I know people are still reeling from the latest errata putting an end to their favourite heroes. Caldara just went from being the cornerstone of one of the most powerful decks in the game to being binder fodder.
Or did she?
What if she can still play a crucial part in a deck that's capable of beating every quest in the game?
Thanks for sharing this. As I thought there is no longer need for Caldara to be resurrected or to be set-up wih Sword Thane. So basically you just play a mono spirit deck who, one time, an ally bonus thanks to Caldara.
I'm not a big fan of your good harvest tech. First because stand and fight seem to be superior. Then I found that with many allies you usually can just pass on the heal part. Since you play 3 jubayr you still be able to play another one when the first die.
I'm surprised not to see steward of gondor, in order to ensure production generation to provide all those big allies.
Edited by Rouxxor57 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:Thanks for sharing this. As I thought there is no longer need for Caldara to be resurrected or to be set-up wih Sword Thane. So basically you just play a mono spirit deck who, one time, an ally bonus thanks to Caldara.
I'm not a big fan of your good harvest tech. First because stand and fight seem to be superior. Then I found that with many allies you usually can just pass on the heal part. Since you play 3 jubayr you still be able to play another one when the first die.
I'm surprised not to see steward of gondor, in order to ensure production generation to provide all those big allies.
I agree with you on Stand and Fight being better.
But I did find the healing necessary. I think you forget that this Caldara deck is different. You can't keep bringing back allies from the dead. You need them to stay alive. Jubayr has only 3 hit points. What do you do against a quest where you keep having to engage:
Without healing I found it very difficult to beat quests with these types of effects.
Edited by SeastanBut if it pleases you, you can just put those in the sideboard and add in more spirit allies.
I'm used to deck who can't bring back tons of allies. It is what we do with any other deck than Caldara anyway ^^. Zealous traitor and mirkwood bat are fatal only when the third one came out, and we are sometime in trouble with the second. I understand that those allies can also came out from a very good tale but when you need to discard it to resurrect it with stand and fight you have paying it too much.
I will play the deck soon so I will have a more complete argumentation at this time :).
I'm a bit curious about your Belegost version. Without Arwen it is not nearly as easy to get the high cost allies in the bin. So it takes much longer to set up. (Cirdan can only discard one of the two cards drawn of course.)
Comments?
3 hours ago, Rouxxor said:I'm used to deck who can't bring back tons of allies. It is what we do with any other deck than Caldara anyway ^^. Zealous traitor and mirkwood bat are fatal only when the third one came out, and we are sometime in trouble with the second. I understand that those allies can also came out from a very good tale but when you need to discard it to resurrect it with stand and fight you have paying it too much.
I will play the deck soon so I will have a more complete argumentation at this time :).
There are 4 bats in Mirkwood and 3 traitors in Steward's Fear. Maybe I got unlucky but I would frequently see 2-3 in each game.
The goal here is to have a deck with a good win rate against all quests. Not a deck with a super high win rate against most quests. if I took out the healers to be more consistent, it would probably be better against most quests. but I have a feeling it would be a lot worse against quests that need healing.
3 hours ago, Bullroarer Took said:I'm a bit curious about your Belegost version. Without Arwen it is not nearly as easy to get the high cost allies in the bin. So it takes much longer to set up. (Cirdan can only discard one of the two cards drawn of course.)
Comments?
That version could probably use more refinement. Maybe some Jewelers to help with the discards. Galadriel was needed to maintain threat below 20 for the whole game. Also note that her mirror frequently discards allies from your hand as well.
7 hours ago, Rouxxor said:I'm used to deck who can't bring back tons of allies. It is what we do with any other deck than Caldara anyway ^^. Zealous traitor and mirkwood bat are fatal only when the third one came out, and we are sometime in trouble with the second. I understand that those allies can also came out from a very good tale but when you need to discard it to resurrect it with stand and fight you have paying it too much.
I will play the deck soon so I will have a more complete argumentation at this time :).
I played Nightmare Wastes of Eriador tonight. I was hit by 3 of these. If not for my Imladris Caregivers my heroes and my allies would all be dead. Because of them I was able to win on the first attempt.
I got one healer in play from A Very Good Tale. The other I discarded and brought in with Stand and Fight. Thanks for that tip!
This card clearly deserve to be "test of willed". It is way more efficient than heal (it also discard an attachment O_o). The best tech is not to heal but to play dwarven tomb so you have a lot of test of will.
9 hours ago, Rouxxor said:This card clearly deserve to be "test of willed". It is way more efficient than heal (it also discard an attachment O_o). The best tech is not to heal but to play dwarven tomb so you have a lot of test of will.
I did not draw into Test of Will so Dwarven Tomb would not have been helpful.
It is not relevant because it is clearly result oriented. Against this card the best strategy is not to heal, it is to be able to cancel. I prefer to have in my deck dwarven tomb to interact with test of will than stand or fight to interact with a healer. If this card was the only problem of this encounter deck it would be better to have more respond (any test of will or the combo of the two healer) but of course the encounter it threatning us in a lot of other point. Whose are more likely treachery than non-treachery damaging cards. And it is very easy to find a test of will during the game, especially when you can discard them on a very good tale.
That is how I see this specific case. It may not be accurate since it didn't take into account the willpower that the healer give all along the game. So even if I'm not convainced I will still test with the healer to get a personal experiment feedback :).
1 hour ago, Rouxxor said:It is not relevant because it is clearly result oriented. Against this card the best strategy is not to heal, it is to be able to cancel. I prefer to have in my deck dwarven tomb to interact with test of will than stand or fight to interact with a healer. If this card was the only problem of this encounter deck it would be better to have more respond (any test of will or the combo of the two healer) but of course the encounter it threatning us in a lot of other point. Whose are more likely treachery than non-treachery damaging cards. And it is very easy to find a test of will during the game, especially when you can discard them on a very good tale.
That is how I see this specific case. It may not be accurate since it didn't take into account the willpower that the healer give all along the game. So even if I'm not convainced I will still test with the healer to get a personal experiment feedback :).
You are also not considering that Test of Will cannot be used at Night
But for other quests, yes it is good to be able to cancel these kinds of effects. It also good to be able to survive them so that you hold on to Test of Will to cancel some other card that may end your game.
The Caregivers also provide more ways to discard Elven-light, which is something I took advantage of very often.
3 hours ago, Seastan said:You are also not considering that Test of Will cannot be used at Night
Really? I totally forget about that ^^. That is an excellent point. I will play one dwarven tomb because I found this card way too versatile in mono spirit and my intent is clearly to be able to recover one test of will since it is the best spirit card ^^. But I will also be able to target stand and fight since I will also test the healing tech.
19 hours ago, Rouxxor said:This card clearly deserve to be "test of willed". It is way more efficient than heal (it also discard an attachment O_o). The best tech is not to heal but to play dwarven tomb so you have a lot of test of will.
iirc you can't cancel treacheries when it's night ¿?
Already addressed
Edited by RajamI made some test and I approve the presence of healer. I also set a version for solo who can be played against any adventure without any sideboard use and I now play this version: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/7078/caldara-post-errata-for-solo-2.0
My tense slots are about khaliel tribemen, envoy of pelargir or dwarf tomb + map of earnil. I put then in sideboard only because I may integrate more of them in the future.
4 hours ago, Rouxxor said:I made some test and I approve the presence of healer. I also set a version for solo who can be played against any adventure without any sideboard use and I now play this version: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/7078/caldara-post-errata-for-solo-2.0
My tense slots are about khaliel tribemen, envoy of pelargir or dwarf tomb + map of earnil. I put then in sideboard only because I may integrate more of them in the future.
Interesting changes. I figured you would add Steward but I have not found it necessary. I think if I did add steward though I would reconsider the Good Harvest/Stand and Fight choice, since Good Harvest allows you to play it before Narya.
But ultimately I prefer the non-Steward version because it is easier to play alongside other decks.
I disagree with you moving Treebeard to 1x. He is too good of an ally here with Narya allowing him to be used on the round he enters play. And getting him early allows his resources to build up for AVGT.
And I disagree with your statement "can be played against any adventure without any sideboard". It can , yes. But I think it will have serious trouble against certain quests, like Belegost and Return to Mirkwood. Anduin and Morgul Vale would depend too heavily on getting Elrond's Counsel for my taste, so might as well put in Galadhrim's Greeting for those quests.
Stand and fight was really helpfull, and not only with the non-spirit ally. It would be hard to remove them. As I say it is a solo version so I will never play with a deck with steward alongside. I will, later, also build a multiplayer version with a sideboard for including or not steward.
Since I have to put more cards (threat reduction, steward) I have to remove some cards, some allies. Treebeard and Gandalf are not here for the very beginning so they are less essential. With 1 of each I still can found one of them fast, and I only need one. I also prefer Gandalf over Treebeard. I'm thinking about removing some Northern tracker because they aren't good either to be bring back on Caldara or to be payed for 4, especially since most location never stay in staging area in solo.
If I have to include one more threat reduction it would be double back, way more efficient than galadhrim's greeting. But I don't think those scenario are the ones who will disrupt me. Return to mirkwood is very easy to race with so many willpower. I don't see why threat will be such critical in belegost. In fact I care more about the threat in escape from dol guldur and Nîn-in-Eilph because I can't finish early and their objectives are nausty. But Elfhelm will be a good help here. All those adventures are all in my short list so I will play them and return to you after that.