Frodo will go to Gondor (and maybe brings his ring) 1.0

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• 1.0

Haven't seen a mono-Leadership Gondor Valour deck on this site so far, so I thought I'd share mine.

This deck was built on the foundations of the regular Gondor Swarm deck, but with the next packs releasing cards for Gondor that gives you extra's for being at 40 threat or higher, I decided to mash the two archetypes together to build this deck.

The hero lineup is pretty common for Gondor decks, with Boromir and Denethor buffing Gondor allies and providing you with plenty of starting resources to get your engine going. They also fill the attacker and defender roll in the starting lineup. Denethor does not receive any boosts to his defence in the form of attachments, but you can give him Armored Destrier to ready and discard shadow cards if you are defending multiple enemies. You can also use some of your allies after a few rounds. Veteran of Osgiliath and Knight of the White Tower are pretty capable defenders. You can boost defence somewhat with For Gondor!. Since nearly all allies in the deck are Gondor traited, they receive both a +1 to attack, and +1 to defence at the cost of 2 resources. This can be worth stacking with Boromir's +1 , but if you don't have the resources on him, then the event will still help with killing enemies.

The other hero in this lineup is Frodo Baggins from the latest Deluxe box. I included this version of Frodo as he can stabilize your threat with his ability and can ready other characters that are questing. This can be useful to ready characters like the Knight of the White Tower, who has decent willpower, but also solid stats elsewhere. You do have to quest successfully, but with Visionary Leadership and an army of allies, that shouldn't be too difficult.

The deck runs a couple of Valour cards to help you on several fronts. If you are becoming overwhelmed by enemies, then Doom Hangs Still is a great card to stall for a turn. You won't have to quest and in valour won't even reveal new encounter cards. I have also found that Rallying Cry has its moments if you are about to lose a few allies. Gondor allies aren't the sturdiest, and with a lack of access, retrieving them will be hard. But if you save the resources for this event, you can return defeated allies to your hand. Need Drives Them is also nice as an extra readying ability, but I prefer Strength of Arms. Sure, Need Drives Them will ready heroes too, but in this deck, the heroes rarely quest or are exhausted before you would want to ready all characters. It is a cheaper version of Grim Resolve, so I included it just to have more action advantage.

I found during testing that card draw was the main bottleneck. So between Gandalf (who is mainly in the deck for threat reduction in big steps), Rod of the Steward, Valiant Sacrifice, Soldier of Gondor, and Pillars of the Kings, you should be able to have enough options in your hand. Resources are not often a problem if you can get out Steward of Gondor early on, which is a good fit on Boromir or Frodo. I prefer Boromir, but if you want Frodo to get the Gondor trait as well, then he is a decent target. Remember that you can still move resources around with Denethor, Pelargir Ship Captain, and Envoy of Pelargir.

I have included the One Ring in the sideboard of this deck, since it can work thematically if you run it together with some copies of Favor of the Valar. Since your elimination level is at 45, and the bulk of this deck revolves around Valour, you have a very narrow margin of error. I would love to add some Spirit to that deck, but that would change the entire decklist, so I will wait with that.

As it stands now, this deck has beaten some quests in solo. It has good willpower if you can get Visionary Leadership early and can defend and attack really well. The main thing you want to look for besides your attachments is Pillars of the Kings, as that will draw you more cards and will get you to 40 threat, which activates a bunch of abilities. The lack of other spheres does hurt in this deck's ability to heal, so it will do better in multiplayer games.