Steward & Sons Butcher Shop 1.0

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• 1.0

Denethor was proud, but this was by no means merely personal: he loved Gondor and its people, and deemed himself appointed by destiny to lead them in this desperate time.

Intro

This is a theme deck, not a power deck. What would happen if Boromir had gotten the Magic Ring from Frodo, survived the ambush at Amon Hen, and returned to his father in Minas Tirith with a prize beyond all hope, the Enemy's weapon to wield in defense of Gondor and its people?

To that end, this is a 3 Hunters deck of the Steward and Sons of Gondor, emboldened in their sense of rightousness and power, ready to wrought their wrath upon the servants of the Shadow. The Age of Men is far from over... but the Steward's House may be bringing the time of the orc to a premature close...

The Line-Up

For theme, we've got Denethor, Boromir, and Faramir. One could slap the actual One Ring into the deck (along with, say, Strength and Courage) onto Boromir, and it would help in flipping the contract, but I've opted for the more subtle Magic Ring stand-in. All three heroes have Noble, which actually works out nicely for being able to take advantage of 3x Valiant Sword and 3x Shining Shield, and the line-up clocks in at 30 Starting Threat, so if you manage a Pillars of the Kings in your opening hand (in most quests, you may want to mulligan for it), you can get +4 Cards and fully activate the buffs of your Valour shields and swords. With all three heroes being Noble, you also have great flexibility in who gets the Heir of Mardil (which is easily activated by passing Denethor's Resource or using Steward of Gondor of Gondor on Denethor himself), so you can build an extra ready into whichever hero most needs it for the quest at hand. Speaking of the all-important readies for a 3 Hunter deck: Boromir has his own built-in once-per-phase readies to quest and fight, Denethor can ready from Armored Destrier, Faramir can ready from Steed of the North, and anyone can ready via Magic Ring. Also, being mono-Gondor, all three heroes get full benefit from Gondorian Shield (esepcially valuable in Seige quests) and all three heroes can make use of the 3x Sword of Númenor.

Flipping the Contract

This deck brings 21 Restricted items, and all of them can go on any three of your heroes with the exceptions of the Steed of the North, the War Axe, and the Armored Destrier. Many of the upgrades, like Sword of Númenor and Dagger of Westernesse can be stacked in multiples upon the same hero. This should make getting the Contract condition satisfied and flipped pretty simple. You want to use the card draw (Pillars of the Kings, Heed the Dream, Foe-hammer, Rod of the Steward, and Expert Treasure-hunter to help get the needed gear quickly.

An ideal line-up might look something like:

Denethor (6 WP, 8 DEF): Steward, Rod, Visionary, Belt, Ancestral Armor, Gondorian Shield, Shinning Shield, Destrier, Thorongil, Magic Ring

Faramir (11 WP): Strider, Red Arrow, Celebrian Stone, Steed of the North, Anything Restricted, Treasure Hunter

Boromir (6 WP, 12 ATK): Captain, Belt, War Axe, Valiant, 2x Numenor/Dagger, Heir of Mardil, Treasure Hunter

Weaknesses

• Threat: a 'themey' part of this is that if you use Pillars early to get to 40, aggressive use of Boromir and Magic Ring can leave you flirting with threatening out. That said, having 3x Favor of the Valar and at least 2 more copies of Pillars (to bring you back down 8-9 threat each) is often sufficient protection. In quests that really punish your threat level, you can forgo playing an early Pillars for card draw / valour and instead use all three copies to eventually walk you back down to 40 when the time comes.

• Cancellation: lacking any Spirit accesss, this 3 Hunters line-up is especially vulnerable to bad treacheries. The only real protection comes in the form of Thorongil, which can let Lord Denether see far as he scryes the encounter deck for some protection. It's better than nothing, but it is minimal. Quests with treacheries that discard characters or purge the board of attachments are going to be be bad matchups. Shadow protection comes in the meager form of 2x Sterner than Steel and the pair of Armored Destrier. This is passable, but it's certainly lacking the robust shadow protection of a 3 Hunters lineup that features, say Erkenbrand or A Burning Brand.

• Willpower: this line-up starts with low innate WP. That said, it can flip the contract quickly and features some additional WP buffs in the form of The Red Arrow and Visionary Leadership. That said, any quest with stringent demands for early WP (e.g. NM Amon Din) or escalating threat in staging (e.g. NM Journey to the Crossroads or NM Lonely Mountain) are going to be high bars to hurdle, especially using this deck in 1-Handed solo.

Conclusion

All in all, I've had a lot of fun with this deck, as much of a gimmick as it is. It's barreled through the NM Heirs of Numenor box (but Battle/Siege is a particularly easy ask of it), and it's managed to claw it's way through a few other WP-related quests. It's certainly not a One Deck or anything, and will have particularly bad match-ups, but it can be fun to unleash the might of the Fountain Court upon the denizens of Mordor.

Enjoy!