Deck Tech: Strider Glorfindel 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 25 of Deck Tech! Last week I posted a pretty thematic 2 hero deck focused on Arwen and Aragorn, using Strider as much as possible.

This week I'm going to share a Strider deck that I think is pretty close to optimally tuned for general purpose solo play. And it can definitely stomp a simple quest, and deal surprisingly well with some very difficult quests. (More tuning, if you need it: A Test of Will and Hasty Stroke, but I don't like those cards as much as I used to.)

There are a few key sets of cards for dealing with various threats. Timely Aid and Sneak Attack let you cheat out expensive allies permanently or temporarily as a means to deal with combat. This is a deck that isn't afraid to use Gandalf for damage to clear out little problems.

Steward of Gondor, Elven-light, and Rod of the Steward are big parts of the card draw package, and let you dig pretty deep if you want to.

Strider and Light of Valinor are for Glorfindel, so that he can contribute his willpower and his attack strength. The odds are good you won't be below 5 characters for long, so it's not a willpower boost here, but at that point you shouldn't need it.

So let's see how well all of that comes together against some quests.

Quest 1: The Morgul Vale

This one starts off a little bit weird, but it works out in the end. After a mulligan, I've got a Steward of Gondor and a Rod of the Steward that I can play for sure the following round, but nothing else exciting right away.

And then I draw Timely Aid on round 1, which gets me a Guardian of Rivendell and I feel a lot better. Though I do fail to quest by 5.

The Steward and Rod go on Glorfindel, as the deck is mostly spirit. And Theodred's extra resource means I can draw two cards per round this way, if I've not got anything more exciting to play.

I don't really get any big allies down until round 4, when I get Treebeard with Timely Aid and play a Northern Tracker the hard way. And I get lucky just after that, when the Lieutenant of Mordor is discarded as a shadow card. Unluckily, Faramir sits in my hand after this, because he's captured in this quest and can't be played.

Round 7 I get Power from Mordor into a second Power from Mordor. Fortunately, this whisks away a couple of Bodyguards, and reveals some less annoying enemies.

In round 12, I eat The Master's Malice. Fortunately, Theodred and Treebeard survive. Losing Erestor and a Guardian is less good, but not the end of the world. That's also the round I finally(!) kill Murzag with only a couple of progress tokens on To The Tower.

I use Sneak Attack and Gandalf twice in the next round to kill Lord Alcaron, who entirely deserves it. His bounce back to the staging area shenanigans are too annoying to want to deal with the normal way.

Then begins the long slog to kill the Nazgul. Round 15 Treebeard dies defending against a relatively weak enemy, and I'm forced to replay him with six fewer resources on him. And the encounter deck has to reshuffle at the same time. That's a lot of bad stuff possibly ready to come right back out.

I use Gandalf to snipe an extra point of damage on the Nazgul, and win the day in round 17. Theodred and Glorfindel together have just enough attack to do one damage to the Nazgul, and that's how it ends.

Bodyguards did slow me down quite a bit early, since I had the combat strength to kill Murzag or a Bodyguard, but not both. But after that, no big deal.

Final Score: 203. 16 full rounds, 43 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 2: Massing at Osgiliath

This one starts off almost entirely the opposite of the last one. Light of Valinor, Timely Aid, Sneak Attack and two Elrond's Counsel in my opening hand means we're in a surprisingly great position early. I can even fail to quest pretty badly right away and not engage any of the tougher scouts.

And then Timely Aid gets me a Northern Tracker and I know I'm in business.

And I do fail the quest in round 1. But having a threat of 8 when you have to take that threat makes it a pretty worthless problem.

Two Snaga Scouts die in the first two rounds thanks to Glorfindel and the Tracker, and I add some questing power with Arwen and a Sneak Attack Gandalf. Gandalf also draws me a Steward of Gondor for the Rod of the Steward I've been sitting on.

Soon I've got another Northern Tracker in play, meaning I can avoid traveling to annoying West Bank or East Bank locations. And Faramir for all the willpower I could ask for. And Strider on Theodred because why not?

By round 11, I'm getting pretty desparate for a ranger to appear, since we've about 1 progress away from progressing to the stage where I need to sacrifice one of them.

And one does, literally that round, as I accidentally make 1 progress and move on to stage 3. I think I could have just let Theodred die, but this way is better. And the following round we make the one progress we need to get to the final stage with the Witch King.

I decide to leave him in the staging area, thinking I can quest through. That's a mistake, so I optionally engage him in round 13 and pay the extra threat to keep him engaged. He does kill a Guardian of Rivendell, but I'm okay with that.

I sneak in a Northern Tracker during questing because I couldn't draw into another Gandalf, and we quest for entirely too much.

Final Score: 155. 13 full rounds, 25 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 3: The Dread Realm

I've done well with the deck so far, why not try something else tough and see how we do? I picked this one because the start isn't too rough, depending on what your 1 random reveal is, and it's full of enemies that Treebeard or Glorfindel can one-shot.

The deck doesn't have a lot of success, though. I did get off to a good start one round, with a Sneak Attack Gandalf during combat to deal with the initial pair of reanimated cards, but the flood of reanimated cards continued unabated. And when you're forced to take too many undefended attacks in a quest with bad shadows and only two heroes, it doesn't go too well.

But this is basically something that I figured would happen. For a deck like this, you need to be able to build up a bit before you're forced to do too much combat. Gandalf can definitely handle a lot of your early needs, but if you get to the point where you're engaging enemies every round you need to build up much more than that.

I'm still pretty sure this is possible, if you rotate in some cancellation, but starting with an enemy engaged is a pretty big handicap.

Play Tips:

1. All the resources go to Glorfindel unless you've got a really good Leadership card in your hand that you can play either this round or the next. Sneak Attack or Timely Aid after questing is a good idea. Faramir or Erestor when Theodred is sitting on two resources is also a wise time to give the resource to him.
2. It's not too hard to get Elven-light in the discard pile, with five cards that will allow you to discard one (or two!).
3. Don't be afraid to quest with Glorfindel early, even without his attachments. It's not like going from 13 to 14 threat is really going to make a huge difference in the enemies you're likely to engage.
4. Almost all your allies can fight, and all your allies can quest with Faramir on the table. Entirely seriously, Faramir's 2 defense and 3 hp are quite useful.
5. Celduin Traveler is mostly a scry on legs. His willpower is nice, but knowing what's coming is more useful. Except when he reveals a worthless card that has surge.
6. Threat should be pretty easy to manage in most quests, so don't be afraid to Sneak Attack in Saruman for combat or questing. Gandalf is probably always a better choice in normal mode quests, but "exiling" an encounter card is a good deal.

Next Week: Let's play some dwarves. Dwarven Sellsword is still in the bin, untouched, and I know it's going to be a great ally.

Blog: Look for a community spotlight every Thursday on the blog, and it has an RSS feed if that's your thing. Though I missed the spotlight last week! Sorry, everybody.

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