1x •
Frodo, Old Bilbo's Heir (Starting)
1x •
The one Ring, Isildur's Bane (starting)
1x
The Prancing Pony1x
Weathertop1x
Ford of Bruinen1x
Eregion Hills1x
The Bridge of Khazad Dum1x
Caras Galadhon1x
Anduin Confluence1x
Shores of Nen Hithoel1x
Emyn Muil Fellowship (34)
1x •
Gimli, Son of Gloin (Starting)
1x •
Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood (Starting)
4x •
Gandalf, Friend of the Shirefolk2x •
Aragorn, Heir to the White City1x •
Elrond, Lord of Rivendell1x •
Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor1x •
Gimli's Battle Axe1x •
Gimli's Helm1x •
Bow of the Galadhrim1x •
Long Knives of Legolas1x •
Glamdring1x •
Aragorn's Bow1x
Armor1x
Flaming Brand1x •
Ranger's Sword1x •
Sting1x •
Gandalf's Staff1x •
Narya2x
Delving2x
Deep in Thought3x
Servant of the Secret Fire2x
Shoulder to Shoulder2x
Trust Me as You Once Did1x •
The Saga of Elendil Shadow (34)
3x
Band of the Eye4x
Morgul Hunter3x •
The Witch King, Lord of the Nazgul2x •
Ulaire Attea, The Easterling3x •
Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul4x •
Ulaire Nelya, Ringwraith in Twilight1x •
Ulaire Toldea, Messenger of Morgul3x
Enduring Evil3x
It wants to be Found2x
Relentless Charge3x
Desperate Defense of the Ring2x
Thin and Stretched1x
HelplessThis is my first post on this forum, so I decided to upload this deck I created that has roughly 2/3 win rate on Gemp. The Fellowship is rather straightforward: bid 1 to start (if they bid more, they'll often really feel the pain from the Shadow) and make sure you get Gandalf. It works wonders against plenty of shadow strategies, particularly Nazgul Beatdown and
Orc Bowmen. Any Shadows that rely on conditions will fall to the hideously powerful
Shoulder to Shoulder and
Deep in thought combo. Those that need to win skirmishes hate the potential +6 boost
TMaYOD can provide the already strong Gandalf and Aragorn (and Legolas vs Nazgul). Moria can cause trouble if you don't get in a
Deep in thought to wipe out their Goblin Armories before the swarm hits, but if you do, it's basically game over.
Bow of the Galadhrim and
Gimli's Battle Axe help out there, too. In theory Uruks should prove problematic for this deck by discarding your conditions, but I find that they can easily be controlled if you use
Sting or
Glamdring to know what pumps might come your way.
The Shadow can be great fun! It works solely on burdens. I designed it to try to counter the very boring
Greenleaf,
Arwen, Daughter of Elrond start with Aragorn coming at site 1 build. If they bid 2 to start, and add a burden to pull Aragorn, just one
It Wants to be Found will cause 5 burdens when they move to site 4. Then Enquea can come out and have some fun.
Enduring Evil is fantastic for getting a very big surprise overwhelm on any big companion. I once put all 3 Desperate Defense of the Rings on a Gloin, saw 5 burdens and assigned Toldea to him twice. With 5 cards in his hand that was game even though Toldea lost the skirmishes. Some Fellowships do shut this Shadow down, with Sam, Son of Hamfasst coming immediately to mind. He's not so bad if he comes out site 1: they'll normally have put in a high bid which compensates the removal of 2 or 3 burdens and you can try to cycle through to find
Helpless.
Helpless also stops people sacking Frodo when they get to 5 burdens to essentially deny all your hard work. Choke is very frustrating to play against, but normally my Fellowship can run against any Shadow that pairs with the choke.
At the end of the day, I built this as a fun deck and was socked to see how well it performs (99 wins out of 150 on Gemp). There are other cards that could be considered (such as
Bounder: I only use
Old Bilbo's Heir for the Gandalf signet or
Thrarin, Dwarven Smith to remove a wound from Legolas or Gimli each turn using
Shoulder to Shoulder as well as taking a hit from a swarm or big minion, but as I have 34 cards already I don't want to be adding in new ones. The Fellowship does not work without Gandalf, so I want to keep the deck small enough to draw him consistently in the first hand (with or without a Mulligan). I'd be interested to see what people think of this deck. I enjoy using it, regardless!