Eagle 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Overview

I've decided to share some of the decks me and my friend group play with for particular cycles. This is Deck #2 in a 2-player fellowship, played by myself while other player gets Deck #1. For more in-depth overhaul regarding structure and thought behind those decks please check out the fellowship description! (e.g. no shared cards in Decks #1, sticking strictly to the theme).

Since the first cycle presented us with mostly generic cards to enrich our collection, developers decided to introduce quite a lot of Eagle themed cards, which were to be expanded basically at the end of the game's development (ironic, huh). This Eagles deck do not covers the weaknesses of partner's Rohan deck but plays in the same tune - agression. From my expierience, early quest had a major flaw in its tempo; you can either turtle forever or speedrun through them. Since turtling exposes you more to some nasty card effects (yes, let me take that 2 damage on each exhausted character), full on aggro is in my opinion the way. Argument for this playstyle lies also in lack of threat reduction in both decks (apart from Gandalf), since there are really no thematic ways to do that both in Rohan and Eagles archetypes. This deck, as most of Decks #2, is meant to provide support for your friend, and in this case it's through even more firepower and some healing.

General strategy

Mulligan for Radagast's Staff, Word of Command or good supply of Eagles with The Eagles Are Coming!. Eagle allies are either really cheap or quite costly and Radagast's Staff allows for some cost reduction as well as flexibility. Word of Command allows you to grab for it but it's not the end of the world if you have a lot of eagles on hand that you can spam qucikly and cruise through the quest.

Faunith has an interesing response, allowing you to ready Gwaihir after he commits to the quests and to adjust your or dish out some direct damage. You should almost always quest with him, maybe leave for some big attack since he has 2.

Gwaihir is a centerpiece of this deck. Basically your every move revolves around a question: "how will this affect Gwaihir?". It's both a blessing, since you can ready him several times, as well as a burden when he goes exhausted into the next round and demands to make a plan to ready him again. Even with that, this guy is worth it. Amazing combat statline as well as 2 is nothing to sneeze at. However the real gem of the Eagle King are his keywords, both ranged and sentinel, allowing him to support partner's deck really well.

I think of Radagast in this deck as an accelator. His staff provides some cost reduction, reading and in corner case built in A Light in the Dark (quite a lot of creature enemies in Shadow of Mirkwood Cycle). Since most of the allies in this deck are and Creatures, through his abillity you can very well treat him as a hero of this sphere. Built in quest advantage allows him to make better use of his spread out stats (mostly ) but also to utilize either Word of Command or Healing Herbs.

General tips

As mentioned above, most important mechanic of this deck revolves around reading Gwaihir. This deck provides a lot of opportunities to do that, either through Faunith, some events or just plainly playing Eagles. In an ideal situation you want to play one ally in a planning phase to ensure Radagast response and then play another Eagle during quest phase to ready Gwaihir. During combat you can chump block or make use of some of the events to get even more use of the Big Eagle.

Cool concept that ALeP creators went for is direct damage, that was sorely lacking in a base game when Descendant of Thorondor exists. Since most of the enemies in this cycle are either wimps or beefy baddies you can take care of the first kind pretty easily with right setup. On another but similiar note, Meneldor really trivializes location build up with how much you can bounce him.

Another common strategy in Eagle decks is to power up Eagles of the Misty Mountains. While highly desired in this deck too, given the nature of how fast-paced some of the scenarios can be, this mechanic should be treated more as a bonus than something to strife for.

Other creature allies provide some support, with Loyal Hound saving a hero from undefended attack or some nasty shadow and Messenger Raven giving somewhat reliable card draw, as well to feed Radagast response consistently.

With Gwaihir's Debt in the pool the rest of Istaris make an appearance. Gandalf - for obvious reasons - but also one copy of Saruman, which can make some corner cases, like blanking the Nazgul in Dol Guldur.

Conclusion

That pretty much covers the basics of this deck. Please keep in mind it is designed to play with the other deck in a fellowship and for a particular cylce in a game. This decks is meant to represent most powerful combination of cards in a given archetype, but feel free to leave a comment regarding them, as even after some years of using them I change them slightly after some thought :) Feel free to try them, even with new players as I did!