Defenders of the North

Questlogs using this decklist
None.
Fellowships using this decklist
Scions of Arnor
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Defenders of the North 7 7 1 2.0
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Onidsen 1102

Onidsen has a newer deck inspired by this one: Defenders of the North

Theme: This is a thematic combat deck built around the Dunedain trait, designed to supplement a / location control and questing deck.

Strategy: This deck's goal is to engage all of the enemies on the table, using that to power effects like Heir of Valandil and Sarn Ford Sentry, along with Halbarad and Amarthiúl's abilities.

In order to do this effectively, a number of defenders have been included in the deck. Amarthiúl is the primary defender, and should be given the first 2 copies of Armored Destrier, to be able to defend and cancel shadow effects. This readying and shadow cancellation is key to the deck's ability to keep functioning in the long run; the most dangerous card effects to a Dunedain combat deck are shadows. But even with Dúnedain Warnings, Amarthiúl can't always defend against the most deadly enemies in the game. Against those, the Guardian of Arnor should be employed. With a few enemies engaged, they can easily outmatch the base defense stats of any hero, and when this deck is running at its maximum capacity, they can even defend boss enemies regularly.

While Amarthiúl and the Guardians of Arnor handle the large, high profile attacks, the Vigilant Dúnadan is the workhorse of the deck. Boosted by Arwen Undómiel from the companion deck, and protected by a Squire's Helm, Self Preservation, and the effect from clearing Keep Watch, he becomes a veritable wall against all of the lesser enemies of the game. Ideally, Amarthiúl will discard the shadow cards from the enemies we plan to defend with the Dúnadan, so that his weaker defensive stats are kept more protected.

The rest of the deck is designed either to facilitate this setup, or to take advantage of it. Between Feint and Andrath Guardsman, we have the option to cancel attacks that we can't handle, while the Dúnedain Watcher is an emergency escape valve for the shadow effects that could otherwise sink us. Eldahir and Dark Knowledge give us some valuable knowledge about upcoming shadow effects, letting us use the actions of the Armored Destriers to maximum effect.

In the late game, Sarn Ford Sentry will give us simply insane card draw, while Warden of Annúminas can simply dominate the quest phase. Thurindir will grab the side quest The Storm Comes during setup (it's kept in the sideboard to make it easier to manage while playing on OCTGN), and we can then use it to bring in Dunedain allies of any sphere, with their cost reduced by Heir of Valandil.

Ranger Provisions should be used to make sure that the fellowship can get out the few expensive attachments - Forest Snare and Self Preservation. With the location control available to the companion deck, it should be simple enough to target exactly where you need the resource acceleration to go on any given turn.

One interesting interaction to look out for is the Ranger of Cardolan and the Dúnedain Pipe, from the other deck. If we use the Pipe to draw a new card, under most circumstances we would expect that card to be effectively in the discard pile, since we seldom expect to draw through our entire deck. However, this deck has few cards that we would be willing to lose forever, even if we aren't necessarily ready to play them this turn. However, if we use the action on Ranger of Cardolan, at the end of the round, it will be shuffled back into our deck, making it much more likely that we can see whatever card we piped away.

This deck should mulligan for Heir of Valandil or Armored Destrier. An opening hand with both in it is probably ideal.

2 comments

Sep 23, 2018 Levache 107

This looks like a really fun deck. I've tried (and failed) to create a strong Dunedain deck. Looking forward to trying this one out. Thanks for sharing!

Sep 24, 2018 Onidsen 1102

I'm glad you like the look of this one! I haven't done any serious deck testing on this one yet (it's the next entry in the Experimental Deckbuilding series on my blog, so this is the preliminary posting). If you find any glaring weaknesses, let me know!