Doom of Gondor (a Palantir deck)

By GrandSpleen, in Strategy and deck-building

Posted at

Here's a deck I've been toying around with today. I really like the Palantir card, but have a hard time building a deck for it. This is a thematic Gondor deck with the Steward himself using the Palantir. It is a pretty classic Gondor swarm deck, with the added combo of Palantir+Heir of Mardil+Steward of Gondor. The Steward+Mardil combo offsets the cost of exhausting Denethor to use his Palantir, and allows him to move a card with his native ability, or defend as needed.

Here's the decklist:

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com The Lord of the Rings Deckbuilder

Total Cards: (52)

Hero: (3)

1x Denethor (Core Set)

1x Boromir (Heirs of Numenor)

1x Aragorn (The Watcher in the Water)

Ally: (23)

3x Gandalf (Core Set)

3x Citadel Custodian (Heirs of Numenor)

3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Numenor)

2x Faramir (Core Set)

3x Ithilien Tracker (Heirs of Numenor)

3x Pelargir Ship Captain (The Morgul Vale)

3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

3x Ithilien Lookout (The Dunland Trap)

Attachment: (21)

3x Palantir (Assault on Osgiliath)

3x Heir of Mardil (Celebrimbor's Secret)

2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

2x Visionary Leadership (The Morgul Vale)

2x Sword that was Broken (The Watcher in the Water)

3x Song of Kings (The Hunt for Gollum)

3x Dunedain Warning (Conflict at the Carrock)

3x Ranger Spikes (Heirs of Numenor)

Event: (8)

3x Daeron's Runes (Foundations of Stone)

2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)

3x Needful to Know (The Redhorn Gate)

It is a very 'moderate' deck, with a lot of power potential, but takes a loooong time to get there. So it likely will not fare well against aggressive quests that hit you hard right out of the gate. I took it successfully 1-handed against Watcher in the Water and Conflict at the Carrock. I managed a win against Journey Down the Anduin, but subbed Mirlonde for Aragorn to allow time to build up for the troll. The deck struggled a lot against JDtA.

Once the army is out, I sometimes found myself awash in resources, and was able to repeatedly heal with Wardens of Healing using Denethor's resources. I also experimented with a tri-sphere, replacing Aragorn with Eleanor and putting in some cancellation and other threat reduction, but the deck is slow enough to build power as a dual-sphere thing. I didn't like the tri-sphere version. Another card that makes sense is A Very Good Tale, but I always seem to whiff with this card even when half the deck is allies. I removed it from the deck after a game where I discarded all my of key attachments when using it. You could speed up the deck by adding some fetch cards like Master of Lore, but I tried to avoid too many thematic concessions.

This would probably fare OK in 2-player if paired with a deck that is ready to handle some combat right out of the gate. Let me know what you think!

Edited by GrandSpleen
Posted at

Nice! I was just thinking the same thing that Heir of Mardil would be perfect for Palantir. If you're putting Steward/Palantir on Denethor, do you find yourself short on leadership resources? I wonder if it would be better (but less thematic) to put it on Boromir.

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That's what Song of Kings is in there for. I had one game where I really needed the purple cash early on, and Boromir got the Steward. That time I ended up not even using the Palantir, I think (and losing too -- it was a JDtA run), Otherwise I've been able to get the song onto Denethor, and find myself holding no cards in hand and wanting more.

I also fiddled with Wealth of Gondor in the deck, but it got cut to make room for other necessities.

Edited by GrandSpleen
Posted at

A very interesting deck idea. Great job spotting the combo with Palantir, SoG and HoM. Honestly, HoM is great on any Noble hero that has an ability that ca exhaust them during planning: Elrond (with Vilya), Galadriel, or Denethor, or be used with Theodred to ready any questing Noble (including himself). How was I not able to think of this stuff earlier?

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I realized that Gloin is also Noble and he could trigger it by taking damage, but unfortunately he can't really do much with the extra action besides attack for 2 or block again for 1.

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Yea, I saw that too. Obviously he can be beefed up, to be a better attacker, but you should already be beefing him up to make sure he doesn't die, so he may not have many slots left for attack boosting.

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Glad someone is giving Palantir the its well earned credit. Very powerful card, especially when comboed with Denethor, if you can handle the threat issue.

Btw, Palantir is fun to play with every deck against Trouble in Tharbad.

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No Wingfoot to give Aragorn his double action every round?

Other than that I applaud this deck! I think the whole Denethor w/ Palantir combo with Aragorn resetting after threat gets too high from too much palantir is pure thematic gold. FFG really hit a home run with the design of these cards.

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Wingfoot would be a nice addition. I think the only reason it's not in there is because I kept swapping Aragorn out for other heroes (Eleanor, Mirlonde) and forgot about it. I could take out some of the questing overkill-- we have 3 global boosters in here. Although, the nice thing about the overkill is that it lets you commit fewer characters to a quest and leaves you some action advantage...

I haven't tried it against Trouble in Tharbad. That one was on my list of quests to try since its mechanic lets you drop your threat, but since this particular deck is slow I wondered if I would end up "timing out" with the threat elimination penalty. Maybe I'll give it a try!