Having never used Erestor or most of the Noldor stuff from last cycle, now that Grey Havens seems to cap the Noldor archetype for now, I wonder how are people feeling about a solo deck that uses Erestor, Cirdan and either Arwen or Elrond or another Noldor hero along with the Noldor discard stuff? (Protector of Lorien, To the Sea, to the Sea! Elven Jeweller, Evening Star & Elwing's Flight, Elven Light, etc) Do you think it'd be viable? Could it draw enough cards to fuel the discard effects as well as getting stuff into play? I really want a full Noldor discard deck to be solo viable.

Solo Noldor was already viable (albeit with a non-Noldor hero or two). Erestor + Beregond + Arwen/Eowyn can fare quite well against many quests, even quests like Wastes of Eriador.

I built an Elrond/Erestor/Arwen deck a little while back and it seemed pretty viable - I didn't test it too much, it probably could use some tweaks (and/or new cards being put in) and the playstyle took a bit of getting used to, but I think it was basically fine.

Given the nature of how discard effects work I think there may be a limit on how many you can sensibly include, though equally while many discard effects can be triggered every round, they don't have to be. It's a mistake to think you need enough cards to fuel all your discard effects at once - rather, they are all useful options to have available, and you choose which ones you need at any given moment.

To the Sea makes Gildor with burning brand much easier to set up. Narya allows you to ready him and boost defense to 4. Like I said, Carn Dum is looking easier and easier.

I wonder how are people feeling about a solo deck that uses Erestor, Cirdan and either Arwen or Elrond or another Noldor hero along with the Noldor discard stuff? (Protector of Lorien, To the Sea, to the Sea! Elven Jeweller, Evening Star & Elwing's Flight, Elven Light, etc)

Totally not an answer to your question, but I'm looking forward to Cirdan, Arwen, and some third such as Galdor or Erestor to make the dedicated "willpower deck" in a multiplayer setting more fun to play. A lot of times you just end up exhausting all your characters for the quest phase, then waiting while the rest of the players resolve combat.

With a Noldor discard archetype I am hoping to add a layer or two of utility and make a spirit/lore questing deck more interactive throughout the entire round. Some typical location control (Steed of Imladris, The Evening Star), some readying and stat boosts for other players (Elwing's Flight, Narya, Tale of Tinuviel).

To the Sea makes Gildor with burning brand much easier to set up. Narya allows you to ready him and boost defense to 4. Like I said, Carn Dum is looking easier and easier.

Yea, I was just thinking that Narya was looking great for Gildor... I hadn't thought about him being used with BB and To The Sea to make the combo that much better. Oh boy.

By the way, in multiplayer, Message from Elrond can arrange you a situation where you can play an event with already 3 copies of it in your discard pile. By the way, Message from Elrond speaks nothing about shuffling the given card from a players discard pile, so unless I'm missing something, given event would go into the chosen player's discard pile too, creating a possibility of up to 5 copies of the event in the discard pile (in a two player game).

When you discard a card, it goes to its owner's discard pile, yes?

yeah, from core set manual:

"An event card is played from a player’s hand, its text effects are resolved, and the card is then placed in its owner’s discard pile."

But what happens when you were given a card, and you play it, not discard it? Does the change of ownership happens during the process of giving a card? Is there is such thing as card owned by someone else in your hand ?

It's a cool thought, but ownership remains with the player who brought those cards to the table, no matter what may happen:

"A player “owns” his heroes and the cards that he has chosen for the player deck he is playing. A player “controls” all cards that he owns, unless another player or the encounter deck takes control of the card through a game effect. Any time a card leaves play, it reverts to its owner’s hand, deck, or discard pile (as directed by the effect forcing the card out of play)."

Narya: I think the timing here is to advantage. You find one ally with decent combat stats (to survive an attack) and defend with him, then you ready him with Narya (together with some quester of decent attack) to either attack or defend again. Seems great to Gandalf-Elrond-Vilya deck, where you can get strong allies into play cheap. If only I was not so tired of the deck. A little harder to incorporate into a Círdan deck, I feel. And the Leadership icon may not be such a boost there either. I hope to be wrong about the last two sentences though.

To the Sea, to the Sea: I think this boosts the Noldor discard deck even more than Arwen hero. What a card, plus a song.

I feel the Tactics cards got the worst package again. I really like direct damage, it is just not easy to make it work well and still do other things in a deck. Perhaps it is a thing of 3 and 4-player games, which I rarely play these days.

The Lore location manipulation seems great.

Having never used Erestor or most of the Noldor stuff from last cycle, now that Grey Havens seems to cap the Noldor archetype for now, I wonder how are people feeling about a solo deck that uses Erestor, Cirdan and either Arwen or Elrond or another Noldor hero along with the Noldor discard stuff? (Protector of Lorien, To the Sea, to the Sea! Elven Jeweller, Evening Star & Elwing's Flight, Elven Light, etc) Do you think it'd be viable? Could it draw enough cards to fuel the discard effects as well as getting stuff into play? I really want a full Noldor discard deck to be solo viable.

I have been trying different decks for a long time now. Erestor, Galdor, Círdan, Arwen are the four candidates for three spots for me. I do not feel Elrond is really needed in the deck as he can do much better elsewhere; just as Glorfindel.

To the Sea, to the Sea will surely make such a deck much better yet, as might Narya, maybe, if you select Círdan as one of them.

At least you still can enjoy the benefit of 3 copies in the discard pile if you message a 4th copy to someone.

Mariner's Compass is intriguing. For a start, it doesn't say "non-unique". Most unique locations these days are immune to player card effects, but there are enough that aren't that make me think "shenanigans".

The cards really look great, many possible combos indeed.

Narya seems to me like made to give Cirdan the possibility to get steward of Gondor with not a leadership hero needed . The action can be very strong though and can turn Gildor or the ents to power cards. Like it very much. Not sure if needed to hero Gandalf though. Ally Gandalf as mentioned could be of more use for it.

One thing that we have to check is the possibility that our decks might run out too quickly with all those discard cards. Most probably they are not all meant to be included, a choise has to be made carefully. Offcourse there is a card on the core set that can help a bit on this yet the Noldor archetype though strong might be a bit difficult to handle, especially early on.

Narya seems to me like made to give Cirdan the possibility to get steward of Gondor with not a leadership hero needed . The action can be very strong though and can turn Gildor or the ents to power cards .

You say that like the ents aren't already power cards...

An interesting point with To The Sea is that the forthcoming Glorfindel ally appears to be playable from the discard pile, so you can discard him to reduce his own cost. I guess To The Sea will also interact well with Galdor hero because you can discard most of your hand to make Glorfindel or Gildor extremely cheap, and then draw up to six quickly.

The cards really look great, many possible combos indeed.

Narya seems to me like made to give Cirdan the possibility to get steward of Gondor with not a leadership hero needed . The action can be very strong though and can turn Gildor or the ents to power cards. Like it very much. Not sure if needed to hero Gandalf though. Ally Gandalf as mentioned could be of more use for it.

One thing that we have to check is the possibility that our decks might run out too quickly with all those discard cards. Most probably they are not all meant to be included, a choise has to be made carefully. Offcourse there is a card on the core set that can help a bit on this yet the Noldor archetype though strong might be a bit difficult to handle, especially early on.

That last part is what I'm worried about. I assume 3 Will of the West are mandatory, but I don't know. Also I wonder if the deck can muster enough attack to kill a fair number of enemies. Apart from Glorfindel I can't think of a Noldor character with 3 attack in those spheres. Narya will be of great help I assume but the start can be rough as you draw a lot of stuff first round and a lot of them just can't be played (possibly Narya among them).

Thanks for the spoilers teamjimby.

I haven't made my mind up about most cards, but I so far I think I like most of them.

Grapling hook is cool. But is it worth a slot in your deck? Shame it costs a resource also.

To the sea,to the sea! will get very popular soon no doubt.

I'm wondering about mariner's compass. It looks like a useful tool to remove a nasty location without a shadow effect for a mellow one with a anasty shadow effect.

But really, how often does that happen in a game....

And both lore cards are..well...ok I guess.

I actually really like Grappling Hook. I think it will be really helpful in 2-player setups where one player is handling the majority of Questing while the other is handling the combat (which is probably the most common 2-player setup I see). Sometimes the Encounter Deck is going to throw out more threat then you are prepared for on the flop while you may not need all your Attack on the other side of the table--this is a perfect way to get use out of those characters and get some progress down. And I feel like that happens at least once or twice in most games.

To the Seas, To the Sea is great in a deck made for it. The obvious Hero pair with it is Galdor since his ability would allow you to ditch you're whole hand and then draw back (and he's in the box) but its once-per-game nature actually makes me think Erestor is a better fit.

The cards really look great, many possible combos indeed.

Narya seems to me like made to give Cirdan the possibility to get steward of Gondor with not a leadership hero needed . The action can be very strong though and can turn Gildor or the ents to power cards. Like it very much. Not sure if needed to hero Gandalf though. Ally Gandalf as mentioned could be of more use for it.

One thing that we have to check is the possibility that our decks might run out too quickly with all those discard cards. Most probably they are not all meant to be included, a choise has to be made carefully. Offcourse there is a card on the core set that can help a bit on this yet the Noldor archetype though strong might be a bit difficult to handle, especially early on.

That last part is what I'm worried about. I assume 3 Will of the West are mandatory, but I don't know. Also I wonder if the deck can muster enough attack to kill a fair number of enemies. Apart from Glorfindel I can't think of a Noldor character with 3 attack in those spheres. Narya will be of great help I assume but the start can be rough as you draw a lot of stuff first round and a lot of them just can't be played (possibly Narya among them).

Considering Noldor get Elven spear and Rivendell blade I don't think killing things should be too much of an issue. Not to mention equipping Rivendell blade to an ally and readying them with Narya or something.

Well, I was talking about a Spirit Lore solo deck, and including those weapons requires resource fixing tricks, which take up too much deckspace.

I don't know, Erestor/Cirdain and ally Galdor will get you 5-6 cards a turn which can quite easily afford some room for songs into the deck and make the deck more than 50 cards. Put some rivendell minstrels in deck to fish for the song of battle or to the sea.

If you're feeling real ambitious also put Galadriel which you can play with Narya to fish for attachments or just master of the forge, once you have a single song of battle out they can spend the rest of the time pulling out other attachments.

I've found when using my Caldara deck that multiple 2-attack allies add up to kill things pretty effectively. For the larger enemies Fair and Perilous can help. If you're not sticking strictly to Noldor only you can have Quickbeam for another 3-attack option. And then of course there are good neutral options like OHaUH Gandalf and Treebeard.

That's another question I got. To what point does having Erestor and Cirdan warrant having more than 50 cards in the deck while still getting your key cards reliably? My hypothetical 50 card list is fairly event heavy, between Elven light, Lords of the Eldar, Elwing's Flight, Evening Star, Fair and Perilous, Will of the West, etc. Do you really need extra card draw like Daeron's Runes? Are there any heavy Noldor discard decklists out there? I would love to see one suited for solo.

I think it is still better to play with 50. And without Will of the West. However, that is 2-player. I am not sure about solo, how much longer the games actually take, but I would not assume too much. I still play them sometimes. The Noldor discard deck is perhaps not the best solo deck, a great 2-player deck for sure -- and not a support one, the leading one there, taking care of questing.