Silvans on a Trampoline 1.0

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• 1.0

I've had this deck in the making ever since Thranduil was announced in Fire in the Night and I finally finished my first pass at it this past weekend. Since the deck relies on cards in the AP, there are some proxy cards used:

• Elrohir => Thranduil
• Asfaloth => The Elvenking
• Herugrim => Orcrist

For those interested in or don't know the new player cards do, here's a link to the article where FFG announced the AP: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/8/6/fire-in-the-night/

Silvans are fond of entering and leaving play frequently, and Thranduil and The Elvenking fit perfectly into this archetype by giving them another way to bounce in and out of your hand. With Thranduil's ability to play Silvans without a resource match, I felt like I could finally make a Silvan deck that would make good use of their "enters play" abilities without having to auto-include the standard hero lineup that most Silvan decks use. Since this is tailored to do combat, it's not great at questing, but fantastic when playing multiplayer with another player to help out with questing.

To put it simply, this is essentially a Voltron Legolas deck by giving him all the attachments to make him attack repeatedly for ridiculous amounts if you get it going. By the end of the game, Legolas should (hopefully) be decked out with at least the following:

Legolas + Bow of the Galadhrim + Orcrist + Rivendell Bow + Heir of Mardil

With all that, Legolas ends up with 7 (8 if it's a ranged attack with Bow of the Galadhrim), and should be able to attack 3 times each round if he kills at least one enemy. For those don't want to do it in your head:

1. Declare as an attacker as normal. (#1)
2. Return a Silvan ally to your hand to ready him using the Elvenking.
3. Declare as an attacker again. (#2)
4. If he kills an enemy with either attack #1 or #2, Orcrist adds a resource to his resource pool, triggering Heir of Mardil which readies Legolas for attack #3.

If all goes according to plan, you can net 6 progress and 3 resources every round from Legolas and Orcrist if he kills 3 enemies, which shouldn't be that hard given the Ranged Silvans that fall from the trees using Thranduil's ability. If you need extra damage on an enemy, you can ping them from 1 damage using Galadhon Archer or potentially deal a considerable amount if you play Rúmil with a bunch of his Ranged buddies around. Marksman of Lórien helps bring reduce an enemy's defense and you can even use Greenwood Archer to ready another character (cough Legolas) for an additional attack.

The goal is to be able to consistently use Thranduil's ability every round so that there's at least one Silvan ally that can be bounced back to your hand if needed by the Elvenking to ready Legolas. The timing of when you play the Silvan during combat depends on the current board state. Need a defender? Play them at the beginning of combat and either chump block with them, or use Feigned Voices to cancel their attack. To also play with this bouncing theme is good ol' Sneak Attack in case you need to play someone in another phase or just need another body to attack/defend in addition to the one that Thranduil allows you to play.

You could, in theory, play the allies during the planning phase, but they aren't worth much to you in terms of questing even with Celeborn's boost. Plus, if you play them using Thranduil, they get to avoid all of the "Deal X amount of damage to a character" encounter cards so they'll actually live long enough to make it to the combat phase.

Another fun combo that is probably not necessary at all in the deck is Legolas and all of his gear along with Steward of Gondor and Gondorian Fire (played in that order since he needs to be Gondor in order to call upon the fire). With the resource generation from Steward and Orcrist, Legolas should be able to massacre enemies no problems if he has Gondorian Fire.