Círdan the Skyshipwright 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Hey Círdan, why do people need your ships to make it to Valinor? Why not just ride the Eagles there?

I've always found Support of the Eagles underwhelming. It's expensive, Radagast can't help pay for it or use it, you can't fetch it with The Eagles Are Coming!, and it depends on having a decent Eagle already out. On the other hand, it can boost your characters' combat stats sky-high when set up, which is thematically appropriate. But if you have a buffed Eagles of the Misty Mountains, then it's not very common to need such combat stats on your heroes in the first place, you already have a viable combat solution. And because Eagles can struggle with willpower, you'll likely already be questing with your heroes.

So this deck is an attempt (successful attempt, I may add) to maximize the usefulness of Support of the Eagles. First, it uses The Gifts of Galadriel, which means you can play them on Radagast or Círdan the Shipwright, or both, there's no limit. I've used Círdan the Shipwright as my main defender, as I can play A Burning Brand, Support of the Eagles, and Golden Shield or Andúril on him to trigger the benefits of the contract. This lets him easily defend any attacks that come your way. Another Support of the Eagles goes on Radagast so he can attack with his Eagle buddies and strike enemies down.

Wizard Pipes are wonderful in this deck, as each character can get one. There are a few uses for the pipe: you can exchange a less immediately useful card with the top card of your deck, hoping it will be better; use them in combination with Messenger Ravens to draw more cards than you have resources to play; put an unwanted card on top of your deck during the refresh phase if you haven't played your Silver Harp yet, allowing you to draw it with Círdan the Shipwright and discard it; and put Support of the Eagles on top of your deck before playing Galadriel, thereby putting it into play for free.

Silver Harp is really useful here for the extra card draw, and playing it on Éowyn allows you to get a resource back or draw a card. The White can go on your third copy of Galadriel to either boost your willpower or allow you to play more cards that are off-sphere or -trait, as there are so many included in this deck.

When set up, you'll probably end up questing with your 10-, 10- Eagles of the Misty Mountains, because your heroes effectively have 12+ and riding atop that Eagle and can take the combat easily, and A Burning Brand ensures that all your nice attachments aren't suddenly discarded by an unexpected shadow. The combination of those two, especially when you can cheat them into play with Galadriel, is what really ramps up the power of Support of the Eagles here and makes it genuinely good.