Durin's Secret Society of Dear Friends

[Kralik]

So what, in your opinion, counts as broken?

I've been testing a new deck on GCCG that is fairly fragile for the first few sites. Some of you may have seen it. I don't want to give it away yet, but it runs 9 companions and is usually completely set up by site 4. It kept losing until I switched up the Shadow and got better at strategy. Now it is winning.

Once it is rolling at site 3/4, here's what it can do each turn:

-Take 7 Freeps cards of your choice from the deck into hand (yes, I know Rule of 4... but I do it a different way)
-Remove essentially unlimited burdens (20+ I suppose, with Sam SoH and next point)
-Heal up to 32 wounds (20 Fellowship and 12 Regroup, or 16F/4Sk/12R)
-Deal 14 wounds of direct damage (8 from Slaked Thirsts, 6 from Directed Archery, 1 Normal Arch) before using Eowyn, LoI. With regroup healing of 12 Slaked is reusable and Eowyn LoI and co are healed.
-Make any surviving minions up to strength -20 or so in increments of -2 (thanks for the tip Pepin).
-Triple, Quadruple, or... you name it! Up to six moves a turn. Realistically doesn't need to do more than Triple often.

And then I have a bunch of Freeps cards that I can take out if needed such as Deep in Thought. I find that if I can survive the setup, and if I'm not facing one of its few weaknesses (such as hand discard) I'm pretty much invincible.

So... what do you think? Clever or broken?
I think this may even rival Broken Tokens from Standard.

Sites:
Site 1: Dunharrow Plateau
Site 2: King's Tent
Site 3: Beacon of Minas Tirith
Site 4: Osgiliath Fallen
Site 5: City Gates
Site 6: Minas Tirith First Circle
Site 7: Osgiliath Crossing
Site 8: Northern Ithilien (kinda random)
Site 9: Dagorlad

Freeps (35):
Ringbearer: Frodo, Master of the Precious
Ring: Answer to All Riddles

1x Smeagol, Poor Creature (starting)
1x Gimli, Feared Axeman (starting)
1x Sam, Son of Hamfast (starting)
1x Legolas, Greenleaf (P)
1x Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien
1x Gandalf, Greyhame
1x Aragorn, Ranger of the North (P)
1x Durin III, Dwarven Lord

4x Birthday Present
3x Dear Friends
1x No Help for It
1x A Light In His Mind
4x The Shire Countryside

1x Pathfinder*
1x Durin's Secret
1x Deep in Thought
1x Roll of Thunder

1x Aragorn's Bow
1x Gandalf's Staff
1x Aiglos

1x Ever My Heart Rises
1x Not the First Halfling
1x Preparations
4x Slaked Thirsts

Shadow (35):

Shadow has a few options. This deck originally started as a LttG setup deck, with multiple Preparations and Dwaves for the Freeps instead of Durin's Secret. It worked well as such. My current Shadow is:

2x Gollum, Old Villain
1x Gollum, Plotting Deceiver
4x Evil-smelling Fens
2x Let Her Deal With Them
4x Captured by the Ring

4x Constantly Threatening
4x Dunlending Rampager
4x Dunlending Renegade
3x Wild Men of the Hills
3x Hides

1x Mumak Chieftain
1x Mumakil

1x Shelob, Last Child of Ungoliant (P)
1x Sauron, The Lord of the Rings (P)

Freeps Strategy:
Bid high to start. You want one of 9 Freeps cards in hand: Birthday Present (best), Dear Friends or Bilbo, Retired Adventurer. If not, perhaps mulligan. However, it can pay off to wait until site 2 for the action if you can get your opponent to stop there with Shadow. Sometimes I get Birthday Present in first draw but don't use it until site 2. Play Beneath the Mountains Ever My Heart Rises from Dunharrow Plateau. When ready...

Discard *most* of your draw deck! If you have Birthday Present, you might discard all... if you have Dear Friends or Bilbo, leave some cards and stick Birthday Present and A Light In His Mind in the deck. Now for each Freeps turn:

-Bring back Smeagol with Frodo or Greyhame, then use Birthday Present to draw 1x No Help for It and 3x Dear Friends. Do this one card at a time and manipulate initiative by playing other cards from your hand (NOT Dear Friends unless your opponent let you have No Help for It already). Remember Rule of 4 with Birthday Present.
-Stick 6 Freeps cards of your choice under your draw deck by exerting Smeagol or Legolas. Heal exerts with the Shire Countryside and A Light in His Mind. Prioritize which ones to get first... Preparations FOR SURE, The Shire Countryside, and Legolas are usually my first choices. However, Greyhame lets you play a companion each turn, giving you essentially 7 cards, so you might want him.
-Remove all burdens and add them again with Answer to All Riddles the turn you use No Help for It. Any extra exerts are for Not the First Halfling, but make sure to start every turn with a fully healed Fellowship.
-Get your stuff ready to run! Massive healing with No Help for It in regroup gives you exerts for Preparations and Slaked Thirsts.

Shadow strategy:
Use Old Villain to cycle if you need it to get your Freeps cards.

Try to see if you can play stuff like Constantly Threatening or Evil-smelling Fens before decking yourself. Constantly Threatening lets you play the cheap Dunland minions and might discourage your opponent from doubling. If they lose initiative by discarding cards, you can play Gollum, Plotting Deceiver, use Evil-smelling Fens to grab a minion of choice, and maybe even Let Her Deal With Them. With lots of twilight, play Sauron (dmg+3), with less, play Mumak Chieftain (Str. 14, Fierce, Dmg+2). Quite often your opponent will not have initiative because they cleared out their Freeps cards from hand to try to cycle for their upcoming Shadow.

Or... if your Freeps is in good shape, play nothing so their hand will clog and give you an easier run.

Choosing which cards to grab with Dear Friends is the key strategy here... It's not a bad idea to grab a Durin's Secret early in case you suddenly have to use it. Or an extra Birthday Present to keep in hand in case the first one is discarded. If your opponent is forewarned, they may start by running immediately from site 1-3, 3-5, etc. However, many will pause because for fear of Dunland at site 3. Be careful in your initial sites, and keep key Shadow cards in hand before decking yourself if possible.

Update: Slimmed the deck down to 35/35 to help with starting draws.

[Cw0rk]

It sounds pretty clever and it looks broken. I'd have to see it before I can confirm its brokeness.

[Kralik]

For fun, see if you can guess the companions. I will post the full list later.

I've given you two:

Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien
Sam, Son of Hamfast

[Kralik]

It sounds pretty clever and it looks broken. I'd have to see it before I can confirm its brokeness.

You were always my inspiration for crazy decks like this.

[Cw0rk]

I'm pretty sure your deck also includes The Shire Countryside and A Light in his mind. It's pretty easy to guess a lot of the cards. The main question is how do you procede to win and lose initiative?

[ket_the_jet]

Gandalf, Manager of Wizards and Echoes of Valinor are my guess.

So what is the easiest way to bring cards out of the discard pile? Because I'm thinking that Ever My Heart Rises discarding the whole deck has something to do with it!
-wtk

[Kralik]

Yes to c10ckw0rk (it's a given), but no to ket. Try a different Gandy.

Most turns I don't bother to win/lose initiative during Fellowship, as I rarely have that many wounds to heal. Maybe a few. The way to get all the Freeps cards I need... now that, my dear friends, is a secret.

[ket_the_jet]

Yes to c10ckw0rk (it's a given), but no to ket. Try a different Gandy.

Most turns I don't bother to win/lose initiative during Fellowship, as I rarely have that many wounds to heal. Maybe a few. The way to get all the Freeps cards I need... now that, my dear friends, is a secret.

Well, my second guess would have been Gandalf, the Grey Pilgrim, but I can see Leader of Men having his place as well.

Also, Dear Friends is clearly in this deck. You have to love Kralik's Oscar Wilde-like wordplay.
-wtk

[Cw0rk]

Dear Friends with birthday present, yes!

[ket_the_jet]

So what this really is would be a longer set-up pipeweed deck.
-wtk

[Kralik]

Nailed it c10ckw0rk!

That's a large part of it. I'll change the deck title to what I use for myself and update the card list.

So what this really is would be a longer set-up pipeweed deck.

Actually, setup is rather fast. Freeps are usually decent by site 3 Fellowship, very strong by site 4 Fellowship.

[ket_the_jet]

Gandalf, Friend of the Shirefolk

Frodo, Son of Drogo

Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar

Legolas, Greenleaf

Gimli, Feared Axeman

Gandalf's Pipe
Aragorn's Pipe
Frodo's Pipe
Gimli's Pipe
The Gaffer's Pipe

Longbottom Leaf
Old Toby

Where do those fit in?
-wtk

[Kralik]

Greenleaf and Feared Axeman, check.

Pipeweed, nope.

[ket_the_jet]

Ever My Heart Rises, Slaked Thirsts.

Dunharrow Plateau.

Gandalf, Leader of Men.

Merry, Friend to Sam.

Faramir, Son of Denethor.

Some Gondor Bowmen, I figure.
-wtk

[sharkey]

Well, directed archery pretty much has to be Aragorn's bow and Legolas GL.