The Wandering Kings 1.0

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• 1.0

"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

-Tolkien

This deck was inspired by the Kings of Middle Earth who lived their lives as vagabonds, roaming across the world. Biding time until theirs came.

The first cards of this deck were Vanish from Sight and Pillars of the Kings. I loved the art and theme of both of these cards, and at first glance, they seemed to have a tight and powerful interaction. I looked closely at these cards to determine how they ought to interact, and then chose the Kings of Middle Earth who have a history of Vanishing as my heroes.

This is a 2 hero mono-sphere Valor deck that I have done my best to optimize for theme, strength, and fun. I have played this deck solo and coop.

The Deck:

-Enters Valor like a King claiming his throne: Using Pillars of the Kings

-Exits Valor like a Vagabond, waiting until greatness is needed again: Thorongil/Aragorn or Vanish from Sight

-Threat: Controlled through Thorongil and Pillars of the Kings. Able to use Pillars of the Kings to reduce threat for free if coupled with Vanish from Sight in the same phase. However, cannot gain the card draw benefit because threat is reduced.

-Card Draw: Primarily through King Under the Mountain and Pillars of the Kings again. Low starting threat and Thorongil give you a good chance at proccing the card draw x4 twice per game. Hidden Cache, Soldier of Gondor,Galadriel are also means of card draw.

-Resource Generation: Steward of Gondor, Hidden Cache, and Rune-master coupled with Dúnedain Remedy. (Unfortunately, getting Thorin Oakenshield to proc his ability was not practical in early game testing despite earlier dwarf loading, so I abandoned that prospect... I did not, however, abandon all the dwarves. As my favorite Dwarven Sellswords give fast power before vanishing themselves. They have proven themselves to be excellent Troll blockers).

-Healing: Dúnedain Remedy with Rune-master gives free and repeatable healing (yet slow, once per round, if keeping free). If patient and if Rune-master goes on first, you can even gain resources with this combo.

-Questing: Strider, Faramir, and Visionary Leadership, add significant power to questing. Faramir and Visionary Leadership were added as singleton inclusions because either one alone can give necessary power to overcome questing burden of quests.

Game plan:

-Mulligan for: (Order of importance) 1.Strider, 2.Steward of Gondor 3.King Under the Mountain

Ideal turn 1: Steward on Aragorn, Strider on Thorin, King under the Mountain on Thorin. Questing for 7 with both heroes ready (with card draw, resource generation, and action advantage set up for the duration of the game).

Stay out of sight until you are ready to announce your return. Hopefully you have Valiant Swords or Angbor the Fearless or Veteran of Osgiliath when your kingly time has come. Pillars of the Kings to get cards, kill foes/ quest hard, and then disappear. Thorongil

Use Vanish from Sight strategically to dodge treacheries, engagements, or just to reduce your threat with Pillars of the Kings for free!

(side note: Use intuition to dodge treacheries that proc on high threat. I try to have one when I know I am going to flip a lot of cards on the encounter deck, like in the final phase of Journey Along the Anduin).

Need Drives Them and For Gondor! for added power and action advantage when needed. I like to use Need Drives Them during hard questing pushes to get extra uses out of Faramir. Can also use it to kill multiple large targets.

Deck Combos: Use Galadriel to fish and play power attachments on. Also to organize for King Under the Mountain to discard the proper cards (or for Well-Equipped to put on another attachment for free/get immediate resources depending on what cards Galadriel can rearrange.

Use Soldier of Gondor to either fish for allies/Faramir OR to shuffle draw deck if Galadriel reveals a poopy top 5.

Rune-master and Dúnedain Remedy explained above

Pillars of the Kings and Vanish from Sight explained above.

End Notes: I am considering Proxying Visionary Leadership for Sword that was Broken because it is way cooler, more thematic, and more powerful (and doesn't require me to have Steward of Gondor to play). I just generally try not to proxy because I want to use the cards I have. . . That being said, you by now have probably realized that I don't actually have Loragon (but am using him anyways). And to that I say... ya got me.

I love the high octane risk, power, speed, and theme of this deck.

Thank you, fellow Kings, for reading.