Anyone who pays attention to CotR will likely know that most of us are rarely afforded the opportunity to play around with everyone's favorite broken tactics hero. When Brandon announced his intent to play Noldor heroes for our New Year's twitch, I jumped at the chance for my own take on the Boromir aggro deck.
I think the Blood and Fire variant produces the biggest Boromir, without question. However, in my observations, that combo has quite a few pieces to get into place (Ziggy/Stargazer or Good Harvest/Steward), and relies on a slow roll and a decent amount of luck to really start firing. I wanted to see if Boromir could be just as effective by being more consistent and quick to set up, if a little less bonkers.
The premise of this deck is the same as most Boromir decks. Put things on Boromir and let him rock the house. Theodred is your friend here for a couple of reasons. First, leadership opens up access to the most versatile suite of stat boosting card we have, in the dunedain signals. They're cheap, they're quick, and quite often forgotten, they are MOVEABLE. It also gives us a good option to give Boromir both Ranged and Sentinel, abilities which he can exploit to great effect. Second, the resource generation of Theodred gives some healthy balance to the tri-sphere nature of the deck, even though it is actually weighted pretty heavily in the direction of Leadership (surprise!). So, to that point, that bring us to the important attachments in the deck which are not intended for Boromir: Steward and Celebrian's Stone. Those both go on T-Dread. Sword that was Broken, on the other hand, goes on our man Aragorn,as per normal. Loreagorn is in the deck as a true utility player. His ability is the pressure release valve for Boromir's craziness. In the early game, I often see him questing to help keep those numbers reasonable, and in the late game, he can continue to quest w/ Wingfoot (often for 3 or more due to StwB), and attack/defend as needed. Lore gives access to two very important card draw effects for the deck. Deep Knowledge is Deep Knowledge. Basically an auto include, and with Loreagorn, paying for the threat ain't no thang. Second, and more importantly, Peace and Thought. Normally a good card, but with Boromir it is a phenomenal card. The cost to exhaust a hero? 1 threat. The card now reads: Exhaust 1 hero and raise your threat by 1 to draw 5 cards. Wut. The combination of resource acceleration from Theodred/Steward and the card draw from PaT, DK, and Sneak Attack/Gandalf means you will churn out the cards, and get Boromir rolling right quick.
Sideboard:
-Weather Hills Watchman- Another body that grabs signals is good, but I found the card draw in the deck to already be ample in most cases
-Another Heir of Mardil- Opens up some fun combos with Theodred, but by the time he has both that and Steward, Boromir is most likely rolling, so not really a concern.
-Galadriel (Ally)- Some decent questing power and she digs for attachments, but again, the deck is built so inherently cheaply, she's not necessary most of the time.
-More allies in general- This deck is not intended for solo, and it is a bit on the skimpier side for questing power, so in the case where it needs to bring more to that part of the equation, it's pretty easy to slot in a few more bodies.
Happy Questing
-Sean
Throwing a like your way, Sean. It's an interesting change to the deck to give up Spirit (i.e., Glorfindel) for Leadership. Any thoughts on the inclusion of some Valour cards, with Light of the Valar and Aragorn to play around with the threat requirement? Or do you think they don't offer enough to warrant the slots?