No Need For Lead(ership) 1.0

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• 1.0

Can you spot the theme? Yes, it's the resources! The dosh, the bread, the dough, the wonga, the moolah. Specifically, generating resources without !

I was just browsing the range of heroes and this idea occurred to me so I thought I'd give it a try. I noticed this combination of heroes doesn't appear in any decks in ringsdb, so why not?

Does it work? Yes and no. This is not an optimised deck. I just picked the heroes on the basis that they can generate resources (pseudo-generate them in Gríma's case). Nevertheless, it is a pretty effective tri-sphere deck simply because it's better than most at paying for stuff, I've tried to balance it in terms of being able to usefully spend that dough on useful things. Arwen Undómiel can only really help herself, whereas Gríma can reduce costs in any of the spheres. Mablung's ability is obviously the most conditional.

Once you get Keys of Orthanc out you are looking at netting 6-7 resources a turn - you could be outrunning your Steward of Gondor-hogging friend (a measly 5 per turn) and dooming him in the process! There are some big neutral allies plus Envoy of Pelargir to balance things out across the spheres.

Just because of Gríma's presence, I'd say this deck is better suited to solo than multiplayer.

Piloting You can see the deck doesn't really specialise in any one area - if you're being kind, you could say it's a toolbox... It's better suited to questing than combat right off the bat but it can accelerate pretty quickly from turn one. A good opening hand includes Elven-light and Keys of Orthanc.

You could make a case for Keys of Orthanc going on anyone, depending on the specific quest. I tend towards Mablung since with Gondorian Fire and some dosh he can solve combat problems. However, Gríma could use spare resources from his pool to ready Warden of Healings and Arwen Undómiel might often be spending her extra resource on recurring Elven-light.

The sideboard includes some options for quests that pose specific problems such as locations, shadow cards and condition attachments.

Testing Handily beat Journey Along the Anduin first time and was also comfortable against Celembrimbor's Secret (2nd attempt) and Across the Ettenmoors (1st attempt).

Notes This deck only includes cards up to the end of Angmar Awakened cycle (that's just how far I am into the game). I'd be interested in how other people would build a non-leadership money deck including both early and later cards. Zigil Miner and Proud Hunters are a couple of cards that i haven't included that you could do something with...

Final thought: sphere-bleed is a thing, but I'm all in favour of that.