Hero of the Month Deck: The People of the Forest

Good evening everyone! As has been the case the past couple of months my time to devote to this amazing game has been short, and I hope to get back into the groove of things. With that being said, let’s get right into the deck!

I love elves, as I think a lot of people do, at least Tolkien’s elves. They’re mysterious, wise, immortal, powerful, and in touch with the Earth. What’s not to like? I came into this game right around The Ringmaker Cycle and I couldn’t be happier for the timing. Coming from a MTG background I liked the “cute” mechanic of the elves’ ability to bounce in and out of play. I hadn’t played too much of the LOTR: LCG yet but it just seemed so new and fresh even to me that I couldn’t resist. And here I am, still struggling to tear myself away from this deck archetype. I tried to take things in a different direction and instead of going combat oriented I went more for a quest/support route.

Being low on creative juices as of late, I have simply titled the deck The People of the Forest. The deck features Galadriel (of course), Celeborn, and Haldir. I had a similar deck with the same three Heroes but had forgotten to write down the list. Thanks to Gwaihir the Windlord’s comment in my last article, I was inspired to try again.

Since the deck is all about questing, I’d say that Celeborn and Galadriel both tie for the “bread and butter” of the deck. Celeborn acts as our lord, providing a very valuable global boost to not only our own silvan allies but any others that may hit the table. Galadriel likewise provides a wide spread buff (albeit to only our allies) and gives all of our characters a free turn of questing sans exhausting. Rounding things out is good ol’ Haldir. I wonder if a Hero like Mirlonde might also be able to fill this slot but Haldir’s combat ability gives the deck a little more functionality I’d like to think.

Ideally, the purpose of the deck is to get some allies out and get them out as quick as we can. Once the allies are out our goal is to quest and quest. A chief weakness of some questing decks is combat and so a few cards have been added to assist in that endeavor. Lastly, a secondary focus of the deck is general support and so we have a few cards to assist in damage, shadow cards, and locations.

With twenty-four allies in the deck I wanted to stick to questing allies as much as possible. Unfortunately there aren’t too many silvan questers yet but there are still some nice choices. The obvious front runner in this regard is Galadriel’s Handmaiden. She not only plays well with Celeborn and Galadriel out but also fills the secondary role of support the deck is trying to accomplish. If there’s a Boromir player around the threat reduction will most likely go to that player. Next up and just as important is Naith Guide. Her ability is very much focused towards us, but her ability can be granted to any hero. Given particular scenarios, her ability may be more useful elsewhere. Though not a Silvan, Faramir goes well nicely in this deck (or so I’d like to think for now). If things go well, despite our Silvan allies bouncing on and off the table, Faramir should have more than a few targets to receive his buff. Sadly his trait hinders him slightly, and since he is expensive I only have two copies of him. The rest of the allies included fill various roles. Galadhrim Minstrel can fetch us a variety of useful events. Silvan Refugee and Lorien Guide can offer their own questing power at times. Legolas shows up mostly to be cute, but if we can cheat him into play every now and then I think he can help alleviate this deck’s main weakness: Combat. And so here we find a single copy of everyone’s favorite elven member of the Fellowship.

Coming up behind the Allies are our nineteen attachments. This deck list was fairly difficult to trim down to fifty cards, and the attachments were the most stress inducing of all the card types to cut. Because of this there are a lot of two-ofs and only a few three-ofs. Chief among the three-ofs are O Lorien!, Light of Valinor, Unexpected Courage, and Nenya. O Lorien provides a sort of resource smoothing ability and can help us get our silvan allies out easier since we have three different spheres to worry about. Light of Valinor, Unexpected Courage, and Nenya all help in questing in one form or another. I would like to see Unexpected Courage go on Galadriel first. Light of Valinor may be best for Celeborn so we can have a decent defender if need be and Nenya of course goes right on Galadriel. Though the other attachments, like the last few allies, are meant to fulfill certain roles, the one I’d like to quickly bring up is Mirror of Galadriel. There are a lot of different cards in this deck, and not as many three-ofs as I am used to. Therefore, we have two copies of the Mirror to help us out in a pinch.

The events were probably the trickiest of the three for me, and this may be where the deck sees the most tweaking. For now though, we have three copies of Feigned Voices and The Tree People, the latter of which I like to combine with the Galadhrim minstrel for combo shenanigans. A Very Good Tale, Stand and Fight, and Sneak Attack (along with the Tree People) help us get our allies into play easier and some allies into play that we couldn’t otherwise (see Legolas). This deck may be doing it’s fair share of discarding and so Stand and Fight and Will of the West have been added to the deck.

I don’t think this deck is anywhere near perfect, and I’d like to see what future cards will bring to this list, but I like branching away from “combat elves” and wouldn’t mind a questing/support elves deck get further fleshed out. Regardless, it’s been a long time for me, everyone, since I last built a deck list so please, pretty please, chime in below and let me know what needs changing, removing, or what’s working well. There’s a couple weeks left in June and I will be posting another deck or two before time runs out! Until then please feel free to look over some other decks I’ve built in the past that have included The Lady of The Golden Wood. I’ll post their links below the deck list at the bottom of this post.

Good night!

The Secondhand Took

Deck: People of the Forest

Total Cards: (60)

Hero: (3)
1x Celeborn (The Dunland Trap)
1x Haldir of Lórien (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)

Ally: (24)
2x Faramir (Core Set)
3x Naith Guide (The Dunland Trap)
2x Orophin (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Galadhrim Minstrel (Trouble in Tharbad)
2x Mirkwood Runner (Return to Mirkwood)
2x Silvan Tracker (The Dead Marshes)
3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
1x Lorien Guide (Core Set)
1x Silvan Refugee (The Drúadan Forest)
3x Defender of the Naith (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Legolas (The Treason of Saruman)
1x Daughter of the Nimrodel (Core Set)

Attachment: (19)
3x O Lórien! (Trouble in Tharbad)
2x Protector of Lorien (Core Set)
2x Wingfoot (The Nin-in-Eilph)
3x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
2x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
1x Warden of Anor (The Three Trials)
3x Nenya (Celebrimbor’s Secret)

Event: (17)
2x A Very Good Tale (Over Hill and Under Hill)
3x Feigned Voices (The Three Trials)
3x The Tree People (The Dunland Trap)
1x Waters of Nimrodel (The Antlered Crown)
2x Hasty Stroke (Core Set)
1x Stand and Fight (Core Set)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)

Side Quest: (0)