Uppity 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Legolas and Gimli are well-matched (if unlikely) friends indeed, but I was looking for another reason to use new Legolas. Who's another hero that you want to quest with but also have ready…? A Narya'ed Círdan! Still, as of the time I publish this, there's exactly one (excellent) deck on RingsDB that uses both Legolas and Círdan, and even that one is really a Leggy/Gimli deck. I just wanted something different.

Ah, but Legolas' ability comes at the nontrivial cost of a card discard. Elven-light is perfect synergy, but it changes the cost into a resource. Who can give you such resources? Théodred, that's who! And once he's in the picture, with an all-Noble lineup, Heir of Mardil suddenly becomes an attractive prospect.

Between Legolas' ability, Heir of Mardil, Light of Valinor, and good ol' Unexpected Courage (as well as a couple of Crams), you have an excessive amount of ways to ready all of your heroes. (Don't forget that even readying Théodred can be beneficial—never underestimate the value of 2, especially in a -heavy deck.) Throw the effects onto the heroes in the order that seems appropriate for the quest.

All these roundabout ways to guarantee that extra Círdan action, but who're you going to Narya? Big hitters Treebeard, Jubayr, Glorfindel, and Northern Tracker are all solid targets; so is Faramir when needed. All so expensive, though! Especially if you're committed to fueling your Leggy shenanigans with Théodred's extra resource, you'll need some way to cheat the big boys in. This is where A Very Good Tale and Elfhelm come in (helped along by the ever-efficient Envoy of Pelargir). Don't sleep on this combo, which is made particularly good in a Narya deck.

A usual complement of 2-cost allies rounds out most of the rest of the list—your starting won't last you for long, so you'll probably need 'em to shore up your quest power.

The whole shebang may seem a little fragile and slow to set up, but the redundancy of readying effects and the digging power of Círdan and Elven-light can accelerate you more than you might expect. Paired with a literally no-questing Sentinel build, this deck was able to beat NM Passage through Mirkwood quite handily. I mean, you're probably not going to take down Carn Dum with it, but if you enjoy cackling as you confuse your tablemates—"wait, you quest with everyone but all your heroes are ready and you drew a card?"—you might enjoy this as well.