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Discard Pile
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dobrophonic 59
This deck tries to maximize the Silvan ability to come in and out of play, along with cards that can access the discard pile. It's intended to be useable for both solo and multi-player situations, and shouldn't have much overlap with non-Silvan decks in terms of unique characters.
Attachments
Mulligan for Nenya, as Galadriel is nearly useless without it in the early part of almost any adventure. I've been putting The Elvenking on Celeborn so that he can quest and attack, or defend in an emergency. The Necklace of Girion should probably also go on Galadriel in order to help pay for allies, and to fund expensive allies from the discard pile using Stand and Fight. Alternatively, Celeborn can make use of it since he almost always quests, while Galadriel sometimes sits out to use her threat reduction and card draw instead.
Basic Strategy
O Lórien! is important to find early in order to get allies out quickly. It's especially useful for getting out Galadriel's Handmaiden, a fantastic ally who reduces threat, quests for 3 in the round she is played, and can even attack or defend in that round as well. Once a few allies are out, you can start cycling some of them back into your hand using the many event cards that allow for this, and when you bring them out again, they get both Celeborn's and Galadriel's exceptional bonuses. Of course, these two heroes have been around for many years, so I'm sure that strategy is well-known. What's new is Thranduil, who allows you to bring out a Silvan ally during the combat phase, which triggers Celeborn to give that ally +1 & for the rest of the round. allies are especially useful in combat of course, and if you bring out Rúmil this way, he can also do direct damage to engaged enemies. This is most effective later in the game, once you already have some other ranged allies out.
Galion the Drunk Elf
Working with Galion is a little complicated, which seems appropriate given his drunken incompetence in 'The Hobbit'. From what I can tell, Thranduil allows you to double-dip with Galion, who you can return to your hand to fund a card effect, then play again during combat using Thranduil's ability, and then promptly return to your hand to fund another card effect. Double-dipping with Galion means that Thranduil can't use his ability to bring out else that round, but in my experience, he's often unable to use his ability anyway - usually due to lack of resources, but sometimes due to lack of cards. Finally, if both Galion and The Elvenking are in play, you should activate the Elvenking and bring Galion back to your hand before the end of the round, even if you don't need to ready Celeborn. The reason is that Galion is able to quest for 2 if you bring him out fresh at the beginning of each round. Also, Galion can always be used to absorb 'exhaust a character' effects from the encounter deck. Pretty handy for a guy who can't attack, defend, or even quest under normal circumstances! In fact, Galion's 2 are so useful that even if you don't have the Elvenking, you may want to burn a 0 cost event card just to get him back in your hand, especially if you know you're going to need to quest for a lot of in the next round.
Keeping the Cycle Going
Orophin's ability to resurrect fellow Silvans from the discard pile to your hand makes him a mandatory ally in this deck. Another element to cycling the Silvans is Stand and Fight, although it's often difficult for Galadriel to save up enough to pay for anyone too expensive. Still, using this event in combination with O Lórien! can be very effective, and you can use it to bring back a copy of the surprisingly helpful Galion for free! Finally, if things get really desperate you can make use of the single copy of Will of the West to start the whole cycle all over again... Fortunately, Galadriel and her Handmaidens' threat control abilities mean that you can typically hold on long enough for this strategy to actually be relevant, and a single copy of Island Amid Perils is included in case you need to drop some threat in a hurry.
Managing Resources
I've opted for the healing power of Lembas over more expensive armor, so as many resources as possible can be poured into cycling the Silvan allies, but other players may want to opt for defense instead. More expensive allies like Rúmil can be Sneak Attacked in and then returned to your hand before the phase is over in order to pay for events or to ready an Elvenkinged hero, especially early in the game. There's also The Tree People, which can bring any expensive ally out for free if you pay with the ever-useful Galion! (Note that Rúmil's direct damage ability doesn't fire in these situations, but he still comes in with a substantial 3 ranged .)
Future Improvements
I'm pretty new to LotR LCG, so I don't have a full set of cards, which is why I haven't included Greenwood Archers in the Main Deck - it should definitely be in there in order to boost Rúmil's direct damage ability. Galadhrim Minstrel, a copy or two of Defender of the Naith or a couple of events could be removed in order to make room for it. Likewise, Marksman of Lórien, ally Legolas and ally Haldir of Lórien could all be swapped in, with the proviso that expensive and cards are harder to cycle back into play than lower cost allies. Woodland Courier might also be a good addition, especially if you want additional questing progress, as is often the case in multiplayer.
| 13 comments |
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Jan 08, 2019 |
Jan 08, 2019Yeah, it's in the Sideboard, and I did have it in the main deck in my first version. I took it out because I found that exhausting Thranduil was an expensive cost (he's the main defender, especially early on). I found that replacing Captain's Wisdom with some lower cost allies was a more efficient strategy. I suppose you could put The Elvenking on Thranduil to compensate, but it still comes with a cost - an ally has to come back to your hand to ready him, and of course you already have to the Elvenking in place, which isn't always possible early on. |
Jan 08, 2019You could always use Captain's Wisdom on Galadriel instead of Thranduil (especially if you didn't get Nenya), and then use her resources during the Combat phase when you use Thranduil's ability, since it's not limited to Thranduil's resource pool. |
Jan 08, 2019Wow, I guess I misunderstood Thranduil's ability - I thought it was limited to his resource pool... I was thinking it was like Bard son of Brand's ability, but I see now that he has printed resource icons, whereas Thranduil simply doesn't require a resource match. Is there anywhere in the rules that makes this interpretation clear? Thanks for pointing it out - it makes this deck even better than I thought, and easier to use, so I'll tweak the description. Still, I think I'd only include at most one copy of Captain's Wisdom for emergencies - so far I've found that resource generation isn't a big issue. It simply takes up card space that I feel is better used for Silvan events and low cost Silvan allies that can be used to pay for the events and then brought back into play almost immediately during combat or setup of the next round. Still, now that you've pointed this out, I'll give Captain's Wisdom another try when I get a chance. I appreciate the feedback! |
Jan 08, 2019You can look at it kinda like Gandalf's ability. You can still spend resources from other heroes pools as long as they have a resource match with the revelead top card of your deck, nothing in Gandalf's ability says the top card must be payed only with his resources. Another parallel can be traced with cards like A Good Harvest or The Storm Comes, since Thranduil's ability says that "you", as in the player, does not need a resource match, and a player can spend resources from all his heroes' pools in any combination he desires. Usually the only limit is the resource match, but in this case is waived. |
Jan 08, 2019Yeah, makes sense - one of my few complaints about this game is that the rules are often difficult to follow. You remember them once you've been taught, but learning them is a long, uphill climb - I've been playing for over a year, and I totally misunderstood this card! Now I hope I'm right in thinking that Stand and Fight can only be paid for with resources... I also see why Bard son of Brand, whose wording is almost the same as Gandalf's, still has to pay alone - it's because he's trying to splash attachments that no other hero has a match for. In Gandalf's case, he can't normally play coloured spheres at all because he's neutral. So they're kind of opposite situations. I was thinking of Thranduil as having the printed resource icons like Bard son of Brand, so that only he could splash out those allies. Instead, everyone can help pay, but those allies can only be splashed out during combat, meaning they can't contribute as much to questing. It all works out and makes sense, but I would have worded things a lot differently... oh well, at least it gets people to have interesting conversations! |
Jan 08, 2019You are correct in saying that Stand and Fight can only be played with Spirit resources....but it's not confined to resurrecting Spirit allies (though you might already know that). Yeah, one thing is "being considered as having a certain sphere icon", another thing is "ignoring the resource match of a card". I actually think in this case the wording is quite straightforward, but I can see how someone could get confused. |
Jan 08, 2019Yes, I did know that about Stand and Fight - the "can belong to any sphere" wording is thankfully very clear, although apparently that's been errata'd to exclude Gandalf and other neutral allies, meaning that the wording isn't very clear at all... but we all understand that was more a design oversight than a poor wording choice. As to the other wordings, they do seem straightforward in hindsight, but you have to think like a 'card lawyer', and as a pretty casual player, I'm not always in that mode. I'm actually a linguist irl, so when I get confused by wordings like this, I tend to blame the writers rather than myself - I thought MTG was bad until I started playing LotR! For Thranduil, I would propose wording more like Gandalf: "Combat Action: Play a Silvan ally from your hand. The ally is considered to have the printed , , , and icons. (Limit once per round.) " This is 32 words vs the current 23 (Gandalf uses 47 words, for comparison). I think the extra words are worth it for clarity... but like I said, I'm a more casual player. |
Jan 08, 2019Why should the ally (not the hero) be considered to have all the icons? it's likely to create only confusion and possible unexpected exploits I think if you really wanted to be as clear as possible the best way would have been to add "you can spend resources from all of your heroes to pay for this ally and you do not need a resource match", but it seems a bit superflous to me. |
Jan 08, 2019Yeah, that works as well. It defintely gets tricky, and the confusion is often due to unforeseen subtleties when the game was first developed (e.g. "play" vs. "play from hand" should have used more distinct terminology). Since I failed to get it, I don't think it's superfluous at all... but now I'll know for any cards with similar effects I see in the future. |
Aug 31, 2019Hi! I'm getting into the game and looking into a Silvan deck and am here for some inspiration. Wondering what the use is of "double dipping Galion using Thranduil's ability". Bringing Galion in during the combat phase means his willpower doesn't really achieve anything cause it can't be added to the quest anymore at that point, correct? Is it just in order to use him as currency (again) as a "silvan ally back to hand" to pay for something else like Tree People or Quicker than sight etc, but his stats/abilities basically don't do anything? |
Sep 01, 2019Yeah it's basically just to have an easily disposable (and what's more free) ally to be able to activate the "silvan ally back to hand" stuff. |
Sep 01, 2019Makes sense, thanks! |
If you have problems with the resources consider adding Captain's Wisdom, especially when you will get your hands on the Greenwood Archer