Locking Down the Black Gate - Multiplayer 1.0

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• 1.0

This is half of the two-handed fellowship that my son and I used to (finally) defeat The Black Gate Opens/Mount Doom in Epic Multiplayer Mode (I played The Black Gate two-handed and he played Mount Doom with a solo Hobbit deck: https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/588642). It very much needs a strong questing deck to complement it (we used a Noldor build similar to this: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45698/theelveswillseeitdonesolosaga-1.0), but it is surprisingly capable of handling the lion's share of combat, even without a strong dedicated defender. Here's how it runs:

Questing

Éowyn, sometimes Mablung, and...that's it. Aragorn can help out as he bounces between decks, but this deck simply isn't here to quest.

Defense

As mentioned above, there is no dedicated defender (the closest thing is Aragorn once he gets Andúril equipped), and so it is essential in the early rounds to get out at least one inexpensive ally per turn. Raiment of War can make Defender of Rammas strong enough to take a hit from a Nazgul and live to defend another day (and if you run Narya across the table, he can do it twice per round). However, survival is the name of the game until you can set up your Thicket of Spears lockdown combo.

Attack

Háma gets to shine as your primary hitter. He gets the first weapon so that he can kill enemies and trigger Foe-hammer. Most importantly, he needs to be ready to recur Thicket of Spears each round once you have it.

Resources

Mablung really shines, as the nature of this quest means that you will almost certainly generate an extra resource each turn (think of it as almost like a free Resourceful starting round 2).

Quest-Specific Strategy

Early round objectives are to: 1) survive, 2) start dealing with the Wraiths on Wings, and 3) find Thicket of Spears.

1) Each ally (Gandalf excepted) costs either 1 or 2, which means you should be able to play at least one each round (and it lessens the impact of Hour of Doom). Chump early and chump often and utilize Feint for anything that Aragorn can't safely block.

2) Éowyn + Háma + Aragorn is enough to one-shot Wraith on Wings. Play Flight of the Eagles aggressively as able to seed the encounter deck with as many Eagles of the North as possible to try and discard at least one other from staging (Gwaihir gives you an extra chance to do this). Not the easiest trick to pull off, but the extra reveals from the encounter deck give you better than normal odds. Any Wraiths that remain can be engaged and subsequently held at bay by your Thicket lockdown.

3) Thicket of Spears is your ticket to surviving the mid to late rounds (you are aiming for 7 tokens total), and so you need to find it. Foe-hammer and Gandalf are present to help you draw, and I recommend playing opposite a deck with Heed the Dream for extra security. The first copy will buy you 4 rounds of protection, and any additional copies (or Book of Eldacar) is just bonus. *Be sure not to trigger Book of Eldacar until you have used up Hama's recursion so that you don't lose access to Thicket!

Beyond this, do your best to engage as many enemies as possible to keep the other deck(s) safe (and to keep the resources coming via Mablung). Horn's Cry can be a tolerable replacement for Thicket in the late game, or can be used to save the questing deck from its enemies. The Hammer-stroke combos beautifully with Thicket of Spears and is quite epic to pull off.

Conclusion

I know this is more or less a version of the overpowered "Hama-lock" decks that led to his errata, but frankly I don't feel bad about bringing out the big guns against The Black Gate Opens, and it's not really anti-thematic in this case. I submit to you that engaging unending waves of enemies and holding them back repeatedly with Thicket of Spears is fun and thematic. Shuffling multiple copies of Eagle of the North into the encounter deck and praying that they show up at the right moment to take out a Nazgul is fun and thematic. Triggering Éowyn's big attack to kill a Nazgul is fun and...mostly thematic at the Black Gate :). More importantly, this is the deck that finally unlocked the path to my first experience of victory in Epic Multiplayer Black Gate/Mount Doom, and so it will always hold a special place in my many memories of this game.