Well-Rounded Gondor 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a basic Gondor/Trap deck that I built for the Facebook "Deckbuilding challenge" for June, 2018.

Like most Gondor decks it starts a little slow but it can churn out solid willpower in a few turns if you get your cards in place.

Opening Hand

Denethor likes to see his Title in that opening hand so he can start sending his Rangers resources. A trap card will help keep you safe turn 1 and either Visionary Leadership or Faramir will be great for getting your willpower going. An ideal hand would include Steward of Gondor, Ranger Spikes, Visionary Leadership and an Envoy of Pelargir. If you get all those into play turn 1 you can quest for 10 turn 1 with the trap keeping you safe from that first enemy that might come up.

Basic Play

Put Steward on Denethor so he can distribute resources as necessary and draw cards with Rod of the Steward. Keeping a few resources on Denethor lets you pull any card you want with Heed the Dream (thus the 1x Anborn, Rod and Fire) Let resources pile up on Mablung so he can roast big enemies with fire in the late game. Try to cycle traps with Anborn if able for the card draw if nothing else.

Denethor can be a good defender with his Shield and Destrier. His 3hp are a little sketchy, but he can usually defend a Netted enemy first, discard the larger enemy's shadow card, then defend again without risk.

I put Wingfoot on Mablung so he can quest and attack later in the round. I have found the Defender of Rammas and Knight of the White Tower a little extraneous in some quests because Denethor is managing all the defense!

Once you have Faramir and Visionary Leadership in place, 3 Envoys and Damrod and Mablung can quest for 17 and leave the rest of your allies up for the combat phase.

Weaknesses

While it has a decently low starting threat level, there are no options for lowering it for longer games or quests with extra Doom cards. There are several 1hp allies and no way to stop treacheries like Necromancer's Reach etc. so you might have trouble with keeping your smaller allies around in some quests.

Testing

I've tested this against Escape from Umbar a couple times with good success and I've played it many times against Hunt for Gollum and had mixed success. It's not a power deck, but it holds tightly to theme and it's functional!