Melodies of Life 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

With the introduction of the Minstrel Archetype in ALeP's latest Deluxe Expansion The Shire's Reckoning I wanted to craft a song based healing/questing support deck.

NOTE:

I would like to start by saying, this deck is primarily meant for multiplayer games!

With the given hero lineup, The Last Alliance Contract allows you to play noldor allies at a reduced cost in turn 1. This allows you to play a Rivendell Minstrel from turn 1 and search out To the Sea, to the Sea!. Use Goldberry's resource to play it on Elrond. Exhausting The Last Alliance and choosing Goldberry. Elrond is now questing without exhausting.

The deck plays a ton of song cards, 22 to be exact. Aside from Let Us Sing Together, the song attachments go pretty much exclusively on your heroes. However, with the abilities of Goldberry and The Last Alliance, event song cards can be attached to any character in the deck, allowing characters like Galdor of the Havens or Gildor Inglorion or Glorfindel to quest without exhausting.

Elrond, Gildor Inglorion or Glorfindel are your best targets for Let Us Sing Together, turning each of them into a 4 quester and removing the need to exhaust The Last Alliance for Goldberry. This frees up the contract for cards like An Unexpected Party or Wandering Spirit. When you're fully set up, the deck can end up questing for +20 without exhausting a single character.

As I already hinted above, you can also use Wandering Spirit in combination with the The Last Alliance put into play a minstrel ally from your discard pile. You can use it to first chump-block with the Daughter of Withywindle or Galadhrim Minstrel and bring them back from the discard pile to trigger their abilities a second time. Keep in mind that in order to make this play, you must have the Wandering Spirit in your hand to use the action of your contract. After using this action, the effect lingers on the Spirit until the end of the round. As long as you get it into your discard pile and use its action before then, you can bring back any 2 cost Minstrel or Noldor ally.

The combination of the Elrond together with Tom Bombadil and the Imladris Caregiver provide all the healing you will ever need. Song of Healing is included for additional self healing and to have access to yet another song.

There is plenty of draw power between Gléowine, Elven-light Galdor of the Havens and Legacy of Gondolin. Just don't forget that Legacy of Gondolin places you under a pretty harsh restriction. Be sure to play around it or discard Legacy of Gondolin should it become hindering.

Resource management shouldn't be an issue either as long as you keep in mind your contract discounts and get Love of Tales on Elrond and Tom.

The deck's main weakness is its low potential, especially in the early stages of the game.

Songs of Slaying is there should you need a boost to your to take down a big enemy. Playing it with the contract allows you to create a massive one time attack with all your allies.

Good to know

1. Even when you ran out of cards to draw, you can keep using Elven-light to fuel your hands with discard fodder.
2. When either Goldberry or Tom are ready at the end of the combat phase, you can play Hey Dol! Merry Dol! before the refresh phase and recycle it back to your hand to get a free heal with Tom Bombadil and gain resources from Love of Tales.

One final note:

With the planned changes to the ALeP - Free to choose list, the Rivendell Minstrel will be given the Minstrel Trait making it illegal to play in a Noldor - Minstrel TLA deck. If you want to abide by this list I would recommend swapping them out for a second copy of Arwen Undómiel and an extra copy of To the Sea, to the Sea!, reducing the ally count to exactly 20.