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| Insight of the Noble | |
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| The Mirror's Gaze | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.0 |
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| The Mirror's Gaze | 13 | 10 | 2 | 4.0 |
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WingfootRanger 2646
"What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, things that are and things that yet may be." - Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring
This questing deck is one that I have continued to use since I last posted it here, simply because it is SO good. Of course it has lots of willpower, but the decent helping of location control and cancellation recursion with a side of healing and threat reduction makes for a much more secure ride in an otherwise brutal Middle Earth. Those common ways the encounter deck really screws up players all have an answer here. Without further ado, here is the list of what this deck has.
Resources: Arwen Undómiel, Silver Harp, Nenya
There is not a lot in the way of resource acceleration aside from Arwen Undómiel's action which has no drawbacks when a Silver Harp is available to bring the discarded card back. Nenya simply helps with accessing the Lore sphere, the use of its other ability is rare.
Card Draw: Galadriel, Elven-light
Card draw from Galadriel and Elven-light is essential to accessing more of the deck. Elven-light can be discarded by Arwen Undómiel or Éowyn's actions. Drawing through the deck at 3-4 cards per turn is fairly normal.
Deck Searching: Mirror of Galadriel, Gather Information
Mirror of Galadriel is wonderful for accessing particular cards in the deck, such as A Test of Will or Northern Tracker, and with Silver Harp the problem of the random discard is eliminated. Gather Information lets all players search their decks for a card! I've often used it to find Silver Harp to combo it with the mirror.
Cancellation: A Test of Will, Hasty Stroke
These core set cancellers have been saving people's bacon since 2011. Not only are there still treacheries that can send you for a loss, but shadow cards can sometimes be a real burden on the combat players.
Recursion: Dwarven Tomb, Galadhrim Weaver, Will of the West
With these, the deck is able to play the 2 cancellation events many times over. Dwarven Tomb brings them back to our hand, but the Galadhrim Weaver can also shuffle them back into the deck to be pulled back by the mirror later. Will of the West can also reshuffle a good handful of cancellation events back into the deck for the mirror to find. This mirror-fetching of cancellation and recursion led to the deck's signature name.
Location Control: Northern Tracker, Greyflood Wanderer, Thrór's Key
Northern Tracker explores locations en masse so they are not blocking the questing attempts. His friend, the Greyflood Wanderer can help speed up the exploration if needed. If the scenario interferes with the tracker's progress placement too much for it to be viable, Súlien works as a substitute. Thrór's Key is for those locations that are better off being pacified due to the significant difficulties they pose.
Willpower: Ethir Swordsman, Anfalas Herdsman, Galadriel's Handmaiden, Pelargir Shipwright
Most of the deck's allies are for questing, but these are the ones that really tow the line in willpower. Pelargir Shipwright is at his full 3 willpower in this deck, but can easily be outdone by Ethir Swordsman and the Anfalas Herdsman that buffs along with him.
Threat Reduction: Galadriel's Handmaiden, The Galadhrim's Greeting, Double Back, Galadriel
While Galadriel will usually keep our threat nice and low, the other threat reduction cards help fix other player's threat. Whether it's just to avoid an enemy engagement or save a player from the brink of threating out, we have a few tools for doing that.
Healing: Warden of Healing
Once Nenya has been played this guy can make an appearance. He may be keeping our own questing party alive or helping a combat oriented player recover. He is always a nice healing card to have when damage is sure to come.
This deck has been such a helpful questing deck for me, it excels in its specialized role. I hope it captures the power of Galadriel's Mirror and how it can interact with other cards in strong ways. The Mirror shows many things as she said, will you see your comrade's fate and save them in time? Do you dare look into the Mirror?
| 4 comments |
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Dec 11, 2016 |
Dec 17, 2016If I liked your other deck in this fellowship, then I adore this deck. And it always helps to accessorize a deck with a well-formatted description as well, so you get a bonus point for that in my book. What I think I like most about this deck is how... plain it is. And I don't mean 'plain' as in boring. Rather, I mean 'plain' as in straightforward and uncomplicated. Depending on your preferred metaphor, there aren't a lot of "moving parts" or "puzzle pieces" that you need to put together for this deck to get off and running. With 23 allies you're going to have some questers in short order, and with Galadriel they can quest and chump block in the same turn if needed in the early game before your other deck is up and running. Yes, the Silver Harp does make the Mirror of Galadriel easier to use, but you have so much redundancy that if you lose something it's not going to hurt too much. And so on. And yet, while it's plain, it's interesting. It's not your run-of-the-mill mass-market drop-of-Madagascar-vanilla-extract vanilla ice cream that just tastes like sugar and dairy fat (not that there's anything wrong with sugar and dairy fat, of course). Rather, this is your artisanal, organic, small-batch, handmade vanilla ice cream that has real Tahitian vanilla beans in it that actually has a floral flavor. (This must be my subconscious telling me that I need of food soon...) Enough praise! Thoughts and questions time... Talk to me about Elven-light. But before you do, let me be fair in disclosing my bias and tell you that I don't like Elven-light. Not one bit. I get that the discard mechanic pairs well with Arwen Undómiel and other Noldor discard mechanics, and that not only does it draw you a card but it draws itself into your hand, which you might think of as "ablative armor" of sorts for something like Mirror of Galadriel. And yet, it's 1-cost for one card, which is rather lackluster in my ever (not so) humble opinion. It's consistent and reusable, which other events like Daeron's Runes are not, and it is more efficient than some other consistent reusable card draw effects like Rod of the Steward (and if I don't like Elven-light you can guess how I feel about the Rod-that-shall-not-be-named) both in terms of resource cost and given that you can pair Elven-light with a discard effect. Yet, pretty much whenever I see Elven-light I almost immediately think that it would be better to replace it with Gléowine. Yes, Gléowine costs one more resource and is , which makes it dependent upon Nenya in this deck, yet overall it seems far more compelling to me than Elven-light does. Gléowine is ongoing card draw without the ongoing resource cost, and you can use the effect on the other deck in your fellowship. I'm also somewhat intrigued by the idea of Galdor of the Havens in this deck. Now, if Gléowine is hard to pay for then Galdor of the Havens would be even harder, and yet Galdor of the Havens is a good quester in addition to having a card draw mechanic that pairs well with Arwen Undómiel and Éowyn and Mirror of Galadriel. He's like a 2-cost for 2 quester with a 2-cost for one-card-per-turn effect in a single card. Anyway, enough of my babbling on about Elven-light. Time to be quiet and listen to your thoughts on this. :-) Talk to me about Greyflood Wanderer. I've bulit some decks with Greyflood Wanderer and almost never used its Doomed effect. While 3-cost for 2 isn't a bad ratio of cost-to-quest, it's also not the best ratio either. Are you finding that you use the Doomed ability with regularity? How would this deck open up if the other deck didn't play Palantir? Per my other comment to your other deck, I really want to like Palantir yet overall find it to not be worth the cost. If that deck didn't run Palantir, then it seems like this deck would have the opportunity to remove The Galadhrim's Greeting and Galadriel's Handmaiden, which would open up some card slots. Hm... Okay, here's a possibly crazy idea. Let's imagine that your other deck removed 3x Palantir and replaced it with 3x Secret Vigil. Then imagine that this deck removed... ...and replaced them with...
And maybe this isn't the best replacement set of cards, but it seems like it has potential. The lack of Palantir means that you don't need the threat reduction to balance that out with this deck, and the Secret Vigil allows for Deep Knowledge to benefit both decks in terms of card draw. This does require Nenya before you can play it, which Ancient Mathom can likely help you find faster than Elven-light could. If the threat from Deep Knowledge is a concern then this deck could run Elrond's Counsel (the other deck is trading Palantir threat for Deep Knowledge threat, so that nets out in my mind). If you're not worried about threat, then it seems like Miruvor might be valuable. Miruvor would allow Galadriel to use both her action and Nenya in the same turn if needed, or it could allow Denethor or Mablung to block an extra time in the same round, or it could be used to move resources from this deck to the other deck in the (unlikely) event the other deck needs the boost. Anyway, it's a crazy thought. Hopefully not a too crazy of a thought... And again, let me own my bias and say that I try to find a way to put Deep Knowledge in almost every (non-Secrecy) deck I run. I'd even put it in my morning coffee if I could. Again, nicely done with this! |
Dec 19, 2016Like Tahitian vanilla? That's a knew one :) I understand that you adore this deck, I'll admit I am in love with it as well. I was thinking about this deck and your questions, and I have some answers for you. Elven-light is nearly always seen paired with Arwen Undómiel or as part of a Noldor tech. When using it with Arwen, it can be discarded to fuel her ability so we can have more resources to spend, or it can be brought back for a card draw. This allows her ability to be flexible, either netting you a resource for a discard, or it's as though her text box simply said, "Draw one card during the Resource phase." It's not every turn that I need 4 resources, if I already have a strong board state I have occasionally played both copies of Elven-Light in the interest of thinning my deck down so that A Test of Will could stand a greater chance of being recycled by the mirror. Alternatives you suggested included Galdor of the Havens and Gléowine. In any of my games I have never seen 4 resources on Galadriel, but I could make that happen with Arwen's ability. It still sees like a rather slow and cumbersome option compared to Gleowine, and I doubt the extra 2 is needed so much that I must have him. Gleowine is worth a try, I think. He costs the same as a Warden of Healing, and gives extra card draw, and I could still toss my dud uniques to Arwen for resources. Yet, he is likely to be a midgame play if I don't have him and Nenya rather early. Elven-Light has the advantage of requiring no sphere match and is immediately useful in the early game because of that. I will give a Gleowine a test run for sure. It comes down to which is better at thinning the deck down in practice, so that A Test of will is a bit easier to recur and our hand is full of options. Greyflood Wanderer is an interesting card alright, but it's great for location control decks or even scout decks. I have used that doomed effect a handful of times, the situation is usually that the staging area is full of locations and they must be explored quickly. I recently played a Northern Tracker, but most of the locations still have 2 quest points left. I don't get another Tracker in my hand so I play the Wanderer to accelerate the Tracker's job. It doesn't happen every game, but it has been a nice location-lock prevention trick on the quests that are heavier on the location side or when I play this deck in 4 player games where locations are always abundant. On the other hand he has 2 , and I have played simply for that a few times too when there were no other questers in my hand. I have a few cheaper questing allies already, so I like that I can have him on hand for either mass exploration or just the . If you want to switch him out maybe West Road Traveller or The Evening Star could provide something to fill that niche. If Palantir was excluded it would be a different fellowship. The other deck was practically built for it, and the payoff from the scrying is something these two decks capitalize on. But if you were to change some things around, that's fine too. I would keep Galadriel's Handmaiden, as she is a cheap quester that can be played on the first turn and comes with threat reduction that can target anyone. Deep Knowledge could be great, but more cards increases the dependence on Nenya as well as the chance we can end up with an opening hand half-full of cards and not see that ring until later in the game. Ancient Mathom perhaps, it's a decent dig card that can also help other players. But I'm leaning more towards persistent card draw to thin the deck down for recursion fun. I'm not sure Miruvor is the greatest help here. The combat deck wouldn't normally have problems with resources and Nenya's other ability is only used when I need to quest with ALL I got, but I usually have enough unless Northern Tracker is blocked by locations that are immune to his effect (which can happen in some modern quests). If I traded The Galadhrim's Greeting for Elrond's Counsel, the deck would be a little bit less multiplayer-friendly in the area of threat reduction. In my playgroup, one of my pals is using an Elrond, Gandalf, and Beregond deck, guess what he always needs . . . I have rescued other people from threating out too of course. For this fellowship less threat reduction would be necessary without the Palantir of course, which would open up space to explore other options. It was built with the intention of using the scrying effect, and how much the loss of scrying would affect it may be challenging to gage. In my experience scrying is worthwhile, and Palantir decks are good at it. Have you given it a thorough try yet? |
Dec 19, 2016Good morning, and thank you for your thoughtful reply to my (hopefully) thoughtful comments and questions! First, a LotR friend of mine read over my comment here and said that I might have come off as critical because I did a lot of talking about cards I don't like and changes I would want to make. I want to start by apologizing if I came off too critically. :-) General card thoughts: I hear you on the risk of running too many cards when you only have 3x Nenya to get them into play. One of the things I struggle with in my deck designs is that I regularly want to design / decks with resource accelleration, so I run 3x Song of Kings and rely on card draw/card search to get those into play ASAP so I can trigger resource accelerators. When I find Song of Kings it works great! When I don't, it... kind of fails. Miserably. Like I'll be sitting on a hand of 12+ cards and unable to play anything kind of miserably. So I definitely hear you on wanting to keep your deck streamlined without the dependency of enabling cards, which is actually one of the things that I really like about this deck (going back to my above comment about how straightforward it is). Elven-light thoughts: You're right about flexibility. It may not be the most resource-efficient form of card draw, but it's not solely being used for card draw. Last night a friend played Elven-light in his -Gimli/-Legolas deck with great success, using it to trigger Legolas's ready ability repeatedly. I may need to get over myself on this. :-) You're also right about Galdor of the Havens being too expensive for this deck. I'm glad that my Gléowine suggestion wasn't totally crazy. :-) And you do have a good point about Gléowine possibly being a mid-game play given the Nenya dependency. Hm. He's usually early game in my experience, but that's because he's usually only in decks with at least one hero. Elven-light is ready to go from the start. Darn it, I may need to get over myself with Elven-light. :-) Greyflood Wanderer thoughts: Thanks for your thoughts here and possible suggestions for alternatives. You're right that the ever-reliable Northern Tracker is a "slow burn" and sometimes you want to quick burn something out of existence, and (as you do here) there's no reason you can't run both. And given the number of questing allies you have, Greyflood Wanderer isn't needed for , as you say, so you can just discard him to Arwen Undómiel if he's sitting around doing nothing. I do still wonder about how the Doomed might affect the other deck's threat. Thinking out loud, I'm looking at Rhovanion Outrider. 3-cost and it puts one progress into play to help you get that pesky location out of play. It's only good for one location while Greyflood Wanderer works for everything, but there's no threat cost. But Rhovanion Outrider is only 1 , which is lacking. Hm. Maybe Woodland Courier for a cheaper option? Your The Evening Star idea definitely pairs well with Arwen Undómiel and builds over time, though it does run into dependency. Hm. The Riddermark's Finest? It's , which is good, and it's two progress rather than Greyflood Wanderer's one progress (though that's one progress on everything). It doesn't build up like The Evening Star, but it is in-sphere. Yet it doesn't have ongoing quest help. Hm. More food for thought. :-) Without-Palantir thoughts: You're right, without Palantir it's not the same fellowship. Completely fair point. Thanks for thinking this through even so. :-) I also hear you on friends running Gandalf, Elrond, almost-anything-else decks and being worried about threat! (I'm looking at you... :-) ) Again, thanks for your reply! |
I recently realized that Map of Earnil cannot be used to recur A Test of Will or Hasty Stroke so easily since it is an action and they are responses meant to be used where there is no action window. So I replaced the map with another copy of Galadriel's Handmaiden and Will of the West which still helps the deck recur cancellation via the mirror, especially in longer games.