Radagast Goes Birdwatching #ALEP 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Note: This deck uses community-made cards from the A Long-Extended Party expansions.

~ "Why didn't the eagles just fly the Hobbits to Mordor?" ~

Because they're too busy hanging out with Radagast and laying waste to any quest that stands in their path!

A Long-Extended Party added some excellent Eagles heroes that really enhance the consistency of an all-Eagle deck: Alagos provides some nice resource acceleration, and Faunith can reliably chip away at enemies in the staging area while developing your board state. Radagast joins them on their journey to add solid stats, good action advantage, and brings Radagast's Staff for more resource acceleration (or ally readying). And for being a and deck, you can generally produce respectable every turn (your heroes alone can contribute 7 consistently).

Our win condition is simple: get Eagles of the Misty Mountains into play and load them up with low-cost allies. Finding them is easy since every Event will fetch you more Eagles: use The Eagles Are Coming!, Daeron's Runes, A Very Good Tale, Gwaihir's Debt, or even Gwaihir himself. After getting your Misty Mountain brethren into play, spam single-use allies like Eagle Emissary, Vassal of the Windlord, and Winged Guardian and let them expire to grant permanent +1 and +1 buffs to your Eagles of the Misty Mountains.

How to use this deck:

• Setup: Mulligan for Radagast's Staff.
• Planning Stage: Don't spend all your resources on Eagles before committing to the quest. Save enough to play one Eagle after encounter deck staging (but before quest resolution) using Faunith's ability. This way you can decide whether to do some chip damage to an enemy in staging, or add some based on total staging . This ability is crazy good, taking some of the guesswork out of deciding which ally to play. And if you play Chieftain of the Skies during this window, you can ready a questing ally for combat!
• 'Enters Play' Triggers: One of the great things about Eagles is that most of their Responses are triggered whenever they enter play, rather than being required to be played from your hand! Therefore, Events like A Very Good Tale and Gwaihir's Debt will allow those Responses to activate. Don't forget that Alagos lets you add a resource to a hero for the first Eagle that enters your play area each round! Generally opt to put this on Radagast since he can pay for any sphere Creature.
• 'Play from Hand' Trigger: Radagast does not exhaust to quest, but only if you play a Creature from your hand. Since you'll generally be playing at least one Eagle every round, he'll be available for both questing and combat. At 2 and 3, that's a great deal! Just don't lump him in with the other 'Enters Play' triggers. Still a very useful ability.
• Allies: There are lots of action advantage inherent in Eagles cards. Play Descendant of Thorondor during the questing phase to effectively deal 3 damage to a staging enemy. This will kill most non-unique mobs straight up! Landroval is an excellent panic button, and can save a hero (yours or another player's) if they're discarded. Messenger of Manwë and Veteran Eagle are somewhat better in multiplayer games, or when using Breath of Arda (not included by default, but easily swapped in). They serve as nice, cheap allies in this deck that can be sacrificed and repurposed for Eagles of the Misty Mountains.
• Weaknesses: Threat level of this deck starts high at 31 . Expect to be engaged early and often. Your only source of threat reduction is Hidden Roosts, which synergizes well with Gwaihir's Debt (if you pull a high-cost ally like Gwaihir or Landroval you can get some nice reduction for cheap when they return to your hand). There are also no healing options, but that's not generally a problem since losing characters only strengthens your Eagles of the Misty Mountains. If playing multiplayer, these would be good themes to incorporate into a companion deck.

This is a very fun deck to play, with interesting card interactions and tactical decisions to make every turn. It can be played solo or multiplayer, and excels in each mode. Good luck!