Nebula - Scry Baby

I used to love taking advantage of all the scrying effects in the Lord of the Rings LCG to allow me to set up my turns in the most efficient way possible. There aren’t many scrying effects in this game, but there are a few, and by playing Nebula you can use almost all of them!

This Nebula deck leverages the amazing power of Wide Stance to control the encounter deck and ensure you always know what you’re going to be dealing with, if it’s safe to flip to alter ego, and whether or not you can afford to go undefended.

The ideal opening play is to either play Heimdall or fire off a Wide Stance before flipping to hero form for the first time. If you’re very lucky you can either hit a Wide Stance with Combat Ready, or play it and then play Gamora to trigger it. Either way, if you’re able to scry immediately, try to set yourself up with an easy scheming turn and stay in alter ego. Doing something similar with Evasive Maneuvers for a Confuse also works. If not it’s fine, just do Nebula things.

What you’re hoping to do is scry the top of the deck every turn through the use of Wide Stance, Heimdall, and Falcon. Between those and being able to play Lethal Intent to use Wide Stance on the turn you play it, you should be able to consistently control what the encounter deck gives you or at least be aware of what it is. Using that knowledge will inform how you plan to block attacks and whether you can safely flip down without scheming out. This is all in addition of course to all of the control Nebula already has with her status effects and damage/thwart potential.

Combat Ready to return Wide Stance back into the deck whenever possible.

You have a plethora of useful allies to assist you in completely controlling the game:

The aforementioned Heimdall has the exact same ability as Wide Stance. He’s expensive but has powerful stats to continue to assist you after scrying.

Falcon can’t manipulate the deck, but at least he shows you the top 3 cards and you can plan accordingly.

Groot is always a great blocker, and even more so when you set up the boost ahead of time to be sure he survives and heals.

Hawkeye is excellent minion control so you can feel confident to allow a minion into play, knowing he can weaken it.

Kaluu can help you find those Lethal Intents and Combat Ready’s before blocking.

Mockingbird provides more control with her stun.

Nick Fury is Nick Fury.

And Star Lord is actually pretty good here because you should know what card he’s going to deal you and whether or not it’s worth it. Also I’ve included Eternity since you should be able to all but guarantee it will do it’s job, and if it’s on the top of the deck you’ll know and can just play Star Lord to grab it if you weren’t able to set it up as your encounter draw for the turn.

I’ve filled the deck with resources and Welcome Aboard to help pay for all of these allies. Rapid Response is also there to help you get more value out of those expensive allies.

Defensively you should be able to keep the attacks small by controlling the boost value, but against heavy hitting villains you should have plenty of allies to chump when necessary. Also you should be flipping down pretty regularly so feel free to heal on those turns. The allies and techniques can handle the heavy lifting of thwarting and damage.

Triskelion gets you to 4 allies on the board, and sometimes I use Knowhere to go to 5. It depends on the villain. If I’m using my allies to block I don’t really need Knowhere. But if I’m able to just take the hits and later heal the damage, it’s nice to have the room for one more ally. You can flex out Daughters of Thanos to add Knowhere against villains with lower attack.

Pulse Grenade could also find a home in this deck. If you’re playing a scenario with many high boost icon cards it wouldn’t be hard to set up a 6 damage grenade. You’d be giving up the encounter deck knowledge for the turn (which is the main reason it’s not in here normally) but it could still be really fun.

This deck performs very well against medium difficulty villains on Standard. I haven’t had the chance to try it against the most difficult villains or on Expert. It’s also probably a little less consistent in its control against Klaw, but I haven’t had time to try that either.

If you’re looking for a different way to play and you enjoy the comfort and control of knowing what’s coming at you I recommend this one for you!