Deck Tech: Secret Steward 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week eight of Deck Tech! Last week we looked at a fast setup Beregond deck that absolutely smashed the undead at the end of the last cycle. Check that out here.

This week we're going back to one of my favorite archetypes ever, a three hero secrecy deck focused on resource acceleration and big allies to drop into play with those resources. Conveniently, FFG have decided to give us a new, low threat hero that plays perfectly into that archetype just in time for my birthday. (Literally the day I'm publishing this, and I'm going to be out of town, so please forgive me if it's up a bit late!)

That's right, new Denethor! And some of his support cards like Rod of the Steward. He's a pretty straightforward swap in for Théodred in my earlier incarnations of the deck (here, but the mix of draw effects and ally mustering effects has changed a little bit. And we've basically traded Theodred's resource flexibility for Denethor's raw throughput.

Which is pretty nice, actually. In a couple of these quest plays I managed to get all the way up to 9 resources every round! (Treebeard contribues one of them.)

Speaking of quests, let's see how we do.

Quest 1: Voyage Across Belegaer

We start the game with the Dreamchaser and the Dawn Star. Normally I like Naralenya for more resources, but we've got enough and extra turns in secrecy can be helpful. My opening hand has Light of Valinor and Steward of Gondor, so those get played immediately. And I pass a resource over to Bifur so I can play a Quickbeam. And then I bomb sailing like some kind of moron, and shift even further off course to travel to the opening location. But the ball is rolling.

Every round after this I play at least one ally. Sometimes with Timely Aid and sometimes the hard way. I even find enough resources to play Heed the Dream with its kicker to fetch a replacement Light of Valinor after a pirate ate the first one.

I also optionally engage the original Scout Ship on a Gandalf turn and take care of it and the Umbar Captain who was sailing it. And because of that there are actually no ships in the staging area when I move to the final quest stage.

Which sets me up to do something I'd never done before... win this quest by combat! So I engage the ship and blow it up with my allies after using Treebeard and Denethor to defend a pair of pirate attacks.

Final score: 109. 10 full rounds, 18 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 9 vp.

Quest 2: Flight of the Stormcaller

The quest is new, how could I not try it? And with so many of the new cards in the deck, I feel good about this decision. It's also nearly all the same cards as the previous quest, so I know a bit about what to expect. This may have generated a false sense of security.

I'll try to be light on quest spoilers, but I can't do this without spoiling anything.

I start off using Daeron's Runes and Heed the Dream to get myself a Steward, and I sneak in a Gandalf during the questing phase to help out. I make a bit of progress, and then travel to a location phase that gives it away to the Stormcaller. The following turn I miss a Timely Aid and the Stormcaller is getting ahead of me.

After this another Heed the Dream finds me a Resourceful, and I don't choose to pay the kicker this time. This finally gets me rolling with my resource flow and I start to play allies left and right.

Round 8 we get to stage 4, about 12 progress behind the Stormcaller. Time to quest like mad, but thanks to Faramir we're in reasonable shape for that.

Round 9, three allies played, including Gandalf. We make a decent amount of progress but fall slightly off course. The Stormcaller makes a lot of progress, too, though, and will escape at the end of the next round no matter what.

So round 10 gets a little fun. I play two allies normally, Galdor and Hama. Then in the quest phase, I completely ignore the sailing test. We're already off course, and I need everyone questing to win. Then I sneak in Erestor and trigger his ability, drawing a card from him and another card from Galdor. One of those cards is Timely Aid, which brings in Gimli and I have no resources left. I quest with everyone, we reveal a high threat location that doesn't do anything immediately, and I win!

Final score: 110. 9 full rounds, 20 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 3: Stone of Erech

This quest is a lot harder if you don't build for it than some others. Only three of the characters in the deck are high enough willpower to avoid the Stone of Erech exhaustion problem, but we'll see what we can do!

Lose a few times at first is what we can do. This quest is a pain in the ass if you aren't prepared for some of the treacheries and reanimating undead shenanigans. And I tried to be cute a few times and use Faramir to mitigate the downside of traveling to the Stone of Erech.

The winning attempt wasn't pretty, or particularly exceptional, but it worked. I started with a Resourceful and a Steward on the board, and an Asfaloth. Rod of the Steward follows on the next turn and guarantees a steady trickle of cards.

I save every Sneak Attack and every Timely Aid for stage 2, where you have to decide between gaining resources and planning. And playing allies via events means you get to ignore the planning phase and still collect resources.

So Derufin was rescued and I planned to get out as fast as possible without engaging the Lord of the Dead. (Fun fact, if you kill him, Restless Dead can just bring him back again the next round! Or he can get reshuffled and appear again like a regular encounter card since he isn't worth victory points. What a jerk!)

Just a couple of rounds of battle questing sees me through, and the deck actually seems to perform better that way anyway, thanks to Treebeard and Quickbeam mostly.

Final score: 127. 11 full rounds, 22 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 6 vp.

Play Tips

1. This probably goes without saying, but don't bring this deck to a multiplayer game. Just about every card in here is unique, and there's a lot of overlap with heroes, allies, and attachments that other people like to use.
2. I mulliganed for Steward pretty heavily, but if you get a hand with multiple secrecy effects, I'd keep it. You aren't guaranteed secrecy after turn 1, and Resourceful is hard to play until you've got resources flowing.
3. Don't be afraid to pay for things without secrecy discounts. This deck generates a ton of resources, and paying 4 for an ally from your deck is a good deal.
4. Galdor of the Havens and Erestor have a really good interaction that lets you ditch an extra card and draw two to replace it. If you get them, you should look out for it.
5. Sneak Attack and Timely Aid let you add allies at any time, which is hugely valuable. And it's about the only way you'll get Beorn into play without any sphere manipulation in the deck.
6. If you get all three Resourcefuls, put two on Glorfindel and one on Bifur. Bifur can take the resource from Glorfindel if you want, but not the other way around.
7. Sneak Attack Beorn lets you use his huge attack stat and return to your hand before the reshuffle. Or, if you feel lucky with Timely Aid or Send for Aid, you can let him shuffle back in and try to get him into play permanently.

Fun Facts:

This is actually a recent version of the first deck I ever built for this game, back before I owned any of the cards past the first cycle. I played it on OCTGN against Journey Along the Anduin a few times because the secrecy mechanic seemed so interesting, and I was hooked. Then I bought all the rest of the packs that were available then, and every expansion since.

That version of the deck also had Eagles of the Misty Mountains because their stats were so good, and once you had one on the table you could use Sneak Attack to buff it up with the rest of them. Now we have Treebeard and Ranger of Cardolan to fit that kind of niche, but it's a bit tempting to go back to a more Tactics version of the deck! (Maybe when Tactics Eowyn is released...)

Next week: is going to be the Dwarf swarm deck I mentioned about a month ago in this section, since I'm running out of time to continue the secrecy theme decks.

Blog: Nothing new on the blog coming this week, but I am working on a post about different styles of secrecy decks and how they work, or how they don't. You can check out the blog, as always, here and you can add the RSS feed to your feed reader to follow along every time I make a new post.