Denethor Seizes the Ring and Blitzes an Army

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Galdor and the Knights of the Ring 17 10 13 1.0
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Bring them in early 0 0 1 1.0
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Imrahil13 1254

A Timely Aid / A Very Good Tale exploit deck.

The goal here is to get as many big cost allies into play as possible on your first round. The deck is effectively only 47 cards, since Ioreth, The One Ring, and The Ruling Ring all get pulled (note -- I play with Set-Up effects in Step 2, though recognize this is a contentious issue currently--if you want to play them in Step 7 add a second copy of Ioreth) and draws 10 cards to start the first round. WIth Ioreth being Gondor, she can benefit from Denethor's passed Resource or Wealth of Gondor as well, which is situationally useful.

The deck starts in Secrecy so can play Timely Aid for only 1 Resource. Denethor can also play two copies of Captain's Wisdom in your first planning phase, since he can use The Ring of Power to ready and still remain in secrecy. This lets him often have 7-10 resources to work with in his first round. The deck also features substantial card draw in the form of Daeron's Runes, We Are Not Idle, Drinking Song, and Heed the Dream. Thanks to Denethor's pile of Resources, you can often afford to pay the 3 on Heed to fetch Timely Aid or A Very Good Tale or Drinking Song (if your hand is rough).

Ideally, you're looking to play as many copies of Timely Aid and A Very Good Tale as possible in your first turn. Dúnedain Wanderer is a not a good card by modern standards, but finds some love here since the 5 Cost makes them exceptional tale-tellers and Denethor can play them for only 2 Resources in the first round to that end.

This deck reliably puts out 25-35 resources worth of allies on its first turn, and unlike my Galdor and the Knights of the Ring Gray Wanderer deck has the added perk of two additional heroes to help insulate against Hero-Punishment enemies and treacheries.

A lot of little tweaks can be made to this deck to season to taste or increase its competitive reliability. Gaining Strength is another option for brute income and more card draw can be found in the form of Mithrandir's Advice or Campfire Tales (the latter is particularly valuable in multi-player). Bumping up additional copies of power unique cards (like Firyal and Steward of Gondor) can help bring more regularity to the deck, and mining cards like Ered Luin Miner and Hidden Cache can try and benefit from A Very Good Tale's deck-discarding.

5 comments

Dec 11, 2020 doomguard 1963

like it. have a similar deck with denethor grey wanderer, but this is faster. should play with a partner that can play will of the west, or else after ca. 5 rounds deck is empty consider put in the hobbitgandalf.

another option is motk gallion (instead of ioreth), then you can put in celduin traveler and will of the west.

Dec 11, 2020 Truck 1416

One thing:

If The One Ring fell in to the hands of Denethor it would surely spell doom for middle earth!

Dec 11, 2020 Alonewolf87 1921

Out of curiosity what's the role of the Ranger of Cardolan? It's their being neutral (so you can more easily play them) and high cost (to better use A Very Good Tale)? Perhaps you could switch one for a copy of Thalion (same stats but a possibly useful ability especially in multiplayer) and or Treebeard (starts exhausted but has better stats and in-built readying).

Otherwise Halbarad, Haldir of Lórien, Mirkwood Hunter and Eldahir could be interesting alternatives.

Dec 11, 2020 Imrahil13 1254

@Alonewolf87- yup, the neutrality of the Rangers of Cardolan is their biggest appeal here, since it means you can combine resources from Denethor and the Lore heroes in later rounds to play them.

Eldahir is a really interesting alternative, since he can make use of his ability quite easily via the Lore Resources here.

Dec 11, 2020 Imrahil13 1254

@Alonewolf87the downside to Treebeard, who is otherwise great indeed, is that he cannot help keep the A Very Good Tale chain going when he first enters play, since is exhausted. I've found that this can too easily derails being able to fire off another A Very Good Tale.

Whereas allies like Soldier of Erebor and Knight of Dale are great tale-tellers, because they have built in readies that can be used as needed.