Powerful Guide - Corsair cycling

[Shelobplayer]

When I'm not playing on GCCG, I only play expanded with my friends, and this is by far my most successful deck (only lost one game with it on GCCG by my own foolish mistake, and it is unbeaten in real life). So far it was able to literally own shadow sides like Uruk hunters, Mountain Troll/ wargs combo swarm, Forestguls, Moria swarm, Moria Archers, Balrog Launcher and Dunland. I haven't played it against wounding orcs yet (Orkish Lackey), but I feel like it is the shadow side that can catch me.

Ring-bearer & Ring: Frodo, Resolute Hobbit + The Great Ring

Free Peoples Side: (39)
(Starting Fellowship*)

1 x Pippin in the Bloom of Health*
1 x Merry, in the Bloom of Health*
1 x Quickbeam, Bregalad*
1 x Erland, Dale Counselor*

1 x Gandalf, Powerful Guide
1 x Treebeard Enraged Shepherd
1 x Radagast, The Brown
1 x Grimbeorn, Beorning Chieftain
4 x A Wizard is Never Late
2 x Momentous Gathering   
4 x Servant of the Secret Fire
4 x Strength of Spirit
2 x Radagast's Herb Bag
2 x Glamdring, Foe Hammer
1 x Gandalf's Staff
2 x Pallando, far Travelling One
1 x Shadowfax, Greatest of the Mearas
2 x Beorning Axe
2 x Barliman Butterbur, PPP
1 x Watch and Wait
2 x Traveled Leader
2 x Intimidate

Shadow Side #1: (39)
4 x Castamir of Umbar
4 x Corsair Marauder
4 x Corsair Plunderer
4 x Corsair Boatswain
2 x Corsair Gunners
3 x Corsair Freebooter
1 x The Balrog, Demon of Might

4 x Black Sails of Umbar
2 x Ships of Great Draught
2 x Corsair War Galley
4 x Under Foot
3 x Discovered
2 x Fierce in Despair

Strategy:
This deck aims to win with the freeps side, so I usually bid 3 and start at Osgiliath Reclaimed. My starting fellowship should give me enough time to set up, by sacrificing the 2 hobbits and Quickbeam. I found that very few shadow sides are able to kill the better freeps in expanded, so my aim with these corsairs is to cycle with Under Foot/ Ships of Great Draught, and to slow down my opponent by discarding key companions with Fierce in Despair (with TPs generated by Corsair War Galley).

A few words about some important synergies & roles of each companion:

Gandalf, Powerful Guide: obviously he is the main character. He is a decent fighter with Glamdring, FH, he cycles, and finishes of the bigger minions weakened by Treebeard with his game text and possibly Radagast's Herb Bag.

Treebeard, Enraged Shepherd: he is a main fighting character in the deck, he always has to win his skirmish, so I usually let him fight with some mediocre minion (and Erland, DC + Servant of the Secret Fire helps him too). Essentially every minion has -1 vitality thanks to him.

Erland, Dale Counselor: he is the epic support character in the deck, providing more than enough triggers to Gandalf/ Herb Bag with Strength of Spirit/ SotSF while enabling to win skirmishes.

Radagast, the Brown: he is an invaluable member of the company. This deck actively abuses the move limit bonus, and he can carry both Shadowfax, GotM and Radagast's Herb Bag. In older versions I even played Radagast's Staff, because this deck often runs, but I can't fit it anymore.

Grimbeorn, Beorning Chieftain: The other main skirmisher. I fuel him with Ships of Great Draught + Castamirof Umbar/ Black Numenorean. With his Axe he provides additional spells for Gandalf/ Herb Bag, and he is also good at overwhelming troublesome minions, especially with SotSF.

Merry/ Pippin/ Quickbeam: They are the Expendables

[Not a Zombie]

Not sure why you have shadowfax and glamdring, I'd go with a different shadowfax. For burden removal, I'd add 1x a light in his mind. Otherwise looks pretty solid, healing would help though... maybe a copy or two of Terrible and evil?

[Elessar's Socks]

Maybe Birthday Present for Unheeded?

One version I like is to start Swordthain and Wearer of Black and Silver, who bounce to clear wounds and remove burdens via Home and Hearth. Lady of Ithilien (also starting) + Brego + Coif + Spear of the Mark wounds those left. No skirmishing power, though.

[Shelobplayer]

Not sure why you have shadowfax and glamdring, I'd go with a different shadowfax. For burden removal, I'd add 1x a light in his mind. Otherwise looks pretty solid, healing would help though... maybe a copy or two of Terrible and evil?

I have Shadowfax and Glamdring, because I have Radagast, and he can go with the horse, and Gandalf with the sword. I really like the free cycling ability of Gandalf, so I want him to skirmish each turn if possible, and Foe Hammer is decent burden removal. However GotM just seemed too good not to play, so I added a Radagast and his staff. One ALihM would definitely be awesome if I could find a slot for it, especially if I can use Erland to lose initiative 2-3 times a turn, maybe I"ll drop one Foe Hammer for it. Terrible and Evil seems pretty solid too, but I'm pretty sure that I can't squeeze it in.

I'm still brainstorming on a version with some pipeweeds and One-Upsmanship (I have to get my hands on some Momentous Gathering first ), but I want to play too many cards in that version.

@Elessar's Socks: can I use Birthday Present on two Unheeded (they have the same card title)? I was pretty sure that I can't, but I saw some post here in TLHH, that says that I can (is my English that bad? lol)... (btw Daddy Twofoot is infinitely better in my playgroup, since nobody plays follower hate )

I don't really like the bouncing hobbit tech here, because they slow down my shadow side, especially that I play corsairs with Under Foot, so I want to have as much shadow cards as I can have in the shadow phase. I considered adding 3 Eowyn, LoI, (+Brego, + Dernhelm's Blade) but I just can't find deck slots for them.

EDIT: lol, I just checked the notes for Birthday Present in the database, I lived in the dark for too long .

[Shelobplayer]

Deck updated with some of my new cards. I want to get a second Beorning Axe, because Grimbeorn is a real beast (I use Ships of Great Draught to ensure that I have either Castamir of Umbar or Black Numenorean for him each turn), and if I draw both, Erland can bear the other one.

Also, I want to get my hands on 4 Momentous Gathering to replace the awinl-s, so I can play cards like Watch and Wait, Ent Moot and maybe some other good conditions (and in that case, Keeper of the Watchwood can become really helpful).

The playtesting proved, that this deck can make triples, so Radagast has other uses than bearing GotM.

[Shelobplayer]

If you can find Gandalf healing you could use Treebeard's effect with Enraged.  The only card I found that could heal them though was Steadfast Champion which isn't expanded legal so...

I wouldn't play Enraged in this deck under any circumstances...

[Shelobplayer]

Deck updated with my new cards, and I added the shadow sides.

[Kotelo]

Hello. I was checking your deck and it looks nice. What I don't understand is why your starting fellowship has a twilight cost of 6?

EDIT: Oh, totally got it, because of Pippin and Merry's text. #$&*@!, its hard to be back to play Lotr TCG after so long!

[Yrael]

Dang, I wish I could find a beorning axe :/. I feel like a wounding based deck such as southrons, or a stomp deck could be a threat to you, especailly stomp [uruk-hai] or trolls. Also, it seems like this deck would violate the rule of 6 pretty consistently, so just keep that in mind; they might pull something like shingles in a storm and great cost, which can hurt until pallando gets rid of them. And some of the Nazgul exploit the rule of 6 pretty badly too. Just something to consider.

[Shelobplayer]

The rule of 6 is not something you should respect in expanded imho, at least not at deck construction, if you really need to keep the number of your companions low, you can just throw them away (Pip, Merry and Quickbeam dies as fast as I get Gandalf most of the time). One of the best part of this deck, is that it can start wounding troublesome minions as soon as the start of maneuver (by transfering Pallando to Frodo, or using Grimbeorn, then tossing a Strength of Spirit), and with Erland/ Strength of Spirit/ Servant of the Secret Fire + Powerful Guide/ Radagast's Herb Bag no stomp deck has ever been a problem, not even the most broken Mountain Troll - Warg swarm with 10+ big minions on multiple sites.

By far, my worst matchup so far was Orkish Lackey, when I lent it to a friend, but since then I added a pair of Intimidates, so even the became better.