"The Elves Will See it Done" (Solo Saga) 1.0

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• 1.0

"Men are weak." - movie Elrond

"Step aside, Boromir. If this is indeed the will of the council, then the Elves will see it done." - Erestor (probably)

This deck (plus or minus a few variations from the sideboard) completed a successful saga campaign run (including The Old Forest, Fog on the Barrow-Downs, and ALeP - The Scouring of the Shire) with a very high rate of success (only had to attempt 3 out of the 20 quests twice). I am very heavily indebted to The BGamerJoe for his "Swords of the Noldor Reforged" build (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12958/theswordsofthenoldorreforged-2.0), which played a huge role in helping me to understand the basic skeleton of a Noldor power deck.

A Few Differences

1) I don't have the Harad cycle, and so Eregion Survivor does not make an appearance. Instead, OHaUH Gandalf shows up with a herd of Wild Stallions. There is more than enough threat control to keep the Grey Wizard around, and the combination of questing without exhausting and a boost from Narya means that he can quest for 4 , defend for 5 , and attack for 5 all in the same turn (and that's only if you don't give manage to give him a Wild Stallion!).

2) I have included some weapons in the sideboard for particular quests, but I feel comfortable with the combination of boosts from Wild Stallion and the shadow card scrying of Silver Lamp. The latter can be a surprisingly powerful card when paired with Círdan the Shipwright and Light of Valinor. The only downside is that it can make the combat phase much less interesting ;).

3) I have found Explorer's Almanac to be a tremendous form of location control when paired with a high deck. Since the Noldor can put up absurdly high numbers very quickly, the almanac allows you to just skip travelling to any location you find bothersome without worrying about it sticking around to hurt you later. Plus, you will never lack the resources to pay for it, so it's perfect for an Erestor deck. You can even use Reforged to pull it back from the discard pile at strategic moments (i.e. right after staging) as needed :).

General Strategy

By far the most critical rounds of most quests is the opening one, and this deck is capable of absolutely exploding out the gate if enough of the key pieces show up (and this is much more likely to happen since you will be seeing 10 cards!). Narya, Light of Valinor, Elven-light, and To the Sea, to the Sea! are the most critical cards to mulligan for, but the combination of Steward of Gondor and Reforged is tough to pass up. Ideally, Elven Jewelers provide other great uses for that large hand. Note: In my campaign, I grabbed Old Bogey-stories from The Old Forest quest, which gives you ANOTHER opportunity to mulligan for that killer first hand. Then, I grabbed Ho! Tom Bombadil! from Fog on the Barrow-downs to provide an 11th card for that opening hand.

Subsequent rounds should be spent getting Elven-light into your discard pile, setting up Círdan the Shipwright with Light of Valinor and Narya, and using To the Sea, to the Sea! to drop powerful allies into play. Keep track of when your two copies of Will of the West show up, as you will likely want to reshuffle your discard pile at least once during the quest (so don't discard your last copy without having something like Map of Earnil to play it from discard!). I found that two copies were plenty for most quests, but you can move up to three for some added peace of mind. As your board state grows, extra cards can be ditched to: ready Glorfindel, gain an extra resource via Arwen Undómiel, heal damage using Imladris Caregiver, or drop Elven Jeweler into play. Eventually, you should have enough of an army built up that you can cruise to the end of the quest by emptying your deck and playing Lords of the Eldar repeatedly until Sauron's forces limp back into the shadows.

Campaign/Sideboard Notes

1) A Shadow of the Past

Willpower is not a problem, and so hide tests pose relatively little threat. I included 3x The Evening Star to tech against getting stuck at stage 3 waiting to travel to Buckleberry Ferry. I went with Mr. Underhill as my boon, since I would rather play the Gildor ally in my deck (and Gildor Inglorion was relegated to the sideboard for this quest). For my burden, I chose The Ring Draws Them because the revised version of Gandalf's Delay severely hampers the big opening round this deck utilizes.

1.1) The Old Forest

Cloak of Lórien really pulls its weight here, as do Explorer's Almanac and The Evening Star. Make sure to take out Old Man Willow's health points to grab Old Bogey-stories!

1.2) Fog on the Barrow-downs

Getting trapped in the barrow can get a little dicey (since this deck relies so heavily on allies), but if you get either Gandalf or Guardian of Rivendell on a Wild Stallion and keep an enemy engaged, you should be able to survive (w/help from Narya). The Ho! Tom Bombadil! boon you earn comes in quite handy as the 11th(!) card in your opening hand going forward.

2) A Knife in the Dark

My main adjustment here was including doomed events (3x Deep Knowledge and 1x Legacy of Númenor) to raise my threat and engage Bill Ferny more quickly. I opted for Noble Hero on Círdan the Shipwright for the willpower boost.

3) Flight to the Ford

Not much to say about this one. I really enjoy the theme, but the Elves did not struggle to get through it quickly. I was fortunate enough to get Panicked as my burden in my playthrough and to avoid all the others.

4) The Ring Goes South

Funnily enough, this is the first quest that took me two tries, as I quested too quickly through stage 2 and couldn't stop the damage from piling onto the Doors of Durin. The second attempt was much more successful. Explorer's Almanac is key for avoiding many of the locations and the deck has enough threat control to just eat the 5 increase to dodge Lust for the Ring. Despite getting access to the four new boons, I rarely used them during the remainder of the campaign.

5) A Journey in the Dark

My plan for dealing with the Balrog was to Sword-thain Lindir and then attack with an army of Lords of the Eldar. However, I quested through stage 3 with 2 damage still remaining on Doom, Doom, Doom(!). Gandalf really showed his power here, questing, defending, and attacking each turn. Since the Balrog was not in play, I only got stuck with Pursued by the Enemy and Overcome by Grief.

6) Breaking of the Fellowship

This quest can really pile on the archery, but the Noldor have plenty of to spare (with help from Imladris Caregiver and Lembas, the latter recurred with Reforged). Power of Orthanc made its first appearance to counter Fallen into Evil (and saved Erestor from a dark fate!). I was fortunate enough to use Seat of Seeing to get rid of The Ring Draws Them, and I earned Ill Fate.

7) The Uruk-Hai

Arwen Undómiel was the captive, but Círdan the Shipwright and Erestor were easily able to amass an army of allies to catch up to Ugluk. The Uruk-Hai chief posed the biggest challenge of this quest with his requirement that only heroes defend and attack him, so the additions of Protector of Lórien and Elven Spear came in handy (along with the boost from Lords of the Eldar). Since I had no dead heroes to revive, I grabbed Leader of Men for Círdan the Shipwright to further my resource acceleration.

8) Helm's Deep

Imladris Caregiver and Lembas showed their quality as counters to the copious amounts of archery this quest produces. Reforging the latter was especially useful. Otherwise, the Noldor are capable of such high levels of that Saruman's forces never really threatened to out-quest me. Once the danger of being overwhelmed by archery damage passed, combat was not much of an issue either.

9) The Road to Isengard

This one is a bit tricksy to pull off with Erestor, so it has to be approached deliberately. First step is to grab as many Ents of Fangorn as possible (I lingered for three rounds to convince three of them). Interestingly, this quest really provided an opportunity for Old Bogey-stories to shine by shuffling a killer opening hand back into the deck to preserve those cards undiscarded. The card-hate was rarely an issue, and I was able to play Lords of the Eldar -> exhaust an Ent to clear the final required location & advance to stage 3 -> quest for 15 progress -> travel to Orthanc -> take out Saruman all on the same turn (and earning the Palantír of Orthanc in the process :).

10) The Passage of the Marshes

Gollum at stage 1 is easily the most irritating part of this quest, but there are more than enough allies in the deck to handle his attacks and eventually tame him. After that, you have more than enough to power through with little difficulty (Explorer's Almanac is nice for dodging nasty travel effects). I would recommend eating the +2 penalty rather than allow The Searching Eye into the deck.

11) Journey to the Cross-roads

Had some tense moments with an Oliphaunt engaging and going under The Black Gate due to shadow effect, but managed to control the board and get my defense set up and right the ship. By the end, I was defending 5-6 attacks each turn (multiple Guardians of Rivendell 2ith Cloak of Lórien and Raiment of War with help from Narya and Silver Lamp. The biggest danger is too many enemies getting through to the Black Gate due to my low threat and lack of cancellation. In retrospect, in addition to the extra cloaks and raiment of war, I should have sideboarded in some Doomed events in place of Elrond's Counsel to help engage more enemies earlier. I ended up with three enemies under the Black Gate, but earned Brace of Coneys for my trouble.

12) Shelob's Lair

Biggest adjustments for this quest were the inclusion of Power of Orthanc to counter Shelob's Poison (with Map of Earnil for recurring it if necessary) and Bow of Yew to help Glorfindel take resources off of Shelob. I stomached Shelob's quest-phase attack each round, so that she never ended up with more than 2 resources at a time.

13) The Passing of the Grey Company

The Noldor are more or less unfazed by the forced hand-discard of stage 1, which takes much of the sting out of this quest. Sword that was Broken made its first appearance here for Aragorn, and I slotted in multiple copies of The Galadhrim's Greeting for extra control (using Map of Earnil again to recur it when able). Otherwise, there is more than enough and to complete stages 2 & 3 quickly and earn Army of the Dead. One additional strategy note: You can use Old Bogey-stories "save" opening round cards that you would like to play later by shuffling them into your deck.

14) The Siege of Gondor

I brought in Banner of Elendil for the first time, but there wasn't a lot more special about this quest. I struggled to find ship locations quickly, and so ended up with 8 resources on The Corsair Fleet (though I could have completed it several rounds sooner). Between the and healing of the Noldor and the hit points provided by Army of the Dead, this quest wasn't too bad.

15) The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

To my surprise, the Noldor crushed it on the first attempt (as well as one can crush Pelennor). Gandalf came out on stage 2 and I was able to quest through in two rounds to advance. There was a tense moment early when The Black Serpent was the first card revealed, but I took a chance defending with Erestor and immediately healed him back up with Lembas. After that, I never quested unsuccessfully, Glorfindel (boosted by Wild Stallion, Rivendell Blade, and Narya) took down the Serpent, and the next round I one-shotted the Wraith on Wings. I travelled to Grond immediately (losing an Elven Jeweler), but then explored it and kept Minas Tirith mostly free from damage (finished with only 19 total damage). Stage 4 was a bit of a let-down due to the utter lack of enemies, then stage 5 was mostly drama-free (I killed the Witch-King with a host of the Lords of the Eldar the same round he came down without losing any characters) and the three Harad enemies from the Cross-roads posed relatively little danger to my board state. The final few rounds were just waiting for Aragorn to finally arrive to clinch the win.

16) The Tower of Cirith Ungol

There is enough threat reduction and to overcome the busy staging area on stages 1 & 2. The largest challenge was actually having a plan to deal with Shagrat, which led to the inclusion of Sword-thain and Rivendell Blade to help Glorfindel take him out. Silver Lamp is especially useful in this quest to alert you to friendly shadow cards. I chose for Erestor to be Last of the Company since I could go without his 2 for the most part. It is worth mentioning that Elladan and Elrohir do great work on this quest with their self-readying abilities.

17) The Black Gate Opens

After my first attempt only netted 5 resources, I included a plethora of Doomed events (Legacy of Númenor x3, Deep Knowledge x3, The Seeing-stone x3), as well as a few copies of Ever Onward to try and accelerate my board state. I got to 7 resources on the next attempt, which I kept (though I could have easily survived another round if not for barely threating out). More importantly, I took out the Wraith on Wings to keep it away from Mount Doom. There's not much more to say about this quest. I love the theme, but I do not find it enjoyable to play.

18) Mount Doom

I made major deck modifications for this quest, and so it deserves its own version and article (forthcoming).

19) ALeP - The Scouring of the Shire

Love the theme on this quest, but with a few extra copies of The Galadhrim's Greeting, the Noldor handled it easily. My final threat level was 23 :).

Conclusion

These Elves have now become my go-to power deck for the upper echelon of challenging quests (and for those times when I have enough time for one game and don't want to lose :) ). In all honesty, it took me awhile to come around to the idea of playing with Erestor and getting a completely fresh hand each round, but this has quickly become one of my favorite ways to play (it's really hard to be disappointed about consistently seeing your entire deck each game). Add in the opportunity to play with a host of high-cost allies (Gildor Inglorion, Glorfindel, Gandalf, Galdor of the Havens) that gain access to multiple actions per turn thanks to Círdan the Shipwright and Narya and you have a recipe for fun!