To the desert, to the desert!

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Inspiration for
To the desert, to the desert! (Mk II) 1 1 0 2.0
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Ipswatch 423

Ipswatch has a newer deck inspired by this one: To the desert, to the desert! (Mk II)

The Goal: Long have I tried to make a Harad deck that really flows well for me. I tend to end up with Harad decks that struggle to get a decent board state up and running, and by the time I get the allies out, I am already behind the quest curve. Finally, I have a Harad deck that lets me make use of Kahliel's discard power, his headdress, and allows me to build up a rapid board state.

Opening Hand: This deck lives and dies on To the Sea, to the Sea!. It is the number one card you want to see in your opening hand as it allows you to take the giant starting hand provided by Erestor, and convert it into one high cost Noldor or Harad ally. If you do not see to the sea in your starting hand, hopefully you will find it quickly with Erestor, or with a Rivendell Minstrel, whose soul job it is to get that dang card. Another great card to get early on is Silver Harp. If you get both in one hand, discard a card using Arwen Undómiel, purchase the Harp, and use it to hold onto To the Sea, to the Sea! It will be well worth it on your second round.

Money: This deck uses cards as currency, and has Arwen to smooth out the rest. Her ability allows you to discard a card to add a resource to another hero's pool, so she can help stack resources on herself to pay for the spirit attachments, or she can stack resources on Kahliel to allow him to pay for future allies. (See Last Alliance Below) Make sure you are paying attention to if you have more Noldor or Harad so you can use The Last Alliance to reduce the cost by one.

Last Alliance: The Last Alliance has two great abilities for this deck. First, it reduces the cost to play the first ally for the side with fewer allies by one. This means the first Harad ally you play is one cost cheaper than normal, and usually matters in the first turn or two of the game. Keep this first power in mind though, as it is easily forgotten and helps makes all the expensive allies easy to get into play.

The second ability, giving one card both Noldor and Harad, is where this deck comes to life. In no particular order, here are the various cards that can be useful with both traits.

To the Sea, to the Sea!: Obviously this is at the heart of the deck. Combined with Kahliel's ability to pay for any Harad allies, it is easy to get one big ally per turn minimum.

Kahliel: If to the sea is being used to buy a Noldor ally, Kahliel can be Last Allianced to use his money for any and all allies in this deck regardless of sphere. Similarly, his second ability becomes extremely important since discarding a card that will be discarded anyway to ready Jubary, Yazan or himself can be very valuable. Late game, Kahliel can discard the same ally over and over as long as a harp is there to return it to the hand.

Kahliel's Headdress: I can't tell you how many times both of my Elladan's are in my opening hand with no way to play them. Luckily, Kahliel's Headdress can be used to return important allies to your deck to keep them in rotation. When this card is selected as well, the +1 willpower goes on everyone on the board, not just Harad units. This tends to be a great late game card to select with the contract.

Lords of the Eldar: Assuming I read these correctly, they can be timed to work for Harad as well as Noldor. It's a narrow window, but the Lords of the Eldar is an enormous boom when pulled off correctly. You can use Last Alliance to select a card in your hand to gain both keywords until the end of the round. So if you select Lords of the Eldar, it works for both Noldor and Harad until the end of the round. Discard it with Arwen, and then use it from the discard pile!

Wandering Spirit: Same trick as lords of the eldar. Can be useful for playing Southron Refugee and Kahliel's Tribesman for cheap from the discard pile.

Conclusion: Hope you all enjoy this deck! I'm very happy to have a deck that I feel finally lets me fully enjoy Harad. So far it has performed well in all the quests I tested it in. It delivered pies for Lobelia without every losing one Pie, it successfully delivered chickens to farmer maggot, and it got to the bottom of the evil within the old forest!

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