Gondorian Support to the staging area 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck can be played alongside my latest deck which deals with enemies in the staging area: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/1735/killing-in-the-staging-area-1.0#

This deck will allow both decks to keep each enemy in the staging area and destroy it there. This deck supports that by laying down traps and by defending for both players with Beregond.

Beregond is possibly the first Hero when you think about a Sentinel defender, and you'd be right, he is a very capable defender in this case. Play down a Raven-winged Helm, Gondorian Shield and a Spear of the Citadel on him for free to make sure nothing gets past him. Also make sure to add a Song of Wisdom and A Burning Brand to him to discard any shadow cards dealt to enemies. To make him able to defend multiple times against certain larger enemies, play a Behind Strong Walls to boost his to 7 or higher.

The remaining heroes are to let you play traps in the staging area for less with Damrod and to destroy the enemies with Faramir and another Great Yew Bow. Note that the other deck also includes some Bows so that they can be played between the two players. Once traps have been found using Master of the Forge, you can play them at a 1 resource discount thanks to Damrod and you get to draw a card whenever a trap hits. When the enemy in the trap has died thanks to various combos, Anborn will let you take that trap back to your hand.

Have an enemy engaged with you but you don't want it to be engaged with you? Don't worry, Ithilien Archer is here to help. You could also first play a Forest Snare on the enemy in case you don't want it to attack again.

This deck will also allow you to drop in a Rúmil who can deal a lot of direct damage to enemies not engaged with you (i.e. in the staging area.). You could also shift that damage from an enemy that has been damaged a lot thanks to a Poisoned Stakes to a enemy that has just been revealed with Infighting. If you played Expecting Mischief that turn, that enemy should also be damaged for two points which can lead to it being killed before it even set foot into the staging area.

The two decks should be paired with a Location Control deck perhaps http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/10958 which makes use of the Scout trait and the new Lanwyn hero who is also able to use a Great Yew Bow. Although this deck would work, it will cause a bit of trouble with the unique copies of certain cards.