Durin's Secret Society of Dear Friends

[Kralik]

If you're worried about losing Constantly Threatening, I don't think you understand the point of the deck at all. Who cares if it's lost? It's only there as a very temporary measure, if it even gets played at all before being discarded. In fact, I have had games where I've had it out but chosen not to use it to force my opponent's hand to clog with unusable Manuever/Archery/Skirmish events. You will not win with your Shadow unless you're playing the deck drastically differently than it's designed and you are insanely lucky. You win with your Free Peoples or not at all.

Saruman's Power is challenging, as it is to any condition-based deck. I've faced it 2-3 times and won. The key is to pull an extra Birthday Present and keep it in hand for emergencies. You want to do this regardless of which particular Shadow you are facing. It's the only card you MUST have since you can bring back any other cards you need, such as A Light in His Mind and The Shire Countryside. In my original version of this deck I tried the -shuffling Bilbo ally as a backup, but I ditched him.

[sgtdraino]

Saruman's Power is challenging, as it is to any condition-based deck. I've faced it 2-3 times and won. The key is to pull an extra Birthday Present and keep it in hand for emergencies. You want to do this regardless of which particular Shadow you are facing. It's the only card you MUST have since you can bring back any other cards you need, such as A Light in His Mind and The Shire Countryside.

Ah, I think I'm starting to get it now. You use the Dear Friends to retrieve anything that gets discarded, such as your Shire Countrysides. But do you have some way to get them back in your hand and play them out again, without waiting until the next turn?

[neopium]

I never noticed that The Shire Countryside and Sam, Son of Hamfast were legal for Movie! Wow, that seems kinda crazy.

The Shire Countryside works except by a Hobbit's game text. So Sam SoH does not trigger it

[sgtdraino]

Sure sure. I'm just surprised that those two cards, outlawed for Standard and Expanded, are legal for Movie. Then again, the same goes for Galadriel, LR. I wonder why Movie is softer on cards like that?

[civ4master]

Because they didn't ban them when they should have. Pre-Shadows Multipath is much better.

[Kralik]

Saruman's Power is challenging, as it is to any condition-based deck. I've faced it 2-3 times and won. The key is to pull an extra Birthday Present and keep it in hand for emergencies. You want to do this regardless of which particular Shadow you are facing. It's the only card you MUST have since you can bring back any other cards you need, such as A Light in His Mind and The Shire Countryside.

Ah, I think I'm starting to get it now. You use the Dear Friends to retrieve anything that gets discarded, such as your Shire Countrysides. But do you have some way to get them back in your hand and play them out again, without waiting until the next turn?

You use Ever My Heart Rises to discard your entire draw deck and then Birthday Present / Dear Friends to get whatever you want back.

With every tool in your draw deck at your disposal, you choose what is best for your particular opponent and triple from 3-6 and from 6-9. If you can make it to 3 without losing key companions, you are nearly invincible. I'm not going to go into all the details... it's already been hashed out many times in the thread. In particular, it took pages for Smeagollum to realize that you don't play the deck as normal.

Losing The Shire Countryside hurts, but it's really only going to affect one or maybe two of your Free People's turns. When you have 9 companions, 4x Slaked Thirsts, Strong Archery/Wounding, Eowyn LoI, Gandalf's support... you can manage.

EDIT: Watch replay links here - http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,4077.msg82908.html#msg82908 - preferably on a fast speed, to see both wins and a loss. I don't play the deck often because people find it annoying, but I've heard others are playing it on Gemp.

[sgtdraino]

Yeah, I watched all three of those replay links already, but to my recollection none of those games really had to deal with condition discarding. I'd be interested to see a game against a deck that makes heavy use of Saruman's Power. If my thinking is correct, Turn 1: Shire conditions get discarded in Shadow Phase. No use of Shire conditions this turn. Turn 2: You use Dear Friends to put Birthday Present in your draw deck in Fellowship Phase, but have no way to draw it/play it/use it. No use of Shire conditions this turn. Turn 3: You use Birthday Present/Dear Friends to put your conditions back in your draw deck in Fellowship Phase, but have no way to draw them/play them. No use of Shire conditions this turn. Turn 4: You play your conditions back out again, and get to use them until they get discarded again.

It seems like it would be risky to double (or triple) without your Shire conditions in place. Each time they get discarded, seems like you're probably single-moving for three turns, during which he's probably (at least) doubling.

Then again, I'm probably still missing something.

[Kralik]

Yeah, you are. First, it's not likely you'll face a Saruman's Power every turn. Secondly, you won't get all the conditions out the first turn or even the second. It's more like:

Turn one: Birthday Present if lucky, play other conditions maybe.
Turn two: Keep extra Birthday Present, get conditions ready. If conditions were discarded on your first turn you can get them back now.
Turn three: You probably have all the conditions out. This is the turn you triple from 3 to 6. It hurts to lose your conditions but you are still likely to get at least one use out of them (eg. spam fellowship healing for Not the First Halfling abuse)
Turn four: No Conditions but it's the final stretch from 6-9 with 4x Slaked Thirsts, nine companions, your choice of site 7 and lots of directed archery / Eowyn abuse ready. This is a potent setup regardless of whether you are playing or not. Even if your companions are mostly exhausted at site 8, your opponent's minions are dead and their hand is clogging.

I've faced Saruman's Power before and it's workable. I think Easterlings w/ Easterling Polearm's are the more dangerous threat. They are the only enemy that can't take any wounds -- most others (Broad-Bladed Sword, High Vantage) can be exerted with Slaked Thirsts and dealt with by Eowyn LoI. You need to pull Deep in Thought and Roll of Thunder and hope you can knock out Small Hope and Easterling Captain.

The deck is obviously not perfect -- I've played it and made many mistakes. Castamir with Raider Halberd on site 2 will ruin your day. You have to carefully choose which cards help the most and decide if/when to play minions. But it's fun to be nearly invincible once you get rolling. If your opponent has poor cycling and lots of FP events, they can often be nearly completely clogged by the time your last turn rolls around. Either that or they've given up trying.

[Kralik]

I don't think I've ever had a Shadow win before, but here's one where my opponent played Radagast on site 1 (=instant loss in most cases) and I got lucky draws.

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=Kralik$yp7pu1498msi2fbk

Makes me think I should try to get a Constantly Threatening to keep in hand so I can bait my opponent into doubling... As long as there is enough twilight, you can continually play the cheap minions until they run out of cards in their hand. In fact, since EMHR causes trouble with the rule of four, I suspect the best plan is to wait until site 2 to use Birthday Present and allow the natural card draws to help both Freeps and Shadow. Smeagol/Gollum can toss cards you don't need so there's little threat of clogging.

Given a double by your opponent or a triple with Radagast, we get:
Constantly Threatening --> Up to 9 Minions from Discard --> Loss of Initiative --> Gollum from Discard --> Evil-Smelling Fens --> Another Minion from Discard

As long as there is twilight.

I'm also wondering if I should add a Rest By Blind Night for emergencies or alternate strategies, but I'm not sure if it's worth the card slot.

[sgtdraino]

Hmmm. What about adding this guy:

Master Proudfoot, Distant Relative of Bilbo

ETA: Hmmm. It seems like this could be interesting too:

Birthday Present + Dear Friends + Legolas, Greenleaf + Elrond, Keeper of Vilya + Elf Song + The Shire Countryside x4 = Exert Elrond to heal 4 companions!

[Kralik]

I don't think either of those are necessary, since for Master Proudfoot you're not likely to get him and actually need his drawing ability. Note that with Dear Friends you are drawing 6 cards a turn which is your entire draw deck. As for Elrond, you don't need any Fellowship healing as initiative abuse can give you up to 20 heals in the Fellowship phase.

Both cards are assuming that you have a draw deck at all when you play them, and you very likely won't.

[sgtdraino]

It's very easy to get him, since Gandalf, Greyhame can play him from your discard pile. The idea is, if you lose anything, Proudfoot would enable you to get it back out again immediately.

Good point on the initiative abuse though.

[Kralik]

Ah, I see what you mean, but you're missing one very important detail:

Birthday Present gives you 3x Dear Friends and 1x No Help For It. You're running up against the rule of four. A smart opponent will always choose No Help For It last to avoid the initiative abuse. (Impatient opponents often choose it first, to their detriment). So, you actually can't draw any more cards with Master Proudfoot. The best you could do is draw 2 cards at the expense of using Dear Friends and No Help For It to plan your next turn with key cards like Durin's Secret, Pathfinder, and so on.

[sgtdraino]

I think you misunderstand: The Proudfoot scenario is for when you don't have Birthday Present, because it got discarded and (for whatever reason) you don't have a spare in hand. So butting up against the rule of four is the least of your worries. If condition discarding gets rid of all your Birthday Presents, Proudfoot gets it back out again the very next turn. Assuming you kept at least one Dear Friends in your hand, of course. But if you didn't, then you're screwed anyway.

If you lose all your conditions, but you have a Dear Friends in hand and Proudfoot on the table, then at a minimum you can get out a Birthday Present, a The Shire Countryside, and put a No Help For It and another Dear Friends in your hand. You're set right back up again, instead of having to struggle for 3 turns.

But then again maybe you see that scenario as too unlikely to worry about.

[civ4master]

Suppose some one has Verily I Come in their deck? What do you do then?