Into the West + Every Other Contract

Part 5

With the release of Beyond the Original Bargain, I am now working on a follow up to my original article on Into the West from over two and a half years ago. For that original article I built a bunch of Into the West decks--this time I'm building a bunch of decks that combine Into the West with every other contract. When I've published that article I will update this deck description with a link to it, and that article will have all my thoughts on this particular contract combination.

Playing this Deck

This is one of the most consistent and powerful deck's I've ever made. The core idea is to use Into the West, Widfast, and the three dogs to flip Fellowship as quickly as possible, then to use Into the West to refine your ally lineup each turn, trading up the weaker allies for better ones.

Widfast will use her ability to fetch Wolf during setup and then play him during the first round for free (you have a resource match thanks to Radagast). Use Wolf to fetch Fang and play him (he doesn't require a resource match), then use him to fetch Grip who also doesn't require a resource match. Use him to fetch either Gavin or Wilyador. You have so far spent 4 resources (you start with 5, thanks to Denethor), and have 4 allies in play (three dogs, plus the free ally from Into the West's setup effect). If you have Ioreth in hand you can play her and Wilyador to get up to nine and flip your contract. Otherwise you'll have to settle for eight unique characters on turn 1.

Each round Into the West will remove one of your allies from the game, flipping Fellowship back over to side A, allowing you to play a better ally. The dogs are great for kick starting things, but their low health and stats mean that you will want to trade them out for better options. Use the resources from Into the West to afford the expensive allies instead and refine your lineup. In emergencies you can use Sneak Attack to get back up to your nine characters.

There are also few big events that add some spice. I've played this deck a lot, and I've used Helm of Secrecy to turn Widfast into Lanwyn. I've also commonly turned Radagast into Boromir. The Free Peoples is our other big spicy event. It is very very easy to get the nine required traits to play it, and it can be a big swing for the whole table.