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| michael knight |
![]() Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:24 am |
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Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 105
Location: Above the Law, Ohio
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Warning, this has a very long explanation at the bottom, so just be prepared...
Fellowship
Frodo, Son of Drogo w/The Binding Ring
Sam, Resolute Halfling (starting)
Gandalf, Leader of Men (starting)
Smeagol, Slinker (starting)
4 The Shire Countryside
4 A light in his mind
3 A Wizard is never late
4 Servant of the Secret Fire
1 Fireworks
1 Brooding on Tomorrow
2 Sting
1 The Palantir of Orthanc, Recovered Seeing Stone
1 Narya
1 Gandalf’s Staff
1 Follow Smeagol
3 Secret Paths
1 Tom Bombadil, The Master
1 Erland, Dale Counselor
Shadow
2 Goblin Armory
2 Goblin Swarms
4 Host of THousands
4 Goblin Scimitar
1 Goblin Scrabbler
4 Goblin Runner
1 Goblin Sneak
2 Goblin Wallcrawler
3 Moria Scout
4 Goblin Scavengers
1 Host of Moria
Sites
Pinnacle of Zikragil (3)
Helm’s Gate (2)
Dammed Gate Stream (3)
Green Dragon Inn (3)
Pellenor Flat (1)
East Road (0)
Emyn Muil (0)
Redhorn Pass (2)
Mere of dead faces (1)
Strategy
Fellowship
This deck works by overwhemling any minion it faces and then moving 3+ times at least once for the win. Here is how it goes. Feel free to bid 3 or 4 and go first. Start at dammed gate stream use the site to go get your follow smeagol. Use the binding ring to go get Narya for Gandalf. Play whatever fellowship you have and move. Always stop at 2. It dosen’t matter what the situation is, stop at 2. Before you end your turn, use follow smeagol and play green dragon as site 3. Next turn play all your fellowship and move to 3, don’t forget to use follow smeagol again. Stop at 3. Again, always stop at 3, no matter what. I have played this deck in some form since Erland first came out, and I have yet to have it fail to be set up by site 3. We need 2 Shire Counrtysides out. ONLY TWO. never play more than two at a time. One A light in his mind, Erland, and your starting fellowship. You need to keep 3 specific cards in your hand at all times, another a light in his mind and the other two shire countrysides. In case your opponent wipes your conditions, you can reset the next turn and get back to business. Here is a step by step model of how things work.
Fellowship: Use sting to exert Frodo, and then exert Sam to heal frodo. Then discard one card to sam to heal him. Repeat this until you have the neccessary number of cards in hand. You want to have 4 cards in hand if one of them is a servant, but only 3 if you have a servant in the discard pile but none in hand. Play all your fellowship cards and move to then next site.
Skirmish: add a burden to make smeagol str +2. exert Erland to return servant to your hand. Play servant to make a minion str -3. You lose initiative. A light in his mind triggers, removing a burden. Both of The shire countrysides trigger, healing erland and one other companion. Start the whole process over again. Until all the bad guys are dead. Move along now...move along.
The Secret Paths are there so that you can run past the opponent easily. The fellowship is very weak until you get the combo going, so we need to be very careful early, meaning we don’t run. This could put us behind, and this is the best way to catch up.
Fireworks in there to get back the shire countrysides if they get lost. Palantir is there to prevent you losing because somebody palantirs all your cards. Brooding kills conditions. A wizard is never late pulls Erland. The reason I run one erland and 3 of these instead of 4 erlands is that I can still play A wizard is never late once I have erland out and not find a character, but If I draw an extra copy of erland it could be harder to get rid of. I know that no matter what the situation is, I can always play that event. Bombadil’s purpose is two-fold. First, he removes threats added by secret Paths, so that you can play all 3 if you get them. Eash one adds 2 threats, and I only have 5 companions. I have gone from 4 to 9 with this deck, but more often it is 3 to 6 and then 6 to 9. In case your conditions get killed, we use Bombadil to cancel skirmishes with Sam. The staff and narya are there for the same reason, plus the Staff makes Servant free, which makes this deck much harder to beat.
Shadow
You want to draw as many cards as possible. It is a good enough build to win once in a while, but it is really there only to get through as many cards as possible. Cycle anything and everything you can to set up the fellowship. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:54 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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That’s a pretty cool combo! You might consider splashing Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver as extra protection against archery -- Southron archery/wounding might cause problems.
Also, you could be in trouble if your opponent is playing an initiative-based Shadow deck -- one of those conditions that says "the Shadow player has initiative regardless of the number of cards in the Free Peoples player’s hand" will shut down your combo, and you won’t be able to get rid of it because your only condition removal is itself dependent on the initiative trick! Pallando, Far-traveling One might be a better option. |
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| michael knight |
![]() Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 2:17 pm |
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Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 105
Location: Above the Law, Ohio
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You are right on with the initiative thing. I should have Heights of Isengard in there to help with that, but I am stupid. I used to play it and then I forgot why...thanks for sparking my memory. Pallando is a great idea. I really haven’t done mcuh with this deck for a while because we outlawed it at the tournaments I run, and big D is a little lax with thier real life tourney scene right now... 
Archery and wouding isn’t a concern because I can always wear the ring a turn those wounds into burdens. The shadow player will need to deal 18 to 20 wounds in one turn before I get a skirmish action to be able to kill anybody. (Frodo 8 burdens, Sam 3 wounds, Gandalf 3-5 wounds, Erland-1 wound, smeagol 3 wounds). Plus, if you know you are facing this matchup, you always make sure to pull the servant back with your last skirmish action, that way they don’t get a chance to whirling strike or Redwrath before you can trigger the combo. If leave it in the discard pile it takes two skirmish actions to pull it off, leaving a small window to get smacked around.
The beauty of this deck is that the shadow basically has 4 turns to set up and kill me. The moves normally like this 1-2. 2-3. 3-6. 6-9. |
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