[minion resource; NEW CHALLENGE] Akhorahil The Fell Magician

Zarathustra · Post by **Zarathustra** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:37 pm

Josh Hunholz and I discussed a certain desire that we've heard voiced periodically in the MECCG community: "challenge decks are fun, but there's only ten of them.  Why not make 4 more for the remaining rws?"

Well, today I took that challenge up, and I came up with resource portions for Ren, Akhorahil, Uvatha, and Khamul 'Challenge Decks' that can be preassembled before a challenge deck tourney and used if more than 10 people show up (or even if fewer do, and they just want to try something new).  These decks haven't exactly been honed yet.  For one thing, I only took account of the 3-rares-per-deck standard so far (they are marked with an *).  I havent' had a look at how many uncommons, fixed, etc. are in each of these decks.  However, with a little help, I think these can be made into good, competetive, but not-too-competetive 'challenge decks' that wouldn't get their butts whooped or win every time in a challenge tourney.  Here is the third: the Akhorahil Deck.

Start:

2 Orc-Captain
2 Orc-Tracker
1 Dorelas
1 Odoacer

2 Blazon of the Eye

(4 more characters)

In Deck:

3 Akhorahil
1 Orc-Tracker
3 Ill-Favored Fellow

Resources:

3 Fell Rider
3 Forced March
3 Deeper Shadow
1 Sojourn in Shadows *
3 Tormented Earth
1 Akhorahil Unleashed *
2 Weigh All Things to a Nicety
2 Dark Tryst
2 Voices of Malice

3 Blasting Fire
2 Great Bats
2 Snaga-Hai

1 The Arkenstone
1 The Iron Crown *
1 Scroll of Isildur

Sites:

Dol Guldur
Minas Morgul
Barad-Dur
Cirith Gorgor
Mt Doom
Nurniag Camp
Moria
Caves of Ulund
Dancing Spire
The Lonely Mountain
Irerock

Play Tips:

Akhor goes out for greater items.  The orcs go for the fire, bats, and snaga-hai in Mordor.  Sojourn through auto-attacks.  Cancel everything else with Tormented Earth and Deeper Shadow.  Should work... I hope....  I felt like there ought to be an active rw challenge deck, and this seemed to be the best rw for the job.

MP Breakdown:

Character: 9
Item: 12-16 (bring the items back to store)
Faction: 2
Ally: 2
Total: 25-29

This one is a little lower in MPs than the others.  Any suggestions?  
Hazards... hmm.  Maybe No Way Forward + DoN creatures?

Zarathustra · Post by **Zarathustra** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 7:32 am

I had a feeling this one would get ignored.  Everyone talks about how rws should move, but no one is prepared to talk about the only kind of deck that effectively makes that happen...

Bandobras Took · Post by **Bandobras Took** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 7:35 am

You might want to include Govern the Storms somewhere in case your opponent is running roadblock.

Jambo · Post by **Jambo** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 10:48 am

Zarathustra wrote:I had a feeling this one would get ignored.  Everyone talks about how rws should move, but no one is prepared to talk about the only kind of deck that effectively makes that happen...

Sorry brother.  I guess it's because most us know that Akhorahil is the only type of active RW deck that really works and if anyone knows how to make an Akhorahil deck, it'll be you!

Majagua_the_Necromancer · Post by **Majagua_the_Necromancer** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 3:26 pm

What is the need of so many sojourn in shawdows in the deck? I don´t understand.

Tegarend · Post by **Tegarend** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 4:16 pm

Because Sojourn is ideal for a RW to get through an automatic attack like the Lonely Mountain's?

Can't target the RW, and the RW is the only character in his company.

Sojourn is as good as cancelling any attack against your RW - which is absolutely great!

I guess they're in the sb because they are shuffled in by the RW during the first turns of the game, when there is no mode card in hand yet?

Zarathustra · Post by **Zarathustra** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 4:51 pm

Err....

There's only 1 in the deck.  In a true constructed Akhor deck there would be 3, for the reason Kris cites.  But since I could only do 3 rares, there's just one....

Majagua_the_Necromancer · Post by **Majagua_the_Necromancer** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 6:44 pm

sorry Zara,

I was mistaking the card and the number of copies.  Actually it´s a good card to protect Akhorahil.  The only thing that can stop him are rivers and similar stuff, but I guess that you cover that area with deeper shadow, right?

Zarathustra · Post by **Zarathustra** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 6:40 pm

Cool hazards I think: DoN/Giants/Men/Rank Upon Rank/No Way Forward

1 Abductor
3 Ambusher
1 Brigands
1 Lawless Men
1 Pickpocket
1 Sellswords Between Charters
1 Fury of the Iron Crown

3 Giant
3 Thunder's Companion

3 Rank Upon Rank

3 Doors of Night
2 An Unexpected Outpost
2 No Way Forward
3 Twilight
2 Nothing to Eat or Drink

Sly Southerner · Post by **Sly Southerner** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:11 pm

Just stumbled across this thread.

What about Malady? I assume you felt that just one in the deck was not competitive? It would still be cool to have a Malady in a Challenge Deck. After all Assassin is in a hero Challenge deck.

Zarathustra · Post by **Zarathustra** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:40 pm

I had 2 reasons not to put in a Malady:

(1) Challenge decks dont get all sites, so there might be no chance to play it.

(2) A single malady is often of little avail.

Sly Southerner · Post by **Sly Southerner** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:29 am

Zarathustra wrote: (1) Challenge decks dont get all sites, so there might be no chance to play it.

Aha! I didnt think of that one.  :oops:

Logain · Post by **Logain** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:02 pm

Just played the deck. It is much too low in points.
True i had no time to store Iron Crown (btw, i drew Fury just after playing it) and Scroll, botched the 2 Snagas i tried (3 and 4 to dices), lost 1 orc captain because i did not remember auto attack on Mount Doom is not detainment, but played everything else although Ghosts and Spellswords slowed me. 6-0.
Opponent finished at 33, and had still points left in deck.

Maybe add Nurniags. Orcs of Minas Morgul if they exist.

You keep many cards in hand (cancels for Akhorahil so he isn't killed by rain drakes, small points at mount doom) so making the hazard efficient is not easy.

Wacho · Post by **Wacho** » Mon May 01, 2006 1:14 am

Just played this in the Challenge Deck tourney, and here are my observations.  First and most important is that there are too few MPs, especially non-item MPs.  I played out almost every card worth MPs in the deck and sideboard and only had 29 MPs with 17 of those being from items.  I could potentially gotten 2 more character MPs and if I had stored the Iron Crown at Barad-dur that would have netted me 2 more item MPs, but it still would only have been 14 non-item and 19 item.  Instead of the Vile Fumes in the sideboard War-wolf (or whichever wolf can be played at Mt. Doom) would be more helpful.  Also Nurniags or Asdriags or some other faction would be nice.  Maybe instead of Iron Crown put in Smaug Roused or another dragon faction.  Of course you'd have to use Heralded Lord instead of Fell Rider, but it could work i think with Akhorahil's spells he shouldn't have too tough of a time getting through.  

I thought the deck was also a little slow in the beginning before you get Akhorahil out.  Once he gets going things are fine, and card flow is good because I usually had 3 companies moving in Mordor, but before that I was holding cards I was going to use later.  Perhaps one thing that could help is adding another Weigh All Things to a Nicety for more recycling ability.  I think you could drop one Tormented Earth, or perhaps move it to the sideboard, as it was the spell I  found the least useful.

On the hazard side I don't have too much comment.  I was playing the Witch-King deck which is surprisingly similar to this deck so I didn't have much chance to use my hazards effectively.  Perhaps more sellswords and drop a thunder's companion or an ambusher.  Basically one or two more hazards (even in the sideboard) that could hit shadowland/shadowhold would be useful especially against minion.

Overall I liked this deck alright aside from the lack of MPs which made the deck a bit frustrating.  I felt I did well to end up with 2 tourney points for my game.

MeCCG.net

[minion resource; NEW CHALLENGE] Akhorahil The Fell Magician

[minion resource; NEW CHALLENGE] Akhorahil The Fell Magician

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