My the Black Gate Opens deck - saga 1.0

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• 1.0

This is the deck I have used for the black gate opens in Saga mode. I had Beyond all hope attached to Gandalf, and Esquire of Rohan attached to Beregond. The deck lasted 7 turns in solo, which is the best I have done so far - it remains to be seen if that is enough for Mount Doom.

The deck is a variant of my Pelennor Fields deck, in that it uses Beregond to defend, and a combination of Elrond+Vilya and a Very good tale to swarm allies. Especially the combination of Elrond and Stargazer or Wizard's Pipe is a very potent one. I ended up using a very good tale much less than I planned, as the cost of exhausting an ally was deemed too high.

Opening hand: Ideally, you want a stargazer, a gondorian shield and possibly Vilya. Shadowfax is nice, but not necessary. I found that the stargazer was nicer than to start with Vilya, as it let you control your draw, your Gandalf top deck play, fish out Vilya if it is in the top 5 of the deck, and your Vilya free play.

Quest Strategy: For succes at the black gate, I found it very crucial to clear enemies and locations as efficiently as possible, paying less attention to efficient questing. I had most succes on occasions where my threat reached 100, rather than dying in a last stand. Of course, my deck might not be good enough, but solo is very punishing, especially as all nastry trolls and Nazguls go to you...

For setup, I generally accepted the enconter+free player cards if they were low-cost locations, or treacheries. I never add enemies. Especially the Reeking Moat is nice to keep in the staging area, as it gives you control over enemies, so you can wait one round to deal with them. I choose the Orc of Mordor to the staging area as it doesn't surge.

For turn 1, I generally played Anduril on Aragorn, (hopefully) a Gondorian Shield on Beregond, and depending on the free starting cards, I might initiate the Vilya combo if the top card is worth playing (Best of all is Glorfindel). exhaust all to quest, use a resource from Aragorn to ready him after engagement (so no one is tapped from the orc) and kill it with Anduril. Hopefully he won't take damage (and get griveous wounds) but the Warden of Healing should be able to keep that managable.

For turn 2 it is time to deal with the Wraith on Wings. Block it for a round or two with Beregond+Shield and concentrate all attack power on it. A Flame of Arnor here is very useful, as is Beorn if you were lucky enough to find him. It should be dead by turn 4. Hopefully, resources from Aragorn and Shadowfax can be used to ready heroes for blocking and attacking after questing. In the dream scenario, Unexpected Courage goes on Elrond to ready him immediately after using Vilya.

From here it is just holding your ground. Expect to reset a lot - especially the troll and the nazgul are nasty enemies, which can wreck your game if they appear too early.