Fluid Gondorian Command Doctrine 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Lothíriel and Prince Imrahil are two characters I have not played with much at all, and this is my deck attempting to rectify that oversight.

Overall Goal: This deck is a strong solo player deck that seeks to build up a strong army of Gondor allies while utilizing the brother and sister powers to play expensive allies on the cheap as often as possible. It is built so that Imrahil never whiffs on his ability, reliably giving the players a steady stream of allies.

Resources and Card Draw: This deck has an odd but stable economy. I initially included Steward of Gondor and Horn of Gondor, but quickly found out that by the end of the game I was sitting on an enormous pile of unused resources. That being the case, I either could add in cards to use those resources (Blood of Númenor and Gondorian Fire where my two top considerations) but that would take deck space from the allies, and push my deck further away from the fluid and undemanding playstyle it was working towards.

That being said, the economy of this deck works in a simple fashion. Imrahil will almost never spend his money on cards, as he will use the resources almost every turn for the combat phase.

Boromir does have cards he wants to buy (Elessar to get the most out of Imrahils summoned defender and Visionary Leadership to go from decent questing to phenomenal questing) and usually does so within the first few turns of the game. It is imperative to never use Boromir's last dollar as both his power and Visionary Leadership count on that resource to power up your army.

Lothíriel has no real cards that she needs to spend her money on in this deck, as her power is free to use.

As the resources begin to pile up (largely from cycling Squire of the Citadel and Envoy of Pelargir with both Imrahil and Lothiriel) you will inevitably have resources you can spend. Your goal should be to leave one resource in each hero's pool if possible, and to slowly recruit permanent allies as you progress through the quest. The best ones I have found are Rammas Lookout and Rammas Sentry as they both have useful abilities that play off of the resources on your characters, and the Devoted Keyword means that any sphere Gondor hero's can pay for these guys.

Card draw is another staple of most decks that just isn't that vital here. You want to find Visionary Leadership badly, which is why Wealth of Adventure is in the deck so you have a decent shot at mulliganing into it, but once you have that covered, the deck runs off of Lothiriel and Imrahil. To help find more allies, Soldier of Gondor can be cycled by both of them to fill your hand as much as you need.

Soldier of Gondor: On the topic of everyone's favorite swarm enabler, this guy plays an interesting role in this deck. You want allies in your hand that are useful for questing (Angbor, Envoy, Ithilien Lookout, Lampwright,Rammas Lookout) as well as the allies that you want to play permanently. You want the combat oriented allies in the deck to keep it as potent as possible (Anborn, Defender of Cair Andros, Defender of Ramms, Henneth Annun Guard, Veteran of Osgiliath) This means that when you reach Valour (potentially turn one with Pillars of the Kings if you are feeling daring) you don't always want to take all the Gondor allies you find in your deck into your hand. Leave the ones you can't afford, but want for combat.

Closing Thoughts: This has quickly become one of my favorite Gondor decks. It has a fluidity to it that other decks simply cannot match. I fiddled with a Bond of Friendship version it as well since I really wanted to work Chieftain of the North into this deck as well, but it got a lot more fiddley and was lacking the simplicity of this deck. I think this is one of my more potent decks as it was able to take down Battle of Carn Dum on it's fourth try, and has cleared quite a few middle difficulty quests on its first time out without showing the stress.