The Battle of the Pelennor Fields - Support - Specialist Dec 1.0

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• 1.0

This deck is one of two that make up the Fellowship designed to beat The Battle of the Pelennor Fields for my Specialist Deck Series. This deck largely plays support to the Partner Outlands deck, and crucially contributes to defending. It also contains plentiful healing and card draw.

We kick off the deck with Beregond. We will be constantly assailed by strong enemies in this quest, including Nazgul and Mumaks, so bumping Beregond to 6+ with Gondorian Shield is going to be a priority. Eventually the Partner deck will be able to handle itself in combat, but not for a few rounds at least.

Beravor is our next hero. Her ability is really excellent, especially for jump-starting the Partner deck's ally swarm. The access also gives us more card draw and the healing we need to keep up with the encounter deck.

Finally, we'll take Glorfindel. He gives us a strong quester up front, a low starting threat and decent attacking capability all in one. The first few rounds are particularly important, so his 3 is sorely needed.

The initial game plan is to allow the Partner deck to draw enough cards to fuel the Outlands machine. This deck also has several cheap allies that can be in play by turn 2 to contribute to the quest. Beregond should also be ready to defend straight away. Probably a smaller enemy the first turn, but we want to get one of those Nazgul out of the staging area as soon as possible. Throughout the game we aim to keep up with our and keep both decks fighting with our healing, but the Partner deck will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Let's discuss the cards in the deck:

Arwen Undómiel - A good quester who can also boost our defenses. She allows Beregond to reach 7 in case we have a big attack incoming. If not, she can also set up a secondary defender, such as Denethor or one of the Outlands allies.

Bilbo Baggins - He's here for the willpower, but we do have one pipe in the deck as a bonus.

Galadhon Archer - The archer provides a little attacking support thanks to his ranged. Could also pick off an enemy in combination with Beregond's spear.

Galadriel's Handmaiden - Another questing ally. We might get some use out of the threat reduction to avoid unwanted engagements.

Honour Guard - They'll be working with the healers to keep our characters in the fight. There are direct damage effects and archery, but it also gives a little insurance when defending against the big attackers.

Ioreth - Our 4th healer. As with the honour guards, there are plenty of damaging effects we need to deal with. Beregond in particular we need in good health throughout the quest.

Mablung - A good questing ally. It's not a big draw, but with all the enemies around it's not to hard to get value from his ability.

Miner of the Iron Hills - Helping with the deck's support role, there are a couple of condition attachments he can help with. There is sure to be enough combat that the stats will come in handy too.

Misty Mountain Journeyman - This quest is constantly throwing enemies at us, so it should be no problem to play this guy, and you can't do much better for efficiency.

Pippin - A great quester in and with our low starting threat he's very likely to contribute in combat as well.

Ranger of Cardolan - Since we have a Dúnedain hero this guy is great value for combat. Since he's neutral, it's not too hard to play him for full cost either.

Warden of Healing - Very useful for keeping our characters alive, especially all of the Partner deck's Outlands allies.

West Road Traveller - Mostly here for the , I wouldn't expect to use the ability often.

Dúnedain Pipe - A decent include since we have a chance of finding it with Bilbo. I'm a big fan of giving this to Aragorn since then it can be used by both decks.

Gondorian Shield - One of the key cards in our deck and one to mullilgan for in setup. We need this to have Beregond defending at his full potential. A spare goes pretty well on Denethor in the Partner deck too.

Lembas - A nice little card, probably for Beregond, to give him a one-time boost. It's not possible to have too many readying effects on him.

Light of Valinor - Another card we'd like to see early. It's not the end of the world if we are without it for a round or two, but we'd really like to avoid unnecessary threat increases and of course we could use Glorfindel's attack too.

Raven-winged Helm - An alternative to Honour Guard that we can play for free. We'll never be unhappy to have this on Beregond.

Silver Circlet - We don't have any other need for Glorfindel's restricted slots, so this is a nice efficient boost.

Spear of the Citadel - Not a key part of our strategy, but it is free to play and can help us out in a pinch, especially if Beregond is defending multiple times per turn.

Thrór's Key - A nice way to avoid some annoying location effects since we don't have any other location control. The Pelennor Field location makes this a bit more reliable than some of the alternatives.

Unexpected Courage - Beregond will be doing a lot of the defensive work, and we need him to have as much action advantage as possible. We should consider carefully before choosing to use this on anyone else.

Daeron's Runes - Extremely efficient card draw - we have some key cards we want to see and this is a great way to see them.

Deep Knowledge - We want another card drawing effect and this is a really good one. Only one-of because we'd rather not raise our threat too much. This one has the advantage of drawing for both decks.

Gildor's Counsel - A great support function is to reduce the effectiveness of the encounter deck. Any help in that regard is welcome, and if we have an important turn, reducing the number of encounter reveals is an extremely good way of improving our position.

Sterner than Steel - It should be no problem to play this card, and there are several shadow effects we'd like to avoid. Keeping Beregond alive is a priority.

The Three Hunters - Another card we can use to set up a big turn. Good for boosting our defensive heroes especially since we should have enough already. By the late game we can be questing with everyone and most heroes will still be ready for combat.