The Council of Power 4.0

• Versions
• 4.0
• 3.0
• 1.0

There it is. 40 starting threat and the first published Elrond-Gandalf-Treebeard line-up. Achievement unlocked. Now, is the deck any good? I'm still tweaking it, but I love it. I just love Gandalf decks and I skipped the Vilyadeck meta back in the day, so I've some catching up to do and it only got stronger.

GET starts off at a bit of a slow pace and with 40 starting threat, that can be a bit problematic. Ideally you want to play this in 2/3 player with one or two decks that can help you in the early stages, especially turn 1 and 2. This is not to say that it can't handle itself, but it can grow stronger way quicker.

Now to the strategy. This deck revolves around Vilya putting out strong allies and buffing them even more with Narya. Keycards are: Vilya, Wizard Pipe, Elrond's Counsel and Unexpected Courage.

The heroes are really powerfull: making use of them is a bit tricky, especially with the rings. That's why I included Unexpected Courage and Light of Valinor. LoV to go on Elrond and let him quest for days and after commiting, use Vilya. Gandalf gets two Unexpected Courages and Treebeard or Elrond also 1. If you draw into Shadowfax early, give that to Gandalf, so you can place maybe one UC on Elrond. Elrond is there mostly for questing, but if you don't have Gildor out yet, he is a good defender with Burning Brand. Treebeard is just versatile for a big quest push or for attacking. You can also opt to put A Burning Brand on Treebeard and defend with him. That way, 1 UC or LoV on Elrond is enough and you can put the rest on Treebeard, since Treebeard is easier to heal with Wellinghall Preserver around.

I wanted to make use of Elf-friend and then Silvan Trackers to heal Treebeard and Gandalf or Elrond. There is also Ent Draught for pseudo-healing.

40 threat is just 10 away from death, so you want to get threatreduction as soon as possible. Elrond's Council, The Galadhrim's Greeting and Favor of the Valar are there to help you, as is Double Back. Elrond's Council ideally in starting hand, so you have something for staging if a treachery puts you into the grave danger zone.

For carddraw you have the super powerfull Word of Command and also a good draw card in Gandalf decks is Expert Treasure-hunter. Since you will always see the top card of your deck, it's a guaranteed draw. Put one on Elrond and the second one on Treebeard and you'll be drawing two cards a turn. (There is also a fun combo with Hidden Cache I did not put in the deck. With Expert Treasure Hunter you always discard the top card and then put it in your hand. So, if Hidden Cache is on top of your deck, you could just guess event. This activates HC and gains you two resources. HC returns to your hand and with Wizard's Pipe you can put it right up there next turn, so you can repeat the same trick with Treasure Hunter again and again.) Then there are some other cards that are just bonus. I am thinking about putting in more strong allies and just go beyond 50/51 cards, because once the deck gets rolling you run out of fuel in no time. Expert TH is a beast in drawing and your deck shrinks as well with Gandalfs ability.

Update: So, I noticed that Light of Valinor is of course unique and thus a combo with Elf-friend and LoV for Gandalf is not there. I opted to remove Elf-friend and Silvan Tracker. Put in Warden of Healing and Lembas. Also added Wellinghal Preserver for Treebeard in this version. I removed two copies of LoV. I might remove the Wellinghall Preserver and add two other strong Ents.

Update 3.0: After some new releases, I added in some fresh cards, more powercards and removed a bit of inconsistency. Removed the preservers, heed the dream and Azain. (no Tactics hero to pay for his ability anyway). Added a second Beorn and Glorfindel and Veteran of Osgiliath. Starting at 40 threat, why not?