Three Valiant Warriors - Daily Challenge Deck 1.0

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• 1.0

I check the RingsDB challenges every day or so, and when I come across one I have the scenario for, I try it out. So this deck was a response to a RingsDB challenge a while ago (quite a while ago, this deck is a bit old!). The challenge: Play The Breaking of the Fellowship in a deck where each of your heroes has 3 printed attack.

I started looking through the heroes I have with 3 attack, and there were quite a few of them. But I knew I wanted to have a strong defenders and questers as well. Aragorn and Glorfindel stuck out to me pretty quickly, especially with Glorfindel's wonderful starting threat. I decided on Boromir soon after, but I quickly noticed that willpower, card draw, and healing would be issues. So immediately Forth, The Three Hunters! came to mind: the perfect card to build up defense and attack, and generate lots of willpower later!

So that's how this deck was built. The contract fixes the issues of healing (especially with some of the archery in the quest!) and willpower, and I included Elven-light for card draw (it can be discarded through Elven Spear). To tech specifically for the Breaking of the Fellowship, I added Thrór's Key for some of those nasty locations, and A Test of Will for the horrible treachery Fallen Into Evil.

As far as the attachments go, I give Ancestral Armor, Armored Destrier, Celebrían's Stone, Steward of Gondor, Gondorian Shield, Raiment of War to Aragorn (somewhat selectively depending on what I draw). Boromir gets Gondorian Shield, Rohan Warhorse, War Axe, Ancestral Armor, and then sometimes Blade of Gondolin or Raiment of War. And I give Glorfindel one or two Blade of Gondolins, Elven Spear, Light of Valinor (obviously), and sometimes Raiment of War. Unexpected Courage can go on whoever you need.

After the deck's up and running, I usually have TONS of resources, no hero exhausts to quest, and literally EVERY enemy is dealt with very easily. The key is making it through the first stage of the quest, where threat in the staging area builds up really quickly. The way to do it is to get Celebrían's Stone out quick (or flip the contract quickly, though I don't usually like to sacrifice my number of attachments for speed), and Frodo Baggins really helps too. After the first stage is passed, I would go to the Seat of Amon Hen for your next stage. I first tried Searching the Woods, but it wasn't a good idea. Yes, I won and pretty much had an empty staging area every round (each time I got an enemy I destroyed it, and each time I got a location it got discarded!), but it wasn't very fun. With the Seat of Amon Hen, I ended with lower threat than I started (even using Boromir's ability multiple times every round!), and I ran out of my deck. With no card draw at all, other than Elven-light (which I didn't get till near the end)!

So in all, this deck was a lot of fun to build and play. And after I totally crushed the Breaking of the Fellowship, I played it in a 3 player "campaign" through the Hobbit sagas. One of my brothers was running @Seastan's amazing 100 Willpower deck, and the other one was playing an Elrond A Perilous Voyage deck (which included Beregond, for even more help covering our quester's defenses). And we completely smashed the Battle of Five Armies. With all the treasures (yes, we got ALL of them from Smaug!), I was able to flip the contract on turn two or three. Thrór's Hunting Bow went on Boromir, which put Rohan Warhorse on a whole new level. And with Glamdring and Orcrist, I had no lack of resources or cards!

I'd love any advice or suggestions!