TMV M: I - Infighting 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

(See here for the overarching reason for this deck's existence, designed to fight The Morgul Vale in a particularly insane way.)

The core of the Lore-centered deck is, of course, Infighting and ways to find it. Not only do Daeron's Runes, Heed the Dream, and We Are Not Idle all show up in 3x, but there's a Gather Information, and I chose Beravor as a hero. It takes 5 separate invocations of Infighting to kill the Nazgul of Minas Morgul, so, given my single cardpool restriction, the deck also needs to recur it from the discard. Thus, Scroll of Isildur. Heed the Dream (and Gather Information, technically) is the only way of shuffling the deck once the Scroll puts an Infighting copy on bottom, so exerting self-control and not using up the Heeds was a major mental obstacle.

Forest Snare is the silver bullet that deals with both Murzag and Lord Alcaron. Both Mablung and Son of Arnor (as well as Westfold Outrider in the partner deck) allow planning-phase extraction of the bosses from the staging area before they can ever attack. Feint also helps with that, obviously.

It was an offbeat choice, to throw Feint into this deck instead of the one with the permanent icon. But I was worried that putting it into the Círdan deck would engender even tougher decisions than he already forced. Besides, with the heavy draw power of the deck, I figured getting it would be even faster here.

The other trap I chose was Entangling Nets, which turned out to be an all-star. Ranger Spikes would be dangerous in a quest with both Archery enemies and ones that punish optional engagement, but Entangling Nets is pretty much always good. Occasionally a shadow effect would bounce an enemy right into them, which is always satisfying.

The rest of the deck appears to exist at cross-purposes: it's heavily Dunedaín, who want to engage enemies, but it also has Haldir, who thrives most off not engaging enemies. I agree that it's weird, but the hybrid concept isn't terrible when you consider that the deck concept depends on Forest Snare, whether for those first two bosses or for whatever damage sink enemy one eventually uses to plink the Nazgul to death. Disabling Haldir's ability for a turn every so often worked out fine.

Once board control is achieved, a weaponized Haldir laughs in the face of most of the enemies in the quest -- the main problem, of course, is getting to that point in the first place. Equipping standard Rivendell Blade+Bow of the Galadhrim allows up to an effective 7 against a non-engaged enemy. A couple of the regular enemies need an effective 8 . Luckily, the Morgul Bodyguard doesn't hit that hard all by himself, so instakilling him is not really a priority. At least for the first two bosses, you're not trying to progress too quickly anyway, as it's best to have all the Infighting pieces in hand when the Nazgul makes its appearance, and finding the minimum 5-card combo and the 9 Lore resources needed to fire it is going to take time.

The Orc Vanguard, on the other hand, is a real problem. The only mitigation for its terrible effect are pulling it with a Dúnedain Hunter -- indeed, he can dodge several of the killer When Revealed/"while in staging area" effects in this quest -- and the other deck's Westfold Outrider. I probably should've packed in a Rivendell Bow or even a Dúnedain Mark somewhere to help Haldir deal with that nasty enemy. At least there's Black Arrow in a pinch.

In retrospect, would this deck be better for my purposes if it were a mono- draw powerhouse? Or if it dropped the Dunedaín thing in favor of Leadenethor and the explosive start he often enables? Maybe going all-in on traps with Damrod? Perhaps. If you try it, let me know. But I doubt many people will be so crazy as to attempt to ping the Nazgul to death with Infighting! I just thought it would be interesting for people if I shared some of my thoughts on how to deck-tech with specific objectives in mind.