Deck 2: Lore/Spirit (Elven Finesse)

But it is in Leadership which ??? And why did you put galadriel ally in? (obvious reasons, but its fun to read your thoughts)

Posted as I left work hence no thoughts etc. I'll edit it now

Hmmmmm.... very tempted to try out swapping Legolas for the upcoming Tactics Aragorn Hero (tactigorn! )

and removing some cards from both decks to run x2 Sword that was Broken and x2 Wingfoot.
My thoughts are that Aragorn can quest instead of Elladan and Elladan can still be pumped up with blades etc (and even Bow of the Galadrim if Rivendell Bow is equipped first) instead of Legolas and the rest can be put on Haldir (who receives the first two almost always anyway) and Glorfindel. This way Elladan takes over the previous duties that Legolas had and Aragorn takes over Elladans. Elladan will usually gain ranged and even if not Haldir and Glorindel (and various allies, orophin rumil etc) can help with attacking duties as per usual, so can Aragorn if he isn't needed for questing or has Wingfoot attached. As well as this he will gain the Leadership sphere from StwB as well as +1 willpower (+1 to all other characters for this deck as well) and with Wingfoot will also be able to potentially both quest and attack. His -1 to defense to enemies engaged with this deck would be insanely good as this deck engages most enemies anyway, it would help Haldir more easily kill enemies engaged with the other deck with his ability and would help Elladan more easily take out enemies as well.
Elladan taking over attacking duties from Legolas in this situation would allow use of Elladan's ability as well and if you get ranged and a few other attack boosting attachments on him he can easily clear most enemies on his own. With appropriate defense set up and enough resources on Elladan you could safety quest with all other heroes but Elrohir and Elladan and still defend everything and then take out all or most enemies as well. This would potentially allow the brothers to shine.

I see many many boosts to the decks with this change including (repeating myself but will keep it brief and to the point) allowing Elladan's ability to be properly used, Aragorn's two abilities, Aragorn's boost to questing through the Sword, Aragorn being able to attack alongside Elladan after questing with Wingfoot and the boost to Haldir's ability through the -1 defense.

The only real downsides I can see are the loss of Legolas's progress ability and two heroes with ranged off the bat (can fairly easily get it on Elladan to replace this and also have many allies with ranged as well) and the high starting threat.

Any thoughts anyone?

Sounds like a fun experiment at least. I'm always sad to see Legolas go, but Aragorn should be pretty fun.

Instead I tried out the Galadriel Hero instead of Glorfindel and x3 Nenya instead of x3 Asfaloth against Journey down the Anduin and it went really really well!! Light of Valinor on Elrond worked really well and Galadriels effect every round (never drew Nenya!) was insanely insanely good. May very well stick with these changes depending on several more test games.

Yea, I love Galadriel, and unless I'm building a deck that has very little willpower, I don't care at all if she never sees Nenya.

Question for you guys: When building these two handed decks do you artificially constrain yourselves to 3 total copies of a card (or less)? For example, if you had Galadriel in one hand and Sp Glorifindel in the other, would you allow yourself 6 total copies of A Test of Will?

Very nice question! I however use a tactics/leadership deck and spirit/lore deck so apart from Neutral cards, of which I don't use many, I don't have any cards both decks can play anyway so only ever run x3 of anything across both deck.

If something like A Test of Will (not that it would ever be but just purely hypothetical) was neutral I wouldn't stop myself or consider it wrong in any way to include x3 copies in both decks.

I also only have one core set so unless the card was that good I wouldn't bother making proxies and would still just run the x3 in one deck.

Oh oh I used to run x2 Core Set Gandalf in each deck but changed that to 3 in the leadership deck (duh for sneak attack) and none in the spirit/lore deck.

Yea, I love Galadriel, and unless I'm building a deck that has very little willpower, I don't care at all if she never sees Nenya.

I've played two matches so far, Journey down the Anduin (which I won and didn't get nenya all match) and Celebrimbors Secret (which I lost but had Nenya AND Unexpected Courage on Galadriel) and Nenya definitely isn't integral unless its a quest that requires high willpower off the bat. Even with Nenya and Unexpected Courage I wasn't able to overcome my first attempt of Celebrimbor's Secret but I had super unlucky draws and had so many locations come out... on the first game I don't have Asfaloth anymore!

Question for you guys: When building these two handed decks do you artificially constrain yourselves to 3 total copies of a card (or less)? For example, if you had Galadriel in one hand and Sp Glorifindel in the other, would you allow yourself 6 total copies of A Test of Will?

I mostly play online using OCTGN, so if I have two decks with the same spheres, I won't limit myself. In the current versions of the decks I posted here I have 3x A Test of Will in each deck because it's almost never a dead card and because I played Steward's Fear with only 3x total and it totally failed. I specifically built both decks to have Lore in them because I wanted both decks to have 3x Galadhrim Minstrel and 3x The Tree People. They are that good and practically essential to Silvan decks. I also gave each deck 2x (I believe) Silvan Trackers.

Yea, I love Galadriel, and unless I'm building a deck that has very little willpower, I don't care at all if she never sees Nenya.

I've played two matches so far, Journey down the Anduin (which I won and didn't get nenya all match) and Celebrimbors Secret (which I lost but had Nenya AND Unexpected Courage on Galadriel) and Nenya definitely isn't integral unless its a quest that requires high willpower off the bat. Even with Nenya and Unexpected Courage I wasn't able to overcome my first attempt of Celebrimbor's Secret but I had super unlucky draws and had so many locations come out... on the first game I don't have Asfaloth anymore!

Wow so just lost another 3 games of Celebrimbors Secret using Galadriel instead of Glorfindel and after swapping back to Glorfindel and having Asfaloth first turn I won on my first attempt..... Don't think I'll be makin this change after all as Asfaloth is utterly intergral for ALOT of quests that are location heavy. Just northern trackers and raw willpower are not enough, especially in quests like this where locations staying in play too long trigger nasty effects (scour in this quest).

I even had x2 Asfaloth in the Galadriel version of the deck but it was simply not enough. Galadriel you were insanely fun to play with but im keeping my Glorfindel crutch after all it seems! =\

I made a few minor changes when swapping back to using Glorfindel

Deck 2: Lore/Spirit (Elven Finesse)

Question for you guys: When building these two handed decks do you artificially constrain yourselves to 3 total copies of a card (or less)? For example, if you had Galadriel in one hand and Sp Glorifindel in the other, would you allow yourself 6 total copies of A Test of Will?

(mostly play with the cards just don't enjoy the electronic versions as much)

Only one change to this deck which was removing the two copies of Burning Brand and putting in two Silvan Trackers. With the new changes and further embrace of the Silvan trait in the other deck it only seems right to include a few more Silvan allies in this deck as well. Now I've been going on about Burning Brand a lot lately and as good as it is on Elrond even if he only defends a couple of times in a game I rarely ever use him to do so and with the new addition of Celeborn who also makes a fantastic defender (can have all the same items as Elrond (cloak, elven mail etc) except Burning Brand BUT is healed by the Silvan Trackers) its a waste of two cards in this deck. So often if a shadow effect is going to harm me its going to anyway as I've already used Elrond to quest (or even to use Vilya which I now run x1 of ). Unexpected Courage fits better on Haldir (or even Celeborn) if Elrond doesn't have Vilya and LoV is obviously better on Glorfindel so Elrond is simpy not often used enough as a defender to justify Burning Brand. Silvan Tracker however will heal many characters including Haldir, Celeborn, Orophin and Mirkwood Runners and itself obviously which is great against Archery and direct damage and it also provides a point of willpower or attack to help out as well (or 2 on the turn it enters play thanks to Celeborn).

Deck 2: Lore/Spirit (Elven Finesse)

Are you going to put the new Legolas ally in these decks? (deck 1 I suppose)

Are you going to put the new Legolas ally in these decks? (deck 1 I suppose)

Man are you on the money! I'm trying to figure out what to take out right now to put him in! The only issue is that he costs 4 and is in tactics... I removed Rumil who costs 3 as he cost too much and too often resources are better spent on attachments, feints or simply to allow Elladan to attack multiple times. I figure if I include a third copy of O Lorien he will more or less always only cost 3 instead of 4 which is a bit more manageable. Considering how much better he is than Rumil and how he can allow you to draw an additional card on many turns not just once I figure I will quite often save resources just to play him considering his strength. He is also a decent choice for sneak attack as he will still have 4 attack power from Celeborn and will draw you a card then return to your hand to be played permanently later on when you have the resources. This may not be anywhere near as good as sneak attack Gandalf but could still be pretty **** handy in a situation where you need that additional boost of 4 attack to take out a nasty foe and you will also draw a card while you're at it.

I'm also considering cards like Song of Battle, Good Harvest etc to make him a bit more playable... If I do so I may even put a copy of Rumil back in as well....

Cool, cool! No, I'm just excited about this thread and thus your decks!

Well that didn't last long! Didn't even play a single game with the Booming Ents as the new Legolas and Gimli allies were just revealed and I decided to make further changes to this deck to implement them. Legolas is an amazing ally providing repeatable card draw which this deck needs and is a 3 attack strength ally with ranged (4 attack power the turn he enters play). O Lorien makes him playable at a cost of 3 instead of 4 and with the new changes I made to the other deck you will see the other way I intend to get him in play. I also included a third copy of O Lorien so that it appears in almost all games and provides its discount to Silvan allies a bit more regularly. 1 cost Galadhon Archer is ridiculously good as are 1 cost Galadriels Handmaidens or 2 cost Orophin. 3 cost Legolas or Rumil is definitely far more doable than 4 cost and makes them playable in this deck where they would possibly not be otherwise. The Silvan Trackers, Galadhrim Minstrels and Naith Guides don't need the discount as much and are easier and cheaper to play but can still provide a saved resource that may allow you to play a second ally or card in the same turn where you would not normally be able to. Considering I added a third copy of O Lorien and Legolas I also decided to put a copy of Rumil back in as well. He's a good ally and has a good ability that with an additional ranged ally or two in play can take out an enemy on its own. He also provides 3 willpower or 3 attack first turn and then 2 of either every consequent turn. Lastly Gimli is also a great ally and can quest for 2 and then attack or defend if an enemy is revealed from the encounter deck. Throw in Sentinel and you've got one very useful ally! Now Gimli isn't Silvan or even Noldor and is obviously a Dwarf and seems very unthematic in my decks, consider however how close his friendship to Legolas becomes and how famous their friendship becomes. If ANY dwarf (third age at least) could and would fight alongside a group of hardened elf warriors and lords it would be Gimli for sure! The majority of the game is set before any of the events in LOTR however so technically Gimli has yet to change his mind and heart about Elves but we can always pretend can't we

Now this change is a little more interesting. I used Elf Stone quite a bit when I very first got into the game and got my hands on Black Riders. I was nowhere near as good at the game then as I am now however and was a bit too obsessed with combat and combat tricks and did not run decks that were very good at questing. I would often run into situations where I required only a single extra point of progress to clear a location and had elf stone not been attached I would have cleared it and been able to travel to a new location. This would lead to getting location locked and threating out. I abandoned Elf Stone and actually really disliked the card for a while questioning why even with the awesome beneficial effect you would ever want to give locations extra quest points because it would on occasion be almost entirely responsible for a loss, or so I thought...

Now that I am much better at the game and rarely get location locked thanks to Asfaloth and Northern Tracker I think its time to give Elf Stone another go especially considering how many allies in both decks it is useful for.

In this deck it can be used to great effect to get either a Northern Tracker, Silvan Tracker or Gildor into play much cheaper (saving you either 3, 2 or a whopping 4 resources) or even just to get an additional cheap ally out for free. This can also be very useful as you may get a Handmaiden or Minstrel out for free which would then trigger their enter play effects.

In the other deck elf stone can be used to even greater effect to get Legolas, Gimli, Rumil, Erestor, Orophin, Galadriel or even Gandalf out for free. It is very useful for the tactics allies to get them out much faster and useful for the leadership ones so that resources can be saved on Elrohir for defensive duties.

In many situations you can combo elf stone and asfaloth by placing elfstone on an active location that already has progress and then immediately exploring the location with asfaloth. So long as you play it on relatively safe turns (where you are almost positive you will quest succesfully and clear the active location) or combo it with Asfaloth the +1 quest point is inconsequential.

Update:
Played two games last night with the new changes. Legolas is insanely good, Gimli is yet to see play and elf stone is working pretty **** well so far even when it just gets a two cost ally in play.

Also Woo! Links added =)

I've seen you evolve these decks over a long period of time. They've gotta be pretty good by now. I really need to give them a try.

Thanks man =) Yeah they hold up pretty well against most quests. If you do let me know how you go!