Deck Tech: The Steward Vacations Alone 1.0

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Hey all, welcome to a special vacation edition of Deck Tech!

I ran out of time to get three weeks of decks ready and written up before leaving on my trip. (The decks are done, but testing and writing always take more time than I expect.)

So instead I'm going to post this silly little deck I've been working on as a bit of a joke. It's not completely without legs, though.

Quest 1: Passage Through Mirkwood

I mulligan this one, and start with a Steward and a couple of quick allies. My hand also has two copies of Valiant Sacrifice, so I should draw pretty easily when I have to chump. Which I set up for the first round by traveling to the Old Forest Road and engaging the spider.

Round two I play a Longbeard Elder to start ramping up my questing. Round three I don't play anything, to get up to more expensive cards for the following round. Though I'm forced to Sneak Attack in a defender when Denethor is exhausted by a King Spider.

Round four, Treebeard, and everything stays pretty static. Round five we finally get a Captain's Wisdom and ramp up a little bit. That round also sees Gimli enter play, and a Forest Gate gets me some free cards.

Round six turns into a huge one. I start with another Captain's Wisdom, and a Rod of the Steward. Then we use 7 resources to play out an Eldahir and another Longbeard Elder. This round I also clear out the spider engaged with me.

Then I play two We Are Not Idle, generate three resources, and draw... a pointless extra Steward of Gondor. So I play a Galadriel to help fix the next few draws to be a bit better.

Round eight gets me my first Squire of the Citadel, who lets me pull and kill Chieftain Ufthak. Then on round nine, A Very Good Tale gets me Gandalf and another Envoy of Pelargir. Gandalf leaving at the end of the round also lets me draw with another Valiant Sacrifice.

Round ten, A Very Good Tale gets me Erestor and Faramir. And round eleven sees me finally above the secrecy threshold, after playing all three Scouts. So I use A Very Good Tale to get a Gandalf and a Squire. And then I use the remaining resources on Denethor to draw out my deck and play an Envoy and the final Squire. Gandalf's enters play ability gets me the victory points for the Hummerhorns.

Stage three forces me to kill Ungoliant Spawn, which I do pretty easily thanks to a Squire chump.

Final score: 112. 10 full rounds, 21 threat, 9 vp, 0 damage on heroes.

Play Tips:

1. Mulligan incredibly hard for Steward of Gondor. The extra resources you start with aren't going to go very far without it.
2. Draw is king, so you'll probably always want to use Gandalf for that, especially if you're using a Sneak Attack.
3. Galadriel can fetch a missing attachment, so she's a great turn one play if you missed the Steward. And then you can plan your next few draws.
4. Don't feel bad about missing the quest in round one if you have a Captain's Wisdom. Denethor's one willpower is only going to cost you one threat, and the resources are incredibly useful.
5. With such a low starting threat, Saruman is a pretty useful tool. Use him to knock out the highest threat card in the staging area and then he can quest for three, giving him a ton of effective willpower. There are some other tricky uses, too, but those are very game state specific.

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