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CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 4:46 pm

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 3361 Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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The Aragorn Starter, although in many ways a flawed deck, can still beat its Uruk counterpart. The key lies in a little bit of luck, and a bit of twilight management...and keeping that Fellowship alive. Part 1 of 2.
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"I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall, nor our people fail." (Aragorn, to Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001)

Ring-bearer (2 cards)
Frodo, Weary From the Journey
The One Ring, The Ruling Ring

Adventure Deck (9 cards)
[0]Gates of Mordor
[0]Anduin Banks
[1]Slopes of Orodruin
[1]Shores of Nen Hithoel
[1]City Gates
[2]Westfold Village
[2]Helm’s Gate
[3]Green Dragon Inn
[3]Trollshaw Forest

Free Peoples (30 cards)
Aragorn, Swift Hunter x 4
Gimli, Eager Hunter x 2
Legolas, Fleet-Footed Hunter x 2
Elven Warrior x 3
Haldir, Sentry of the Golden Wood x 2
No Quicker Path x 3
Whatever End x 2
Focus x 4
Hobbit Sword x 2
Sword of the Fallen x 4
Point Blank Range x 2

You know that I’ve bemoaned shortcomings of the Aragorn starter for Hunters time and time again. I’ve decried it for a lack of single theme, and I’ve bashed its mismatched Adventure Deck. You also know that I gave the Mauhúr starter glowing reviews, praising it for its adherence to a single theme of valiant Rohan

companions, and its impressive Uruk-Hai. From these two articles, you might surmise that the Aragorn deck doesn’t stand a chance against its Hunters rival. However, I say that there are still ways to make this deck a true winner. Can it beat the Mauhúr deck? With a little luck and a lotta hard work, heck yeah!

Before we pit these decks against each other, we’ll need to make some assumptions. The first assumption we’ll need to make is that we’re playing only with Starter Decks, and no booster packs. While boosters are more reflective of realistic play, they complicate matters far too much. Therefore, I’ll simply confine discussion to the known starter decklists, as well as some speculation on the three rares from each deck. The second assumption we need to make is that neither Ringbearer has burdens. Yes, this is a bit generous, but it’s a standard we have to agree on. Besides, neither of these decks focuses on corruption at all, so it’s not a major factor. The final assumption is that the Aragorn deck wins the bid. Why? Because this article primarily focuses on beating the Mauhúr deck with the Aragorn deck, so it only seems right to let the Aragorn deck decide turn order.

Now, the first step in beating Mauhúr is organizing your forces. Take a look at those three Rares that you got in your starter. The rares that will be the most helpful are as follows: Dinendal, Mirkwood Archer, Spied From Afar, The Mirror of Galadriel, Dangerous Guide, Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow, (in a pinch) Little Golden Flower, Legolas, of the Woodland Realm and Aragorn, Thorongil. That makes ten total cards you might get. The simple odds of getting just one of these, based on a total of fifty rares in Hunters, is 1:5, or 20%. That’s not exactly a very dependable number. Therefore, don’t hope to get any of these. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to look at your starting fellowship.

Here’s the companions you get in the Aragorn deck, and their costs:
-Aragorn, Swift Hunter

-Elven Warrior

-Gimli, Eager Hunter

-Haldir, Sentry of the Golden Wood

-Legolas, of the Woodland Realm

Given these companions, I will make a strong case for Gimli and Legolas. This team has two hunters, making for a "Strength 9" companion and a "Strength 7" companion, which is just about as much as any other pairing. In addition, putting Legolas in there allows you to make use of the many Elven

cards found in this deck, and putting Gimli in there too makes it easy to use Whatever End and Focus, when you draw them. Plus, if your opponent "happens to play" East Wall of Rohan, you’ve got an easy way to get Aragorn in play. Besides, since there’s four copies of Aragorn in the deck, you have an 8 in 15 (53%) chance of getting him in your starting hand-and that’s fairly good odds, don’t you think? Other companions, such as Haldir and Elven Warrior, aren’t nearly as important, except for being able to use Elven

cards.

Now, starting the game. I’m not one to advocate going second here, because the minions for the Aragorn deck are less than decent. However, the Uruks of the Mauhúr deck also have some weaknesses, and you can take the lead to bust those wide open. So, which site do you choose to start off with? Personally, I’d say Trollshaw Forest. This site is the only one of the Aragorn sites that has a Fellowship Phase action-when you play a possession, you can draw a card. Now, I know that this may raise red flags with those who recall that the Mauhúr deck’s Free Peoples are Rohan-the ultimate possession culture! However, you’ll need all the help you can get here, and the Mauhúr deck only has four more possessions than the Aragorn deck anyway.

Let’s look at how the early game is going to fare against the forces of the Uruks. Upon looking at the minion list, you can notice that their number one weakness is twilight. Tracking Uruk appears in the deck a whopping four times, and he has a prohibitive twilight cost-

! So, if your opponent happens to have three of those guys in hand, and no others...(chuckles evilly)...that means that your fellowship basically gets a free pass to Site 3. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Until Site 5, every single Uruk is roaming. This means that if your opponent gets a half-decent hand with Searching Uruk, Mauhur, Relentless Hunter, and Covetous Uruk, that takes

to play. Since when does someone scrounge

from Region 1?

So, what can you do with this weakness? Basically, it lets you have a nice setup, with no fears of nasty swarming Uruks. You have five companions in play, move to a Region 1 site with the Shadow Number

, and still only give your opponent less than

. That’s only enough to play about two of those Uruks in Region 1. Furthermore, it lets you play possessions early, and not get scared at twilight costs. Let’s say you have Frodo, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, and Haldir in play. You play Hobbit Sword on Frodo, and Sword of the Fallen on Haldir. This makes

. Your fellowship moves to a

Site in Region 1, adding

. There’s

twilight for your opponent to work with. The only problem: the only minions he has in hand cost at least

. Bummer for him, big bonus for you!

Now, Uruks thrive on winning skirmishes, and this deck is no exception. There are ZERO provisions for wounding, adding burdens, or swarming in the Mauhúr deck. The only benefit: hunters. That should be easy to overcome, as well, because most of your companions are hunters themselves. The only problem: Mauhúr, with his nasty ability. He can use it to prey on those non-hunter elves in your fellowship. The way to beat that: Sword of the Fallen. Mauhúr has to exert to use it. This gives him -1 strength against Sword, thus negating his hunter.

Winning skirmishes, however, should come fairly easily after you set your fellowship up. All you have to do is get six or seven companions in play, get your Three Hunters conditions out, and equip your companions with their weapons. "Hold on a sec," you might say. "Six or seven companions? Doesn’t that violate the Rule of 5?" True, it does. But the Mauhúr deck doesn’t have a single card that does anything about it. Violate the Rule at will, and march right into Region 2! Now, you do run into a few problems. The first one being: at Site 5, the Uruks aren’t roaming any more. And if your opponent uses Breeding Pit of Isengard as his Site 5...you’re in a little bit of trouble. Most likely, you’ll take hits here. However, you should try to set Legolas up to win skirmishes, so as to use Focus. That’ll help you get to Site 6 in one piece.

One last question you might have: are there companions that I can let go? The answer: yes. There is one companion you’d be fairly safe getting rid of: Haldir, Sentry of the Golden Wood. He’s not one of the Hunters, and Elven Warrior has a crucial card-recycling ability. Card-recycling, by the way, is critical to this deck. The Elven

event, Point Blank Range, is the only one to be seen, and there’s only two copies of that. Get it back into your deck ASAP.

So, in conclusion, the Aragorn deck does stand a fair chance against the Mauhúr deck. Just keep the twilight to Region 1, keep those Elven

cards cycling, and keep Frodo alive! The real key to winning with this deck lies with pounding the opposition to a pulp...

"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:45 pm

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

great article a bit long but not dry like some others. it seems like you need quite a bt fo luck to win though. you get a 4

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

(mm)"SoP: you will always be the Official CC Spammer in my heart"
"DáinIronfoot"
Spammers really are amazing creatures. You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month. And yet, after a hundred years, they can still surprise you. Razz

Anonymous Prodigy

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:15 pm

Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 4197 Location: United States

Good article, CG. Slightly long, but it held my attention. My only complaint is that some luck is needed to pull off some of the moves. Otherwise, a solid article. I give it a low 4.

Last edited by Anonymous Prodigy on Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:32 pm; edited 1 time in totalI had to put something here.

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:24 pm

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Anonymous Prodigy wrote:

Good article, CG. Slightly long, but it held my attention. My only complaint is that some luck is needed to pull off some of the moves. Otherwise, a solid article. I give it a low 4.

yeah it was close to a three. it seemed like ti would take an awful amount of luck o the draw to pull off the win.

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:21 pm

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 3361 Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville

It’s only part 1 of 2. The key to winning is not surviving Site 9 with this deck; it’s pummeling the Rohirrim. And that’s my Part 2.

"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

Anonymous Prodigy

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:35 pm

Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 4197 Location: United States

Sweet, I’m looking forward to it. Cool

I had to put something here.

CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:58 pm

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 3361 Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville

You’ll have to wait a little, though. I’m doing my other article first.

"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

bobtheorc

Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 2:49 pm

Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 1218 Location: Wow, its hot in Iowa

I really liked the length of your article but I felt that the strategy portion was not so great. I still think that it would be very hard to beat the Mauhur with this deck. You do show how to beat it but as others have said it would be pretty hard to pull it off.
I will vote soon. Probably a 4.

Ban the Overpowered Orcs Exclamation

"Don't panic, I have paper!" - Taipan Popcorn

Is that Grima, Grief Counselor? - legolamb
Bobtheorcs Uruk-Hai Dcs
Bob’s wonderful !! updated !! Trade list

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:08 pm

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

CarpeGuitarrem wrote:

It’s only part 1 of 2. The key to winning is not surviving Site 9 with this deck; it’s pummeling the Rohirrim. And that’s my Part 2.

OK that might work better then trying to win with the freeps. Which other article?

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 5:47 pm

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 3361 Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville

I’ve mentioned it before, I think...but it’s a rather unusual and unconventional idea. It just struck me one day, and I thought-why not? Anyway, I won’t tell anyone what it is yet Razz

because that would give it all away!

"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

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