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| None. Self-made deck here. |
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| One wizard to draw them all | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2.0 |
| Card draw simulator |
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tickler 248
An important part of deck building is to find a valid ratio between your card draw and the costs of your cards. More draw requires cheaper cards. So what happens if a wizard gives you nearly unlimited card draw?
Concept
When counting unique cards only once the deck has an average cost of 0,86 points per card. With three resources per turn you can play 3,49 cards in average. With additional resources from the wizard's staff or hidden caches you can play your complete deck within about ten rounds.
The result is having Gandalf with multiple activations, a of 5-6 and the ability to ignore shadow cards. Glorfindel comes up to 9 thanks to very old elfish legacy blades and a decent location control by his mount. And questing for a of 30+ isn't really difficult. Test of will and Elrond's counsel can be played up to nine times with the two copies of Will of the West.
Setup
Light of Valinor, Gandalf's staff and the Wizard Pipe are good cards for your starting hand. Typically, you use Thurindir's ability to gather information and get the missing card to get the deck running or a card really required for the specific adventure (like Asfaloth, Hidden Cache or A Burning Brand). In some adventures you might want to start with some double backs to lower your threat as quick as possible.
Cards
The deck plays only one copy of most of the cards, because you want to see them only once on the table. The 0-cost cards in general have only a little effect. Most of them are just handy, but enable you to play more cards. Also:
- Wizard Pipe is really important. It let you switch the top card with a card you want to play to play more cards and it is required for playing A Burning Brand and the Dúnedain Warning. Also the combination with a Hidden Cache and Expert Treasure-hunter is very strong.
- Will of the West is used to re-play key cards, that got discarded (like A Burning Brand or Ethir Swordsman) or to just replay A Test of Will and Elrond's Counsel after your deck has been emptied.
- Word of Command, Bilbo Baggins and The Road Goes Ever On are search effects to get a specific card. In most cases you don't need them, but sometimes it can be really handy.
Sideboard
- Healing can become a thing. On adventures with a lot of direct damage you typically search for Ioreth with Gather Information, but sometimes it is not enough. With a setup of 5, 5 and 4 on your Heros some additional Healing Herbs can solve it.
- Power of Orthanc is the card to get rid of nasty conditions. Sometimes it is just required to play a copy of it, when you don't have a A Test of Will available.
- I found out Asfaloth can become critical to be played before you are able to finish Gather Information. With the Westfold Horse-breeder and additional copies you can normally play him on the first turns .
(Probably after playing more quests the sideboard needs to be extended.)
Performance
I really didn't expect such a performance. I played the deck against several adventures (including for instance escape from Dol Guldur) and I finished all of them on the first try. I was so excited then, because I had never beaten Battle of Carn Dum Solo and it seemed this deck could do it. Finally, I got a win rate of 50% against Thaudir. (It was so satisfying to beat the quest over and over again after so many failures in the past). Overall the deck is so much fun to play and should also work in multiplayer games.
Enjoy the power of the grey wizard!