Note: this deck is part of a Fellowship and is designed to be played alongside my Will and Strength deck.

The Goal

The goal of this deck, and its partner deck, was to take on Escape from Dol Guldur. I built a pair of decks that could quest hard when needed, and absolutely crush a powerful enemy or two when needed (such as the Nazgul of Dol Guldur). After defeating Escape with flying colors, I took these decks on more test drives and discovered their strength is fairly universal, although they definitely shine when tough enemies need to be killed in a hurry.

The Strategy

The strategy for this deck is to pull enemies into engagement with you, weather their attacks, and then strike back with extra efficiency because of Aragorn's ability to lower enemy defenses. Because the companion deck has several powerful ranged attackers, Aragorn's ability to both lower defense and pull enemies out of staging or off your buddy is very useful.

Defense to weather heavy blows comes mostly from Gandalf. His staff allows him to cancel a shadow effect on an enemy, and having Ally Arwen's boost plus an Honour Guard or two from the companion deck gives him great defensive strength. In cases where shadow effects are on unique enemies or he defends more than once per turn consistently, sideboarding in the Song of Wisdom and Burning Brand for him can be useful.

Aragorn's ability can also be very defensive. If there is a very deadly enemy in the staging area and a mook, you can engage the mook and leave the big bad in the staging area. Then, after killing the mook with Aragorn, you can pull the big bad into engagement and swarm him with attacks without him even getting to strike you! Keeping threat low can help with that, hence the cards for threat reduction.

The offense comes mostly from the Ranged attackers in the companion deck, but Gandalf can strike a heavy blow after defending with Flame of Anor, and of course Aragorn and Glorfindel are both heavy hitters.

There is surprising questing efficiency here. With Wingfoot Aragorn can pretty safely quest every turn and ready if an enemy appears. Glorfindel with Light of Valinor also gives free quest strength. Gandalf has the flexibility to be used for whatever you need at the time (especially with readying from Miruvor, Flame of Anor, and cards from the companion deck).

I usually mulligan for either Gandalf's pipe or his staff, but if some quests require strong defense early, I might mulligan for Arwen.

Final note: I'm sure there are more efficient ways to do what my deck does with a modern card pool, but I'm working with my limited card pool.