Deck Tech: Lords of the Eldar 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 11 of Deck Tech! Last week we used Galadriel and the discarding Noldor tricks to draw way too many cards and recycle Sneak Attack too many times! You can check out the Snake Attack build here.

This week instead we're attempting to draw all the cards incredibly quickly and start recycling Lords of the Eldar to buff up all of the allies. Astute observers will note that there isn't even a Gandalf in the build, because he's not a Noldor!

Basic strategy is to use Galdor of the Havens's mulligan ability to discard everything that isn't essential or card draw, hoping to get a first turn Steward of Gondor on Arwen Undómiel. Once you get Song of Travel on both of the lore heroes, too, you can generate 6 spirit resources per round to play Lords of the Eldar twice.

Which only 100% works out in one of the following games, but that's okay! Let's see how we did.

Quest 1: Foundations of Stone

I start off ditching five cards to Galdor's ability here, and in the replacement hand I get two Deep Knowledge. That knowledge let me draw into a Steward of Gondor for Arwen and To the Sea, to the Sea! to use up some of the extra cards.

In the second round, I cheat in an Elven Jeweler and drop my threat with Elrond's Counsel. Then, with an empty hand, I draw six using Galdor's ability. Those six include Gildor Inglorion and two other little Noldor allies I can play.

Round four sees me discarding Glorfindel to help pay for himself, and in round five the deck runs out. That's also the same round we move past the collapsing floor, drawing The Endless Caves for my new quest phase.

So we quest hard to get out! I screwed up in the last round, and can only play Lords of the Eldar once on round six. But playing it once on round six means I can play it twice in round seven.

And then disaster strikes! Lost and Alone shuffles Erestor back into my deck, costing me his spirit icon, which will keep us from endlessly double cycling Lords of the Eldar. I do have a spare resource on Arwen, though, so we play it twice more on round eight and quest out.

Final score: 105. 7 full rounds, 35 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 2: The Hunt For Gollum

Haven't played this one in a while, and I'm hopeful that I can find a few clues and relatively few Hunters.

Once again, I start off with a Steward of Gondor and To the Sea, to the Sea! in my first round, which really kicks the deck off.

I get a Glorfindel on round two this game, and a fairly consistent stream of small Noldor to fight the location flood. Round four I find a clue, and round six sees me fight and kill a Hunter from Mordor after a huge surge chain.

In round seven, I'm on the last stage with a clue in hand. And I have a lot of resources built up from previous rounds. So I decide to play Lords of the Eldar as many times as possible in one round.

I play it twice to put both copies on the bottom of the deck, then use two Elven-light to draw both copies again. I quest with two Lindon Navigator to put both Lords of the Eldar back in the discard pile, and play them both again. And I was one resource short of being able to draw and play another one.

Questing for 54 definitely puts us past the final stage.

Final score: 93. 6 full rounds, 33 threat, 0 damage, 0 vp.

Quest 3: The Long Dark

A slightly different start this time. I get the Steward of Gondor, a Song of Travel and a Light of Valinor for Erestor. Plus a Lindon Navigator for a bit of early willpower. The encounter deck only spits out easy locations, even with the bonus threat they get from the first quest phase.

Round two I get a To the Sea, to the Sea! and Glorfindel, and I trigger Galdor's draw six. Branching Paths once again reveals a treacery that does nothing once questing is resolved. And in round three, I clear stage one.

And completely fail the locate test on stage two, since my hand is empty! That test reveals a Zigil Mineshaft, so I just raise my threat by five to clear it out.

Round four I have just a few too many cards left in my deck, so I dig as much as possible for the second copy of Lords of the Eldar. I don't get it, but there are only four cards left in my deck, so I would have had it the following turn.

Playing the one I have lets me quest for 28 and win the quest.

Final score: 63. 3 full rounds, 33 threat, 0 damage, 0 vp.

Play Tips:

1. The only really essential cards to save in your mulligan are Steward of Gondor, Song of Travel, A Good Harvest, and anything that draws more cards. Everything else can be tossed to dig deeper.
2. Glorfindel can be discarded while you're using To the Sea, to the Sea! and he discounts himself.
3. Glorfindel and the Guardians of Rivendell give the deck a decent amount of combat potential, but it's not all that great. Quest with heavy attrition or direct damage can wear out the few allies you get to play before the end of the game.
4. Go fast. Your allies have built in action advantage and will have incredible stats once you run your deck out, so you want to get there quickly.
5. Play Lords of the Eldar early if you have spare resources. It helps push progress through and gives you much more useful combat stats.
6. Don't forget Galdor's draw six ability. I'm pretty sure I did against The Hunt For Gollum, and it's noticeably slower to clear out the draw deck. Especially when the games are over in less than ten rounds.

Next week: I completely sell out and finally play Boromir, Blood, and Fire. But at least the deck has more than it's fair share of epic beards!

Blog: As always, you can follow the deck posts on the blog and follow along via RSS. I'm also experimenting with ways to include the actual deck list on the blog posts now, so the RSS Feed will be more useful in the future.