The Last Elven Host 1.0

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“In those days of our tale, there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors and Elrond, the master of the house, was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves and as kind as summer.” - The Hobbit

This is an attempt at a strong but thematic Elrond+Vilya/Noldor Discard hybrid deck that can beat most quests when played alongside its complimentary deck The Three Hunters. This deck focuses on questing and support while the other focuses on combat however with allies like Guardian of Rivendell and Gildor, and Elrond being the secondary main defender of the decks it can handle its own in combat when need be. The other deck is fully capable of killing enemies engaged with either deck anyway thanks to its various ranged attackers and engagement abilities (namely Tactigorn). The Vilya and Imladris engine is the heart of the deck but there are several other key components to the deck. This would be Arwen's resource boost combined with Elven Light and Imladris Caregiver which gives access to massive healing and card draw as well as resource manipulation/smoothing. Also Galdor being used in every single game to draw back up to 6 cards when you first run out of cards is an immense boost(this happens easily due to a combo of low cost cards, Arwen's discard and discarding cards to heal once you get a Caregiver out). Lastly the deck features several key readying attachments that benefit both decks immensely such as UC, Lembas and LoV.

Heroes:

Elrond is hands down the star player in this deck. He is intended to have the following attachments: LoV, UC, Vilya, Burning Brand, Cloak of Lorien and Elven Mail. This allows him to do the following: Use Vilya (with Stargazer!) to play a card for free, ready with UC and quest without exhausting with LoV. Finally he can defend with Burning Brand and ignore shadow effects. With extra hitpoints and sentinel from Elven Mail and potentially extra defense from Cloak of Lorien and/or Gondorian Shield (the second copy can go on him after the first goes on Gimli) he is one hell of a defender and alongside Gimli the two of them can stave off all but the nastiest of attacks with ease. If you don't use UC to use Vilya you can defend twice with him in one turn and you can do the same by using Gimli's ability to ready Elrond after he has already defended against an attack. Essentially he is playing powerful player cards for free, questing and defending potentially multiple times every single round. He becomes an absolute beast. Oh and of course you have his inbuilt passive abilities! He boosts all healing by 1 point which increases the value of both the Caregiver and Healer as well as Lembas and he can pay for allies of any sphere which means that even without Vilya he can help pay for allies which can be nice early game when you don't have Vilya to play cards like Handmaiden and Stargazer quickly.

Arwen and her resource boost is a key part of the decks. If the other deck doesn't have Unlikely Friendship in its starting hand her extra resource is often given to Aragorn to play something like Elven Mail and Shield first turn or a copy of Fornost Bowman first turn. The best use for this resource though is to allow first turn Vilya and Stargazer allowing you use Vilya first turn at full power. She is used to quest and pretty much never performs any other action. Mid to late game her resource boost is used on various heroes mainly herself, Aragorn and Elrond to allow faster player of high cost cards. She receives both copies of Silver Harp which is used to allow extra healing or use of her ability without needing to discard cards. Late game this is insanely good and allows tons of extra healing. Song of Earendil is also attached to her. It allows this deck to absorb some of the other decks threat if that deck is unable to play Gandalf and can then lower threat dramatically with Elrond's Counsel and Greeting lowering both decks threat by a fair bit. This can also allow me to even out both decks threat towards the end of a game which is extremely useful because by then it doesn't matter as much which deck enemies engage as I have strong sentinel and ranged characters setup and it means that once deck won't threat out before the other which to me is an automatic concede and loss.

Galdor is probably the one hero that is somewhat replaceable in these decks. He is essentially included for his abilities and his two willpower and is never used for anything else. Now don't confuse the way I have phrased this to mean that he is not very useful. He is actually very useful and his abilities boost this deck immensely. I just think that a hero like Argalad or Haldir could probably replace him in certain quests that are a little more combat intensive. I'm not sure how much the loss of his abilities would impact the deck however so may try this out in the near future. Essentially because of the need to discard cards to heal characters with Caregivers and to use Arwen's resource boost you can very quickly run out of cards towards the early to mid game with this deck. If you run out of cards and do not have enough resources and copies of Elven Light set up yet to keep drawing extra cards each turn you may be in serious trouble. Galdor's ability allows you to draw straight back up to 6 cards when you first run out. Often in these 6 cards I see cards like Elven Light, Silver Harp and Test of Will. Elven Light and Silver Harp allow you to then discard/draw/heal with more ease keeping your hand filled with cards at the same time. Test of Will is just always nice to see. His first ability is less useful but I will often discard copies of Elven Light or Glorfindel ally if I draw them in my opening hand in order to essentially draw a few more starting cards considering I can still play Elven Light and Glorfindel from the discard pile anyway. These are both one time boosts per game however so other than these two effects all he does is quest every turn.

Allies:

• Galadrim Healers are great for healing when one deck has two or more damaged heroes as she can essentially heal 2 damage from all three heroes belonging to one deck thanks to Elrond. She is a great target for Vilya giving you free healing for the turn. I usually hang onto copies until they are most beneficial however using Caregivers to heal important defensive characters and letting other damage build until I can heal the most I can with a Galadrim Healer. This way they are used to more effect and you then don't have to rely on the Caregivers and Lembas quite as much which is good as without Silver Harps or Elven Light the Caregivers can be taxing on your hand.
• Galadriel's Handmaidens are a great cheap minor threat reduction and effective questing ally in one. 2 willpower for 2 cost is great and even when they die from treachery effects at least you get the small threat reduction as well.
• Gildor is a great target for Vilya and provides a big boost to and is also a great defensive character and perfect recipient for Cloak of Lorien and Burning Brand or even Elven Mail. The problem with his ability is that you almost always want to use his stats instead because they are so great so his ability is only ever used if a card like Greeting, Northern Tracker or UC are in my hand and I can't afford to play them normally but could play them with Vilya if I put them on top of my deck. This is definitely a great combo but with Arwen's resource boost and the abundance of cheap events and allies in this deck as well as the fact you get to play so many cards for free with Vilya means this is rarely needed and he is almost always just used to quest or defend.
• Glorfindel is another great target for Vilya and provides a big boost to as well as as well. So long as you can afford to discard a card he can contribute to both and can help take out engaged enemies with help from a ranged character such as Legolas or a Fornost Bowman from the other deck. He can be discard without worry to Arwen's effect or to heal with a Caregiver as he can just be played from the discard pile as well. This means late game is a good backup chump blocker for boss or especially nasty enemies as you can just play him from your discard pile again after he is destroyed. He can essentially never truly die and you can always bring him back with enough resources. Archery damage, treachery damage and other similar effects can be placed on him with ease because of this and his nice 4 which is damn high for an ally helps as well. He is a decent recipient for Rivendell Blade as well.
• Guardian of Rivendell are useful backup defenders and perfect recipients for Elven Mail and Cloak of Lorien. Their innate 3 and 3 is really nice for an ally character at only 3 cost and the discard cost is not so bad for this deck considering you can draw back up to 6 with Gildor if need be or can discard cards like Elven Light or Glorfindel. As well as this you can often play this ally for free with Vilay bypassing the discard cost which means you get his fantastic defensive stats for no resource and without having to discard cards!
• Haldir of Lorien is like Halbarad in the other deck and can be used to do just about anything. He is a great attacker with ranged and a decent backup defender with sentinel and 2 and 3. Four cost is a little high but once this deck gets rolling its actually spirit resources that are at a premium and often lore resources will stack up on Galdor while Elrond with Vilya and Arwen pump through their resources to play various spirit cards and pay for effects like Elven Light. He can also obviously be played for free with Vilya which is the ideal way to get him in play.
• Imladris Stargazer is used to allow a choice of what card Vilya plays for free. She serves no other real purpose other than when Vilya is not in play in which case she helps find Vilya faster and order the top five cards of this deck each turn. Occasionally when the other deck is stalling or in need or specific cards I will use her ability on The Three Hunters deck to have a look at its top five cards and put them back in any order instead. Games in which you get both copies out and are able to use them to manipulate the top cards of both decks for several turns usually go extremely well.
• Lindir is like a cool mini version of Galdor's ability. He is used to only draw one or two cards just as often as he is used to draw a full set of 3 cards. I will often use him before using Galdor's ability so that I can then use Galdor's ability later once those new three cards run out or have been played. Due to the way his ability reads he can be played for free with Vilya and will still draw you up to three cards which is just bonkers. He is a decent quester with 2 and unlike many other questers in this deck (both healers, the handmaiden and Stargazer) he has 1 attack so in a pinch can contribute to destroying foes alongside Glorfindel etc.
• Northern Tracker is a great target for Vilya as he is expensive and doesn't always trigger his ability. When his ability is useful however which is honestly most of the time it gets ridiculously better every single turn. Often with a second copy out I can clear the majority of locations in staging without having to travel much at all. This helps avoid nasty travel effects or costs and stops location lock or unsuccessful questing. If you don't need them to slowly clear out locations and have that under control they are fantastic combat allies with 2 and 2 with 3.

Events:

• Test of Will is an obvious inclusion and essential in any quest to cancel the nastiest of when revealed effects or those that are especially harmful to these decks in particular (attachment hate among a few other specific effects can be very bad for these decks). You can get more uses out of Test of Will with Dwarven Tomb which is great for the hardest or nightmare quests that feature multiple cards that are must cancels. Often I have gotten 4 or 5 uses out of Test of Will across the course of a game especially longer ones and this can easily be the difference between a win and a loss.
• Dwarven Tomb is used to get extra uses out of Test of Will as mentioned above more than anything but is also used on occasion to get a copy of UC, Greeting or Counsel back out of the discard pile. Extra recursion of when revealed cancellation or threat reduction is always good and I always find a great use for any copy of this card that I draw in a game.
• Elrond's Counsel is the soft threat reduction card in this deck as opposed to greeting. This one can only reduce this decks threat and only reduces by 3. It costs 0 though and gives a small boost to willpower. A fantastic card that is always good to see.
• Elven-Light as already mentioned several times is part of a combo or draw/heal engine that is key to the deck. Elven Light is discarded to heal characters to activate Arwen's ability. Then it is returned to hand to draw an additional card. There is no limit to this so if you have multiple healers out and plenty of spirit resources you can heal tons of damage and draw several cards in one go. Those new cards fuel further healing and constantly recycling Elven Light fuels further card draw. Even if this deck runs out of cards you can constantly recycle Elven Light to provide healing.
• The Galadhrim's Greeting is the hard threat reduction card that can lower either deck by 6. It can be used in combo with Song of Earendil to lower this decks threat while absorbing bits of the other decks threat. It can lower just the other decks threat if this deck has already played copies of Counsel or Greeting but the other deck can't play Gandalf or lower its much higher threat level. Lastly I will rarely use it for its minus 2 threat for each player effect in situations where both decks are at the same extremely high threat level of say 45+ and I am only a few turns from victory or loss. Even though you are reducing 2 less total threat by choosing this option both decks are lowering threat and staying at a similar level which can be more important that close to both decks threating out. This is definitely the second most chosen card when using Dwarven Tomb and is also a great target for Vilya allowing you to bypass its steep cost of three.