Fangorn Rangers 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Concept & Strategy

The main idea of this deck is to maximize the incredible strength of the various Ent allies. Ents are well known for their often ridiculous stats, outclassing even many heroes out there. So logically, the heroes in this deck are actually the supporting cast, whose main job is to enable all of our Ent allies. Faramir is the most important hero in this respect, as he basically nullifies what is practically the only weakness of Ent characters, namely the fact that they enter play exhausted. This allows you to drop a powerful Ent ally turn 1, quest for 6 with all your heroes and then ready an Ent to defend any enemy that appears during staging. Obviously this isn't the most powerful opening play imaginable in this game, but it only gets better with each following turn.

Mablung synergizes really well with Faramir since both of their effects are triggered whenever you engage enemies. While Faramir provides reliable action advantage, Mablung helps generate resources to keep pumping out more and more Ents each turn. Bifur rounds out the hero line-up, providing access to the Lore sphere and really flexible resource smoothing at a threat cost of only 7. Thanks to his effect, you can play a Quickbeam or Wandering Ent on the very first turn. If necessary, Bifur can keep transferring the extra resources generated by Mablung to himself in case your hand contains predominantly Lore cards. Most of the time though, you'll be taking resources from Faramir as this deck runs very few Leadership cards.

With the abilities of Bifur and Mablung combined with Steward of Gondor and Treebeard's resource generation, resources become pretty much trivial in this deck. So how can we capitalize off of our resource abundance as much as possible? That's where all of our card draw comes in. We run 3 copies each of Peace, and Thought, Daeron's Runes and Entmoot, allowing us to go through our deck at a ridiculous pace. This allows the deck to just keep on going, never running out of steam. Peace, and Thought in particular just fits perfectly, as after about 2 or 3 turns, you really don't need your heroes that much anymore. Also, with a grand total of 26 Ent cards, Entmoot usually picks up around 3 cards on each use, sometimes even netting you another copy of itself for even more card draw!

Finally, since we're running Faramir, we can also splash a couple of Leadership cards to further support our powerful Ents. Ever Vigilant is especially nice, giving our allies maximum action advantage alongside other readying effects like Boomed and Trumpeted and the effects of Faramir and Treebeard. You can easily ready a single Ent up to 3 times a turn this way! Sneak Attack is there mainly for Gandalf, which is still one of the greatest combos in this game. In this deck, you'll mostly want to use Gandalf to lower your threat, since that is pretty much the only thing this deck lacks otherwise. Usually, with a starting threat of 28, threat shouldn't be too much of a problem, but some quests can be really tough on your threat.

Not a whole lot of Leadership cards, I know, but Faramir's resources are rarely dead: you can spend them on neutral cards like Gandalf and Treebeard, but most of the time you'll be transferring them to Bifur (after dropping Steward of Gondor).

Summary

In conclusion, the deck excels in pretty much all important aspects of the game:

• Questing: It quests very easily, because you can commit your heroes to the quest almost every turn, and all of your Lore Ents have at least 2 willpower (Wellinghall Preserver even has 3).
• Defense: Derndingle Warrior and Treebeard can block pretty much every enemy out there without dying, even unique bosses. Also, Feint.
• Offense: Booming Ent, Treebeard, Boomed and Trumpeted and Gandalf.
• Healing: Warden of Healing and Wellinghall Preserver. Healing and damage prevention are important in all decks, but in this deck it's especially important to be able to carefully control the damage to your Ents so as to maximize the effect of Booming Ent while taking minimal risks.
• Resource generation/smoothing: Bifur, Mablung, Treebeard and Steward of Gondor.
• Card draw: Peace, and Thought, Daeron's Runes and Entmoot.
• Action advantage: Ever Vigilant, Treebeard, Faramir and Boomed and Trumpeted.

On top of all that, It has access to Sneak Attack + Gandalf to nicely round out the deck, giving easy access to an arsenal of Gandalf's powerful effects that you can use as the quest requires. Playing Gandalf for its regular cost of 5 is also not a problem in this deck, so even if you don't draw into Sneak Attack, this deck can still profit greatly from Gandalf.