Deck Tech: Arwen Starter Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 27 of Deck Tech! Last week, I posted a doomed dwarf deck that swarmed out with the best of them, using Gríma and Legacy of Durin to ensure a steady flood.

This week, I'm trying something new. I'm posting a deck you could build with a pretty small buy in to the game. The sort of deck you could get into as a new player, and then update and improve as you buy more expansions (if you buy more expansions).

The Rules:

1. If I use cards from an adventure pack, I'll also include the preceding deluxe expansion in the deck's requirements. Who wants to buy packs and not be able to play the quests in them?
2. Each deck will only take one copy of the core set, because more copies aren't necessarily a fun purchase, even if multiples are useful.
3. Each deck (as with basically all of mine) is intended for solo play. I could probably write up some examples that are more multiplayer friendly, but I want most of them to support solo play so new players can try it without needing a group.
4. The writeup is going to focus a bit more on the deck's basic strategy, and a bit less on quest results. And the quests I do feature are going to be quests from the expansions used to make the deck.

How to play:

This deck is reasonably straightforward out of the gate. All of the heroes want to quest. Éowyn and Arwen Undómiel contribute a lot of willpower to push past early staging areas, and Théodred helps you pay for your events and allies with a lot of flexibility.

And the allies are all useful in a couple of ways. Northern Tracker and Warden of Annúminas have the best general combat stats and can defend or attack pretty well. And there are a number of one cost allies (Snowbourn Scout, Westfold Horse-breeder) that are great defenders, even though they're basically guaranteed to die.

Gandalf is a flexible toolbox, and you should be able to easily afford his 5 cost thanks to Theodred and Arwen's resource generating abilities. But if you do have a Sneak Attack, that classic core set combo is still great. (Valiant Sacrifice is a third piece to the combo that produces even more card draw at a pretty low price.)

If you must fight a big enemy, I recommend making sure you save Gandalf or Saruman for that round. Most of the allies have at least some attack strength, but Gandalf and Saruman more than pull their own weight.

So let's see how this deck does against a quest:

Quest 1: Journey Along the Anduin

I decide to keep my opening hand, because I have a Westfold Horse-breeder for defense and an Elven-light to start drawing cards. Using Elven-light to draw a card on the first round also gets me to all three pieces of the Sneak Attack, Gandalf, Valiant Sacrifice combo. Because of that, Théodred gives his resource to himself during the quest phase.

And the first round's staging reveals Goblin Sniper, one of my least favorite cards in the core set. So I use the combo to kill it with Gandalf during the encounter phase.

The second round is much less eventful, as I just quest to make some progress, and my threat is too low to have to engage any enemies.

And the same is almost true in the third round, except I have the option of traveling to Gladden Fields. But I'm at 28 threat, and it would mean I'd have to engage the Hill Troll the following round. I don't always like doing it, but I use Sneak Attack number two to reduce my threat and buy me some time. And while Gandalf is in play, I kill one of the Dol Guldur Beastmasters.

The next few rounds are pretty uneventful, until I engage a second Dol Guldur Beastmaster. I defended against the attack with an ally, and one of the shadow effects forces me to return that ally back to my hand. Three undefended damage is going to kill one of the heroes, and I decide I'd like Eowyn's extra willpower over Arwen's extra resouce. I'm not happy about it, but we should be okay.

Slow play for a bit, until round nine. In that round, I play Gandalf for five, placing four damage on the Hill Troll. Gandalf defends against his attack, allowing me to save my permanent allies, and the rest of the allies swing back to kill the troll and move on.

I'm in good shape at this point. Heir of Mardil and Steward of Gondor go on Eowyn to make up for our lack of spirit resources. (And the Heir of Mardil will keep her safe from any more Necromancer's Reach treacheries.)

The rest of the enemies I see are mid-sized orcs, which are pretty easy to dispatch one at a time until I get to the final ambush. Which is also just mid-sized orcs and I have enough allies unexhausted that round to clear them out.

Final score: 135. 11 full rounds, 20 threat, 3 damage on heroes, 9 from Arwen's death, 7 victory points.

Play Tips:

1. In early quests, The Necromancer's Reach is awful, and these spheres have no healing. Heir of Mardil can keep one of the three health heroes safe.
2. Sneak Attack works well with Gandalf for sure, but you can also use it to get extra value out of Snowbourn Scout, Northern Tracker, and Orophin if you're in a pinch.
3. Low threat is your friend, which is why the deck includes The Galadhrim's Greeting and Galadriel's Handmaiden. But despite that, drawing cards or damaging an enemy are usually better choices with Gandalf.

Packs Needed:

1. 1 Core Set
2. The Voice of Isengard
3. Celebrimbor's Secret
4. The Lost Realm
5. The Dread Realm

Recommended Additions:

1. Treebeard
2. Island Amid Perils
3. Galadhrim Weaver
4. Glorfindel
5. Dúnedain Remedy

Next week: I'm going to be on vacation, so timing might be off. But look for another Starter Deck posted on Tuesday.

Blog: Look for a community spotlight every Thursday on the blog, and it has an RSS feed if that's your thing.

Twitter: Follow @LOTRDeckTech to get notifications whenever I post a new deck, new blog post, or something random on the twitter feed!