Ranger Danger

By DukeWellington, in Strategy and deck-building

So, I have to admit that I made this deck just for the fun of it, not expecting it to do anything. Well, it turns out that the deck kicks serious butt. I was inspired by the Overgrown Trail location to make a deck featuring all Ranger heroes. All three of them have abilities that let them ready for one resource, so I filled the decks with low cost cards to let always have enough to use their ability. Now the deck has some obvious weaknesses, like the starting threat is pretty high and if you get buried in lands the deck can't generate enough questing to break through. However, it has a crazy ability to both quest and fight, and it handles battle and seige questing like nothing. It beats Peril in Pelargir. It smashes Ithilien. It cannot beat the Cair Andros and has trouble with Steward Fear (mostly because the locations are so tough). It makes Druadan Forest embarrassingly easy, about a 100% win percentage. Anyway, the deck has to be tweaked depending on the scenario, but I keep the core the same. The version here is my Druadan Forest version.

Heroes: Aragorn (core), Elladan, Elrohir (starting threat 32)

Allies (13)

Envoy of Pelargir x3

Errand-rider x3

Gondorian Spearman x3

Gandalf (core) x3

Erestor x1

Attachment (23)

Celebrian's Stone x3

Steward of Gondor x3

Horn of Gondor x2

Blade of Gondolin x3

Rivendell Blade x2

Spear of the Citadel x2

Cram x3

Dunedain mark x2

Light of Valinor x3

Event (15)

Feint x3

Goblin-cleaver x3

Hail of stones x3

Sneak attack x3

Valiant sacrifice x3

total cards 51

Celebrian stone, dunedain mark, and Steward go on Aragorn. Horn of Gondor and Light of valinor go on Elladan. The allies are mainly for chump block only and you don't really care what they do or if they die. You can ussually commit Aragorn and Elrohir to the quest (then ready Aragorn), leaving two Rangers open for overgrown trail, hail of stones, or combat. Obviously sneak attack is for Gandalf. I ussually play Gandalf for threat reduction, but sometimes the other two. Seriously, the deck is surprisingly fun and shockingly good.

Wow, this looks like a good deck! I'd love to try it, but I have only one core set and thus only one Stone, etc. Still, I am very curious to know if this deck is as good as you paint it. What quests does it beat easily? What quests does it lose against? Maybe Sword that was Broken would be a good addition…

Well, I have only played it against the HON quests onward, which I talked about in the opening paragraph. Against all the quests before that I would predict that it probably wouldn't do well because it doesn't have a lot of top end will power, its threat is too high, and not good against lands. It is mainly good against combat oriented quests. I don't think that Sword that was broken would work too well because you really only quest with 2 or 3 characters, but maybe I could try it. The deck is better when you have to switch between battle, siege, and normal questing because it can do all three types really well. If it is just doing normal questing then it might not be that good. However, it could be a solid support deck in a two play game with some "parting gifts" thrown in to help your partner out.

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