The White Council 1.0

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My latest Vilya/Elrond deck and first time using Gandalf Hero properly.

Pairs with this deck: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/44300/thethreehunters-2.0

This deck is the more and Questing focused deck of the two whilst also providing a bunch of support effects such as healing, threat reduction etc.

Basically the crux of the deck is Vilya combined with Gandalf's innate ability (to play with the top card of your deck face up) and/or Imladris Stargazer. Never having to use Vilya blind is crazy strong, you will never whiff or waste Vilya's ability for the turn and will always know exactly what you're getting for free when using it. Add in Wizard Pipe and you can play anything in your hand for free once per turn. Crazy strong and crazy fun.

The abundance of expensive unique allies is due to the fact that most of them will be played for free via Vilya. Alternatively you can save up resources (and pump them via Keen as Lances and Gandalf's Staff) on Elrond and he can pay for allies of any sphere. If that ally happens to be on top of your deck Gandalf can also help pay for them. Between the two of them and resource acceleration effects it isn't unusual or that difficult to play a four cost leadership or tactics ally from the top of your deck. Most are fairly self explanatory but I'll still go over a few.

-Orophin is great in this deck as unlike many other allies with similar effects (Galadriel, Rumil etc) his ability still triggers even when he is played from the top of your deck via Vilya.

-Bilbo fetches you a Wizard Pipe if you haven't drawn one yet which can literally set up the Vilya/Wizard Pipe combo. He also has great stats for 2 cost. Like Orophin even if you play him for free with Vilya he still fetches you a pipe.

-Boromir is a great distraction/arrow magnet. Soak up Archery or direct damage effects with him and he readies himself while at it. He can have a very decent 3 when defending against an enemy with a higher engagement cost than your threat.

-Eldahir is an awesome backup/additional defender. His ability while costly (Elrond is the only hero who will ever be able to pay for this) can literally save you from a hero death. Not only do you get to look at a shadow card and therefore plan who will block the attack and face the shadow effect but it also boosts Eldahir himself if there is indeed a shadow effect. Now you can use this ability on the same turn that you potentially discarded one or even two shadows already with Armored Destriers on Gimli and Aragorn/Gandalf leading to a whole lot of shadow cancellation/discard/viewing making combat way less unpredictable and far more safe.

-Gildor is honestly just a big stack of nice stats and rarely if ever does his ability get used due to Wizard Pipe existing in the deck as well. That being said in an emergency or pinch you can certainly use his ability to get a key card out for free with Vilya. He's just an awesome quester or defender and even has a decent 2 and when you're getting these stats out basically for free why wouldn't you include him??

-Treebeard, who came second only to Arwen in the Ally Championship I ran back in the day on the FFG Forums (what a paradise... god do I miss that place) is just an amazing ally and he performs well in almost any deck. If there's a good chance you won't even have to pay the four resources in the first place and his only downside is entering play exhausted again why on earth wouldn't you include him in a Vilya deck?

As far as the non-unique allies, again most are fairly self explanatory but a few stand out.

-Nath Guide is honestly one of the best allies in the game. An extra use out of heroes with stats that start off high and only get higher as they receive some crazy gear? Yes please! Naith Guide can let Gimli quest without exhausting for a whopping 5 or 6 once you load him up with restricted attachments. Want to use Vilya but also want to use Elrond to quest or need him ready for an emergency defense later? Naith Guide. Want Gandalf ready later so he can attack across the board with ranged via Shadowfax? Naith Guide. Desperate to quest with every possible character you can but also need to hold back whoever you can muster for combat as well? Naith Guide so you can quest with Legolas for 4 or so additional but still have him ready during the combat phase. Want to quest with Glorfindel but don't want to eat the threat raise and don't have Light of Valinor out yet? Naith Guide. If you haven't ever used Naith Guide before now, do yourself a favour and include it in some decks and you'll come to see how insanely good it is. Run it in an actual proper Silvan deck with bouncing abilities, Celeborn boosting its stats and Galadriel allowing it to quest without exhausting the turn it enters play and it becomes an absolute beast of a card.

-Guardian of Rivendell is a great backup defender with pretty damn decent stats. This is of course because he has a "downside" (not really in a proper Noldor discard deck) but that downside is rendered completely moot if you play him for free with Vilya or even just from the top of your deck with Gandalf's ability.

The events in the deck are primarily focused on three things, threat reduction, cancellation and defensive boosts. Test of Will is a no brainer and it can be recurred via Dwarven Tomb. Elrond's Counsel and Galadhrim's Greeting are the core threat reducers and Counsel can be played for free (alongside another card played during the planning phase) during the quest phase while on top of your deck which is a neat interaction and basically provides a form of card draw at the same time.

-Tides of Fate (also played for free off the top of your deck in any phase) is a great emergency defense boost especially if you haven't managed to get many defensive boosts out just yet or are facing a boss with an abnormally high value. The extra effect of a ready and +3 whilst costly is a nice extra effect you can choose whether to use or not.

-Dwarven Tomb can be used to retrieve Greeting or Counsel for threat reduction, Tides of Fate or Light the Beacons for defensive boosts AND Test of Will for additional encounter cancellation. Realistically though the three cards I use Dwarven Tomb to get extra uses out of them are Test of Will, Galadhrim's Greeting and Light the Beacons.

-Light The Beacons. Just wow. This might be my favorite card right now as well as the key part of my favourite combo. +2 to EVERY character and not exhausting to defend across the board for the entire turn? Yeah that's nuts no wonder the card costs 5 resources to play. Oh what's that though I'm just going to play it for free with Vilya and Wizard Pipe and then recur it multiple times with Dwarven Tomb to basically shut down combat entirely across multiple turns. Yep crazy crazy strong. It's also a huge hidden boost too because all those defenders or characters that would normally be exhausted after defending? Nope they're all ready to attack now instead!

-Flame of Anor. Honestly with Legolas and Aragorn getting to such powerful offensive levels in the majority of games this card is a little bit overkill and rarely actually needed. Even though its a great card I'm considering swapping it out. It does provide some great action advantage though and can allow Gandalf to defend or attack twice across the board with sentinel and ranged and quest as well if he has Shadowfax attached.

-Keen as Lances. Can be played for free with Vilya for any of its very useful and versatile effects. Gandalfs spare neutral resources sometimes add up and can be used towards a copy of this card as well. Every copy played for free with Vilya or by this deck or by the Three Hunters quickly ramping resources reduces the cost of the next copy played. I have played plenty of copies for 3 or 2 resources which is hugely worth it to draw 3 cards with The Three Hunters which really needs the card draw, to move 2 resources onto a hero (across the board as well) that can utilise them moreso with their innate abilities and/or their sphere, or as emergency threat reduction where you might threat out otherwise and lose. It may seem like a weird inclusion given the lack of any other 0 point victory display player cards to boost it and make it even more efficient and useable but so far it has massively proved a worthy inclusion.

Sideboard

-Athelas. Included in the deck for Quests that feature condition attachments that are too nasty to ignore or play on with. Especially useful for certain Saga quests that feature condition attachments that can be utterly devastating (Eg: Lust for the Ring, Fallen into Evil) or that absolutely need to be removed/cancelled. I used to run Power of Orthanc for this purpose but the Doomed is pretty nasty.

-Glamdring. Absolutely AMAZING when attached to Legolas giving constant much needed card draw to the Three Hunters deck. Problem is many quests just will not tolerate Guarded cards and a single additional encounter card could potentially spell your doom. Only included in more casual quests where Guarded attachments aren't a deathwish.

-The Long Defeat. An amazing card for quests that are side quest heavy or that cycle through stages (as long as you are beating them each time as this card won't trigger if you simply advance, you must "defeat" the quest stage. For many quests a near useless card but if there's going to be a ton of side quests/shifting quest stages this card can be amazing. With Elrond's boosted healing effect each player could potentially heal a total of 10 damage with this card! Once again the card draw is super helpful for Three Hunters.