A Rohan Deck for Dunland Trap, Minimum Purchase

Questlogs using this decklist
Loss - The Dunland Trap - 1 Player - 2020-01-11
Loss - The Dunland Trap - 1 Player - 2020-01-11
Loss - The Dunland Trap - 1 Player - 2020-01-11
Loss - The Dunland Trap - 1 Player - 2020-01-10
Fellowships using this decklist
None.
Derived from
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Inspiration for
To Catch An Orc - Minimum Purchase 3 0 0 1.0
Rohan: The Dunland Trap 2 1 2 1.0
Doomed Last Alliance - Into Fangorn - Minimum Purchase 4 2 0 3.0
Three Trials Minimum Purchase Nor Am I a Stranger 0 0 0 1.0
Battle deck for Three Trials Minimum Purchase 0 0 0 1.0
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Card Talk 1182

To see the video about constructing this deck, check out this link: https://youtu.be/XYH-Pee18vs

This deck is designed solely to take on The Dunland Trap and only uses cards from one Core Set, The Voice of Isengard Deluxe Box, and the Dunland Trap adventure pack, making this a "Minimum Purchase" deck.

There are two main things that this deck can do well. It can chump block and it can resource accelerate. Two things you will want for this scenario.

Going hero by hero: Éomer wants the Horn of Gondor, one of his mounts, and the Unexpected Courage in the deck. This will be enough for him to (usually) kill the enemies in the scenario. Éowyn is the best target for the Steward of Gondor and also should be the recipient of the extra resource from Théodred until you get your board state up.
Théodred is a good target for Celebrían's Stone just so you are able to spread the around.

For this scenario specifically, it's important that you get a chump out in the first round. First, it can be used to defend the attack and it also gives Éomer his attack bonus so you can actually kill the first enemy. There are 6x 1 cost allies that you can play for the beginning and if you have a 2 cost ally, you can use The White Council to exchange resources from one hero to another. That allows you to afford a first turn Steward of Gondor or a 2 cost chump.

I found that the best first round is for you to have Snowbourn Scout in your hand and then pitch a card to Éowyn so that you are questing for an equivalent of 7. In this case, we can count the Snowbourn Scout's ability as pseudoquesting since it is vital to explore the Old South Road during the first round.

Depending on how many enemies you get, I would not flood the board with chump blockers because eventually you are going to lose them. I would play 1 or 2 chumps around in with the expectation of losing them to defense and then swinging back with Éomer, hopefully with Firefoot, so that no enemies will stay standing.

The other part of this is timing when to complete quest 1B. It's best to time it during the round that you would normally remove the last time counter so that you have the most cards (and really, the most chumps) in your hand. Also, it's nice that during the first quest stage if you can turtle to put either Beorn or Faramir into play, just to give you a little extra umph for the quick transitions from 1B to 2B to 3B.

In the end, I was very successful in play this quest with this deck. It's also a lot of fun, and I was surprised to get 3 Rohan heroes to work so nicely here!

7 comments

Jan 12, 2020 kattattack22 789

@Card Talk I finally beat Dunland Trap with the deck, but I made a small change. I put in Power of Orthanc. It was very helpful to deal with all the treachery conditions. I lost 3 games to In Need of Rest and this card provides another answer to it.

I took out Celebrían's Stone, Horn of Gondor, and a Hasty Stroke to make room. The stone is nice but usually if Theodred died it was a dead card anyway. Also if Theodred stays alive the deck swims with resources and didn't seem to need the horn.

Hasty Stroke was another marginal card for me because most shadows weren't bad with chump blocking. Although the shadow effects of Frenzied Attack and Dunland Berserker would be nice to cancel. I could see keeping a the second copy for 51 cards or replace a different card.

Jan 20, 2020 Strategian 55

I’m not sure about this deck. Three straight losses. “In Need of Rest” took out a Hero twice and untimely shadow effects from “Frenzied Attack” repeatedly neutered Eomer, allowing enemies to escape attack and build up on the board.

Jan 20, 2020 Strategian 55

I reworked it to add cards to address the treacheries and shadow cards, plus slightly different allies: see the “Rohan: The Dunland Trap” deck

Jan 20, 2020 kattattack22 789

Frenzied attack usually just cleared my hand of allies. It didn't really help enemies build up in staging. Eomer didn't really have too much trouble clearing out enemies for me. Usually the problem for me was getting the timing right to where I had a strong board state and get the quest to advance when I didn't already have an enemy engaged. The "In Need of Rest" coming up without A Test of Will certainly didn't help. It hurt mostly that a lot draws would be dead because they were leadership cards. That's why I ultimately sideboarded in Power of Orthanc. Of course in that game I only saw that treachery as a shadow card.

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Jan 20, 2020 kattattack22 789

@Strategian, it looks like a solid deck. I'm curious how much more consistent it is without the minimum purchase constraint?

Jan 20, 2020 Strategian 55

I agree I had many more options available by forsaking the minimum purchase constraints.

Jan 21, 2020 Strategian 55

I took Kattattack22’s advice and went back to a minimum purchase deck with Power of Orthanc. From Card Talk’s original deck, I took out Faramir, Horn of Gondor, Celebrian’s Stone, Veteran Axehand, & Guard of the Citadel and added three each of Westfold Outrider, Orthanc Guard, and Power of Orthanc.

I was 0/3 with Card Talk’s deck and 0/2 with my revised minimum purchase deck.

My “Rohan: The Dunland Trap” Deck, which was inspired by Card Talk’s deck, won 2/2.