Wielder of the Flame (#RCO) 1.0

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• 1.0

#RCO - Revised Content Only

"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass." - Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

This deck came to be from a desire to build around Gandalf and Flame of Anor using only Revised Content. As such, it falls a bit more on the gimmicky end of the spectrum (as opposed to a pure power deck), but it is still capable of running through the Revised Core & Dark of Mirkwood campaign in true solo (including Escape from Dol Guldur in campaign mode).

Heroes

• Gandalf carries most of the burden, using his foreknowledge (and Wizard Pipe) to play cards off the top of your deck (functions like card draw), his toys (Gandalf's Staff & Narya) to lock down combat, and a timely dose of wizardry (Flame of Anor) to strike against more beefy foes. With few exceptions, all forms of readying go on him (Unexpected Courage & Magic Ring). This is crucial, as you will want to use as many of his stats as possible each round and to have him available to use Narya during combat in the mid- to late game.. Note: Once the Two Towers sage expansion re-releases, one copy of Shadowfax will fit right in, particularly for multiplayer games.

• Arwen Undómiel provides strong early questing and resource acceleration. Of course, once you draw into Elven-light, she helps out immensely with card draw as well. Otherwise, her main contribution is access to Elrond's Counsel, one of the best sources of threat reduction in the game. Lady Undomiel will also typically be the recipient of Steward of Gondor once it shows up.

• On the theme of threat reduction, Merry combines a low starting threat of 6 with the ability to reduce threat in response to enemies from round 1. Once you find Hobbit Pony, he can also give your questing a boost (otherwise, it's safer to hold him back to conserve his 2 ).

Allies

Most of these have been chosen with Flame of Anor in mind, and so the ally cost curve is noticeably higher than a typical solo deck. Stand and Fight is included to help pull them out of the discard pile once they have boosted the Grey Wizard. Some of the more noteworthy include:

• Bilbo Baggins: functions like a third copy of Wizard Pipe, plus 2 and 2 for 2 cost is outstanding.
• Rhovanion Outrider and Northern Tracker: provide excellent sources of location control, plus are great candidates to be readied by Narya with their base 2 .
• Zigil Miner + Hidden Cache: a great way to jump-start your board state in the early game (especially since it can take a bit for the deck to get going, given how expensive the allies are). One Hidden Cache atop your deck -> an automatic three resources on your hero of choice!
• Galadriel's Handmaiden: combines solid 2 with threat reduction. Strong choice for any deck with access really.
• Glorfindel: the only repeat unique character due to his built-in readying and his ability to be played from discard.

Miscellaneous

• Steed of Imladris is mainly there to provide another outlet for discarding extra copies of Elven-light. If I had to cut a card, this would probably be a good candidate (or maybe Protector of Lórien would be a more effective choice here).
• The Galadhrim's Greeting serves as a form of emergency threat reduction for quests when you need more time to get set up by avoiding enemies (i.e. the Hill Troll). This could also be sideboarded out in favor of another ally (or perhaps a third Stand and Fight) depending on the quest.

General Strategy

By far the biggest challenge this deck faces is surviving the first few rounds. During my Dark of Mirkwood campaign playthrough, I often looked for early threat reduction in my opening hand to buy me as much time as possible (Merry is also great for this). Until readying shows up, it is wise to either hold Gandalf back from questing or to make sure you can get at least one extra ally into play for emergencies. Once the Grey Wizard is set up, you should be able to: quest for 3 , ready to defend/attack for 3 /, and ready to use Narya. Flame of Anor is a super fun card that can be used in the early rounds to chop through a tough enemy or in the later rounds to take out the final boss. I probably averaged just under 2 uses of it per game :).

One other relative weakness is lack of healing, making Merry and Arwen Undómiel susceptible to cards like Necromancer's Reach (which is typically what I would save A Test of Will for). I've included a number of healing cards in the sideboard that could be included to mitigate this (and would be absolutely essential if going up against almost any of the Angmar quests).

Escape from Dol Guldur Notes

Make sure that Merry is the prisoner for Escape from Dol Guldur and give Appointed by Fate to Arwen Undómiel (since you will always have a usage for her resources while Gandalf is limited to what shows up atop the deck). The limit of one ally per round does not slow this deck down as much, so if you can get a favorable opening from the encounter deck and some early readying on Gandalf, you have a fighting chance (Gandalf's Staff + Flame of Anor works wonders against the Nazgul). Threat reduction is very much your friend in this one as well to avoid the notice of the stronger enemies (especially the Hummerhorns!).

Concluding Thoughts

I enjoyed this deck as nice change of pace and as a fun way to get some more mileage out of a card I had been wanting to use (Flame of Anor). I hope you enjoy it as well (and don't forget to shout, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!" when taking out the biggest enemies ;) ).