Ille(a)gles 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Let me start by saying that this deck is illegal for regular play, as the deckbuilding requirements for A Perilous Voyage and Bond of Friendship prevent these two contracts from being used at the same time. One contract sets a minimum of 100 cards for your deck, the other a maximum of 50. I split the difference and went with 75 cards, 15 of each sphere and Neutral. It was the best way that this deck could be balanced.

This deck spawned from discussions in Discord on an auto-fail deck. You start with your threat at your threat elimination level and are immediately done with your game before setting up. With the Bond of Friendship contract, this can easily be achieved, even more if I ended up including The One Ring, but I didn't want this deck to end everyone's game. As a bonus, Beyond the Original Bargain increases your starting threat by 4, so you start at 54 threat! Outside of the Dire Quests, this would end the game then and there. But A Perilous Voyage will flip and set you back down to 40 (considering that the threat increase from Beyond the Original Bargain is not your starting threat level).

Flipping the contract this early gets you a few rewards. The first, is that none of your four heroes will exhaust to quest. This removes the need for Light of Valinor completely, and lets Círdan the Shipwright and Elrond use their rings every turn while contributing 7 . In fact, you start with 12 out of the gate, without exhausting anyone. This will usually let you outpace the encounter deck in the early game while you get your cards down.

The second reward for flipping A Perilous Voyage is that you can find any card in your deck and play it at a discount of 3 resources. I would suggest to go with Radagast, as he can help to pay for some of the Eagle cards in this deck. He is helpful with his Staff and Pipe to set up Vilya. You can also go for an early Steward of Gondor or one of the Elven Rings if you want those combos going early on.

I went for an Eagle deck, since both Gwaihir and Alagos have a high starting threat. Elrond can help to pay for the off-sphere allies and with Vilya can bring out more high-cost allies to then be readied by Círdan the Shipwright with Narya. Most of the cards in will be Eagle cards, and thankfully we got some more in and as well.

Since you have a pretty thick deck, I added some extra card draw to make sure you get what you are looking for. Círdan the Shipwright will get you an extra card each round, and has Silver Harp to keep that card in hand. Daeron's Runes, Master of the Forge, Elven-light, and The Eagles Are Coming! should help to thin the deck a little faster.

In order to pay for all these cards, I added a few ways to make the spheres matter less (A Good Harvest and The Storm Comes) and have some ways to quickly gain resources in case you need to pay for some expensive cards (Alagos, Steward of Gondor, Captain's Wisdom, Zigil Miner).

Threat reduction was not needed, since the contract prevents you from lowering your threat. You have 10 turns, and must hope to not run into any encounter card effects that raise your threat. You are really on a timer here! Once you feel that your time has come to an end, you can still go out in a blaze of glory with Justice Shall Be Done for a final push before you are eliminated.

The rest of the cards fell pretty well into place. Most of the cards are purely to be brought into play with Vilya, and the small support of Outlands will help to boost willpower a little more early on. Rally the West is a fun side-quest if you have time for it, since it's 4 for free in this deck. If you cannot get the Wizard Pipe going in time and draw into some expensive allies, Elf-stone can help to bring them into play for free. supports with the regular events, and also has the Imladris Stargazer to help find cards a little earlier. Zigil Miner can also be a nice source of income or a way to get rid of duplicate unique instead of Protector of Lórien.

Gwaihir will be your main hero for combat, as he has both Ranged and Sentinel, but Elrond with Arwen Undómiel can make for a decent defender in a pinch. After the first few rounds, you will want your allies to do most of the heavy lifting with Narya to back them up.

I will stress again, this deck is illegal to play, but that shouldn't stop you from having some fun with it!