Help needed with Leadership-Spirit deck

By Gizlivadi, in Strategy and deck-building

Inspired by wehehe's latest deck, I decided to create a very similar deck with Galadriel and Arwen but using Core Aragorn instead of Lore. The idea is pretty much the same, but I also use Heir of Mardil which works great with Arwen, and with Aragorn's ability plus all the attachments and events, you can ready Aragorn many times in a round. Once you set Aragorn up he becomes an incredible defender, but I never seem to muster enough attack for the early game, so I'm considering switching Galadriel for Glorfindel. But I'm still not sure. Here's the current list, I would love some suggestions from the deckbuilding savants in here!

Aragorn (Core)

Arwen Undómiel

Galadriel

Northern Tracker x2

Galadriel's Handmaiden x3

Ranger of Cardolan x2

Treebeard x1

Weather Hills Watchman x3

Gandalf x3

Galdor of the Havens x1

Nenya x3

Heir of Mardil x3

Steward of Gondor x3

Dúnedain Warning x3

Light of Valinor x2

Burning Brand x1

Miruvor x2

Sword that was Broken x1

Celebrían's Stone x2

Unexpected Corage x2

Blood of Númenor x2

Elven Light x3

Tale of Tinúviel x3

A Test of Will x2

Dwarven Tomb x2

Sneak Attack x2

How are you attaching Burning Brand on Aragorn without Ring of Barahir or Song of Wisdom?

You're totally right. I forgot about the restriction of the card. Maybe Ring of Barahir might be a good option? I kinda want this deck to be mostly attachments and just build a hero up like many other decks do, but for some reason it doesn't quite work. And now I realized you can't attach Brand on Aragorn...

Yes the ring is rarely used and with it, the sword and the stone Aragorn gets plus three hit points. A nice thing as he is the one who will defend the attacks.

Inspired by wehehe's latest deck, I decided to create a very similar deck with Galadriel and Arwen but using Core Aragorn instead of Lore. The idea is pretty much the same, but I also use Heir of Mardil which works great with Arwen, and with Aragorn's ability plus all the attachments and events, you can ready Aragorn many times in a round. Once you set Aragorn up he becomes an incredible defender, but I never seem to muster enough attack for the early game, so I'm considering switching Galadriel for Glorfindel. But I'm still not sure. Here's the current list, I would love some suggestions from the deckbuilding savants in here!

Aragorn (Core)

Arwen Undómiel

Galadriel

Northern Tracker x2

Galadriel's Handmaiden x3

Ranger of Cardolan x2

Treebeard x1

Weather Hills Watchman x3

Gandalf x3

Galdor of the Havens x1

Nenya x3

Heir of Mardil x3

Steward of Gondor x3

Dúnedain Warning x3

Light of Valinor x2

Burning Brand x1

Miruvor x2

Sword that was Broken x1

Celebrían's Stone x2

Unexpected Corage x2

Blood of Númenor x2

Elven Light x3

Tale of Tinúviel x3

A Test of Will x2

Dwarven Tomb x2

Sneak Attack x2

Maybe switch Gandalf for his Hobbit version? You have the ability to reduce threat AND extra resources through your heroes, so he should be easy to get on the table early. Use Aragorn to block, then ready him and attack back with Gandalf. Then you can rethink both your questing and buffing cards.

I decided to rework the deck to give it a more aggresive approach. I took out Galadriel and Nenya and instead put in Glorfindel, another Brand, and 3 Ring of Barahir. And surprisingly, this deck really works now. I won The Dread Realm on the first try with this one (whereas with Galadriel I was unable to kill the first Undead and they just kept piling on me), with Aragorn getting to 17 defense and 8 hit points, and an insane amount of readying effects. It takes some luck to get there (mainly, you need a good starting hand), but once you get Aragorn set up, it's pretty much invincible. Sometimes I've even been able to play Steward, Ring and Brand in the first round thanks to Elven Light. I would not consider this deck top-tier, but I was honestly kinda surprised it works so well. Also, while Song of Wisdom is probably more effective, it's great to finally find a deck for Ring of Barahir, along with all the artifacts of Aragorn's heritage. Any tips or suggestions to make this better are more than welcome!

Aragorn

Glorfindel

Arwen

Galadriel's Handmaiden x3

Ranger of Cardolan x2

Weather Hills Watchman x3

Northern Tracker x2

Gandalf x3

Steward of Gondor x3

Heir of Mardil x3

Ring of Barahir x3

Burning Brand x2

Blood of Númenor x1

Light of Valinor x3

Miruvor x2

Unexpected Courage x2

Dúnedain Warning x3

Sword that was Broken x2

Celebrían's Stone x2

Elven-light x3

Tale of Tinúviel x3

Dwarven Tomb x1

Sneak Attack x2

A Test of Will x2

I built a similar deck, and followed a similar process to you: with Galadriel, I couldn't kill anything, but with Glorfindel my deck still wasn't great. My main problem with putting Glorfindel in was that I then found the Tale of Tinuviel to be much less useful - Glorfindel can already attack and quest, so it really only helps Aragorn with defense (help which he does not need). On the other hand, Arwen is usually questing and so can't exhaust for Tale of Tinuviel (unless you hold her back because you know a massive enemy is coming).

Well, the thing is that Tale of Tinúviel is not a card to use every round. In my deck you can effectively use it only 4 times, and it's not something you want to use for every attack. To be honest this hasn't been much of a problem for me. If Aragorn has a spare resource and Glorfindel has Light of Valinor you can quest for 5 without exhausting anybody, so if I know I'll be facing a big enemy or many enemies I save Arwen for Tale of Tinúviel, and even if I want to quest with Arwen, Miruvor is great for readying Glorfindel or Arwen again. In the old version I was pretty much forced to waste Tale of Tinúviel to deal with the wimpy reanimated dead, but now I can save it for the big/boss enemies and have Glorfindel and Aragorn kill the smaller enemies.

Edited by Gizlivadi

I took out Galadriel and Nenya and instead put in Glorfindel

Then I have failed! :P I still think Hobbit-Gandalf would have been more interesting than Glorfindel, but I'm biased that way.

It's funny that the whole deck looks like what my first deck was up until HoN and basically is what it would have looked like if I kept it. Glad to see it works out for you.

When Glorfindel Ally hits, you can have the best of both worlds!

Don't get me wrong, OHaUH Gandalf is an amazing ally and I've used him to great effect in many decks, but for this one I'm a bit more reluctant of running him. Even with Galadriel the threat increase is kinda scary and I'd have to add Elrond's Counsel, which would take up 3 valuable card slots. That's the main reason I rarely use him without Loragorn. Also, you'd have to actually play him in order to use him, which isn't that good against quests that hit you with enemies from turn 1. Glorfindel may be unoriginal and boring for some, but he gets the job done like few other heroes do. Being able to kill 6 def-hp enemies in the very early game has proven very useful, and with Sword that was Broken willpower is rarely an issue. In fact the thing I miss the most out of Galadriel was her card draw ability, but even then Elven-light and Sneak Attack Gandalf are normally enough.

Glorfindel ally will be an insteresting possibility for sure, particularly due to his discard ability and the fact that you can play him from the discard pile. I will consider him, but not really for the more aggressive scenarios, as only having 1 combat-capable hero is not the best plan. Hero Galadriel and ally Glorfindel will work just fine in scenarios that give you more time to set up, though.