Hey all,
I was thinking today about how some contracts force some common cards to be seen across various decks. I wanted to compile a list of the most common cards ("locks") for a deck running a particular contract. Some are a little more difficult than others, so I wanted the community's input.
1. Fellowship
Lock: A Very Good Tale
Honorable Mention: Elrond
Right out the gate, I am struggling a bit on this one. A good chunk of Fellowship decks use A Very Good Tale as a way to accelerate the allies into play, and for good reason -- there are a good chunk of expensive unique allies, such that if you can get a couple in early, this singular card could shorten your time on side A by a full turn or two. However, this requires running a deck with at least one leadership hero, so it does limit the style (A Caldara deck probably wouldn't run this card). Due to the variety of strategies involved in getting allies into play, this one is somewhat difficult to figure out. However, Elrond does lend itself to paying for allies outside of sphere PLUS his ring can accelerate the process even further.
2. Burglar's Turn
Lock: Haldan
Honorable Mention: Citadel Plate
Alright, maybe some controversy with this one, but Haldan seems to be, at the very least, wasting space in your storage if you are running a Burglar's Turn deck without him. He sits for the entire game (minus the first turn) committed to the quest without exhausting, has in-sphere location control, and a built in card draw. Even if you are not running him in the deck that's running the contract, it seems silly to leave him out of any multiplayer fellowship. His stat line is excellent, and with the toys you get out of the loot deck, you can make him a very powerful force. Now, I struggled a bit with the Honorable mention. There are plenty of guarded cards that ought to be included, and perhaps I could have left it with "all guarded cards" as that will most likely be the case to get to 14 item/artifact attachments. However, the other benefit (besides ignoring guarded keyword, no small issue) of the loot deck is the fact that it doesn't have to be in-sphere nor do you have to pay the cost. Since the Citadel Plate is a great benefit offset by the cost of the card, I think this ought to be in any loot deck. In low combat scenarios, perhaps the guarded weapons are traded out for willpower items, and vice versa for high combat scenarios. Maybe I am wrong on this, but since Citadel Plate is not restricted to any trait specific hero, even someone like Galadriel can sit as a soaker with just this card.
3. Forth! The Three Hunters
Lock: The One Ring
Honorable Mention: Dagger of Westerneese
No question here. Unless you are running 3 extremely high threat heroes, most of us are willing to trade the elimination drop to gain the restricted attachment out the gate, with your choice of some excellent neutral events or some case-specific attachments in your starting hand. Since you need 6 restricted attachments to flip to the willpower/healing boost (unless you are, for some reason, running less than 3 heroes), getting 16% of your work done out the gate helps tremendously. As for the Dagger, so many restricted attachments require some trait or sphere. This card comes in free on side A and is marginally better than round shield. An argument could be made of a hunters deck that is not running tactics would not be running this card, in which case I request to see how a non-tactics deck runs enough restricted attachments and still stays combat viable. In a fellowship, sure, I've seen it (I myself have run a Glorfindel-Slegolas-Limli build) but boy it takes a while to get that engine up and running, doesn't it?
4. The Grey Wanderer
Lock: Strider
Honorable Mention: Timely Aid
The combo that started the thought process to begin with. This card becomes such a lock with this contract, I feel like ringsdb has become a mad dash to see who can build a viable deck that doesn't fetch this card in setup (to little avail, in my opinion -- we all have to quest). This contract could have opened up all kinds of neat combos if they allowed one sneak through of a guarded card, but alas, the powers that be force us into this option nearly every time. With that in mind, and such starved for characters to help balance the load, Timely Aid becomes the card you mulligan for to try and get in some powerful beasts while in secrecy. Need I say more?
5. Council of the Wise
Lock: Daeron's Runes
Honorable Mention: Heed the Dream
So this is a difficult one. You would like to have plenty of events to run in your deck, but a singular card may not show up the entire game. With that in mind, I think it's safe to say if you are running a lore hero (access to card draw will be key to any semblance of consistency) then Daeron's Runes is your go-to auto include. Coming up with 50 individual cards with a little synergy is difficult enough, so deck thinning is practically required. Daeron's Runes does more than thin your deck -- it gives you cards, choices, and a trigger for the contract. Best of all, it's free, so you don't even need to do the "burn a resource to gain a resource" trick with the contract. This is slightly different than Heed the Dream, another great card in it's own right. I give deference to DR because of it's auto-play, versus Heed the Dream might need to be held back until some person at the table has 3 leadership resources to trigger the second ability.
6. Messenger of the King
Lock: ???
Honorable Mention: ???
Okay, here, I have nothing. MotK has so many different permutations, and leads itself to so many different styles, I couldn't possibly pick a lock. That's why I have a feeling this will grow to become the community's favorite contract because even after years of exploration, it might still surprise you (if I may paraphrase the grey wizard). I ran Bofur, Ioreth, and Bilbo with this contract and let me say, those were radically different decks with radically different needs. If I am missing something here, let me know.
7. Bond of Friendship
Lock: A Good Harvest
Honorable Mention : Favor of the Valar
With a quad-sphere, perfectly balanced deck among the spheres, this is no contest. Every deck ought to run this sphere-balancing card. Plus, deck-builders are going to run into trouble finding the right neutral cards to fit the need of the deck, so that is why Favor of the Valar comes in so close. Threat will be high; that's a given. Between these two cards, you have 4 neutral cards cleaned up, and probably will be running at least one Gandalf as well. The tie-breaker between these cards comes from the fact that, perhaps, a deck is running with Hobbits, a couple copies of The Shirefolk will be more effective than FotV. But certainly not for AGH which will still be needed in that deck.
Tell me your thoughts! Did I miss any good cards for the contracts? Am I way off on others? What is the best card for the MotK!