Deck Tech: The Old Man and the Trees 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 23 of Deck Tech! Last week we played a Caldara deck with Galdor to spike our discard pile early and help us hit some key pieces to speed through the rest of the deck.

This week we're going a little bit old school. We've got resources, we've got a whole swarm of Ents, and we've got some great utility allies to stack up on top of all of that. And these are mostly one-ofs, so you won't draw as many dead cards as you might in a lot of my other builds.

And we've got a healing sub-theme. I want this deck to be able to smoke The Ruins of Belegost with healing to spare. We'll get to how that goes in a minute, but there are plenty of tricks in here to squeeze out even more healing. Elrond gets all the resource acceleration, so he can ready Warden of Healing. And Treebeard can ready the Wellinghall Preserver for some extra healing, too.

I just need to be careful about how much I heal before attacking, otherwise Booming Ent is going to be a bit sad.

Quest 1: The Drowned Ruins

I played this quest at GenCon, so I already knew about how it would go. But now that everyone else can buy it, I'll feel less bad about spoiling some of the surprises.

And I got an incredibly lucky opening hand to go into this. Steward for Elrond and Captain's Wisdom to help me pump up my pirate allies. Daeron's Runes draws me a Heed the Dream and I discard an extra Steward. And that Heed the Dream gets me Treebeard.

So I don't pay the pirates and just play Ents instead.

I build up pretty fast, hitting an Erestor shortly after that, and a pretty steady stream of Ents. Ghân-buri-Ghân hits the table before I travel to any underwater locations, and he proves to be an awesome swimmer.

I also really appreciated the treachery that spawns a new grotto location on its underwater side. Yeah, there's a bit of location lock that slows down a deck without a lot of willpower, but it's great to be able to see the bad effects on the other side before you have to travel.

Round twelve, I clear the final underwater location and flip to stage 2. I could have probably done it a bit faster, thanks to Faramir, but I kept drawing allies and wanted to be sure I had questing and combat under control.

Then Sahir turns traitor and punches a tree, but the Derndingle Warrior only takes one damage extra damage after buffing its defense. And Sahir runs away, probably nursing a broken hand. Don't punch trees, you guys. It's going to hurt.

After all this, the Shrine to Morgoth is waiting. Faramir says some encouraging words, and we quest through with 61. (Ghân-buri-Ghân is contributing more than Gandalf, here!)

Final score: 148. 12 full rounds, 39 threat, 11 vp, 0 damage on heroes.

Quest 2: The Ruins of Belegost

Spoiler alert, this is both the best and worst I've ever done against The Ruins of Belegost.

I start off with Steward again, which is great, because it means I can play multiple allies and keep one safe. So I toss in two Ents straight away. And then lose one to the Covered Pit I was worried about.

I travel to the first location and reveal that the Loot it's guarding is the Keys to Belegost! This is great news, because it means I won't have to engage the Lurker in the Depths immediately. And extra resources on Elrond are definitely useful.

I clear it next turn, but don't make enough progress to move on. And the next location is hiding the Blue Mountain Gem to lock my threat in place. I see the dragon here, but we quest past him and on to stage 2C.

And this is where everything begins to go horribly wrong. 2C spawns a location, and shuffles the Lurker in the Depths into the encounter deck. And I can only progress once I've cleared three locations.

I travel to the first one, and don't see any hazards, or any loot. But I've already got the two I need, so no big deal. Clear it out the next round, and then travel to a second.

I clear that one out in round three, but staging didn't reveal another one, and now Naurlhug comes out to play. Treebeard tanks on the defense, and I start to bring all the healing engine online to soak up his fiery breath.

His first shadow card is also the Lurker in the Depths! Nice dodge.

And every round after that, his shadow card was a location. Other enemies kept spawning, too. Including all three copies of Orc of Ered Luin, who make an immediate attack and discarded three more locations that way. (Once engaged, they sometimes had non-location shadow cards.)

I made it all the way to round sixteen on stage 2 this way, and still wasn't putting permanent damage on any of my characters. (2 Warden of Healing and 3 Wellinghall Preserver heal up to 14, and I had one copy of Dúnedain Remedy bouncing between my heroes.)

And the deck ran out, so I reshuffled. No location the following round, and I flipped the encounter deck to do some quick math. They all lined up to miss for most of the way through the encounter deck again. And you can't even kill Naurlhug to turn off his shadow every round.

GG, shuffling, GG. I was solidly in control of the encounter deck throughout all of this, but it didn't want to play along at all.

Play Tips:

1. Most quests don't need all the healing you've got available to you, so feel free to chump block with Warden of Healing if you need it.
2. Steward is amazing, but you can also start with Treebeard, who also provides a really solid jump start to the Ents.
3. Give all the resources to Elrond, he's got all the friends.
4. Don't be like me and put Robin Smallburrow in this deck after you cut Vilya. That doesn't work out super well in solo.
5. Ents are so durable in this deck that Faramir is a really clutch tool. He's my pick with Heed the Dream as long as Treebeard is already available.
6. Don't forget you can spend resources to ready Warden of Healing and Wellinghall Preserver (off Treebeard) for extra healing. But only if you're me and you get in way too deep in a dragon fight.

Next Week: I'm sorry Stokesbook, but I think I've given up on Rossiel. The deck just works better as you remove victory display cards. And then the deck works way better once you remove Rossiel. Maybe it's Strider time.

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