Faramir In Boots 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Evidence that the game is dying: no one has yet published a deck on RingsDB exploiting the ridiculous combination of Leather Boots and Faramir. Well, no more I say! Consider this exploited.

This deck started when I looked more closely at Leather Boots and realized you can attach them to allies. WHAT? So yes, double duty from Warden of Healing, double heals from Wellinghall Preserver, double attachment-grabbing fun from Master of the Forge. You might even consider trying to use those boots to rehabilitate poor old Master of Lore a little bit, using a single copy to reduce the cost of an event or attachment in planning, and later to reduce the cost of an event.

But the most obvious power play is to slap these puppies on core set ally Faramir. Once I settled on that combo, I looked for ways to 1) get it into play quickly and 2) reap the maximum benefit from it. So, here we are. This deck ends up looking very similar to Teamjimby's Gondor Swarm featuring Erestor deck, which itself inspired a host of similar decks. With Leather Boots attached, Faramir can grant you +2 willpower each turn, assuming a location is revealed from the encounter deck. Therefore, this deck will be more consistent with higher player counts.

With some trickery, it is possible to have 5 allies in play or more on turn 1 -- play down two 2-cost allies. If one of them is a Herald of Anórien, use his Doomed effect and play down another 1- or 2-cost ally. Use A Very Good Tale to put two more into play. If you happen to be holding onto a Citadel Custodian or two, he'd be free after all of that. So yes, you can have a crazy first round.

I always mulliganed for Steward of Gondor, as this will make the deck more consistently able to play down its entire hand (and later on, you can just pass a resource from Denethor to some other player's Gondor hero).

Don't let Visionary Leadership escape you, as this is also an extremely powerful card in this deck. In at least one game I played, it was buried in the bottom 15 cards of the deck (all 3 copies). That meant I intentionally let go to waste a copy of A Very Good Tale which was in my hand, as it had a high risk of discarding a way more powerful card than what it could possibly put into play. With Visionary Leadership, and 2x Faramir every turn, all Gondor allies will be getting +3 to their willpower, so even your dinky 1-cost Squire of the Citadel is happy to quest.

Put extra boots on the Wardens, or if you want you can put them on other Ranger allies or Erestor for help with attacking.

The deck aims for speed. If you need a sideboard, include threat reduction. Another player who has Will of the West can play it on you for significant return, as this deck will be empty between turns 5 to 8.

The deck is quite quite vulnerable to effects which penalize high ally cost (raise your threat by number of allies you control, for example), or those which deal global direct damage effects. Many Gondor allies have only 1 HP. So, this is best paired with another deck which can cancel such effects for you.