Better than Thranduil 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Ugh. Many know that I have a love for playing Silvans. That said, I have also been meaning to incorporate Prince Imrahil into a "modern" Silvan deck. Also, I've heard Caleb say enough about Thurindir and The Storm Comes to make me curious about its effectiveness. So why not just mash them all together using my favorite contract, Bond of Friendship.

So the old trope of getting Elf-friend on Prince Imrahil is pretty key to much of the mechanics here, but this is managed pretty effectively using Thurindir's side quest fetch mechanic. And, for the hard core rule-followers who still get all the player setup cards during step 7 of the game setup, it's actually useful because if you don't have Elf-friend in hand, you can go fetch Gather Information to then go get it. Or, if you have Elf-friend in your opening hand, you can go fetch The Storm Comes and really grease the wheels of the deck. The great part of all this is that it's almost like I have Thranduil in play, but he's not. It's actually, in many cases at least, a more effective version of the King of the Woodland Realm.

All this said, I'm not even too sure its 100% vital to have Elf-friend out on Prince Imrahil. There are so many things you can play with The Storm Comes that it's okay to pass it by. It really only helps to fuel Prince Imrahil's combat action.

Okay, okay. It's the 4th paragraph of the description and I have yet addressed 39 starting threat. With Galadriel in play and other threat reducing cards like Island Amid Perils, Double Back and Elrond's Counsel, threat hasn't been too much of an issue. Actually, I find myself questing with enough that even with Nenya in play, I use Galadriel to lower threat and not to quest. The only drawback is if you are starting with a big bad guy in the staging area with a threat lower than 39. (I'm looking at you, Mr. Hill Troll.

So the usual shenanigans with Prince Imrahil apply in this deck... grab an ally in the combat phase. Preferably a Silvan. Use a Silvan event to bring it back to your hand. Then, during the next planning phase, play that ally using any resources because The Storm Comes is in the victory display.

I find that defending isn't horrible with this deck using either chumps or Celeborn or Prince Imrahil. And there is plenty of firepower to kill enemies with Prince Imrahil wielding a Legacy Blade and the inevitable Silvan swarm. For even more flexibility, Thalion comes into play and can definitely be turned into a hero.

But the end of the game, you should have Prince Imrahil that can ready with The Elvenking, Thurindir questing for a bunch and Galadriel helping and Celeborn playing cleanup if you need a defender or attacker.

The Red Arrow is included just for fun because you can trigger it the second round.

The downside of the deck is there isn't enough space to get everything you want in there. Some shadow cancellation would be nice using Quicker Than Sight, but it's hard to replace what's already there. The Galadhrim Weaver would also be reasonable, but who can you get rid of? Maybe replace a Rider of Rohan with 1 Galadhrim Weaver. Also, it'd be nice to get a few more Silvan events, but there just isn't space if you want to hit with Prince Imrahil most of the time. Even with the deck as it is, he can still miss and that is tough. The space in the deck may come in by getting rid of Nenya (BLASPHEMY!) and putting in 2 Defender of the Naith and maybe replacing Secret Vigil and The Red Arrow with 2 Pursuing the Enemy. Not because I love Pursuing the Enemy, but because tactics is about the only spot there is wiggle room to add extra Silvan events.

Feel free to tinker around with this... it's a pretty fun deck to get going!