The final form of Silvans 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck for me is probably my all-time favorite incarnation of silvans, and since i played cycle 4, i played my fair share of these decks. The deck i used to play the most was Grima-Celeborn-Galadriel, tried Thranduil variations and didn't like them as i believe native lore hero is crucial to good earlygame, then played some Saruman variations and finally got to playing this one.

I haven't really invented anything particularly new here, as people already have been utilising Unlikely Friendship before. Bifur is perfect here, allowing us to start at safe 27 and allows us to transmute our resources into lore resources, which often comes in handy. There are no silvan decks without Celeborn and Galadriel, as their buffs combined make replaying your elves worthwhile, so only one spot can really be contended.

Why 54 cards? I actually had multiple games that ended with me running out (although to be fair, i've been testing it on the first alep quest first, and then i moved onto carn dum and both of these quests discard some of your cards). But that's not even the main reason - you can draw the majority of your deck without much of a hassle, to the point that Will of the West becomes pretty valuable.

You want to focus on playing Galadhrim Minstrel as much as possible. Spam him and suck all your events out of your deck. Every time you have a bounce choice, bounce him. Most of the events in the deck have insane value. Let's get over them.

A Test of Will - the best event in the game

A Very Good Tale - the second best event in the game, very much worthwhile in this deck. You can do some cool tricks with it: use two allies that entered play last round to use A Very Good Tale, then bounce one of them away with The Tree People and trade 2 unbuffed ally uses into 3 buffed allies, and add the value of 2 allies onto the board. You can also do another very swingy play which is A Very Good Tale into Host of Galadhrim, which will refresh your used allies. It burns a fair chunk of your cards, but we're running Will of the West, so we're safe here.

Feigned Voices - silvan feint that cycles your minstrel, very much worth running

Host of Galadhrim - i already described the trick with A Very Good Tale, but it's just busted in general, i wanted to run 3 copies but i needed to cut some cards that don't fit your earlygame

Quicker Than Sight - the worst card in the deck but you need a shadow cancel. You can run 1 copy for emergencies and dig it out with your minstrel, but i opted for 2.

Sneak Attack - with Gandalf it's free real estate and it can help early A Very Good Tale turn. Don't pass on sneaky gandalf, it might be overplayed but it's too good to pass on.

The Tree People - one of the best events in the deck. Swap your exhausted unbuffed ally for a new, preferably more expensive, buffed ally and then replay your previous ally for ETB and buffs. Another tool to bounce Galadhrim Minstrel

Unlikely Friendship - insane card for your starting hand and still pure value later.

Will of the West - already briefly explained before, but allows you to shuffle back in your discard full of events to start digging them up again.

I will not go through the entire ally lineup, because, frankly, i'm not too attached to most of these choices. It's a good mix that covers everything and they're very good stat sticks while buffed, but you could probably do a lot of switches and still turn out fine or even better. I'll just go through 2 cards:

Galadhrim Minstrel - he doesn't seem that important, but without him silvans would fall apart. Play him as much as you can.

Silvan Refugee - it doesn't seem like it should work, but it does and it's actually pretty good. You play him, quest for 3, chump block, end of story. For 1 resource, that's imo a card preferable to feint. Downside is you cannot play a few of them at once, but it's good, especially considering it's a viable target for The Tree People.

The deck has exceptional midgame and if you're looking for a modern silvan deck that's a blast to play, i had a lot of fun with this one.