Keepers of Ithilien 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Backstory

I've always loved the concept behind trapper decks, but never really managed to make them work. They were often too slow for my liking and didn't scale well into the late game, where you would usually have to face boss enemies that were immune to all your traps. On top of that, their questing prowess left something to be desired.

I think with the release of Followed and Emyn Arnen Ranger, combined with my current hero line-up, much of this has changed. This deck can now quest convincingly, especially with the addition of Éowyn. She serves a double purpose, as she is also great at fending off problematic enemies during the early game or instantly kill a boss enemy in the late game.

To top it off, the deck has a thematic feel to it, though I admit it's chronologically awkward (Damrod and Denethor died before Éowyn became Lady of Ithilien). Still, it's enough to provide additional satisfaction in assembling a strong yet cohesive trapper deck.

Strategy

The general strategy you want to employ with this deck is as follows: buy yourself some time during the early game to get Damrod and Denethor stacked with the necessary attachments. Master of the Forge and Steward of Gondor are absolutely crucial to accelerate your game plan, so try to mulligan for them. If you can't open with both, I would give priority to Master of the Forge. If you're lucky, he can fetch you a Steward of Gondor on the same turn anyway, but if not you should still see it relatively quickly.

Hopefully you will have both out at the start of the second round. At that point, Master of the Forge ensures an endless supply of traps or other crucial attachments such as Gondorian Shield and Armored Destrier, depending on what you need the most. The latter two cards are of vital importance to Denethor as they turn him into a formidable defender. A single Gondorian Shield allows him to fend off most attacks from the very start.

You generally want to give Denethor's resource to Damrod every turn. The only exception is during rounds 2-3 where you have hopefully played Steward of Gondor and are now waiting for Armored Destrier. As long as you keep enough resources on Denethor to play it immediately when you see it, you should be fine. After that, there isn't a single card in the deck for you to play.

Traps

There are 17 traps in this deck in total so you should rarely run out of them. Most of them are very helpful in dealing with weaker enemies at the start. Entangling Nets, Ranger Spikes and Outmatched can turn enemies whose stats hover around 2 , 2 , 2 absolutely harmless, allowing you to save Denethor and Forest Snare for the more troublesome opponents.

Additionally, the traps also help with questing. Out of the gate this deck can typically quest for 6 , which is pretty decent. Ranger Spikes and Followed both further lower the in the staging area. Combined with Emyn Arnen Ranger you can rack up some nice rather quickly.

Ambush isn't too strong in the early game, when you might still use Damrod exclusively for questing and find yourself without other decent attackers. However, once the early game is over and Damrod has Wingfoot plus either a Ranger Spear or Gondorian Fire, it's a perfect card to deal with enemies before they can do anything.

My strategy with Wingfoot is pretty simple: I almost always pick enemy. The reason is that enemies are typically the only reason for why you would want to ready Damrod after questing in the first place. Before committing Damrod to the quest, think about the current board state. If nothing were to be added during staging, would you be able to handle it? If so, you probably don't need Damrod for the rest of the turn if no enemies appear.

Allies

While allies aren't the main focus of this deck, you're still going to need a few of them. I believe the ally line-up perfectly complements the theme and strategy of the deck. Master of the Forge is quite self-explanatory, greatly speeding up the deck and making it much more consistent. Warden of Healing helps keep Denethor alive and provides some counterplay to archery, which is otherwise a great nuisance to trapper decks.

Emyn Arnen Ranger is one of my favourite trapper allies, for obvious reasons. Trapper decks have always struggled a bit with questing, but this card solves those problems almost single-handedly. Once you trap a single 4 enemy with Followed and perhaps even Forest Snare, each copy of Emyn Arnen Ranger will quest for 4 !

Dúnedain Hunter gets a special mention. He might at first seem like an odd choice, given how we generally want to play a slow early game. However, he is actually a perfect fit here. First, his synergy with Followed, Outmatched and Forest Snare is straightforward. Attaching a trap to an enemy during the planning phase can be very valuable, as you can immediately use the card drawn off of Damrod's effect. Not to mention that Followed can greatly help with questing in the very same round, and you get to select the highest enemy among the 5 cards you revealed!

Secondly, he completely negates surge enemies, which are normally terrible for trapper decks. Their stats are usually pretty bad, so every trap they spring has essentially gone to waste. Then, immediately afterwards, a potentially much stronger enemy appears, completely bypassing all your careful staging area manipulation. Dúnedain Hunter is capable of drawing these surge enemies straight from the deck without revealing them. Given their generally poor stats, they won't be much of a threat to you anyway so you can generally safely engage them.

Finally, even if you're forced to engage a strong enemy you weren't ready for and there's no Forest Snare in sight, there's always still Guardian of Ithilien to send them back into the staging area and right into one of your other traps. For example, a well-placed Ranger Spikes could remove the enemy from the game entirely.

Late game

During the late game, you can chump block the eventual boss enemies that are too strong for Denethor to tank with Master of the Forge or Guardian of Ithilien. Both of them have served their purpose at that point in the game. This gets Denethor out of harm's way, so he can defend against the smaller enemies. With Armored Destrier he can still remove the shadow cards from the boss enemy so you can't be surprised by nasty effects that trigger after your chump blocker has died.

At this point, Gondorian Fire should also be live so that Damrod has enough to kill even the boss monsters with relative ease. If a single Gondorian Fire is not enough, remember that you can use two at the same time. For example, if Damrod has 8 resources at the start of the combat phase, you can pay 2 resources and boost his by 13! This may sound overly situational, but remember that Master of the Forge can seek out attachments at will. Also, with Steward of Gondor and Denethor sharing his resource with Damrod it only takes 2 turns to get 8 resources on him!

If all that still isn't enough, or you didn't quite manage to get all the pieces in place, there's always Éowyn's effect if you're in a really tight spot. I always mention this when I put Éowyn in a deck, but don't be afraid to use her effect early on. This deck especially has a pretty strong late game once Damrod and Denethor are properly stacked with attachments, so getting through the early game is the most important part. Éowyn can buy you a lot of breathing room by dealing with a particularly nasty enemy that engaged you early on.

Sideboard

Defender of Rammas can be played for additional in quests where Denethor alone doesn't cut it. Just beware that 2 resources is quite a price to pay for a single ally, when you usually want to keep a resource behind for Feint or use them to pay for Gondorian Shield early on.

Firyal and Henamarth Riversong are both excellent choices that almost made it into the main deck. Both help a lot with managing the amount of you commit to the quest, but more importantly they give you information about which traps would be best to play. They also guarantee you call Wingfoot correctly every time.

Visionary Leadership can be played for more in the late game, but since the deck doesn't run that many allies it's probably best suited for multiplayer where another player also has a Gondor-themed deck.

Finally, Daeron's Runes and Rumour from the Earth are both useful events that make the deck more consistent but are ultimately not required for the deck to run smoothly.