Date Night 3: Three Picnics 1.0

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Date Night 3: Three Picnics

First of all, go read the lovely short story Three Picnics about these two ALeP characters!

The roughest of my couple decks! Osbera and Rowan do not have that much common ground between the two of them. What they do both have, is a stable of allies I can't afford, and a hero in the sphere that lets me try to cheat as many allies into play as possible. So this deck revolves around spending as little money as possible, and getting out big beefy allies!

Early Game During the first three rounds of play, your goal is to survive the encounter deck (Rowan is a great early game defender with 4 defense off the bat), and try to build a stable of at least 2 high cost allies. The best ally early game to get out is Haleth as she lets you quest successfully, and helps thin your deck of all those pesky attachments, but any allies with a high price tag is what you are going for.

Ways to get in cheap allies into play turns 1-3:

Elf-stone First of all, make sure you are the first player when this is going to go off. Either time it effectively, or make use of Rowan's Quest Action to become the first player. The best targets for this are Beorn, Haleth, Giant Bear and Radagast. Their high price tags will come in extremely useful on turn 4.

Beorning Skin-changer The skin changer is an obvious choice for getting allies into play for cheap. Early game he will tend to pull from your hand more than your discard pile, but late game he can do either or. Useful combo with Sneak Attack so he comes into play for a dollar, and then turns into Beorn, Birna or a Giant Bear. Especially useful since you don't start with the right sphere to play him at the beginning of the game.

A Very Good Tale This seems like a good card early on. DO. NOT. PLAY. IT. Did you draw one? Great! Save it for turn four. Focus on getting some big ticket allies into play, and thinning out your deck of attachments. .

Mid Game and Beyond (Turn 4+) Okay. Turn four. You've built up your board state, you have some useful questing Woodman and some battle worn bears. What do you use At the End of All Things to find? Two copies of A Very Good Tale!

This deck is full of very potent valuable allies, and many of them feed off of what is in your discard pile. Turn 4 should see you use both (or all 3 if you drew the other one) of the Very Good Tales, exhausting high point allies to bring out even more high point allies! This is the turn the deck should go from making slow progress on the quest, to being prepared to dominate the quest.

In addition to flooding the board with cheap allies, you will also be left with an enormous pile of resources on the heroes funding the entire remainder of the quest!

Weaknesses of the Deck This deck is an interesting one. It has performed quite well for me, and also occasionally goes down in flames.

Pairs Well With For a double date, anything with strong questing initially can be beneficial. Works quite well with Goldberry/Tom as well as Galadriel/Celeborn, particularly if you want to just randomly put cards into play.

Closing Thoughts This deck is a fun deck that plays quite differently from other decks I tend to run. It is combat oriented and pairs well with a questing heavy deck. All in all, this is probably the most interesting of the Couples Decks I have been making due to how clunky these two are when they are paired up.