Ok, so I hate giving out decklists because it is so quest specific and I am constantly changing things, but this is a decklist that represents a major power deck that I run when I am having trouble with a quest. It almost always completely smashes face. The Lost Realm quests, for instance, are a complete joke against this deck. I wouldn't say it can beat every quest, like Antlered Crown is just about impossible, but it beats 95% and when it beats them, it has almost a 100% winning percentage. Like I have mentioned on other threads, this deck has actually convinced me that Feint needs to be nerfed with errata, because this deck is so broken it makes the game boring. I just wanted to get it out there so people knew what I was talking about when I referred to it.

Gandalf, Hama, Spirit Glorfindel

Allies:

3x Imladris Stargazer

2x Galadriel's Handmaiden

3x Warden of Healing

1x Legolas

1x Quickbeam

1x Zigil Miner

1x Northern Tracker

1x Arwen

1x Bilbo

1x Faramir

Attachments:

3x Light of Valinor

3x Wizard Pipe

3x Gandalf's Staff

1x Unexpected Courage

1x Protector of Lorien

1x Rivendale Blade

2x Asfaloth

Events:

2x Flame of Anor

3x Daeron's Runes

3x Gaining Strength

3x Elrond's Council

3x Test of Will

3x Feint

2x Will of the West

1x Galadhrim's Greeting

1x Word of Command

The concept of the deck is to abuse Gandalf to the utmost by recycling feint with Hama. The deck has a lot of events because Gandalf can play a card from the top of the deck every PHASE, so you want to play something on travel phase and refresh phase (like Gaining Strength), etc. This is why the Stargazer is absolutely essential. She lets you stack all the cards in the correct order so they come out at the right time. The Staff is the reason you don't need Steward of Gondor or any other shadow cancellation. In most games you will draw your entire deck, but don't hesitate to shuffle with Will of the West early to get your good events back. There are tons of alternative cards you can include, like Shadowfax instead of Unexpected Courage for multiplayer. You can put in a Riversong Henemarth, obviously. I have been surprised, but Flame Anor is normally not that good, so you can swap it out for Ranger Summons. I only include it here because it is good early game before you have all your combo pieces. The Zigil Miner is there mainly to ditch bad cards, but the resources are nice. You can end up with 20+ cards in hand so Protector of Lorien is obviously good. Anyway, have fun.

I don't think it's Feint that needs to be errata'd. It is fine without Hama around. Maybe something like "After an event card returned to your hand is played again remove it from the game." But that brings book keeping.

I don't think there is another card that Hama breaks, and until Gandalf came along even Feint wasn't that bad. All I suggest is Tha feint target a non-unique enemy. It would still be crazy powerful, but useless against most bosses. I think that would be enough. Just play the deck against Deadman's Dike and you will see what I mean. The quest is a boring cake walk with this deck.

Yet another reason why I will never play the Gandalf hero.

Yet another reason why I will never play the Gandalf hero.

my sentiments exactly!

Thanks for sharing your decklist. I'm always intrigued by decks that manage to fare well against a variety of quests.

I don't think there is another card that Hama breaks, and until Gandalf came along even Feint wasn't that bad. All I suggest is Tha feint target a non-unique enemy. It would still be crazy powerful, but useless against most bosses. I think that would be enough. Just play the deck against Deadman's Dike and you will see what I mean. The quest is a boring cake walk with this deck.

Well there's Thicket of Spears. You can make a support deck that has Hama, Thicket of Spears, The Hammer-Stroke, and Rohan warhorse. One it gets set up it shuts off all combat for each player for the rest of the game. Kind of boring though.

Well there's Thicket of Spears. You can make a support deck that has Hama, Thicket of Spears, The Hammer-Stroke, and Rohan warhorse. One it gets set up it shuts off all combat for each player for the rest of the game. Kind of boring though.

I have to respectfully disagree with you. The deck you propose could work in theory, but is quite difficult in practice. Thicket of Spears is 3 resources alone, not to mention Hammer-Stroke. Not only that, but you have to spend from 3 heroes, so all three need to spend red. You can do this with Gandalf if card is on top of deck, but really hard to pull off all the time. There are other cards, like wizard's voice that can recyle, but nothing is broken like feint. That is the only card I see as a real problem.

Well there's Thicket of Spears. You can make a support deck that has Hama, Thicket of Spears, The Hammer-Stroke, and Rohan warhorse. One it gets set up it shuts off all combat for each player for the rest of the game. Kind of boring though.

I have to respectfully disagree with you. The deck you propose could work in theory, but is quite difficult in practice. Thicket of Spears is 3 resources alone, not to mention Hammer-Stroke. Not only that, but you have to spend from 3 heroes, so all three need to spend red. You can do this with Gandalf if card is on top of deck, but really hard to pull off all the time. There are other cards, like wizard's voice that can recyle, but nothing is broken like feint. That is the only card I see as a real problem.

It's much harder to set up than Feint, but once you do all combat just ends. A deck with Hama/Mablung/Merry/Ally Legolas gets 4 resources and 3 cards per turn. Hama, Merry, and Legolas attack, then ready Hama (with horse) and Legolas (with Merry) to attack again. You need 5 resources and 2 cards a turn to keep up Thicket/Hammer combo indefinitely. So a Resourceful can provide your last resource. However, it's just a support deck, and I find it runs better if the other decks help it set up through card draw or sending resources over with an errand rider every now and then. But once it has a lock it's over. Barring of course enemies immune to card effects etc. I've tried it, and it does work.

Is there a particular quest that you feel the deck breaks most of all? I would like to try it out and want to feel how broken it can get. I could see it as essentially trivializing The Morgul Vale...

It trivializes most quests. Mogul Vale can actually be a little rough if you don't see feint right away, but once you do, the quest loses all danger. I actually think Deadman's Dike is a great example, because that quest does nothing. The deck tends to be good against big fatties that are not immune to card effects. So 3 trials, Celeborn's secret, and quests like that. It also works well against quests with nasty shadow effects, as the deck bypasses them all.

I am attempting to use this deck against Amon Din nightmare, because it's one of the tough ones for my deck.

A question about the quest first. Am I wrong, or is it true that if you don't clear the active location on turn 1 you essentially lose? Because you are then stuck revealing two cards per round and locking up the staging area. Setup is brutal with the nightmare cards in this deck; if you reveal almost any of the new enemies or treacheries you lose a villager and are stuck revealing two right away. The nightmare locations are 3-4 threat, which also hurt. Am I missing something fundamental here?

With that in mind I'm having trouble getting a good questing boost with this deck. The best I can see is getting a spirit ally on the top of your deck on the first turn, but that is tough to pull off. And even then, questing for 10 is still often not enough.

If you look my last 3 videos you will see I play similar deck. My deck use a, eagles since I always dream to build up powerful solo eagle deck. Now with Gandalf hero is possible. But I use Steward of Gondor and Good harvest to make it quickly

Glaurung, i'm interested to your deck list.

Could you list the deck here please?

Good harvest 3

Treebeard 3

Elrond council 3

light of Valinor 3

Test of will 3

Steward of Gondor 3

Wizard pipe 3

Gandalf staff 3

U courage 3

Asfaloth 1

New tactic unique horse 1

Eithil Swordsman 3

Arwen 1

Bilbo 1

Eagles of MMountain 3

Vassal of the Wlord 3

Gwaihir 1

Eagle ally 4 of defense 3

Feint 3

GGreetings 2

Maybe forget something… don't have cards at the moment besides me…

Good deck actually, working perfect. I win many nmode quest include Morgul vale and Black riders + nightmare quests from Against a shadow cycle…. Almost done Steward fear….

I understand that it would be powerful against Morgul Vale because feint dismantles that quest. I'm curious about Amon Din though. It seems like you really need to clear that location on turn 1.

Thank you Glaurung

I understand that it would be powerful against Morgul Vale because feint dismantles that quest. I'm curious about Amon Din though. It seems like you really need to clear that location on turn 1.

Yes Amon Din is serious problem for that deck. Among with Steward fear and Blood of Gondor. If course I talking about nmode. I dont even bother play standard

With two people using the same display picture - this conversation makes me dizzy. @__@

Sorry

Duke was here first so maybe I should change mine, but I like it

I just looked through the avatars again and it seems like there are a bunch of nice new ones that I don't remember being there when I signed up. Maybe I will be making a switch...

Personally I don't mind that we are twins. It is my favorite avatar because the picture features Sting. I used to do fencing in high school and I named my foil Sting.

Seems to me, for this deck, that you can keep Glorfindel (Spirit) and Gandalf for this deck, and the 3rd hero, you can change sphere according to your mood or the quest you are playing.

Well what you are talking about is Gandalf decks in general, but my deck is specifically made to play feint every turn using Hama. That's the point of the deck.

I think it's the combo of repeated use of Feint on the same enemy, via Hama's ability that is problematic. Individually, Feint or Hama's ability in itself are not overly powerful. Possible errata/modifications:

1. Hama's response ability: must discard not just any card but a tactics card or an event card or, even a tactics event card.

2. Hama's response ability adds "after an event card that was returned to your hand is played again, remove it from the game instead of putting in in the discard pile". (adds to bookkeeping).

3. Feint can only target a non-unique enemy. (I don't like this because it nerfs feint too much even for non-Hama+Feint decks).

4. FFG designs new/unique bosses that have "cannot be target of cards that already been played on it before.

I do play Gandalf Hama feint cycling deck and can admit that combo is super powerful. But only in solo games.. In coop is become much more useless. Then if you take away a feint this deck cannot do much against quest like Morgul Vale (nightmare ofcourse). So yes feint is crazy powerful but without it there is no power at all.

Anyway in nightmare mode you can lose a game even if you doing very well on certain circumstances. That why I love nightmare! It can twist even in solo! In coop can be twisted a lot! That why I dont like a standard too predictable!