Flight Crew 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

A somewhat thematic deck built to get me through the Against the Shadow cycle!

I had a previous version of this deck that really struggled in terms of stalling out mid and late game. It was limited in attack power, and somewhat limited in resource acceleration and card draw. A couple new cards in the Heirs deluxe set, as well as some inspiration from net decks, has this deck working so much better.

PILOTING INSTRUCTIONS

Early Game: Mulligan for Song of Kings. You have a two-card combo you are looking for as early as possible: Song of Kings + Steward. Both go on Aragorn. In the meantime, you can get by with resource acceleration from Stargazer + Ziggy. Once you get Steward in play, though, don't let off the gas with Ziggy. Get as many resources as possible on Aragorn.

If you don't have your resource acceleration going in the early game, you may want to turtle and rely on Frodo soaking enemy attacks as threat. Hold back Aragorn and Glorfindel as attackers. You could mitigate the damage a little by questing with Frodo at times.

Or, you could YOLO quest early game if you need to power through a location or quest stage.

Put Unexpected Courage on Aragorn when possible. Then you are free to exhaust him and Frodo for Peace and Thought. Or save up for Gandalf and exhaust him after he readies during Refresh for Word of Command to get your early game combo pieces.

Mid Game: Aragorn gets pretty much all the attachments, aside from Asfaloth and Light of Valinor going on Glorfindel. Be liberal with using Daeron's Runes and Ziggy to push through your deck to get to the cards you need. You will eventually draw into Will of the West and can get those cards back from your discard late game.

Prioritize getting a few allies out for stability: Master of the Forge (card draw, finding combo pieces), Warden of Healing (damage control against archery and treacheries), Gleowine (card draw), and Henamarth (scrying). As mentioned above, Stargazer and Ziggy should take priority over other allies early game.

When you get into mid or high 40's for threat, or need to avoid a bad enemy, trigger Loragorn's threat reset. Use Elrond's Council to massage your threat as needed to avoid enemies, etc.

Late Mid Game: By now, you should have 2 or 3 resource acceleration engines online, as well as Celebrian Stone on Aragorn to give him a spirit resource. So all Ziggy resources go to Aragorn.

You should hopefully have Blood of Numenor on Aragorn, as well as a Burning Brand, and maybe some Hasty Strokes in hand.

In other words, you should be super stable by now and ready to handle anything.

Aragorn should have plenty of resources to make him invincible with Blood of Numenor. Along with Burning Brand and some spare Hasty Strokes to eliminate surprises. And Henamarth for that matter.

At this point, you can start hard casting your Gandalfs if you have not already. Use them liberally, because you'll get to see them twice with Will of the West. So use that flexibility for threat reduction or direct damage, whichever you need more at the time.

At some point, discard Beorn with Ziggy or Daeron's Runes and play him using Stand and Fight.

This deck's potential weak point will still be attack, but between the following cards you should be fine:

• Mirkwood Runner (ignores defense)
• Gandalf (direct damage)
• 2-attack allies (Elfhelm, Northern Tracker)
• Beorn
• Natural attack strength of Aragorn and Glorfindel

Have fun!