Legolas's Yew Bow

By Tracker1, in Strategy and deck-building

Posted at

The idea behind this deck is to keep your threat low and use Legolas and Great Yew Bow to take out enemies in the staging area. It actually started out With Mirlonde as the Lore hero, with SIlvain Tracker, but Bifur for the same cost and his ability Trumped the elven theme, and worked much better in the deck.

Playing this deck will take some getting used to, it is more of a theme deck trying to optimize Great Yew Bow, and works on most easy to moderate quests in standard mode (most of the time).

I really wanted to make Great Yew Bow work in a deck since the card came out, and this has been my first successful attempt at having it really do it's job. Most other times my threat was to high before it was of any use.

I'd really like to hear if others have had any success with Great Yew Bow, and if you have I'd love to see some deck ideas. Any suggestions for this deck would be welcomed.

Hero (3)

Glorfindel (FoS) x1

Bifur (KD) x1

Legolas (Core) x1

Ally (6)

Ithilien Tracker (HON) x3

Master of the Forge (SaF) x3

Attachment (19)

Light of Valinor (FoS) x3

Unexpected Courage (Core) x2

Asfaloth (FoS) x2

Ranger Spikes (HON) x3

Black Arrow (OtD) x1

Great Yew Bow (OtD) x3

Rivendell Blade (RtR) x3

Resourceful (TWitW) x2

Event (25)

Dwarven Tomb (Core) x2

Elrond's Counsel (TWitW) x3

The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3

Feint (Core) x3

Foe-hammer (OHaUH) x3

Hands Upon the Bow (SaF) x3

Quick Strike (Core) x2

A Good Harvest (TSF) x3

Strategy:
Look for the Great yew Bow in your opening hand, and possibly LoV. If not try to get Master of the forge to fish them out.
Elrond's Counsel and Galadhrim's greeting keep your threat low. You can use Dwarven tomb with either one later in the game. Good Harvest is used to play the Greetings mostly.
Resourceful can be played for 1 cost when threat is low enough. Play it on Glorfindel, he can pass resources over to Bifur when needed.
Unexpected Courage should go to Bifur and the 2nd to Legolas, although that order depends on the scenario. Bifur may have to defend sometimes, so it is good to get him set up to do that, after he quests. Fient and Swift strike help when an enemy sneaks through. Legolas With UC can destroy an engaged enemy and also use the Bow to take out an enemy in the staging area on same turn.
Legolas should be equipped with one Great Yew Bow and One Rivendel Blade and Black Arrow when needed (too bad it's a oe time shot). The other Blades go to Glorfindel.
For questing Glorfindel and Bifur are your only questers. Ithillien Tracker pays a huge role in questing since he negates a reveled enemie's threat. Really important for making progress on quests. Locations are handled with Asfaloth and Legolas.
Posted at

This is a cool deck. I've had the same problem as you in the fact that my threat has usually been to high to make any use out of Great Yew Bow worthwhile. Although, wouldn't it be better (and a little more thematic) to use Bard in this deck? I know that he's 2 threat more, but it wouldn't make a HUGE difference. Especially because then you could take out some of the blades in exchange for other cards you might need. But still, very cool deck. I'll have to try it some time.

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I guess i can always count on you to comment about these deck ideas. Of all people i'm shocked that you would ditch Legolas for Bard, LEGOLAS18. Joking of course.

I did try it with Bard shortly, but found that 2 progress tokens from Legolas's response offset the low questing power of the deck. Bard could destroy things but locations piled up.

Also, i just found out that Rivendell Bow's +1 ranged attack will work with great Yew Bow and it is also not Restricted. So, Legolas will be attacking for 4 with Great Yew bow. But i guess it will not work with Hands upon the Bow since it does not say that it is a ranged attack to the staging area. How very strange. Anyway, i'll be replacing 2 Resourecful with 2 Rivendell Bow.

Posted at

Haha. Yes, I can very much see how my name can lead to confusion on this subject. :) And hey, if nobody else will, at least you'll have good old Legolas18 to reply to. :D Anyway, I can see how Legolas's progress would be crucial. Yep. I guess Bard wanted a bit more of an immortal being to carry his bow after he died. Then Legolas ditches it in Lothlorien for a better one. ;)

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I took this deck Into Ithilien and won in the second attempt. I guess I was kinda lucky I didn't get a mumak, but Celador was indeed essential since this deck produces very little willpower... maybe that'0s something to be tinkered with. However I think that this deck will only get better when we get more traps and ithilien-themed stuff.

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Wow that's amazing i've been dreading putting it to that test, although i did Win PiP with it.

Yes, i'm thinking the traps with Anborn might be pretty cool. Ive started using Ithillien Pit, and its working pretty good too.

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Won Into Ithilien on first attempt. Shocked! Lucky to clear Ithilien road, a treachery lost companion was the first card of the encounter deck so i lost Bifur on the quest. Amazingly, Caledor had no damage on him the whole game, and i went the willpower quest on stage two. I think I just got lucky with the encounter deck, but a win is a win, I'm not complaining.

Won on 2nd attempt too!

Lost next 2. Beginners luck i guess.

Edited by Tracker1
Posted at

Very cool! Unexpected courage on Legolas was essential though in the battle quests, but I could still win without it. Anyway, I'm impacient to try the newer ithilien stuff on this deck, since it works amazingly with Legolas and all the archery stuff.

Edited by Gizlivadi
Posted at

I've found a decent solution to needing easy will power is the silvan refugee. Only 1 cost and even tho the she has the negative effect, you really don't have many allies so you shouldn't be losing characters at a fast rate. Interested to see if ranger bow has a place in this deck too with your 3 copies of ithilien tracker and theme of killing enemies in the staging area... Plus you could have all 3 bow weapons in the deck then !!!!!!!