Deck Tech: Marty McFly 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week seventeen of Deck Tech! Last week I played a Noldor deck that mostly used cards for stats, thanks to Protector of Lorien and Elven Spear.

This week, we're playing a surprisingly strong deck featuring Amarthiúl and his new favorite toy, Armored Destrier! And he gets two of them, even.

The deck actually started as an attempt to build a deck with Amarthiul and Elfhelm, based on the extra stats he gains with two spheres.

But that wasn't really working out. And then I realized that Amarthiul and Denethor can gain five resources per round, ramping up Blood of Númenor and Gondorian Fire ammunition even faster than Boromir. (You can pretty easily set yourself up to get more than that, but it takes a lot of effort. And it's not really worth it.)

Of course, you have to pay a few resources to set it up, but after that things are pretty simple. And there are a few other toys to make it easier to pay for readying. Captain's Wisdom gives enough resources for a horse or an Unexpected Courage on the other two heroes.

So let's take it for a spin.

Quest 1: Temple of the Deceived

No Steward in my opening hand this time, so we're going to have to dig for it. I cycle a copy of Elven-light, and find Galadriel. Galadriel finds a copy of Gondorian Fire and no Steward. So I play Captain's Wisdom on Denethor and shuffle my deck with a Galadhrim Weaver.

Which is all a really annoying way of giving me better odds of finding Steward on turn two. But it works out, and I can discard a card to play Unexpected Courage on Amarthiul as well.

This quest has some awesome enemies to keep engaged, though. The Throngs of Unfaithful are annoying when you kill them, and their attack is low enough to not really threaten Amarthiul.

And they surge, so it's really easy to find two of them. (I might have not shuffled this encounter deck as well as I should have.)

Sahir is a huge boon in the scenario, too. The deck is a bit willpower light, and some of the inner locations end up with a ton of threat in the staging area thanks to adjacent locations. Especially as you get close to the end. To mitigate, Sahir is pumped up to 6 willpower. And Faramir pulls as much weight as he can. I still fail a few rounds when Gandalf and Galadriel aren't there to help out.

I did, however, find the Cursed Temple early. But then I had to tank the guardian for five rounds before I could kill it.

Round 10 I travel to the middle temple location, and it's the wrong one. So I have to kill the Temple Guardian one more time. No big deal. Using the Key's ability to figure out which direction is right, I go to the last location, kill the guardian one more time, and make enough progress to win through to the end.

Final score: 143: 11 full rounds, 37 threat, 0 damage on heroes 4 vp.

Quest 2: Journey Along the Anduin

This one starts off relatively easy, with a Banks of the Anduin and the Hill Troll in the staging area. And I have the tools to play Steward, Blood, and Unexpected Courage on Amarthiul right away. Plus a Sneak Attack Gandalf for more questing and some card draw.

Round two sees the Brown Lands enter the staging area, and I fail the quest hard. Oh well, time to tank a Hill Troll. Amarthiul has enough resources to tank 9 attack, but he doesn't need quite that much. And now I have access to a Tactics resource for Gondorian Fire.

It takes until round five to clear out the Brown Lands from the staging area, using Gandalf, Galadriel, and a questing Treebeard for many big pushes.

Round six I kill the troll, and we move on to stage 2. Which lasts until round 8, and I use Sneak Attack and Gandalf twice to drop my threat by 10. Which puts me just a little bit too low to engage the last enemy when we move into stage three.

So it takes an extra round. Oops.

Final score: 93. 8 full rounds, 24 threat, 2 damage on heroes, 13 vp.

Quest 3: The Steward's Fear

I love this quest. It's one of my favorites. But I forget how many ways it has to screw with a strategy like this.

I got ruined by an Umbar Assassin, who would have killed a hero quickly or slowly whittled us down with archery I can't heal. Amarthiul ate a Local Trouble round one in one attempt. After I'd loaded him up with the crucial attachments. (Otherwise I could have just put them on Denethor and turned him into the tank.)

I lost all my resources to a shadow effect, and crucial attachments to a different shadow effect.

And on my best attempt, I made it to the villain, killed her, and then got location locked thanks to surging City Streets.

Oh, and Knife in the Back picked Treebeard or Gandalf nearly every time. (Except on one attempt when I saw it six times, but it always picked a 0 attack ally.)

A bit better luck with the shadow effects or a partner deck to help set up a Burning Brand and strip Condition attachments, and this would be a breeze.

Play Tips:

1. Save a Galadhrim Weaver for after Galadriel, in case you don't see what you're looking for.
2. Faced with four enemies, defend the two weakest ones and discard shadow effects from the strongest with Armored Destrier.
3. Don't be afraid to just soak up hits. Amarthiul's resource generation is very high when the pieces are in place, so you mostly need to worry about the potential shadow effect from your first (and maybe second) defense.
4. Captain's Wisdom is always amazing, and you can use it on Arwen, too. It's not even a terrible trade if you get willpower from allies.
5. Don't forget you can give Denethor the third Armored Destrier. His defensive stats are just as good as Amarthiul's.
6. When you have extra resources, you need to push your questing. Otherwise the deck's willpower falls a bit flat.

Next week: GenCon. Look for a write up of my decks and their horrible doom at the hands of the Siege of Annuminas.

Blog: As always, you can follow the deck posts on the blog or via the RSS feed. And I'm going to start a community deck spotlight on Thursdays, similar to some other community members. I ran out of time last week, but look for one later this week.