The Lorien Tree Bear (Solo)

By entMoot, in Strategy and deck-building

I have been wanting to get a Beorn+Treebeard deck together for a little while now. I'm going to be taking this through some of the Nightmare Mirkwood quests. Just had a fun victory against Anduin Nightmare that started off with Feinting the Hill Troll and then taking him down with a solid hit from Beorn and Treebeard. If you are not playing Nightmare, then some of the staples could be swapped out to make room to test other cards.

The Deck:

3 Heroes

Beorn

Treebeard

Galadriel

12 Allies

3 Booming Ent

3 Quickbeam

3 Wandering Ent

3 Gandalf (Hobbit)

18 Attachments

3 Ent Draught

3 Lembas

2 Mirror of Galadriel

2 Nenya

2 Gandalf's Staff

3 Unexpected Courage

3 Self Preservation

19 Events

1 Close Call

3 Deep Knowledge

3 Elrond's Counsel

3 Entmoot

1 Power of Orthanc

1 The Wizard's Voice

3 A Test of Will

3 Feint

1 Waters of Nimrodel

1 Side Quest

1 Gather Information

Strategy:

The main idea here is to suit up Treebeard with Courage and Preservation so that he can help on the Quest and Attack as needed. Between him, Gandalf, and Nenya, there is usually enough willpower. Beorn makes up for the lack of early defense with Gandalf usually taking over that duty once he's in play. The ability for Treebeard and Beorn to attack for 12 on round one without any support is a potent combination. While the deck doesn't take long to get going, it doesn't mind turtling with Galadriel's ability until Gandalf shows up.

Note that since Gandalf is usually going to stick around most of the game, I went ahead and included his staff. The extra card draw and resources over the course of a game are amazing, even if it isn't as reliable as it would be if Gandalf were one of my heroes. If I take this against quests that need more firepower, I'll probably include Shadowfax as well. I've had great success suiting OHaUH Gandalf up in some of my other decks, so try it out if you haven't already!

Potential changes:

I may back off on the Ent allies a bit so that Galadriel's ability applies to someone beyond Quickbeam. It may be worth shuffling events around to make room for Daeron's Runes and Dwarven Tomb so I can see Elrond's Counsel more times per game (Gandalf gets pricey in terms of threat). Maybe I will get The Seeing Stone in to grab the Doomed 1-of's as needed. Finally, I missed having a regular discard outlet for spare uniques. I'd like to get a Protector of Lorien or two in to make up for that.

Ha! I like idea of this deck! Definitely need to try!

I had thought on combining Treebeard & Galadriel, but her ability seemed so wasted on the ents entering play tapped.

So I never went with it.

Gonna give it a go now that you are beating NM quests with it though!

I am glad you both plan to try similar decks. Let me know if you made any changes. So far I have only had the chance to play NM Passage and Anduin, but hope to try NM Hunt for Gollum and Carrock soon.

This looks really good! Starting threat is 34. With all of the doomed stuff and Hobbit Gandalf, how do you combat threat gain besides Galadriel?

Aside from Galadriel, there is Elrond's Counsel which can be dug out using Galadriel, her Mirror, or Gandalf's Staff.

The doomed cards are meant to be used only in an emergency. In light of that, I may replace Deep Knowledge with Daeron's Runes. The former sat in my hand throughout my victory against NM Anduin since threating out was a real possibility there. This is also why I am considering using the Seeing Stone as insurance for the 1-copy cards.

The best way to avoid threating out is to play aggressively once Gandalf is online. I expect that modifications will be necessary against NM Conflict at the Carrock since engaging all the trolls at once may not work out so well. Managing threat will be much harder there.