Characters w/ Starting Minor Items and/or Stage Resources

Draft - Starting

Draft - Alternate

Deck

Resources

Hazards

Sideboard

How To Play the Dang Thing:

First turn, the company moves to Isengard Wizhaven, unless you have a Sapling -and- a canceller or two, in which case you might try for Glittering Caves. When Gandalf shows, he can pop in at a freehold (hopefully one where you have a faction in-hand) and, if you have a Ruse or RthW, hang out and wait for faction / Chambers. When it's convenient, the groups can combine & split into two or sometimes three companies. They'll never have to leave Borders/Frees, unless you want to avoid Cave Worms by getting a Sapling at Gobel Mirlond. Gandalf, of course, should yank something from the sideboard every turn before untapping -- Guarded Havens, White Tree, and Give Welcome are the essentials. Everything else is as-needed.

There are three main cool things the deck is designed to do. It's rare that it ever gets all three done, but when it does, it's a beautiful sight (and can top 40 MPs without doubling). Usually only 2 of the 3 end up working out.

1. Get the Sapling, store it at a wizhaven, play White Tree. This is the most important, since Saplings are the only items. That is why there are two -- get both if possible, to avoid getting nailed by Neither so Ancient nor So Potent.

2. Get Choice of Luthien on Arwen, and raise all the factions in her regions. Gandalf with her as a follower works well, but so do many other combos of the characters. You'll grab the factions in any case, of course, but Choice makes it a heck of a lot easier.

3. Play Await the Onset. Characters & factions shouldn't be a problem. Echoes of the Song will be, since it will mean bringing in more stage cards from the sideboard to stay up at 12. The havens are tricky, but you'll be wanting them anyway. The ideal is to play a faction & then No Strangers, with Chambers the following turn and Guarded Haven at your leisure (so you don't have to leave anyone to keep the site in play). This usually works for one of the two havens, with the other either showing up at the last moment or being maintained by a squatting sage (like Wormtongue). The trick is to know whether to wait to play a Chamber that's in-hand in hopes of scoring No Strangers first. No easy answer -- I decide that on a case by case basis. By midgame, I usually decide whether Onset is going to be viable, and either keep working toward it or just forget about it.

As for the hazards: Snowstorm is pretty obvious, isn't it? Outposts to cycle Snowstorms & Twilights if they're helpful. Never play Snowstorm unless you have a Twilight in-hand. Drakes are there because I love them dearly. If your opponent is not vulnerable to Snowstorm, the Outposts can bring in other troubling cards from the sideboard, although things aren't going to be as pretty then. You also have to know, when he gets Promptings in play, whether to keep pressing him or just drop
the roadblock and concentrate on other strategies. Again, it's a case-by-case sort of thing.

----

Strengths:

Dodges lots and lots of creature hazards. Free allies from Thieves and Assassins, especially against less experienced players. Low items means corruption rarely gives any trouble. Surprisingly huge amounts of MPs, considering the limited scope. Cards can fall into a lot of different orders that are all satisfactorily -- faction / Strangers, Chambers / faction, Choice / grab / faction or ally. 2 Voices and 2 Marvels Told is usually plenty, even when the anti-FW cards start falling.

Weaknesses:

If you only get one Sapling, a well-timed NsAnsP can -really- suck.  Dedicated Man hazards can get troublesome, especially Sellswords and Ambushers. But the worst thing that can happen is to draw the MTs and VoMs too early, forcing you to play them on less-deadly perm events, only to be hit by the real trouble later. Duplicated Heart Grown Cold is the worst. The deck is also keenly vulnerable on its first-turn move, although that company routinely gets reamed on turn 1 and still bounces back -- there are plenty of replacement characters available.

-----

What I Would Have Done Differently at Nationals with Hindsight

It was a good deck, but I misconstrued the metagame. I didn't expect too many dedicated Man hazards, and, if I did, I didn't expect that those same players would also be clever and experienced enough to pull the -right- anti-FW cards from the sideboard in time (e.g. Heart Grown Cold as opposed to Inner Rot or Echoes or something). My two losses were against players with Men with Rank, 3 Sieges, and enough smarts to get the right anti-FW cards. Josh, you were right -- I should have
played my minion deck. :)

As for hazards . . . roadblock will slow people down, but, because I wanted to cover all bases, I didn't really have hazards that had the potential to -squash- my opponent totally when they hit well. Next time I'll go more balls-out with the hazards.

-----

It was fun, but now it's done. My decks tend to be inscrutable to others, but if anyone thinks they can go places with this one, they're more than welcome to it.