The Siege of Gondor - Twins deck - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

This deck is one of two that make up the Fellowship designed to beat The Siege of Gondor for my Specialist Deck Series. This deck is primarily focused on combat, but since it features the Forth, The Three Hunters! contract, it can pull its weight in questing too.

This deck is all about Elladan and Elrohir and maximising their abilities to repeatedly attack and defend, respectively, so long as there are resources available.

The Siege of Gondor features a steady stream of medium-strength enemies, all of which can be dealt with easily once the twins are setup. So getting to that stage is the real challenge with the deck.

Firstly we want a third hero to help us out, so Gildor Inglorion joins to lend his , his decent starting threat and a very handy ability to draw cards. Three Hunter's decks are not especially resource hungry, so being able to turn those excess resources into cards is great.

This deck is designed as part of a two handed fellowship, and the partner deck will be providing some additional card draw, as well as healing and questing ability.

Most of our deck consists of restricted attachments to get the contract flipped as soon as possible. We should aim for turn two which should be very achievable. This is a saga quest meaning that we have Aragorn along for the ride. If the other deck starts as first player, then they will have Aragorn during the refresh phase of the second turn, making it much easier to flip the contract. Aragorn can of course benefit from either side of the contract while he is under our control.

Our game plan is very straightforward. Gildor quests every turn and draws cards. Elrohir must be ready to defend every turn. The partner deck will aim to have Arwen Undómiel in play ASAP so he will get +1 and Sentinel. He'll also be the recipient of Steward of Gondor, allowing him to easily defend multiple times per turn. Elladan is the main attacker for the fellowship, but in the first turn or two he may quest since there might not be much value in attacking. Steed of the North will let him do both.

Our attachment selection is pretty simple - all of our heroes have the Noldor and Noble traits. Aragorn is also a Noble, and he and the twins are Rangers too. Having attachments which can go on multiple heroes helps a great deal in flipping the contract. We can always optimise the distribution of attachments later.

The enemies max out at 6 , which is where we want Elrohir's to be as soon as possible. Ideally he'll get up to 8 eventually, which will protect him from most shadow effects too.

On the other side, we need 10 to be able to one-shot any enemy. Elladan can get there eventually and until then Aragorn and his Banner of Elendil can help out.

Let's look closer at the deck:

Forth, The Three Hunters! - After our heroes this is the card most fundamental to our strategy. It lets us get out our attachments cheaply and put extra equipment on our heroes to boot. The healing shouldn't be underestimated in this quest either, and Elrond in the partner deck gives it a good boost. Finally, we can actually put out a decent amount of once the contract flips.

The contract is the driving force behind the entire deck, and many of our card choices are solely to help with getting Side B online. For most of the restricted attachments, the choice of when to play and who to play on will be heavily dependent on the board state, so it's being stated here, rather than repeat it several times below.

Ancestral Armor - This is our most expensive card and so it's unlikely to help us flip the contract when we want to. Having said that, getting the contract discount on this is great. It does offer the best defensive boost of any card in our deck, so getting this on Elrohir at some point will be very helpful. It can be played on almost all of the heroes in the fellowship, so can help setup a secondary defender, most likely Aragorn or Elrond. One final bonus, is it possible to get this off the Valour Action on Open the Armory, which would be amazing.

Armored Destrier - We definitely want one of these on Elrohir as soon as possible. Not only does it add another ready, but early on is when we are most vulnerable to shadow effects and there will definitely be times with 2 or more engaged enemies. Note that you can attach multiple Destriers to the same character, which may be useful. Aragorn is another possible target once he has an Artifact.

Celebrían's Stone - A rare Restricted attachment that isn't used for combat, this will help us to contribute a little extra in the quest phase. Gildor is the obvious recipient if we are still trying to flip the contract. If not, then Aragorn is a reasonable choice also. It's an Artifact so it turns on his ability and he also gets the icon.

Elven Spear - A 0 cost attachment which can be played on any of our heroes. Early on, it can help Elladan to take down some enemies.

Golden Belt - The belts are going to supercharge the abilities of Elladan and Elrohir by allowing them to wield up to 4 Restricted attachments each. We won't have to compromise between mount attachments and multiple weapons and armor. It also means that we won't have as many dead cards in our hand which is nice. Only 2 copies because in testing I kept drawing these early when I wanted Restricted attachments.

Gondorian Shield - This is our staple defense boost for Elrohir. We want to give him Steward anyway, so he'll benefit from the +2 boost. Once he has it, we benefit from the flexibility of being able to attach the others to any hero.

Heir of Mardil - Not a key card for the deck, but we can get a nice extra ready for Elrohir in combination with Steward of Gondor. We really do lean heavily on Elrohir defending, so any extra readying is welcome. Note that unlike all the other readying effects, this one has flexibility in when we can activate it, so an unexpected exhaustion isn't going to ruin our plan.

Orcrist - This card is an amazing combo with Elladan, since the resource gain can pay for his readying ability indefinitely as long as he is destroying enemies. In practice, this means that he can kill every enemy in play every round. If it's guarded by an enemy, it's possible to benefit from this card the same round it comes into play, as defeating that enemy allows us to attach Orcrist immediately.

Rivendell Blade - Another attachment that can go on any of our heroes. We can also turn the heroes in the Partner Deck into decent attackers. Even Elrohir can pitch in on attacks if there are resources to spare, since he can ready in time for player attacks.

Rivendell Bow - This is an important card for our strategy since it expands Elladan's capabilities, allowing him to attack enemies engaged with any player. Ideally this will arrive at the same time as his attack boosts. In theory the other copies can be played on other heroes, but by that time we are unlikely to need it.

Round Shield - Another 0 cost Restricted attachment that can be played on any character, and that's enough.

Shining Shield - Shining Shield is in the deck because we are only allowed 3 copies of Gondorian Shield. Of course the diversity can be a benefit since we can attach both cards to the same hero (the Noble targeting restriction is not an issue for us). Threat is not really a factor in this quest. That means that early game this is the inferior card. However, as the game goes on there is a chance Shining Shield will match Gondorian Shield in effectiveness.

Steed of the North - There are two things a Three Hunters deck really wants. One is restricted attachments to maximise the benefit of the contract. The other is readying effects to maximise the use of the tooled-up heroes. Enter Steed of the North, which is both of these things. It just so happens to be compatible with Elladan and Elrohir's traits. We're definitely expecting to engage enemies every round and this also allows us to commit an extra 4 or 5 to the quest each turn.

Steward of Gondor - The most important card in the deck. This provides the fuel to allow Elrohir to manage all the defenses we need. This is the card we want to mulligan for at all costs.

Valiant Sword - The weapon counterpart to Shining Shield. Much of the same applies to this card. One minor difference is that we may have more incentive to play this on a hero from the Partner Deck early game if we need a boost defeating enemies.

War Axe - This weapon feels like it was built for decks like this - offering up to +4 if the conditions are right. That would go a long way to ensuring Elladan becomes our all encompassing answer to attacking. Unlike most of our attachments, this is very limited on who it can attach to, so only 1 copy in the deck.

Open the Armory - With up to 24 targets in the deck, this card was an obvious inclusion. We play a lot of attachments simply because they are restricted, but it's good to be able to select a specific useful attachment occasionally. The Valour action could even come into play late game.

Revealed in Wrath - There don't seem to be all that many opportunities to play this card, so it's great when the chance comes up. Every enemy in this quest has an ability that might be useful to cancel at one point or other. This is another card which I seemed to draw too much in testing, which is why I dropped to 2 copies.

Sterner than Steel - We definitely expect to be able to play this card from turn 1, so it's a nice inclusion to make sure we don't fall foul of an unfortunate Shadow effect. As our board state builds up, the need for this card diminishes. Luckily there are no game ending treacheries in this quest, but some can disable Elrohir, which might end up being the same thing.

The King's Return - This is here to act as a second copy of Orcrist, but it is at least a better version. Ideally we will draw this card first and then play it at the end of the quest phase. That allows us to react immediately to the guarding card, either travelling if a location or engaging and defeating an enemy.

The Three Hunters - How could we not include this card? This gives us all-important readying to enable multiple uses of our heroes' stats. The stat boosts are just a bonus. Later on we have sufficient readying for our heroes, but this can be used on any hero, so we can optionally use it with the partner deck too. In fact, it's quite possible for all heroes on the table to quest and still be ready for the combat phase. I always feel confident on turns when I play this card.

Gather Information - This is a kind of "why not?" inclusion. This quest has only one quest card and we should have no problem gaining the needed progress, so the opportunity cost for side quests is low. There are several valuable attachments that we might find with this card and giving the Partner Deck the same opportunity is a nice bonus.