Minimum Purchase Gandalf/Elrond Solo Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

This is a powerful solo deck that you can build with just two expansions: the Elves of Lorien Starter Deck and The Fellowship Of The Ring Saga Expansion. (Yes, I know Messenger of the King isn't in these boxes, but all it does is allow you to choose a unique ally as one of your starting heroes, so you definitely don't need to own this card to play by the rules of it).

Here are the essential cards in this deck:

1. Elrond has three of the most powerful abilities in the game. He can pay for allies from ANY sphere. He boosts all healing, which is amazing when you have a hero like Gandalf with 5 hit points. And best of all, with Vilya he can play the top card of your deck for FREE. This is bonkers. The best allies in the game (like Beorn and Faramir) are free. The most powerful events (like Grim Resolve) are free. This is risky since you normally don't have a way to look at the top card of your deck - you're doing it blind. But that's where Gandalf comes in.

2. Gandalf has the other three most powerful effects in the game. He lets you play with the top card of your deck faceup at all times, so you know exactly what you'll get when you play Vilya! Wow. He can also play the top card of your deck as if it were in your hand (and when playing a card this way, he gets every sphere). Each time you do that, it's like you're drawing an extra card. And lastly, with his Wizard Pipe he can swap the top card with another card in his hand, allowing you to choose the target for Vilya or to play with Gandalf's multicolored resources. This breaks all cost curves.

3. Bilbo as a hero is here to fetch your Wizard Pipe during setup, keep your starting threat low (only 4 threat cost!), and then quest for 2 for the rest of the game. Nice!

Everything else is optional stuff that you can customize to your liking! The things I find work best to include are toys to beef up Gandalf, plenty of powerful high-cost allies to play for free with Vilya, and readying effects to get multiple uses from your powerful heroes and allies. Also note that drawing cards with Gléowine or Gandalf's Staff will let you change the top card of your deck to try to hit a better target with Vilya. That is SO important.

As you can see, there are enough great cards in these two expansions to make the deck work, but buying pretty much ANY other expansions will boost this deck even more by giving you even more allies and tools to choose from. Here are a few notable additions you can make:

• The Dwarves of Durin Starter Deck - Zigil Miner is amazing here to give you more resources, but more importantly lets you change the top card of your deck. You can also add in Stand and Fight with him to re-play any allies that get discarded by the mining. And Magic Ring goes great on Gandalf.

• Angmar Awakened Hero Expansion - Gather Information to help find Vilya, Sword-thain to make a fourth hero (great for Faramir to put Unexpected Courage on him!), and Hour of Wrath for a Gandalf rampage (pair with Flame of Anor for best results). Lots of strong allies too.

• Dream-Chaser Hero Expansion - Narya! This card takes the deck to another level, as long as you have a couple of strong allies on the table.

• The Two Towers Saga Expansion - Shadowfax, and LOTS of great unique allies to add in here including Legolas!