Tales out of Mithlond

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Darkling Door 6121

This is a thematic deck built for an ongoing series on my blog, Darkling Door.

Theme: The Grey Havens

Played Against: Nightmare Voyage Across Belegaer

"Upon the shores of the Gulf of Lhûn the Elves built their havens, and named them Mithlond; and there they held many ships, for the harbourage was good. From the Grey Havens the Eldar ever and anon set sail, fleeing from the darkness of the days of Earth."

—Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, The Silmarillion

Strategy

A top-of-the-discard-pile combo deck where every turn feels like a new puzzle to solve.

Tips

  • Lay of the Nauglamír is an excellent board accelerator. Play it as soon as you can after you draw it, shuffling back anything that can't be played from the discard pile.
  • Getting one copy of Master of the Forge does wonders for helping you hunt for Song of Battle in the early game. If you draw a second Master, discard it at the appropriate time.
  • Song of Battle usually goes on Galdor, since the deck is otherwise lighter on cards.
  • Whenever possible, use Salvaged Supplies to give Círdan the Shipwright an extra resource each round.
  • It's easy to activate Gaeronel's bonus each round. What's trickier is keeping her ready for combat. Light of Valinor, Lembas, and recurring Harlond Lookout are good ways to do so.
  • Whether you use Gaeronel as a defender or an attacker varies from round to round, based on which of the other Allies you've managed to get out, and which cards you can seed the discard pile with.
  • Because Círdan the Shipwright is constantly discarding something every round, you won't be able to keep the Wandering Spirit near the top of your discard pile. Use it that way for a round or two, and then trigger its ability to keep your Ally count up.
  • You can use To the Sea, to the Sea! to seed the discard pile, even outside of the planning phase if you didn't have any Allies worth playing that round.
  • The number of cards that combo with one another in this deck are far too numerous to list them all; try it out and see what I mean!

► For more analysis, check out my blog post on this deck.

5 comments

Jun 21, 2022 NERD 808

I think Rivendell Minstrel would be nice to find Song of Battle. A Good Harvest would also be great.

Jun 21, 2022 NERD 808

Narya also seems like a must include. Maybe cut Lindon Navigator?

Jun 21, 2022 Darkling Door 6121

@NERD There are a LOT of cards that would go great in this deck. It was really hard to pair it down to 50!

I left out Rivendell Minstrel because she's 3 cost, which lacks synergy with Lay of the Nauglamír. Turns out that the Master of the Forge has more synergy here.

A Good Harvest was in an early version of the deck. It was definitely good, but ended up getting cut for space.

Narya was originally in here too, but I found that I rarely could spare Círdan the Shipwright's , and I wanted to rely on Gaeronel so she got the readying.

Turns out that the Lindon Navigator is a really good card in this deck, because she offers 2 for 2 resources and an opportunity to discard a card after the quest phase to set up for the combat phase. She's not the first card I would cut here; if I had to squeeze something else in I'd probably start looking at either Stand and Fight or Wandering Spirit.

The other card that I ended up cutting (but with much hesitation) was Stone of Elostirion. It's both a thematic and mechanical win here; it just wasn't always worth adding an extra location to the staging area when I was behind. Ended up shooting myself in the foot with it a few times so I decided to take it out.

Aug 11, 2022 MOTUX 13

You mention in your blog (always great reads) that you don't think this is the strongest hero lineup and that it'd work better with native tactics access. What hero lineup with tactics do you think works better? One with Tactics Glorfindel?

Aug 11, 2022 Darkling Door 6121

Yeah I'd probably go with tactics Glorfindel for the theme. One of the problems is that Círdan constantly covers up your carefully crafted discard pile so you don't have as much control as you might otherwise. I think Arwen would be a better choice for Spirit access, or possibly Galadriel so you can play a few lore cards once you find her ring.