[minion; vs hero] Return of the Faithless Stewards

[Zarathustra]

This deck won me the 2004 World Championships, so I'm willing to bet it's about as refined as it can get:

Return of the Faithless Stewards:

Start:

Dasakun
Dorelas *
Dror
Gergeli
2 Ill-Favoured Fellow
Lieutenant of Dol Guldur *
Nain *
Raisha
Ugluk *
Blazon of the Eye *
Strange Rations *

Deck:

Baduila
Ill-Favoured Fellow
2 Orc Captain
Ulkaur the Tongueless

3 Awaiting the Call
3 Dark Tryst
3 Open to the Summons
2 Orders from Lugburz
3 Sauron
3 Voices of Malice
3 Weigh all things to a Nicety
The Dark Power
Orcs of Dol Guldur
Orcs of the Red Eye
Uruk-Hai
3 Blasting Fire
Liquid Fire
Aiglos
Great Bats

Alone and Unadvised
2 An Unexpected Outpost
2 Bane of the Ithil-Stone
Mordor in Arms
Redoubled Force
Revealed to All Watchers
3 River
Rolled Down to the Sea
2 Unabated in Malice
Adunaphel
2 Beorning Skin-Changers
Daelomin at Home
Itangast Ahunt
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
Mouth of Sauron
My Precious
Ambusher
2 Assassin
2 Cave-Drake
Corsairs of Umbar
Ice-Drake
Sellswords Between Charters

Sideboard:

Cave-Troll
Long Grievous Siege
3 Faithless Steward
Sneakin
Sudden Call
Orcs of Gorgoroth
The Dark Power
Tribute Garnered
Call of Home
DurinÂ’s Bane
Fell-Turtle
In the Heart of His Realm
Khamul the Easterling
Lost at Sea
Lost in Free-Domains
Lure of Expedience
Lure of Power
Lure of the Senses
Muster Disperses
Nameless Thing
Pilfer Anything Unwatched
Seized by Terror
Smaug Ahunt
Spider of the Morlat
The Balance of Things
The Roving Eye
The Way is Shut
Worn and Famished
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To understand this deck, you have to think of it as a puzzle or a factory.  It's unlike pretty much every other deck currently on the market.  The basic idea is to have the Lieuy squat at his home site playing Voices of Malice and giving you +1 hand size while Ugluk squats at Barad Dur to pick up three factions, and the little sages take a ride on the "Mordor Merry-go-round", swapping Cirith Gorgor and Mount Doom between them (allowing you to draw two while your opponent only draws one).  Play the Orcs of Dol Guldur whenever you happen to draw them, and put the Open to the Summons'd agents into the Lieuy's company.  He can drop downstairs with another 5-mind, 2-MP leader under his DI to pick up Aiglos whenever you happen to draw it.  The detainment attack is no problem because he has bread to untap him after the auto-attack.  Use Sauron's sideboarding ability (along with the three Weigh All Things) to pull the three Faithless Stewards, Sneakin', and a Sudden Call (and some other niceties if you have time... though you shouldn't...) over from the sideboard, then split off two agents  to move away, play Sneakin' with one, and drop the third agent into their company just before they move (a cheezy trick, but effective) to the Easterling Camp (all three have that as a home site).  If you play Orders from Lugburz on Ugluk's company, you can bring in Ulkaur at Barad Dur (his home site), have both leaders await the call, and thus allow Ulkaur to control Ugluk, thereby protecting him from single-strike attacks or Stench of Mordor (as well as giving him +1 to his ccs in case there's a Lure of Power to worry about).  The little sages can pick up one or two of the techno items (or all four, if you happen to draw into them in the right order at the right time), as well as the Great Bats (best done at the Nurniag Camp -- no auto attack).  It doesn't seem all that impressive, but with the 9 misc points from the Faithless Stewards and the 17 character points, it really adds up.

MP breakdown:

Characters: Lt of D.G. controlling Orc-Captain (5), 3 agents (6), Ulkaur/Ugluk (4), Dorelas/Nain (2) = 17,
Ally: Great Bats = 1,
Item: 2 Techno items + Aiglos = 5,
Faction: 7 (usually more like 4-5),
Misc: 9 (up to 11 with L G S, and T B),

== 37+

Considering the fact that the deck usually exhausts in 3-4 turns, that ain't bad at all.

[Tegarend]

Wow.

I have to admit, when I saw the decklist, I first thought - wth?

Then, I read it through and saw a few of the tricks, and thought it looked acceptable, but not really great.

But the strategy you wrote about it now opened my eyes - what a deck ... I want to play it on GCCG .. I lose anyway, so why not lose against this deck?

[Paolinoc]

Hi,

congrats for final result, expecially obtained by a very interesting building.

Could you post vs minnion resource and hazard build?

I believe Sauron isn't too strong vs Minnion

Paolo Corsini

[Librarian]

... then split off two agents to move away, play Sneakin' with one, and drop the third agent into their company just before they move (a cheezy trick, but effective) to the Easterling Camp (all three have that as a home site).

Just a note... this trick doesn't work.
All company composition changes must be done at the same time, and you cannot take actions in-between them. So for this to work the two agents must already be in a company by themselves, then you can play Sneakin' and have the third join afterwards.

[Zarathustra]

Oops... Well, as it turns out, I didn't actually manage to use this trick in either game. Thanks though -- it can be worked around .

[Lord Leuber]

it can be worked around .

You mean by keeping two agents in a separate company and having the third join it after playing Sneakin'?

[Zarathustra]

Or having the company split up already by moving the Lt of DG downstairs, leaving Raisha alone with a couple of Opens. She plays Sneakin, you drop 2 characters, then go.

[Majagua_the_Necromancer]

how do you deal with Golodhros? although detainment, he can be really annoying and stop you from getting those 3 factions into play? do you have a way to deal with this, Zara?

[Zarathustra]

Well, Ulkaur and Ugluk are at the site, so ulkaur takes the strike and ugluk makes the influence attempt. At least, that's the idea. If Golodhros picks on ugluk (attacks from face down at home site), then ulkaur takes the blazon and does the influencing. Usually I can get at least one faction (either at Dol Guldur or Barad-dur), which is really all that's required. Also, Golodhros is unique, so he's not all that great as a counter. Finally, what else can you do vs golodhros as a minion? Nothing. No withdrawn to mordor, or anything else that affects agents for that matter....

[Sly Southerner]

How essential is the sneakin' trick Mark? As you know there is a UEP to make Sneakin' work like Stealth which would prevent this.

[Majagua_the_Necromancer]

I made a similar deck Zara, and Golodhros was very annoying, still I got to play the factions. I used the 5 factions that are playable at Barad-Dur, so I was able to get the extra points for getting them under one leader. I asked you about Golodhros because maybe you knew an effective way to get rid of him, I though of using In the name of Mordor, but then realized that it couldn´t be used to cancel Golodrhos attack as it isn´t keyed to any of those sites.
I also played with 3 agents but I used then at variag camp, what I didn´t know was that you could use Open to the Summons to bring all at them directly to the haven, that´s a really nice combo.

[Wojtek]

Characters: Lt of D.G. controlling Orc-Captain (5), 3 agents (6), Ulkaur/Ugluk (4), Dorelas/Nain (2) = 17,

Can you tell how you want to posses all this characters:
LT of DG + Capt. = 9 GI
3x Agents = 12 GI
Ulkaur + Ugluk = 5 GI - how ugluk beneath Ulkaur ???
Dorelas = 3 GI
Nain = 3 GI

Total of 32 DI With Sauron only 30

[Zarathustra]

Awaiting the Call.