Corsairs & LA with Shoulder to Shoulder

[fenix]

Ring-bearer: Gimli, Bearer of Grudges
Ring: The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles

Adventure deck:
Dunharrow Plateau
West Road
Hall of the Kings
Anduin Banks
City Gates
Minas Tirith Seventh Circle
Osgiliath Channel
Cross Roads
Dagorlad

Free Peoples Draw Deck: (31 cards)
1x Glorfindel, Revealed in Wrath
1x Legolas, Greenleaf
3x Aragorn, Ranger of the North or 3x Aragorn, ET
3x Faramir, Son of Denethor
1x Sam, Son of Hamfast
2x Elrond, Herald to Gil-galad
1x Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood
1x Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon
1x Aragorn's Bow
1x Sword of Gondor
2x Ring of Fury
1x Aiglos
3x Slaked Thirsts
2x Secret Sentinels
2x Preparations
1x Shadow Between
2x Shoulder to Shoulder
2x The Last Alliance of Elves and Men
1x The Tale of Gil-galad

Shadow Draw Deck: (31 cards)
1x Gollum, Plotting Deceiver
3x Black Numenorean
4x Castamir of Umbar
1x Corsair Lookout
4x Corsair Marauder
3x Corsair Plunderer
4x Black Sails of Umbar
2x Corsair War Galley
4x Raider Halberd
2x Ships of Great Draught
1x Discovered
2x Wind That Sped Ships

The shadow strategy is pretty straight forward. It is standard corsairs. The small deck size means that I will have Castamir + Halberd at site 2 or 3 many times which is usually more than fellowships can handle. Many wins are from claiming 2 companions at site 2 after they give me 9 twilight. Only non-standard tech is Gollum, who I use to combat archery decks. Once I get initiative, he is able to negate 4 archery wounds for 2 twilight as many times as I need. He is also good hand extension is you are trying to swarm, which you will try sometimes. Try to ditch the cards you don't need at the moment (except for pumps, ships, and halberds) since you can retrieve them easily enough. Tokens are often more useful than minions.

The fellowship is an adaptation of the normal last alliance. Glorfindel is one of the best companions in the game for a starting fellowship, Faramir might be the most useful companion in movie block and ROTN helps against swarms and makes many site 9 visits painless. Gimli is the ring-bearer to make legolas more effective. Once you have Elrond, shoulder to shoulder, aiglos, and tale of gil-galad you can dish out 5 direct wounds fairly frequently. At any stage of the set up Legolas is more effective.

Slaked Thirsts and Preparation neuters many strategies. It is 2 exertions for free and then near free recovery once you have shoulder to shoulder and elrond out. The deck is a little weak to condition heavy shadows, but generally fairs pretty well.

Results: 8 wins, 2 losses in sets 1-9 standard league,  and 10 wins, 0 losses in movie block league. In the full movie block league, I subbed in Aragorn, ET for ROTN.

[Galdor420]

Aragorn and Faramir seem out of place in this deck. It seems you use them for archery and last alliance, but you could probably get better archery and healing using all elves and dwarves only. Still, if you decide to keep the men why no gondor bowman? Legolas + Gimli with no my axe is notched or final count? Maybe the deck does well but it just seems needlessly multicultural and unfocused to me. The shadow is nice though, gollum is a good touch.

[dethwish07]

Love the freeps. Very Similar to my build. 

@ Galdor420: My Axe Is Notched and Final Count have no place in this deck. This deck wants to kill things off before skirmish and then let RoTN and Faramir, SOD mop up. If he were to move away from wounding a bit, I wouldn't recommend the token strategy. Switching Gorn to ET and then adding in a Anduril, FoTW or two for a solid fighter w/ more healing for Greenleaf built in would be a good option (the site manipulation doesn't hurt either). RoTN is hard to beat though for his swarm protection, though.

Assuming you don't just speed bump Glorfindel, have you considered a singleton Gil-Galad, EHK? Or perhaps even Elendil, TT? Just in case you lose some comps. Maybe Narsil, BotF too... For Faramir even, assuming you don't bother w/ Elendil, TT.

Shadow looks like solid corsairs. Since I see Plotting Deceiver, I do feel compelled to mention the possible addition of some Let Her Deal With Them... Another copy or two of Gollum... throw one of these on Castamir and your opponent's freeps is gonna be hurting.

Also, I run my version at 34/34. It cycles pretty well. Have you messed around with adding any cards at all? How has the deck cycled in your experience?