Servants of Manwe

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Ipswatch 597

With Saruman I can finally build a three wizards deck that comes out to.... 38 Threat! Lets do this!

The Mumakil in the Room: Threat Reduction

Obviously a deck that starts at 38 threat needs some ways of handling its threat. Saruman makes this especially difficult with this ability reducing any threat reduction to 1. This deck has two ways that I definitely didn't steal from more talented deck builders. I will also say this: 7 games in, I have not threated out with this deck.

1: The Fall of Gil-Galad: This gets attached to Saruman shortly before he bites the dust. Since he is KO'd before this card triggers, his ability doesn't block it netting you a clean 13 threat reduction! Following that, if need be, resurrect him with The Houses of Healing

2: The Galadhrim's Greeting: This card lets you reduce your threat by a very reasonable six! Not as good as The Fall of Gil-Galad, but you also don't have to pay a huge pricetag to resurrect your dead Wizard. Wait a minute, Saruman doesn't let you reduce your threat! That's why you can just give him away for a turn with Desperate Alliance.

The Perks of this Deck

1: Card Draw- This deck has a lot of cards you want to find as quickly as possible. The three staff's, Shadowfax, Narya, Protector of Lorien, Unexpected courage, Fall of Gil Galad and so on. Luckily this deck is a card draw machine. Gandalf's Staff gets you either a bonus resource or a bonus card. On top of that, Radagasts Messenger Raven combined with Gandalf's ability gets you a bonus card each turn. Saruman throw's Deep Knowledge around whenever he needs to ready for no threat reduction with his staff. Expert Treasure-Hunters gurantee card draw as well. If the card draw isn't getting what you need, there is Word of Command to help find the one thing you are missing.

2: Strong Opening- With so much card draw, this deck can get up and running easily inside the first turn. I have yet to play a game where I haven't had a decent number of Eagles out very quickly thanks to the card draw, resource generation and discount eagle prices provided by my three Wizard's and their staffs.

3: Ally Support - This version of this deck is for multiplayer. My wife is currently running a three hunters deck so Horns! Horns! Horns! is regulated to my sideboard. Gandalf's Staff helps give resources or card draw's to other players when they need it, and Message from Elrond lets you hand off Word of Command to another player. Awesome sidenote: Word of Command lets other players exhaust YOUR Istari to find ANY card in their deck they need. In addition to you giving away the word of command, anyone you play with should have this card in their deck to exhaust your Istari.

All in all, this is one of the most enjoyable decks I have played. It doesn't destroy questing or combat, but it allows you to move cards, manipulate other players and help everyone do better. It feels extremely accurate of the Istari.

9 comments

Mar 09, 2020 JYoder 344

Nice!

Aug 13, 2020 sappidus 752

Nice to see triple Istari! But the Word of Command & Message from Elrond pairing is a nonbo, I'm afraid. The "exhaust an Istari character" part of Word of Command is a cost, so the person playing the card has to actually control the Istari character being exhausted. See RR Cost, www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net

Aug 13, 2020 doomguard 2156

i think it is not a good deck.

solo it is not much effective and i wonder if it will make anduin nightmare (for me a "standart" to pass for a solodeck )

in multi it takes 3 heroes that are often taken, without giving this much power to the table.

the mentioned carddraw is not like it should be, at least not from the start. you need that cards (raven,staff) and do not have it from the start.

no additional resource-generation. the 3 staffs alone need 2 full rounds of resources. it is by far to slow to be a good deck.

gandalf paired up with one of them is good, but saruman and radagast is a bad combination, you can rarely support both of them to make it work fast enough.

the trick with desperate allieance or fall of gil galad is nice, but not enough, and risky. to let saruman die is not planable every time (and then have the 1 copy in the deck-card)

so, please do it only solo, else it ruins the day of the other players ;)

Aug 13, 2020 banania 1935

@doomguard I usually value your input on decks, but please be a bit more civil and a tad less arrogant :)

Not every player enjoys the game solo, nor do they think a deck is "bad" because it doesn't work solo. I've built plenty of very good multiplayer decks that absolutely do not work in solo. I don't play nightmare and do not care if my decks are able to beat every nightmare in the deck.

I'm sure most of the community agrees with me. In my book, a good deck is a fun deck, that the creator takes pleasure to play. Here, clearly, the creator intended to use the three Istaris, which is indeed a dangerous selection of heroes that requires janky or suboptimal build.

If you don't like it, or never play multiplyer, or (worse) refuse to play suboptimal fun decks, it is your problem.

This is a fun deck hence it's a GOOD deck.

I would add that the best deckbuilders in this game (I would cite Seastan, Rouxxor, 13nrv for instance) have never shown that type of arrogance.

Aug 13, 2020 doomguard 2156

it is my honest opinion. if you dont like it, it is not my Problem. you put it for puplic and Risk to gain honest opinions. i can live with the trait arrogance. and i still think ist bad and i dont like to Play with that deck on the same table. this is honest. if that is not "civil" then i am not civil. but i have a reason to write as i write. because your description read as it is a good deck, good not only for fun, good for beating quests. and that it isnt. (if word of command could be used as u thought it was used, then it would be a good deck, but it doesnt) and i Play much multiplayer and i hope that except at the drinking game at next lure, no one want to Play this deck at my table or Epic multiplayer.

Aug 13, 2020 Ipswatch 597

`@doomguardI suspect we are different types of players. The challenge for me in playing this game is to build thematic decks that are as effective as possible without breaking theme. Obviously, some themes work better than others, and a theme that ONLY has 3 possible heroes that starts at 38 threat with a hard lock on threat reduction isn't ever going to be the BEST deck out there. This is my attempt at the BEST deck using these three specific heroes.

In terms of your specific criticisms:

  • Character Overlap: I play almost exclusively with my wife. Since she knew what my deck was, we have never once had the problem of her not being able to play a hero. This deck is one you play with people who know you are playing this deck.

-Money Generation: Money is a bit tighter than I like in this deck. Once you have Gandalf's Staff and Radagasts Staff it stops being a problem.

  • It's a bad pairing: As soon as I have another option for an Istari hero I will consider this. For the moment, this is the ONLY pairing.

-Threat Reduction: The Gil Galad trick is really easy to pull off. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I haven't EVER threated out with this deck. Not once. I have cleared two cycles with it, but nothing on nightmare

-Please Do it only solo: No.

Aug 13, 2020 banania 1935

@doomguard It's ok there, just chill, no need to get even more un-civil. I think you got your answers there. It's really too bad because I REALLY like your input on my decks, you have really cool ideas. Just be careful, be more nice to people. Is that really too hard? Would it make your day more miserable to be nicer?

Aug 13, 2020 doomguard 2156

it is o.k. to be different types of players. i like to play nightmare and the hard quests (carn dum, belegost,...), where optimising is necessary. i also like to play drinking games, where theme, "fun" or even ironic is central. but a "fundeck" should imo declared as one and in the initial post this was not.

in hard quests or in the nightmarechallenge i would avoid such "experiments". in "fun"-modus, what do we care, and i would take part.....

but, even as a fundeck i find it not very creative (take the only 3 istari....hohoho) but playable (and good idea with fall of gilgalad), and would not critisise it anymore.

perhaps some of my "roughness" is because i am german and not so good at english. but if i find something bad i will be allowed to say it in a free land ;)

going deep-psychological ;) i am kind of angry because i thought myself about a 3 istari-deck and cant found a good solution, that would fit my standarts. had hope as i saw the herolineup and was disappointed as i saw the deck (and read it description)

to become constructive: i can imagine, that the deck with 3 istari "could" become playable (beside "fun"), if its played with the white council-contract (what halps with the resource-problem), but in multiplayer i asume hardly: split the istari on 2 or 3 decks is always better (in ways of finishing hard quests)

Aug 14, 2020 Seastan 44924

Helm of Secrecy into Aragorn might be a cleaner solution than The Fall of Gil-Galad, given that you get to keep 3 heroes around.