A Doomed Friendship 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Finally, a solo Legolas Gimli deck I am satisfied with. One of my favorite aspects of The Lord of the Rings, as for many people, is the unlikely alliance between very different folk against Sauron, and that is perfectly represented with the friendship between Legolas and Gimli. Now, as much as I love the theme of the Three Hunters and the decks you can build around these heroes and the various versions of Aragorn, I always thought there was something missing for the deck to really click in solo. Not that it's unplayable; it's totally viable, yet it did feel just a bit underpowered compared to the more established archetypes. This deck, as thematically unlikely as it is with Legolas and Gimli along with Gríma, I think finds the right balance between fun and power, as well as a turtley setup and an aggressive, charge-out-of-the-gate playstyle.

Now, this is not meant to be a top tier deck. It's not intended to compete against the most powerful archetypes like Caldara or to take against the most punishing Nightmares (though I would love it if someone did, and reported). This is more of a leisurely deck designed to primarily be fun (much like these heroes were, in my opinion), yet it is surprising how good it can be once it gets set up. This is mainly intended to be a generalist solo deck and thus it's meant to be able to do everything as best as it can. I've taken this against Deadman's Dike, Escape from Umbar and Race Across Harad, among others, with good success. In other words, if you just wanna have a good time, play a medium-difficulty, regular quest with a fun solo deck, this is a great choice.

The strategy is simple, and largely derived from other Unlikely Friendship decks. We all know how Legolas and Gimli work; this time we add Gríma for some fantastic resource acceleration, which really makes it easy to play our otherwise rather expensive 2-cost cards (particularly the attachments), as well as for some card draw. Gimli is our main defender, needless to say, and we get him set up mainly through the Steward, Elven-light and Protector combo (a fantastic combo, I might add). Before you get than in line, Arwen and Dwarven Shield will help him stand his ground. Ideally, you'll play Steward on Legolas and Keys of Orthanc on Gimli, but depending on your starting hand you may want to give the Keys to Legolas if you don't get an early Steward. Don't worry, with Steward, Keys, Gríma and Unlikely Friendship, resources are rarely a problem. Once you get some attachments and 2-cost allies down (turns 1-2 typically), you'll want to play a big ally such as Glorfindel or Treebeard. These guys are abosulte beasts, fixing normally whatever lack of combat or questing you might have. The rest of the deck is, I think, pretty self-explanatory.

This has become one of my favorite decks as of late. As I begin to become just a bit bored of playing Caldara and Noldor over and over, this feels like a breath of fresh air. If you want to try a new iteration of the Legolas-Gimli deck in solo, I seriously suggest you give this a try.