Power of the Eldar

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Arwen Undómiel (The Dread Realm)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
Galdor of the Havens (The Grey Havens)

Ally (29)

3x Elrond (The Road Darkens)
3x Elven Jeweler (Escape from Mount Gram)
3x Gildor Inglorion (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Gléowine (Core Set)
3x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
3x Guardian of Rivendell (Flight of the Stormcaller)
3x Imladris Caregiver (Flight of the Stormcaller)
2x Ioreth (A Storm of Cobas Haven)
2x Lindir (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
1x Rivendell Minstrel (The Hunt for Gollum)
3x Sailor of Lune (The Grey Havens)

Attachment (11)
1x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
3x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
3x Silver Harp (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
2x Steed of Imladris (Across the Ettenmoors)
3x To the Sea, to the Sea! (The Grey Havens)

Event (10)
3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
1x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
2x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Flight of the Stormcaller

Deck built on RingsDB .



Here's another deck I've been playing recently that I really enjoy playing. Now that Ioreth is finally arriving soon, I felt it was time to finally post it.

What's interesting about this deck is that it utilises so much Noldor synergy to turn every card in your hand into a many number of things:
Extra resources with Arwen Undomiel, To the Sea, to the Sea!, Elven Jeweler (in lieu of paying its cost)
Extra willpower with Protector of Lorien
Extra defence with Protector of Lorien
Healing with Imladris Caregiver


The central components and general strategy of this deck :

Draw a bunch of cards and throw them all over the place. Into play, into your discard, you'll even remove some from the game. You'll draw your whole deck and use your discard as an extended hand, and every card in your hand can be used for its normal value, or as listed above. You will never have a large hand of cards wondering what to do except at the beginning of the game and once per game if/when you use Galdor's ability. Outside of that, you'll have a set hand of about 4-5 cards, and your options will be pretty varied.

Erestor is absolutely essential for this deck, and for two reasons. His card draw enables a handsize large enough to enable some of the combos, but his discard ability places an impetus on the player to absolutely use all of those cards for something. This deck is prone to analysis paralysis, especially when first playing it a few times, but giving that hard limit of 'use it or lose it' forces the player to keep the aggression going instead of hoping to keep their options open and never committing to a decision.

To the Sea, To the Sea! and Arwen Undomiel perform the same function: resource acceleration and resource smoothing. Protip: an amazing thing I love to do is discard Glorfindel to reduce his own cost for To the Sea, to the Sea!, and then play him from the discard pile.

Protector of Lorien, Steed of Imladris, Imladris Caregiver, and Glorfindel fill the gaps. Don't need that card for anything else? Get some extra progress on the quest, some healing, or use Glorfindel's great stats for every phase.

Other components and features :

Galdor of the Havens - his setup ability is great for pre-pitching cards like Elven-light and Glorfindel, and his once-per-game ability can catalyse a big power turn.

Gleowine helps give you more options, more resources, more questing, anything really. He can also help your teammates.

Gildor Inglorien, Glorfindel, and Guardian of Rivendell are all high-cost allies with amazing stats. To the Sea, to the Sea! and Erestor's card draw make playing them possible. There's 3 copies of each so you can see them early, and later copies can be pitched for something else. I typically only play one Guardian of Rivendell, and the other two are unique anyway. The great thing about Glorfindel is that he can help reduce his own cost and can be pitched early and still played later, unlike any other ally. That along with extra actions gained by pitching extra cards make him very powerful in this deck.

Elrond, Lindir, and Rivendell Minstrel are all 3-cost allies with some built-in drawing effect. Lindir can draw up to 3, if he is the last card you play. Rivendell Minstrel can draw an extra copy of To the Sea, to the Sea!, and Elrond can give everyone the chance to draw 1 card or remove a nasty condition attachment. Elrond can also be used for some emergency healing, as can Ioreth, supplemented by Imladris Caregiver

Elven-light is amazing in this deck. If every card in your hand is effectively one extra resource, this card turns one resource into 2 pretty much every turn. What's more, Sailor of Lune is pretty much guaranteed to have 2 willpower and immunity to damage every quest phase.

Elven Jeweler is often often pitched for some effect, but if you have 2 extra cards you were going to pitch for Protector of Lorien for example, it's a bit better to go for the Jeweler, since she stays around. Another nice benefit is you can bring her out in any phase, for a surprise chump blocker late in the turn.

A Burning Brand typically goes on Erestor with Protector of Lorien, but i usually have Guardian of Rivendell and lots of cards getting pitched for extra willpower. I'm honestly considering taking it out, but it's nice to have.

Silver Harp is great for expanding your options. You can't discard the same card twice for To the Sea, to the Sea!, but you can discard it twice for Arwen and TtSttS!, or discard several times for extra questing power. It also gives every Noldor ally the same ability that Glorfindel has, being able to discard itself to reduce its own cost.

Steed of Imladris is better than Protector of Lorien, if there is an active location. I waffle on this attachment and always ultimately include it, but I never play more than 1 and occasionally don't play it at all.

Deep Knowledge is the best card draw per resources this deck can have. Granted, you're getting a Doomed 2 effect at the same time, but the extra card draw can help you gain the momentum you need. If you're worried about the Doomed keyword, Daeron's Runes or Mithrandir's Advice are decent replacements. Lorien's Wealth is decent if you want the option of helping your fellow players.

Will of the West and Dwarven Tomb: the strategy is to basically use the last copy of either of them that you draw to avoid risk of overdrawing the deck; just be sure to grab at least one Elven-light from your discard before doing so. Also, 2x Will of the West and 1x Dwarven Tomb make this deck single core compatible. I usually run 2x Dwarven Tomb and 1x Will of the West, since Dwarven Tomb can be used occasionally to grab a discarded To the Sea, to the Sea!, Linhir, or Sailor of Lune, but there's an argument that can be made for simply using 3x Will of the West, since it more consistently saves on resources (since Dwarven Tomb + Will of the West is one extra resource vs the scenario of just drawing Will of the West and using it instead).

Some other considerations :

A Spirit deck that doesn't use A Test of Will?! Am I mad? Yes, unfortunately. That is one of the big weaknesses of this deck. You can't save cards for later due to Erestor's ability, so unless Hasty Stroke, A Test of Will, etc. are useful the exact turn you draw them every time, they just get pitched, but since you have to save them for later in the round to find out if they're useful, they can only ever be used for Protector of Lorien really, which isn't a strong selling point for including the card.

I originally tried The Evening Star and Elwing's Flight, but never found that they were super impactful. They also suffered from the same problem as Hasty Stroke and A Test of Will.

Lords of the Eldar. It can just be pitched early and saved for when you need it! Except I never needed it. Also, while this deck doesn't really have resource problems, I rarely had 3 Spirit resources saved up anyway. I kept waffling on this card, but eventually took it out with no regrets except that the name really fit with the name I gave to the deck.

Spirit Glorfindel hero. He was initially included, and he was pretty awesome, but ultimately his ally version proved too strong.

Cirdan the Shipwright. This deck could perhaps benefit from him in lieu of Galdor, but I liked Galdor's reduced threat and strong once-per-game ability. Cirdan doesn't have a net gain of cards in hand, and this deck has a tendency to go through the deck really quickly anyway. That said, something can be said for the benefit of Silver Harp and Cirdan for starting each turn with 5 cards.

--

Let me know what you think of the deck. How have your Noldor decks turned out since Angmar Awakened and the Dreamchaser cycles? Is mine drastically different?

Just wanted to say I've had similar experiences with Lords of the Eldar. By the time you have spirit resources saved up you either want to use them for other cards or don't really need the boost from Lords of the Eldar because you have a powerful board state set up as is and more than enough questing and combat power. It is a great card for sure but I too found that many times I just did not use it and all I did was discard it for discard effects. I took it out and put it back into my decks several times but ultimately kept it out as it just wasn't serving any purpose. Considering that after you play it from discard you put it on the bottom of your deck I think it might have still been balanced and far more useful at 2 cost. I actually named one version of my Noldor deck after this card: "Lords of the Eldar" and so taking this card out of that deck was both extremely ironic and hard to do!

i originally included three!

it still never got used.

Just wanted to say I've had similar experiences with Lords of the Eldar. By the time you have spirit resources saved up you either want to use them for other cards or don't really need the boost from Lords of the Eldar because you have a powerful board state set up as is and more than enough questing and combat power. It is a great card for sure but I too found that many times I just did not use it and all I did was discard it for discard effects. I took it out and put it back into my decks several times but ultimately kept it out as it just wasn't serving any purpose. Considering that after you play it from discard you put it on the bottom of your deck I think it might have still been balanced and far more useful at 2 cost. I actually named one version of my Noldor deck after this card: "Lords of the Eldar" and so taking this card out of that deck was both extremely ironic and hard to do!

I think that the cost is fair and the card is very powerfull.

If you arrive to empty your deck, everey turn it's just +1 to all stats. The most powerfull boost of all tribal archetype.

With this deck : https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/1709/agressive-deck-series-3-noldor-1.0 , i arrive to empty my deck very quickly (between 3rd - 5th turn). With a lot of generation of ressources, i arrived to play up to 4 times Lord of The eldar in one turn and so quest for 27 wp with only 4 character, defend 3 times Thaurdir without loss and one shot it in the same turn !

Just imagine Glorfindel ally with 7 wp 7 attk 5 def and a ready effect

i think that's an interesting game state to be in, and it was initially one of the goals of this deck: draw your whole deck, then just spam Lords of the Eldar every turn, but this deck is really trying to do something a bit different in the end, so i took them out

Well, as I said elsewhere, I have the exact opposite experience with Lords of the Eldar. This type of deck never got going until I started successfully using it, and Círdan's Narya. I can't see managing harder quests with the line-up above, and believe I have tried and tried… I now really dig the version with Stargazer and Zigil to try and play Lords as many times as possible...

Well, as I said elsewhere, I have the exact opposite experience with Lords of the Eldar. This type of deck never got going until I started successfully using it, and Círdan's Narya. I can't see managing harder quests with the line-up above, and believe I have tried and tried… I now really dig the version with Stargazer and Zigil to try and play Lords as many times as possible...

you seem to be saying:

my deck is unoriginal: you tried exactly it already

my deck is absolute crap against 'harder quests', so why bother playing it at all? i'm not sure what that point was...

adding in a whole bunch of new cards that i said don't really fit into the goal of the deck will simply make it better, but that's ok, because:

adding in a whole bunch of cards and changing the entire dynamic of how the deck works and plays will somehow still make it the same deck

is that about correct?

i feel like you just looked at the deck and thought 'oh, it's another Noldor deck without Lords of the Eldar....' instead of actually reading anything i've said about it

13nrv's contribution is interesting because it talks specifically about Lords of the Eldar and posts a deck in which is works well, but he's not comparing the two because, as i said multiple times in this thread, this specific deck is trying something completely different, and therefore, they are completely different decks.

i do like Lords of the Eldar, as i do like many other cards that i eventually simply don't include in certain decks because they don't fit into everything else it's doing.

i like A Test of Will and Hasty Stroke as well and almost always auto-include them into any Spirit deck i make, but i specifically did not include them because they, like Lords of the Eldar, don't really work with the main mechanics of this deck.

Oh well, I know, I spoke too harshly. I should not have done so, and I apologize for that.

I was trying to express a very contradictory experience I have with such decks. I used to run hero Erestor for a long, long time. I usually proxy a card immediately after the spoiler, so I usually play them months before they get out. And I was indeed having a very similar deck to what you have above. I am not saying it was not working at all, it just seemed very inferior to the version I am having right now: which is based around Lords of the Eldar and Narya. Maybe it is a different style of playing, maybe a different choice of quests, but the two do not feel on the same level in terms of power. I was put off (for whatever reason) by the comments about Lords of the Eldar, and I would encourage you to try such decks again, where you can have Gildor and Glorfindel allies pulling the weight in questing, defense and attack. The Elwing's Flight is another favourite in there, not that I play it every game, but I think two out of three games it has a huge impact on the quest.

One more thing: I still feel Erestor based decks are very interesting. I much prefer Galdor, Arwen, Círdan for the reasons above but I understand the uniqueness of the experience with the above.

And one more, actually. If you already run Silver Harp, you might as well run A Test of Will there, to save it for when it is needed. But then again, the chance of having it discarded on round 1 and 2, especially, is quite high. Still, even one copy played may save you a game every now and then.

Oh well, I know, I spoke too harshly. I should not have done so, and I apologize for that.

I was trying to express a very contradictory experience I have with such decks. I used to run hero Erestor for a long, long time. I usually proxy a card immediately after the spoiler, so I usually play them months before they get out. And I was indeed having a very similar deck to what you have above. I am not saying it was not working at all, it just seemed very inferior to the version I am having right now: which is based around Lords of the Eldar and Narya. Maybe it is a different style of playing, maybe a different choice of quests, but the two do not feel on the same level in terms of power. I was put off (for whatever reason) by the comments about Lords of the Eldar, and I would encourage you to try such decks again, where you can have Gildor and Glorfindel allies pulling the weight in questing, defense and attack. The Elwing's Flight is another favourite in there, not that I play it every game, but I think two out of three games it has a huge impact on the quest.

i think it should be cleared up that i don't think it's a bad card, just that it didn't fit into the deck. if i were really try Lords of the Eldar again, it would be quite a different deck, most likely with Arwen and Cirdan, and really just much more Spirit-focused at any rate.

One more thing: I still feel Erestor based decks are very interesting. I much prefer Galdor, Arwen, Círdan for the reasons above but I understand the uniqueness of the experience with the above.

And one more, actually. If you already run Silver Harp, you might as well run A Test of Will there, to save it for when it is needed. But then again, the chance of having it discarded on round 1 and 2, especially, is quite high. Still, even one copy played may save you a game every now and then.

that a good point about A Test of Will. actually, Silver Harp was another card i waffled on quite a bit, and it was absent for quite a while, so banking a card like A Test of Will was never really something i considered.

Yes, Lords is a great card, one of the strongest out there in my opinion, but you need a proper deck, of course. 2 Spirit heroes helps, a discard tool or two (given now), and a bit of a resource acceleration on top of a deck filled with Noldor.

Some suggestion to your deck. Cut Gléowine, the card draw may be too unpredictable with him, I feel, and he's not Noldo. The one copy of A Burning Brand must be way too random to have any impact. You will surely discard it on round 1, and it may be too late to play it later. Deep Knowledge seems unnecessary, too, from my experience. And I have never tried Steed of Imladris, is it any good? It feels Protector is just so much better.

Then, if you have Protector and you might do some defending with Erestor, add Miruvor. It is a great card here. Early, when you do not want to discard it, just play it and put it on top (and get the resource back) to save it for later. Erestor can quest and fight with it. Maybe even consider Lembas for the double duty, might be better than Ioreth.

The one copy of A Burning Brand must be way too random to have any impact. You will surely discard it on round 1, and it may be too late to play it later.

Why would it be discarded on round 1? There's two Lore heroes and Arwen besides? Looking at the card list, I don't see anything so crucial in Lore that I would certainly toss a round one Burning Brand if it happened to show up.

I find the statement that one copy of BB "must be way too random to have any impact" curious. Having only one copy of a powerful card -- any powerful card -- will certainly make it far less *consistent* and may show up late or not at all (though this is less true of an Erestor deck). But *if* it shows up, why wouldn't it make an impact? I actually love peppering my decks with one-offs of unique cards that I think are worth playing, that way I've never sad by seeing two of them in my hand, but if/when they show up they certainly do have an impact. Doing that *certainly* affects a deck's consistency, so it's not a practice I expect to ever see in power decks, but I find the variety in play that comes from one-offs can be fun, as can bloating decks past 50 cards to gain variety at the expense of consistency.

I too like cards like that. Fun is important. But A Burning Brand is not a particularly fun card, quite the opposite actually, and here is not effective either, so I do not see your point at all. Gildor has no boost and Erestor is weak to start with; he can be Protector as I said above, but that is inconsistent also.

The one copy of A Burning Brand must be way too random to have any impact. You will surely discard it on round 1, and it may be too late to play it later.

Why would it be discarded on round 1? There's two Lore heroes and Arwen besides? Looking at the card list, I don't see anything so crucial in Lore that I would certainly toss a round one Burning Brand if it happened to show up.

Pretty much any other Lore card above is a better play on round 1.

[edit] I re-checked, and I stand corrected: not pretty much any other, but every other.

Some suggestion to your deck. Cut Gléowine, the card draw may be too unpredictable with him, I feel, and he's not Noldo. The one copy of A Burning Brand must be way too random to have any impact. You will surely discard it on round 1, and it may be too late to play it later. Deep Knowledge seems unnecessary, too, from my experience. And I have never tried Steed of Imladris, is it any good? It feels Protector is just so much better.

Then, if you have Protector and you might do some defending with Erestor, add Miruvor. It is a great card here. Early, when you do not want to discard it, just play it and put it on top (and get the resource back) to save it for later. Erestor can quest and fight with it. Maybe even consider Lembas for the double duty, might be better than Ioreth.

i'm not sure what you mean by card draw being too unpredictable with him. and as for him not being Noldor, i don't feel it's a problem, honestly. Gleowine helps this deck imo, and therefore warrents inclusion. if theme is a concern, he still fits a secondary theme of being minstrel, but that extra card per turn is actually quite powerful. additionally, he's in the deck to help other players with card draw in multiplayer. one aspect of many of my decks is that it often is designed to help in multiplayer in some way because i love multiplayer in this game.

as for ABB, i feel that i'd rather take the last copy out rather than add more in, but i've already discussed the reasons why above, but the reasons you gave in the above two posts seem to argue that the deck would be overall better for taking it out completely.

as for Deep Knowledge, again, this isn't that kind of deck. its primary goal is to draw as many cards as possible and leverage them for something. Deep Knowledge is the only Lore-sphere drawing event in the game that has a net gain of cards (and therefore, resources). Daeron's Runes (plays itself and discards another to draw 2) and Mithrandir's Advice (plays itself and 1 resource to draw 2) are both neutral, and Lorien's Wealth (plays itself and 3 resources to draw 3) is actually a net loss. Deep Knowledge is a net gain (plays itself and draws 2) but also helps other players with card draw as well (and as i said, it's a staple of many decks i design). and like any card in the deck, it can simply be discarded if the threat is too much of a cost. Elven-light is the main card-drawing event for the deck though, spending 1 resource to gain 2 cards and additionally gaining the benefit of discarding it on top of the discard pile for Sailor of Lune.

EDIT: Peace, and Thought is a huge boost for itself, 1 resource, and 5 cards (a gain of 3), but you must exhaust 2 heroes, who will quest for at least 4 total nearly every round, so again, it is a net loss

Steed of Imladris is never more than a one-of play for me, and as i said, it's something that isn't crucial to the deck because Protector of Lorien exists and is in this deck already. that said, it essentially provides 2 questing versus 1, plus it can help extend the life of Protector since it has a limit per phase. Steed of Imladris is another card i've waffled on quite often though and was absent for a time. it is by no means essential for this deck. that said, it's a great card where mounts are important

Miruvor might be an interesting inclusion, especially with Erestor's card drawing, and could help with resource smoothing as well (not that this deck particularly needs it)

Lembas is actually a card i included for a while and eventually took out for another deck, so it had slipped my mind. however, the heroes often don't defend, so i never really gave it much thought.

one card i'd mention that i had forgotten previously is Elrond's Counsel. it's a 0-cost event with +1 willpower and -3 threat, wherein it is obviously always better to play it than simply discard for Protector of Lorien

however, threat isn't often a concern for this deck, and is the reason i took it out.

Yeah, Elrond's Counsel, whilst great, does not really fit this deck, as the threat is already quite low. I also took it out of this particular type of deck.

I too like cards like that. Fun is important. But A Burning Brand is not a particularly fun card, quite the opposite actually, and here is not effective either, so I do not see your point at all. Gildor has no boost and Erestor is weak to start with; he can be Protector as I said above, but that is inconsistent also.

We have different preferences. What I think is not particularly fun is having my quest destroyed by a nasty shadow effect, so I rather like A Burning Brand and hardly think of it as "the opposite" of fun. Erestor's 2D/4HP doesn't make for a particularly strong defender to start, but Burning Brand lets him defend without risk of death, which he otherwise could not do, and with Protector of Lorien, healing, and massive card draw, he can safely defend against most enemies. Gildor at 3/3 is as strong as any other ally defenders, so A Burning Brand would also look fine on him.

However, not all quests have shadows that would pose quest-threatening damage to Erestor with Protector of Lorien, or to defense by a 3 defense ally, so the power of ABB will vary widely -- I often put shadow cancellation cards in my sideboard. If dr00 finds himself tossing it whenever it comes up, then it's a worthy candidate for cutting in any case.

The one copy of A Burning Brand must be way too random to have any impact. You will surely discard it on round 1, and it may be too late to play it later.

Why would it be discarded on round 1? There's two Lore heroes and Arwen besides? Looking at the card list, I don't see anything so crucial in Lore that I would certainly toss a round one Burning Brand if it happened to show up.

Pretty much any other Lore card above is a better play on round 1.

[edit] I re-checked, and I stand corrected: not pretty much any other, but every other.

I re-checked, and I still disagree with you:

1) Elrond -- requires extra resource. No conditions to remove, no healing to be done, so a one-round ally and a single card draw to add to your ten cards. Sorry, I'd rather have the permanent shadow cancellation 99 times out of 100 compared to playing Elrond in round one.

2) Gildor Inglorion -- five resources, so unless you have To the Sea! To the Sea! he's unplayable round one. If you *do* have it, play it, discard cards to put Gildor in play for one (Arwen's discard), slap ABB on him and you have a 3/3 defender who is shadow-immune.

3) Gleowine -- I like Gleowine and if I had 1x Gleowine and 3x ABB I would certainly put Gleowine down. With the ratios reversed, I'd play ABB and trust in the card draw for Gleowine to come up again soon.

4) Imaldris Caregiver -- very powerful in this deck, but with ABB I'll need the services left often. If I have To the Sea! To the Sea! in play I can have both.

5) Rivendell Minstrel -- also a 1x. If I don't have To the Sea! To the Sea! in hand, I definitely go with the Minstrel. If I do have it in hand, the Minstrel's expendable, unless I don't have another target for it and I can get both.

6) Protector of Lorien -- if I have both POL and ABB in my opening hand, I'd want to put both on Erestor to set him up for risk-free, solid defense.

And that's it. Now that's just me, and obviously you would play it differently, in which case ABB makes this deck weaker *for you*, and would make this deck stronger *for me*.

Well, I disagree on all the points. Gléowine is closest, I still feel he has no place here, just like the Brand. Of course you want To the Sea! You have got to always mulligan for it because it is by far your strongest opening card. And with it, all Noldor allies cost 1 and are infinitely better play than the Brand. If you can't see that, it is okay, but then there is little point to argue the mechanics of the game since we just happen to have a very different understanding of it, even though I feel we have a very similar understanding of the Tolkien lore from some of your interesting insights I have seen.

And by the way, I always found inserting these "for me" or "for you" marks redundant to say the least. Of course, each and every one here is stating their opinion, rather than universal facts. Is there someone so naive not to understand that, you think?

I too like cards like that. Fun is important. But A Burning Brand is not a particularly fun card, quite the opposite actually, and here is not effective either, so I do not see your point at all. Gildor has no boost and Erestor is weak to start with; he can be Protector as I said above, but that is inconsistent also.

We have different preferences. What I think is not particularly fun is having my quest destroyed by a nasty shadow effect, so I rather like A Burning Brand and hardly think of it as "the opposite" of fun. Erestor's 2D/4HP doesn't make for a particularly strong defender to start, but Burning Brand lets him defend without risk of death, which he otherwise could not do, and with Protector of Lorien, healing, and massive card draw, he can safely defend against most enemies. Gildor at 3/3 is as strong as any other ally defenders, so A Burning Brand would also look fine on him.

But with the one copy, your chances of preventing that one nasty shadow effect destroying the game is not very high, is it?

Well, I disagree on all the points. Gléowine is closest, I still feel he has no place here, just like the Brand. Of course you want To the Sea! You have got to always mulligan for it because it is by far your strongest opening card. And with it, all Noldor allies cost 1 and are infinitely better play than the Brand. If you can't see that, it is okay, but then there is little point to argue the mechanics of the game since we just happen to have a very different understanding of it, even though I feel we have a very similar understanding of the Tolkien lore from some of your interesting insights I have seen.

And by the way, I always found inserting these "for me" or "for you" marks redundant to say the least. Of course, each and every one here is stating their opinion, rather than universal facts. Is there someone so naive not to understand that, you think?

Yes, To the Sea! is absolutely the most important card and you absolutely want it in your first hand. And with it *one* Noldor ally costs *one* resource, since it exhausts and is unique. Since To the Sea! is spirit and since Arwen can effectively provide either a lore or spirit resource with her discard, that means if you play To the Sea! and your very favorite Noldor ally in hand, you have either two lore or one lore and one spirit resource to spend on everything else -- and the only conceivable one-cost spirit play in turn one is Steed of Imaldris, only a 2x card, and one that in many quests isn't immediately useful in the first turn (no active location).

What this means is that if you have TTS!TTS! in hand, and the majority of the time you will, ABB isn't competing with any cost 3+ allies in your hand, nor is it competing with Ioreth (free). The only cards ABB would actually be competing with are Gleowine, Imladris Caregiver and Protector of Lorien. You said that after re-checking you'd prefer *every other* Lore card as a turn one play -- but two of the lore cards *can't* interfere with a turn-one ABB play, Ioreth because she's too cheap and Gildor because he's too expensive.

Is calling out "to me" and "to you" redundant? Well, for something like whether ABB is fun or the opposite of fun, yes. Also for whether ABB or Elrond would be a better first-turn play in solo, that would be a matter of opinion. But the point I was trying to make wasn't that our opinions differed, it was simply that the relative value of the card in the deck is altered by our opinions. For you, piloting this deck, ABB is a wasted deck slot, because you wouldn't play it. Any card, no matter how powerful when used, is a coaster if it is consistently ignored in the deck. The power of ABB is completely irrelevant. Now for me, because I would use it, the power level of ABB is relevant, and then we can get down to a tactical discussion of the relative merits of (say) playing Elrond instead of ABB in turn one where "to me" and "to you" would be unnecessary.

Now since dr00 only has one copy, is thinking about taking it out, and most of the time relies on Guardian of Rivendell for defense, it may absolutely be true that he can make the deck better *for him* by taking the card out and replacing it with a third copy of Steed of Imladris. And it may be equally true that making that change may make the deck worse for someone trying his deck who really loves ABB. I find the effect interesting, because it's not present to this extent in any other game I've played.

I too like cards like that. Fun is important. But A Burning Brand is not a particularly fun card, quite the opposite actually, and here is not effective either, so I do not see your point at all. Gildor has no boost and Erestor is weak to start with; he can be Protector as I said above, but that is inconsistent also.

We have different preferences. What I think is not particularly fun is having my quest destroyed by a nasty shadow effect, so I rather like A Burning Brand and hardly think of it as "the opposite" of fun. Erestor's 2D/4HP doesn't make for a particularly strong defender to start, but Burning Brand lets him defend without risk of death, which he otherwise could not do, and with Protector of Lorien, healing, and massive card draw, he can safely defend against most enemies. Gildor at 3/3 is as strong as any other ally defenders, so A Burning Brand would also look fine on him.

But with the one copy, your chances of preventing that one nasty shadow effect destroying the game is not very high, is it?

Maybe not, but I can hardly complain that the ABB I never drew didn't prevent the shadow. That's the cost of using a 1x power card, but also the thrill of it. Just about any leadership deck is better off for having 3x Steward of Gondor (solo), but if you construct a leadership deck with just 1x Steward of Gondor, the games where it shows up will be more memorable--and it hardly means that taking out the lone Steward of Gondor will necessarily make the deck "better". More consistent, yes. But consistency isn't everything.

The Dori fellowship I played against the Against the Shadow cycle featured TaBoromir and had all the tools to make him the rockstar he is in Seastan's famous deck -- Steward of Gondor, Gondorian Fire, Blood of Numenor -- even A Burning Brand and Song of Wisdom. But it wasn't designed to make him that superstar in every game -- 2x Steward of Gondor, 2x Gondorian Fire, 1x Blood of Numenor, 1x Burning Brand, 2x Song of Wisdom. (I did have the other ABBs and SoW in the sideboard, for particularly nasty-shadowed quests.) I'm not sure I ever got all five cards on him at once, but he's still Boromir and I still managed to win most of the time. And cutting down on the cards that quickly and monotonously make him a superstar, enabled me to have about 1/4th of my cards be singletons, and experience a greater variety of play. Each of the cards individually were still useful when they were played, even if it didn't enable the massive power of all of them together.

Now dr00's deck isn't like that, there's only 3 singletons in the deck, none of which are unique. Despite the massive card draw, I think it's fair to say that there's no intention to set up worry-free hero defense in every game. But just because something won't happen in every game hardly means that it's not worth doing when it does become available.

Well, I disagree on all the points. Gléowine is closest, I still feel he has no place here, just like the Brand. Of course you want To the Sea! You have got to always mulligan for it because it is by far your strongest opening card. And with it, all Noldor allies cost 1 and are infinitely better play than the Brand. If you can't see that, it is okay, but then there is little point to argue the mechanics of the game since we just happen to have a very different understanding of it, even though I feel we have a very similar understanding of the Tolkien lore from some of your interesting insights I have seen.

And by the way, I always found inserting these "for me" or "for you" marks redundant to say the least. Of course, each and every one here is stating their opinion, rather than universal facts. Is there someone so naive not to understand that, you think?

Is calling out "to me" and "to you" redundant? Well, for something like whether ABB is fun or the opposite of fun, yes. Also for whether ABB or Elrond would be a better first-turn play in solo, that would be a matter of opinion. But the point I was trying to make wasn't that our opinions differed, it was simply that the relative value of the card in the deck is altered by our opinions. For you, piloting this deck, ABB is a wasted deck slot, because you wouldn't play it. Any card, no matter how powerful when used, is a coaster if it is consistently ignored in the deck. The power of ABB is completely irrelevant. Now for me, because I would use it, the power level of ABB is relevant, and then we can get down to a tactical discussion of the relative merits of (say) playing Elrond instead of ABB in turn one where "to me" and "to you" would be unnecessary.

Yes, I understand. I only meant that it is obvious that whatever we state here is our opinion, be it power or fun value of certain card, so that it is not needed to point out it is an opinion...

And yes, you are right about the resource distribution as well. You can totally play ABB round 1, and TtS!TtS! with a Noldor ally. Of course, you can also save the Spirit resource. Again, it is a bit hard to argue all that with a perspective upon a deck which doesn't follow the same perspective, as I would never ever have taken out LoftE from a Noldor discard because I find it the strongest addition to such an archetype, and I would rather save Spirit resources for that (or even something cool like Elwing's Flight) instead of investing Arwen's ability into ABB.

Coming back to this deck, the lack of action advantage is really striking here. I feel like that is what Noldor do so great with Light of Valinor, Miruvor (not for them only, of course) and even Narya. That is why LoftE shine so much, because you oft get multiple bonuses on a single character.

The Dori fellowship I played against the Against the Shadow cycle featured TaBoromir and had all the tools to make him the rockstar he is in Seastan's famous deck -- Steward of Gondor, Gondorian Fire, Blood of Numenor -- even A Burning Brand and Song of Wisdom. But it wasn't designed to make him that superstar in every game -- 2x Steward of Gondor, 2x Gondorian Fire, 1x Blood of Numenor, 1x Burning Brand, 2x Song of Wisdom. (I did have the other ABBs and SoW in the sideboard, for particularly nasty-shadowed quests.) I'm not sure I ever got all five cards on him at once, but he's still Boromir and I still managed to win most of the time. And cutting down on the cards that quickly and monotonously make him a superstar, enabled me to have about 1/4th of my cards be singletons, and experience a greater variety of play. Each of the cards individually were still useful when they were played, even if it didn't enable the massive power of all of them together.

This is an interesting example. Boromir is one of my favourite characters in the story, and he easily becomes that in the game as well. But I absolutely hate the decks where he becomes the centre of the universe. I especially despise Blood and Fire designs in combo with Steward. I do like Livery of the Tower, however. I always try to find deck where Tactics Boromir can use his action advantage in other role, like exhausting for Peace, and Thought or Ravens of the Mountain, even to help with Hail of Stones. The games where you set him up with A Burning Brand and sentinel are just a waste of time "for me". 8)

Well... The Donland Trap nightmare mode in pure solo gives Nodlor decks a hard time... couldn't beat it a single time...