In its current incarnation, this deck has lost once on the ring test, twice on the New Ringlord roll, and dunked once.

But it hasn’t really been stopped.

Starting Pool:
Gulla
Eradan
Elladan
Gildor Inglorion
Elrohir
Herion
Mionid
Nevido Smod
Denethor II
Arinmir
2 x Binding-ring
Saruman’s Ring
Wizard’s Myrmidon

Resources:

Items:
Scroll of Isildur
The One Ring
2 x Precious Gold Ring

Events:
2 x Gates of Morning
2 x Crept Along Carefully
2 x Crept Along Cleverly
2 x Many Turns and Doublings
2 x Dodge
2 x Marvels Told
2 x Under His Blow
2 x Voices of Malice
2 x Weigh All Things to a Nicety
2 x Longbottom Leaf
2 x Smoke Rings
2 x Dark Tryst
Going Ever Under Dark
The Forge-master

Sideboard:
3 x A New Ringlord
2 x Great-road
2 x Iron-road
2 x Promptings of Wisdom
2 x Old Friendship
2 x Wizard’s Test
2 x Reluctant Final Parting
News of Doom
3 x The Ring’s Betrayal
The Precious
My Precious
3 x Thrall of the Voice

Hazards:
I highly recommend dump and run.

The starting company should ideally be Arinmir, the two elf brothers, and Gulla and Mionid.

Arinmir gets the Myrmidon and controls one of the brothers bearing a mind ring.  The three elves form one company; Mionid and Gulla (one of them with a Mind Ring) form the other.  This puts you at 14 influence; one less than Saruman’s GI when he’s revealed.

Turn one: play one of the HL reducing perms on the elves, who move to Isles of the Dead That Live.  Mionid and Gulla move to Ost-in-Edhil.  If you’ve got Gates of Morning, do some HL reducing with Many Turns.  Play a couple of rings.

Turn two: hopefully you’ve drawn Saruman between a whole lot of fast resources and a fast hazard playing strategy.  The elves move to the Stones for the scroll; Mionid and Gulla can join them if necessary (otherwise, it’s a better idea to move them to Isengard).  Put your tests in the discard pile with Saruman.

Turn three: meet at Isengard; hopefully you’ll have all three HL reducing perms at this point and have used your sideboard accessing cards to bring in the New Ringlords and Roads.  Depending on your opponent’s hazard strategy, use the appropriate helpers from the Sideboard.  Pull a Wizard’s Test from the Discard and get the One.

Turn four: First New Ringlord.  If the game is close, you can risk going to Amon Hen, but if you can wait a turn, do it.  Tap your large company to help with ccs (and don’t worry; Saruman with the One has a 17 DI to control characters, not to mention an 11 prowess!).  If you do risk going to Amon Hen, make sure to use Great/Iron Road to return to Isengard the same turn if the roll is noncomittal (It only lets them draw one extra card, so you’re not risking much).

Turn Five: Play another New Ringlord.  You’ve got fairly good odds.  Win the game and laugh at your opponent.  Do a victory dance. :)

Note that Saruman’s Ring makes you nigh-invulnerable to Rolled.

Weak points:

Saruman is vulnerable to an influence bust between the time he’s revealed and the time the company meets at Isengard.  The Call of Home/Alone and Unadvised combo can be harsh.  If you draw into the Forge-Master early, stick on Mionid; that can help.  After that, Thralls can be used to crowd more characters under Saruman’s DI.

If you exhaust before you’re ready for your Amon Hen run, some of your HL reduction disappears.

Endless Bane recycling can hurt.  If you suspect your opponent’s going to do that, put the Wizard’s Tests straight into the deck rather than the discard pile.

Heavy Corruption on the characters before they meet at Isengard will also suck.  You may need to get your Old Friendships in to preserve the Scroll Bearer, leaving you more vulnerable to corruption on Saruman later.

Anyways, play this one enough and your opponent might start getting paranoid when you say you’re doing Fallen Saruman, rather than just laughing in your face.