Outlands 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).

What kind of deck could fit the Dreamchaser cycle alongside Noldors? Both thematically and mechanicaly Outlands seem perfect for this task. This archetype doesn't need introduction or big write-up since it's probably the most simplistic kind of deck you can find. Spam Oultands allies and they buff themself as well as Hirluin the Fair. Swarm type of deck is very useful for this cycle since sailing quests tend to favour a lot of allies on the board to pass those tests. But having full Outlands deck seemed not sufficient enough and you can have only so many acceleration cards before getting deck unnecessarily bloated. So what other niche archetype suits swarm deck with cheap allies? How about just the opposite, costly but very strong allies. Haradrim follow similiar principle with only one hero in its archetype that is also and can pay for corresponding allies of all spheres. Only that those allies are the "Big Three": Jubayr, Firyal and Yazan, with some utility allies in between. Granted it's not super thematic and it goes beforehand an actual introduction of Kahliel and his folks in the game but you can picture it as Harad mercenaries or Southrons gone good.

Starting Hand

It's quite simple what you want in your starting hand. That is either resource or draw acceleration. So finding Steward of Gondor or Lord of Morthond is important. Without the first you may struggle with paying for all those off-sphere allies and without the latter you might be stuck topdecking for a while.

Heroes

Hirluin the Fair makes the Outlands part of this deck. Pathetic stats at first glance and they indeed might be an offset during an early game. However when you get enough Outlands allies on the board he becomes a real beast. Ranged on him, for some reason, is also useful. It really depends what you want to do with him on both his fluid statline and current board situation. Regarding attachments, both Lord of Morthond and Steward of Gondor go on him.

Kahliel on the other hand reprents Harad part of this deck. Similarly to Hirluin the Fair he can pay for allies off-sphere. Apart from that he has an action allowing you to discard Harad ally from your hand to ready Harad character. Early game that would be useful to get more uses of Kahliel himself in a pinch, later you can use it to defend more with Jubayr or attack several times with Yazan. His statline is balanced, which isn't good in my opinion, but at least he has some form of reading. And early game is the hardest for this deck so flexbility can actually quite welcome here. He of course gets his Kahliel's Headdress if you manage to find it.

The third hero for this lineup wasn't obvious. Both Outlands and Harad only have one hero in their archetype. Another restriction is mono-leadership character of this deck, so Lord of Morthond can function. I guess you can go with (MotK) Forlong, however another weak early game hero isn't really tempting. You can also go with something like Denethor to spread out resources or Faramir to get more uses of buffed up allies. However I wanted to try and be thematic as possible and who isn't more Outlandish than Prince Imrahil himself. In game of course he doesn't have printed Outlands trait but we can fix that with Prince of Dol Amroth. His stats are slightly better than others here which is a great help during early game. However his ability seems contradictory with Outlands and Harad premise. You don't want your allies to die since they either buff each other or are very costly and hard to come by. Still his ability can serve as some sort of insurance in case things go wrong. But apart from that I found one application when chumpblocking in Outlands deck might be beneficial. More on that below.

The Deck

Allies here are really self-explanatory. Each Outlands ally buffs one of the stats of all Outlands characters. Hunter of Lamedon can net you a free card and Forlong benefits when you "collected" at least some portion of your army. Haradrim on the other hand don't buff each other directly. Each of the "Big Three" is specialized in one aspect of the game. Then you have Southron Refugee to decrease their cost since each of those allies costs 5 resources. Kahliel's Tribesman can actually buff them and it seems that their best use is to adjust after questing or defending. The fact that they buff all the stats normally would be a waste but with reading provided by Kahliel and Noldor's deck Narya you can turn that around.

As I mentioned above, Steward of Gondor and Lord of Morthond play very important role in resource and card draw department. Steward of Gondor goes on Hirluin the Fair instead of Kahliel since there are more off-sphere Outlands allies and Kahliel can benefit from Captain's Wisdom. Kahliel's Headdress gives a very nice global +1 to all Haradrim as well as allows you shuffle back those allies that you discarded for reading. Prince of Dol Amroth is a bit of a win-more card. You don't really need it but it's nice to buff Prince Imrahil even more.

Events here are meant to accelerate process of pumping out those allies. A Good Harvest is great for off-sphere allies and can help bring out Harad's big guns. A Very Good Tale also accelerates it; Forlong is a great target if you can trigger his passive ability. Captain's Wisdom suits Kahliel very well since he can ready afterwards with his ability. Finally we have Men of the West. Normally this is supposed to function as a insurance card, in case some of your Outlands allies die. But I see at least two other uses and second one is truly devilish. Firstly you can grab some allies discarded by A Very Good Tale or maybe some encounter effects that instructed you to discard cards from your deck. Handy. But secondly you can do this combo. Chumpblock with Hunter of Lamedon, even if you can defend easily other way. That readies also Prince Imrahil which is neat. Next turn play Men of the West to bring Hunter of Lamedon back and play it again. Why? Card draw with Lord of Morthond. It works with other off-sphere allies but Hunter of Lamedon can net you two cards instead of one.

Finally I included one side quest, which is The Storm Comes. Once completed it serves as permament A Good Harvest which is great; can also help a bit the Noldor deck.

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!