Aragorn Can Do It All (with some help from Arwen) 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0

I've really been enjoying The Grey Wanderer The One Ring decks, because they combo nicely together, and it feels "fair" to me to give a single hero The One Ring. If I imagine a single hero taking on all the forces of evil, I'll let them using the ring a bit...

I was surprised to see that there wasn't any Grey Wanderer deck with Spirit Aragorn in the DB yet! The effect of Strider to quest without exhausting, and then being able to use Aragorn's ability to cancel out locations is a really fun combo (and he basically always has enough willpower because of Strider). Did a location show up? Start putting progress on it. Did an enemy show up? Stay ready to defeat it. Aragorn can regularly quest, cancel a location, and fight an enemy or two in a single round. It's super fun! Obviously the readying effects from Strider, Grey Wanderer, and Unexpected Courage are incredibly useful.

It's a little tricky to balance resource generation and card draw in this deck, but the current balance feels about right to me. I mulligan for Resourceful at highest priority, because there are 7-8 card drawing cards (3x Master of the Forge, 3x Ancient Mathom, 1x Bilbo Baggins, 1x Dúnedain Pipe) and only those 3 resource generating cards. But even a single early game Resourceful is enough to keep things flowing smoothly with resources from Grey Wanderer as well.

Master of the Forge is obviously excellent in this deck, with so many good attachments it almost never misses. You definitely don't need all 3 in play, and often just 1 is right, since you don't want to have too many or you'll lose out on the Strider willpower bonus.

Obviously the four attachments that go with The One Ring are great, and depending on your opening hand, you can decide what to grab. Power of Command is my default choice, but if you need to destroy enemies early in the quest, then Strength and Courage is often better. The healing from Well Preserved is often not needed in the early game since you can get healing from The Grey Wanderer. That said, Well Preserved can be extremely action-efficient in the late game, once Aragorn is powered up to 8+ HP with Ring of Barahir and has shadow card knowledge with Silver Lamp. Then, you can often take 2-3 attacks undefended without risk, and heal it all away at the start of round.

Thorongil reads "Refresh Action: Reduce your threat by about 30." Lore Aragorn is totally cheesy in my opinion, but I'm willing to use it in this case because he's my only hero. Basically, the same logic for using The One Ring. It feels "fair" since I just have one hero.

Arwen and Glorfindel provide the necessary unique Noldor and/or Noble for Well Warned, Heirs of Earendil, and Elrond's Counsel. It might take a little while to find them, and that's fine. They just help keep your threat under control as you continue to use Grey Wanderer and The One Ring. It's not necessary to be in Secrecy except to play Resourceful, which it's most important to play early game anyway.

I find this deck super fun to play. It's quite well rounded, and can quest, defend, and attack nicely. It has treachery control from A Test of Will, and often just avoids bad effects from a lot of treacheries by having so few characters in play. It has good threat control. Spirit Aragorn also provides good location control with his ability, Warden of Arnor, and Heirs of Earendil.

So far I've only played it against Beneath the Sands, which I won once and lost once, but the loss was primarily because of poor play on my part, not any real failure of the deck IMO.

The sideboard contains cards that I considered but ended up not making the cut, but could be good options to swap in depending on the quest. e.g. there are plenty of ways to increase the location control, more Heirs of Eareandil or Expert Trackers, etc. If threat is an issue, more copies of Well Warned, etc. I play solo, so guarded player cards are really tough (effectively doubling the encounter rate), but in a multiplayer game, I'd definitely try adding Necklace of Girion and/or Mithril Shirt, where it's only a 20-33% increase instead of 100% increase in encounter rate. Finally, I wanted to find a way to get Roheryn into the deck since the effect is so great, but it didn't seem worth it to add Song of Kings to make it happen, and then hope to draw both. Maybe it's worth it in some cases, but I tend to avoid the resource icon songs, especially with the flexibility that Grey Wanderer provides.

Comments welcome, as always!