Deck Tech: Grima Starter Deck

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chrsjxn 4859

Hey everyone,

Chris here with a new entry in my Starter Deck sub-series. This time we're building a deck around the LCG fan favorite: Gríma!

Well, he's not everyone's favorite, but he does come with a very easy resource boost that we can use to keep the allies flowing. And the Voice of Isengard expansion brings some incredible card draw with Deep Knowledge, which makes this a reasonably powerful starter deck.

And it's been a bit since I've done one of these, so here are the rules I'm following to refresh everyone's memory:

The Rules:

  1. No adventure packs included without also including the previous deluxe. This way you get to use all the cards you've bought, including the scenarios.
  2. Only one core set, so you aren't buying any cards you basically can't use.
  3. The decks are meant for solo so they're more easy to try by yourself. (And I mostly play solo.)
  4. And the writeups are different from the other deck techs, with more focus on basic strategies.

Previous Entries:

You can find the earlier starter decks (pre-video era) here: click me!

How to Play:

Starting with our opening hand, the main thing we're looking for is a good mix of allies to start us off. Thankfully, you can play any ally in the deck on turn 2, thanks to Théodred's resource and Gríma's action.

Big standouts here are Northern Tracker, because he can fight and help you clear out locations. Gléowine helps draw cards which can fuel Éowyn's willpower boost and ensure you have better plays on future turns. And Wandering Ent is a huge boost to the deck's combat potential.

Having a starting hand with Sneak Attack and Gandalf is also definitely worth keeping. Gríma's ability will let you use Sneak Attack even with no resources left, and dropping in a Gandalf to defend an attack or eliminate an enemy can be a huge swing in your favor.

Once you get past that beginning hurdle, playing the deck is pretty simple. The bulk of the allies in the deck can quest or fight, so it's just a matter of committing the right number to the quest and holding back the rest for fighting.

My rule of thumb is that each unknown encounter card is worth about three threat. So if you want an estimate of how much progress you'll make, just count up your willpower, subtract the threat in the staging area, and then subtract three more. In specific quests, like Journey Along the Anduin, it can be worth checking out the encounter deck so that you know you might run into a five threat location...

And a few more interesting tips about how to get the most out of this deck.

Using Gríma's ability to discount The Galadhrim's Greeting will still reduce your threat by 5. And with Théodred's resource from questing, you can do this even if Eowyn had zero resources at the start of the turn.

Saruman is a bit of a bomb quester. He removes threat from the staging area and then can contribute his three willpower. And his five attack is sometimes worth the threat hit from a Sneak Attack.

And don't forget about the allies less useful stats. Galadriel's Handmaiden can defend a 1 damage attack without dying (just be careful about shadow effects), and Wandering Took or Erebor Hammersmith can take even bigger ones.

Video Thoughts: To Catch an Orc

If you want to see the deck in action, head over to the video, where you can see me play through To Catch an Orc! It's up on youtube here.

This quest is interesting, because you constantly need to quest hard enough to add time counters. And if you aren't getting too location flooded, you can stall a bit to build up before you find Mugash. Clearing some of these locations is a bit like card draw, though, so there's a balance between risk and reward here.

I was a bit lucky, and Mugash was in the bottom half of my search stack. If you're actually new, I really recommend stacking it so that this happens for you, too. Getting Mugash from the first Search probably means that you lose. Quickly.

I did trigger the time effect on stage 2 once, and it can definitely be brutal, but sometimes you don't have a choice. And it's definitely worth remembering that you don't have to kill all the enemies to grab Mugash and get out.

Which is exactly what I did, and just in the nick of time.

Packs you'll need for this deck:

  1. 1 core set
  2. The Voice of Isengard
  3. Celebrimbor's Secret

Recommended upgrades:

  1. Treebeard is from the same cycle, and he's incredibly powerful for solo play
  2. Quickbeam from the saga expansions is another very strong Ent
  3. Warden of Healing will help top up the allies we use for combat
  4. Daeron's Runes is another strong 0 cost draw event
  5. And if you get a second core set, a third Sneak Attack and Northern Tracker are well worth it

Thanks for watching!

1 comments

Aug 11, 2019 Christian_Medic 973

Great deck! I'm a big Grima fan too, probably from time playing LOTR The Third Age for GBA where he and Saruman were the only humans playable in the Evil campaign. I also like that you paired him up with Eowyn which would thematically explain why he is helping the good forces.