Submitted by Telak on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 21:00
This Deck was build by Trek Barnes and was published first on "Lord of the Rings Online (lotrtcg.decipher.com)".
The Trees are Strong!
Deck listing:
Adventure path:
| Starting fellowship: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Artifact (2):
Companion (6):
Event (9):
Possession (1):
 Companion (8):
Condition (1):
Event (6):
Possession (1):
| There are no "shadow" cards in this draw deck. |
Hints & strategie notes for this Deck
Ahh, Gandalf. The culture with only one companion - until now. With the release of The Battle of Helm's Deep, the Ents have awoken and are willing to march. At least with a little prodding from the Hobbits.
The Ents have a unique keyword, Unhasty. This is primarily a disadvantage, preventing the Ents from being assigned to fight unless a Gandalf card lets them. (Or they are at their home site, in the case of allies.) Since the Ents are Gandalf culture, they can fight by using their own text: Exerting an unbound hobbit, or discarding two cards from hand.
But there is one case where not being able to fight is actually a benefit - if there are more minion then companions able to fight, the shadow player can assign them to a companion that may fight. In the case of this deck, that will primarily be Hobbits. In fact, at early sites, it should only be Hobbits. In the early sites, once all those minions are assigned to Hobbits, you simply stealth out of the skirmish, or discard the Hobbit, depending on the Hobbit in question.
Ideally, you'll get Treebeard out early on, stack Merry and Pippin on him when you discard them, and just have Frodo walk to site 5 aided by Severed His Bonds and Swiftly and Softly.
Once you are beyond the early sites, play the Gandalf you should have drawn by now - 4 copies of A Wizard Is Never Late ensure a steady flow of expendable Ents, and that you can get Gandalf out as early as you like - and once Gandalf is in play, he lets you bring Merry and Pippin back with regularity, so you don't have to worry about discarding them.
Since they will be being discarded/replayed constantly, you can feel free to pump them full of archery wounds and let their buddies fight. One other use for them, since they both have the Frodo Signet, is to exert them to heal Frodo of any wounds he might take, which will also then be fully healed when they are returned from the discard pile (or Treebeard's arms).
Gandalf's Staff lets him get in on the canceling action as well, and Servant of the Secret Fire helps win those skirmishes you absolutely have to fight.
The Shadow side of this deck continues the theme with the Isengard Orcs that wound your opponent whether or not you win a skirmish. Remember, The Trees Are Strong is worded so that each wound must go on a different companion, even (especially!) if that would kill them.
