Aragorn Turns to the Dark Side

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Aragorn Turns to the Dark Side 2 2 0 2.0
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estyles 33

estyles has a newer deck inspired by this one: Aragorn Turns to the Dark Side

This started off as a Secrecy + Doomed + Valour deck. The idea being that you start in secrecy and have a lot of room to play Doomed cards, then once you get to 30 you play Pillars of the Kings to get up to 40 and use Valour effects until you're close to threating out, and then you use Aragorn to go back into Secrecy. There's still a bit of that left in the deck, and it's still a threat roller-coaster, but a lot of it came out in testing in favor of just using Lore for card draw and Leadership for resources to get out a bunch of expensive allies. Most of them are unique for Power of Command.

The Grey Wanderer should fetch Song of Kings, because you need the leadership resource and Steward of Gondor as soon as possible. I know Steward of Gondor is a crutch, but it just makes decks work. Strider is important, but it can wait. I tend to ignore the rule that says you do your contract setup after you draw your opening hand, due to the way it interacts with MOtK, but if you observe that rule it can actually benefit you in this deck - if you happen to draw Song of Kings, then you can fetch Strider instead (heck, if you draw both, you could get Dúnedain Pipe or Protector of Lórien).

Legacy of Númenor used to be in, as hilarious as it is to trade 4 threat for 1 resource, but its main use was to avoid using The Grey Wanderer for resources in the first turn planning phase so that I could guarantee using its ready - I found it to not be worth the dead card later.

Currently at 51 cards because I can't quite figure out what to cut - it feels like the 51st card right now is a Daeron's Runes, and since that card is so free (the only drawback is if it's in your top 5 cards when you use Timely Aid or Master of the Forge), I don't think it's worth cutting. With 3 cards coming out during setup, and Daeron's Runes and Deep Knowledge effectively shrinking the deck by 2 cards each, it's more like a 36 card deck, and there's plenty of additional card draw on top of that.

This deck is quicker than most of my decks in terms of getting set up and ready to go, and it's a big train of strong allies once it's in motion. Can get really wrecked by quests that punish large boards. (Though nearly every ally has at least 2 hp, so that helps a little.)

This deck is meant for solo, but unlike most Doomed Decks, it should be able to play okay in groups, since the only Doomed cards are Deep Knowledge and Horns! Horns! Horns!, which benefit everyone. (Oh, and also Steward of Orthanc, but he can be used sparingly.) The other threat increases come from Grey Wanderer and Power of Command and Pillars of the Kings, which only hit yourself. Might be worth including Desperate Alliance if you do play it multiplayer.

7 comments

Mar 05, 2020 doomguard 2121

with gray wanderer u can play the first card per round without res-match. i do not see "this" much importance for the song and would prefer strider. futhermore i think this deck could improve its effectivness by some courage. specially if aragorn gets the brand, saves live of allies. (remember the 1. card u can play without res-match also even the courage) furthermore if you add the celebrian stone aragorn get the spiriticon.

resume i would discard:

  • eldahir
  • blood of numenor
  • gondorian fire (you will pay your res for allies and atachments, not for boosting combat
  • protector of lorien. your carddraw is not as magnificant to have much use of it
  • 2 strider (as mentioned i would choose it at start an be o.k. with playing only 1 not lore-card per round

i would add:

  • inner stength
  • the tactic ring attachement
  • 2-3 courage
  • celebrian stone
  • shield of gondor

Mar 05, 2020 estyles 33

Grey Wanderer cannot play unique cards without a resource match, so the deck definitely doesn't work without Song of Kings - I've tried. If you don't run it, you'd need 3x Good Harvest and swap the unique leadership allies for weaker non-uniques. And you have a much harder time getting more than 3 resources per round - this deck really needs to get up to 5+ resources per round as quick as possible.

Also note you only have room for 1 restricted attachment in addition to the One Ring.

Mar 05, 2020 estyles 33

Unexpected Courage might be worth working in, but 2 "readies" from Strider and Grey Wanderer are already pretty good and late game you have Gandalf and maybe Treebeard to help.

I made the debatable choice of Armored Destrier as a second restricted card for the ready plus shadow discard, but it could easily be Courage instead.

Mar 05, 2020 doomguard 2121

u are right, i forgot the "unique"restrictment. o.k. then (my version) keep 3 striders and leave the ringattachments. i would keep the stone, courage and shield als as the other discards.

Mar 05, 2020 estyles 33

Yeah, I think I agree with you at least in that Unexpected Courage / Gondorian Shield / Inner Strength / Strength and Courage is a better package than Armored Destrier / Gondorian Fire / Blood of Numenor / Protector of Lorien. I'm going to swap those out 4-for-4. Just 1 copy of Courage for the moment, as I'm not sure what else to swap out. Not sold on Celbrian's Stone because I'd rather just have 2 restricted attachments and not make the other a dead card when drawn.

I don't really want to drop an ally for an attachment, partially because of Timely Aid.

Mar 05, 2020 doomguard 2121

the point of ally-density is very understandable.

Mar 06, 2020 Christian_Medic 1053

Nice looks fun!