If you listened to Episode 103, you heard me talking up the “inspired by” feature on RingsDB, which allows an author to link to a deck that it was derived from. Not only does this give credit where credit is due, but it also lets future deck-seekers trace a deck’s lineage; maybe some cards were changed to support a specific strategy, or maybe the deck was being updated to a more current version of the cardpool.

In honour of this feature, today I will showcase a fun little ditty that was derived from an FFG staff deck, and one from which I have myself drawn inspiration.

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There are a lot of decks on the internet that are fun to play. There are plenty that are powerful, capable of crushing quests and securing victories with ease. This deck isn’t either of those things. I mean, just look at it

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Today we are going to delve deep into the archives. Even though RingsDB is a relatively recent addition to the community, it still surprises me how quickly the card pool and meta-game have evolved since its inception; and yet, fascinating ideas and potentially meta-changing observations frequently fall through the cracks. I think today’s feature perfectly exemplifies why we started this spotlight series. This deck has been buried for a long time, and even though it is a whopping four months old (ancient in internet time), it still has some tricks to teach us.

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When I first saw Lords of the Eldar, I was seriously underwhelmed. For three spirit resources, you could give every Noldor character +1 willpower, +1 attack, and +1 defense until the end of the round. But most of them would lack any sort of action advantage, so they’d only be taking advantage of one of those bonuses each.

For comparison purposes, For Gondor! has been around since the core set. For two leadership resources, it would give every Gondor character +1 attack and +1 defense. Sure, it lacked the +1 willpower bonus, but like I said, most characters can only use one of the bonuses, anyway. And For Gondor! actually applied its +1 attack bonus to every single character on the board!

It seems like For Gondor! is the unambiguously superior card, right? Not only is it cheaper, but it comes in a sphere where resources are easiest to come by, and it still confers a global benefit to characters who lack a trait match. If For Gondor! is a card that doesn’t see very much play as it is, how useful could Lords of the Eldar possibly be?

The answer, as ff0x demonstrates in this fellowship, is “very”.

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This is a straight up solid Gondor deck that manages to pull off solo play pretty well. A lot of the staples are included, but there are also some fun nuances and not as common cards that make it worth further inspection.

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So what gets the spotlight today? …a Blood/Fire deck? …an Outlands deck? …how about a Noldor deck?

Or how about a creative blend of all three?

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I’m willing to bet that, as soon as they got their hands on Heirs of Numenor, pretty much everyone immediately began envisioning an epic Rohan and Gondor alliance, a recreation of the armies of man built to stand up to Sauron’s forces. The card Mutual Accord virtually begged for a coordinated fellowship to unlock its potential, and many such fellowships have been made.

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To quote the author “This is a Boromir deck… This is a Hobbit Secrecy deck.” and I love every bit of this smash-up for both its theme and prowess.

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Hello everyone, WanderingTook here. I think it’s no stretch to say that we have the best gaming community around. After hovering on the fringes for a while, I am excited to be able to give back to what has become my “internet home”, and so I will be regularly contributing to the CotR Deck Spotlight series.

That’s enough about me. Today, the CotR spotlight shines on…

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