Make for the Gap of Rohan! 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Introduction

During your very first turn, without playing a single card, this deck can already do all of the following:

• Quest for 9
• Defend for 4
• Attack for 14 (or twice for 10 )
• Reduce your threat by 2

By now we all know how strong Bond of Friendship decks can be. While they're typically also incredibly fun to play, one problem I have with them is that after a while they can all start to feel a bit samesies. They have a few auto-includes for each sphere to deal with typical issues of a Bond of Friendship, such as threat control and consistency. Every deck seems to include Gandalf + Sneak Attack, Favor of the Valar, Double Back, Heed the Dream and A Good Harvest, just to name a few. On top of that, it's very tempting to fill out the rest of the deck with stalpes from each sphere and be done with it.

I'm not claiming this deck is wholly original, but playing a Saruman deck with 4 heroes does come with some unique challenges. Standard threat control measures such as those I mentioned previously simply don't work here. I also like how the Doomed cards give the deck a unique feel, and since they're spread across all 5 spheres, they are perfectly suited for a Bond of Friendship deck. Add to that the Saruman-specific support cards and you quickly round out the 10 required cards for this deck.

Heroes

In that sense, this deck is more a Saruman deck than a Bond of Friendship deck. As always, Saruman pairs incredibly well with heroes that provide repeatable threat reduction. Here, we run both Frodo Baggins and Beregond. Frodo Baggins gives Saruman unmatched action advantage, allowing him to quest for 3 and attack for 4 . And you can play any Doomed card to ready him a second time so he can defend in a pinch or attack a second enemy.

The big advantage that Bond of Friendship offers here is that you have an extra hero slot to play with. And who better to include here than Éowyn? She gives some much-needed early and her secondary effect synergizes extremely well with this deck. Since we already have impeccable threat control through Frodo Baggins and Beregond, the 3 threat is easily mitigated. But even better: if you know beforehand that you're going to use her effect during a given round, you can use Frodo Baggins to ready her after questing. This effectively allows her to quest for 4 and then attack twice for 10 . Add to that Saruman's 4 and you should have no problem killing any early game threats or bosses the encounter deck throws at you.

Allies

While Éowyn and Saruman together can team up to kill practically any boss monster in the game, you can only do so once per game. This still leaves all the other enemies in the encounter deck to deal with. Once Éowyn's effect has been used, this deck actually struggles a bit with offense. This is why we run Angbor the Fearless, Dúnedain Hunter, Quickbeam and Treebeard who all bring 3+ to the table.

The rest of the ally line-up is focused primarily on . Arwen Undómiel, Galadriel's Handmaiden, Pippin, Sam Gamgee, Angbor the Fearless and Steward of Orthanc all quest for 2 apiece and usually have decent effects to boot.

Envoy of Pelargir, Ioreth and Warden of Healing are the odd ones out here. The former is mainly here to round out the 10 cards required to play a Bond of Friendship. The other two are there for healing, which this deck would completely lack otherwise.

Attachments

Most of the attachments are geared towards making Beregond an indestructible defender. When he's completely decked out with 1 copy each of Armored Destrier, Captain of Gondor, Dúnedain Warning, Gondorian Shield and Hauberk of Mail, he will be defending twice for 9 . With Arwen Undómiel he can even defend for 10 . All your copies of Unexpected Courage should also go on him, as he really is your only source of defense in this deck.

The only other attachments are the two ones. Saruman's Staff obviously goes on Saruman. This is one of the cards you want to mulligan for, and if you don't find it in your opening hand, it should be the first card to search with Gather Information or Word of Command. Keys of Orthanc is also a Saruman-themed card, but actually goes best on Frodo Baggins because his resources are the most valuable.

Events

To the surprise of no one, this deck is full of Doomed events. We can sadly only run 2 copies of each since this is a Bond of Friendship deck, but that is still more than enough to fuel Saruman. Even if it weren't, Steward of Orthanc can make any event a Doomed one, so even your regular events can be used to ready Saruman whenever you want.

Other than our Doomed events we run some staples like Feint for added defense and A Test of Will because you have to. Most other events like Peace, and Thought, We Are Not Idle and Word of Command provide additional card draw.

Playstyle

During the first round, your heroes can already quest for 9 , defend for 4 and then attack back for 4 or 14 . That's without any additional support. Your early game should therefore be used to build up a decent board of allies and defensive attachments for Beregond. Combined with all your strong Doomed events that can be played for free you should have no problem getting through the first 2-3 rounds at least.

Use the early game to gain control of the board, but don't forget to also transition your own board state into the late game. It's not enough to just keep readying your heroes with Defiant Challenge and use them to kill off whatever's in front of you. You need allies to increase your past the initial 9 , plus you need additional if you want to actually take down any of the enemies you'll engage. And there will come a time when Beregond's 4 will no longer cut it.

Throughout the game, you use Frodo Baggins and Beregond to keep your threat low. If you manage to use both their effects each round you will actually go down in threat overall. However, this shouldn't be a goal in and of itself. Don't be afraid to let your threat go to the high 40s: these heroes are here to offset some of the cost of your Doomed cards, but they are meant to be played.

Challenges

The trick with this deck is to find the right balance between card draw and resource management. Since most of your events cost 0, it's easy to empty your entire hand rather quickly. Since none of our heroes provide built-in card draw you're entirely reliant on cards you happen to draw during the Resource Phase. To mitigate this somewhat, we run a a number of additional card draw and search effects, namely Steward of Orthanc, Peace, and Thought, Deep Knowledge, Word of Command, Gather Information and Prepare for Battle. Sadly, most card draw is found in the sphere, which is easily the tightest sphere in this deck.

As for resources, there is of course Legacy of Númenor. However, this card is very expensive in terms of threat, even with Saruman's Staff's discount. In general, resources aren't that big of a problem with this deck, with the exception of your resources on Frodo Baggins. You typically want to pay for his effect as often as possible, but this would make it impossible to play any cards. Choosing when to use his effect and when not to is probably the most important decision you have to make when piloting this deck. This is the main reason why Keys of Orthanc usually goes on Frodo Baggins.

We run a couple of 0-cost cards such as Legacy of Númenor and We Are Not Idle which require no preparation on Frodo Baggins' account. While the other 6 cards have to be paid for, I believe they are worth it. Armored Destrier is invaluable action economy on Beregond, Dúnedain Warning and Hauberk of Mail are necessary to boost Beregond's defenses, Angbor the Fearless provides some much-needed once your threat passes 40 and finally Prepare for Battle is repeatable card draw, which this deck otherwise may struggle with.

Sideboard

The sideboard includes some alternative options for you to think about. While I wouldn't recommend it, this deck can pull off Sneak Attack + Gandalf like any other Bond of Friendship deck. However, given the scarcity of resources, you typically have better things to do. Horns! Horns! Horns! is an in-theme Sneak Attack replacement that costs 0 and thus alleviates that downside. Even then I still think this combination is too situational, as there isn't a single other ally you would like to bring out like this.

Golden Shield can turn Éowyn in a secondary defender that you can ready after questing with Frodo Baggins, but this too is quite situational. Mithril Shirt and Silver Lamp can further help with defense, though I think the deck runs enough toys for Beregond as is.

And of course there is always the Helm of Secrecy cheese strategy to swap out Saruman for Aragorn and reset your threat. I'm not a big fan of this strategy, as Helm of Secrecy is a completely dead draw until then, and it loses a bit of its potency anyway in a Bond of Friendship deck as your starting threat is bound to be quite high.