100% Fellowship - "Detours and Defense" 3.0

• Versions
• 3.0

This is part of a two-deck fellowship designed to beat every quest in the game while avoiding any losses. To check out the Fellowship, where I go over more broad details and the playthrough results, click here. To check out this deck's partner deck, click here.

1. Concept

2. Heroes

3. Individual Cards

4. Opening Hand and Gameplay

1. Concept

Out of the two decks, this deck is the deck mainly tasked with supporting and defending. You are extremely low on allies (only seven), leaving the pumping out of stats to the other deck. You are instead mainly focused on attachments to help out your heroes/allies with action advantage, stats or resources, with your many events providing mainly cancels and card draw. The only real stat monsters here are Beregond (who is your table defender, hoarding your defensive attachments as well as at least some of your Unexpected Courages) and Thurindir, who becomes an absurd quester late game due to the number of side quests most likely explored by that point.

Speaking of side quests, this is another focus of this deck. You will see a side quest guaranteed round 1 here thanks to Thurindir, which will most often be Gather Information. It will not only help both decks to find their key pieces but also prevents over-questing and thus advancing through the quest too quickly, something that would be an issue quite often otherwise. Apart from Thurindir, you have other cards further profiting from your various side quests such as The Long Defeat or Halfling Bounder.

2. Heroes

Arwen Undómiel

Arwen Undómiel was always going to make one of the decks, being one of the most versatile, flexible and all-round efficient heroes in the game. Her stats are very decent, a reasonable threat cost for a hefty 3 willpower that will always come in handy, willpower being in general the most important stat in the game. Her ability is truly something else however - with 4 Noldor heroes in the fellowship (one of which being Elrond of course, who you want resources on desperately, at least until he gets a Steward of Gondor), it provides a very nice smoothing tool with the further benefit of opening up Elven-light as a repeatable drawing engine.

Beregond

Ever since the release of Beregond in Heirs of Númenor, he has been an absolute defensive staple in the game. And while I personally rate Erkenbrand with his unparalleled shadow control higher than him, narrowly beating out either versions of Beregond as best defender in the game for me, the decision to turn to Beregond instead of Erkenbrand here was ultimately pretty easy. With the only real tactics/leadership heroes I was 100% convinced on for this project being Éowyn and Denethor, the other really spot were either Gildor Inglorion in addition to Beregond or Erkenbrand with a tactics hero (where I didn't really like any of the options). I therefore opted for the former, seeing the step down from Erkenbrand to Beregond as minor anyways.

Now, having gone into detail of why I slightly prefer Erkenbrand might have given you the impression that I don't rate Beregond highly, however let it be very clear that this is not the case. He is awesome. 4 defense and sentinel from the get-go cannot be overstated in terms of importance, and while his ability doesn't amount to much in those decks, getting Gondorian Shield or Hauberk of Mail onto him for 0 cost is still useful. Beregond is the defensive lynchpin of the fellowship, often receiving multiple copies of Unexpected Courage to hold down the fort efficiently. This fellowship was always going to run a high-volume, high-defense defender and I was extremely happy with Beregond fulfilling that role excellently.

Denethor

Denethor is just so good. The best leadership hero in my books is an absolute tempo-monster, providing you with a really strong start (being able to play Steward of Gondor for instance from the get-go is often pretty much the game won for instance) while still being useful later on.

His 3 defense often provides an auxiliary defensive option next to Beregond while he is also the most common recipient of Thorongil by far. Gaining access to his lore-textbox gives you really good encounter deck manipulation that might not have the same game-warping impact as in solo but can still lead to you dodging very nasty encounter cards (especially if you combine him with Thorongil and Unexpected Courage to take your encounter deck manipulation to the next level).

Thurindir

Aside from Elrond, I truly believe that Thurindir is the most important hero in this fellowship. He brings the consistency that I believe was key to transform this fellowship from a fellowship recording very few losses to a fellowship recording zero losses. I usually pick Gather Information with him to provide the tempo to win the game (therefore grabbing cards like Vilya, Imladris Stargazer or Steward of Gondor) or cards that provide very specific answers to individual quests (like Asfaloth for Journey to Rhosgobel or Faramir for Mount Doom)). With this amount of access to your deck's central pieces, Thurindir is absolutely vital to assure a smooth and controlled game for almost all scenarios.

Grabbing a side quest first round has even more benefits than those however, allowing you to quest without the risk of over-questing and dodging the otherwise quite annoying battle and siege keyword. I did consider other options than Thurindir for the second lore spot besides Elrond (chiefly Beravor but also cards like Galdor of the Havens, Pippin or Aragorn), however I ultimately think Thurindir proved to be comfortably superior to all of those in this setup.

3. Individual Cards

I actually had a surprisingly hard time finding leadership cards for this deck, not really liking most allies here due to the makeup of the deck (and due to the fact that quite a few unique ones clearly have their just place in the other deck). Steward of Gondor is by far the most important card here, it was always going to make this deck. Aside from that, Armored Destrier is always a very nice tool for both Beregond and Denethor, while I like Hauberk of Mail as a non-restrictive defensive boost further making Beregond pretty much bulletproof.

The inclusions of Gandalf and Thurindir made Sneak Attack ans Send for Aid respectively pretty easy choices as well, which left me with two slots. After some back and forth (and the lack of other appealing options), I settled on We Are Not Idle, which is always a useful thinner (even though it can prove a slight hinderance in some select few quests.

The no-brainers here were Gondorian Shield and Feint, being absolute staples which are unparalleled in their respective fields in terms of efficiency. I was furthermore very high on Warrior Sword, liking very much how it scales with the challenge of the quest, and Sterner than Steel, since shadow cancellation always comes in hand. The last two cards were a bit complicated. Vigilant Guard I ended up loving, thinking I might even include two copies were I build the decks today. Secret Vigil performed quite well, without standing out overly much.

Again, there were obvious staples like A Test of Will, Unexpected Courage, Double Back, Elven-light and A Light in the Dark. Hasty Stroke was therefore the only choice people might find unexpected, however I think it is vital here, with some of the most difficult quests in the game having particularly nasty shadow effects. Having played now through all the quests, I would maybe consider swapping the second copy of Light of Valinor for a second copy of Elven-light, but there are of course things to be said for both cards. I did end up really missing Elven-light in some games where I didn't see it though. Unexpected Courage goes usually on Beregond or Denethor (once he has received Thorongil), only very occasionally on Elrond.

Lore was the hardest sphere to build for by far. Daeron's Runes, Halfling Bounder, Scout Ahead and the (in this fellowship) absolutely outstanding The Long Defeat were a given, with me wanting Asfaloth somewhere and deciding to include it here (since it would have taken away from the ally count in the other deck and thus A Very Good Tale).

The last two spots went to Quickbeam, who I really like for being a good attacker if you end up needing one here (and not having yet seen your ranged options in the other deck) and Peace, and Thought, which I ended up playing very seldomly but like for further consistency if you really need it. Replacing it with something like another Warden of Healing or Heed the Dream might be a slight improvement though, I like the card a lot but it often did not feel very necessary.

Vilya was the first card in the deck, followed closely by Gather Information. Further auto-includes were Gandalf (who remains amazing), Magic Ring and Envoy of Pelargir (who is insanely underappreciated I find, providing smoothing, cheap stats and a decent chump-blocker in need). Thorongil I considered cutting down to a 1x, I am quite happy I stuck with two however. On Denethor (where you usually put it), it is a very, very useful tool to dodge the worst encounter cards (especially if he also receives action advantage, which he often does post-Thorongil) and on Beregond, it is very good repeatable threat-reduction that is key for some few quests. Additionally, the resource smoothing aspect is also really useful I find.

4. Opening Hand and Gameplay

In my opening hand, I usually mulligan for either Vilya or Steward of Gondor, both of course being meant to played on Elrond. There might quest-specific exceptions to that (in Mount Doom I really like Unexpected Courage for instance, in quests like Road to Rivendell cancels and in Fortress of Nurn impact-providing attachments and allies). In 95% of cases, seeing either Steward of Gondor or Vilya sets you up very nicely enough for the rest of the game.

From there on, I really like to draw heavy with this deck, really appreciating cards like The Long Defeat and Elven-light. Gildor Inglorion's action I use most rounds for this deck as well. This might seem like overkill sometimes, but this deck is so insanely cheap that I often have no problem seeing lots of cards here. From there on, you just play out what you need most, always keep an eye on your cancels though. Prioritizing those (as well as the encounter deck manipulation provided by Thorongil and Scout Ahead) can often safeguard you from even the most nasty encounter card effects and combinations.

ENJOY!!!