Arwen Is The Steward Now (#RCO) 1.0

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• 1.0

#RCO (Revised Content Only)

This deck is built using only the Revised Core, 3 Starter Decks (all except Rohan), and the Angmar Hero Expansion.

Overview:

This is a solo deck that can beat the entire Angmar Awakened Campaign without any modifications between quests (note I played with the 2 boons earned from the core set campaign that you're allowed to carry into the "next" campaign).

It uses Arwen with Elven-light & Steward of Gondor to fuel the deck's card draw and resource engine, with A Very Good Tale to accelerate your board state. There are plenty of interesting tactical choices in the deck, and it has some very powerful combos. I built it for solo, but I'm sure it would perform just fine in multiplayer.

Opening Hand:

In your opening hand you're mainly looking for Elven-light and Steward of Gondor. There's some other card draw to help you find these: Daeron's Runes, Gléowine, Galadhrim Minstrel, and Gandalf.

Key Cards & Combos:

• Arwen Undómiel + Elven-light + Steward of Gondor: this is the primary engine that keeps this deck going. As the title suggests, put Steward on Arwen so she can play multiple Elven-lights a round. Her ability ensures you'll always be able to get one into your discard pile, while also helping smooth resources because you can give that extra resource to Aragorn. Elven-light is also the best fuel for Protector of Lórien; I usually put the first copy on Denethor to boost his defense, but with fewer enemies around you could stick it on Arwen to boost her willpower. You can also dig for Elven-lights with A Very Good Tale if you don't find them in your opening hand.

• Denethor + Unexpected Courage + Magic Ring: Denethor's ability to just say "nope" to an encounter card is extremely powerful. It's one of the strongest ways to control the encounter deck, sifting out the worst cards, or anything with surge. Since his ability has no limit, you can stack multiple Unexpected Courages (and/or Magic Ring) and exert ultimate control over the encounter deck, ensuring you only see the cards you want to see. I mostly use this for staging, but you could use this before combat to see the next shadow card as well. With Protector of Lórien on him, Denethor also becomes the chief defender, so getting to use his defense multiple times is also extremely helpful.

• Sneak Attack + Gandalf: the classic combo, 'nuff said.

• A Very Good Tale + Ranger of Cardolan + Gandalf: This combo exploits the action window right after the Refresh phase. Play Ranger of Cardolan for only 1 resource using his ability, use him for something in the combat phase, then AFTER he readies in the Refresh phase but BEFORE the end of the round, use AVGT in that action window to exhaust him to put 4-cost worth of allies into play. Then after that action window, the ranger gets shuffled back into your deck. You can even do the same thing if you play Gandalf at full-cost, or you could even sneak attack one of these guys in if you want to play AVGT in a different action window.

• Faramir is perhaps the most important ally for actually winning quests, giving you a huge boost to willpower.

• Tri-sphere decks need resource smoothing to function well, and for that we have Envoy of Pelargir to get resources to Denethor, Arwen's ability to give to Aragorn, and there are 10 neutral cards that naturally help smooth resources.

Sideboard:

Aside from the key combos I listed above, everything else is quite flexible. The first substitution I might consider is Beorn, and Stand and Fight to put him into play since this deck is a bit lacking in attack power.

East Road Ranger was chosen specifically for the Angmar Awakened campaign because it has so many side quests, so feel free to take that out for other quests.