I've long thought about building an Aragorn/Arwen deck, and a recent challenge in another thread has inspired me to throw one together. So here we go....
Frodo, Resolute Hobbit w/
The One Ring, The Great RingArwen, Queen of Elves and Men (starting)
Legolas, Greenleaf (starting)
Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar x4
Bilbo, Retired Adventurer x2
Frodo's Pipe x3
Aragorn's Pipe x2
The Gaffer's PipeAnduril, Sword That Was BrokenAragorn's Bow x2
Asfaloth, Elven SteedGwemegil (or possibly
Hadafang if conditions are an issue)
Elven BowOld Toby x4
Longbottom Leaf x4
Gift of the EvenstarThe Choice of LuthienThe Last Alliance of Elves and MenArwen's Fate x4
Not the greatest deck, no, but it could hold its own rather well. Aragorn is strength 13 when tanked out, and both he and Legolas can dish out some serious directed archery, afterwhich Arwen (who is already 10 with
Elven Steed and
Gwemegil) can become beastly with the wounds.
Arwen's Fate is a nice boost to Aragorn or Arwen, and
Gift of the Evenstar and
Elven Steed's ability can chip in a little as needed.
Since most of these things require exerting, though, we have some extensive healing to compensate. The bulk of this comes from smoking pipeweed;
Frodo's Pipe can heal any of these companions up to 3 times, and
Aragorn's Pipe spreads the healing around when necessary. Bilbo not only holds another pipe to help this work to peak efficiency, but he can also pull a couple pipeweeds back once you discard them. Additional healing comes in the form of
The Choice of Luthien and Aragorn's text, the latter of which is especially nice since it lets you exert Frodo to heal another companion. Nifty!
So Aragorn and Legolas kill in archery, Arwen and Aragorn dust off anything left over in skirmish, and Frodo heals everyone up next turn. Rinse and repeat to victory.
However, I don't consider this a true Aragorn/Arwen deck. Yes, they are a focus here, but this is really more an Aragorn/Legolas deck with Arwen tossed in, it seems. So, let's try something else....
Galadriel, Bearer of Wisdom w/
The One Ring, The Ring of RingsArwen, She-ElfElven DefenderAragorn, Defender of Free Peoples x4
Gandalf, ReturnedAnduril, Sword That Was BrokenAragorn's BowRing of BarahirNenya, Ring of Adamant x2
Galadriel's Silver Ewer x2
Gift of the Evenstar, Blessed LightElven Bow x3
GwemegilGlamdring, Foe-hammerThe Last Alliance of Elves and MenStrength of ArmsAgilityUncertain Future x2
Shake Off The ShadowSecluded HomesteadTrust x3
Inside A Song x2
Feathered x4
Point Blank Range x2
Needs some tweaking, but you get the basic idea: get lots of
tokens and wreak havoc with them!
DoFP and
She-Elf both have awesome remove-tokens-for-strength abilities, and even little
Elven Defender gets to be 7/3/7, which ain't too shabby. Tons of token reinforcement from Gandalf,
Inside A Song, and
Galadriel's Silver Ewer. There's plenty of healing with
Ring of Adamant,
Ring of Barahir, and
Trust. Archery isn't super-extensive but does get up to 4 (and more if needed thanks to
Aragorn's Bow) and turn
Point Blank Range into a great pump. Aragorn is a beast even without his ability: with Anduril and
TLAoEaM, he's up to 13, so you shouldn't have to use his ability nearly as much as you will with Arwen...though even she is strength 9 and a rare
damage +1. Gandalf can hold his own once he hits the table too, and reinforces tokens AND removes burdens when he wins skirmishes.
Like I said, a pretty rough draft (yes, I know it's too big, for one thing), but my point is that there's TONS of potential here. I haven't even mentioned the potential of tossing in
High King of the Noldor. Drain all your tokens from one of your conditions (
Secluded Homestead or
Uncertain Future being perfect targets) to boost Aragorn or Arwen, discard it using its own text, and then replay it with
Gil-galad HKotN, loading it up with tokens again in the process.
So, can an Aragorn/Arwen deck really work? I think the answer is clearly yes, and in multiple ways. I'm sure there are other good decks I'm not even thinking of....