Lorefindel Walks to Mordor - Not A Foe Beyond Me! 1.0

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This is a decklist for the Saga Campaign series Lorefindel Walks to Mordor, built specifically for the second quest of the Road Darkens box: A Journey in the Dark. The companion deck is a Thurindir/Rossiel/Gandalf deck oriented around victory display shenanigans, supported by several powerful Ent allies.

Glorfindel has earned the Skilled Healer boon, granting him 2 extra hit points, while Frodo Baggins has been given the Noble Hero boon, granting him an extra point of willpower. The players have also earned Mr. Underhill, Ho Tom Bombadil, Old Bogey Stories, and all of the boons from The Ring Goes South.

For burdens, we have earned The Ring Draws Them. All burdens from Flight to the Ford were successfully added to the victory display before we won, and therefore were not earned.

Although each campaign deck so far has had some alterations to best meet the particular needs of the quest, they have all played mostly the same way, so I will first describe the basic strategy of the deck overall, before discussing the specific needs of Journey in the Dark.

Strategy: First off, the deck is huge. The exact number fluctuates from quest to quest, but it generally runs between 58 and 63 cards. However, the amount of card draw that the deck can generate is similarly massive, and we typically draw through the deck in about 10 turns or so.

This deck is a generalist deck - it can put up pretty good questing numbers, make meaningful contributions in the combat phase, and has a fair amount of toolbox cards to deal with tricky situations. The central focus of the deck is to build up Glorfindel to handle almost anything the encounter deck can throw at us. His already large native pool of hit points is boosted to 7 with the Skilled Healer boon, which means that we have the flexibility to take several undefended attacks in the early game without too much risk, which gives us crucial action advantage early on. But we'll generally want to boost that further - Elven Mail and Vigilant Guard together add 4 more, and Ent Draught from the other deck can push us up to 13 hit points. That's enough to leave us safe from most enemies, leaving Glorfindel enough space to attack back and kill the enemies, boosted by a weapon of some kind - often a Legacy Blade, but sometimes a Rivendell Blade. More resilient enemies can be taken down with help from Galdor of the Havens and the Veteran Sword-elf, with her single copy of Raiment of War. The Rivendell Bow lets you contribute across the table if your partner gets into trouble.

If there are enemies which punish undefended attacks for some reason, Gildor Inglorion with a A Burning Brand (and sometimes a Cloak of Lórien) is a decent secondary defender. Alternatively, the Veteran Sword-elf with Raiment of War can defend for 4 with 5 hit points backing it up.

3 copies of Athelas are included to refill Glorfindel's impressive hit point pool. With so many Condition attachments in the campaign, they also serve a secondary purpose of condition removal - for that reason, Glorfindel is often the primary target of any condition attachments, just so that healing doesn't get wasted.

To play the cards, we have included a single Song of Battle, which can be found with one of the Rivendell Minstrels or using the Master of the Forge. A second Minstrel can pull To the Sea, to the Sea! so that we can get some of these expensive allies into play.

Imladris Caregiver offers further healing, and between Glorfindel and the Caregiver, most of the damage on the table can be managed.

The opening hand should include Elven-light or Master of the Forge. Between Beravor and those card draw sources, you can almost always draw into whatever you're looking for most at that moment.

Journey in the Dark: For this quest, the most important problem is being able to tank hits from the Balrog. With 13 hit points, Glorfindel could take 1 undefended attack, but the second attack would have to be a chump blocker of some kind. Enter the Ring of Barahir. Since the Necklace of Girion is an Artifact, we can easily get 2 extra hit points out of it. We also added a copy of Black Arrow for the extra hit point, but also for extra attack to take down the Balrog after it shows up.

That brings our total hit points to 16, if everything works out. That's enough to take one Balrog attack undefended, defending against the second (with Unexpected Courage to ready and attack back after) and using Protector of Lórien to make sure that no shadow boosts kill off our hero. Ideally, we'll want to take down the Balrog in a single round, so we'll want to get a single burst attack of at least 24. Glorfindel should be up to 6 attack natively with the Legacy Blade by the end-game (using side quests from the Thurindir deck as well as Double Back), and should be at 5 from Necklace of Girion. 2 copies of Protector of Lórien can bring the willpower up to 11, and then a copy of Fair and Perilous will boost your attack to 17 there. Black Arrow makes that 22, and you can make up the final points with Veteran Sword-elf.

Note that the original plan was to use Lay of Nimrodel to boost his willpower on the critical turn. But I neglected to notice that I'd need a Song of Travel to make Glorfindel an eligible target, so that card went unused during the actual playthrough. If I were to do this again, I'd drop A Burning Brand and replace it with a single Song of Travel and a singleton Will of the West.

Ditch Beravor to the Great Bridge so that you can kill the Balrog. Then use The Houses of Healing to bring her back before the end of the quest so you don't have to deal with a fallen hero.

The last piece of the puzzle is Elrond. With the power of the Balrog fully unleashed against our Noldor friend, we are going to need more than Athelas supplemented by some Imladris Caregivers to keep us alive. Elrond gives us 3 more full-heals, if needed.