Starter - Helm's Deep Parapets

Format: King Standard

Author: Phallen

Ring-bearer:
Ring:

Adventure deck:

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
1x
1x
1x
3x
4x
1x
4x
4x
1x
1x
2x
2x
1x
1x
2x
1x
2x
2x
1x

Shadow Draw Deck:
1x
3x
1x
2x
4x
4x
4x
1x
4x
1x
1x
3x
2x
4x

Notes

Elves and Uruk-hai exchange archery fire at Helm's Deep.

Free Peoples: (starting Legolas and Haldir. I recommend a low bid, 0-2)
The goal of any Free Peoples archery deck is to put out enough wounds that no minions make it to skirmish anyway. The reality of many archery decks is that it takes some time to get there, so for the first part of the game you're just managing losses. This can make archery decks a little bit... bland? So there's some extra interaction with Aragorn and tokens. If you're able to win some skirmishes, you'll be able to dispatch any leftover minions with Aragorn or Fereveldir. Still, I'm not sure that it'll practically bring much change to how the deck plays. If it ends up being a distraction I might cut it. I don't know that I actually want to lean all the way in on archery though, I'm more likely to up Feathered and Blades Drawn than anything else.

I originally had Arwen, Fair Elf Maiden here to help survive Nazgul. I think that Haldir's 7 strength, plus whatever useful things you wind up with in your hand, will do enough to survive a hard site 2. And by site 4 you ought to have been able to get *something* together. So I want to give him a try, he's so much more thematic.

Shadow:
This is a classic "bomb" deck, where you spend the game preparing and then seemingly win all at once when you're ready. Basically, you load up Weapons of Isengard and potentially Devilry of Orthanc and then that's the end. I almost didn't want to put this Shadow into rotation at all but with Such a Weight to Carry in most decks and no Enquea, the Shadow has to overcome Frodo's resistance -- it won't be *quite* as simple as "use everything at 9 and win."

Still, with Frodo at 4 vitality and 4 other companions at 3 vitality, that's 11 wounds before someone drops. Devilry and 4x Weapons is 13 wounds for a 5-person Fellowship right there, and that's on top of all the other wounds you deal along the way and whatever minions you play when you decide to let the bomb go off. Frodo may not die to archery wounds but he could easily be overwhelmed if he's forced to skirmish 2 archers, or even face corruption from the site text.

All decks have some healing on top of sanctuaries but this is a deck to watch. Wound-based strategies disrupt the notion that this is a game based on the skirmish phase and it can be hard for newer players to shift their focus away from that. There's no Vilya in my decks, the primary oppressor for any token-based Shadow strategy, and since the decks are prioritizing theme condition discarding is more limited for most decks than is strictly necessary. If it overperforms the obvious cut would be Devilry of Orthanc. But that's the literal bomb of the bomb deck! So I think instead I'll drop a copy or two of Weapons of Isengard in favor of some event so that Shadow players are forced to accumulate wounds over the course of the game, with a less intense explosion at the end to finish opponents off. If those events are skirmish pumps then the Saruman's Ambition become more interesting as well.

The main thing your opponent can do is race. If the game ends in 5 turns instead of 7, you have much less opportunity to get a full bomb together. Your opponent has less opportunity to heal of course, so it's hard to say how that turns out in general. If that becomes a problem, Traitor's Voice will be an interesting card for this Shadow to consider (at the expense of introducing the somewhat-confusing move limit modifier rule).