Faramir, Elessar, Chieftain of the Ents

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NERD 808

This is a very fun deck abusing Elessar, Chieftain of the North, and The Last Alliance to ready Ents. By forming an alliance between Gondor and Fangorn and equipping Faramir with the Gondor trait, Elessar and Chieftain of the North can target Ents. Thus, you can potentially get four actions out of an Ent you just played, despite it entering play exhausted. Let me explain.

  1. You buy a Wellinghall Preserver and then play Wait no Longer to engage an enemy.

  2. The enemy readies the preserver and gives Mablung a resource.

  3. You can now quest with the observer and have it be readied by Faramir, assuming you engage an enemy in the encounter phase (or just add The Renewer to the deck).

  4. Trigger The Last Alliance on Steward of Gondor, Faramir is not an Ent.

  5. Thus, Elessar and Chieftain of the North can target your Wellinghall Preserver, letting it defend twice and then attack.

  6. Because the Wellinghall Preserver just readied 5 times in a single round, it can heal itself and Treebeard back to full health.

While that combo requires some setup, just buying an Ent and getting multiple actions is great. Watching a Booming Ent swing twice is remarkably satisfying. The contract allows for a lot of other tricks, including drawing tons of cards with Soldier of Gondor and Entmoot. Steward of Gondor provides plenty of resource acceleration. However, I actually included it for the Gondor trait. Wardens of Healing and Ioreth use up excess resources for more healing. Overall, this deck is surprisingly playable. If you wanted to make it even stronger, run Quickbeam instead of Treebeard. That allows for Treebeard to be played on the first turn and readied with Faramir! From there, you have basically already won.

Have fun,

NERD

11 comments

Nov 09, 2022 doomguard 1976

nice exploit of Alep-shenanigans ;)

Nov 09, 2022 NERD 808

Thanks, it is always fun to break the fan cards. I would be curious what an optimized version would be. I think this concept has the potential to beat hard quests.

Nov 09, 2022 NERD 808

Here is a stronger version, although a bit less fun:

ringsdb.com

I would like a bit of feedback and then try it against a nightmare quest. I'll probably get destroyed, but it will be fun.

Nov 09, 2022 Alonewolf87 1922

@NERD just to be clear, you can't use Chieftain of the North to ready a defending Wellinghall Preserver, but you can defend with it, ready it with Elessar, have it attack once, ready it with Chieftain of the North and have it attack once more.

Nov 09, 2022 Alonewolf87 1922

Nice ideas though, good to see people making good use of ALeP's cards.

Nov 10, 2022 kjeld 641

You could alternatively use Doughty Ranger and Diligent Noble to give Treebeard Ranger and Noble so that he can bear Elessar and Chieftain of the North. While clunkier, these have the advantage of not requiring a use of the Contract and also replacing themselves as they're played.

Nov 10, 2022 NERD 808

That would probably be better. I am not sure how that did not occur to me. I guess my brain likes the complex approach. Regardless, that is a great idea.

Nov 10, 2022 Flrbb 170

I have no experience with those cards from ALEP. But it sounds for me that the time to setup, as well as the needed resources (without ally Treebeard), is a major drawback. Anyhow, I appreciate the amount of reading effects! If you want to strengthen your deck, you might want to add 3x Hauberk of Mail for Derndingle Warrior.

Nov 10, 2022 kjeld 641

I'm wondering about a variation on this that instead forms an alliance between Ents and Nobles, switching the hero lineup to Quickbeam, Elrond, and Théodred. You can then use the contract to drop Elessar on Quickbeam, which also opens up The Renewer, which is useful every turn. Doughty Ranger still works to get Chieftain of the North.

Even without Vilya, Elrond allows to play any ally (helping with resource smoothing) and dramatically boosts healing potential so you can soak up huge amounts of damage. This lineup also lets you run ally-Treebeard, which helps make up for the lack of Faramir's readying -- Treebeard can even be played turn 1 thanks to the contract.

Noble allies are limited, but you can use Arwen Undómiel and Galadriel to good effect, and ally-Faramir is always helpful. If you're running 3x of those, then A Fair Exchange might actually work, too.

Nov 10, 2022 NERD 808

@Flrbb It definitely does take time to set up. However, Steward of Gondor, The Last Alliance, Mablung, and Herald of Anórien provide a bunch of resource acceleration.

Nov 10, 2022 NERD 808

@kjeld I am thinking that a Beorning version could also be strong, as Beorn has great stats too. If you are trying Nobles and Ents, consider Círdan the Shipwright as a hero. He provides even more readying with Narya.