Sneak me in!

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Yepesnopes 1235

This is my first take in a sort of Outlands deck, although the real fun of this deck is to sneak as much as possible Gandalf and Beorn.

The core part of the deck is as any other Outlands deck, so I will skip the description. My twist is on sneaking as much as possible Beorn and Gandalf.

Beorn: You can sneak Beorn during the combat phase thanks to the fact that it shares the Warrior trait with Prince Imrahil. Then, use his ability and shuffle him back into the deck. Repeat it every turn and smash your enemies! In case you don't find Beorn within your 5 cards, you can still put and Outland in play if Prince Imrahil has the Prince of Dol Amroth title.

If you end up having a Beorn in your hand it is not a big deal. You have two options:

Gandalf: In this deck you have three copies of Tome of Atanatar, three copies of Second Breakfast and three copies of Sneak Attack. This means you can potentially use Sneak Attack a total of 15 times on a single game!!! So, sneak our most beloved Istari and enjoy! Draw cards, reduce your threat or smite enemies as you feel more convenient :)

Notice the very beautiful synergy between Prince Imrahil and the Tome of Atanatar. The Sneak Attack played thanks to the Tome will go to the bottom of your deck, preventing you to use it again until you empty all your deck. Luckily, once you use Imrahil's ability you have to shuffle your deck, shuffling too in the process your Sneak Attack which was at the bottom :)

Resource acceleration: This deck has Steward of Gondor, it is a no-brainer. I am sure our cheerful and friendly Denethor won't mind sharing the title for a while with Hirluin the Fair ;) Of course, since Steward of Gondor gives you the Gondor trait, it means that Denethor can also pass him resources if needed. Finally, Prince of Dol Amroth is going to give Prince Imrahil one extra resource per turn when you controll Outlands from the 4 different spheres.

Card drawing Rod of the Steward and Gandalf are the main sources of card drawing here. At the initial stages of the game it is better to use Gandalf for card drawing. Later on, once you have already a decent outlands army in play, the Rod of the Steward comes handy as you may accumulate resources on Hirluin the Fair. Additionally, as with other Outlands deck, A Very Good Tale is a good card to put allies directly in play from your deck, and recover with Men of the West those outlands which got discarded.

Next iteration Honestly I have played little with this deck, but there are a couple of things that I want to look into. First is A Very Good Tale. This card is normally very good, but here you risk the chance to discard Beorn, which is something you don't want to happen. I am not so worried about Gandalf as you can cover his price by exhausting Forlong and any other cost 2 outland.

Second is healing. The deck has no healing, one possibility would be to remove some copies of cards (like Gondorian Shield and Rod of the Steward) and add Dúnedain Remedy.

Another option would be to remove all copies of A Very Good Tale and Men of the West and add Dúnedain Remedy and Valiant Sacrifice for example. I guess I will refine the deck in further iterations.

9 comments

Nov 25, 2016 Wolves 33

Really nice deck! Well thought through! I'm fairly sure it will be fun to play, although early stage questing could be tough. And may I add that it takes only a few packs to get the majority of this deck complete... a great starting deck, although some key cards come from different packs, as usual ^_^

Well done!

Nov 25, 2016 teamjimby 925

Do you find Tome of Atanatar to be worthwhile with only 2 leadership heroes? I wonder if you would be better off using leadership Imrahil. That would make Tome cheaper and give you access to Reinforcements for some different sneaky shenanigans. Not to mention Strength of Arms and Lord of Morthond. Plus, leadership Imrahil would get a chance to ready frequently with all the bouncing in and out of play.

In general, I would also try to increase your ally count to make sure A Very Good Tale and Imrahil don't whiff.

Nov 26, 2016 Yepesnopes 1235

@Wolves You are right, initial questing is an issue, but you can palliate it if you have a Gandalf in your starting hand. @teamjimby I may try Leadership Imrahil and add Reinforcements as you propose. At the present I have removed A Very Good Tale and Men of the West in favour of Dúnedain Remedy and Valiant Sacrifice, the deck works better with them.

Nov 26, 2016 Yepesnopes 1235

@Wolves You are right, initial questing is an issue, but you can palliate it if you have a Gandalf in your starting hand. @teamjimby I may try Leadership Imrahil and add Reinforcements as you propose. At the present I have removed A Very Good Tale and Men of the West in favour of Dúnedain Remedy and Valiant Sacrifice, the deck works better with them. On the other hand, having leadership Imrahil forces you to drop Shield of Gondor and therefore some powerful defence.

Nov 28, 2016 Wolves 33

When favoring Leadership Imrahil vs Tactics Imrahil, it should be noted that the deck then lacks a shuffle effect, which hampers the deck's intention because when event cards are placed on the bottom of the deck through Tome of Atanatar, they aren't reshuffled and therefore will not pop-up again for multiple uses.

Nov 28, 2016 teamjimby 925

@WolvesThere is potentially still some reshuffling with A Very Good Tale. It's not on demand like tactics Imrahil, but you only really need one or two.

Nov 28, 2016 Wolves 33

Holy crap! Excuse my language btw... I totally missed the fact that you need to shuffle your deck before discarding the top 5 cards with A Very Good Tale O_o For some reason I always thought you just discard the top 5 cards, pick your allies and be done with it... (goes to the corner of the room wearing a paper hat saying 'dunce') DOH! +__+

Nov 28, 2016 Serazu 1

If one doesn't mind including Elves in a Gondor deck, the Master of the Forge could also do the trick: he digs for the necessary attachments and provides shuffling on demand.

Jul 18, 2022 NERD 782

Master of the Forge is lore...