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The Purple Wizard 1337
This is, hands down, the most complicated deck I have ever played. I've been playing this game for a LONG time now and nothing I've tried has tied my brain in knots quite like this has. I didn't publish this for a long time because of that, but I've changed my mind and am now thinking that such a confounding mess deserves to be preserved. Playing this deck seems to call for a level of wisdom I fall short on.
The goal here was simply to make a Council of the Wise WITH the actual members of said council. Seems obvious, right? And yet a quick search here shows only a few other decks with this hero lineup and contract, and there were none when I first made this. I don't know if mine is any better or worse than those others, and I'm afraid to play it more often to find out, ha!. (For those who want to compare it to others, know that I always play multiplayer so this wasn't meant to be a solo deck.)
What makes this such a challenge is EVERYTHING requires a decision, and interweaving those decisions into a cohesive whole is a brain-tangler. Why? Let's start with the contract.
Council of the Wise is a nice counter to Saruman's limitations on threat reduction, as it can reliably reduce your threat by one each round if you want it to. But you are also going to need the card draw and resources on it, so which do you need most right now? The contract also makes you play 50 different cards in your deck so every time you play a card you have to wonder if now is actually the right time to play that card, especially events, as you won't see them again. More card options = more decisions.
Next up is Saruman. His Saruman's Staff is probably the card you want to mulligan for or grab with Gather Information, Heed the Dream, or Word of Command, as without it threat becomes a much bigger problem. Ideally you quest with Saruman and use a doomed card somewhere in the round to ready him for combat, as he's this deck's best attacker. But the doomed card you need that round is unlikely to be the one you actually have, so is the one you have still worth playing? And when? And if you don't have the Staff is it worth the full doomed cost? Ugh!
Hero Gandalf always makes for complex decks, as his access to the top card of the deck brings tons of possibility to the table along with, you guessed it, more decisions. Whose resources can I buy that card with? Should I swap it out with Wizard Pipe now or later? Gandalf's Staff offers three powerful and important options if you find it, that you can time at any action window in the round. And Gandalf's action itself is really valuable, as you may need him for both questing and defense, but maybe late game his action is most powerful with Narya?
Galadriel is thankfully the most straightforward of the three. You need both her card draw and threat reduction to counteract Saruman's influence. If you find the one copy of Nenya you'll have to make some tougher calls there, but that's par for the course with her. With only copy of Nenya she tends to be the only no-brainer decision the deck gives you. But don't forget, as I always tend to do, that your allies will quest for free their first round with her in play!
I'm far from confident that this is the perfect 50 card set for this, though it is certainly solid. If this deck intrigues you I'd encourage you to try your own hand at this. Please tag me if you do, as I'd love to see what others can make of this. I always enjoyed this deck in the first half of games until my brain turned to mush.