Arrows from Hiding 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a turtle deck that makes use of consistent threat reduction to stay in secrecy and avoid most enemies while sniping the staging area with Haldir of Lórien. It may not win fast, but it will keep going until it does thanks to all the recursion that it has. It is a nice deck for solo or multiplayer play, although some quests will simply counter its turtling strategy.

Opening Hand

Resourceful is a great card to see in the opening hand, and it the first one should go on one of the heroes. The second one can go on Haldir of Lórien so he can afford Firyal easier. Aside from that, Light of Valinor and Mirkwood Long-knife are both important cards to get as well. The sooner they are played on Haldir of Lórien, the quicker the deck will be to keep the enemies in the staging area from piling up. Fast Hitch is another fine card to get in the opening draw since it allows Merry to pull double duty questing and lowering threat.

Gameplay

The Heroes

Galadriel will keep the threat low while drawing cards and searching the deck for important cards with her Mirror of Galadriel and Silver Harp combo. Merry quests and reduces threat once he has a Fast Hitch. Haldir of Lórien will get Light of Valinor and Mirkwood Long-knife and if necessary, his attack can be boosted even more with Fair and Perilous.

Early, Mid, and Late Game

The early game is mostly where the focus is on questing and getting Haldir geared up for combat. It is also when the threat must be reduced and kept below the engagement threshold of the enemies that come out of the combat deck. Since the number of allies in this deck is slightly low, consider a mulligan if you hardly draw any allies in the starting hand. Once in secrecy mode, the deck has an easier time setting up and it can even play Noiseless Movement a few times to avoid a low-engagement enemy if necessary.

The mid game is when Haldir should be doing well keeping the enemies trimmed in the staging area and the deck's threat should be pretty low despite the threat spiking of the quest.

The end game often entails a boss fight, which will be taken care of by playing as Fair and Perilous to boost Haldir's attack dramatically (taking into account the boosted from Mirkwood Long-knife). Otherwise, there will be so much that questing will likely not be a problem.

Tricks and Tips

• In solo, Firyal is the best way to avoid the worst treacheries, and seeing more enemies and locations instead doesn't usually bother this deck much.
• If you are forced to engage an enemy that you didn't want to engage at all, Mablung is the way to put that enemy back in the staging area where it can be sniped.
• Treebeard + Arwen Undómiel makes for a solid defender if the need arises.
• Thanks to Will of the West, you don't have to be too concerned about losing cards to the discard pile. Cards that are useful to play again, like Fair and Perilous, can be shuffled back in by Will of the West and fished out of the deck by the Mirror of Galadriel + Silver Harp combo.

Success

This deck has been robust against quests that aren't particularly hard on turtling strategies. It would be terrible at Escape from Umber and not so great at Celebrimbor's Secret, but was excellent at Fog on the Barrow Downs. If the turtle deck style is your cup of tea, this deck can certainly deliver.