Everything Really Costs 2 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

A while back, I published an Eventful deck built around the idea of using Erestor as an engine for playing, yes, events. It seems, and is, a little silly… but it has also been weirdly effective even in 2-player. (Shout-out to the Mike who gallantly let me use it as we beat Breaking of the Fellowship together at Con of the Rings.) Essentially, it turns out that producing a lot of resources is pretty sweet.

With that in mind, I built this the morning of the last day of the Con and, without so much as a goldfish, sicced it on @TheChad and @Devaresh. It is obviously indebted to the @Seastan classic (linked as Derived From), which is just as obviously a better deck, but hey, saying a Seastan deck is better than yours is essentially a tautology.

As in the event version, the combo of Arwen giving Erestor a resource, and Bifur simply taking Arwen's natural one, lets you generate 4 resources a turn from the get-go, at the relatively painless cost of a card in an Erestor deck. With a single Ziggy Miner—thanks to Arwen, you can always get one out when drawn—that's 2 more resources you can generate… This will generally enable you to vomit out the 3 cards still in your hand post-Arwening.

Or, if they don't seem awesome enough—too many traps at once?—save a couple of resources and potentially vomit out all 4 cards you'll have on a future turn. Maybe a Hammersmith will get back one of those traps anyway. Regardless, the planning phase decision-making is relatively simple but engaging, as is the case in most Erestor builds.

All the numbers above are guaranteed by the Everything Costs 2 conceit. The deck can be made better by relaxing this requirement: take out some traps and put in Elrond's Counsel, or Ioreth, or Henamarth Riversong. Maybe Stand and Fight is your jam. Or perhaps a couple of expensive bomb allies/Treebeard, if you'd rather ease up on the whole swarm thing. Whiffing Ziggy occasionally isn't going to hurt much. Me, I needed to be able to use the deck title, sooo. Sorry, Will of the West! Maybe next time!

Speaking of WotW: adding the effects of even a single consistently-triggered Ziggy to an Erestor build will drill you down through your deck right quick. At least in the late game your Wardens can happily suck down your otherwise useless resources for an absurd amount of healing… Frankly, just put a copy of WotW into your deck, lol. If you draw it super-early, or discard it to a Ziggy whiff, Ered Nimrais Prospectors provide an out (and if your WotW is safe, they are useful to shuffle back some other card you want).

So how did it do at the Con? The aforementioned trio tackled the hardly trivial Shelob's Lair, and while my deck did little for combat, it quested for 20+ almost throughout the playthrough, healed for a bucketload, Ranger Spiked a full complement of enemies harmlessly into the staging area, and provided the only treachery cancellation we needed (via the sideboarded Halfling Bounder) to score a lengthy but comfortable win*. I'd say it pulled its weight.

As a multiplayer build, the main demand it begs from the table is simply the heroes—not a single one of those uniques within the deck itself is necessary. Arwen and Bifur are big asks, of course, but at least in Arwen's case you can throw resources across the way if appropriate heroes are in play.

Exercise for the reader: you might be able to pull off a vaguely similar idea with Galdor or Elrond instead of Erestor…