I've been thinking of pitching the 1st Celebring to Erkenbrand's Horn then the next turn Gamling could fetch a Brego (then transfer it after it healed him) and find a 2nd Celebring, that sounds more reasonable than killing companions.
Duh! Great idea! I should have thought of that.
That said, I do hate when he survives site 2. This could be done a 2nd time with a Coif, but leaving Gamling alive for 2-3 turns could REALLY hurt.
Why? Why not just keep him alive, if you can? How does it hurt to have him around? You could play Deagols and Celeborns over and over, getting everything you need, and then discarding them as powerups.
I disagree on that Gandalf's Hat is essential to the strategy, if I plan to double I can just get rid of conditions with Leaving Forever for a grand total of 0 twilight, and then do the full loop at the 2nd regroup. It is a nice addition when it is out, and often it makes my opponent misplay by going after Gandalf.
That's an interesting point. Based on my experiences playing you, it generally seemed like you had a tendency to generate a lot of twilight in that first regroup, but maybe you simply chose to do that.
I'm also not playing Ancient Blade in the later versions, because I didn't find it necessary at all for doing doubles: if I can get to skirmish without sustaining major damage in maneuver/archery I can usually kill the key minions, then get rid of conditions, move again, then loop, and if I do lose a companion (Gil-Galad) to maneuver/arhry tricks, I wouldn't double anyway in most cases. The primary use of my loop is cycling, I only have to do it once a turn, the rest is there because it costs very few card slots.
It occurs to me that archery should generally have very little effect on you. You could just put on the ring, take the archery as burdens, and then take the burdens off in Regroup.
If I'd purely want to improve my win ratio I'd play it with Mountain Troll. Imagine what that shadow can do with a grip of 8 cards of your choice + a completely stuffed discard pile after I do the loop.
Well, I can only speak for my own deck, but these days I feel more threatened by Nazgul than by
Mountain Troll tricks.
However I do agree that the freeps can still be improved, I had very little experience playing elves compared to other cultures prior to this deck so I keep experimenting.
I think I may have found the answer to healing:
Trust. If his text is accurate,
Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor should be able to pull
any skirmish event, not just Elf ones. Thanks to him and Aragorn, you have the potential to pull 4 of these every time you move, and heal 4 wounds each time. Then you just take the threats off in Regroup!
Namarie requires a hunter elf to use - I do have another version with hunters, but I'm hesitant to even try it.
So, put in an Elf Hunter! Are all of those current guys really that vital? What's so great about Glorfindel? Or even Arwen, for that matter?
I think you are giving my deck some extra credit because of the shadow side, not because of the freeps. Your fellowship is vulnerable to many of the "silver bullets" I'm playing, and my deck's base concept is to always find the right minion to hurt the opposing freeps side the most.
I actually have a question about that: How do you always find the right minion? Is it just your two copies of
Sudden Strike you are relying on? I've heard you talk about how you can stack your hand with exactly the minion setup you want, but I'm still not sure I understand how you accomplish that. By the way, you also might consider the option of using
On Your Doorstep to retrieve key Gollum cards (like
Sudden Strike), as well as
Not Easily Avoided to get key Smeagol cards (like
Something Slimy).
Here's an idea I'm toying with...
Deck Out +
Birthday Present +
Dear Friends +
On Your Doorstep +
Elrond, Lord of Rivendell + Gollum +
Evil-smelling Fens + Watcher/Tentacles/other "silver bullets" = swarm potential as well as the ability to recycle everything in your FP side