Deck Tech: Brave Sir Folco 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Hey everyone,

Chris here with a return to one of my favorite deck archetypes: three hero secrecy. And we're going to go up against some Nightmare quests, just for fun.

I have changed up my hero lineup a little bit from previous decks in this style. Bifur is out, and Folco Boffin is in. So a little bit of the resource flexibility is lost, but it does give the deck a failsafe for getting back into secrecy if your threat gets too high at the wrong time.

Other than that, it's full of classic secrecy tricks. Timely Aid lets you drop huge allies at the start of the game, and Resourceful lets you pay for them all directly in the late game.

And we've got Beorn! Mostly because quad sphere decks are fun.

Strategy:

This deck is, primarily, a ramp deck. It's not intended to stay in secrecy forever, and it's not that hard to generate up to 8 or 9 resources per round.

Timely Aid and Sneak Attack are big tools for surviving the early game. And it's useful to remember that Timely Aid is action speed, so you can give Theodred his own resource and use one during the quest phase. Celduin Traveler is another easy early willpower boost, and you get a peek at the encounter deck before questing.

As for where the extra resources (Steward of Gondor, etc) should go: they belong on Theodred this time. A lot of them will be dedicated to drawing cards with Rod of the Steward, but being able to play Heed the Dream with its kicker is fantastic.

The biggest drawback of this particular incarnation of my three hero secrecy decks is that it's a bit inconsistent. All of the good allies are single copies, because it helps to guarantee that Timely Aid isn't going to hit a bunch of duplicates. But the tools are there, and keeping threat low is a big help for tackling encounter cards at your own pace.

Video Thoughts:

The first video is this deck up against Nightmare Journey Along the Anduin, and I lucked into an incredibly strong opener. Firyal on turn one gives you a huge amount of control over the encounter deck, especially for a deck like this that doesn't include A Test of Will.

The final ambush in stage three does kind of show off the weakness of low threat decks, though. You only get to optionally engage one enemy per round, so if you have to kill them all, it takes at least one round per enemy.

And I know, I could have failed the quest and raised my threat that way, but I had a plan. And it was more fun to do that and clear out the third copy of Gladden Fields. Especially since the rounds are so short if you're not staging any new cards.

You can find that video on youtube, and look for a second nightmare quest from this deck later on this week.

Thanks for watching!