Into the West + Every Other Contract

Part 7

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 is a thematic deck that tries to capture the narrative heart of the Into the West contract, by depicting Bilbo's last adventure--sailing into the uttermost west with Gandalf, Elrond, and others aboard Círdan the Shipwright's ship.

The main hook of this deck is card draw. If you are playing this true solo, you will draw 5 cards over the course of the round (take that, Erestor!), even before considering Elven-light. Círdan the Shipwright and Galdor of the Havens have an especially nice synergy.

Remember that To the Sea, to the Sea! can't be used to reduce the cost of an ally by more than 2 because of the restriction on Into the West. The exception to that is Glorfindel because you can play him from your discard instead of from your hand.

Get bodies on the table, use Narya to get extra value out of them, and use Lords of the Eldar for big swing turns. The biggest weakness of this deck is early-game combat, but the free ally from Into the West can help with that quite a bit.

Happy sailing, everyone!