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CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:31 pm

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

--- description ---
Archery and Three Hunters? Believe it or not, it’s quite a valid combination-and a good one.
--- end description ---

Ah, the Three Hunters. The short one, the tall one, and the dude with the big sword. Most people love them for their synergy, especially during combat. With the release of Hunters, they got even better. Players could use them to get rid of minions with cards such as Forth the Three Hunters! and Whatever End. They could also keep the Fellowship alive with Focus. But there’s yet another thing that those Hunters can do...archery! That’s right! Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, all pounding the minions with arrows and thrown axes! It’s quite easy, too. All it takes is a few good cards, and the bad guys don’t stand a chance!

A Journey of 60-Odd Cards Begins With the First Combo...
The single-best combo to base a Three Hunters Archery deck off of is Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow and Gimli’s Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon. An excellent combo in the spirit of Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow + Madril, Defender of Osgiliath, this bombshell uses the Bow to wound minions, and then uses the created threats to add to the archery total! Usually, you trigger this early on, to get rid of the first wave of minons. Facing bad guys with somewhere around 6 Vitality (combined), just hand out three archery wounds, and wham! You’ve got three archers! No more minions.

Now that we’ve got a good combo to start the basic archery, we need to supplement it. The best way to do that is Gondor Bowmen. If this was an Elven

deck, I’d recommend putting in Elven Marksmanship, but...that’s a pretty expensive condition. And there’s a reason that we want Legolas to have full vitality...but we’ll get to that later. Back to supplementing that archery! The best way to add to the archery is actually to go...backwards! Expanded Format holds the two best cheap archery cards (Double Shot and Hand Axe), as well as Quick As May Be, which is an excellent Three Hunters wounding card. So, now that we’ve got our core archery and wounding worked out, let’s move on to flesh it out.

Three Hunters Are Better Than One...
The best thing to come out of Hunters was the great synergy that existed between Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli. Via Forth the Three Hunters!, you gained impressive abilities: card-drawing, major minion-strength reduction, and archery wounding. The last ability is obviously the most useful for an archery deck, but the two others can be even more critical to support the archery. Why? It’s time to look at another Three Hunters condition: Focus. Your Hunters are going to be exerting to pay the costs of cards, and they need some way to heal and take actions again. The only problem: if you’re doing archery, Legolas doesn’t have any weapons to pump his strength up. The solution: make those minions weak. With Forth the Three Hunters!, you can take a minion down to pitiful strengths with one exertion, and then you can heal that exertion.

Forth the Three Hunters! has other uses, of course. If you need archery wounds desperately, use Legolas and Aragorn to hit minions hard, before archery. This should be a last resort, however. You don’t want to exhaust Legolas. That’s why I said not to include Elven Marksmanship.

is a pretty steep cost when

(Gondor Bowmen) can do the same...and you’ll want to include Seclusion as well. With Legolas exerting to Toil or pay the costs of Forth the Three Hunters!, you’ll have him down to 1 Vitality in no time...and that’s not very good, is it? Finally, there’s card-drawing. If you exhaust Gimli with Forth the Three Hunters!, that’s four cards drawn in the Regroup phase. If you need to double-move, this is your Golden Ticket.

The Final Touch
Now, there’s a few things that need to be touched up with this deck. First of all, Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow tends to become useless after one round of rapid-fire threat-adding, and so you need a way to get rid of some of those threats. The best solution is Hearts Raised, which also serves the purpose of card cycling. If you added three threats in the archery phase, you can remove one of them now. This allows you an extra archery wound in the next phase, which is especially helpful when you want to double-move with Forth the Three Hunters!

You also want another companion to splash into this deck. Why? Because Forth the Three Hunters! thrives through Three Hunters synergy. If one of those hunters bites the dust, you’re not in a very good situation. So, who do you splash in? Why not the obvious splash choice-Gandalf? In fact, this wizard has a few tricks up his long gray/white sleeves...Strength of Spirit being one of the best. Most of your abilities involve exertion, and this nullifies the exertion, but keeps the ability! Intimidate also comes in handy, just in case one of those Hunters is about to go down to a wound.

Decklist (33 Cards):
Bearer and Ring
Frodo, Protected by Many
The One Ring, the Ring of Doom

Starting Fellowship
Gimli, Eager Hunter
Legolas, Eager Hunter

Companions
Aragorn, Thorongil
Gandalf, Leader of the Company 3x

Conditions
Focus 3x
Forth the Three Hunters! 3x
Gondor Bowmen 3x
Hearts Raised 3x

Events
Double Shot 3x
Seclusion 2x
Strength of Spirit 3x
Intimidate 2x

Possessions
Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow 3x
Gimli’s Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon 2x
Hand Axe 2x

It’s a fairly simple deck to set up: use The Prancing Pony or East Wall of Rohan to play Aragorn, then use Barazinbar to play Gimli’s Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon. Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow should come up shortly, and then you’re ready to fly! Use threat-adding with the Bow to activate the Battle Axe, and play events like Double Shot to pump up the archery. Use Forth the Three Hunters! to reduce minion strengths, so that Legolas can win skirmishes, and then knock out key shadow conditions with Seclusion. If you feel like it, double-move to gain the lead on your opponent, preferably double-moving to Site 6.

This deck does have weaknesses, of course. Threat strategies will always take down archery wounding, because Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow can’t do a thing...however, Gimli’s Axe will always stay active. Another problem is wounding, because that renders Forth the Three Hunters! helpless. Finally, condition discarding will get rid of Forth the Three Hunters!...however, you can still win without it. Finally, corruption could present a problem, so make sure Frodo stays safe. Regardless of these weaknesses, the Three Hunters have done it again! Heavy archery is no longer restricted to elves. Indeed, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli team up for some of the most devastating minion-destruction ever seen in LOTR-and they can still fight in the skirmish!

Last edited by CarpeGuitarrem on Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:34 pm; edited 3 times in total"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

elf lvr

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:00 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

Very interesting, but it doesn’t seem like you can add a ton of archery. Against 6 vitality, yes, maybe, but what about playing against nazgul? or mr.portertroll’s troll deck? Also, anything with pavise would make you cry. You exert way too much, where are ways to heal? You have focus, which is good, but believe me, in archery decks, unless you have TONS of direct wounding, if your facing minions, those minions will be not the weakest, but the most powerful ones your opponent plays. And if one of your hunters goes down, your entire deck gets screwed. All in all, this is a very exhausted topic and you haven’t told me anything I didn’t know already.

I’ll wait to vote, but its probably a 3 from me.

Happy Hunting! Elf Lvr
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CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 4:05 pm

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

Trust me, this works fairly well. The 6 Vitality is a minimum. With 3x Gondor Bowmen, there’s no limit to the places you can go. There’s also Hand Axe and Double Shot, as I mentioned. Once while playing, I was in a position to add 13 archery wounds!

What ways to heal would you recommend? I can’t think of many that come to mind...A Grey Ship isn’t very useful, because I need that archery.

And how haven’t I told you something new? Tell me where you’ve heard of Three Hunters archery before.

The Shadows you mentioned would take out any good deck, except maybe Gandalf w/ Ents. Why more so here?

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

PorterTroll

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 5:23 pm

Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 1193 Location: not sure yet

yes, my troll deck puts up quite a fight against archery decks, usually they just dont have the firepower to bring down my trolls, no offense, i love the deck idea, but id advise you to think of a backup plan in case your archery cant eliminate higher vitality minions, (my mountain trolls absorb archery like crazy!) Very Happy

otherwise, its a great idea and i really like it! Mr. Green

CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 8:05 pm

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

Archery is for sure not the way against troll swarm...something more like Ithilien Blade, or Shadowplay to exert Troll’s Keyward, Keeper of the Beast.

elf lvr, if you want, I can stick in some Reckless We Rode. That should take care of those high-vitality minions. I’ll think about using A Grey Ship as well, since I usually have spare archery. In fact, with Gondor Bowmen, it’s like a free heal!

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

elf lvr

Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:36 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

yes, that would make me happy! Very Happy

But just because something would ’take out any deck’ doesn’t give you an excuse to ignore it when building your deck. Just the opposite, I would think. And no one has specifically written an article on three hunters archery but there have been many (probably too many) decks posted about three hunters synergy, and almost every one at least mentions archery. I just sort of think it is old news. And when you were in a position to add 13 archery, how many could you add the next turn? Not nearly as many, I’d bet. For me, the way to go with archery is elves and aragorn with nine companions that can all become archers. It is very possible with legolas’s bow and Uruviel, Woodland maid. That doesn’t rely on exerting only three companions and can have a base of nine archery without events or conditions. I think that’s all I have to say, for now...

Cobra

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:19 am

Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA

The trouble with the Three Hunters deck, and in particular with a build like this, is that if something goes wrong in the early game and you have to sacrifice a companion (as often happens against two popular Shadows, Raiders and Uruk Hunters), the whole strategy is shot. You’ll have only two fighting companions left, with a reduced archery total, no Forth the Three Hunters! combo, and a bunch of dead cards in the deck.

I once played a version of this deck that packed a full set of Elven Warriors (yeah, junky I know, but it was Hunters block!) with 4x Elven Bow. If everything goes well, you can play an extra companion or two to boost the archery total, and you have the option of sacrificing someone so that threats will go away and Aragorn’s Bow can do more damage. But more importantly, you’ve got insurance -- you’ll always have some sort of fellowship to work with, regardless of your early-game luck.

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sickofpalantirs

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:48 am

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.

as cobra says if someones dies the deck is dead. it would kill your deck.

also the threat wounds coupled with your exertion might take out another one.

also fi your hearts raised go bye bye, you are dead too.

still it wasn’t a bad article

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PorterTroll

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:32 pm

Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 1193 Location: not sure yet

yes, this is a huge downside to the 3 hunters strategy, if one of em dies, youve got a majorly clogged hand and your strategy goes nowhere. its a risky strategy, but every strategy has its weaknesses.

a way to combat this problem would be to add in some extra companions and a gandalf so you can use borne far away to retrieve your dead hunter (gimli, legolas, or aragorn) so your deck wont crumble when your main companions die.

this may cause clogging as well though, i cant say what is best for this deck because i have never played with it.

i also agree with elf lvr that your deck exerts quite a bit. and i can clearly see that it has the potentiial to unleash a hail of archery,but what if your playing against pavise or trolls? and even if you do eliminate most of them, a damage+1 strength 15 minion, even when exhausted, can do a lot of damage to a ’exertion happy’ fellowship. focus does an amazing job with healing but what if legolas dies?

also, because of the rule that you cannot have more threats than companions, at the most you can only add 4 threats, and hearts raised does not come into effect until the regroup phase. if someone does indeed die before you get a chance to remove those threats thats a lot of threat wounds to trigger. even though it is a 3 hunters deck, i think you should add in a couple more ’backup’ companions or maybe a staple companion such as grimbeorn, beorning chieftain.

i hope this helps.

Cobra

Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:15 pm

Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA

PorterTroll wrote:

...a way to combat this problem would be to add in some extra companions and a gandalf so you can use borne far away to retrieve your dead hunter (gimli, legolas, or aragorn) so your deck wont crumble when your main companions die.

It’s awfully situational, but maybe not a bad idea... Think

Gandalf, Leader of Men would definitely make a nice addition to the fellowship, with the big Region 1 strength bonus helping to reduce the risk of bad things happening before you have a chance to set up.

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