Into the West + Every Other Contract

Part 1

With the release of Beyond the Original Bargain, I am now working on a follow up to my original article on Into the West from over two and a half years ago. For that original article I built a bunch of Into the West decks--this time I'm building a bunch of decks that combine Into the West with every other contract. When I've published that article I will update this deck description with a link to it, and that article will have all my thoughts on this particular contract combination.

Playing this Deck

This deck was created out of the confluence of a few questions:

1. What if I made a deck where allies are leaving play almost faster than you can get them into play?
2. Would that be any good?
3. What if I made a deck that was a literal nightmare to play on anything other than DragonCards?

The deck was somewhat difficult to make because of the need to meet both contracts' deckbuilding restrictions, but it turned out alright. I've played a few quests with it and been successful every time. There is something amusing about the revolving door of big beefy allies that appear for only a turn or even just a single phase.

Use Into the West as resource smoothing to afford the allies in your hand, and use Lothíriel and Prince Imrahil to get even more allies into play for questing and combat, respectively. You should have enough card draw with both contracts to keep up with playing allies and using Lothiriel, but you can also use Gandalf and Keen as Lances for extra card draw when needed.

I tend to rush into valour with this deck so I can trigger things like Angbor the Fearless, Defender of Cair Andros, and Need Drives Them. Use Wealth of Adventure, Gather Information, or your contract flip to fetch Visionary Leadership and then you'll have willpower locked down.