A Pallando deck, sitting at the White Towers and the Ettenmoors, slowly doing nothing before some end game combo’s that require a lot of sideboarding to get to.

Starting company should be Firiel, Beretar, Arwen and the Throll-Chief at Hidden Ettenmoors. The idea of the deck is to have a lot of people at the White Towers, using cup of farewell to fetch minor items and placing them on Armory for easy points [and something to do while sideboarding], sometimes going down to the Deep Mines (either at Ettenmoors once you guard it, or at the White Towers once  it becomes a Fortress) for Earth-Eaters / Deep Delvers. Use Pallando once he comes in play for sending 5 cards to the discard (Euzog, 3 half-orc factions, and the Gifts as Given). At the end of the game, you hopefully have the Full Aiglos combo (Aiglos + Dragon-helm + Deeper Shadow) in play together with the Tombo combo (Tom Bombadil+  Mischief after stealthing over to Old Forest) and perhaps even a Prophet of doom (3 half-orc factions + 3 Ettenmoors factions > 5).

[starting]
Hidden Haven
Thrall of the Voice
Thrall of the Voice
Foul-smelling Paste
Blazon of the Eye
Firiel
Backup : Ciryaher + Ioreth
Beretar
Backup : Faramir / Haldalam
Troll-Chief
Annelena
Backup : Arwen / Haldir

[characters]
3x Pallando
Ghan-buri-Ghan
Galdor
Arinmir

[resources]
Truths of Doom
Pallando’s Hood
A Strident Spawn
Fortress of the Towers
Great Patron
Pallando’s Apprentice
Stave of Pallando
2x Armory
2x Cup of Farewell
2x Longbottom Leaf
2x Marvels Told
2x Muster
2x Smoke Rings
2x Dark Tryst
2x Weigh All Things to a Nicety
Palantir of Elostirion (M)
Stone Trolls
Hill Trolls
Misty Mountain Wargs
2x Hall of Fire
Guarded Haven

[sideboard]
Dragon-Helm
Aiglos
Deeper Shadow
Arcane School
Legacy of smiths

Tom Bombadil
Stealth
Mischief in a Mean Way

Wizard’s Trove
Sapling of the White Tree
The White Tree

Prophet of Doom

Delver’s Harvest
Delver’s Harvest
Delver’s Harvest
Earth-eater
Earth-eater
Earth-eater

Greater Half-orcs
Half-orcs
Half-orcs
Gifts as Given of Old
Euog (Ulzog)

Doeth (Durthak)

Horn of Anor
Horn of Anor
Blazon of the Eye
Cram
Cram
Strange Rations

That’s about it for the strategy. Feel free to find the holes in it, I had to type up the deck from memory as I never played it online and it’s been a long time since I played it ;).

 

 

Zarathustra

Interesting deck, Kris.  I tried making something similar once: I got the worthy hills factions (3 MP each for Pal) and the deep mines combo, rather than sticking around the Towers.  In any case, it didn’t work because I kept taking too long or getting my Deeper Shadow Ire’d (doh!).

So, my main comments are:

(1) Watch out for Ire.  If possible, bring 2 Deeper Shadows.  Alternatively, go for dwarven light-stones and forget the combo altogether.

(2) Muster doesn’t work for the Troll-Chief: trolls can’t use hero event resources.  You probably want to go with Join with That Power or Crooked Promptings instead.

(3) Consider playing 2 or 3 guarded havens so that you can get into the deeps quicker.

(4) Paste seems kinda silly.  You might want to go with a mind ring so that when you get rolled down you don’t have to show your hand.

 

(1) Good advice, just have only one copy ;)

(2) Wasn’t altogether too sure about that but feared so. Yeah, Crooked Promptings or gifts as Given maindeck.

(3) I had 2 guarded havens originally but thought the Fortress + the one guarded haven would be enough. Need playtesting to be certain.

(4) I first had only one 6-minder and had Open to the Summons for an agent. With Firiel in the company now, I had one slot for a minor item and no idea what to use. Mind ring is a good idea.