Coldy Still and Ferny

[TheJord]

2x Countless Companies (12U58) 
2x Driven From the Plains (13C87) 
2x Bold and Cunning (11C71) 
3x *Bill Ferny, Agent of Saruman (15R72) 
3x *Saruman, Coldly Still (17S48) 
4x *The Mouth of Sauron, Messenger of Mordor (12S73) 
2x Courageous Easterling (15C75) 
3x Mumak Rider (12R74) 
4x Vengeful Wild Man (17C63) 
2x Beast of War (17U40) 
3x Pavise (11C94) 
2x War Trident (12C77)   

Awesome deck. I love it. Saruman makes Ferny big, and with enough threats out he is a fierce damage machine! I dont see Driven from the Plains used much, I think its great in here. Make Ferny a nice damage +3/+4 on the ring-bearer.

[King89]

this deck is nice, no question... BUT i've got a main problem with all these ferny decks, because what are you going to do if bill ferny gets a wound/exertion. if he does, you cannot assign him to the rb, can you? ok, you may play him from your discard pile with courageous easterling but only if he isn't in the game any more.
so what will you do e.g. against heavy archery/dd -> gandi, PG with spells?! or fighting ringbearers -> knights with 5th level / strong elv comps ..?

how strong gets your ferny if you've got a "normal draw"?

[SomeRandomDude]

Needs more Courageous Easterling, IMO, but yeah, that should cover King89's problem.

[leokula]

Agreed. You'll find out Courageous Easterling is your hero. Also 1 more Bill Ferny, AoS does make a difference, cause you'll want to hit early, before they can set up. Also I think stuff like Overrun and Gathering Strength are more efficient in this deck than Driven From the Plains... the RB can take burdens, but can't take being overwhelmed at site three if you play ferny and 3 skirmish events and he doesn't even have a sword. Don't really like the way you built it, don't see a lot of use for Mumak Rider and the +2 from Saruman costs you 4 twilight, while you can play two Overrun for 2 and make him strength +8. I think you should focus on playing Ferny and making him huge, that's the only way you can really win with him, IMO. Played agains Ferny a few times and that's the way they beat me.

[SomeRandomDude]

Yeah, I play my deck with the site control engine. That Hillman dude that eats twilight to make people +4 when you control X sites is insane. That's how I pulled off later game kills, but yeah, Gathering Strength + Ferny @ site 2 usually does it.

Then I played my other one as a Stragglers deck with some Ferny tossed in as an alternate win to slaughtering everyone 1 by 1.

[King89]

Needs more Courageous Easterling, IMO, but yeah, that should cover King89's problem.

not at all what you gonna against a strengh 40 galadriel / smeagol. or an isildur who makes you strenght minus 10,20,30 ... what ever needed.

the main problem is that i never played against such a deck, so i'm not sure that works effective.

[leokula]

dude, first off, no deck is perfect u just listed a bunch of decks, it will do fine against some of them and will do awfully against some others.

Heavy archery, you ask? Read pavise and then even if you magically can wound him and get him out, corageous easterling can bring him back untouched And archers won't be running enough events to keep your RB protected. Heavey Archery is an easy match-up for this deck if you ask me.

Now about how big he can get, I think 18~20 is the average.

[King89]

i know that there isn't  "the perfect deck". but your arguments are good, no question.
i just mentioned e.g. the elves because they are the best fellowship (to my mind)
let's see what thejord will say

[DáinIronfoot]

What about Poleaxe? Seems a very simple way to ensure Ferny is fierce. I see the other ways to do so, but since you're likely going to have some twilight left over anyway....

[King89]

and what about adding 2 or 3 Furious Hillman (14R10) ?!

[TheJord]

I played this deck against an IB/Elven Telepathy deck, and against Gandalf Men. It gobbled up Gandalf Men but had a tougher time beating the Elves. I knew everyone would get the hate on for Driven from the Plains! People dont expect it, and as there are no new cards you need to do the unexpected.

[SomeRandomDude]

Ferny is one of the best decks out there, King. A well constructed Ferny deck, running on the Pavise + Courageous Easterling engine can usually crunch most decks. The point of Ferny is not to be able to go strength on strength with Isildur, but since the RB usually isn't beefed up until the other fighting companions, it gives a massive surprise kill, or frequently runs over your opponent before he knows what happened.

And Isildur having to fight Ferny repeatedly would be quite a pain, don't you agree? Against the typical Gondor deck, you'll have Ferny fighting him twice a turn, meaning lotsa exertions and burdens. Ferny has shown capable of corrupting ARBs. Galadriel is tough, and the elvents are a pain, but that doesn't mean that the deck should be scrapped because it fails against one deck.

[King89]

Ferny is one of the best decks out there, King. A well constructed Ferny deck, running on the Pavise + Courageous Easterling engine can usually crunch most decks. The point of Ferny is not to be able to go strength on strength with Isildur, but since the RB usually isn't beefed up until the other fighting companions, it gives a massive surprise kill, or frequently runs over your opponent before he knows what happened.

And Isildur having to fight Ferny repeatedly would be quite a pain, don't you agree? Against the typical Gondor deck, you'll have Ferny fighting him twice a turn, meaning lotsa exertions and burdens. Ferny has shown capable of corrupting ARBs. Galadriel is tough, and the elvents are a pain, but that doesn't mean that the deck should be scrapped because it fails against one deck.

it's ok - i believe what you say, because as i said, i never played against it. i should ask some one in germany to kill me with a ferny deck.

[TheJord]

Mumak Rider has a point in this deck - Horn decks/Aragorn's Bow/Bracers on Gimli RB etc etc...

Ferny + Beast of War + Pavise at Wold Battlefield on the RB. Damage +1, so he eats some burdens. Fierce skirmish, discard Driven from the Plains and exert him 4 times, he is now damage +8. 10 burdens in one turn?? Is that enough? And with an easy setup.

[Gil-Estel]

But if you exert Ferny, you cannot assign him yourself anymore. And if you exert him in the first skirmishphase, is he still damage+ when coming back? Isn't it limited to the skirmish he's in?

[TheJord]

I mean do all the exerting in the fierce skirmish. 4 exertions plus 1 Driven from the Plains should mean an extra damage +7, so a total of damage +8 in the fierce skirmish... so they either die or take tons of burdens.

This is of course the ideal situation. Threats means Beast of War can come from discard, CC plays Pavise back and Coldly Still makes him big. I think a fierce Ferny is more of a threat, as most people use Thorongil who can shut down Ferny easily.

[Gil-Estel]

Ok...obvious....Nice to pull off, when possible. Is Treachery an option in your deck, to make sure Thorongil or other companions don't do their stuff?

[Beyo]

I still dont understand this whole Ferny deck concept. I am trying now to build such deck ( the hardest thing was to collect 3x Ferny) but I dont have any chance to buy cards for site control pumping so I decided to do something with stragglers or esterlings. Could someone clear me a bit this concept?

Speaking about stragglers I dont see many options because any Courageous/Last Days combo is useless because every minion played will be fierce so no chance for Ferny to find minion unassigned to pump by tokens.
So how Courageous easterling can help Ferny?

Saruman, Coldly Still is not bad option IMO..remember good weapons: Henchman's Dagger is for free, War Trident may help vs alternate RB's but the best of the best is Grima's dagger - instead of constantly pumping ferny we may work on denying FP events:
Ferny with dagger assings to RB,
FP Player plays event
We discard dagger to cancel it
in next turn saruman bring grima's dagger back on ferny.
Vs Gondorian RB it is even better because we may bring from discard Long Battle Bow - exert RB for free


Of course Saruman may fight always first and loose skirmish and got wounds but then Ferny can pump by stragglers.

So I would be gratefull if you help me to build such variant of deck.

[Gil-Galad]

Really good Deck. But what do you do against Smeagol always helps + Don't look at them or Eowyn Lady of Ithilien. I think they kill your Easterling before he can discard himself....

[SomeRandomDude]

First version isn't standard legal.

Second version is a bit imprecise. You can still assign wounds elsewhere.