Jason Walden's Estel Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Jason’s Leadership and Tactics deck is built for a tussle, but it also serves to remind us of some of the different ways players approach the game. A self-described “Bilbo” player , Jason built his deck to tell the story of the bond that developed between a young Aragorn and Elrond’s sons, Elrohir and Elladan. Accordingly, Aragorn, Elrohir, and Elladan form the core of the deck, joining forces to set off on one of their many shared quests. “Estel,” meaning “hope” or “trust” in Sindarin, is the name given to Aragorn while he was fostered at Rivendell.

Using Keeping Count, the trio of heroes participate in a friendly competition to see who can slay the most foes. They are aided by a few of their allies from the host of Rivendell and a slew of elven and Dúnedain equipment.

The deck was made primarily to be played solo, but can be extremely effective when paired with a deck that provides card draw or questing power, as those are its primary weaknesses. Overall, the deck covers a wide variety of tactical options. There is no single card that is an essential draw, and any duplicates or other cards that might otherwise sit in your hand can be spent to keep Trollshaw Scout and Watcher of the Bruinen in play.

Most of the deck’s cards have very low costs; in fact, there’s only one card that costs three resources. The majority of your resources will be spent on using their abilities to repeatedly stand the three heroes. Each of the three heroes have the potential to participate more than once in a round due to their abilities to stand themselves. So everything revolves around increasing their strengths as much as possible.

I see Keeping Count as one of the deck’s highlights. It is really fun to play with these three heroes, as each is versatile enough to take turns attacking, defending, and questing.

-Jason Waldon, Game Producer. Posted to FFG Website 7/16/12