Against the Shadow - Assault on Osgiliath (Outlands) 4.0

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Assault on Osgiliath

• +2 Strength of Will
• +3 Men of the West
• -2 Hasty Stroke
• -3 A Good Harvest

Placing a priority on winning this quest early, so Strength of Will could be really strong, especially if we can get Light of Valinor on Glorfindel early. On the off chance this goes to the mid-late game, there's lots of archery effects and a particularly nasty treachery card (The Master's Malice) that could do lots of damage to our allies, so Men of the West is good to have in the back pocket for that occasion. Resource smoothing hasn't been that big of an issue for this deck since (i) the resource curve is quite low and (ii) Hirluin the Fair already has smoothing built in to his ability for allies.

Encounter at Amon Din

• +2 Blood of Númenor
• -2 Protector of Lórien

This encounter doesn't target resources like the last one did, so add Blood of Númenor back in for defense boost because it's simply better than Protector of Lórien. This does risk dead cards in hand due to the number of unique cards with 2x or 3x in the deck, but the trade-off is worth it, I think.

Drúadan Forest

• +3 Ancient Mathom

• +3 Imladris Stargazer

• +3 Hunter of Lamedon

• +1 A Good Harvest

• +1 Forlong

• −2 Miner of the Iron Hills

• −2 Gléowine

• −2 Master of the Forge

• −2 Blood of Númenor

• −3 Ranger Spikes

• Added Ancient Mathom for card draw because there are a good number of location targets. Removed Gléowine.

• Removed Miner of the Iron Hills because there are no condition attachments to worry about.

• Removed Master of the Forge and replaced with Imladris Stargazer who serves a similar purpose to fish for attachments, but can also combo with Hunter of Lamedon.

• Added an extra A Good Harvest for resource smoothing and to potentially work around this encounter's tendency to drain resources (Prowl, other card effects that take resources or require resources to avoid damage).

Deck Concept

Premise of the deck is pretty straightforward: get a swarm of outlands allies who buff each other and Hirluin the Fair to overpower the encounter deck. Hero strategies for the deck:

• Get as many uses of Aragorn as possible. Ideally, he'll get A Burning Brand and Blood of Númenor or Protector of Lórien to be a stud defender. Pair these with smart use of Cram to defend multiple enemies as necessary, quest and then ready if defense is required, or attack.
• Asfaloth plus Light of Valinor on Glorfindel to mitigate his forced effect and make quick work of locations and have available to attack.
• Hirluin the Fair is kind of worthless in the beginning, but can become pretty well rounded quickly due to his ability to pay for allies of any sphere. There are lots of outlands allies, so within a few turns it's reasonable to expect his stats to be buffed. Most useful early game allies for him are Ethir Swordsman (lots of focus on clearing locations in this encounter) and Anfalas Herdsman (1hp is a huge liability for outlands allies due to Zealous Traitor).

Other support cards worth noting:

• Protector of Lórien: Useful for any of the heroes depending on how the scenario is going. There are a number of unique cards with multiples in this deck and this serves as a way to make them useful if they get stuck in hand with one already in play.
• A Good Harvest: Hirluin the Fair should be able to get Knights of the Swan out with no problem, but this card will assist, especially if it's necessary to get multiple allies out in one turn. In addition, the deck is light on spirit cards, so this provides a way to smooth resources if Glorfindel starts to stockpile them.

Other notes:

• Hirluin the Fair has pretty crappy stats to start the game. As noted above, most of the time it should be pretty easy to buff a couple of stats within a few turns. One reasonable approach is to simply quest with him or no heroes for the first few turns and hold back Aragorn and Glorfindel to deal with any enemies that might crop up. Aragorn ability makes the threat increase trivial, especially given the deck's low starting threat. This provides a window where the deck isn't hampered by Hirluin the Fair's crappy stat line. This approach goes out the window if the encounter deck turns over locations and Asfaloth is not on the board.
• Cards that are useful, but not critical to the deck's success (candidates for swapping based on encounter tech choices):
  • Ranger Spikes: Generally, this deck shouldn't have to tiptoe around enemies, but this can be useful in a pinch. Definitely a tech choice.
  • Steward of Gondor: The deck is pretty cheap overall with the vast majority of cards costing between 0-2 resources.
  • Miner of the Iron Hills: Include based on condition attachments for the encounter. The Steward's Fear has Local Trouble, which is pretty nasty. Swap out if the condition attachments are less aggressive or absent.
  • Master of the Forge: Nice card to help fish for Asfaloth, Light of Valinor, and Blood of Númenor, primarily. An alternative would be Imladris Stargazer, which would combo nicely with Hunter of Lamedon. Could be an interesting pairing when Miner of the Iron Hills isn't necessary.
  • Protector of Lórien: Useful for getting rid of excess unique cards in hand, but there aren't that many in the deck overall. The defensive bonus overlaps with the cheaper Blood of Númenor and having an outlands ally swarm will provide lots of willpower for questing.
  • Gléowine: The only source of card draw in the deck, so it'd be the last one to swap out IMO.