I've been looking at various Elrond decks and experimenting with my own, and see two distinct types.

1) The "Super Friends" style decks that use Vilya to bring in unique, high-cost allies for free.

2) More traditional-style decks that take advantage of Elrond's ability to pay for allies from other spheres and heal, and use Vilya as more of a form of resource acceleration.

I want to start a discussion about people's experiences of these two types (or other variations) and the advantages and disadvantages of each. From my experience, the first type totally dominates once it gets up and running; however, sometimes with this deck I feel like there is no challenge once the uber allies start hitting the board. The second is more consistent and less prone to stalling or flopping in the first few turns, but doesn't dominate in the same way as the first; however, I find winning with this type more challenging and rewarding in the end. What have your experiences with Elrond decks been like?

Elrond has been one of my favourite heroes since his release (approximately the time I started playing). Vilya is obviously enormously powerful with hero Gandalf, though I've barely tried this line-up myself. A Vilya-focused deck got me through every quest until Heirs of Numenor. As of late, I have actually been using Vilya less and less as I'm a bit tired of the deck control archetype. I enjoy playing healing-heavy decks but also want in on the action a bit more - so Elrond will probably retire within the next few months (at least temporarily), to make room for Cirdan and Erestor.

I'm using a Super Friends deck (Elrond-Gandalf-Glorfindel) in my 2-player campaign, and needless to say it's insanely good. I believe it could be considered the most powerful archetype in the game, generally speaking at least. I really like the deck thematically, as I tend to prefer unique allies (even if they're totally random or unthematic), and it reminds me of the "Arda deck" in the old Middle Earth ccg. It's definately one of my favorite decks in the game.

However, one of my favorite recent discoveries in the game is how amazing Elrond can be in a dedicated Treebeard deck. Not really because of Vilya but his healing ability. I've used the deck against a variety of classic hard quests and it's rather surprising how powerful it can be. I'd say it's easily comparable to other top-tier archetypes. You gain access to card draw and control with Spirit and Lore, but having two 3 attack heroes and two 3 defense heroes really makes a difference in combat heavy quests, and the sheer number of healing cards in the deck pretty much guarantees Treebeard can kill most enemies in one blow, or quest for a million. Not to mention that the healing is invaluable in multiplayer, as well as in all the recent quests with lots of archery and direct damage.

I love Elrond, but like Gizlivadi I come to him for his healing boost rather than Vilya. I have used Vilya before, but it's very rare for me to put it in my deck. If I'm using Elrond, I'm probably playing a deck in a 4-player game with a 'support' role, including lots of healing, not really interested in a bunch of high-cost allies, and half the time I'm doing mono-lore and resource management is less challenging anyway (also making Vilya less attractive).

I use him for the 3 willpower more than I do for the defense, but he's certainly filled a defensive role for me from time to time. I don't usually get readying effects on him (mono-lore doesn't come with them!) so I end up choosing one role or the other, but I also like having him there as a versatile hero who can do both depending on the situation.

In solo I have played him as the focal piece with Vilya several times, but in multiplayer I have enjoyed using his resources to play ranged Silvan allies boosted by Galadriel and Celeborn.

He is quite strong in either role, of course. I like him a lot as a hero for his versatility, though I haven't made much use of his healing ability in either of these decks.

I'm using a Super Friends deck (Elrond-Gandalf-Glorfindel) in my 2-player campaign, and needless to say it's insanely good. I believe it could be considered the most powerful archetype in the game, generally speaking at least. I really like the deck thematically, as I tend to prefer unique allies (even if they're totally random or unthematic), and it reminds me of the "Arda deck" in the old Middle Earth ccg. It's definately one of my favorite decks in the game.

However, one of my favorite recent discoveries in the game is how amazing Elrond can be in a dedicated Treebeard deck. Not really because of Vilya but his healing ability. I've used the deck against a variety of classic hard quests and it's rather surprising how powerful it can be. I'd say it's easily comparable to other top-tier archetypes. You gain access to card draw and control with Spirit and Lore, but having two 3 attack heroes and two 3 defense heroes really makes a difference in combat heavy quests, and the sheer number of healing cards in the deck pretty much guarantees Treebeard can kill most enemies in one blow, or quest for a million. Not to mention that the healing is invaluable in multiplayer, as well as in all the recent quests with lots of archery and direct damage.

Are you referring to the Middle-earth CCG put out by Iron Crown Enterprises in the 90s?

Yes, the one and only Middle Earth CCG as far as I know.

Yes, the one and only Middle Earth CCG as far as I know.

Well there was the one based on the movies, but the fact it exists is all I know about it.

I haven't heard the ICE one referred to outside my circle of friends in a long time! We still get out our decks every now and then... I'm not familiar with the Arda deck though.

That one was called The Lord of the Rings TCG. It was not a bad game at all. I think more people should know about MECCG though. Arda was more of a variant of MECCG, but basically consisted of using more or less your entire collection to play and had special rules, and obviously used lots of characters, and in MECCG all hero characters were unique.

pffffft Vilya. Elrond decks that DON'T feature Vilya are the most interesting to me.

Third type of Elrond deck:

3) More traditional-style decks that take advantage of Elrond's ability to pay for allies from other spheres and heal, and do not include Vilya.

Elrond is one of my favourite characters in the books and I love playing him for the theme - my last few tweaks have indeed omitted Vilya, and focused more on questing and healing than putting powerful cards into play. With Cloak of Lorien and Burning Brand, he's an excellent defender. Lembas is just icing on the cake.

pffffft Vilya. Elrond decks that DON'T feature Vilya are the most interesting to me.

Third type of Elrond deck:

3) More traditional-style decks that take advantage of Elrond's ability to pay for allies from other spheres and heal, and do not include Vilya.

This is something I am moving towards and would definitely like to here more about. What does your hero lineup look like?

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/104951-two-handed-decks/?p=1780982

Those are the decks I use. Elrond is used primarily as a quester and for his healing boost. When necessary he can also be used as a backup defender in quests that require less questing power but feature far more combat. You can even throw light of valinor on him instead of Glorfindel if you want him to be able to quest and defend. Warden of Healing can heal 2 damage from 2 different characters each turn while Elrond is in play and if you pay lore resources to ready the Warden you can heal double that in one turn. If you get multiple Wardens out you can more or less completely mitigate all archery and direct damage (weather effects of late) in even the toughest scenarios. I recently had two Wardens very hard at work in The Ruins of Belegost constantly healing all the direct damage Narlhug does when he attacks and they were able to constantly heal long enough for me to get a win!! Similarly the Wellinghall Preserver heals 2 damage off an Ent (such as a close to death Derndingle Warrior) each turn when it readies instead of 1 with Elrond in play. With so many Ents that are used as backup defenders and are always used as damage soaks this is pretty **** valuable. Lastly his ability to pay for allies of any sphere allows for first turn Arwen which is invaluable to the decks both for the sentinel and defense boost it provides for Elrohir as well as for her willpower. I used a fair few other spirit allies in the past that Elrond and Glorfindel could pay for together but have moved away from that as some of them were too high in cost even with Elronds ability (Northern Tracker) and others were just not integral to the deck and have been replaced with better cards.

Vilya is actually quite a bad card for the deck as it does not feature many high cost cards that you can play for free via Vilya, also many cards would fizzle with Vilya such as Gildors Counsel, Test of Will, Hasty Stroke as well as uniques such as Asfaloth, LoV and Arwen.

pffffft Vilya. Elrond decks that DON'T feature Vilya are the most interesting to me.

Third type of Elrond deck:

3) More traditional-style decks that take advantage of Elrond's ability to pay for allies from other spheres and heal, and do not include Vilya.

This is something I am moving towards and would definitely like to here more about. What does your hero lineup look like?

My friend's first deckbuild for this game involved using Elrond/Mirlonde/Theodred, sans Vilya. It was a funny deck, since much of it was eagles without a Tactics hero, and even poor old Radagast was in there. It worked surprisingly well for combat, though, since he would often get Steward of Gondor into play via using Word of Command with either Radagast or Gandalf (he is definitely the only person I've seen Sneak Attack in Radagast!), so he'd have a billion resources available for all those eagles. Plus, Radagast's creature healing ability gets potentiated by Elrond, of course. I still think Vilya would've been good in the deck, though.

I've been using elrond with gloin and throwing an ent moot on him (with boots and hardy leadership). No vilya in the deck, no need for it. Just using elrond for massive healing.

I just realized from above comment how broken Elrond and the wellinghall ent are together...

I just realized from above comment how broken Elrond and the wellinghall ent are together...

I've been using elrond with gloin and throwing an ent moot on him (with boots and hardy leadership). No vilya in the deck, no need for it. Just using elrond for massive healing.

No, Gloin will not heal. My comment was not related to Gloin combo. It was a separate combo that I realized because he mentioned Elrond's improved healing.