This hero has a very consistent early game, due to his hero power. It will rarely finish T7 or T8.
Al'Akir's heropower and buddy can be used as both tempo in the early game and utility later on. Monstrous Macaw has both synergy with the heropower and buddy as it can attack and trigger the buddy's deathrattle twice.
This can power both stat-oriented builds with cleaves or Blanchy, and deathrattle builds with Macaw synergies. The buddy giving divine shields to an entire board also opens the option for Greasebot scaling, though this is rather slow and can be risky, should your Greasebot be taunted as the first unit for example.
For this reason, i would personally recommend that you pick Al'Akir in beast and/or Mech lobbies only.
This can power both stat-oriented builds with cleaves or Blanchy, and deathrattle builds with Macaw synergies. The buddy giving divine shields to an entire board also opens the option for Greasebot scaling, though this is rather slow and can be risky, should your Greasebot be taunted as the first unit for example.
For this reason, i would personally recommend that you pick Al'Akir in beast and/or Mech lobbies only.
Slightly better when Dragons are in, because the shield from HP can stick to Tarecgosa.