Green Anaconda: Muscle 1.0

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• 1.0

This is deck 2 of the Green Anaconda fellowship and it serves as the muscle of the anaconda. Without its muscle, an anaconda might as well be an ugly scarf with teeth and beady eyes. They may be cunning and they may have sharp teeth, but anacondas defeat their opponents by encircling their prey and crushing it to death.

Lore has tricks for days, but at some point someone has to build a dang army and just outnumber the encounter deck. That's what Elrond is up to here. That's what Vilya is for so it's essential to find it. Galdor of the Havens should help you find it asap. If you don't see Vilya in your first hand, use Galdor's ability and toss out everything except for Heed the Dream. Hopefully you'll see it in your replacement cards and are off running. If you don't find it, use Heed the Dream to dig for it. If that still doesn't work, the other two decks with copies of Heed the Dream may be able to help you. Do whatever you can to find Vilya and buy it right away.

Once Vilya is in play, you'll want to use it every round. Make sure to use it at the beginning of the quest phase, so that Gildor's Counsel will hit if it's what Vilya finds. You never know what you'll find but everything should be useful in some way, unless you hit a second copy of Vilya.

Bifur begs for coins every round, usually from the resourceful hobbits but if they are unable to help then from whomever is feeling generous. There's no extra card draw in here because with all the cards being expensive it'll take you a while to buy what's in your hand. If you ever do run out of cards, Galdor of the Havens will get you a fresh batch of six once per game.

This deck will have to help with combat, particularly with defense. two of the decks don't want to engage any enemies, so they're going to have to go somewhere. Do what you can to keep enemies off of the hobbits and your sniper Haldir of Lórien. You might not be able to kill them right away but if you can hold up against them long enough help will eventually come, either from your own deck or from Haldir.

As for specific card choices:

~Defender of the Naith is here for its sentinel abilities. Ranged and sentinel are almost completely absent in Lore, so one of these guys can help Aragorn protect the hobbits or Haldir.

~You'll want to buy Guardian of Rivendell early on, if you can. He's the staunchest defender you've got, though unfortunately he can't use A Burning Brand. With Galdor in play discarding two cards for him shouldn't hurt too much, and if you find him with Vilya you don't even have to discard at all.

~Mirkwood Explorer is the only card that can place progress on locations in the staging area in the fellowship.

~Thalion should get his extra action every round, as you have likely finished at least one side quest by the time you see or buy him. If the encounter deck also has side quests or if you manage to complete all three Scout Aheads in the fellowship, he'll gain hero status and start producing resources. That would be pleasant, but you'll have most quests well in hand if you've made it that far, so he's really here for the extra action he provides.

~Lembas might not be the card you want to see from Vilya's action, but Treebeard is so powerful with it that it's certainly not a waste if you flip it. Extra actions are so valuable in Lore that you take them where you can get them. If nothing else, you could simply put it on Elrond himself, ready him, then use his stats in some other useful manner. If it's in your hand it's almost an auto-purchase right away.

~Magic Ring is also there for the readying. Treebeard, Haldir of Lórien, and Elrond could all make good use of it. Game conditions could make each of them a good/bad choice; choose wisely.