Now, that moar and more Ents are showing up...

By Flrbb, in Strategy and deck-building

In the past I tried a Eagle/Ent deck with two red and one green heroes. I cannot remember which ones or which cards exactly, because it wasn't that good overall (basically to low draw, Eagles combos are slowed down with other cards in hand, and not enough resources to play all cards). Also, I've found The Tree People, a Silvan/Ent deck.

But now, as more Ents are realeased, I wonder what kind of (mostly) pure Ent decks you people would build!

My thoughts so far:

Heroes: I'd take two lore heroes and one tactics. For more resource generation/distribution probably Mablung and Bifur. Maybe Mirlonde, then the thread will be very low and you'll have time to build up your ents. Probably Elrond would be a good choice (could play for red ents, has bonus on Wellinghall Preserver). As far as I can think right now Treebeard hero won't fit in that good.

To reach the 50 cards I'd start to fill the deck with "those usual red cards" (Feint, Gondorian Shield) and some card drawing effects, probably Loriens Wealth and/or Peace and Thought. I don't know really...

Well, not so much feedback as I hoped. Anways, I will share my first experience.

This is basically the deck I used:
Heroes:
Mablung (in a party you are the fighter, but without ranged and almost no sentinels, so you have to engage, thus: extra resource generation)
Bifur (beein able to spend an extra red resource as green one (especially in the first round) is a small compensation to the slow start of Ents)
Mirlonde (more like a fill-in, as a bonus it keeps the thret low)
My thoughts were ents are slow and not that good at questing, so primary I've chose heroes with not-so-low willpower. As it turn out the Ents are (when set up) very flexible and therefore they can quest with ease (Wellinghall Preservers 3 willpower ist huge and they are ment to quest each round so they can ready each round).
Ent ally cards:
3x Treebeard (I want him to apear fast, so I included him three times, as a side note: you can pay for any ent cards with Treebeard, it took me a while to notice)
3x Booming Ent (if some Ents are damaged, these guys go boom all over the place, it is amazing)
3x Derndingle Warrior (primary defender, with Boomed and Trumped even better)
2x Quickbeam (besides Wellinghall Conserver this is the best card to play in round one, but because he is unique I just add two of them)
2x Skinbark (just two times, because uniqueness. While its ability reads very powerfull, so far I never had use for it. so definitly no 3rd copy)
3x Wandering Ent (turns out to be a "good allrounder"; if you need more to quest, then send him, if definding or attacking seems important don't send him. Quite straigt forward :D)
3x Wellinghall Conserver (imo the best Ent so far. Huge willpower, and archery and stuff is not a problem anymore)
This sums up to 19 strong allies. Seems to be a fair number. I thought of adding 3x core Gandalf, but as he is costy I didn't.
More Ent cards:
3x Ent Draught (I did tend to add one to Bifur and Mirlonde, they both suffer a lot in the beginning of my games. But attached to Derndingle Warrior they have good use also!)
3x Boomed and Trumped (seems to be a good card, but was disappointed in the end: a well placed Booming Ent is powerfull enough to strike the average enemy. Probably reducing it to two copies. Anyways, turnd out that it is a good combo with Derndingle Warrior.)
3x Entmood (As far as I know each and every Ent-card has the Ent trade, which is nice. Drawback without Treebeard hero is that you cannot play it asap. But I'd say you use your mulligan anyway if you do not have Willinghall or Quickbeam within your first 6 cards)
Side Quests:
1x Gather Information (besides its main effect it has the benefit (at least in old quests) that you can stick to a certain quest stage even longer. To control the game is always a plus)
Attachments:
3x Gondorian Shield (mainly just because Mablung is Gondor and I have that combo in good memory)
3x Lembas (to heal my heros)
3x Wingfoot (in single player not that much of a use, but just wanted to include that one)
Events:
3x Feint (a bit of an overload with Gondorian Shild, but also a nice card)
3x Loriens Wealth (3 resources is quite much, I tent to play all other Ent cards from my hand until I used this. Mithrandirs Advice is an alterantive, but having to draw only two cards seemd a bit low..)

All these cards do not sum up to 50, so far I just wanted to try the general playstyle of an Ent deck.

There were some more cards which I considered/tried but took out of the deck:
Gondorian Fire (hat way enough fighting power and that card was not used, also most of the games were a bit short in terms of resources)
Gondorian Discipline (absolutely an overkill with Gondorian Shiled and Feint)
Quickstrike and Dunedain Hunter (I thought of more resource generation, but you have to defend each enemy you pull. Also DH can only attack and you allready have enough fighting power. And your extra resource is needed for Quick Strike or Feint)

There are only two red/green cards to have alternative use for these extra unique cards which tend to stick in your hand: Daerons Runes and Protector of Lorien. DR is more like an endgame support (to speed up even more when you draw your second copy of Quickbeam) so I decided against this one. PoL seems nice, but as Ents have build in auto-heal so "secure defending" seems not that important. I did not include any of them to my deck. When playing harder missions maybe a Treebeard or such will soak up enough damage to have to be replaced by another copy of that card from your hand...

So far I just tried the firest two missions, both went well and smooth. I kinda summed up my experiene for the usefullness of certain cards in the brakets above. With missions where starting threat is not a problem I think I will swap Mirlonde for Elrond, then maybe I have to add Secret Vigil. As in late game the heroes have time to relax a bit I will swap Loriens Wealth with Peace and Thought. With Elrond I will add A Burning Brand (and probably Protector of Lorien), but then again Gondorian Shield (for Mablung) seems a bit redundant. Probably I should add Gondorian Fire again - swapping the role of Mablung. No perfect fit over here.

These are my thoughts and experiences so far. I will try a varity of missions later on. The newer quests are more pressuring at beginning, so I am not sure how solo-able these Ents will be: even if you play a Ent in the first round you have to wait one round to use him. To compensate, you will probably need another player. So far I myself do not have a solution to circumvent this....

Any comments are wellcome!

Edited by Flrbb

https://wardenofarnor.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/deck-hasten-the-ents/

Built before the release of Wellinghall Preserver, so I'll probably want to add that in, maybe some other tweaks, but it works very well.

I also have an Ent/Eagle deck with Elrond/Pippin/Merry, but with more Ent cards that becomes a much more complicated balancing act since I can't just put in all the main cards of the relevant traits because there are too many, so I've no idea how that deck'll look when I next update it.

For a pure Ent deck without taking advantage of Faramir, I agree that Mablung is a good idea. I still think Elrond is a great option because as far as allies are concerned, he's in both of your spheres at once. Bifur is good for smoothing as well. Mirlonde, Merry and Pippin all work for keeping your threat down while you get your Ents onto the table. Treebeard hero does lose you the ally version so you don't have as easy a time amassing your army, but he also brings a healthy dose of early-game power, which could help keep things under control while your allies are taking a while to get going, plus the obvious bonus of being able to play Entmoot right off the bat. Elrond/Treebeard/Merry could be an interesting setup. There are a lot of good options though.

I agree that Mablung is a great choice for the tactics hero. I've also been using Denethor for a low threat lore hero. Since you already have tactics, you can throw in a Gondorian Shield (and possibly Burning Brand) to make him your tank defender until the ents are ready. The third hero should be lore so you'll be getting 2 lore and 1-2 tactics per turn. Elrond feels like overkill if you have Mablung, but he does give some nice questing. Pippin or Mirlonde are both good for low threat quest power as well.

I've also been tinkering with the new Faramir as the third hero for a kind of Gondor/Ent deck. Wealth of Gondor can make sure you get an ent in play first turn (possibly Treebeard) and Steward of Gondor on the Steward himself would help pay for the lore ents. If there are other players, you can throw in Visionary Leadership for some more quest power.

I've been using 2 tactics heroes & bifur.

He works fine as a lone lore hero with his resource smoothing ability.

Edited by Noccus

As said above, I tried Elrond as third hero. I think he is not a wise choice. Basically, all your Ent allies do have three hit points, so either your ally is dead, or will be fully healed the next round (which sounds good, but Booming Ent won't get its bonus). Also, from the contribution of my chosen cards I did use his other ability (paying for tactic allies) only in the first round, so it did not pay off. In the end: a starting threat of 30 could be better.

I moved on to Mablung, Bifur and Pipin. With a low threat like that the card draw was way to insane (I also had luck with my three entmoots). To be honest, I just tried one round.

Finaly I came to Glorfindel (Lore) and added his horse and Protector of Lorien. Was a quite nice setup.

I've been using 2 tactics heroes & bifur.

He works fine as a lone lore hero with his resource smoothing ability.

Wich two tactics heroes?

I agree that Mablung is a great choice for the tactics hero. I've also been using Denethor for a low threat lore hero. Since you already have tactics, you can throw in a Gondorian Shield (and possibly Burning Brand) to make him your tank defender until the ents are ready. The third hero should be lore so you'll be getting 2 lore and 1-2 tactics per turn. Elrond feels like overkill if you have Mablung, but he does give some nice questing. Pippin or Mirlonde are both good for low threat quest power as well.

I've also been tinkering with the new Faramir as the third hero for a kind of Gondor/Ent deck. Wealth of Gondor can make sure you get an ent in play first turn (possibly Treebeard) and Steward of Gondor on the Steward himself would help pay for the lore ents. If there are other players, you can throw in Visionary Leadership for some more quest power.

new Faramir sounds also good, totaly hadn't him in me mind! ...and if you do not add a majority of Leadership cards, then Bifur will help out. :)

Why do you add We Are Not Idle to that deck?

To speed it up. It costs nothing, and you can choose to exhaust 0 dwarves, gaining 0 resources, but still drawing a card. Effectively it just makes the deck smaller, and thus more consistent.

New Faramir hero in land of Shadow looks amazing for ents. He can ready an ent once per phase when he engages an enemy and he is leadership to boot.