About the deck
While deckbuilding against certain quests and challenges is fun, I always liked more universal approach. Progression-style is also fine, but needs tuning after each scenario. Building the deck that can consistently beat several scenarios in chronological order in a row is always a challenge that I enjoy. On the other hand, quests in the game are so diverse, that it is really hard to create such a deck - if you have tried Journey to Rhosgobel without healing or The Dunland Trap using Outlands swarm you probably know, what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I got used to the idea of having a sideboard when trying to play without rebuilding the whole deck after each scenario. I've also recently bought the Dream-Chaser campaign box and tried the campaign in LotR for the first time apart from the Saga expansions (I don't have revised Core Set and Angmar Awakened campaign expansion) and really enjoyed it, playing the full Outlands deck (here) and completing all quests without changing a single card.
So, I decided to take a similar "campaign" approach and for a difference try another cycle, but using some cards from the Dream-Chaser. I really enjoyed testing second incarnation of Prince Imrahil, so I've decided to build a full-Gondor deck and try it thematically. The obvious choice was Against the Shadow cycle.
From my memory, playing Against the Shadow for the first time was one of the most difficult challenges that I've tried in the game. Of course the first approaches to deal with Trolls on Carrock or face the Balrog in Moria were tough, but overall I consider both Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf cycles relatively easy. Against the Shadow on the other hand not only improved the overall quality of the story, but besides certain quests (Amon Din, obviously) significantly raised the difficulty of the game. I remember banging my head against the wall while trying to survive the journey Into Ithilien only to face Cair Andros soon; many attempts to just enter the last stage of Steward's Fear; and ofc the great conclusion of the cycle, nasty boss-battler in the Morgul Vale. Battle and siege quests were quite fresh, but considering that attack and defense are necessary as well for combat and willpower still can't be entirely skipped in most quests, deckbuilding for Against the Shadow was always a tough nut to crack. Punishing multisphere decks and game-breaking treacheries were also quite memorable.
Concept and restrictions
So, here we are. My idea was to play the full Gondor campaign without switching heroes (similar to LotR Saga campaign) and keeping a reasonable pool of cards for all quests. That being said, I wanted to still be open for some deckbuilding possibilities and therefore chose 3 heroes that I both enjoy playing with and have 2 playable versions: Beregond, Boromir and Prince Imrahil. Considering the fact that they together covered 3 spheres, I've decided that my "full card pool" can be twice as big as a regular deck - so 50-card sideboard was allowed. After some tweaking, I've reached the full card list presented here and I was quite happy with its performance.
About missing cards: I own only 1 Core Set (non-revised), therefore I have limited number of copies of some essential cards - no 3x Steward of Gondor, Unexpected Courage or Feint, then. I'm also still missing the last 3 cycles: Haradrim (though I own Sands of Harad), Ered Mithrin and Vengeance of Mordor. Having these cards in my collection I would definitely add great cards such as The Red Arrow, Angbor the Fearless and Soldier of Gondor, which would cover the biggest weaknesses of this deck (low willpower and draw) - and probably even more. Nevertheless, between 6 deluxes, 6 cycles and all Hobbit/Saga expansions, cardpool was big enough to build a decent deck.
Considering heroes that would open some deckbuilding possibilities while still fitting thematically, I've decided to skip Faramir and Denethor. While I like both versions of hero Faramir (even though they are probably not the strongest heroes in the game), he can't be played as a hero in last two scenarios. This singlehandedly determined that I couldn't have chosen him, but also ally Faramir is absolutely essential for Gondorian swarm decks because he cover their biggest weakness. Regarding Denethor it wasn't so obvious, since he fits thematically and is very good + also would have given me the access to the lore sphere. The only hero that I would consider swapping for Denethor was Beregond. Boromir is fun, a little bit underplayed (at least for me) since especially his leadership version fits only in this one deck; on the other hand the whole idea of this deck started with tactics version of Prince Imrahil. Beregond wasn't that much needed and Denethor can play similar role as a main defender/siege quester, but after playing full Dream-chaser with a deck containing leadership Denethor I wanted to change something. What is more, while Denethor would give me the access to the lore sphere, Beregond did the same for Spirit AND - what was more important especially in this cycle - allowed me to build monosphere tactics deck for scenarios that really punish multisphere decks. And last but not least - I've never played spirit Beregond before and expected him to be fun to test (and he was!).
Despite my collection restrictions, I've decided though to play a single proxy card since I find it really amazing and - primarily - fun in such playthrough. With 2 versions of each hero Thorongil is really versatile and powerful attachment and I really wanted to try it. Throughout the campaign it proved to be really useful, being played at least once for each of my three heroes (on Imrahil actually even on both versions). Amazing design.
Playthrough report
I've logged my quest attempts separately, so I won't repeat them here. In general, besides the Morgul Vale the deck performed really well. Even against tougher scenarios it managed to be quite consistent and while I've lost some attempts, in general - when played well - it should reach more than 50% wins for each of them. The one exception, as I said, is The Morgul Vale - ridiculously hard quest in pure solo that needs well-crafted deck; while playing the cycle some time ago progressively I've managed to beat it regularly using mono-tactics deck, but it was completely different roster. Anyway, with some silver-bullets and tons of luck I've managed to beat this quest as well.
Afterthoughts
As an experience, playing such deck in a thematic cycle was a great experience and I can't wait to try similar approach for the next cycles. As for now I'm a little bit tired of Gondor cards, but definitely would try them again in the future for some other quests. I'll definitely get back to Against the Shadow cycle in the future as the story is compelling enough (not the best, but still better than in first 2 cycles) and challenges demanding.
As for modifications for the deck: I've tried a lot of 1-ofs and 2-ofs (especially unique, as neither this deck nor encounter cards from this cycle give opportunity to discard useless cards from hand) and definitely I see some space for improvement. Not only including cards that I'm missing in my collection, but certain cards proved to be way more or less useful than I initially thought; also, really powerful unique cards probably should have been played 3x despite their uniqueness to raise the consistency. But - what's important - there was no single card within these 100 that wasn't useful in a certain situation.