Progression The Steward's Fear Vilya Outlands 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

Introduction

This deck assumes you are playing Progression style (only allow player cards published up through the current scenario), including incremental FAQ implementation based on FAQ release dates. Of note, Will of the West is used in this deck according to its original text (does not destroy itself upon use) so that we can cycle our two threat reducers as well as all the stuff we dump with Zigil Miner and Daeron's Runes. Note that I personally believe that the official FAQ for Will of the West was done improperly. Based on the designer's article explaining the change, their only goal was to break "unlimited combos" and therefore it should have instead added "Cards named 'Will of the West' may no longer be played this round." to the end in order to preserve as much of the original function as possible while still achieving the stated FAQ design goal.

• If you prefer to play with the official FAQ version of Will of the West, then I'd remove both of them along with all three Zigil Miner. In their place I'd put 3x Elrond's Counsel and 2x The Galadhrim's Greeting. I'd also cut Lórien's Wealth for another Hasty Stroke, Northern Tracker, Warden of Healing, or Gandalf.
• If you only have one Core set, you lose two Unexpected Courage and one A Test of Will. Swap in a Hasty Stroke for A Test of Will. Courage is hard to replace, but best options are perhaps Northern Tracker, Warden of Healing, or Gandalf.

Discussion

• Imladris Stargazer is probably the most important card in the deck because it enables both Vilya and Zigil Miner.
• Unexpected Courage is very powerful to allow Elrond to use Vilya and still take other actions. Extra copies can go on Elrond again or Beravor.
• The red and purple allies can only be played via Elrond or Vilya.
• Gildor Inglorion + Vilya is very potent to play any card from your hand for free in any Action window. This is especially good with Gandalf.
• While Hirluin the Fair seems like an obvious choice to include for an Outlands deck, I've found that he's not good enough due to the low starting stats. Sure he becomes a powerhouse late game, but by then the host of allies makes it moot. The most important time for a hero is the beginning when there are no allies to help yet. Also, since I play with a partner who's running red/purple and thus already has all the best purple cards, I'd prefer not to have the awkwardness of a purple hero in my lineup. If you go solo, then Hirluin might work and you can add the usual purple power cards (Steward of Gondor, Sneak Attack, full count of Gandalf).

Notes for The Steward's Fear Quest

The first stage of this quest has a focus on locations and there is strong benefit to exploring locations without them being active so that we can build up our board state before the Plot becomes active in stage two. As such, I increased the Northern Tracker count to three. For other quests where this is less important, I'd go back down to just one copy of Northern Tracker and put back Henamarth Riversong plus either Lórien's Wealth or Mithrandir's Advice.