Providing Defense to the Whole Table 1.0

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• 1.0

it rivals the Vigilant Dúnadan whole-tabledefense-deck.

i personally do not like decks that needs the Steward of Gondor except those with the true steward

This doesn't work as well as you think it does :).

Fortunately, the ALeP playtesters foresaw the potential combo with the Greenwood Defender and Vigilant Dúnadan, which is why Elessar's defense bonus only lasts "for that attack" and not "until the end of the phase".

imo in most cases this is enough, asuming there are 6 attacks there may 2 of them have str 6 and the others is less and the 4 with celeborn and arwen is enough for many attacks.

Ok, I'm not sure how I missed that. However, as DoomGuard said, this should still be effective. With a bit more refining and a companion deck with access to Narya this could still be broken.

Sure, you can defend one attack for 6 , but their are easier ways to achieve that than Aragorn+Elf-friend+Elessar+Elendilmir. You could run Beregond with Gondorian Shield to defend the big attack and have the ally defend the rest. I'm not saying it isn't broken (Greenwood Defender and Vigilant Dunadan have always been breakable), but it's not Elessar that's breaking them.

Fair point.

However, Beregond and Gondorian Shield (or just Dáin Ironfoot) require a hero to exhaust. Elendilmir, Aragorn, Elf-friend, and Elessar let you defend with 7 , without require an additional action needed. Also, Elessar can target the Greenwood Defender after you see the shadow card. Thus, it can let you keep him alive against a bunch of 4 enemies even if one gets a massive boost from a shadow card. Thus, Elessar is not really breaking Greenwood Defender. However, it is making him better.

Beregond + Gondorian Shield + Hour of Wrath can do the same thing. Sure, Hour is expensive, but there are ways to reduce cost, and generally this will be later game and you hopefully have been building up resources. And then there's the older Elrohir + Steward of Gondor plan. So this Greenwood Defender combo doesn't seem fundamentally more powerful than options that exist without ALeP, just offers a different way to do the same thing.

While that is somewhat true, Beregond + Hour of Wrath is not repeatable and Elrohir+Steward of Gondor is neither infinite nor as powerful. In addition, because Greenwood Defender leaves play every round, he heals himself. With that said, I am not saying that I dislike the fan cards. While I did not like their power level at first, I find them to be my preferred cards. Because heroes like Osbera are so much more unique than staples like Éowyn, it makes it hard not to love ALeP. All I am saying is that this is a strong deck.

only relating to defense i like other decks more they need not this much of setup (5-7 cardcombo is huge and only with luck it stands in round 3) a simple Beregond Arwen Undómiel (or (MotK) Arwen Undómiel) Beravor + Inner Strengthseems better to me, yes there is no "infinitive" but that is very rarely needed. in my experience a solid defense of 1 per player a round + a few single playable defenses in the cruicial rounds is all it needs. and that decks can defend well from the start and become better and better per round.

this deck has the benefit it can not only defense (but need a bit more setup to do it really well) it can also quest and is solo playable. biggest flaw in my opinion, needs the steward.

my favourite for solid defense like ringsdb.com (old version newer would have Inner Strength)

@doomguard Your post is completely true. This is more for fun than anything else.

There are a couple stages in a handful of quests where it helps a lot to be able to provide infinite defenses (Lonely Mountain for example) but I've always found it easier to go with Hour of Wrath or Light the Beacons for those situations. For the rest of the time, having a Beregond with Gondorian Shield and a couple Unexpected Courages and Armored Destriers seems to be all you need to handle the defenses for the table, even in 4 player, and requires no continued cost, no card combos (it just keeps getting better as you draw more cards), and much higher shadow survivability since you can run things like Inner Strength and Sterner than Steel.

But The Greenwood/Dunadan archetype definitely more fun when it works!

Technically you can't use Messenger of the King with Aragorn because he is neutral, right?

Just making sure I am not missing something that makes him work.

@BeowolfMN What do you mean? The contract says that the ally can't be neutral, not that you can't have neutral heroes.

@NERD I haven’t played with that Aragorn. I was thinking he was an ally! Smacks forehead! Obviously I was missing something. LOL