Deck Tech: Treasure Hunt! 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey, welcome to week five of deck tech! Last week we took a Gondorian Outlands deck (with a silly name) up against a number of Gondor appropriate quests, including the Siege of Cair Andros. If you missed that one, check it out here.

This week we're going weird with a deck built around exploring locations and reaping the rewards. Though I have to admit I'm a little curious why the rangers are hiding supplies and old junk in the Sewers of Gondor.

The deck is built around all three "After attached location is explored" attachments: Ancient Mathom, Elf-stone, and Ranger Provisions. There are tricks to recur the attachments, tricks to find the attachments, and Steed of Imladris to help ensure you can make the progress you need to reap the rewards.

The deck is also pretty multiplayer friendly, since it doesn't rely on a lot of uniques, and can pass the resource, card, and ally boosts on to other players. I probably wouldn't play Legacy of Númenor in that case, though. You could even swap in Follow Me!, if you're feeling greedy...

And now for some location heavy questing.

Quest 1: Druadan Forest

I always remember Druadan Forest as having a lot of annoying locations, but that didn't really happen this time. Setup was a treachery that did nothing, and after that was just Woses for a few rounds. I quested past them for a bit to get set up, destroyed a few with Sneak Attack Gandalf, and then finally saw a location.

The following round I attached two Ancient Mathoms, one Elf-stone, and one Ranger Provisions to that location and cleared it during questing. Net minus one resource for plus two cards and a free ally? Awesome.

The boost from that first location was enough to carry me the rest of the way, though the heroes are not very defensive, so Theodred had to die defending against Dru-Buri-Dru in the final stage. (The cards in hand were mostly and , so it wasn't a huge loss.)

And I forgot to use Aragorn to reset my threat before I won.

Final score: 151. 10 full rounds, 36 threat, 5 damage on heroes, 1 dead hero, and no VP.

Quest 2: The Steward's Fear

I know I just did this one, but the quest is fun, and there are a lot of locations to search!

First turn planning was Ancient Mathom, Elf-stone, and Ranger Provisions on the location that starts as active. I quested all out, knowing that a free ally would be coming if I could clear the location and had to fight.

But no enemy appeared, so turn 1 dropped Treebeard into play and refilled my resources and cards. Following this, I used Galadhrim Weaver to shuffle the Ranger Provisions back into the deck, and Erebor Hammersmith to get the Ancient Mathom back into my hand.

Stage 2 revealed the plot that draws an extra encounter card every turn (Journey Along the Anduin 2.0!), which started some gnarly surging location chains. Luckily (or maybe unluckily) every A Knife in the Back took out a Warden of Healing. Gondorian healers take their oaths seriously, and just walk away rather than hurting anyone, I suppose.

Before we hit stage 3, I played all three Deep Knowledge and one of the Legacy of Númenor to stock up on options and reset threat with Aragorn. Which gave me space to recycle some of those cards back into the deck and use them again.

The villain was Telemnar's Bane, who doesn't hit very hard, so I could finish him off in one turn, before any extra attacks.

Final score: 144. 10 full rounds, 40 threat, 4 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Quest 3: Assault on Osgiliath

I started with The Old Bridge, since the deck generates resources pretty easily with Ranger Provisions, and an Uruk Lieutenant in play. First turn I loaded up attachments on The Old Bridge, and started piling on the progress.

Fortunately, two resource acceleration effects per turn let you get through this quickly. And one other Osgiliath location appeared during staging so I could use Elf-stone at least once.

I know this quest is a little broken playing solo (Boromir by himself with no deck can often win turn 1), but I wanted to see how it felt to have such precise control over when locations get explored with this deck. And it feels really good, so I think I'd definitely recommend a deck like this for multiplayer attempts.

Final Score: 60. 3 full rounds, 29 threat, 1 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Play Tips

1. Be careful with your sequencing. I like to trigger Ancient Mathom last so I can bounce it back to my hand with an Erebor Hammersmith. But if you want more options, you can trigger it before Elf-stone, to give you a chance to draw a better ally. (Rules check: Maybe you can just put them in the discard pile in the order you want, which makes this easier, but still important.)

2. Erebor Hammersmith can't trigger his response if you put him into play with Elf-stone, but Galadhrim Weaver can, so be careful.

3. I prefer to pay for Ranger of Cardolan with a deck that has as many resources as this, but you can also use its ability if you're in a pinch.

4. Master of the Forge tends to be underwhelming once you've got the first set of attachments rolling, due to the recursion options. So don't be afraid to chump with him.

5. Doomed cards get played in the combat phase, and then you can reset your threat. Saving them up until you can play multiple is a good idea so you can stay below engagement thresholds.

6. Legacy of Numenor is one of the weaker cards in the deck, once the attachments are rolling. So you can feel free to discard it for progress, a resource with Arwen, or Daeron's Runes.

Next Week: we take on some random quests from Botomir with a deck designed to let Treebeard turn himself into a big green Boromir.

Blog: I'm working on some non-deck content for the blog, like an examination of two hero combos that support the third (like Arwen Theodred X, or Arwen Erestor X). You can find the blog at lotrdecktech.com and the RSS feed for the blog here.