I was having a lot of trouble with this cycle at first, maybe all my other decks were just terrible, I don't know, but I just waltzed through every scenario in the Ring-Maker Cycle using this deck. I wanted to use someone other than Glorfindel, and will probably in the future, but **** does he synergize well with Idraen. Anyways, here's the deck:

HEROES:

Glorfindel

Gandalf

Idraen

Attachments:

Expert Treasure-Hunter x 3

Gandalf's Staff x 3

Unexpected Courage x 3

Light of Valinor x 3

Wizard Pipe x 3

Axfaloth x 3

Blood of Numenor x 3

Allies:

Saruman x 3

Northern Tracker x 3

Pelargir Shipwright x 3

Galadriel's Handmaiden x 3

Warden of Healing x 2

Imladris Stargazer x 3

Zigil Miner x 3

Escort from Edoras x 3

Henmarth Riversong x 2

Silvan Refugee x 3

Events:

Feint x 3

Flame of Anor x 3

Elrond's Counsel x 3

A Test of Will x 3

A Good Harvest x 2

The Galadhrim's Greeting x 3

Dwarven Tomb x 2

I realize it's a bit heavy on cards, but you burn through this deck *fast* using Gandalf's ability coupled with Imladris Stargazer and Zigil Miner.

Synergies:

Idraen + Blood of Numenor + Anything that gives her resources- Sweet justice is this ever broken. Using Gandalf's staff to dump an extra resource on her every turn, coupled with just one or two digs from Zigil Miner, she goes from 2 defense to (in many of my games) having as much as 9+ defense. It gets utterly absurd. When she has Unexpected Courage, she becomes a machine, able to quest then ready then defend *any* enemy in the game, and then attack for 3+. Even if her enemy gets a second attack he either facerolls into a throw-away Silvan Refugee, or into Gandalf's 3 defense and 5 health.

Asfaloth + Glorfindel + Idraen - This is the best of the bunch. With Asfaloth on Glorfindel you can control when Idraen readies with her ability. This lets you quest with her and then attack/defend, or wait for combat before you set off Asfaloth and then use her to attack / defend multiple times. While she has Blood of Numenor on her.

Expert Treasure Hunter + Gandalf - It's very clear that this is an intended combo and it's obvious how it works. Toss ETH onto Glorfindel (or all three heroes, really) and with Gandalf's ability you get to draw your top card every time, further burning through your deck at warp speed.

Glorfindel + Asfaloth + Light of Valinor - Pretty obvious and well-known combo,

Imladris Stargazer + Gandalf and all his goodies + Zigil Miner - Being able to control the top five cards of your deck is obscene when using Gandalf and his associated cards. You can plan two turns in advance saying "Okay, I'll put this ally on top, play it, that puts Feint on top, which I use next phase, which puts A Test of Will on top, which I draw, which puts Silvan Refugee on top which I play" etc. Or you can plunk Northern Tracker on top and feed it to either Flame of Anor for 7 attack or to Zigil Miner for 4 resources (and if you feed it to Zigil Miner, you can dump those 4 resources onto Idraen to use with Blood of Numenor).

Henmarth Riversong + Gandalf + Imladris Stargazer - This is obvious, but when you know what the objective deck is throwing at you, you then get a *huge* glut of possibilities using Imladris and Gandalf. Exactly like the previous write-up, except you're plotting how to deal with the Objective deck. For instance, you can look at the top 5, see a Feint, know you don't have an enemy coming up, and keep bouncing it to the bottom of the top 5 cards of the deck, every turn, until you know an enemy is coming, then put it second to top underneath an ally you want to play, which draws you into the Feint for the next phase, etc. etc.. It gets to be you're plotting 10 steps ahead every turn.

The Heroes - They are *all* 3 attack heroes. You start off at 30 threat, and with the cards in the deck you can drive that down to 0 (I beat Trouble in Tharbad without the time counter on the first stage going off once). Gandalf is 3 defense 5 health. Idraen, as demonstrated, goes from 2 defense 4 health to 9+ defense 4 health in the blink of an eye. You're practically playing with Tactics heroes in a Spirit deck. Glorfindel is Glorfindel.

Nice deck. You can build it without Gandalf and still have a pretty powerful secrecy deck. It's too bad that we have to use Glory for this all the time though.

I think you are not playing with the ZIgil Miner erratta?

Yea, Zigil Miner has been erratad so that you only get as many resources as the number of cards with a matching cost.

I think you are not playing with the ZIgil Miner erratta?

Yeah, I never actually read the errata for any of the cards in the game. That's a bit crippling.

Yea, Zigil Miner has been erratad so that you only get as many resources as the number of cards with a matching cost.

I just replayed using the errata for Zigil Miner and the deck held up very well, better than I expected. I took down The Antlered Crown without losing a single character and with only three enemies all game popping out of the Ravens Deck. I was impressed, I thought that was a crippling bit of errata that would significantly hurt Idraen, but honestly as long as she's rocking 3 resources when you use Blood of Numenor, that's more than enough.

Ha ha you play very powerful deck and wonder you have no problems with encounter deck?

Start to play nightmare my friend

I would love to try this deck, but lack of Gandalf allies is crippling in multiplayer games. I'll still try it out solo, though! I have run Elrond/Idraen/Glorfindel before and it worked well. Loragorn is also a good option - with Wingfoot in there, locations going out and Light of Valinor on Glorfindel, I often had all three heroes ready in the combat phase!

Ha ha you play very powerful deck and wonder you have no problems with encounter deck?

Start to play nightmare my friend

How is this adding anything to the discussion? I suppose there is a back-handed compliment in there in that you implicitly concede his deck is powerful.

He said he was struggling with the encounter decks in this cycle until he dreamed up this deck. How about you let him enjoy what he came up with rather respond with "ha, ha this game is too easy l2p nightmare newb."

As a frequent lurker, rare poster, its responses like these that make me rarely want to bother to post anything.

Thanks for this deck. It beat Knife in the Dark for me. I've only played this a few times but lost each time, so it was nice to see a deck that could handle it. I lost the first time with this deck because I didn't play with the right strategy. Once I decided to NOT play ANY threat reduction until I got high enough and take out Bill Ferny ASAP, I was able to stop worrying about his ability, and then lower my threat a ton before stage 3B so I didn't have to deal with all of the baddies at once. I always took the threat increase rather than sticking a Ringwraith in the deck so stage 3 wouldn't be so killer and filled with enemies. Decked out in 11 rounds.

Overall, very nice deck. Against a quest that you want to do a lot of questing, especially with allies, I like this Gandalf deck better than the Gandalf/Elrond/Galadriel (or Glorfindel) deck with a ton of eagles. It was very exciting and without Vilya, it's not quite as complicated.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for this deck. It beat Knife in the Dark for me. I've only played this a few times but lost each time, so it was nice to see a deck that could handle it. I lost the first time with this deck because I didn't play with the right strategy. Once I decided to NOT play ANY threat reduction until I got high enough and take out Bill Ferny ASAP, I was able to stop worrying about his ability, and then lower my threat a ton before stage 3B so I didn't have to deal with all of the baddies at once. I always took the threat increase rather than sticking a Ringwraith in the deck so stage 3 wouldn't be so killer and filled with enemies. Decked out in 11 rounds.

Overall, very nice deck. Against a quest that you want to do a lot of questing, especially with allies, I like this Gandalf deck better than the Gandalf/Elrond/Galadriel (or Glorfindel) deck with a ton of eagles. It was very exciting and without Vilya, it's not quite as complicated.

Thanks for sharing.

You're very welcome, I'm glad it worked for you! I really appreciate the compliments, I've struggled mightily to make a deck that worked for multiple scenarios in this game (rather than just maximizing a deck to each scenario) and this is my pride and joy so far.

And yes, killing Bill Ferny ASAP is a must in Knife in the Dark, I find. And with this deck, you can handle a lot of threat without worries. Taking Ringwraiths is suicide in that scenario, I think (though I'd love to see someone prove me wrong!)

If you're interested, I've discovered that pulling out 3 of anything you don't need and putting in 3 x Ride them Down can be quite the game-changer as well. You can quest, kill something in the staging area, and (in the right situation) have all your heroes ready at the combat phase. It turns all the throw-away questers (like silvan refugee) into killers!