I have thought a lot about this exact combo of decks. I think the fast start song deck is ideal to set up the Boromir machine. I do wonder why you took out Glorfindel in the Boromir deck. I think he is still worth incurring with 1 light of Valinor and Asfaloth. Also, a great card for the song deck is gildor's council. If you can play it consistently for the first 3 rounds you can cut way down on pesky threats, increasing win percentage. Those are my first thoughts.

This is just my experience, but if you add to much non-draw/song/resource cards to the lore deck it kills the momentum. But Gildor's counsel is a great card and you might be able to squeeze in a copy. Hard to really judge its effect on overall win percentage if it decreases your combo-attaining percentage though.

The decks would still work fine with Glorfindel in, but here are some reasons for why I took him out:

1. Removal of the 5 threat means 10 more uses out of Boromir (counting threat reset)
2. His 3 atk/wp doesn't mean much when Boromir is questing/attacking/defending for 40+
3. Asfaloth isn't needed because there is no time for location lock to happen
4. A starting threat of 20 allows resourceful to be played cheaply (normally done turn 2 after threat reset)
5. "C'mon... another deck with Spirfindel???"

Well it sure is a powerful combination, I'll give you that.

Blood of Númenor and Gondorian Fire should in my opinion both have "Limit 1 per character". I mean, many people feel that the Elrond and Vilya combo is close to cheating, and this is even more powerful.

So here is version 2.0, after I've learned a little from version 1.0. If the first version could be considered powerful, this one is just bonkers. Now the Boromir deck includes the Bifur hero, as well as 3x Seeing stone and 3x Deep Knowledge. The Aragorn deck is also changed now that it can rely on some extra draw.

Strategy

Boromir deck goes first. Both decks mulligan for Seeing Stone/Deep Knowledge. Then keep playing Seeing Stone/Deep Knowledge, and use Bearvor/Galadriel/Daeron's Runes etc until both decks have amassed a ton of cards. Boromir deck then plays Love of Tales on Bifur, and Song of Wisdom/Nenya+Love of Tales on Galadriel and Boromir if possible. Mirror can help find an extra Love of Tales. Then use Desperate Alliance to pass Bifur to the Aragorn player.

The Aragorn player now has 4 lore heroes and can draw the entire deck easily with Mithrandir's advice and Scroll of Isildur, playing songs as little as possible until all the Love of Tales are out (Song of Kings+Sneak+Gandalf+Word of Command can be a good way of finding the last one). Once all the Love of Tales are played, attach all the songs, netting several resources for each song played. Finally, attach all the combat stuff to Boromir and dump your biggest resource pile onto him with parting gifts.

From this point the game play is the same as before, but the difference is this setup virtually never fails, and the Song player can afford to dilute his deck with some extra cards (put in Gildor's Counsel at DukeWellington's suggestion). Three Will of the West means you can play the Lay of Nimrodel up to 9 times (Add Dwarven Tomb if you feel this is not enough).

I am having a hard time thinking of any quest, standard or nightmare, that this pair of decks doesn't trivialize. Captive quest? Throw in 3 to 6 unexpected courage and you won't miss Boromir. Or use Bilbo instead of Bifur and include 6x fast hitch. What about SaF nightmare with the un-cancelable discard all attachments shadow? Just recycle your discard pile and play all the attachments again next turn. It's just nuts. So nuts that I think this pair in a 4-player game could handle everything itself.

Aragorn's Song
Total Cards: 55

Heroes (starting threat: 30)
Aragorn (The Watcher in the Water)
Beravor (Core Set)
Mirlonde (The Druadan Forest)
Allies (2)
2x Gandalf (Core Set)
Attachments (23)
1x Dunedain Cache (The Dead Marshes)
1x Dunedain Signal (Return to Mirkwood)
1x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
1x Blood of Numenor (Heirs of Numenor)
3x Song of Earendil (Road to Rivendell)
1x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
3x Love of Tales (The Long Dark)
3x Scroll of Isildur (The Morgul Vale)
1x Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes)
3x Song of Kings (The Hunt for Gollum)
3x Song of Travel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
2x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
Events (30)
3x Durin's Song (Khazad-Dum)
1x Parting Gifts (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
1x Desperate Alliance (On the Doorstep)
3x Lay of Nimrodel (The Morgul Vale)
3x Will of the West (Core Set)
3x Daeron's Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
1x Gildor's Counsel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Lorien's Wealth (Core Set)
3x Mithrandir's Advice (The Steward's Fear)
1x Word of Command (The Long Dark)
3x The Seeing-stone (The Voice of Isengard)

Boromir's Fire
Total Cards: 50

Heroes (starting threat: 27)
Bifur (Khazad-Dum)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret)
Allies (2)
2x Gandalf (Core Set)
Attachments (21)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
3x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Blood of Numenor (Heirs of Numenor)
3x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret)
3x Love of Tales (The Long Dark)
3x Nenya (Celebrimbor's Secret)
3x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
Events (27)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Desperate Alliance (On the Doorstep)
3x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elrond's Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Daeron's Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Peace, and Thought (Shadow and Flame)

3x The Seeing-stone (The Voice of Isengard)

Whilst I am super impressed by these decks and the thought and strategy you have clearly put into them, to be completely honest stuff like this just screams errata. You shouldn't be able to draw a whole deck first turn I think thats just really silly and breaks the game as is. Whatever the main offenders are that allow you to do this really need to be looked at by the designers. In a game where there is no maximum hand size or maximum amount of cards you can draw each turn being able to draw your whole deck is vastly overpowered and gives you a ridiculous advantage over the encounter deck.

Secondly being able to exploit Boromir so easily and to this extent (he can quest, attack and defend a more or less unlimited amount of times for like 15 willpower, attack and defence, often far higher!) where almost no other hero even needs to be used (except to get Boromir to this level to begin with) except Loragorn for threat reset and Galadriel (again for threat....) is pretty ridiculous.

To be defending every single attack and killing every single enemy with one hero that is immune to shadow cards, sentinel, ranged, ridiculously high stats and almost unlimited readying (who also quested for 15+ on his own) really doesn't seem to be what this game is about. Yes action advantage is a big part of the game but when you have action advantage that renders all characters in play except for one completely useless and outmatched in literally every way it is pretty silly.

You are able to beat NIGHTMARE Battle of Five Armies (which is a pretty **** tough quest as is without nightmare) playing with these two decks but revealing 4 cards a turn during staging as though there are four decks? That is actual insanity!

Top tier decks (even uber dwarf decks, outlands, gandalf super decks) would never pull this off and would get utterly smashed trying to play four player nightmare against an already tough as nails quest with just two decks. Nothing should be able to do this.... the very point of nightmare is how gosh darn difficult it is.

These decks just completely neuter any and every quest. Other than attachment hate (which you have actually specifically outlined a way to deal with this) or perhaps direct damage (if somehow enough direct damage is done to Boromir that you are unable to heal or cancel for whatever reason) I really can't think of anything that this deck wouldn't have an answer to and would actually have trouble going up against.

I think after seeing this deck the designers need to think about errata for tactics Boromir as well as perhaps Gondorian Fire/Blood of Numenor and perhaps even one or two of the cards that are the main perpetrators in drawing your entire deck first turn. Lay of Nimrodel is not as big a perpetrator and because it is an event and only lasts one turn it is only being exploited by these decks because they are able to draw the whole deck and get all 3 copies at once and are then able to recycle them back into the deck via will of the west and get all 3 copies back into your hand... Blood of Numenor and Gondorian Fire however are both 0 cost, and can be used turn after turn without restriction.

I think at the very least blood of numenor and gondorian fire should be a limit of once per round not per phase so that you can't give him +a million defense or attack to battle or siege quest with and then do it again during combat to make him both an uber attacker/defender. They should also probably be limit one per character. Again though it isn't really these cards that are to blame for just how overpowered this combo becomes. If you didn't have a zillion resources in play thanks to other cards and didn't have unlimited readying these would do nothing.

I hate to say it but I think Boromir himself is a main and massive part of the problem as none of this would be possible in the first place if he didn't have next to unlimited readying so long as you have plenty of threat reduction.
I know this would massively neuter a very very popular and widely used hero but I think they should consider putting a limit on how many times you can ready Boromir every turn with his ability. Perhaps 5? that would still make him very very good but would stop you from abusing it and using him for literally every duty for every player each turn. He would still be able to quest, defend two attacks and attack twice. Then again slap a few unexpected courages on him and you have those readying effects on top of his limit of 5 so I'm not sure this would really fix anything either....

To be honest they probably should not have given him that ability to begin with as it is so easy to abuse now especially with all the options we have for threat reduction. Paired with spirit Merry you can use Boromir's readying ability just all game non stop and still not have to worry too much about it raising your threat.

I think at the end of the day it is the drawing of your entire deck and being able to play every song card and getting a million resources on every hero first turn that is the true backbone to this combo as without a million resources on him what use are blood of numenor or gondorian fire or lay of nimrodel?

Will we actually see any errata for any of these cards? Pretty unlikely but I still think they really do need to look at this though as it is a clearly broken combo that you have said yourself trivialises literally every quest in the game. So again kudos on making something this powerful and interactive (and I am sure you spent a lot of time finding all the ins and outs and how to make each part of the combo more efficient) and thought out but at the same time I have definitely never seen a deck that needs errata more than this one. Just smashes face like nothing else I have ever seen. This is a game after all, not an exercise in how badly we can humiliate every quest, and there needs to at least be a chance that we will lose for it to still be fun.

Yes if you don't like it don't play with it etc but at the same time these decks sort of break the game....

Believe me I know that there is something broken here but I'm not sure that it's Boromir. You can just swap him out for Biblo and include 3x Fast Hitch and 3x UC in each deck and you get the same result.

For example, for the weekly challenge over in the main forum I put together a pair of lore song decks that don't use any tactics or leadership cards and it beats Nightmare Into Ithilien on turn 1. The problem is with Love of Tales I think. It probably needs a "Limit: 3 times per round" or something like that.

Yeah, there are several culprits at work here. Boromir, Love of Tales, all the doomed cards, Gondorian Fire, and Lay of the Nimrodel are doing most of the work. It would be hard to really neuter this deck unless you errata'd more than one of those cards, at which point you are probably doing more harm than good to the game. While Boromir is pretty broken, like Seastan said you could do it with other heroes.

While I would never play this deck because it feels like cheating (Seastan used "exploit" in the OP), the beauty of the cooperative game is that you don't have to play it. These exploits would never affect 99% of the players, and maybe the remaining 1% just get a lot of joy out of breaking the game.

However, if you really were to try to errata this deck, I would start by making Steward say "attach to a Gondor hero" so you couldn't turn Bilbo into a monster. That's already how I play the card. Then you would need to either cap the number of times you can ready Boromir (like maybe 3) or cap the number of cards you can draw per turn, like in Game of Thrones 1.0. Even a fairly high cap like 10 cards per turn would shut down most exploit decks.

I will be the first to admit that the deck is boring. But it was fun to build

I think the errata you suggest on SoG would destroy many decks that are already being used and don't break the game. And besides, you can still play tons of UC (even more if you include 3-4 players).

That's part of the goal of my proposed Steward errata. I think the card is too strong and should have a restriction instead of an added bonus of the Gondor trait. It's also terribly unthematic to play SoG on heroes like Treebeard or Gandalf. Blocking Blood of Gondor on non-Gondor heroes is just a side bonus.

Keep in mind I don't think they should actually make this errata, but if they were to go on an errata spree that would be a good one. It's one of my personal house rules along with a list of ~10 cards that I don't allow myself to use except in rare occasion.

I play Steward that way too Jimby! My one exception is Aragorn. I like being able to put Gondor on him. Maybe we'll get a card in the last Saga box that will do specifically that.

I'd love it if Unexpected Courage were Limit 1 per deck. That would have so many positive side effects:

1. Much less need for a second (or third!) Core Set

2. Gives value to all of the other readying effects which feel overshadowed today (I'm looking at you, Steed of the Mark!)

3. Makes Spirit feel less required

Yeah, I make a few thematic exceptions like Aragorn or Pippin. Against harder quests or in 3-4 player I may put it on a non-Gondor leadership hero like Elrohir. But putting it on a non-Gondor lore, spirit, or tactics hero just feels like it breaks the balance of the spheres with no thematic justification.

You could still break the restriction with Nor am I a Stranger and Mutual Accord.

You could still break the restriction with Nor am I a Stranger and Mutual Accord.

True, but now we're talking about a 4 card, 3 resource, 3 sphere combo to get Steward and Blood on someone, where it is currently a 2 card, 2 resource, 2 sphere combo. It would still work in your song decks, but wouldn't be worth the effort in normal decks.

Well, Stranger and Accord are the same spheres as Blood and Steward aren't they? I don't think it'd be too unreasonable if your deck can draw well. But I do agree with you that in it's current state it feels very unthematic. Your idea fixes the theme, but I'd go further and decrease it to 1 resource/turn so that it isn't worth going to great lengths to attain. It would also be more balanced with the other leadership cards (Day's Rising and O Lorien provide the same effect but less reliably, so they cost 1 less).

I'm getting Blood of Numenor mixed up with Gondorian Fire. Probably because I never use either of them.

Dropping Steward to 1 resource per turn would also work.

Steward is definitely not the culprit or issue here and is definitely not one of the main cards making this combo possible.

I am super against errata for Steward of Gondor as it would change the entire game and would not stop this deck from breaking the game but would instead break many many other decks... Remember powerful cards and powerful decks are not the issue here... it is a fairly hard game after all. It is decks like the ones above that are able to "break" the game that are the issue and even then only to those who actually play them. Powerful (but not broken) cards like Steward are integral to harder quests or nightmare and making these cards far weaker is not going to solve anything.

Plus as much as both of you suggest it should/could be changed to attach to a gondor hero you have both admitted that you have personal exceptions. You can either have it be gondor heroes only or any hero and you can apply restrictions to yourselves as you already do. I'm sure everyone who has a problem with Steward (which I admit is indeed unthematic that anyone can have it attached) has "exceptions" or allowances they make for themselves. If the card was erratted it could not go on Pippin, Aragorn or Elrohir ever (Elrohir is the best target for it ever btw ) and all those allowances and exceptions would be out the door. To be completely honest if this card was changed to be more thematic it should be "attach to Denethor" as no one else has any right to have the title of Steward of Gondor thematically as no one else in the game ever IS the steward of gondor...
Don't you think its much better to follow the rules and you can implement your own restrictions that do not break them then if we were given much more rigid rules which you would technically be breaking if you made any exceptions/allowances? You can't have your cake and eat it too If anything Steward of Gondor should have had a different title. It should be like Resourceful and should do exactly what it already does but without providing the Gondor trait and without being unthematic (staying unique though).

I think this is the wrong reason to want errata guys. Errata is not for cards you don't like playing or that you think are a little bit too powerful (but not game breaking in any way) or unthematic. If this was the case I would be campaigning for them to remove the Gandalf Hero like every day. He's too powerful, shames all other heroes, allows you to draw your whole deck way too fast etc etc etc. Just because I think he is a little too powerful doesn't mean he needs errata though. I just don't play him.
Errata is about stopping cards from breaking the game and being way way too good or exploitable. Steward is just a powerful resource generating card, nothing more nothing less. Also at least it costs resources to play.... some of these 0 cost cards are causing the most problems because you can play all three copies first turn if you are able to draw your entire deck first turn. I think that Seastan is exactly right that Love of Tales is the main issue and perpetrator here and most in need of potential errata. Like TeamJimby said though it really isn't that important as the vast majority of people will just not use these decks or others that are able to break the game and so at the end of the day it isn't that big a deal.

I agree entirely. Steward is not what makes this deck break the game, and I don't think Steward actually needs errata. It's just one of the cards that I like to handicap and for whatever reason became the focus of several replies. If we were trying to prevent decks like these, I would start with love of tales and deep knowledge.

I personally dislike any combo with Steward and Blood/Fire/Lay with lots of readying, so that's more what I was getting at. But none of those need errata.

I'm always surprised of how a discussion about a really strong deck here turns into a discussion about errata. This game is coop with no tournaments at all, I prefer not to propose more errata to fix a problem in the game design (being the inability of the encounter deck to respond to our game in any sense). You can always just avoid such a deck, And you will obviously do after one or two games, there is no challenge in playing those decks.

It does always seem to devolve into errata discussions. I think it's partly because these decks are a bore to play, partly because few people have actual insights to add about the deck design because they don't try to break the game, and partly because people that play thematically tend to defend their play style.

Again, nobody actually wants to errata anything. It's just a fun discussion to have. Seastan, Jban, and others have fun finding unstoppable combos while the rest of us have fun trying to break their unstoppable combos with the most efficient potential errata (that few people want to actually happen).

Very true and you make some very good points. I also agree in that errata should be avoided whenever possible and is not good for the game.

Even without tournaments however just at local game stores or playing with buddies it would be pretty terrible if certain people are running decks like this and you have to wait for them to draw their entire deck, play like half of it and from then on the whole quest is just a cake walk without any danger of losing. I know most people play with friends or organise their decks to work well together and I'm sure almost no one would actually bring a deck like this to play with others (unless they are just showing them its almighty power!) however for stuff like against the shadow, fellowship events etc someone may just bring a deck like this and it is completely legal and fine for them to do so but would break whatever quest they play and turn it from a game you can lose to a simple exercise in domination.

I totally agree with you in regards to the tactics aragorn deck people said need errata a while back and other similar decks in the past but this one is INSANE. Like it pretty much cannot be beaten and embarrasses every quest including nightmare. Did you read the part about how he played NIGHTMARE FOUR PLAYER BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES with just the two decks and it was no big thing.

It does always seem to devolve into errata discussions. I think it's partly because these decks are a bore to play, partly because few people have actual insights to add about the deck design because they don't try to break the game, and partly because people that play thematically tend to defend their play style.

Again, nobody actually wants to errata anything. It's just a fun discussion to have. Seastan, Jban, and others have fun finding unstoppable combos while the rest of us have fun trying to break their unstoppable combos with the most efficient potential errata (that few people want to actually happen).

Very true and you make some very good points. I also agree in that errata should be avoided whenever possible and is not good for the game.

Even without tournaments however just at local game stores or playing with buddies it would be pretty terrible if certain people are running decks like this and you have to wait for them to draw their entire deck, play like half of it and from then on the whole quest is just a cake walk without any danger of losing. I know most people play with friends or organise their decks to work well together and I'm sure almost no one would actually bring a deck like this to play with others (unless they are just showing them its almighty power!) however for stuff like against the shadow, fellowship events etc someone may just bring a deck like this and it is completely legal and fine for them to do so but would break whatever quest they play and turn it from a game you can lose to a simple exercise in domination.

I totally agree with you in regards to the tactics aragorn deck people said need errata a while back and other similar decks in the past but this one is INSANE. Like it pretty much cannot be beaten and embarrasses every quest including nightmare. Did you read the part about how he played NIGHTMARE FOUR PLAYER BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES with just the two decks and it was no big thing.

As regards for store/friends games, it is true that you don't want to see your partner being the lord of drawing and resource production for 40 minutes before you can play a single card, and only the official errata could stop these gamebombers. However, in my whole experience, and afrer some insane combo decks (all nowadays fixed with errata) I have not seen a single player of this type, with a broken deck.

In a month we have a National tournament in Spain, held by the community of players, with really good prizes. I hope none of the attendants will bring insane, unfair decks. In my opinion, that event could be a good scenario to confirm the attraction of these power decks.