Deck Tech: All the Secret Ladies 1.0

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Hey all, welcome back to week fifteen of deck tech! Last week was actually quite a while ago due to my vacation, but I posted a silly solo Denethor deck and a single quest.

But this week we're back in full questing force with a two hero secrecy deck built around the card draw from Beravor and Elven-light and the sneakiness of Vanish from Sight.

You'll note that there are three Deep Knowledge in the deck, any of which will put you over the secrecy threshold. But you've also got three Elrond's Counsel to cancel those out, assuming you draw enough cards.

There's also a rare three Saruman, because once you get high enough that you absolutely need Vanish from Sight, a few more points doesn't really matter. And his ability plus attack are really useful in a few cases.

Quest 1: Journey Along the Anduin

This quest starts with two Elrond's Counsel in my hand, and nothing but the Hill Troll in the staging area. So it's very safe to use Beravor to draw right away. Playing an Ithilien Lookout means I get to avoid Chieftain Ufthak and draw a Banks of the Anduin instead.

Next round I draw two Resourceful with Beravor, and I'm basically set for resources for the rest of the game.

I do use Saruman to hide the Hill Troll for a round, allowing me to engage a Goblin Sniper without having to kill the troll first. I was one progress away from that moving me into stage two prematurely, but I was on top of that due to all the scrying effects.

A Timely Aid a bit after that finds me another Saruman, but there isn't anything to exile aside from the Hill Troll. So instead I just skip the reaction and use Saruman's five attack to kill it.

Stage two is pretty uneventful from there, and stage three doesn't even reveal any more enemies. Talk about an underwhelming ambush.

Final score: 117. 9 full rounds, 31 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 4 vp.

Quest 2: Conflict at the Carrock

All the trolls here mean I want to keep my threat as low as possible, so I ditch a Deep Knowledge I could have used early. I follow it up with a Song of Kings and two Resourceful on Arwen. I decided in advance that if anyone is going to get put in a bag, it's Beravor. Then I try to keep my progress low and accidentally make two progress.

And then round two, I find a Bee Pasture and Grimbeorn. Four leadership resources per round, thanks to Resourceful and Arwen's ability means I'll have him to help with trolls very soon. And scrying from the secrecy allies means I can quest very precisely to clear locations and not make quest progress until I'm ready.

Ready is apparently turn six, at which point I quest into stage two and engage and kill Morris. Not sure this is the optimal order, but as long as they stay one at a time it'll be fine.

Round seven I scry a treachery that will boost my threat up by 9, and there's nothing I can do about it. Fortunately, I'll still be below the troll engagement threshold afterwords. This round we pull and kill Stuart.

Round eight Beravor finally gets sacked. And we're forced to engage the remaining two trolls. Who promptly sack Arwen with a shadow effect. That's okay. The allies kill both trolls to rescue our heroes and finish the quest.

Final score: 104. 7 full rounds, 34 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 3: Into Fangorn

No reason to deal with Saruman early in this one, so I pitch him to Arwen and play another Resourceful and Song of Kings start on her. Elrond's Counsel keeps my threat in secrecy early, and I'm forced to engage two Dark-Hearted Huorns to travel to the first location.

Round two I play Gandalf, pitching an Elven-light for an extra resource. I know we're up above secrecy for good, so I also play two Deep Knowledge and clear the first location.

Round three I claim Mugash and play Saruman to kill one of the Huorns. We're already at 40 threat, and I can't keep them both around forever.

Round four I get a Vanish from Sight and spam some secrecy allies. This lets me scry and quest enough to clear stage 1. But I take yet another Dark-Hearted Huorn.

Then I play a Saruman, putting me at just 49 threat, and quest just enough to clear the quest.

Final score: 88. 4 full rounds, 49 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 1 vp.

Play Tips

1. Saruman is actually a really nice quester, if you've got anything in the staging area. Exile the highest threat eligible target and quest for three to make his effective willpower easily reach five or more.
2. Scrying is your friend. Scrying means you can decide early whether or not it's safe to use Beravor for more cards.
3. Treebeard and Saruman are actually enough to clear out a ton of enemies. Nearly everything else should be used for questing.
4. Tale of Tinúviel lets you use Glorfindel's extra action to ready Beravor for an emergency five defense. Or Arwen's action, if you're holding back and questing slowly.

Next week: I've got a Noldor deck that's all about actually discarding the cards instead of playing them. It's better than I expected, even if it still hurts not to play things.

Blog: As always, you can follow the deck posts on the blog or via the RSS feed.