So my initial deck is a combat oriented deck that lends itself to a bit of Questing and Support. It is most likely best played in a multi-player environment where you have at least one other player playing a more Quest/Support centric deck.

I am also thinking of replacing either a Citadel Plate/Steward of Gondor or the Common Cause x2 with more copies of Celebrian's Stone to help in Questing better.

Heroes:

Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas

Allies:

Horseback Archer x3 (T)

Gondorian Spearman x3 (T)

Snowborn Scout x3 (L)

Silverlode Archer x2 (L)

Gandalf x3 (N)

Events:

Rain of Arrows x3 (T)

Swift Strike x3 (T)

Blade Mastery x3 (T)

Feint x3 (T)

Quick Strike x3 (T)

Common Cause x2 (L)

Sneak Attack x3 (L)

Valiant Sacrifice x3 (L)

Attachments:

Celebrian's Stone x1 (L)

Steward of Gondor x3 (L)

Citadel Plate x3 (T)

Horn of Gondor x3 (T)

Blade of Gondolin x3 (T)

All comments are welcome and if necessary I can also give a bit of a breakdown of the deck idea.

Celebrian's Stone is a 2x at least. 3x if you decide to go crazy and splash in a couple of Spirit cards, which might prove awesome. *cough Unexpected Courage cough* The Favor of the Lady, a couple different event cards.
Horn of Gondor can probably be a 2x at most. I'd stick with 1x.

You have a lot of Restricted attachments. Keep in mind the cap of 2. Those Citadel Plates don't come cheap, even if you had 3 tactics heroes.

Well I think have multiple copies, especially in a 50 card deck definitely increase the odds of me finding those cards. Though I do agree that Celebrian's Stone needs to move up to 2 copies. Maybe three and as you coughed out, Unexpected Courage may need to find a couple copies in the deck. So possibly the removal of a Horn of Gondor and one Citadel Plate for 2 more Celebrian's Stone, and the removal of Common Cause x2 for the Unexpected Courage x2.

No worries on the amount of restricted cards since a character can have at least 2 on. Also when in conjuction with a deck that plays Eowyn they become great pitch cards once I already have one out, or if another player beats me to putting it out first.

I like that those 3 heroes seem to work well together I know solo can be different, but it really makes a game run much smoother if someone is playing Eowyn, so generally I don't worry about having too many unique or restricted cards- they're great to make sure you get out, and if you don't need them they're great throwaways for Eowyn, or even some bad effects can make you discard I believe.

I tried to make a deck like this but scrapped it after I kept getting hammered by the Hill Troll right away on the second scenario. Those three heroes total 32 threat I think, which is too high to start for my liking. But the theme is pretty cool.

sputang said:

Exactly! Defend with Gimli on Turn 1. He's huge on Turn 2 for the kill. That's what I always did and never had problems with the Hill Troll

conykchameleon said:

The starting threat is pretty high, which makes it better with another player who can reduce that.

Yes this- about the best thing you can do is use Gimli. Though if you draw a shadow card that does additional damage and you can't cancel it, you just have to scrap and start over.

Kitsune Rei said:

Honestly, the threat isn't really that big of an issue, as you've got Sneak Attack Gandalf, as well as access to all Spirit Events with Celebrian's Stone.

As as for Gimli's health, once you get a citadel plate on him (Citadel Plate or Celbrian's Stone are mulligan conditions for me with this deck)

conykchameleon said:

Who did you defend with on the 2nd round? Assuming you drew one, you could throw a cheap ally in the way, but still raises your threat from the troll. And if you drew a second monster during either of those 2 turns, that really messesup your plan. If you didn't, well, Aragorn is still most likely the only guy questing and he doesn't offer a whole lot of willpower on his own, so your threat is still steadily getting out of control. Maybe I just had really bad luck, but my threat always hit 50 before I could finish off the 2nd part of the scenario.

Second round options that I had in my deck:

Defend with an ally (Gandalf or Galadrim's Greeting via Aragorn w/Celebrian's Stone can deal with threat later), Feint, Quick Strike, Defend With Aragorn (if absolutely necessary). Obviously there are several variables that have to be accounted for, but in the games I've played, that strategy works more times than not.

This deck is very much for multi-player. Unless you get some sort of god draw on the first turn or your mulligan on the Journey down the Anduin you cannot take on the Hill Troll very easily at all and will keep scrapping and starting over if Gimli dies. Yes you could get sneak/gandalf, or citadel plate or use spirit with Celebrian's Stone but you will not last that long to play pretty much any of these things unless you get the before hand god draw or get incredibly lucky. The theme is very cool but it is not a solo deck, as your threat does start to high and if you hit any set backs for any reason you usually cannot make the ground up.

At least this is my experience with playing with the deck. It could probably use some tweaking here and there but it is was specifically designed to play in multi-player.

Hastur360 said:

I guess I won't belabor the point any more than to say that my experience has been quite positive in soloing with this deck. (I even finally beat quest 3 with it last night)

Awesome, glad you have found success with it. I was not attacking your play with the deck in the slightest. Just stating what I built the deck for and without good draws I still don't think on average you will have a lot of success with this deck. I am happy you are having success with it and it makes me think I will take it for more spins solo to see if I can achieve the same success. I am sure you are using a different deck design though with the three heroes and would be interested on your solo version of the deck if you don't mind posting it Conykchameleon.

Deck List - Tactics/Leadership: Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn

Heroes

Legolas

Gimli Aragorn

Allies

Guard of the Citadel 3x

Horseback Archer 3x

Veteran Axehand 3x

Gondorian Spearman 3x

Longbeard Orcslayer 2x

Gandalf 3x

Faramir 3x

Events

Feint 3x

Stand Together 2x

The Galadhrim's Greeting 3x

Quick Strike 3x

Sneak Attack 3x

Grim Resolve 2x

Blade Mastery 3x

Attachments

Citadel Plate 3x

Steward of Gondor 3x

Celebrian's Stone 2x (Wish I had a third)

Blade of Gondolin 3x

Usually I'm looking for Citadel Plate, Steward of Gondor, or Celebrian's Stone in my starting hand based on the scenario.