Try this deck out if you want a serious doomed experience. Before you even play the deck just draw seven cards and don't worry about threat increase at all. It's possible to draw more than 10 cards get with Steward of Gondor and Keys of Orthanc, play Ranger spikes to the staging area and get 1 to 3 Outlands allies in play, and just incase you have a resource to spare Sneak Attack Gandalf and draw three cards. I did this mock draw, and went through my whole deck in 7 turns, and played all the allies in my hand. This deck is fast at the sacrifice of increasing your threat. I have started a game at threat 29 and before the first quest phase i am over 40, but really it does not matter with the momentum the deck builds and Aragorn ready to reset threat back to 29 when it's needed, by that time you will not be relying as much on threat increasing cards or Grima, because all the necessary pieces have been played. Sure things can go wrong, and the deck will have difficulty on a number of scenarios, but it is just neat to see it in action. It does pretty well on To Catch an Orc.

I am not going to say much about strategy below, since it's straight forward when you see the cards in your hand, just don't worry about increasing threat at all, and if you are able to get a ranger spikes to the staging area before questing you are golden.

The one last thing I'll add is that i like this deck much more than other power outland decks I have built. The skyrocketing threat adds to the challenge in the opening round, and the deck does not have any designated chump blockers to help the Outlands get going, they have to be ready to quest, defend, and attack right from the get go, so i have found the strategic choices I have to make more important, but yes once they get going they will pretty much be unstoppable.

Let me know what you think! Here's the deck.

Hero (3)

Aragorn (TWitW) x1

Gríma (VOI) x1

Hirluin the Fair (TSF) x1

Ally (19)

Anfalas Herdsman (TSF) x3

Ethir Swordsman (TSF) x3

Hunter of Lamedon (HON) x3

Knights of the Swan (TSF) x3

Warrior of Lossarnach (TSF) x3

Gandalf (Core) x3

Forlong x1

Attachment (9)

Ranger Spikes (HON) x3

Keys of Orthanc (VOI) x3

Steward of Gondor (Core) x3

Event (22)

Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3

Lorien's Wealth (Core) x3

Mithrandir's Advice (TSF) x3

Deep Knowledge (VOI) x3

The Seeing-stone (VOI) x3

Legacy of Númenor (VOI) x3

Sneak Attack (Core) x3

Men of the west x1

And yes this is a solo deck, because you will be the only other player playing in a few rounds even if you start with other players.

dat card draw though...

looks fun and fast, only thing i'm curious about is that in my previous outland builds i've needed a handful of chump blockers to ensure i make it thru the first few rounds without losing any pertinent allies to enemies. have you had that issue at all?

dat card draw though...

looks fun and fast, only thing i'm curious about is that in my previous outland builds i've needed a handful of chump blockers to ensure i make it thru the first few rounds without losing any pertinent allies to enemies. have you had that issue at all?

Sure that is an issue, but that is the challenge I like for Outlands in this deck. The ways to get around it are, leave Aragorn ready to be blocker early in the game, if you can sneak attack Gandalf in as defender on big enemy early that is a good solution. If I have to lose an Outland ally early it will be the Hunter of Lamedon, since he does not contribute any stat boost to the outland build. You could use a warden of healing but that is not ideal. If no other option exist it is going to be an outland ally, which is always a tough choice, base it on how many of each you have ally in play, in hand, in the discard pile, and which ones are not crucial to success.

Once Hirluin starts to get the Defense and Hp buff he becomes the main defender, and wardens can keep him alive if there is excess damage. The deck is still prone to nasty shadow cards, early builds had burning brand attached to the hunter, but it took to long to set up.

More chumps could be added, but you will have to swap ot cards and those will probably be cards related to draw, so that will slow the deck down alot.

I had to try JatA to see how I could handle the Hill Troll first turn.

I Dug so deep into my deck the first turn that I was able to retrieve 3 copies of Sneak attack and Gandalf, Hirluin was also set up with Key and Steward, so he had 3 resources. Three enemies including the hill troll engaged. I snuck in Gandalf durning Quest phase and dealt damage to the troll, then once again during combat phase, Aragorn defended the troll, Grima and Hirluin defended the other 2, Gandalf then delivered the final point of damage to the troll for a first round TKO. The rest was over in 5 rounds, very cool win, and really difficult challenge for this deck. I imagine success rate would be pretty low, but I was happy to pull it off at least once.

That sounds like an epic game!

This deck has also now got wins on Into Ithillien, Battle of Laketown and Shadow and Flame. All the wins were on the 2 or 3rd try. Not easy with no chump blockers it's tough to see critical Outlands allies lost. Maybe including a copy of Men of the west in the deck could make a difference.

This deck can get ridiculous though. On Shadow and Flame during the first planning phase I raised my threat by 17 and had drawn half my deck. I also was able to play SoG and play a Herdsmen and Swordsmen! Amazingly this is a game I won.

Cool deck tracker, as most of your decks are.

Will try it sometime in the future, when I get my grubby hands on VOI that is...

Got a victory against Siege of Cair Andros after a number of attempts. Master's Malice is an Outlands killer.

One change to deck was to take out warden for Men of the west. Any Outlands that fell could be brought back.

Tried Morgul Vale, i think it is impossible with this deck, I would often threat out first round, or get crushed. Only made it to the Nazgul once. This is the most difficult normal mode scenario. Maybe more so than Dol Guldur, which is only difficult because one of your heroes is captured an you can not play more than on ally per round. MV is where the rubber meets the road when you want to put a deck to a real challenge.

So overall, i did not try this deck on everything, but just played it against the new VoI scenarios excluding the first, JatA, Ii, SaF, Laketown, and TSoCA, and it was able to do pretty well on those. It never felt like crushing the scenario, every victory was tense, and i really enjoyed playing outlands in this format.

My general thoughts on doomed mechanic are pretty positive for solo play, and I am happy to have a new deck archetype to experiment with. This outland build is pretty powerful, and it's just amazing to see the deck in action, although it is really inconsistent in how it preformed each game played on the same scenario. It was definitely fun to play.

Tried Morgul Vale, i think it is impossible with this deck, I would often threat out first round, or get crushed. Only made it to the Nazgul once. This is the most difficult normal mode scenario. Maybe more so than Dol Guldur, which is only difficult because one of your heroes is captured an you can not play more than on ally per round. MV is where the rubber meets the road when you want to put a deck to a real challenge.

Not sure I agree with you here because MV can be "solved" much like Carrock by keeping your starting threat low and not engaging the first boss until you are ready. Then storm the quest in three turns. As I've said before, my elves deck laughs at Morgul Vale, but then gets slaughtered by Fords of Isen. I'm not complaining mind, I think it's a good thing when there isn't a One Deck to Rule them ALL.

I haven't heard, how are the dwarves doing in Rohan?

Tried Morgul Vale, i think it is impossible with this deck, I would often threat out first round, or get crushed. Only made it to the Nazgul once. This is the most difficult normal mode scenario. Maybe more so than Dol Guldur, which is only difficult because one of your heroes is captured an you can not play more than on ally per round. MV is where the rubber meets the road when you want to put a deck to a real challenge.

Not sure I agree with you here because MV can be "solved" much like Carrock by keeping your starting threat low and not engaging the first boss until you are ready. Then storm the quest in three turns. As I've said before, my elves deck laughs at Morgul Vale, but then gets slaughtered by Fords of Isen. I'm not complaining mind, I think it's a good thing when there isn't a One Deck to Rule them ALL.

I haven't heard, how are the dwarves doing in Rohan?

Yeah that is true about MV, My Dunhere deck makes it also look silly. But the low threat strategy is a must, any deck that get's Murzag first round is doomed, no pun intended.

As for Dwarves, i don't play them much although I did pair Grima, with Nori and Dain. which had a real problem catching an orc.

Waiting to hear report on so,e of the more traditional dwarf builds. I wonder if the Ori and legacy of Durin will be problem at the Fords, or will the deck just plow through regardless? I think it will plow through since many dwarf decks have decent Hp.

Tried Morgul Vale, i think it is impossible with this deck, I would often threat out first round, or get crushed. Only made it to the Nazgul once. This is the most difficult normal mode scenario. Maybe more so than Dol Guldur, which is only difficult because one of your heroes is captured an you can not play more than on ally per round. MV is where the rubber meets the road when you want to put a deck to a real challenge.

Not sure I agree with you here because MV can be "solved" much like Carrock by keeping your starting threat low and not engaging the first boss until you are ready. Then storm the quest in three turns. As I've said before, my elves deck laughs at Morgul Vale, but then gets slaughtered by Fords of Isen. I'm not complaining mind, I think it's a good thing when there isn't a One Deck to Rule them ALL.

I haven't heard, how are the dwarves doing in Rohan?

Yeah that is true about MV, My Dunhere deck makes it also look silly. But the low threat strategy is a must, any deck that get's Murzag first round is doomed, no pun intended.

As for Dwarves, i don't play them much although I did pair Grima, with Nori and Dain. which had a real problem catching an orc.

Waiting to hear report on so,e of the more traditional dwarf builds. I wonder if the Ori and legacy of Durin will be problem at the Fords, or will the deck just plow through regardless? I think it will plow through since many dwarf decks have decent Hp.

I've just run through VOI with my Dwarf deck (Dain, Ori, Nori). Fords in theory could be horrible but I managed to dodge the worst effects (on my one play) and, as you say, the deck can soak up huge amounts of damage tokens. The other two scenarios seemed fairly straightforward, although I did need a couple of attempts at To Catch an Orc.

So, slender evidence, but Dwarves look good against VOI on what I have seen so far.