My Doomed Deck - now with less doomed! (and more silvans)

_{Because much like sodium, too much doomed is bad for your health!}

Intro

This is quite possibly my best solo deck, though it's hard to choose between it and one of my ent decks. The basic concept of the deck is simple: Get a couple of high-stat allies out, manage your threat using the likes of Island Amid Perils, The Galadhrim's Greeting, and Galadriel's Handmaiden; and win with only a handful of characters in play. Since the only cycles I have are the Shadows of Mirkwood and Ringmaker cycles, and the latter tends to punish high amounts of allies or attachments, this deck attempts to win using a small number of cards in play.

Sideboard

As with most of my decks, the sideboard consists of cards I may put into the deck in future revisions, as well as the actual sideboard cards. For this deck, there are only 2 sideboards:

• [Power of Orthanc](/card/07014) for quests with nasty conditions
• [Waters of Nimrodel](/card/08145) for quests with absurd amounts of direct damage (Wasted Provision from Voice of Isengard...)

The rest are just cards I still need to try out in the deck.

Strategy

Starting Hand

The best cards to get in your starting hand are a 2 ally, maybe a Daughter of the Nimrodel, and definitely Treebeard. If you don't get Treebeard, the deck can still survive some quests if you get a Westfold Outrider or Henneth Annûn Guard or two, and Captain of Gondor is always nice.

Resource Management

Gríma allows you to empty the bank every turn, yet still have a chance of paying for stuff the next turn. The only times you really need to save up is when the encounter deck is about to puke out some enemies (timed effects often do this), and you need to save up for Henneth Annûn Guard; or when you need to drop some healing. I haven't found whether Éowyn or Gríma is better with Keys of Orthanc, so just put that on whoever needs it at the time.

Card Draw

Since this deck doesn't need a lot of cards to reach its maximum power, I've found card draw is only really useful early game, so it has to be cheap. Deep Knowledge is really good for its cost, and Ancient Mathom can work well in a lot of my quests, as a lot of them tend to start with a location in play.

Questing

Quest with Éowyn, Gríma, and any number of 2 allies. Mirkwood Pioneer can be used for quests where location lock (or giant, 99999 swamp lurkers) make questing occasionally more difficult.

Defending

Boromir is the go-to defender for this deck. Captain of Gondor allows him to defend for 3, then retaliate back for 4. He is still a little frail, but healing can help with that. Since he can ready himself, he can also block multiple attacks as needed. Henneth Annûn Guard can be used to give Boromir a boost in the case of a boss fight, or just engaging some giant enemy. The guard does require some foresight to use, but is a nice option to have.

Attacking

Boromir and some 2 ally can take most weak enemies. Throw Captain of Gondor on Boromir and you can take out 6-bulk enemies: a magic number in the Ringmaker cycle. Boromir and Treebeard can kill anything with relative ease.

Moving Forward

This deck is finally almost "done", as I just need to decide whether or not including so many silvan allies is worth it just to use Island Amid Perils. Given my limited collection, I have few options for managing my threat, but is it really worth it to throw so many allies in just so I can lower my threat by 2 a bit more consistently? Later versions may do away with Galadhrim Minstrel and/or Island Amid Perils for more consistently powerful events (A Test of Will, Hasty Stroke, Feint).

Note to self: hashtag card name, dollar symbol