The Road Darkens - Minimum Purchase 1 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a deck built from just Core Set + The Road Darkens cards for Path Less Traveled, an ongoing series on my blog, Darkling Door.

Played Against: The Ring Goes South

Leading the deck

One of the strengths of this deck is its flexibility. All four of the Heroes (including Frodo Baggins) can be sent on the quest if needed, for a whopping starting of 11 (12 with a discard to Éowyn). Aragorn and Gandalf both have large 5 hitpoint pools, too, meaning that they can take an undefended hit or two if I end up needing to take some risks during the questing phase while the rest of the deck gets set up.

But once the deck is humming along with a few Allies in play, I can hold back any of Frodo, Aragorn, or Gandalf to help me with the combat phase. Frodo's ability makes him a good defender in a pinch, and Gandalf and Aragorn often have enough between the two of them to kill something without any extra help.

The only truly vital card in the deck is Wizard Pipe, so I usually mulligan for it. There are three copies in the deck, and two copies of Bilbo Baggins to help me fetch it, so it never takes long to find. Once Gandalf is puffing away, I can use his resources to help me pay for whatever card is most pressing at the time.

That's all there is to know about the deck. As far as Gandalf decks go, this one is remarkably straightforward!

► For more analysis, check out my blog post on this quest.