Shield Breakers - Wizard Edition 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

‘The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours.

—The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Ring goes South

‘For men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.’ ‘Strider!’ cried Frodo. ‘Yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘I ask leave once again to be your companion, Frodo.’

—The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Ring goes South

‘You shall ride my horse,’ said Glorfindel. ‘But you need not fear: my horse will not let any rider fall that I command him to bear. His pace is light and smooth; and if danger presses too near, he will bear you away with a speed that even the black steeds of the enemy cannot rival.’

—The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Flight to the Ford

I was looking for a deck that combines Gandalf and Aragorn in order to replicate the mentor/counselor-mentee relationship they have in the books. I then added Glorfindel as all three of those have taken care of Frodo when he was starting his journey. The first two by joining the ring's fellowship and the latter when Frodo was wounded and chased by the Black Riders.

I named the deck "Shield Breakers" because that's exactly what your characters do here, they just ignore enemy armor by virtue of Aragorn's passive ability and 3 copies of Rivendell Blade. Optimally you can attack with a total bonus of -7 against enemies (more details below). In addition, I wanted to experiment with side quests and the Legacy Blade which gave really good results in recent testings with Aragorn and Glorfindel attacking easily for a total of 5 around mid-game.

Overall, this deck packs really good questing while it does also wonders in combat. Happy to hear your thoughts.

Starting Hand

• You want to open a game with Light of Valinor for Glorfindel. If that doesn't work, the deck gives you some room threat-wise until you find it.

• Another thing to look in your opening hand is one of the weapons and Foe-hammer. Card draw is quite crucial here. Glorfindel can use both his restricted spots for a Rivendell Blade and a Legacy Blade while Aragorn can use one of his restricted slots just for the Legacy Blade.

• Gather Information is there for you to help with bad hands.

Card Draw

• Every time you play the top card of your deck with Gandalf you basically draw an extra card. Time it correctly with Wizard Pipe and any event to draw more than one cards per round.

• There are many weapons to take advantage of Foe-hammer. You usually need to trigger it once to get the deck started. Often you can trigger chains with more copies of it that you pull by playing it.

• Legolas is also good for card draw especially when combined with Rivendell Blade.

Readying

• Gandalf gets most of the readying cards (Shadowfax and the two Unexpected Courage) in order to both quest and defend every turn.

• Aragorn gets the Rohan Warhorse to destroy enemies, draw in new enemies not engaged with you and have a second go.

• [Removed in this version] You can add Narya if you want to ready two allies every turn if you need more defenders or attackers.

• [Removed in this version] Tale of Tinúviel can be really versatile in tight situations. I left only one copy though because I often could deal with whatever was coming at me. There are many Noldor characters to use it with in this deck. There are also a couple of Dúnedain Hunters aside from Aragorn.

Combat

• Aragorn and Glrofindel are the main attackers. With Aragorn, by killing enemies engaged with you, you can draw enemies from the staging area (not yet engaged with you) or teammate's area and finish them off before they ever get a chance to attack. This is one of the best abilities in the game as it allows you to clean the staging are from enemies before they even attack you (if you time it correctly).

• All enemies engaged with you get by default -1 due to Aragorn's passive ability. If you combine your attack with Glorfindel equipped with a Rivendell Blade then you get a total bonus of -3 . Things become even easier once you equip Legolas and the Guardian of Rivendell with a second and third Rivendell Blade to reach the maximum of -7 when attacking enemies.

• Legacy Blades have been really successful for me in this deck. I can easily get a +2 bonus especially if I get my hands on Gather Information early enough. You give one copy to Aragorn and one to Glorfindel. When it works as intended, they can attack together for a total of 12 . You can easily play from the top of your deck with Gandalf or by giving the sphere to Aragorn with Ring of Barahir.

• Other than Gandalf, good defenders include the Defender of Rammas and Guardian of Rivendell. Honour Guards are MVPs, especially when your threat exceeds the 40 point-mark to go for that Valour value.

Questing, Side Quests and Threat Reduction

• Questing is really good in this deck. You can start with at least 6 just with your heroes.

• I chose three Side Quests in order to give maximum potential to the Legacy Blade. You can easily add one more for better draw chances (preferably Double Back). Gather Information is obviously one of the best options giving you a lot of flexibility especially early on. Keep Watch is exceptional in quests where you get swarmed easily by enemies, while The Storm Comes is particularly good in this deck when you are running low on resources.

• Galadriel's Handmaiden and Silvan Refugee add +2 per copy as well. Other good allies for questing include Arwen Undómiel and Bilbo Baggins.

• Three Elrond's Counsels are there to get you to low threat. I also like adding a Will of the West in order to get them back and further decrease my threat later (also good for getting back your Foe-hammers).