The Uruk-hai - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

The Specialist Deck Series commences The Treason of Saruman expansion with The Uruk-hai quest and a Noldor based deck for taking it on.

For an explanation of the series and to see the deck for the first quest, look here: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/18970

For the decks used to beat the previous quest, Breaking of the Fellowship, look here: https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/10456

The Uruk-hai is one of a number of quests in the game which makes use of a captured hero mechanic. In this case, we will lose access to our chosen hero for the entire game, which is somewhat alleviated by the new Aragorn hero we will use. He is certainly a powerful hero, although his unique sphere can make paying for cards a little awkward.

So, what strategy and heroes will be effective for this quest? The first thing that came to mind, is that while our resources are pressured a little, card draw is not. And what sort of decks can take best advantage of card draw? In my view, the Noldor, particularly with To the Sea, to the Sea! to effectively exchange cards for resources.

This quest is on a very real clock and we want the most explosive start possible. There's no one better for that the Erestor. He'll allow us to draw an absurd number of cards and we have plenty of ways to use them thanks to the Noldor discard effects.

But is 4 cards per round enough? I don't think so, so we'll bring along Círdan the Shipwright as well so we get to see 5(!) cards minimum every round (okay, we only get to keep 4, but this is still better). Círdan is one of my favourite heroes and he'll be a big help for this quest. His 4 means we should be able to quest effectively from turn one and he lets us bring along Narya for some extra action advantage and combat power.

However, we need a third hero to spend the whole quest chilling in the staging area. Since this hero will be contributing basically nothing, it makes sense to choose the hero with the lowest possible threat. Sméagol is inelligible in Saga quests and Glorfindel will be passed over in favour of his excellent ally version. This means the best we can manage is a threat cost of 6. At this point the one remaining consideration is hit points, since Grishnakh is able to damage the hero. Mirlonde will have an effective threat cost of 6 since we'll have 2 heroes so I went with her since she has 3HP and also I think she will be less likely than other low cost heroes to be used in another quest, so she gets her outing here.

The deck itself will mainly feature Noldor allies to take advantage of To the Sea, to the Sea! One final consideration is that we need to defeat Ugluk to win. He is a challenging enemy because we can't use allies to attack or defend, so the deck features a few events which can be used to take him down in a single turn.

This warrants its own section, but we really want to try and take out Ugluk in one turn because we don't have a proper defending hero and there is real risk of us losing due to the Pursuit value if we stall on the boss. We need a total of 10 to get through his 3 Toughness, 1 and 6 . One of the 12 events in the deck is needed in order to reach this number, possibly in combination with Banner of Elendil and/or Aragorn's readying ability, and we should plan to have all three heroes available to do so. I'll discuss more in the individual card descriptions below. Since Erestor will force us to discard events if we don't use them, this is another reason to deal with Ugluk ASAP.

In testing, the quest felt like a decent challenge, particularly in terms of the unique Pursuit value mechanic and in the early game build up. However, once the deck got going it steamrolled everything in its path and I ended up with 3 wins out of 3.

Onto the deck:

Arwen Undómiel - In a usual Noldor deck there's a good chance that Arwen would be included as a hero. However, her ally version is still an excellent addition to the deck and we're very happy to be able to include her. Her boosting ability will be useful throughout the quest, especially for Ugluk.

Elladan - All of the enemies in this quest are Orcs, so Elladan is excellent value thanks to his built-in action advantage. He also represents the highest value in the deck alongside Glorfindel.

Elrohir - With one brother comes the other. Elrohir is excellent for the same reasons as Elladan and we want to see them both so three copies of each. Multiple uniques are not a problem as they will never be dead cards in a Noldor deck.

Elven Jeweler - A staple Noldor card. This one can be especially valuable since we don't need resources to play it. We start the quest with a massive 10 cards in our starting hand and this card is likely needed in order to maximise the value we can get from it.

Galdor of the Havens - One of our unique allies with hero level stats. Despite all the cards we get to draw, the needs of our deck still puts pressure on our hand, so being able to turn our discards into even more card draw is great.

Gildor Inglorion - Gildor is another strong ally and another way to leverage our extreme card draw. One nice way he synergises with this deck is that we can use his ability to "save" a card by putting it on top of our deck when we would otherwise need to discard it at the end of the turn.

Glorfindel - He's an all around excellent ally made even better by a deck like this. He just offers so much: great stats, action advantage and he's a card we can discard for effectively no cost. We can also use him to defend, safe in the knowledge that he can come back. There's also a well known trick, to discard Glorfindel with To the Sea, to the Sea! and then use the discount to pay for him out of the discard.

Guardian of Rivendell - The strongest defender we have, he gets bonus points in this deck because we can pay for him with Aragorn's resources and save our valuable and resources.

Imladris Caregiver - This ally will be a useful healing option and is a nice way to use our cards efficiently each turn. The fact that it's a card also helps to balance out our resource requirements a bit.

Banner of Elendil - Now with Argorn on our team we get to bring along a few extremely powerful sphere cards. The Banner certainly fits the bill, by giving us a large boost to or (or possibly both in one turn). The attack boost is very important as we need every advantage to help defeat Ugluk.

Lembas - A handy card that combines healing and action advantage for a hero, a great combination for this quest.

Light of Valinor - A great card as ever, we'll want to play on Cirdan so he can quest and use Narya in the same turn.

Magic Ring - This quest will not last very long, so the threat cost of this card will not be a detriment. The versatility offered is one of the reasons to play it and we could conceivably use all of its modes. Most likely we will want resources, but the option for readying is nice too.

Narya - A fantastic payoff for using Cirdan, this card can potentially deal with all our combat needs. That means we can be bolder in the quest phase, knowing we still have the ability to attack and defend if necessary.

To the Sea, to the Sea! - This is the main engine for the deck, and combined with Erestor we should easily pay for at least one ally every round. When making muligan decisions with this deck, this is the only card that counts. We want this card in play turn one if we can, otherwise we loose a lot of the value in our huge starting hand. With the mulligan and the 11(!) cards we can look at turn one, we have a more than 60% chance to see it.

Fair and Perilous - This card is basically here only for attacking Ugluk. It takes Cirdan up to 6 , which goes a long way to defeating the boss. Either we can attack with all three heroes, or just Aragorn and Cirdan so long as Banner of Elendil is in play. Either of those combinations is enough to take down Ugluk.

Lords of the Eldar - This event is a little more general in its utility, because in addition to raising our stats for the boss fight, we can use it to make a huge quest push. The effect lasts for the whole round, so it can be both at the same time. Even with the stat boost, this card only brings our hero's combined to 9, so we would need another event (including another copy of Lords of the Eldar) or the Banner to reach the magic 10 number. One advantage to this event is that it plays out of the discard, meaning that we can discard it to Erestor or some other effect without fear.

Tale of Tinúviel - This card seems like a perfect fit given our deck, and it even works out great, because we can use it to both defend and attack Ugluk with boosted stats thanks to the readying effect. Exhausting Cirdan would give Aragorn 6 and 7, so attacking alongside Erestor and another boost (e.g. the Banner) let's us kill Ugluk. Alternatively, the card also allows us to use allies, so using Glorfindel or Gildor and then attacking with all 3 heroes would also work.

The Three Hunters - Our other Aragorn related card. This one has a really strong effect too, allowing us to quest effectively and still have all of our heroes ready for combat. If given the opportunity we should probably play this as it is much more efficient than Aragorn's own ability. This also gives us enough by itself to kill Ugluk as long as we have all three heroes available. We'd need some way to defend, but there are a few options for that in the deck.