Deck Tech: Boromir's Two Dads 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all! Welcome to week twelve of Deck Tech! Last week we went incredibly draw and discard heavy with an all Noldor deck built to cycle Lords of the Eldar over and over again. You can check that out here!

This week, as promised, we're going full on Boromir! With the recent release of his dad, he's in better shape than ever before.

The goal is to have at least one Blood of Númenor and Gondorian Fire on Boromir, Steward of Gondor on Boromir, and Denethor's resource flowing in every round. Then Boromir is getting four resources every round to pump into his combat prowess.

And the deck has a few built in resource sinks in case Boromir's total gets way too high. Beorn and Gandalf are both great to pay full price for, or to play with Sneak Attack. (Beorn's end of phase shuffle happens simultaneous with the return to hand from Sneak Attack, so you can choose where he ends up.)

The deck doesn't quest incredibly well, as you'll find out shortly. But you do have three copies of Blade of Gondolin to help ensure you aren't completely location locked. It's better to stick to quests with a lot of combat, in any case.

Speaking of lots of combat, let's go!

Quest 1: Blood of Gondor

Just about the perfect setup here. My opening hand includes Blood and Fire, and my first draw includes a Steward! I've also got Light of Valinor, which is effectively plus two attack and two more restricted slots if I draw all the swords. So, rather than turtle, I intend to just flip up all the hidden cards every round and fight whatever comes up.

Unfortunately, this means threat just keeps going up.

Round three, I play Arwen Undómiel, which means Boromir only has to use his defense boost for significant threats. Like the Black Numenorean, who Boromir smashes by himself.

Which puts us onto the final stage of the quest, and Boromir battle quests for 13, which is just a little short of clearing the quest this round. But that does give me a chance to drop in Gandalf and lower my threat before doing it again next round.

Final score: 65. 4 full rounds, 31 threat, 0 damage, 6 vp.

Quest 2: The Three Trials

The last quest was too easy, and I want to fight some more bosses. (And don't want to deal with The Master's Malice in Morgul Vale...) So Three Trials it is!

Again I start with Steward, Blood, and Fire in my opening hand. And two copies of Foe-hammer for good measure. I choose the combat stage first, and have to kill the Wolf Guardian to get his key. I plan to turtle with Boromir for a few rounds to build up enough attack strength to one-shot the Guardian.

Round two I play two copies of Dúnedain Hunter and only manage to keep one of them. And Round three sees Boromir get a Blade of Gondolin and his Gondorian Shield. Just in time for shadow chains to make the Guardian attack three times.

Round four I clear out the active location and Boromir chops the guardian in half. Cirdan claims the key, because why not.

The next stage is Perseverance, which forces me to clear out the active location. I draw the Stone Barrow, which takes 10 progress and raises my threat by the Guardian's threat whenever it attacks. And I get the Raven's Guardian, who has three threat. Crap.

Round five I dump all of my threat reduction. An Elrond's Counsel and Favor of the Valar, traveling to the Barrow. The Guardian attacks twice, but I haven't yet capped out.

Round six I play Gandalf, using a few of Boromir's precious resources, and that lets me clear the active location and move on before my threat has to go up again.

Stage three is basically hide and seek with the key, but you can kill the guardian. He makes two attacks that each eat up four or five shadow cards, bringing us closer and closer to the key (thankfully). But I decide to dispatch him with Boromir to control my threat a little bit.

By round nine, I haven't found the key yet, and I'm even questing with Boromir to try and get there a little bit faster. I do find the key, which respawns all three guardians at the same time. Boromir can kill them, and he does, but it costs me my Favor of the Valar and I end the round at 47 threat.

So I start using the Rod of the Steward to draw cards, and luckily get a couple of Sneak Attacks and a Gandalf. Which let me drop my threat pretty heavily before I clear out the quest. (I had to kill two more guardians thanks to The Guardian's Fury, but one at a time isn't so bad.)

Final score: 125. 11 full rounds, 35 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 20 vp.

Quest 3: The Watcher in the Water

I took a run at this quest with a different deck recently, and completely failed (Couldn't open the doors), so this is my chance for revenge.

But I'm going to have to work for it. I open with none of the Boromir attachments, and mulligan into a hand that still has none of them.

But my first draw includes a Blood, and I know we're going to need it to tank tentacles. So I play the Blood on Boromir, pass him a resource with Denethor, and use an Envoy of Pelargir to give Boromir a third resource for the round. Our first tentacle is a Thrashing Tentacle, and I just take the hit and leave it alone. I kill my own guys way too often against those.

Round two I draw a fire, and pass over another resource from Denethor. I get a Grasping Tentacle this round, and intentionally feed it the Envoy. Boromir wouldn't even be bad, because Blood and Fire boost his stats so much, but we don't quite have enough resources to be cocky about that yet.

Next round I intentionally pull a tentacle out with the Dunedain Hunter, and this time we manage to kill a Grasping Tentacle. I decide to finally try and kill the Thrashing Tentacle because it's causing too much threat, and I fail.

Boromir's zeal to cut the Envoy free just kills it instead.

Round four sees a Sneak Attack, which will help lower my threat, and a Blade of Gondolin so I can play the Foe-hammer I've been sitting on. Unfortunately, the only enemy is that Thrashing Tentacle...

So I use Sneak Attack with Gandalf in the combat phase to lower my threat, and give me an HP buffer in case Boromir misses the tentacle again. Which he doesn't. (Fucking finally.)

Round six I quest past the first stage, with a Knees of the Mountain in play to buff up the Watcher. Oops. I try to open the doors with Beorn, Gondorian Fire, and a Rod, but we miss. I do manage to get 7 damage on the Watcher, though.

Round seven I draw a Steward! But discard it, because I only have one Leadership resource, and we're about to win. I Sneak Attack Gandalf in the resource phase to lower my threat, and then pay five for Gandalf in the planning phase to kill the Watcher. We quest with everyone for a whopping 16 and finish the quest.

Final score: 93. 6 full rounds, 36 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 3 vp.

Play Tips

1. Boromir gets all the resources. However you can, you want to load him up. Once you get above seven or eight, you can think about spending some.
2. Captain's Wisdom is a good include, but it wasn't out yet when I was testing. One threat and one card for two resources ramps up Boromir's rampage pretty fast.
3. You will want to play Gandalf to draw cards, but you shouldn't. The deck draws slowly, but threat is a much bigger concern.
4. If you can, let Favor of the Valar pop on a big doomed card, or a big failed quest. Raising your threat by one with Boromir and then reducing it to 45 isn't that amazing, but if you go up above 50 and then back down to 45, you're in good shape.

Next week: Unclear for now, you'll just have to wait and see. I've got to get around to The Thing in The Depths eventually, though.

Blog: As always, you can follow the deck posts on the blog and follow along via RSS. I've started to include the deck list on the blog, and I'm working on making sure the RSS feed is formatted a little bit nicer.