Descendant of Beorn's Path companion deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck is inspired by the Beorn's path deck created for Escape from Dol Goldur, and has played against all regular quests and saga quests through Black Riders, modifying the deck progression style as I go. I know the hero lineup will change in the upcoming saga quests (Thalin is worthless against enemies with toughness, so I'm hoping to use him to get the Balrog off the bridge), so I'm capturing it in its current form.

The basic function of the deck is the same now as at the beginning. Eowyn and Thalin quest, Gimli kills. Generally the first opponent that comes along I take an undefended attack with Gimli to power him up, though archery and other direct damage always goes on Gimli first. He spends most quests at the point of death, but with at least 6 attack. I rely on Defender of Rammas or Derndingle Warrior to provide defense, and I look for one of those in my initial six cards. When Arwen Undómiel comes out she can boost their defense, and Honour Guard can watch out for Rammas' little hit point.

There's 53 cards because I'm arbitrarily not counting Elven-light. Those get tossed to Eowyn's ability, and when the cards run low and the resources start piling on later in the quest, it can be turned into card draw.

There's a lot of cards in the sideboard, but they actually are several packages.

1) Direct damage. In quests with plenty of 2 HP enemies, I like to toss in Gondorian Spearman, Spear of the Citadel, and the extra copy of Foe-hammer to take advantage of the extra weapons. Don't need to worry about nasty shadow effects if the attackers don't get to attack.

2) Shadow protection. Add the extra copy of Hasty Stroke and Dwarven Tomb to recur it. The Tomb also is a good card to have in any deck-discarding quest.

3) Threat mitigation. In a lot of quests we don't need any, since we can usually quest well and aren't usually interested in keeping enemies in staging. But quests that hit threat heavily add in Free to Choose, The Galadhrim's Greeting, Double Back, Secret Vigil and Dúnedain Hunter. The last doesn't directly reduce threat, but does grab an enemy in the planning phase so we can slap a secret vigil on it. When Gimili's powered up, enemies aren't usually around through a planning phase.

4) Power of Orthanc is for condition removal.

5) Gather Information is for quests without extreme time pressure.