Beorn Dredge 1.0

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• 1.0

My latest creation, tested both in solo and multiplayer. Has been pretty heavily optimised for maximum synergy in the deck.

What’s the deck about? It’s a dredge deck, looking to put as many cards as possible into your discard pile to basically use our discard pile as an extension of our hand, making use of various payoffs that trigger off discard pile. It basically means the majority of our deck is filled with enablers (cards that actually let us use this strategy, like Dáin Ironfoot) and payoffs, cards that reward us for our weird playstyle of putting everything into the trash bin, like Caldara.

Our enablers:

Dáin Ironfoot – our main enabler. Even when defending against a 2 attack enemy with no shadow effect, 99% of the time discarding 3 cards is the correct answer.

Emery – one of the best cards in the deck. Discarding three cards for free and most of the time gaining a free ally is fantastic. And if you hit a tactics card with her it means you’re getting closer to Beorn combo, which is something i wouldn’t really complain about.

Arwen Undómiel– discarding a single card from your hand can mean setting up an impactful Caldara, and this deck will need resources, so Arwen was an easy slot.

Glorfindel – another discard enabler, we’ll be using him every round for the stats, unless we’re playing a very dull quest.

I’ve tried versions with more enablers, but found that discarding around 4 cards a round was solid enough. We’ll be getting through around 6 cards a round with added draw.

Our Payoffs:

Ered Luin Miner – he might seem like a small bonus, but if you get it for free from Dain or Emery, it either means a free quester or a chump block. Added flexibility of another ally on the board is worth his inclusion, and you’ll almost always get at least one of those for free.

Glorfindel – he’s technically also payoff, but most of the time he just gets summoned with Caldara.

Knight of Belfalas – they can get you the discarded Prince Imrahil you need for the combo or they can get you Emery back. When i’m in dire need of chump blocks, what i like to do is to chump block with emery, summon those guys with Stand and Fight, and summon emery again with her action.

Sailor of Lune – rewards us for keeping those elven-lights on top. Only 1 copy, but he’s suprisingly useful.

Dwarven Tomb – added flexibility of being able to get ANYTHING back is worth 1 resource. One of the cards worth mulliganing for. In this deck in the lategame, this is basically „search your deck for a card and add it to your hand”, which is excellent. The reason this deck can exist. Can get you lost combo pieces, events you need and combos with Map of Earnil into a nice infinite loop when your deck is fully on discard pile, so you can keep recasting Stand and Fight, Test of Will’s and Galadhrim’s Greetings.

Stand and Fight – another top card in the deck. It’s main use is to summon Beorning Skin-changer, quest with him and switch him with beorn in combat phase. If you get this early, your combat potential is off the charts. This combination was so useful for me, that i decided to name the entire deck off it.

Map of Earnil – combo piece for infinite dwarven tomb potential.

Other pieces:

Gandalf – he’s your get out of jail card. I don’t play him every game, but when i do, he saves my ass. He will often end up discarded with you having no way of reccuring him, and you have to live with that.

Beorn and Beorning Skin-changer – mentioned them already in Stand and Fight section, they are an incredible tempo play and funnily enough, the combo is smoother here than in tactics-heavy beorning decks that lack card draw.

Jubayr, Northern Tracker, Pelargir Shipwright – your Caldara allies. Don’t use Caldara without summoning Jubayr.

Prince Imrahil – the oldest trick in the book to make Caldara summon three allies and you get a better hero afterwards. Ensure getting him with Knights of Belfalas, Stand and Fight or Dwarven Tomb.

Wild Stallion – attach to Jubayr to get to 4 defense. The second one goes to Glorfindel for his dual actions.

The One Ring & Inner Strength – your defense system, makes Dain almost invincible against bigger enemies. This means we don’t have to rely on Jubayr as heavily and we let Dain take the bosses on.

The Galadhrim's Greeting – almost every deck needs a threat reduction access (especially one ring decks), this is our way of doing so.

Mulligan Guide:

If you’re playing against a scenario where you really need to get set up quickly or die: Mulligan for: Prince Imrahil, Emery, Jubayr. If you get Imrahil, you can discard an ally, play him with all your resources, and after you defend with dain, hopefully get another 1 or 2 allies to play with Caldara. If you’re struggling for tempo, it can get you some solid swing.

If you’re playing against a scenario in which you can get set up without fighting for your life from the first round: Mulligan for: Elven Light, Dwarven Tomb, Prince Imrahil, Stand and Fight, Emery. With some support of recursion cards, you will get all your pieces by discarding them sooner or later, and you will be able to set up more controllable turns that way and get your Elven Light economy going sooner.

Sideboard guide:

In very combat-heavy scenarios, you probably need to add 3 copies of unexpected courage from sideboard and mulligan for them. Elwing’s Flight is a very fun option that got cut in favor of efficency, but if you’re playing against more standard quest, i reccomend it for the fun value. Magic Ring is sideboarded in against archery quests. It doesn’t do much, but it’s better than nothing. We can’t afford more stand and fight targets, so healers are out of equation.

Some final thoughts:

The deck is at its best in multiplayer with a lore player on the table. A trap deck is perfect companion if they have wardens of healing.

The deck can shine both at combat and questing, but if encounter really spams both locations and enemies, the deck can fall short of managing both at once, so a dedicated questing OR combat deck allow you to specialise better on the board.

Have defeated some nightmares and harder quests on solo on this one as well, so it’s not like it’s multiplayer only.

Hope you enjoyed my write-up and have fun!