Elrond and His Cheap Friends 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Overview
The main premise of this deck is to mitigate the deckbuilding restrictions of the Bond of Friendship contract through Elrond's resource smoothing ability, while offsetting his high threat cost with some of the most cost-effective heroes available in the other three spheres. Your initial lineup can reliably quest, attack, and defend without much setup, all for the relatively low cost of 32 starting threat. It's also an Elrond deck that doesn't use Vilya, which means I get to play one of my favorite heroes in the game in a brand new way. I would say this deck has a very high floor (as should most Bond of Friendship decks) but maybe doesn't have the higher ceiling of a deck built around a specific goal. This deck is an all-rounder that can cover most bases of the game, so it's kind of like the player-deck version of a quest that you would use for deck-testing. I only play solo so this has not been tested in multiplayer.

Heroes
Elrond is the build-around hero here, so his presence is a given. We will make use of his resource ability, healing boost, and he will primarily quest while serving as backup defender. Denethor gives us a low-threat defender that can jump start our resources and let us play Steward or Gandalf on the first turn. Eowyn boosts our questing while giving us an answer to dealing with large enemies once per game. Glorfindel needs no introduction and is here to quest, attack, or do both with Light of Valinor. You can quest for 10 on the first turn while still reserving Denethor for defense, or quest for 7 and keep Elrond for defense as well. That's without considering a first-turn Gondorian Shield, Light of Valinor, Unexpected Courage, or ally.

Allies
All of the allies are either 2-cost, neutral, or are intended to be played through a card effect that avoids their cost. The 2-cost is there so that, with Elrond's help, you can play most allies without saving any resources from a previous turn. That's not true of the Lore allies, but Gleowine is worth it for providing much-needed card draw, Warden of Healing is too good with Elrond not to include, and Quickbeam is extremely good value and can even be paid for by Treebeard if you get him into play. The allies are all either utility allies that provide a useful effect, or are used for questing and attacking. Our heroes should handle most of the defense.

Combat
For defense, we are mainly relying on Denethor with a Gondorian Shield, the defense boost from Arwen, and possibly Elrond as an extra defender with some combination of Steward of Gondor and the other Gondorian Shield, Unexpected Courage, and possibly Arwen's defense boost. Treebeard, Gandalf, and Beorn are also good defender options. For attack, we rely on Glorfindel, Angbor, Quickbeam, Treebeard, and some combination of Beorning Skin-changer/Giant Bear/Beorn/Sneak Attack with maybe some Gandalf thrown in. We can also make use of Eowyn's great ability once per game if our threat is not going to be an issue. Speaking of which...

Threat
This deck will struggle against quests that put pressure on your threat, because the only ways to deal with it are Gandalf, Elrond's Counsel, and Favor of the Valar. It can be even tougher since two of our heroes have abilities that may increase our threat. That's the price you have to pay for a four-hero lineup. The primary strategy for dealing with threat is to win before you lose. Simple as that.

Card Draw and Resources
Card draw is vital here. Your consistency takes a hit because of the 2x limit on cards. This is an area where I think this list could be improved. I subbed in Heed the Dream for Asfaloth because I was having much more trouble getting key cards than I was dealing with troublesome locations. Heed the Dream can also be played with the kicker on the first turn if really necessary. Gleowine and Daeron's Runes are the only other drawing abilities in this deck (and also Gandalf). The other reason you need card draw is because you generate 4-6 resources per turn and can play most cards the same turn you draw them. I often find myself emptying my entire starting hand within two rounds and then I run out of gas. Of course, with 4 heroes and 7ish other cards in play, you should be in a pretty good spot. Steward should go on Elrond due to his resource ability and to possibly make him a great defender with Gondorian Shield. Envoy of Pelargir, Errand Rider, and A Good Harvest help with resource smoothing. Errand Rider can become irrelevant if you can't draw cards so he is a candidate to replace with maybe Rod of the Steward, but he is sometimes critical to a good first turn that makes use of all of Denethor's resources. Tighten our belts is here for those turns where you can't play a card or are able to just play cards with the resources from a single hero, so that your following turn will hopefully be turbo-charged.

Other Possible Includes
The most replaceable card here is Westfold Outrider in my opinion. I think I want to try out Derndingle Warrior in its place because of the presence of Treebeard and Warden of Healing. Defender of Rammas is another option. Other things that could be added to this deck is yet more card draw, and other options for threat reduction. Given the deckbuilding restrictions, it's hard to know what to take out. My next iteration of playing this deck will probably look like:
-2 Tighten Our Belts
-2 Westfold Outrider
+2 Rod of the Steward
+2 Derndingle Warrior

This was a fun deck to play against and beat Hunt for the Dreadnaught on Standard. Choosing which boat to use was difficult, because my first thought was Swan Ship of Dol Amroth because it provides +4 resources instead of +3 and gives my heroes more action advantage. However, I had more success with Pride of Lebennin so that I could really sculpt my opening hand and overcome the inconsistency of the deck. The +1 Defense isn't bad, either.