First off, hat tip to @DezzyBassist for giving me the core idea for this deck.

As part of the longer-running discussion about the utility of Leadership Eomer, I've been trying to think of ways to optimize him. @DezzyBassist pointed out that, using Nenya, Galadriel can boost Eomer's willpower during the quest phase. Unlike most other characters, Eomer can consistently attack during the quest phase, and so Herugrim can consistently convert that boosted willpower to boosted attack as well. 3-cost for a +5 attack boost? I'll take that card!

Galadriel's base ability is also exceptionally useful for an Eomer deck, which is constantly worried about threat and staying under engagement costs. She enables Elrond's Counsel, and opens up the powerful Mirror of Galadriel/Silver Harp combo for finding your important cards fast.

The choice of a third hero is a tough one. I've been split between Arwen for the resource acceleration, Glorfindel for the low threat, and Fastred to give me a decent defender with the ability to bounce enemies back to the staging area without needing events.

The deck I've currently put together along these lines uses Arwen, because I find that the resource generation is inordinately powerful. But I do struggle a little with threat and low engagement cost enemies, and I'm tempted to switch to Glorfindel just for that. And maybe add in Legacy of Numenor or something just to give me a resource boost when I need it.

But here's the deck I've been using so far!

Caught Between Morning and Evening

So - what does everyone think? Is there a good idea hidden here, or is it still not enough to make it worthwhile? Comments, suggestions, and optimization welcome!

And - just to be clear, I'm not worried about thematic restrictions on this deck, so anything that would make the deck more powerful is good.

I think it's a good idea, but since the key is to have Eomer routinely attack the staging area, I think Fastred/Galadriel is better for setting that up -- plus, Fastred will allow you to play the Arwen ally, very useful for a dedicated hero defender.

I like this idea. I think Fastred is the most natural 3rd hero choice. In addition to keeping your threat low, he allows you to defend against the inevitable enemies who do engage. Nenya's effect on Eomer is such a winning combination that I'm shocked I haven't seen anyone mention it before (maybe they have, but it didn't stick with me). It only lasts until the end of the phase, so if you want to combine it with Herugrim's attack bonus, Eomer is literally the best card available. Could be a fun deck! It can only really handle one enemy per turn though. Even with action advantage on Eomer, that attack boost requires an exhaust on Herugrim. So maybe in a 4 player setting (which is how I approach most decks these days) this concept would best be applied as a willpower deck, dedicated to questing, but filling an interesting little niche with some enemy removal.

I agree that Fastred is the obvious hero choice in a multiplayer context - even in 2 players, and most certainly in 4. What he offers can't be beat.

I'm not as convinced he's best in solo. I'll admit that I considered him - he can handle most low engagement cost enemies on his own and replaces A light in the dark and terrible to behold. And with ally Arwen, he's even better.

Do y'all think that Fastred/Galadriel/Eomer could be viable in solo?

2 hours ago, Onidsen said:

I agree that Fastred is the obvious hero choice in a multiplayer context - even in 2 players, and most certainly in 4. What he offers can't be beat.

I'm not as convinced he's best in solo. I'll admit that I considered him - he can handle most low engagement cost enemies on his own and replaces A light in the dark and terrible to behold. And with ally Arwen, he's even better.

Do y'all think that Fastred/Galadriel/Eomer could be viable in solo?

Sure, why not? You end up with an attacking Hero, a defending Hero, and a questing Hero; seems pretty balanced to me.

You'd need Nenya in your opening hand or game over.

2 hours ago, Authraw said:

Sure, why not? You end up with an attacking Hero, a defending Hero, and a questing Hero; seems pretty balanced to me.

Sure, but if you don't get Nenya round 1...

I guess it just feels swingy and inconsistent.

Of course, it's not like Arwen was much better. Less swingy on the quests, but more swingy on defense - if you got a low engagement cost enemy round 1.

I don't think it's necessarily Nenya round 1 or game over -- even though your heroes can't quest for squat without it, you have double spirit and can afford good questing allies; plus Galadriel/Fastred can lower threat by 3/turn, so earlier questing failures can be made up. Between Galadriel's ability and her mirror (which you'd want to be 3x in a Fastred deck), Nenya shouldn't take long to show up.

You would want to remake the deck to include more 2-cost spirit questers, and quite possibly Sneak Attack/Gandalf.

I still think you're looking at a good string of game overs.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

I don't think it's necessarily Nenya round 1 or game over -- even though your heroes can't quest for squat without it, you have double spirit and can afford good questing allies; plus Galadriel/Fastred can lower threat by 3/turn, so earlier questing failures can be made up. Between Galadriel's ability and her mirror (which you'd want to be 3x in a Fastred deck), Nenya shouldn't take long to show up.

You would want to remake the deck to include more 2-cost spirit questers, and quite possibly Sneak Attack/Gandalf.

You and I seem to be thinking among the same lines. Here's a rebuild of the deck to include Fastred that I've been working on today - unpublished because I haven't actually tested it yet. It seems to go in the same directions you brought up. Interesting that we both went to sneak attack Gandalf.

I also like Escort from Edoras for saving your questing for a turn, thus buying you time to dig for Nenya.

36 minutes ago, GrandSpleen said:

I still think you're looking at a good string of game overs.

I think it depends on the quest. Might be that way against Journey Along the Anduin - if your threat passes 30 because you quested unsuccessfully on the first round, there's not much you can do to salvage the run. But other quests can be more forgiving in that regard.

I like the rebuild. I agree Escort of Edoras is a good emergency-quest option. A few suggestions:

I'd replace Snowbourn Scout with Envoy of Pelargir -- same net cost, but the neutral sphere allows some resource smoothing and the Envoy provides 1 wp and 1 attack when not chumping.

As a hero defender, I think Fastred needs defensive support beyond Arwen ally and Protector of Lorien, especially since Protector is dependent on Nenya. I'd try to make room for 3x Dunedain Warning.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

I like the rebuild. I agree Escort of Edoras is a good emergency-quest option. A few suggestions:

I'd replace Snowbourn Scout with Envoy of Pelargir -- same net cost, but the neutral sphere allows some resource smoothing and the Envoy provides 1 wp and 1 attack when not chumping.

I'm conflicted on this one - you're absolutely right on the benefits of the Envoy, but the potential for Guthwine recycling with the Scout makes me think that the choice isn't immediately clear. I'll test the deck with both chump blockers and see which one runs better. Who knows, maybe I'll end up wanting both.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

As a hero defender, I think Fastred needs defensive support beyond Arwen ally and Protector of Lorien, especially since Protector is dependent on Nenya. I'd try to make room for 3x Dunedain Warning.

Agreed 100%, the only difficulty is figuring out what to cut. But that's really a function of testing again. I should be able to try it against one or two quests today, and more at the beginning of next week. My first impulse is that A Light in the Dark is the least necessary card in the deck, perhaps tied with Elrond's Counsel. Maybe Ride Them Down, but of my emergency event buttons, it's the one I prefer.

Also, I wish leadership had access to a hit point boost. That 3 hp on Fastred is just so squishy. It's why I normally run him with Raiment of War.

I think its a tie betweem Fastred and Arwen. Fastred has super consistent threat reduction, perhaps a Dunedain Warning along with Ally Arwen to compensate for the low, base health. I like Arwen because if you don't draw/mulligan into Nenya you still have early game questing. She also has resource/draw acceleration. With the extra uniques in the deck, if you didn't use her ability with Elven-Light that turn, you could pitch an extra Herugrim, Silver Harp it back to your hand. Basically just a repeatable, free resource.

Yes, Fastred's health is a problem, especially with no initial lore to make healing an option. Dunedain Remedy would give you a free healing point, but becomes expensive to re-use. Ring of Barahir would give him +1 hp, but no more without other artifacts and there's no other artifacts that would go well on Fastred -- except for Magic Ring, when that comes out. If he were Gondor you could use Livery of the Tower, but he's not. Ally Dori would be handy, except for the high leadership cost.

I actually like Light in the Dark a lot even with Fastred, because it can bounce the foes that are tough for him to handle. OTOH, if the attack is too hefty for Fastred, he may be too hefty for Eomer to quest-kill unless both Nenya and Herugrim are in play (which is admittedly the goal). I suppose once the Mirror is in play setting up a Good Harvest/Raiment of War combo would be doable, but that's yet more deck space to devote to a two-card combo.

My partner just suggested Spirit Beregond. Might fix some of your defensive woes.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

Yes, Fastred's health is a problem, especially with no initial lore to make healing an option. Dunedain Remedy would give you a free healing point, but becomes expensive to re-use. Ring of Barahir would give him +1 hp, but no more without other artifacts and there's no other artifacts that would go well on Fastred -- except for Magic Ring, when that comes out. If he were Gondor you could use Livery of the Tower, but he's not. Ally Dori would be handy, except for the high leadership cost.

Actually, it might be worth dropping Legacy of Numenor in favor of Steward of Gondor. That gives the Gondor trait, so I can drop the Protectors of Lorien in favor of Livery of the Tower (or maybe just 1 of each - I like the ability to discard extra in-hand cards). Put Steward on Fastred, and so on. It's a 2-card combo, true, but Steward isn't a dead card at all.

I've played a few runs, and I've consistently felt the resource crunch in both spheres, even with Legacy. And, while the Doomed 4 is not a problem at all after the the threat reduction engine gets running, it can often be deadly in the early game, when it is most needed. Steward would fix that. And granting the Gondor trait - along with the possibility of surplus resources - makes Livery of the Tower a live option. I think it's worth a couple of test runs, at least.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

I actually like Light in the Dark a lot even with Fastred, because it can bounce the foes that are tough for him to handle. OTOH, if the attack is too hefty for Fastred, he may be too hefty for Eomer to quest-kill unless both Nenya and Herugrim are in play (which is admittedly the goal). I suppose once the Mirror is in play setting up a Good Harvest/Raiment of War combo would be doable, but that's yet more deck space to devote to a two-card combo.

I love Light in the Dark. But with Fastred, I find it hard to justify the deck space. Canceling an attack is nice, but I like Ride Them Down better as a 2-cost dangerous attack nullifier - it gets rid of the enemy instead of just cancelling the attack and moving it back to the staging area. On the other hand, it only works on non-unique enemies, and it only works if you have enough surplus quest progress to eliminate the enemy, where Light in the Dark guarantees one cancelled attack. I can see the argument for either.

42 minutes ago, Authraw said:

My partner just suggested Spirit Beregond. Might fix some of your defensive woes.

Not a bad idea. I lose the bounce-back of Fastred, but get a more solid defender. Probably worth a run or two.

There are certain quests, like Escape from Umbar, where turn 1 burst willpower is needed. But in solo most quests don't need this. I've got a Dori/Dunhere/Fastred deck that works well and starts questing for 0. But the thing about double spirit heores is that your willpower can ramp up super quick, and the initial threat gain is quickly recovered with Fastred.

So with that in mind I don't see a problem with the Eomer/Galadriel/Fastred lineup.

13 minutes ago, Seastan said:

There are certain quests, like Escape from Umbar, where turn 1 burst willpower is needed. But in solo most quests don't need this. I've got a Dori/Dunhere/Fastred deck that works well and starts questing for 0. But the thing about double spirit heores is that your willpower can ramp up super quick, and the initial threat gain is quickly recovered with Fastred.

So with that in mind I don't see a problem with the Eomer/Galadriel/Fastred lineup.

I've run a few tests, with the most recent version (I don't know if the links update to edited versions - pardon me if the new link is unnecessary), and the deck has proven to be remarkably resilient against early unsuccessful questing so far.

And when it gets going, man is it powerful.

6 minutes ago, Onidsen said:

I've run a few tests, with the most recent version (I don't know if the links update to edited versions - pardon me if the new link is unnecessary), and the deck has proven to be remarkably resilient against early unsuccessful questing so far.

And when it gets going, man is it powerful.

Nice, this is what I threw together: http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/72816

Watch out: you put the wrong Eomer. I need few minutes to discover it. Before that I was like "Come on! Not even a tactic cards with a tactic hero? It can't be serious".

Oh, yeah it's not a published deck so when I changed it to tactics eomer to use in octgn the link updated as well.

On 9/30/2017 at 5:51 PM, Seastan said:

Nice, this is what I threw together: http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/72816

I like it a lot! Bofur is an excellent fit, and Silvan Refugee too. I might have to try and fit them in my deck - they might give even better results than Escort from Edoras (it's not like I have sufficient copies of Guthwine to be able to effectively use the recycle). Especially since you are likely to fail the quest on early rounds. Favor of the Lady is pulling double duty in that deck - it's probably much more worth the cost as a result. Do you put it on Galadriel, to maintain access to the extra willpower if Eomer isn't questing, or do you put it on Eomer so he can boost his attack during the combat phase too?

Finally, how useful do you find Elrond's Counsel in the deck? I had it in earlier versions, but I ended up cutting it for space.

7 hours ago, Onidsen said:

I like it a lot! Bofur is an excellent fit, and Silvan Refugee too. I might have to try and fit them in my deck - they might give even better results than Escort from Edoras (it's not like I have sufficient copies of Guthwine to be able to effectively use the recycle). Especially since you are likely to fail the quest on early rounds. Favor of the Lady is pulling double duty in that deck - it's probably much more worth the cost as a result. Do you put it on Galadriel, to maintain access to the extra willpower if Eomer isn't questing, or do you put it on Eomer so he can boost his attack during the combat phase too?

Finally, how useful do you find Elrond's Counsel in the deck? I had it in earlier versions, but I ended up cutting it for space.

Favor of the Lady in this deck is essentially a non-restricted version Mirkwood long-knives. It's an opportunity to play a card that is otherwise never used, so I couldn't pass it up. I put them on Eomer because they help for bosses that are immune to Eomer's ability.

Elrond's Counsel can be good when Eomer is 1-short of killing an enemy, although I found that a pretty rare occurrence. If I were to swap them out they'd probably be for some resource-generating cards like Steward, Gaining Strength, or Tighten our Belts.