Durin's Secret Society of Dear Friends

[Gil-Estel]

Wow..we all stand corrected, haha. Nice catch indeed!

[DeadCeLL]

sorry to bust the bubble on your deck, but than yes EMHR does work, so it all still works out

[ket_the_jet]

sorry to bust the bubble on your deck, but than yes EMHR does work, so it all still works out

I don't think you should apologize for correcting something that was against the rules. It makes the community tighter and improves deck lists.
-wtk

[Sam, Great Elf Warrior]

sorry to bust the bubble on your deck, but than yes EMHR does work, so it all still works out

I don't think you should apologize for correcting something that was against the rules. It makes the community tighter and improves deck lists.
-wtk

Yeah, that was a good catch there.

[King89]

omg... what happened, did i miss a primery school "lets change our names" party?

[Witchkingx5]

omg... what happened, did i miss a primery school "lets change our names" party?

Something like that, Kralik changed into Krrrrrralik, and then I said Kralik means Rabbit in Czechish, so he's czech rabbit now. And btw, look here.

[King89]

omg... what happened, did i miss a primery school "lets change our names" party?

Something like that, Kralik changed into Krrrrrralik, and then I said Kralik means Rabbit in Czechish, so he's czech rabbit now. And btw, look here.

awesome, haha

[Kralik]

I had a chance to play this deck again... first time on GCCG in about 5-6 weeks. EMHR did give out too much twilight but I was lucky and only lost Eowyn LoI at site 2. Gandalf died to 2x Too Great and Terrible at site 5. I still feel like early sites are the riskiest and I need to be set up quicker. So, I pared the deck down a bit to 35/35:

-- Beneath the Mountains (illegal)
+ Ever My Heart Rises (works)

-- Glamdring (nice to look at their hand, but it seems to be discarded very easily)
+ Gandalf's Staff (helps vs. Easterlings if needed and... Too Great and Terrible, grr...)

-- Durin's Secret (I used to play 3x, then 2x, but now it seems 1x is fine for my normal move pattern)
-- Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon (no point without Beneath the Mountains)

If I cut out any more cards, I might go with Not the First Halfling and Gandalf's Staff to get it down to 33. But it seems OK as it is... especially since EMHR makes the "starting hand" 14, not 8.

I think my strategy vs. Freeps Ents would be to get a Constantly Threatening in hand, discard my deck, and then swarm after a triple. Seems like it would work if they didn't know I had it and I played it after their triple with plenty of twilight. I would play my Freeps as normal and try to hit them on site 9. They would have to triple twice to beat me there anyway.

[Smeagollum]

I had a chance to play this deck again... first time on GCCG in about 5-6 weeks. EMHR did give out too much twilight but I was lucky and only lost Eowyn LoI at site 2. Gandalf died to 2x Too Great and Terrible at site 5. I still feel like early sites are the riskiest and I need to be set up quicker. So, I pared the deck down a bit to 35/35:

-- Beneath the Mountains (illegal)
+ Ever My Heart Rises (works)

-- Glamdring (nice to look at their hand, but it seems to be discarded very easily)
+ Gandalf's Staff (helps vs. Easterlings if needed and... Too Great and Terrible, grr...)

-- Durin's Secret (I used to play 3x, then 2x, but now it seems 1x is fine for my normal move pattern)
-- Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon (no point without Beneath the Mountains)

If I cut out any more cards, I might go with Not the First Halfling and Gandalf's Staff to get it down to 33. But it seems OK as it is... especially since EMHR makes the "starting hand" 14, not 8.

I think my strategy vs. Freeps Ents would be to get a Constantly Threatening in hand, discard my deck, and then swarm after a triple. Seems like it would work if they didn't know I had it and I played it after their triple with plenty of twilight. I would play my Freeps as normal and try to hit them on site 9. They would have to triple twice to beat me there anyway.

Have tried your decks in an encouter with Isengard Warg-Riders... It went bad.... real bad..., because of the skirmish ability canceling....

[Kralik]

Have tried your decks in an encouter with Isengard Warg-Riders... It went bad.... real bad..., because of the skirmish ability canceling....

You couldn't kill or exhaust them before the skirmish? High vitality minions are usually the best... you can exhaust ONE of them at least and have Eowyn use that one. 4x Slaked Thirsts + 6 Archery... I don't see how you couldn't take them out.

Usually I try to avoid skirmishes altogether, unless I need to use the Ring for burdens. Could you explain what happened that didn't let you win with directed wounds?

[Smeagollum]

Have tried your decks in an encouter with Isengard Warg-Riders... It went bad.... real bad..., because of the skirmish ability canceling....

You couldn't kill or exhaust them before the skirmish? High vitality minions are usually the best... you can exhaust ONE of them at least and have Eowyn use that one. 4x Slaked Thirsts + 6 Archery... I don't see how you couldn't take them out.

Usually I try to avoid skirmishes altogether, unless I need to use the Ring for burdens. Could you explain what happened that didn't let you win with directed wounds?

Not on site 2 or 3... Foul horde + warg and I had no support up yet... I couldn't give directed wounds.
Played 5x and only one came through to site 4 and further. And that was the one I didn't play anything in the beginning.

[Kralik]

5x vs. wargs then? Ouch. What cards were you grabbing with Dear Friends?

[Smeagollum]

5x vs. wargs then? Ouch. What cards were you grabbing with Dear Friends?

I didn't came further then site 4, except for one time and that's the only time I had any Dear friends in hand!! If I remember correctly I did put some gandie-cards and aragorn's bow beneath my drawdeck with dear friends. You know it's hard to discard cards with smeagol if you can't use a skirmish special ability. It's even harder if you also don't get a gollum on time so you'd be able to discard cards in the shadow.

[Kralik]

I think you may be playing it wrong. First of all, you should have ALL Dear Friends every turn once you get Birthday Present. Odds are high that you'll get either 1 Birthday Present or 1 Dear Friends in your opening hand. In the case of the latter, at least you can get your setup by site 2. Secondly, you can use Smeagol to discard even if you don't get the strength boost because of warg canceling (and, you could even use him during another companion's skirmish).

It seems that with starting draw (8) + mulligan (6) + EMHR (6) you have GREAT* odds for getting Birthday Present, and then it's rock and roll. Site 2 is the worst threat.

Depending on what I draw in my first hand + EMHR, I stack something like:

Turn 1: Birthday Present, A Light In His Mind, The Shire Countryside x2, Preparations, Greyhame
Turn 2: Greenleaf, Aiglos, Aragorn RotN, Aragorn's Bow, The Shire Countryside, Durin's Secret
Turn 3: (Play Eowyn or Durin with Greyhame), Pathfinder, The Shire Countryside, Durin's Secret, Gandalf's Staff, Roll of Thunder, Deep in Thought.
Turn 4: (Play Eowyn or Durin with Greyhame) Just draw cards for Smeagol, stack nothing unless I'm stopping before 9 for some odd reason.

But of course that's assuming no starting Freeps cards. I modify my strategy according to my what I start with and what my opponent plays (grabbing companions I want more, or Deep in Thought early, etc).

EDIT: *Just did some calculations... without mulligan it's about 60%, with mulligan about 75%. Nice.

[Smeagollum]

I think you may be playing it wrong. First of all, you should have ALL Dear Friends every turn once you get Birthday Present. Odds are high that you'll get either 1 Birthday Present or 1 Dear Friends in your opening hand. In the case of the latter, at least you can get your setup by site 2. Secondly, you can use Smeagol to discard even if you don't get the strength boost because of warg canceling (and, you could even use him during another companion's skirmish).

It seems that with starting draw (8) + mulligan (6) + EMHR (6) you have GREAT* odds for getting Birthday Present, and then it's rock and roll. Site 2 is the worst threat.

Depending on what I draw in my first hand + EMHR, I stack something like:

Turn 1: Birthday Present, A Light In His Mind, The Shire Countryside x2, Preparations, Greyhame
Turn 2: Greenleaf, Aiglos, Aragorn RotN, Aragorn's Bow, The Shire Countryside, Durin's Secret
Turn 3: (Play Eowyn or Durin with Greyhame), Pathfinder, The Shire Countryside, Durin's Secret, Gandalf's Staff, Roll of Thunder, Deep in Thought.
Turn 4: (Play Eowyn or Durin with Greyhame) Just draw cards for Smeagol, stack nothing unless I'm stopping before 9 for some odd reason.

But of course that's assuming no starting Freeps cards. I modify my strategy according to my what I start with and what my opponent plays (grabbing companions I want more, or Deep in Thought early, etc).

EDIT: *Just did some calculations... without mulligan it's about 60%, with mulligan about 75%. Nice.

Well start calculations again... I suppose....
Sure you can use smeagol gametext, but unfortunately he doesn't get the str-bonus.
First time I played I gave to much twillight, but after that I didn't gave more then 8 for the shadow, but then I still had either Sharku, Warg-captain + Sharku's Warg + Isengard Axe or Foul Horde + Isengard Axe + Warg, against me. Believe me Dear Friends doesn't help on site 2 against a damage +1 fierce minion; it meant that each time on site 2 there were 2 comps dead: Frodo and Smeagol.
Even Mulligan doesn't help against that, besides that I mostly had gandie-cards as freeps in hand.. also with a mulligan. And without Gandie that's even more worst.

The shadow on the other hand worked great. Used it with some other deck's and it was just great.... Played Sauron 2x in one game, never happened to me with the reflections sauron:)

Btw if you want to use EMHR to it's full potential then you might concider Axe of Erebor. Would not put in Gandie's staff in that case, so you can stay on 35/35.