Saddle Up 1.0

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• 1.0

Now that the recently spoiled cards from the latest pack, Temple of the Decieved, are on RingsDB, I thought I might try my hand at making a Mount deck with the new Elfhelm. His ability to grant characters with Mounts stat boosts is one that I see working well with both himself and Eomer and Theoden. Oh. Well, that's our hero lineup, I guess. The three do make a formidable combination, as having Elfhelm at 3 (with Armored Destrier!), Eomer at 6 with Firefoot (8 if someone has left play) and Theoden being able to use Snowmane with 3 and then ready to attack (potentially with Herugrim) is a pretty awesome thing to have. Armored Destrier in particular is great as it will allow Elfhelm to defend multiple attacks and guard against shadows along the way.

There is no doubt that these Mounts are awesome, but how on Middle-earth is one supposed to get to them? By using the Westfold Horse-breeder, of course! With eleven mounts in the deck, her ability will never whiff, right? Right? With her, you can get access to all the horses you need. Best of all, she's free with Théoden!

Another neat trick you can pull off with Elfhelm is to include songs. By granting additional icons to heroes, they can receive multiple stat bonuses when they have a Mount attached. The best uses are Song of Battle on Theoden for additional attack and Song of Travel on Elfhelm for more willpower.

The rest of the deck is just crammed with Rohan stuff. The new Ceorl and Déorwine allies help fill out the martial side of Rohan, but some old questing allies like the West Road Traveller are included, as well as the "discard" allies and Gamling. Theoden's cost reduction ensures that all of the allies will hit the table.

Events are fairly scarce because I couldn't make much room with all of the attachments and allies floating around. The ones that are included, however, provide access to the basic functions you need in a deck: card draw, resource acceleration, and cancellation. Valiant Sacrifice should be a reliable source of draw with all the Rohan allies leaving play. Tighten Our Belts works with the tri-sphere build to provide a burst of resources (assuming you don't spend anything the round you play it) and A Test of Will can cancel all but the uncancellable of encounter cards. I did include single copies of Ride to Ruin and Charge of the Rohirrim because they work well in the deck but generally don't deserve too much deck space.

Enjoy!