Heirs of Númenor - The Siege of Cair Andros 3.0

• Versions
• 3.0
• 2.0
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For The Siege of Cair Andros:

This is primarily a battle/siege encounter, so the allies are tweaked accordingly. Also, the allies skew more toward tactics than in previous versions to mitigate the potential damage of The Master's Malice (if A Test of Will is not in hand). Some notable card inclusions:

• Defender of Rammas: Obviously a good defender, but also a superb questing ally for siege stages.
• Vassal of the Windlord: Use for a quick attack or as a questing ally if the battle stage is necessary.
• Northern Tracker: Ideally, get this card out early (difficult at 4 cost) in order to help clear the battleground locations. If this doesn't pan out, it has good stats for battle and siege stages and should be affordable since spirit runs few cards in this deck and they are cheap.
• Asfaloth: Hard mulligan for this card, attach to Glorfindel, and use to clear battleground locations before they are destroyed.
• Feint: There are some rough enemies in the encounter deck, so use this to get in an extra attack if able.
• Goblin-cleaver: There's a good chance at least one weapon will be equipped on a hero in this game. This is a cheap way to deal direct damage to some enemies.

Additional notes:

• Lore is pretty underrepresented in this version of the deck, so there's a good chance Aragorn will have extra resources. Unfortunately, this deck doesn't have a good way to pass those around (lacking leadership); however, get Blood of Númenor on Aragorn and he becomes a potent defender or questing hero for siege stages.

For Into Ithilien:

Trying to minimize use of allies to reduce the likelihood that Celador gets killed and maximize the use of heroes. Crucial cards for hero action advantage:

• Light of Valinor: Use with Glorfindel to negate his questing penalty and allow for question + attack.
• Miruvor: Target hero depends on the situation of the board (e.g., questing required, use with Aragorn, for defense, use with Beregond. Almost always want to choose the bonus resource as the second of 'Choose two'.
• Unexpected Courage: Ideally use with Aragorn since Glorfindel is already a target for Light of Valinor and Beregond is a target for Behind Strong Walls.
• Behind Strong Walls: #Beregond is the one and only target for this.
• Late Adventurer and Henamarth Riversong let us 'cheat' a little bit at the questing phase.

Other notes on the deck:

• Master of the Forge and Imladris Stargazer help dig for cards that synergize with heroes to make them more effective (Citadel Plate, Blood of Númenor, Rivendell Minstrel, Spear of the Citadel, etc.).
• The combo Zigil Miner + Imladris Stargazer and Miruvor are the only form of resource acceleration that the deck has.

After beating the encounter, I think the deck could benefit from inclusion of at least 2x Asfaloth, maybe in exchange for the Unseen Strike, as these were dead cards later in the game.

For Peril in Pelargir:

• Ideally want to get Light of Valinor and Rivendell Blade on Glorfindel so he quests for free and can one shot many enemies.
• Asfaloth to help clear some of the rough locations.
• Unexpected Courage: Beregond is the target because building a cheap ally army will be tough due to Zealous Traitor.
• Miner of the Iron Hills should be held in hand if at all possible to counter Local Trouble, which can be a backbreaker.
• Play Vassal of the Windlord when you can be sure to use it within one turn so it doesn't get sniped by Zealous Traitor.
• This deck doesn't have any resource generation, so Envoy of Pelargir can help move resources around. Also think ahead with Miruvor.
• Action advantage is huge for heroes in this encounter. Think ahead when playing Miruvor. Behind Strong Walls will provide action advantage for Beregond, who is almost always held back for defense.

After beating the encounter, I think the deck is a little clunky and could be refined by removing some of the higher cost allies like Northern Tracker and Horseback Archer. It was tough to get these in play. I'd sub in a third copy of Light of Valinor because it's so crucial. Also, Asfaloth probably isn't important for the second encounter (Into Ithilian) because it only has two locations. 1 health allies are a liability due to the likelihood of them getting killed by the enemy heavy encounter deck and Blocking wargs...this is compounded by the penalty to Celador. Maybe instead focus on cheap attachments and events to boost heroes & add action advantage. Go for allies that are a little more expensive, but have more health and can better survive.