Scions of the House of El 2.0

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Scions of the House of El, or "Oh NO-ldor you didn't!"

Elrond's twins have been a long standing favourite pairing of mine for a long time, though as someone who prefers to play one-handed, they don't work against every quest. Arwen Undómiel's release with The Dread Realm and the new Noldor toys in the Dream-Chaser cycle, I've had a lot of fun and frustration honing a twins deck to a keen edge.

Opening Hand:

The only card absolutely critical to see in your opening hand is Elven-light, and as such you should mulligan aggressively for it. The rest of your hand is very flexible, with the cost curve of the deck is weighted to the less than 2 cost end, so you should look for one solid 2 cost card, with the best choices being Elven Mail or Silver Harp over any of the 2 cost allies, and use Arwen Undómiel's ability to get that into play on turn 1. Elven Mail especially given how much of a 'premium' sentinel is for your fellow players.

At the Table:

One of the questions that gets talked about alot with Noldor decks, is how many cards do you include to fuel all your discard effects? The answer is really all of them. You can't afford to be too precious about the vast majority of cards the deck. While yes, ideally you'll be wanting to horde as many precious resources on Elladan and Elrohir as possible, it's rare you'll need to attack or defend with either more than once or twice per turn, and even rarer every turn unless things have gone especially poorly. The best way to decide which cards are 'expendable', fuel for the Noldor discard bonfire, is to set a priority based on what you and your table-mates have under control the most.

If your table buddy has a strong questing Rohan deck, then you can prioritise your quest-centric cards like Sailor of Lune or Steed of Imladris as fuel for your discard engine. If someone's packing a deck with a lot of ranged attackers, then perhaps your Trollshaw Scout and Rivendell Bow should be the first to pitch. This is why Elven-light is always such a priority in your opening hand, so you'll always have at least ONE option to discard every turn.

With some lucky draws, the rest of the more specific discard fodder, like Glorfindel, Elwing's Flight and Lords of the Eldar will make the decisions for you that much easier.

Light of Valinor can be a little bit of a contentious card at the table, depending on how your fellow players have their decks setup. If another player has Elrond or Glorfindel you can bet they'll want it to be hitting the table. So why not play it across the table for them if you draw it early. It's only there to provide you with a little questing boost/action advantage in the early turns for Elladan, and is probably one of the first things you can afford to drop when you're considering your sideboard substitutions.

Once you transition into the mid-game and Elrohir is set up with an Heir of Mardil you can start holding back Arwen Undómiel's ability to grant a resource to get a free readying effect for Elrohir, either allowing him to quest for those truly YOLO questing turns, or for an extra defense, which can be especially useful once he has an Elven Mail too.

While testing this deck I found a new respect for Trollshaw Scout, his ability to not exhaust when attacking, along with ranged really makes him a formidable addition to the battlefield, especially when you're holding onto some cards that you really don't mind discarding. Slap a Rivendell Bow and/or Rivendell Blade on him and he becomes a truly monstrous little machine gun.

Elven Jeweler and Guardian of Rivendell are absolutely great for when your draw absolutely will not play nice. Ideally you want your discard specific cards (Elven-light, Elwing's Flight and Lords of the Eldar) to trickle into your hand slowly, one at a time. But for those occasions when you're stuck with duplicates in your hand, these 2 allies are amazing.
The Guardian requires a little more forethought to play, especially if pulling resources from each of your heroes is going to leave you short to fuel the twins action advantage, so consider your current and FUTURE board state carefully. Even be wary of pulling all of Arwen Undómiel's resources to pay for them, as the side of the deck's cost curve is much higher than the other 2 spheres.

Funnily enough Arwen Undómiel resources are the trickiest to manage over the course of the game. Almost all the high-cost cards in the deck are in the sphere so if you really don't have a pressing need to pass a resource to her brothers, she should almost always be the target of her own ability. But if you get an Errand-rider or two early on, you can 'course' correct your resource allotment better with the ebb and flow of the board state.

Sideboard:

I don't usually like to throw too many cards into a sideboard, but considering quite how flexible the Noldor discard archetype is, the sideboard is a little larger than usual. So I'm going to explain some of key ones in a little more detail and make suggestions on what to remove to accommodate them.

Keen as Lances if another player is running a victory display deck then I think this card is a must include, even at only 2 of. It gives you all of the 'panic buttons' you could need, and over Gandalf without Sneak Attack isn't going to stall your board state out eating all your resources to cover it's cost. Drop 1x Lords of the Eldar and Steed of Imladris

Skyward Volley if another player is bringing a lot of questing power to the table then subbing out Elwing's Flight for Volley will bring a substantial amount of attack power to the table. Having Trollshaw Scout's on the table also make it that much easier to ensure you have a ready character with ranged to exhaust for the additional cost.

Gaining Strength in the rare occasion someone's brought a lot of threat reduction to share with the rest of the group, this is probably your best bet card to sub in. Extra resources are going to pay off dividends in the long run, and if you happen to get one of these in your opening hand, Arwen Undómiel's fantastic resource smoothing will let you play it right out of the gate. Remove both Elrond's Counsel and either a Light of Valinor or a Steed of Imladris

The original version of this deck was heavily based on Matt Newman's Dread Realm release article deck, which can be found here and his deck list can also be found here on ringsdb in the Derived from section below