Caldara-decks are a very powerful archetype that can muster high numbers of willpower, but they often are struggling with combat. And while we have with Jubayr and the upcoming Dain decent solutions for defending I wanted to try something different ... and use Against the Shadow in this deck. A card that normally has its best use in a grief deck if your friend plays Beregond.
I want talk to much about our heroes and most of the cards of this deck because they are standart Caldara-stuff, but explain some specific tricks in detail.
If we build a deck around an event, we want to recycle it consistently. Fortunately we have a couple of options in Spirit that we play here: Dwarven Tomb, Map of Earnil and Galadhrim Weaver (who is also a cheap way to shuffle our deck if we see a bunch of crap with our Imladris Stargazer). Háma is a decent source of attack power but more importantly our panic button who can cover us if we miss to play Against the Shadow at some point.
In the rounds you play Against the Shadow, Star Brooch is an excellent toy for Círdan the Shipwright once he has Light of Valinor, boosting pretty much always his defense and sometimes helps questing. Warden of Annúminas is a similar card that can give you high defense numbers if you are engaged with lots of enemies. They are together with the Pelargir Shipwrights and Glorfindel, who can now quest, defend, kill, your main defenders.
I played this deck now a couple of times and while it is not on the powerlevel of other Caldara-decks, I could defeat most quests in two attempts. This is in my opinion not bad for a deck that plays Against the Shadow.