The Last Alliance of Bears and Trees 1.0

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While I do tend to like to let ALeP cards have a pretty lengthy amount of time in the wild before sharing some of my favorite decks from the playtesting process, I do occasionally have a deck that is so fun that I feel like I need to get out and publish it. This is one of those decks.

The recent Mustering of the Rohirrim AP came with quite a few new cards aimed at filling out the Beorning trait to the point that it could be a primary focus of a deck, instead of just relying on the big heroes and allies mixed in with other traits. Bears love trees, so it seemed like a pretty fun idea to try to make a The Last Alliance deck with Beornings and Ents, especially since the new hero Osbera shares some synergy with cards like Booming Ent that also want to have some damage spread out on the board.

Right off the bat, this is primarily a Grimbeorn the Old deck. He's just about the best combat hero we have in this game, so the power level here is obviously going to be pretty solid just by having him and classic attachments for him. It's definitely not as good as a deck that would use Steward of Gondor or Forth, The Three Hunters!, but I think the fun gained from all of the interactions with the contract is worth the loss in top end absurdity that our bare-chested bear-man sometimes can have.

Piloting is pretty simple, with the hope to be to use Osbera's bear side, Quickbeam, or Archery to start spreading damage around the board so that Osbera's Lore side can get a sizeable reduction to staging area threat. There isn't a ton of quick questing power thanks to Ents entering exhausted, but I've found it to be plenty in multiplayer and still reasonable serviceable in solo. The contract itself can be used like Galadriel or Éowyn in the post-staging action window to include damaged Ents into the threat reduction calculation, which is nice for rounds where you're not sure you need it and might want to use it during the combat phase.

Treebeard is absolutely a deck-defining card here, being playable from Turn 1 thanks to the cost reduction from having more Beorning heroes than Ents. Using the contract on him can allow his resources to help pay for Beorning allies or ready Grimbeorn to handle another attack around the table. There isn't a ton of card draw available here, but I've found that Entmoot with the contract usually does a pretty reasonable job and Beorning Pony can help get the discard pile seeded for a Beorning Skin-changer.

Boomed and Trumpeted is also a really fun card when you can play it on Grimbeorn instead of the usual Ent use cases. Prior to getting a weapon or Rohan Warhorse online this card can be incredibly helpful for dealing with some early game enemies.

Aside from Grimberon himself, this deck is fairly light on uniques, with Treebeard and Quickbeam likely being the only two cards that another player at the table might really want to have in their deck as well, so it will definitely be one of the decks I'm bringing to Con of the Rings this year.