Aetherllama Eternal Version: 1.40
I've played it in ranked on and off since the first month of set 4, winning about 2/3 on average, but this is my first tournament with it. It's quite difficult to play so I'm doubtful that it will become popular.
Comment Deleted
Mail Eternal Version: 1.40
Yeah, I wasn't trying to say it couldn't be a strong deck. I plan on trying it out myself as well since I think your version is a lot less greedy than the old one. I like the Find the Ways and Slay to be more specific. I also think that it was correct to cut Vanquish, since Xenan Initiation is already late game removal. Anyway, congrats on the win!
Mail Eternal Version: 1.40
ok, this is epic
kaarataka Eternal Version: 1.40
Reminds me of TJS Moolessi. :thonking:
Mail Eternal Version: 1.40
yup, same archetype! I might try to revisit Moolessi after seeing aether win a tournament with it. I'll keep these changes in mind, I think a lot of them are pretty cool!