The noldors will do the fighting

idea is good, but:

• how to play Stone of Elostirion? its unique
• would put in more shadowcancelling. try carn dum and you will seee, you need it.

perhaps start with the ring + inner strength on elrohir, then perhaps song of battle and Sterner than Steel (elrohir could take song of battle as default-attachement. with tactic he can use Gondorian Shield and with steward he has +2 defense and do not need this much blood of numenor-buff (defense would be 6 with inner strength) + warnings

at 3-hunters, consider Legacy Blade instead of the Steed of Imladris cheaper and perhaps of more use (imladris steed will rarely be used, my experience and only for restricted, that go better) the blades benefit also from Open the Armory specially in the 1. round with blades there is more potential to flipp the contract 1. round

@doomguard we fetch it with The King's Return. We only intend to play it that way, in the following timing: wehave just resolved questing and no location is active or in the staging area (or one in the staging area we cannot travel to). Then we play The King's Return, grab Stone of Elostirion, and travel to it's location.

on shadow cancelling: i've beaten carn dum with this. Because of blood of numenor, increasing is not relevant after a while. And because of low threat and readying, threat increase and extra attacks don't either. For nastier effects, i agree we have a problem and i'm working on it. So far the options i see are:

• just decide Inner Strength on Elrohir is the best possible use of The One Ring (i put it in the sideboard so that only the pieces we cannot do without would be in the main deck, but i'm assuming Inner Strength goes in whenever possible).

• Silver Lamp on Arwen Undómiel combined with Armored Destrier lets us discard selectively the shadows that matter, however Silver Lamp only works on enemies engaged with that player. Depending on the threat of the other decks on the table, that might not be a problem.

• Song of Wisdom+A Burning Brand which fonctionaly works the same as The One Ring+Inner Strength, but more expensive and doesnt tutor itself. I think that would be superior to Song of Battle+Sterner than Steel because of the sheer amount of shadows revealed.

there are already Gondorian Shields in the erestor deck, of which the first one always goes on Elrohir. So yes Elrohir can reach a decent relatively fast, which is necessary because Blood of Númenor takes some time to ready. Blood of Númenor serves more of a purpose of reducing the amount of shadows that affect us, and defending boss enemies without taking damage.

on Steed of Imladris vs Legacy Blade: Legacy Blade is interesting, i agree it would help flip the contract faster (and sometimes give Elladan an extra while waiting for Orcrist). I don't think synergy with Open the Armory is relevant, hypergeometric calculator and experience with the deck tell me we will almost never choose Legacy Blade with Open the Armory (because the sample as a 95% chance of containing a better target). Plus you'd be surprised how much Steed of Imladris helps: this is an erestor deck, so the steed is actually usable, and provides a bit of extra questing power when needed (it helped a lot against carn dum's cursed battlefield!). During my playtests, playing 3 or more restricted attachments on a single turn didn't happen that often, so Legacy Blade costing 0 would not make a big difference. Flipping the contract first round would require a lot of luck even with Legacy Blade, so if we are talking about flipping the contract faster we would rather target increasing the odds of a flip second or third round, for which 1-cost restricteds work fine.

Legacy Blade would work, as well as Round Shield, Windfola, Dagger of Westernesse, Blade of Gondolin etc

If we were to include more restricted to flip the contract faster, i would rather cut something not restricted that can be done without, like one of Elven-light, Lembas and Song of Healing

gz for carn dum ! and the way with kings return is nice.

if you have made good experience with the imladrissteed, keep it, i have not. but i can imagine specially to get the nasty battle-location away it is worth its weight in gold.

and btw. Legacy Blade does not work like your examples. it cost 0 that means you can play it for freee even after your 1. restricted and after using the discount from contract. so it is only comparable with Round Shield of your list.

and then, the synergy with Open the Armory could be interesting. imagine, you have only 1 res left, have paed 1. restricted on all heroes this turn, then with Open the Armory you may catch it and bring another restricted into play, perhaps the last one to flip.

I'm aware of how Forth, The Three Hunters! works.

remember that past the first round, we only have 4 cards a round (plus Elven-light), and we only have 15 restricted attachments in the deck so using the discount of each of the 3 heroes does not happen that often past the first round. That means wether by draw or from Open the Armory, we will rarely pay for restricted attachments.

I'd rather play a restricted that i occasionally pay for that does something relevant than one i never have to pay for but that does nothing (we only have 1 side quest and no thurindir, so legacy blade takes a while to do something and by that time elladan would have already discarded it for better weapons, erestor's attacks are nearly irrelevant).

However, if we increase the density of restricted attachments in the deck, we might have enough to make that problem appear more often. In that case, some number of Legacy Blade and Round Shield would be approriate.

Since so far we are on the side of making almost full use of the discount, i'd start by adding relevant 1-cost ones, test it, and once we hit a point where the cost of 1 becomes relevant, i'd start adding Legacy Blade and Round Shield instead of 1-cost ones.

keep in mind flipping the contract is not the highest priority for the deck (it is focused on combat, flipping the contract is a bonus) AND because of how much we draw it never takes too long to flip anyway.

As for the Open the Armory synergy: getting Elrohir his shield and getting Elladan his War Axe, Rivendell Bow and 2 Rivendell Blade makes 5 targets that are higher priority than Legacy Blade.

For grabbing Legacy Blade with Open the Armory being relevant, you need all 5 of the higher priority targets to either already be in play or not be in play and not show up, AND THEN you also need either Gondorian Shield or Rivendell Blade not showing up, or all 3 of your discounts having been used this round, which given the fact that you have drawn a Open the Armory means the 3 other cards you have drawn this round are restricted 1-cost attachments (of which you have 12 in the deck) which is extremely unlikely.

given Open the Armory samples 10 cards which is a good chunk of your deck, those conditions being met is highly unlikely, so Legacy Blade being a weapon is not significantly relevant in this deck.

for carn dum you are right, for other games, where fighting is not sooo important, it could be better to increase questing with an earlier flipped contract.

would assume legacy or round shield get more flexibility. but if it is game deciding in some occasions, i cannot tell.

i think i would swap them with song of healing because an earlier contract can do the healingjob and i do not reduce probabilities for the more important things.

bear in mind we are supposed to fight for a table of 4, so we should not make any concessions on that.

i do agree however flipping the contract impacts the game massively, so we should aim to do so quicker.

i don't see legacy blade doing anything most of the time, and apart from elrohir the noldors dont do much defending, so both legacy blade and round shield are for all intents and purposes 0 cost blanks.

song of healing is meant to be played on other heroes around the table (elrohir or others, during testing i was using rosie quests for the table as third deck so the target was obvious). maybe it is not that necessary, there are other ways to heal, and for archery flipping the contract works better.

cards i would consider cutting for more restricteds:

• Song of Healing as you mentionned, keeping just one to protect the weakest hero on the table might be worth it

• a copy of Golden Belt if we go the Inner Strength route on Elrohir, because then we would not be playing destrier so we would only need belt for elladan

• Lembas, having it not essential (elrohir is hte main target for it but The Grey Wanderer already does that for him), and in the case of elrohir Miruvor is superior.

• one copy of Rivendell Bow, elladan won't be needing it that much until he gets orcrist, by that time one of the 2 copies would have shown up.

• 1-2 Elven-light, since the second and third copy are nearly useless, and we don't need it that much.

as mentionned before, when slotting in restricteds i would start with 1-costs (1 Windfola and then Dagger of Westernesse+Blade of Gondolin), test it, and replace the appropriate amount with Legacy Blade and Round Shield

also because i am testing with the rosie deck and Power of Command is so important to that deck but we still need shadow tech, i'm seriously considering A Burning Brand+Song of Wisdom.

because Rune-master is so important to generate resource i would put Song of Wisdom in the erestor deck. I'm gonna reflect on that, and if we decide to do so some of the slots of the erestor deck should be kept for Song of Wisdom (and Golden Belt would stay at 3 copies).

An added bonus is Stone of Elostirion can now be played from hand if we draw it.

Cool idea!

So have you tried paring this with your Rosie Quests for the Table deck? How did it go?