A Bond of Friendship take on Lothíriel bouncing allies out of play for the benefit of Éomer and Imrahil. The classic deck with just the three heroes I found ran out of cards in hand too quickly to keep up the stream of allies, if you couldn't find Horn of the Mark in the opening hand. The contract enabling Beravor really solves that problem quite neatly, in two ways - her natural card draw, as well as pushing threat up to nearly 40 to benefit the Soldier of Gondor's draw as well.
Basic game plan is mulligan for a Gondorian or Shining shield and some allies. Draw cards with Beravor, quest with Lothíriel and Imrahil, bounce an ally, ready Imrahil to defend then use Éomer's 5 attack to swing against whatever is in the way.
When you find Thorongil it goes on Imrahil to enable a second way of bouncing allies in and out of play for fun and profit. If there are many enemies in play and you don't need quite as much questing power, Imrahil can defend the first attack, chump a second attack, and Imrahil can re-ready to take another defense.
Some notable interactions:
- Despite the high starting threat, more often than not I was drawing cards with Gandalf's response and relying on the Favor's and/or Greeting to control threat. Shrinking the deck size gives you a significant advantage in ensuring the allies you want to be bouncing around are consistently able to be found when needed.
- Unless you're really behind on questing/board state, the optimal play is rarely to permanently play allies with enters play effects, as it stops being able to benefit from those abilities.
- Nori in this deck becomes hugely useful - because Lothíriel and Imrahil's ability both shuffle back into the deck, the card added to the bottom of the deck won't stay there and makes it far more likely to see it sooner. It also allows chumping as a semi viable strategy because you can get the allies back in your to find with Imrahil or re-draw with Beravor.
- Visionary Leadership turns all the Gondor allies into exceptionally useful questing characters, but it's particularly potent when combind with Lothíriel's way of questing without paying for them. Veteran of Osgiliath, Knight of the White Tower, Mablung, and Linhir Sea-captain become 3 questors for nothing, and then can go back into a shrinking deck to be found again and again. The Envoy becomes a 2 questor who gives you a resource, Soldier of Gondor and Knight of Belfalas the same but gives cards instead of a resource. It's a significant increase in effectiveness.
- Dúnedain Pipe allows a second way of getting allies back into your deck to find with Imrahil's ability - the Honour Guard or Guardian of Ithilien are generally not the allies you want to be playing with Lothíriel's ability, but if you don't need them out permanently it's better he go back into the deck and you draw an ally with willpower instead.
It took me quite a while to get over the terror of starting at 39 threat, but for quests that aren't dedicated to driving your threat up it's really quite manageable with all of the tools in the full card pool. It can't handle NM Return to Mirkwood or Trouble in Tharbad for example, but did beat both non nightmare versions.
It's quite a fun archetype, filled with interesting small decisions - which ally goes into play now, which gets held on to, how do I make sure I don't have any enemies hanging around in play.