Rivendell against the Balrog 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Nice deck, and welcome to Ringsdb! Elrond/Vilya decks are still pretty strong these days with the modern card pool. If you're looking to play the Against the Shadow cycle next don't be surprised if it's a bit of a rough ride.

If you are playing solo and one handed, I thinks Steward of Gondor is a great inclusion in this deck. Either to give to Elrond, so he can pay for a majority of your allies, or Elrohir to have the ability to defend more. Since you used this deck against shadow and Flame, resourceful makes sense because of starting in secrecy. But against other quests, Steward is probably the better play. Welcome to RingsDB!

I agree with everything @DazeMansaid, and would like to add something of my own. Would Sneak Attack be helpful? It would give you some more options because you could play Gandalf more times than normal. Do you own Foundations of Stone? Daeron's Runes would be nice. And one more thing: I would recommend using Gandalf for direct damage against the Balrog as well. Welcome to the wonderful community of RingsDB!

Thanks for the comments. Indeed, I considered Resourceful instead of Steward due to the nature of the quest (drop your threat to 0). Besides, all cards except for Gandalf cost only 1-2 resources with secrecy, so the need for resources is not as important as in other decks I guess. As for Sneak Attack and Daeron's Runes, they were included in a previous version of the deck (with other event cards such as timely aid and hasty stroke). However, that deck did not work at all against this quest. Being solo handed, there were too many events to make Vilya work during the resource phase. Counterspell also gave me a really hard time when playing those events, perhaps I was quite unlucky by drawing it early in several games? Timely aid would also not work well since there weren´t that many allies at the time. I also had difficulty putting damage on the Balrog. By adding a few more allies, the Dúnedain Warnings and Keeping Counts (odd card I know, but seems to work here), I managed to complete the quest. I have read that some people suggest a Háma deck against this quest. I made one after this to play Massing at Osgiliath together with Glorfindel (FoS) and Bilbo and it completely wrecked the encounter deck. That worked insanely well. My next idea is to play the two Hobbit saga expansions before Heirs of Númenor.

@ninru welcome to the game and the site! I like this deck a lot and it's cool that you designed a deck specifically to defeat this scenario while making use of some under appreciated cards like Keeping Count. I think my only suggestion would be to consider finding a way to slot in 3x Elrond's Counsel as another means of not engaging the Balrog until you're ready to. Otherwise, best of luck as you continue forward to new adventures, and if you need help don't hesitate to post a deck idea and ask! We're all happy to help out if possible.

I like this deck but i can't figure out the point of including A Test of Will, since the only way to play it is to get it out with Vilya, which is far too dependent on random factors. It's always a dead draw in your hand, except to serve as discard fodder for Trollshaw Scout or Watcher of the Bruinen.

Sure, you can use Imladris Stargazer to put it on the top, but what if the next encounter card doesn't have a When Revealed effect?

@rymbeld Vilya itself could not play A Test of Will because Vilya is an Action not a Response. But Vilya grants Elrond a spirit resource icon, so he can pay for it himself.