The Will of Saruman

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WillRanger7 64

</span The Will of Saruman is my deck featuring Saruman, The Gray Wanderer, and the Doomed keyword. Saruman is the latest and greatest hero yet. With a very impressive stat line and built in reading, Saruman seems to be a very powerful hero and in any deck that features him he will be the core of the deck. The first lines of text on Saruman are the down side to him. Without being able to reduce your threat by more than one prevents you from fighting the doomed threat raise effectively. Thankfully we have Saruman's Staff to keep our threat from spiraling out of control. Every time you have you have the chance to use Saruman's Staff to lower the doomed value, you should.

The doomed keyword is the keyword that balances "free" events. All doomed events also ready Saruman. So even really bad ones like Close Call suddenly becomes, at worst, zero cost: ready your high stated hero. Deep Knowledge has always been really good and keeps the engine running. Far-sighted is an event with a low doomed value that can give you perfect information for up to five turns. Horns! Horns! Horns! plays perfectly with Gandalf either to get you out of tricky situations or to draw more cards. Orthanc Guard provides additional readying when you raise your threat by the doomed keyword. Cards like Ancestral Armor and Wild Stallion boost Orthanc Guard's stats and make him worthwhile to ready for defense.

The Gray Wanderer is an amazing contract that lets playing with one hero worthwhile. In addition to fetching an attachment at the beginning of the game (for this deck you want strider) It also gives readying, resources, and healing. . . At the cost of threat. Early game this is great, but don't get carried away. Avoid using The Gray Wanderer's ability as often as you can late game to conserve your threat

Please let me know of your opinion of the deck and how you would change it. Am I running to many Gandalfs? Should I be playing more The Wizards's Voice? Please comment your opinion.

11 comments

Feb 11, 2020 kypatzer 84

Looks fun to play - lots of interesting challenges. I might add 3 Galadriel's Handmaidens to help lower the threat, they actually work as well as Gandalf in that department with Saruman. Maybe even a copy of Ally Elfhelm to help out with any doom coming out of the encounter deck.

Feb 11, 2020 kypatzer 84

Soldier of Isengard looks like he is made for this deck also.

Feb 11, 2020 kypatzer 84

Also you could include some Sneak Attacks to allow you to play your Gandalf's and possibly Galadriel's Handmaidens even more often.

Feb 11, 2020 serre 119

What's the idea behind putting Far-sighted in this deck? ok you can look at the top 5 cards of the encounter deck but it doesn't do anything. I only see this card played in combination with Palantir which would be thematic with Saruman but still it's my personal opinion i am not a fan of that card and should remove it. I should keep three gandalfs. but most of the time i only play them when i use Sneak Attack also, but with Horns! Horns! Horns! it's cool as well. The Wizards's Voice is also fantasic. It depends with how much people you play i guess. I have a deck with Saruman and i put it 2x times in it but i play mostly 3 player games.

Feb 11, 2020 Jtothemac 475

Imho, Far-sighted is one of the most powerful events in the game, and it combos well with Saruman. Notice that it's doomed value is 1, making it viable in any number of players, allowing a fully scry for questing. However, when you tack on the fact that saruman readies when a doomed event is played, it's as good as Cram, but also allows you to look at the cards. You could use it to ready him before encounter phase to look at shadows dealt to enemies. Its low cost and high ability (in solo play, it could essentially grant you 2 turns of knowledge of the encounter deck... more if there aren't enemies with shadows involved). That is the price of admission alone. Using the staff mitigates the only downside of this card.

Feb 11, 2020 WillRanger7 64

Kypatzer thank you for the positive feedback and the comments. I don't understand how I would be playing the Elfhelm and the Sneak Attack. The Grey Wanderer only lets you play non-uniques during the planing phase. Gandalf is played in the deck because of his amazing combo with Horns! Horns! Horns! to draw cards or get rid of enemies if you're being swarmed. I did consider Galadriel's Handmaiden but I chose Ethir Swordsman instead because of the stacking capabilities. You could play Galadriel's Handmaiden instead if you wanted to. Instead of Anfalas Herdsman I would play a mix of 2 cost 2 uniques like Mablung.

Feb 11, 2020 kypatzer 84

WillRanger7 - you are absolutely correct about those two cards, I am used to playing The Grey Wanderer with Hero Gandalf, he lets you play cards from the top of your deck without a resource match.

Feb 29, 2020 FlyingSolo 53

Am I missing something or what ? what are you equipping with ancestral armor

Feb 29, 2020 Doublecaster 23

I really want to try Saruman, now that I noticed that the staff negates 2 points of doomed. The doomed cards are extremely powerful, especially with multiple players.

Doesn't Saruman negate the threat reduction of Galadriel's Handmaiden?

This deck raised a question for me, how does guarded attachments work with the grey wanderer? Can you just equip them or do they become guarded once put into play?

Mar 01, 2020 Some Sort 3493

@Doublecaster Saruman’s ability prevents player cards from reducing his threat by more than 1, but it doesn’t otherwise decrease threat reduction. So The Galadhrim's Greeting drops from -6 threat to -1 threat, while Galadriel’s Handmaiden is unaffected.

Guarded cards that are pulled with Grey Wanderer still trigger and pull a guard, unfortunately.

Mar 01, 2020 Doublecaster 23

@Some SortOh, you are right, I misread the text.