Beauty and the Beast

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Beorn 13324

Begone foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!
-Éowyn, The Return of the King

Achievement Unlocked. I have successfully designed a Secrecy deck with Beorn! This is the next in my series of two-hero decks built around Strider and Resourceful and (for obvious reasons) it is my favorite one yet. Beyond the harmonious pairing for Beorn as a killer of all the things and Éowyn as quester extraordinaire, there is a plethora of fun tricks in this deck.

I'm excited to talk about my favorite new combo here, so I will dive right in. The idea is to get Raiment of War and Vigilant Guard attached to ally Boromir and then let him not only contribute in defense - where he will almost always have his defense bonus, thanks to your low threat - but also soak damage from the big bear. Between Vigilant Guard and Honour Guard, it should be possible to keep the bear fighting for the entire quest. The nice thing about the Boromir combo is that it does not strictly need all of the pieces in order for it to greatly aid your overall strategy.

For example, with just Raiment of War attached, Boromir is a particularly formidable ally, and can save Beorn from having to block bigger enemies. With the 6 hit points and 4 defense (assuming you are optionally engaging enemies), he can handle all but the biggest enemies. It's a very gratifying feeling when an enemy gets a shadow card and does happen to damage Boromir, since the son of Denethor loses his temper and gets to hit them back. Likewise, even if you draw Vigilant guard but no Raiment of War, you can still selectively redirect some damage away from Beorn and ready Boromir (if he already defended, or you needed to commit him to the quest).

Willpower is always going to be the biggest question for a mono-Tactics decks, but Strider helps out quite a bit. With Éowyn as the only target, drawing it on the first turn can allow you to quest for 6 out of the gate. Not bad at all for a "combat deck". Once you then draw Golden Shield, Éowyn suddenly transforms into a defensive powerhouse in her own right. She might only be able to defend one attack safely, but her 7 defense is staggering. She can focus on boss enemies and leave the Orc and Warg runtlings as snacks for the bear to eat.

Foe-hammer, Legolas and The Eagles Are Coming! are all included to help with card draw. With all of the duplicates, the deck should be fairly consistent, though like any Secrecy deck it is very dependent on a strong opening hand. More than anything, you want to see a Resourceful in your opening hand. After that the priority is Strider since Éowyn will be your only quester for a few rounds. Fortunately, your starting threat gives you an extra round or two to find Resourceful, but with only two heroes it is imperative that you find it. Between the heroes, unique allies and attachments here, this is certainly one of my favorite Tactics decks. Vigilant Guard is an expensive card, but in the right circumstances it can be quite powerful.

8 comments

Jan 21, 2017 Yepesnopes 1241

Hi! Are these two hero decks viable in nightmare quests?

Jan 22, 2017 Beorn 13324

That is a tough question. In my experience, quite a few of the Nightmare quests require specific deck-building. Perhaps some of the earlier Nightmare quests would be beatable with this list, or something derived from it. Did you have a particular Nightmare quest in mind?

Jan 22, 2017 Yepesnopes 1241

I have little experience on that subject. When playing solo I have gone through nightmare quests with my elrond-gandalf-glorfindel eagle deck (in multiplayer I paired it with a Silvan deck and a spirit Beregorn deck). In total I may have built 6-7 decks, so I have not too much experience in deck bulding, but I was thinking in Heirs of Numenor nightmare.

Jan 23, 2017 teamjimby 925

Awesome deck concept. A few minor questions for you. Is The Eagles are Coming worth it with only 9 Eagle cards? Seems likely to whiff. I'm also curious about your weapon choices. Why Spear of the Mark over Blade of Westernesse? With the low threat, the +2 is pretty likely.

I would also think about adding Gandalf. Either the core version for card draw and threat reduction, or OhaUH for the much needed quest boost. The threat gain isn't a big issue since you don't really need to stay in secrecy.

Jan 23, 2017 Beorn 13324

All good questions. Originally, I had Blade of Westernesse, but I switched to the Spear so that I can attach an extra copy to Grimbold (or Westfold Outrider from the sideboard) rather than just have them be a dead card. This might seem weird, given that both of those allies can be discarded for effect, but I don't want to take up both of Eowyn's restricted slots when Golden Shield works so well with her (and Strider). Honestly, the first weapon is just there to make Foe-hammer work, and I don't much care whether she is getting +1 or +2. Having a big bear around makes killing low-engagement enemies much easier. Feel free to substitute the Dagger for the Spear if you find that the extra bonus makes a difference.

For the Eagles Are Coming, I would ordinarily not include that card with so few Eagles in the deck, but mono-Tactics limits my options. Even if it only hits half the time, it is a zero cost card which thins the deck. That is the extent of it. I'm already including Legolas and Foe-hammer, essentially the two most effective card-draw effects in Tactics. If I removed The Eagles Are Coming, my options are Core Gandalf (not a bad choice) or Hidden Cache (not worth it). I stayed away from Gandalf for non-strategic reasons (as I explain below), but he is a perfectly acceptable option.

As for Gandalf, Core Set definitely makes sense and I can see him being invaluable for some quests. With Strider and any pair of 2-willpower allies you are questing for 10 each round, so I don't think willpower is too much of a problem, but I must admit that I play more multi-player these days than solo, so that biases my thinking. If you want to run this deck solo, or pair it with decks that don't handle their share of questing, I could see Hobbit Gandalf as an option. Ultimately, I went with neither because I have found that the wizard shows up in most all of my lists; he is amazing, but I get fatigued with using the same cards over and over. In building this series of 2-hero Strider/Resourceful decks, I've been trying to push myself a bit to experiment with different cards, or at least different combinations of cards. Some of these choices are not optimal, but I have greatly enjoyed playing them all the same.

Jan 23, 2017 WolfOfWinter 1

I'm confused by the title, that's a mighty fine looking bear!

Jan 30, 2017 Ranger608 4

So Who gets captured in the Escape from Dol Guldur Scenario from the core? I will assume a sideboard of 16 instead of 15 and you add a hero there?

Jan 30, 2017 Beorn 13324

None of these two hero decks are designed for quests like Escape from Dol Guldur. For quests like that your best bet is to stick with decks which were specifically designed to handle the challenges therein.