Leaf and Land 2.0

• Versions
• 3.0
• 2.0
• 1.0

I originally built this deck for the Thematic Nightmare series on my blog, but I've been playing it a lot lately, so I wanted to republish it with the tweaks I've made.

"In Dwimordene, in Lórien

Seldom have walked the feet of Men,

Few mortal eyes have seen the light

That lies there ever, long and bright."

—Gandalf, The King of the Golden Hall, The Two Towers

Strategy

This is my favorite Silvan deck!

At its core, it works just like any other Silvan deck: I play Silvan Allies down to get Celeborn's bonus. Galadriel lets them get double use out of those extra stats, allowing them to contribute to both the quest phase and the combat phase. The next round, once they are no longer benefiting from Celeborn's boost, I use an Event like Island Amid Perils, The Tree People, or Feigned Voices to pull them back into my hand so I can trigger their Enters Play ability a second time. That's all stock-in-trade for your standard Silvan deck.

The addition of Hero Gandalf adds an extra layer on top of the already-interesting Silvan fare. He allows me to include Silvan Allies from all four spheres, rather than having to pick between and . But he can also play the 0-cost Silvan-bouncing Events from the top of my deck, effectively resulting in free card draw. Combined with Galadriel's ability to exhaust in exchange for drawing 1 card and -1 threat, this deck draws cards surprisingly quickly.

The trick to playing this deck is in the timing: It's usually better for me to play whatever 0-cost Event happens to be on top of the deck than one from my hand (because it equates to free card draw). When Gandalf can't play the card on top of the deck, I usually trigger Galadriel's ability in the hopes of getting something better on top.

Attachments

My Heroes don't have any natural or icons, but as long as they're the top card of my deck, Gandalf can play cards from those spheres. Nenya gives Galadriel the resource icon, too, so the cards are slightly easier to play than the few cards. In practice, this deck has so much card draw that a few dead cards don't hurt it too badly, and it shouldn't be too long before the Wizard Pipe decides to turn up to ensure I can play everything.

The real star of the show here is Narya. Once Gandalf has found his ring, he can exhaust to ready two Allies and give them +1 to and . The best part is that this stacks with Celeborn's boost, turning wimpy Allies into stalwart heroes during the combat phase. In the late game, I frequently use Galadriel's Handmaiden as my main defender!

Threat

Even though it starts at 34, threat isn't a problem for this deck. Between triggering Galadriel's ability every round, Island Amid Perils, and Galadriel's Handmaiden, there's plenty of threat reduction to go around. It's pretty common to end games with my threat somewhere in the mid-twenties.

Mulligan

I typically mulligan for Wizard Pipe, since it makes it much easier to make efficient use out of Gandalf's resources. I might keep a particularly good hand with Gandalf's Staff in it, though.

Updates

I cut a bunch of the less useful events like The Wizards's Voice in exchange for more copies of Gandalf's toys like Wizard Pipe and Narya, and I added in Gandalf's Staff. I also swapped one copy of Unexpected Courage for Shadowfax, since I have found the Ranged / Sentinel useful (and it's easier to pay for a Neutral card than a one in this deck).