One wizard to draw them all (revised edition) 4.0

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Gandalf sat together with some Hobbit friends drinking and smoking. He was about to tell them the story how he defeated Thaurdir in the battle of Carn Dum. He explained about the terrifying sorcery of the undead and how Firyal avoided all the black magic. The Hobbits cheered when Gandalf told them about the Outland army overwhelming the undead. Then he pointed out, when he used his magic tricks to involve Knights of the Swan rightly after an Orc engaged their party. Suddently all the Hobbits got quite.

One of the Hobbit asked: "Gadalf, can you play allies in the combat phase?" Gandalf replied confidently "of course I can". But then the second Hobbit said "Gandalf, but allies can only be played in the planning phase?" And Gandalf answered "I am the grey wizard, I can play allies whenever I want!". But then the next Hobbit said "No Gandalf, only events may be played outside of the planning phase except a card directly overrule it". And Gandalf started to doubt about his actions. And when finally one of the Hobbits said "Caleb said you can't", he knew he was wrong.

It turned out I played Gandalf wrong all time. Now after a very long break from the game I decided to find out if the One wizard to draw them all can still excel with the correct ruling.

The main issue was the draw engine got stuck often by running into too many non-event cards. So I had to drop every non-key-card that cannot be played from the top of the deck. Not even Arwen Undómiel made it into the deck anymore. Finally, using threat as a resource made it work again.

Heros

Gandalf

Gandalf is the core card of the deck. He allows you to play one (event) card from the top of your deck every phase and enables the combination with Expert Treasure-hunter for even more draw. The low cost curve of only 0,67 resources per card (ignoring duplicates) allows to play through the complete deck within about eigth turns in average. This will summon your Outland army quickly to defeat every enemy.

The great stats make Gandalf the perfect target for many readying effects espeically at the beginning of the game. He is the main and only defender being Well Preserved and with Inner Strength. He is wizard to draw them all.

Glorfindel

Glorfindel is simply very good. He combines a low threat with impressive stats. Both the and help you in the first rounds. And with the high amount of draw you will find the Light of Valinor quickly to negate his in-built flaw. Additionally, his traits give you access to the important threat control Elrond's Counsel and Well Warned outclassing every other low-threat hero. And of course he is riding on Asfaloth.

Firyal (MotK)

Firyal has simply one of the best abilities for solo games.

Allies

Outland allies are the most efficient way in the game to generate and .

Anfalas Herdsman

Ensure to have one of them on board to save their co-workers from dying to an automatic damage caused by encounter cards. In addition to that they can serve as expandable defenders in the very early game and later they will quest or attack with the support of their brothers.

Ethir Swordsman

They are maybe the best non-unique allies in the game. With all Outland characters you can generate up to 30 for nine cards and a total cost of twelve resources.

Knights of the Swan

They are responsible to provide both for defeating enemies and questing against the Battle keyword. Because of the sphere, they can only be played from the top of the deck during the planing phase, which may require the use of the Wizard Pipe, or played during A Good Harvest. Getting them out has a high priority and they should not be sacrificed. Without them biting through high is too tough.

Attachments

The One Ring

Search for Well Preserved except for the deck has really nasty shadow effects. The ring basically gives you the advantage of ignoring possible threats from the encounter deck. Draw into a low enemy? Just soak the attack or use the Ruling Ring . Is there a risk for a shadow card? Block it with Inner Strength and you don't have to fear anything. Just never forget the ring can only be used once per round!

The downside of the One Ring is the raising threat. This is why threat control with Elrond's Counsel and Well Warned is very important. But once the engine is running, it is easy to keep the threat < 30 even using the ring every round.

Asfaloth

Asfaloth is absolutly the best location control in the game. It can remove locations from the staging area to avoid any travel costs and can instantly resolve locations requiring only one or two progress tokens. Every. Round. Again.

Expert Treasure-hunter

With the ability of Gandalf this card allows you to draw a card after you sucessfully quested. This is an insane effect for a 0-cost attachment that can be played on each hero. This is power fuel for the draw engine.

Gandalf's Staff

Gandalf's Staff is a very versatile card, where all three effects are important. The additional resource is typically used in the first rounds to get out cards quickly. Discarding a shadow card is typically what you use to avoid suprises and take undefended attacks without any risk. More draw is typically what you use at the end of the round, when you didn't need the other options. There will never be a round, where you regret to have played the staff.

Inner Strength

Increasing Gandalf's to 4 makes him a solid defender, but the true power of the card is the option to cancel any shadow card whenever you need it. Typically, this card becomes useful in the mid game, when you have additional activiations with Gandalf thanks to an Unexpected Courage.

Light of Valinor

Glorfindel really wants it.

Ring of Barahir

It is not that the ring is really good on its own. Well Preserved is that good, that it also makes any additional valueable. With the One Ring and the staff, it is the cheapest way to get +3 .

Unexpected Courage

Good card. People say.

Well Preserved

This is the card the best card in the deck. It keeps the deck alive until your draw engine kicks in. Why should I bother blocking an enemy when I can just take the damage and heal it? Having this card reliable from the first round, solves most early round issues. And later with 9 (with the Ring of Barahir), you can take up to two undefended attacks every round or block enemies with 6+ without worrying.

Wizard Pipe

The most important use of the pipe is to play Knights of the Swan from your hand. Additionally, you can swap a 0-cost event with a non-event on the top of the deck to play it and basically draw an additional card with it. Finally, the card allows to place a Hidden Cache before the quest phase begins to receive additional resources.

Events

A Good Harvest

This card is a simple filler, that can be played from the top of the deck for no effect if you don't need it. The purpose is to play Knights of the Swan or a 2-cost card with it. It is a card without a downside, but one that can bring great use in some games.

A Test of Will

The card allows you to simply nullify a complete encounter card for a single resource. It also pairs very well with Far-sighted allowing you to know when you need the resource.

Daeron's Runes

Daeron's Runes fits in any deck. Drop additional copies of Gandalf's Staff, Wizard Pipe or Light of Valinor, but you can basically discard everything that you do not need in this very moment. Thanks to The White Council and Will of the West you can get any card back later.

Drinking Song

This card helps out when the draw engine is stuck. Don't hesitate to just shuffle through your cards until you get it running.

Elrond's Counsel

The guidance of the elves is the best threat control in the game. Always play it directly from the top of the deck and don't wait for the quest phase.

Far-sighted

Far-sighted is a already good card on its own in solo games allowing to plan up to two turns ahean. But with Firyal the card becomes even better, because you can make better decisions which encounter cards should be discarded.

Hidden Cache

The combo of this card is based on Expert Treasure-hunter and the Wizard Pipe allowing you to get two additional resource every turn as long as you don't need the pipe for anything else.

The Ruling Ring

Well Preserved allows you to take undefended attacks and Inner Strength helps you to avoid shadow effects. The Ruling Ring provides basically both. Mind it is not limited to non-unique enemies making it a perfect option to avoid attacks from an end game boss.

The White Council

This is an amazing event for this deck. You can ready Gandalf. You can move a resource. You can shuffle back Elrond's Counsel, Will of the West, an Outland ally or any other card. Mind that shuffling something back also provides a new top card, that might be something you can play. And when played from the top of the deck pay a resource to draw a card is also okay. Very underrated card for solo games.

Well Warned

Not as good as Elrond's Counsel, because it is a reaction. But because of you cannot play five copies of card and you need more threat reduction, this is probably the best alternative available for the deck.

Will of the West

This card is just used to avoid running dry and give you more access to threat reduction. Additionally, sometimes you need the The White Council for its ready effect and the Will of the West is required to return key cards from the discard pile, that have been discarded by encounter effects.

Quests

Here is short description of the experiences with the deck against two of my favorite scenarios.

Attack on Dol Guldur

Result 2 out of 2. The deck is really good in getting out a lot of willpower quickly. It took me five and six rounds to be able to collect at least ten progress tokens per round and avoid both negative at-the-of-the-round effects. After that the game was under control and I just had to wait until enough cards were resolved to reduce the the fortress to 0 points and kill the commander. Well Preserved was the key card to ignore early attacks and then the Outland army did their job.

Battle of Carn Dum

Result 3 out of 3. It should be mentioned that I played this scenario at least a hundred times and know the cards very well. The most difficult part is to get rid of the initial location to quest with willpower. In the first game I was lucky to play Asfaloth in the first round. In the second game Knights of the Swan ehlped to solved the location naturally. In both games it took eight rounds to complete the first stage and Thaudir got only two shadow cards thanks to Firyal. The third game was more difficult, because I did not succeed in questing up to round 5 until Asfaloth finally cleared the battlefield. Also, I had to take an extra attack from Thaudir with two effects out of the four shadow cards, which left Gandalf with only 1 . One additional +1 and it would have been game over. But once I got the draw from the Expert Treasure-hunters, the game slowly turned to my favor. It took a total of ten rounds to clear the stage and finish the first encounter. In the end in all games I overrun Thaurdir with the Outland army.

Final words

The deck cannot beat every scenario, because it cannot handle the siege keyword for instance. But it is very reliable. I really like it.

I hope you enjoy it too.