A Friend Across the Table - Jon's Con Deckbox 2.0

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• 2.0

Edit: Beorn has posted a delightful alt-art version of this deck on his blog.

One of my favorite go-to Con decks has been a variation on Seastan's Ramp Down deck. It defends for a bunch, can hand out card draw and threat reduction, and handles its business during the quest and combat phases. It's the kind of deck I'm always happy to see across the table, and I'm equally as happy to play it.

After the advent of One Ring decks and my own Ain't No Ash Mountains High Enough abuse of Beregond and The One Ring, the threat-dropping, top-defending Con deck was due for an update with more focus on benefits across the table.

Thank You For Being a Friend

You get Inner Strength right off the bat, and your opening hand should feature something useful. But even if you're not particularly lucky in your draws, your hero lineup can get the whole table started off on the right foot: Galadriel is still there to help with card draw and threat reduction, Beregond is a tremendous defender made even better with Inner Strength, and Éowyn remains one of the best heroes in the game to quest and one-shot attack.

Traveled Down a Road and Back Again

With the theme of being a friend across the table, there's a lot of recursion here. Stand and Fight and Reforged can help the overall board state if ally or attachment hate take out a key piece. Dwarven Tomb can fish those events, or any card, back out of your discard, if the need arises.

Of course, Silver Harp is there to rescue cards from the Mirror of Galadriel discard, too.

The target of your first Unexpected Courage depends on the quest. If you're facing more low-engagement enemies on the board than locations, an extra defense from Beregond is better. If you're facing high-engagement enemies or heavy threat locations, then Galadriel is a better target so she can fire her built-in effect and add her to a questing character with Nenya.

Your Heart Is True

Standard issue heavy- deck additions like Arwen Undómiel, A Test of Will, and Ethir Swordsman each do their job.

If you find yourself running into a conflict, drop Ally Arwen and add pick two from the extra Imladris Stargazer, Galadriel's Handmaiden, or Pelargir Shipwright. Same with Glorfindel, drop him for the Marksman of Lórien to help spend the resources. Or dig Legolas out if you're feeling really spendy, but I didn't include him on this sideboard.

While we're on the topic of ally cards, 13 of them have effects that can benefit the other players, in addition to their base stats and efficiency. Your new friends will thank you.

One last note on the sideboard: It's big, but it's flexible because this is a Con deck. If you're playing a quest with multiple bad shadows, Silver Lamp is a good substitution. Similarly, a quest with a big bad that will hit all the players in order might call for a couple Behind Strong Walls to get an extra defense or two out of our beef wall. Ally or attachment hate quests get the extra Stand and Fight or Reforged, respectively. As built, this deck probably has more in it than it needs if there's a dedicated deck on the board, so you can drop an ally or two in favor of a sideboard card. And if you really want to get crazy, have everyone bring 3x Keen as Lances.

You're a Pal and a Confidant

And finally, Thorongil. Look, I get that Helm of Secrecy is more thematic, but a both/and Éowyn hero to do something with all those extra resources in the late game also gives your Shipwrights a boost. And if that's still not enough , Éowyn's ability will let you add up to 4 more in a 4 player game. It's kind of shenanigans, but it's fun, so I'm letting it stand. Drop it in favor of the two Dagger of Westernesse and pop a Unexpected Courage on Éowyn instead to let her work out her issues, if you want.

In summary: If you played a pickup game and invited 3 people you knew. Well, you see, the biggest gift would be to thee, and the card would say "Thank you for being a friend (across the table)."