Deck Tech: Lords of Middle Earth 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week thirteen of Deck Tech! Last week we did a lot of fighting with a souped up Boromir courtesy of the power boost he gets from his father, Denethor. You can check that out here!

And this week we're going to play another powerful archetype that benefits from Denethor's absurd starting resource bonus. Yes, that's right, I'm playing a Gandalf Elrond deck. Go ahead and shuffle up the cards and flip the whole thing upside down.

With the ease of getting a Steward of Gondor in play, and Elrond's ability to pay for any allies, I decided to go with the Outlands suite of allies, combined with a few excellent top heavy targets once Vilya is in play, or if you somehow manage to run out of cheap allies.

And yes, the threat is pretty high, but you start with three reasonably good defenders in play, and have Elrond to heal them up if they get wounded. So early engagements aren't too big of a problem unless you get a huge flood.

So let's quest some quests.

Quest 1: The Thing in the Depths

Last week we played The Watcher in the Water, and the new quest is an awesome new take on that model, so let's go for it.

Round one I start with a Steward on Elrond. From hand, I play an Ethir Swordsman and an Anfalas Herdsman, plus a Warrior of Lossarnach from the top of the deck. Five extra willpower turn one isn't too shabby.

From there we roll along the Outlands allies pretty effectively, though Forlong dies to a cruel shadow effect. Doing extra damage to targets without resources on them is harsh for allies.

I don't travel to the Helm of the Stormcaller until turn six, which means Na'asiyah and Captain Sahir are out for blood, but I've built up pretty well. They kill a few non-Outlands allies, which is only a small loss. I swing back as hard as I can to remove resources, and then over-quest the following round just in case.

Which proves to be enough, and attracts the attentions of the Thing. I dump a resource on Na'asiyah, now that she's friendly. And I avoid traveling because my questing has left me very vulnerable to attacks.

From here on out it's pretty easy, because there aren't that many tentacles in the deck, and all the allies have very strong combat potential once you get to the late game. It takes about six more rounds to find enough tentacles and eyes to kill the beast.

Final score: 143. 12 full rounds, 38 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 15 vp.

Quest 2: Into Fangorn

Last time around, my allies were very combat heavy, so I figured I'd try my hand at chopping down some trees. This time around we got a very quest heavy draw, and cleared out the forest pretty fast.

Round one, my mulligan gets me Steward, Vilya, Cram for Elrond, and a Wizard Pipe. I end up playing out most of my hand, and setting up a Gimli to be played via Vilya.

Round two I play two Ethir Swordsmen, and we power quest through the location hiding Mugash. I was down an extra time counter, thanks to a treachery, so I wanted to get through ASAP.

Round three gets Galadriel, who brings a Light of Valinor for Elrond, and I find the third Ethir Swordsman. Low on Provisions does a ton of damage, but I can put some on Galadriel, and I have a Warden of Healing to help clear up the damage on the heroes.

And round four sees a Deadly Huorn destroy Arwen, but we still quest for 24 to clear the final stage.

Not quite how I meant for this to go, but I won't complain about good luck!

Final score: 69. 3 full rounds, 40 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 1 vp.

Quest 3: Fords of Isen

This time around, we don't end up with a Steward. So I play a Galadriel and hope, but she sees only allies. So I put Gimli on top of the deck for Vilya, and set up some Outlands next to each other for the Hunter of Lamedon to chain draw.

I do play an Expert Treasure-hunter, but don't trigger it when we quest successfully, because I forgot to account for that draw when setting up my Gimli play.

I start dumping the Outlands allies I've drawn, and reveal a Treebeard to Vilya into play this time. Unfortunately my hand is still pretty big when we flip a Dunland Chieftain, so we're engaged with two enemies. I don't have the combat strength to kill any of them yet, so the deck is in defense mode. Denethor takes a big attack, and luckily survives with 1 hp left.

Round three I draw a copy of Steward, which helps me start dumping the cards out of my hand. And we get even more enemies as we move into stage two.

I'm not actually able to kill any of them until round five, and I keep using whatever allies I can to hold off the offensive. I don't have any healers, either. And in round six I shuffle around to play two Ethir Swordsmen and Vilya a Knights of the Swan into play after questing. So now we're in great shape.

After that, I use Galadriel to attempt to pull some healing to the top of my deck, but I don't find any. So I just quest through the final stage with the hero damage I have on the board. Luckily I don't reveal a new enemy, so I can clean up the last one engaged with me and win the quest.

Final score: 104. 6 full rounds, 38 threat, 7 damage on heroes, 1 vp.

Play Tips:

1. I had a few good rounds where I revealed a great card for Vilya after questing with Expert Treasure-hunter in play. So don't be too hasty to use it, unless the top card is a huge bomb.
2. Vilya is half in the deck as an acceleration tool, and half in the deck to give Elrond a spirit resource. But with his hero ability, Gandalf's ability, and Galadriel's free attachment, you can get by without it.
3. Warden of Healing is incredibly important, since you'll probably end up taking a decent amount of damage on your heroes.
4. Galadriel is a better chance to see Steward of Gondor in your opening hand. If you don't get Steward in your mulligan, you might see a Galadriel to fish for it. No guarantees it's going to work, though.
5. The deck is fast, thanks to Denethor's resource boost, but it's not lightning fast. In exchange, you get great access to expensive non-Leadership, non-Outlands allies, thanks to Elrond, Steward, and Vilya.

Next Week: I've got a Silvan/Rohan build kicking around in the private deckbox, and an Amarthiul deck with the new Raiment of War. It's probably going to be one of those.

Blog: As always, you can follow the deck posts on the blog or via the RSS feed.