The White Council - Elrond, Gandalf and Glorfindel 4.0

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My latest Vilya/Elrond deck featuring Gandalf Hero.

Pairs with this deck: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45729/forththethreehunters-aragorngimliandlegolas-5.0

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. 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 Imladris Stargazer and you can play anything in your hand OR the top five cards of your deck for free once per turn instead. 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 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, maybe via Wizard Pipe, Gandalf can also help pay for them.

Recurring copies of Light the Beacons via Dwarven Tomb and playing them for free with Vilya makes for insanely strong plays; shutting down and trivializing combat across multiple turns. Combined with Captains of the West and/or Hour of Wrath in the companion deck can make for some insane action advantage that will make even the hardest of quests into a cake walk (for a few turns at least!).

Sideboard

-Northern Tracker is an amazing ally for Quests with punishing location and the threat of location lock, even more so when played for free. The reason he is not simply included in the main deck is that there are simply too many useful allies that also warrant inclusion and location lock is not that much of a threat to the decks in general as they can generate pretty huge amounts of mid to late game.

-Athelas is the necessary inclusion for Quests (especially Saga!) that feature Encounter Condition attachments that are so nasty that they can basically cost you the game or a quick hero death if not addressed/removed from play with haste.

-Fellowship of the Ring is simply included for Saga Campaign play. Considering there is basically no focus on chump blocking and it is only something that these decks would do in an emergency Fellowship is an absolutely fantastic card for these decks giving a big boost that is semi-permanent.

-Glamdring (much like Durins Axe and Orcrist) are absolutely bonkers on Legolas and Glamdring may just be the strongest of all three. Legolas will be killing an enemy on almost every turn and if the Three Hunters deck has one single biggest weakness it's card draw. Glamdring completely solves this issue single handed and then some. On turns when cards like Swift and Strong or Hour of Wrath are used Glamdring could be drawing you multiple cards in one turn as it doesn't even have to be exhausted to trigger its response. If not for the fact that Guarded cards simply cannot be used against many quests this card would be an auto-include in the main deck. It is certainly included and subbed in much more often than Orcrist or Durins Axe.

-The Long Defeat is absolutely fantastic in long quests that feature more than just the standard 2 to 4 quest stages and especially those that feature multiple quest stages that are beaten and revisited multiple times for whatever reason. The card draw can be great for The Three Hunters deck and the healing ability if spread out has the potential (although this is very unlikely) to heal a whopping 20 damage total across the board thanks to Elrond. That is huge and can basically reset a board state in which many characters are on the brink of death back to one where almost everyone is untouched.

-Gildor's Counsel was in the main deck briefly as it is honestly such a strong and useful card but I have mixed feelings about it. Yes it reduces the cards revealed during Staging down to 1 (when playing two-handed) which can give you a huge break and reprieve from the Encounter deck and even possibly allow you to bounce back from a terrible board state but it doesn't do anything permanent for the actual player decks as far as getting extra bodies on the table etc. Test of Will in a round about way also technically reduces (or rather simply cancels one leaving you to only deal with one) the cards revealed during Staging for a turn and for only one resource rather than 3. Gildor's Counsel is not limited to treacheries/when revealed effects though and can stop a nasty enemy or location from appearing as well. I just can't bring myself to include it in the main deck when that spot could be taken by a strong ally that stays in play and provides benefits from the round it is played onwards rather than just once. The same argument could be made for other events but they all fill very specific roles in this deck whereas Gildor's Counsel, while strong, is simply a utility card more than anything else.

-Gather Information is just a fantastic card and can help both decks get their engines set up much faster (or help flip the Contract for the other deck faster) or simply get you a key card you need to overcome a specific hurdle the quest is currently throwing at you. Much like Guarded cards however you cannot just include Player Side Quests whenever as some quests will severely punish this.