Silvan 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 #1 in a 2-player fellowship, given to a friend of mine, while myself I'm playing the other deck. 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).

The Ring-maker cycle brought very unique and engaging archetype of Silvan elves. While most of the decks before relayed on just getting as many allies as possible on the board, this new deck type presents more convoluted strategy. Sometimes the better move is to bring back a Silvan with an event to put it into play one more time than just getting brand new ally. Then you have decide which exact ally to play in what circumstances and even in which phase with Thranduil. While Silvan decks aren't top tier, they are not necessarily bad - the real difficulty comes from playing them correctly. So the basic strategy of the deck is to get bonuses from both Celeborn, Galadriel and particular allies' abilities when they enter play and then bounce them back again to your hand via beneficial events to play them again later. All in all it makes a challenging but unique way of playing about midway through cycles of the game.

General strategy

Mulligan either for Nenya, O Lórien! or Mirror of Galadriel. Nenya is extremly important for early game quest boost as well as access to . Lore allies can be played with Thranduil ability, however Nenya is the only way to play The Tree People, which is arguably the best Silvan event. O Lórien! doesn't provide the best cost reduction but can make difference between playing one or two allies in single turn. Lastly, Mirror of Galadriel can be used to fetch above-mentioned attachments and can be helpful mid to late game to find The Tree People or Host of Galadhrim. No need for Silver Harp since it takes to long to setup and you only really need to grab essential cards with the Mirror.

Celeborn presents an interesting statline, being able to cover most of the basics of the game. SInce he has 3 you should use him mostly for questing. Then you can either ready him in combat with Greenwood Archer or target him with Naith Guide. After that with his 2 he can help in an attack or with 2 and 4 defend in a pinch. Of course his best part is his ability making Silvan allies even better the round they enter play. With Galadriel bonus to all stats isn't wasted since they won't exhaust to quest anyway.

Galadriel helps here in many ways. The most important is her ability to make allies not exhuast to quest the round they enter play. This is really huge with Celeborn since your Silvans will have boosted stats the same turn. Her action to draw a card and decrease your threat by one is also handy. Drawing more cards allows for more options throughout your allies and events and threat reduction helps mitigate some of the Doomed cards played by other deck. Once acquiring Nenya, which should achieved quickly, you can quest for additional 4. Remember that it's an action that you can do after staging, so you can adjust your accordingly.

Thranduil is the dedicated defender in the deck. That's really important since Silvans are really wimpy. Without it you would have to rely on pricier allies like Greenwood Defender or Defender of the Naith or just chumpblocking which isn't really productive in the long term. With his ability you can play more combat-oriented allies as well as it's the only way to play in this deck. But even though his action is available only during combat it doesn't mean that you should use it to do only fighting stuff. Since you don't need a resource match for an ally played that way you can cast something like Galadhrim Minstrel when you don't have Nenya yet or some other ally that you wouldn't be able to afford next round normally. They won't gain benefits from Celeborn and Galadriel but in most situations an ally is worth more than no ally.

General tips

Silvan toolbox - that's the way the allies function in this deck. It means that every one of those cards has some sort of an ability, varying in its usage and covering almost every aspect of the game. It would take too long to describe every one of them, hovewer the most notable are the unique ones. Legolas and Haldir of Lórien are great target for The Tree People, while Galion is arguably the best ally in this deck. Yes, the 0/0/0/1 ally. Since he quests for 2 with Celeborn and cost 0 it's already a win. But he is the best target to play most of those events becasue you can put him into play for free anyway.

Attachments were mostly covered in mulligan section. Both Nenya and Mirror of Galadriel go on, well, Galadriel. O Lórien! doesn't really matter who goes on, I tend to put it on Galadriel since art of the card depicts her. The Elvenking might be a bit more contreversial. It would seem that Celeborn has better stats for reading, however I would argue it suits Thranduil better. Defending is a weakness of Silvan decks and The Elvenking can ensure more uses out of your defender. Celeborn is also the primary target for the Naith Guide and he can be readied with Greenwood Archer anyway.

Now the events are very vital part of this deck. Each of them provides some bonus with the only "cost" being returning Silvan ally to your hand. This cost might turn to be beneficial when you play that ally again to trigger all those bonuses. The Tree People is probably the best out of the bunch but is also the hardest to play since it requires Nenya. Host of Galadhrim is a very unique and interesting card. It comes into play only in mid to late game and allows you to trigger all Silvan abilites once again. Only caveat is that it costs 4 resources, so you might have to take that into account.

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!