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| godalf's supporting cult | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
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Shikifuyin 10
Another deck based on Gandalf ! This time aiming at making the mighty wizard as powerful as he is supposed to be ... After all, no need for hobbits when you're the best wizard alive in middle-earth !
THE DECK
Basic idea is to build an insane trinket collector Gandalf to make him a powerhouse to the point he can solo anything ...
- Basic Toolset : Gandalf's Staff, Wizard Pipe, Narya
- Maximize Actions : Shadowfax, Unexpected Courage
- Resources : Steward of Gondor
- Quest : Necklace of Girion (+ Resources)
- Attack/Defense : Gondorian Fire, Blood of Númenor
- HP : Ring of Barahir (7 Artifacts total)
- Shadow-proof : A Burning Brand (+Gandalf's Staff)
- More Tools : Magic Ring, Black Arrow, Thror's Map, Expert Treasure-hunter
Note he can gather up to 6 resources per turn ! Also note I took into account the new nerfed A Burning Brand which now takes a restricted slot ... If you'd like to still use the unerrated text, we can add Ancestral Armor, Glamdring, Orcrist depending on how you feel about it ... (8th artifact).
Now the problem is, how do we setup this fast enough to be able to beat any quest in the game ? This is not easy ! Several routes are possible and I'm not sure if I did pick the best one ... Basically we can :
- Use very low threat heroes and try to start low enough to give us enough room for initial setup ... Sphere matching makes this unreliable since Éowyn is outside our needs.
- Use Denethor to rush on turn one ... Again, sphere match issues.
- Use Glorfindel ... gives access to Asfaloth ... not really needed and tends to stray the deck away from its objective.
- Try to mix him with Aragorn and go for first turn rush using doomed cards and Drinking Song ... Deck gets too big, unreliable, but can be done with a suicide deck in a 2-player setup.
To try to get the best option, I chose to use Arwen Undómiel for resources and Elven-light draw engine and access to sphere (which is required). Then we need access to sphere, and don't have many options here ...
For the last hero I went for Gríma since he gives resource acceleration at the cost of some more threat. We only need a couple activations from him in the first few turns so threat isn't a big deal. Also being high threat after turn 5-6 is okay with Gandalf already pimped.
One of the limitation on Gandalf is that we can only play from top of deck once per phase, so we might need a way to put allies at a faster pace ... To circumvent the resource fixing needed I use The Storm Comes ... This is not really needed but it provides an alternate way to ramp which helps the deck's reliability when key attachments are still missing. One route could have been to use Thurindir instead of Gríma to pick The Storm Comes on setup ... Might be worth trying ! I found that relying on a quest completion to setup our board might be too risky on some scenarios ...
Regarding draw mechanics, Gather Information makes all 2-of cards easier to reach and Master of the Forge is the usual attachment fetcher doing his incredible work at gathering loot. Imladris Stargazer is not as crucial as in a Vilya deck but it is still very convenient ! Daeron's Runes is staple as always and Elven-light ensures continuous resource to card draw conversion.
Now we also need to exploit Narya and the insane amount of resources stacking on Gandalf, far above what's really needed for Gondorian Fire/Blood of Númenor : let's include some big allies :
- Beorn because we can, may act as recursive Éowyn
- Elfhelm for threat protection
- Faramir for questing power
- Firyal for obvious reasons in solo
- Gildor Inglorion for his raw stats and hand/deck shenanigans
- Glorfindel for free chump, quest/attack support and easy discard
- Treebeard because he's awesome and can get out turn 1
Healing as always is done through Warden of Healing, very effective with Narya even without Elrond. Vigilant Guard is there to protect our 1-HP allies, can be attached to Beorn, Glorfindel or Elfhelm.
Elrond's Counsel might not be enough threat reduction, I'm considering using The Galadhrim's Greeting instead, but I prioritized low cost.
MULLIGAN
In a starting hand we want Steward of Gondor and Wizard Pipe the most, Gandalf's Staff is also very good but can wait a bit. A Master of the Forge is also very important to get early and Unexpected Courage is nice ... basically all the 3-of cards ! Getting an Elven-light early is fine too !
GAMEPLAY
Quite straightforward, stack gear on Gandalf like a mad man, use top of the deck shenanigans, setup some key allies depending on scenario requirements, try to keep A Test of Will in hand with a resource available as often as possible to counter nasty treacheries ...
SIDEBOARD
The sideboard contains cards I have considered for other choices of hero line-up as well as the obvious Vilya variant which is very close to Seastan's TheOne deck ...
CONCLUSION
This is my take on some kind of rule-them-all deck using the "almighty wizard" theme while trying to stay away from what has already been done (or rather, mixing stuff I liked in other power decks) ... The deck is still work in progress and is being put to the test against nightmare scenarios ...
Please give me some feedback !
| 11 comments |
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Apr 29, 2019 |
May 01, 2019Where did you find out Burning Brand is restricted? |
May 02, 2019
"Attach to a Character. Restricted. Response : Exhaust A Burning Brand to cancel a shadow effect that was just triggered during an attack where the attached character defends." So yeah ... big nerf TT |
May 02, 2019
Galdor of the Havens was tempting but is actually bad, this deck never empties his hand. Open the Armory you seem to love this card way too much xD It just doesn't fit here, none of my attachments is weapon/armor ! Yes, I need to draw all the deck to fully complete Gandalf's gear, however I don't need to, big allies are here to tempo while slowly assembling the combo, no rush is intended here. Big allies are better because we can afford them very fast and they stick to the board. My chump blockers are actually Master of the Forge and Imladris Stargazer because it is ok to just use them a couple times before chumping when needed. Furthermore, those allies are needed in fact because you can't get as much action advantage as needed out of 1 character, even if you get several Unexpected Courage early ... Against swarm scenarios you need more than 1 character doing everything, at least in midgame. Master of the Forge and Imladris Stargazer are staples, no way I would cut them they are far too valuable in such a deck ! About other hero lineups, I tried the Glorfindel path ... It's just not as good as using Arwen Undómiel ... and ends up being a sphere matching / resource issue to get ... Damrod is out because his toolset takes way too much slots in the deck ... Treebeard is just not what we need here and too much starting threat. About Folco Boffin ... again, doesn't line up with the game plan. We are far from expecting to make it into secrecy and our stabilizing board at mid game already makes Strider unusable ... it's a rather poor card anyway : too few benefit from too much constraint. Resourceful is way too slow for the kind of resource income we need, and unplayable without secrecy. A line-up with Arwen Undómiel and Glorfindel is possible but the 3 slots needed for Song of Wisdom and the added card dependency while still needing to play some cards very early is way too inconsistent. The reverse option is even worse, we need straight access to for A Test of Will at least. The Galadriel option however is quite good if we can setup her mirror and Silver Harp fast enough ... problem is again deck slots and how slow setting up Nenya can be ... also requires one Unexpected Courage to go on her which is against our plan. Threat stability is nice but we lose too much initial questing power which is already low. Too much setup constraints for a card fetch barely better than Master of the Forge ! |
May 02, 2019
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May 02, 2019Wait...it says to Exhaust it too! Oh crap, that's a big deal! Response : Exhaust A Burning Brand to cancel a shadow effect that was just triggered during an attack where the attached character defends." |
May 02, 2019
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May 02, 2019Nerfed... |
All praise the lord Godalf!
have you considered Galdor of the Havens instead of grima? what you lose in ressource generation you make up in card selection, and it is a noldor forArwen.
how about Open the Armory ?
i feel like you are going to need to draw most of the deck to assemble godalf, which feels more like the wincon of a control deck than an entire strategy. Perhaps you need to use a shell less focused on building the combo fast and more on control while you assemble at a slower pace.
trimming the allies of setup cards like Imladris Stargazer or expensive ones (which should not be needed, godalf is all you need) to replace them with more early game proactive ones (flavor points if you use eagles) should give you more time to build your god.
One way would be to opt for other more early-game friendly heroes entirely (in spirit and lore). Glorfindel comes to mind as well as Damrod and Treebeard.
i suspect that not playing Vilya is part of the goal so i won't suggest Elrond .
another would be to play another god, Folco Boffin, who died for our sins. After all godalf should have Strider and Resourcefulx3 to be truly respectable!
as for his single apostle:
With a blue hero (Glorfindel, Merry, Eleanor if secrecy) : if you have a master of the forge starting hand try to keep Folco around if possible until turn 2. If not, add Song of Wisdom to your shopping list.
with a green hero (Pippin, Bifur if secrecy): add Song of Travel and hope you draw it soon enough.
without secrecy (unless you stack up on threat reduction a lot) Galadriel is waifu material with the right allies and Nenya could play both spheres.
any way you need to rely on drawing something to access both spheres, but at least Nenya is good. Apart from master of the forge (which Mirror of Galadriel improves upon) most of your sphere needs concern the combo pieces, so as long as you build a strong early game presence in matching spheres you can maybe afford one more card that needs fetching. Folco Boffin requires sacrifices.