67 - Temple of the Deceived (Progression Series)

This is another fellowship continuing on in my goal to play through all of the quests in release order to learn how all (or most) of the cards interact with one another. The first fellowship for the quests in the core set can be found here, and it contains a slightly more detailed overview of what I'm going for with building these decks. As always, any feedback is appreciated so that I can continue to learn more!

I had my first major deck building mishap on this quest, using the same hero in both decks without realizing it until I went to create the fellowship...Merry and his friend Larry Merry both ran around the island together and had a jolly time. I retooled the Armory deck to use Denethor instead of Tactics Merry, and actually think the deck ended up working better despite starting with a slightly higher threat.

In the early game, keeping enemies in staging to be able to kill them with Dúnhere and Haldir of Lórien is what these decks want to do. The trick is to find a non-Ruins location that doesn't have a lot of threat in the staging area and camp there for a while until both decks can build up their board a little bit. The armory deck should be able to toss over plenty of weapons to Dunhere and Haldir so that they can take out any enemy single by themselves. Haldir with a couple of Unexpected Courage can help quest, as can Dunhere once he gets Steed of the Mark thanks to Elfhelm's global bonus.

Eventually, the Armory deck will want to be engaging enemies to fuel Mablung, so Armored Destrier + Gondorian Shield on Denethor (and eventually on Elfhelm as well) can turn them into incredible defenders. Déorwine can be used to help defend an attack that engages the other deck, but with all of it's built in threat reduction it should be in secrecy and not really have to worry about it too much.

Merry, Sam Gamgee and Bilbo Baggins can all get a Hobbit Pipe, so this deck should have no issues whatsoever with card draw or resources once Resourceful is out. Steward of Gondor + Mablung + Legolas + Rod of the Steward should mean that the Armory deck also has no issues on either front. Bilbo is the Sword-thain target, since he is pretty much the only ally of 2-cost or less in either deck, making that treachery whiff 100% of the time.