Really Weird Deck Idea -- "Filter" Deck

[Creator]

For a long time I've had this idea of a deck that discards your opponent's shadow cards out of their hand and then runs to site 9. It would produce an insane amount of twilight, but only when you know your opponent can't really spend it.

I got it work flawlessly twice, but never again after dozens of iterations. I could use some help to see if this is even possible.

Starting Fellowship:

Ring-bearer: Isildur, Bearer of Heirlooms
Ring: The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles
Gimli, Son of Gloin
Gandalf, Leader of Men

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
1x Durin III, Dwarven Lord
1x Radagast, The Brown
1x Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar
1x Boromir, Lord of Gondor
1x Elendil, The Tall
1x Faramir, Son of Denethor
1x Dwarven Axe
1x Dwarven Bracers
2x Hand Axe
2x Athelas
2x Ring of Guile
1x Anduril, Flame of the West
1x Narsil, Blade of the Faithful
2x Sapling of the White Tree
1x Scroll of Isildur
1x The Shards of Narsil
4x Halls of My Home
4x What Are We Waiting For?
4x Saved From the Fire
4x Drawing His Eye

Shadow Draw Deck:
2x Grima, Wormtongue
4x Orthanc Warrior
3x Uruk Captain
4x Uruk Lieutenant
2x Easterling Footman
4x Easterling Guard
4x Easterling Lieutenant
1x Easterling Skirmisher
3x Easterling Polearm
3x Gathering to the Summons
4x Vision From Afar
4x Alive and Unspoiled

Fellowship Strategy: Use Halls of My Home and Drawing His Eye in the same turn to filter Shadow cards out of your opponent's hand, then What Are We Waiting For? to force an extremely weak Shadow play or skip it entirely and double-move. It requires a really fast setup and having the right card combos in hand to even work though, which is why Gandalf and SFTF are in here. I burn Gimli to pull out Durin, Halls Of My Home and What Are We Waiting For? to get going, then burn various Gondor companions to grab The Shard of Narsil and 2 copies of Drawing His Eye to make sure I have it when I need it.

If done right, there's a lot of exerting but little to no skirmishing because your opponent has almost nothing to play and their Shadow synergies are disrupted.

Shadow Strategy: You're just trying to get enough burdens to use Alive and Unspoiled efficiently. That's literally it. Get 2-3 burdens, reveal 2-3 cards, discard a Shadow card, repeat until you're out of twilight. It comes unglued against heavy burden removal or if you're unlucky enough to run into Sam, SoH early on.

What do you guys think of this idea? Is there a better way to go about this? I'm open to a total redesign.

[ket_the_jet]

Fun idea. Kralik has an amazing Drawing His Eye deck he used to run out on GCCG [pre-Gemp days].

My first thought is that you are missing an opportunity to use Grimir, Dwarven Elder and Elrond, herald to Gil-Galad for the exertions. Additionally, Dwarven heart is probably a good add for the healing properties. You could discard it with Axe of Erebor, but that probably requires switching to Bearer if Grudges.

Where the deck scares me is in Saved From the Fire. Every dead companion makes Drawing His Eye less effective. I would consider starting with Faramir, Captain of Gondor and Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith and planning for the big set-up at site three.
-wtk

[Creator]

Fun idea. Kralik has an amazing Drawing His Eye deck he used to run out on GCCG [pre-Gemp days].

My first thought is that you are missing an opportunity to use Grimir, Dwarven Elder and Elrond, herald to Gil-Galad for the exertions. Additionally, Dwarven heart is probably a good add for the healing properties. You could discard it with Axe of Erebor, but that probably requires switching to Bearer if Grudges.

Where the deck scares me is in Saved From the Fire. Every dead companion makes Drawing His Eye less effective. I would consider starting with Faramir, Captain of Gondor and Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith and planning for the big set-up at site three.
-wtk

Alright, I can ditch Gandalf entirely if I have a better way to get set up-- and Denethor seems like a good option. Only problem is he has spotting requirements so I couldn't use Gimli, Bearer of Grudges, I'd have to stick with Isildur. This puts me at risk of not being able to use my Dwarven events until I draw a Dwarf... I suppose I could just spam Grimir and hope for the best. What do you think of this:

Ring-bearer: Isildur, Bearer of Heirlooms
Ring: The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles

Starting Fellowship:
1x Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith
1x Faramir, Captain of Gondor

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
1x Gimli, Faithful Companion
1x Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar
1x Boromir, Lord of Gondor
1x Garrison of Gondor
3x Grimir, Dwarven Elder
1x Elrond, Herald to Gil-galad
4x Athelas
3x Gondorian Sword
2x Ring of Guile
1x Anduril, Flame of the West
1x Scroll of Isildur
4x Halls of My Home
4x What Are We Waiting For?
4x Drawing His Eye

Basically have to depend on Athelas, Elrond, and multiple copies of Grimir to make sure I have enough Dwarven health to perform the necessary exertions.

[ket_the_jet]

I like it, but it is admittedly tenuous. You could add the ally Shoulder to Shoulder design to keep Grimir nice and healed, but then the deck is getting bigger than it is likely intended.

Since Narsil, Blade of the Faithful is not in the current deck list, I will remind you of a little trick: Use Narsil, Blade of the Faithful on Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith for an extra draw. If you need to clear out threats or just want to ditch a companion, transfer the artifact to Isildur, Bearer of Heirlooms (or another choice companion).

I would ditch the Gondorian Swords, by the way. If your deck is working, you are dumping your opponent's best minions. Those three extra card slots could be more copies of Gimli or Grimir. Or more importantly, perhaps more companions. You only have seven now, and the full strength of Drawing His Eye is in a loaded fellowship. Derufin is helpful for obvious reasons. Imrahil or Dervorin are fine choices as well.

Finally, with no accounting for deck size (or how you will manage all of these Grimir exertions), don't forget that you can recycle your events with Preparations/Rest By Blind Night.

Last Throw is an option for increasing the move limit, but with such a big Shadow hand...that might not be viable. I think most free peoples will just try to outrun you.

Best,
-wtk

[Creator]

I made some adjustments based on your suggestions. I dropped the sword, 1 Grimir and 1 Athelas to add Derufin, Narsil BotF, and two more copies of Gimli. I realized I'm much better off using Gimli for the bulk of the exerts because he can be healed by Athelas, Aragorn ET and Elrond, whereas Grimir can only be healed by Elrond.

As for being out-run by my opponent, I'm probably going to have to bid high to make sure I'm going first in order to get a head start. As soon as they realize my Shadow can't really slow them down, they'll start sprinting.

All of this is kind of built on a house of cards, and I realize that. I need to organically draw Gimli and/or Grimir to use any of my events. Robust condition discard or burden removal cripples the Shadow.

I feel like there's a way to make this combination of events work though, I just need to find it...

[Not a Zombie]

Looks like a very fun deck. Do you have any replays from gemp?

[Legion]

My method was to ditch Gondor and use just Dwarves. The idea was to get out 4 sets of Great Works Began There, play a Dwarf every turn and then recover 4 What Are We Waiting For? It was not a perfect deck by any means, but it was fun.

It had very interesting matchups against filter decks. They are usually small, but don't run out of Shadow cards. They do deck themselves after a couple of turns, so just try to hang on! Against most normal decks, you will fill their hand with FP cards, so they are likely to give you a lot of twilight the next turn (and possibly initiative), so use an appropriate Shadow. I went for Sauron Discard, as it really isn't that bad with things like Flames Within. The deck also has to be huge as Great Works Began There essentially discards two of your cards for two of theirs, and as you will discard half of your deck, discard recursion is nice.