I was thinking about 2-handed secrecy decks (kinda), and I came up with an idea and I wanted to see if someone wanted to help flesh it out and make it as good as it can be.

Here's deck 1:

Haldir

Mirlonde

Glorfindel

It's starts with 20 threat and should be the deck that has highest priority for keeping threat within the secrecy threshold. The point of this deck is to contribute to questing as much as it can, but keep its threat really low so no enemies engage, so we can blow them up with Haldir.

Light of Valinor will be key to have as early as possible so that he doesn't pull you too far out of secrecy. If you get another form of readying for Haldir in your opening hand or Elrond's Counsel, then it might work out alright for a couple turns, but obviously it's not ideal.

This deck is also the one stuffed with secrecy cards like Resourceful, Risk Some Light, Ithilien Lookout, etc. It helps questing with Glorfindel, Mirlonde, and a small number of traps, primarily. In order to help with keeping threat low, I was thinking about putting Galadriel's Handmaiden in, which made me think about Island Amid Perils, which made me think that maybe I should make this pseudo Silvan: so also add Silvan Tracker, Galadhrim Minstrel, and The Tree People. But I don't want to throw The Tree People in without committing more to Silvan so it doesn't whiff, but I don't want to commit more to Silvan without Celeborn, which just won't work out. So I'll have to find a decent balance. I'm really leaning toward a couple copies of Silvan Tracker, at least for quests with archery.

Anyway, I'll also include whatever other threat reduction can reasonably fit in there. I was planning on including Wingfoot, Lembas, and of course Light of Valinor for readying, and probably some copies of Unexpected Courage in either of the decks.

Deck 2:

Merry

Pippin (Lore)

Galadriel

It starts at 21, but you're not worried about specifically remaining in secrecy because there won't be any secrecy cards necessarily. You'll want to keep your threat low enough to be able to trigger Pippin's ability from engagement, but other than that, your threat isn't a great concern and in the late game it won't matter much, as long as you were able to draw a few cards. This deck's job is to do the engaging to allow Haldir to his thing. Also, this deck provides the weapons for Haldir, thanks to Merry's resources. If there are particularly big baddies, Merry and Haldir can attack together and Merry will ready Haldir up to make an attack against the staging area or another enemy engaged with this deck. Galadriel will do her best to maintain Deck 1's low threat and card draw. I want to include Hobbit Gandalf too for some serious muscle, but he's best to keep out of the game for a while until Deck 1 is at a secure threat level, so you can focus Galadriel's efforts on minimizing Gandalf's downside.

I want to try the Hobbit Pipes in this deck some more (I got a brief look at them with another deck and in one game they were awesome and another game they waited way too long to show up), but I'm not sure it'll be worth the deck space.

I was thinking deck one would get its main resources from Resourceful and this deck would get its resources from Zigil Miner + Stargazer combo and Horn of Gondor. Fast Hitch can also come in handy so Merry can attack with Haldir twice.

Also, Nenya can be key in the early game, depending on the quest, so you can quest effectively.

Ultimately, the general strategy for these decks is as follows:

Stall as long as you can by keeping threat low and drawing lots of cards. Build up a few allies and gather weapons and readying attachments. Then, throw Hobbit Gandalf into the mix and start ripping everything apart.

Interesting deck ideas. The Silvan idea is intriguing, but I agree that it probably isn't worth it. Without Celeborn and/or Galadriel's ability, you don't get a whole lot of bonus from entering and leaving play. Island amid perils really isn't worthwhile unless you get also get a benefit from returning the ally to your hand. However, Silvan Trackers would still be useful. The rest of the deck should fill itself out pretty easily with secrecy and the usual staples.

The second deck is the bigger question. Hobbit pipes are a possibility as long as you have enough Elrond's councils for both decks. With just one spirit hero it will be hard to pay for Galadhrim's Greetings or Smoke Rings, but maybe the first deck can carry the Greetings. Merry would also be good for fast hitches with Haldir and with Pippin to use Peace and Thought. Another possibility is to replace Merry with Mablung, unless you wanted to stick with an Elf/Hobbit theme. Since you want that deck to engage all the enemies, you might as well put Mablung's ability to use. This deck has to carry feints and the weapons for Haldir and/or Glorfindel, so without Mablung's resources there aren't many spare tactics resources available for allies.

Those are my thoughts for now. Let us know when you have a deck list together.

For the first deck, Island Amid Perils on Galadriel's Handmaiden would give me the ability to put her back into play for an additional threat reduction, so that's an advantage. But I think the first iteration will go without it to see how it fares. I've also been thinking about it and I LOVE the Galadhrim Minstrel's ability, and I'll want Henamarth Riversong to help with WIngfoot and trap timing, so I might have enough Silvan allies to throw some Silvan events in.

For the second deck, I wasn't really planning on playing many tactics allies, and there should be decent resource acceleration with Horn of Gondor and the Miner + Stargazer. I'm not particularly stuck on the Hobbit theme, though, so Mablung might be an excellent option (whom I've yet to play), but I wanted to at least take a look at how Merry's readying would do with Haldir. I also want to keep a very low starting threat so the decks can have some time to set up.

BTW, I play almost exclusively on OCTGN, so the number of copies of a card that I own is irrelevant. I was looking at how to pay for Galadhrim's Greeting as well, and my thought was that the first Resourceful would definitely go on one of the spirit characters to help pay for them, and we'll just have to see how that works out. I had looked into the idea of using the two Fast Hitches + Peace and Thought; I just didn't mention it earlier.

It's been a long time since I've played Gleowine (because I've tried so many thematic non-Rohan decks recently...), so he'll end up in one of the decks to help whichever deck isn't feeling the Galadriel love at that time.

You could do Silvan, but that doesn't leave much room for anything else like traps. Between the secrecy cards, Glorfindel cards, and mandatory lore/spirit cards, those should eat up around 30 of your 50. To do Silvan right, you'll need 3x handmaiden, island amid perils, tree people, tracker, minstrel, defender.

One other thing about the Merry plan is that you can't use him to ready Haldir if you plan on using Haldir's sniping ability. And you won't have much in the way of defenders if you don't have tactics allies. Maybe defenders of the Naith could work, but they are fairly weak without Celeborn.

I'm worried the second deck will take too long to get running if you are counting on miner + stargazer for resources, but it'll take you 4 turns just to get them in play. I suspect these decks will perform similarly to how my secrecy decks have done. They will dominate quests that have high engagement enemies and little time pressure, but they'll get overwhelmed by quests with low engagement enemies, time pressure, or major threat gain.

I came up yesterday with two decks to beat Celebrimbor's Secret that use very similiar heroes, although spread out differently.

Deck 1 is a mono-Spirit secrecy deck with Galadriel, Spirfindel and Frodo. This deck provids the main source of willpower,

Deck 2 is a Lore/Tactics (pseudo-secrecy) deck with Haldir, Mirlonde and Legolas.

If you're intrested I can post the decklists

However, be warned that I still have to try it against other quests, even though I think this combination is pretty solid since the two decks are formed from the backbone of two good solo decks (although mono spirit struggles against battle/siege questing).

Id love to hear about you deck Eu8L1ch.

You're probably right TJ. Hmm. Maybe have Galadriel and Mirlonde switch places. It will make the starting threat a bit more difficult to manage, but the resources would be more smoothed out.

My plan for defending was gonna be mostly chumps and Feint. The Merry + Haldir combo was mostly going to be saved for when I needed more attack power than either could provide and still get me a chance to use Haldir's ability on a 2nd enemy that would be left in the staging area. The other big defender would be Gandalf once he hits the board. I shouldn't need his attack power with Merry and Haldir around and readying effects.

Ok, these are the decklists:

[Note: I have a single Core Set and none of the Saga expansions. The Mono-Spirit in particular would benefit a lot from additional copies of the CS to add a few AToWs, GG and DTs]

Mono-Spirit:

Heroes: Galadriel, Glorfindel(s), Frodo [ Starting Threat = 21]

Allies(19):

3x Gandalf*

3x Celduin Traveler

3x Pelargir Shipwright

3x Emery*

2x Elfhelm*

3x Arwen*

2x Northern Tracker

Attachments (22):

1x Unexpected Courage

3x Miruvor

3x Ancient Mathom

3x Light of Valinor*

2x Mirror of Galadriel*

3x Resourceful

2x Nenya*

2x Good Meal

3x Map of Earendil

Events (9):

3x Elrond's Counsel

2x Galadhrim's Greeting

1x Dwarven Tomb

2x A Test of Will

1x Will of the West

This is not a full-secrecy deck; mainly it uses Galadriel's ability to stay in secrecy as long as possible to allow playing resourceful. While this may seem like a waste of a mechanic, I've tried including other secrecy cards but it just didn't work. On the other hand, I think we probably all agree that Resourceful is a critical card, even more so for mono-spirit if you're not into using Zigil+Stargazer.

Silvan Arrows (Lore/Tactics pseudo-secrecy support)

Heroes: Haldir, Mirlonde, Legolas [24]

Allies (13):

2x Gleowine*

3x Warden of Healing

3x Wandering Ent

3x Master of the Forge

1x Henamarth Riversong*

1x Gandalf*

Attachments (21):

3x Bow of the Galadhrim

3x Rivendell Blade

2x Blade of Gondolin

3x Lembas

2x Wingfoot*

2x Asfaloth*

3x Ring Mail

3x Fast Hitch

Events (16):

3x Unseen Strike

2x Feint

3x Hands upon the Bow

2x Quick Strike

3x Daeron's Runes

3x Noiseless Movement

This one provides support to the other deck in the form of attachment (Asfaloth for Glorfindel as usual, Fast Hitch and Ring Mail to boost the only durable defender, Frodo).

This two decks rely upon their low starting threat to have a few turns to set up their defenses.. err their offensive power, since the only dedicated defender is Frodo and should be used somewhat sparingly, at least until you have a couple attachments on him.

The idea is that with the Mono Spirit providing massive willpower you can afford enemies sitting in the staging area, where Haldir is able to attack them to prevent them from reaching critical mass and/or very bad things if some treachery messes with your plans ( for example, Orc Hunting party).

So the first few rounds will be critical in that these deck are more vulnerable than usual, but if you are able to avoid nasty encounters you have a very good chance of winning since these they have serious long-term potential: the mono-Spirit will usually be able to play a couple of resourceful and start churning out allies and events, also allowing both players to keep their threat low, while the Lore/Tact will be able to make use of a plethora of attachments to strengthen both decks and make mincemeat of enemies.

Frodo, as I said above, fills in a crucial gap allowing these decks to surgically engage dangerous enemies one at a time (even big ones).

Enemies with low engagement costs are potentially troublesome if they come in swarms, but there are a few combat tricks to prevent them from doing any damage (Noiseless Movement, Feint, Quick Strike).

I have played just a single game with these decks coupled together: albeit the performance was impressive, I have yet to make certain they work well also against other quests and have still to find out how they fare against more combat-heavy scenarios. However I figured posting the decklists could help since almost every secrecy/pseudo-secrecy build shares these weaknesses, so at least it might help you in your brainstorming process.