Hunters of Eriador 1.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

Theme: This is a Dunedain/Noldor deck focused strongly around location control and questing, with a little bit of cancellation included. It is designed to support a Dunedain combat deck by offering early-game willpower, staging area control, and some flexible combat assistance as needed.

Strategy: This deck is designed to be able to handle both questing and to hold its own in combat. On most turns, both Idraen and Glorfindel will be ready for combat after questing, which means that the deck can offer 6 attack to wield against an enemy that engages it, which is enough to kill most small-to-mid-level enemies.

As a result, this deck can be an effective pressure release for its partner, if that deck ends up engaged with too many enemies to handle. Defensive power can be found with Gildor Inglorion, a Northern Tracker, or even Súlien, especially boosted by the defensive ability of Arwen Undómiel. After the decks have been set up, however, Arwen Undómiel will consistently target a Vigilant Dúnadan in the other deck, giving it sentinel and thus the ability to defend this side of the table without exhausting as well. In a pinch, the Dunedain Lookout is an effective chump blocker as well.

Most of the allies either aid in location control or questing. Of particular note is the Dunedain Pathfinder, whose negative ability is almost completely negated by this deck.

Most of the deck is fairly obvious to play. The attachments are largely standard for this sort of deck, and many of the events are staples as well. Idraen and Glorfindel between them offer the needed traits to play Well Warned. Between that, Elrond's Counsel, and Secret Vigil from the other deck, we should be more than capable on threat reduction. The healing effects are certainly not immensely powerful, but should be enough to handle most quests. Self Preservation should be played across the table on a Vigilant Dúnadan, giving the defender much more resilience.

The most interesting cards, however, are Distant Stars and Quick Ears. These are specifically designed to take advantage of Idraen's inherent action advantage. Distant Stars is a very versatile card, and offers us the chance to pull nasty locations out of the encounter deck. This can be used to remove cards that surge, or to pull out locations that are immune to player card effects, especially if they also have heavy Travel costs. Yet another use for this card is to avoid negative "while active" effects.

Quick Ears is another card that shines in this deck. If you can clear a location during the quest phase, but before staging, Idraen will be available to exhaust to pay the cost if necessary, and then will ready again if you clear the active location (if any). In exchange, we get the opportunity to cancel an enemy with surge, one of the big enemies that has come out too early for us to handle, or an enemy with a debilitating When Revealed effect. The most useful place for this card, though, is to prevent the companion deck from becoming overwhelmed with enemies. Until Vigilant Dúnadan is in play, the other deck can easily find itself engaged with too many enemies to deal with - a common failure mode of Dunedain combat decks. Quick Ears makes it much easier to walk the fine line between enough enemies to enable the stat boosts you need on your allies and the cost reduction of Heir of Valandil, and having your whole combat phase fall apart because you were one defense short of what you needed.

Like any Glorfindel deck, this deck wants to mulligan for Light of Valinor. However, Arwen Undómiel is also a core card, and an opening hand with her and one of the card draw effects should not be ignored.

The resource curve of this deck is biased towards . In other circumstances, this might be a problem, but the companion deck includes Thurindir, who will be using his ability to bring up The Storm Comes during setup. Therefore, Beravor should probably commit to the quest on the first turn, so that the fellowship can clear the opening side quest and start benefiting from playing allies without resource matches. Once this is in play, the sphere distribution is much more manageable. On subsequent turns, of course, Beravor's card draw will most likely be much more valuable.