Its mine! but i could use some help...

[macheteman]

OK, so i've been playing LOTR for a while now, and i'm not a top notch player, but i've seen my share of decks in the past 8 years or so. i've always been fascinated with synergy between freeps and shadow, but outside of discard and dwarf/swarm nothing ever really caught my eye.

but the other day i stumbled across the card It's Mine and i figured it could be really useful. i saw that it could give the 9 cards in hand needed to pull a big kill with they stole it. there really are two main conditions needed to make this card useful. the first is a shadow completely out of gollum/wraith cards, and a freeps that doesn't mind MASSIVE discarding with they stole it / it's mine. so i went to old faithful merry swordthain for advice. and i wound up with a freeps that is pure comps and possessions.

 like i said in the title, this deck could use some work. granted i've only tested it 4 times and against the worst possible decktypes. knights twice, ents once, and a wounding deck that wouldn't let gollum reach skirmish. here is the complete deck list i've used for the last 2 games, knights and wounding.

i think the idea is interesting.

Ring-bearer   10P121   • Frodo, Resolute Hobbit
The One Ring   4R1   • The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles

Adventure Deck
1   7U333   Sleeping Quarters
2   7U337   West Road
3   7U339   Hall of the Kings
4   10U118   Pelennor Prairie
5   10U119   Steward's Tomb
6   7U347   Minas Tirith First Circle
7   8U120   Osgiliath Channel
8   7U359   Northern Ithilien
9   7U360   Dagorlad

Free Peoples Draw Deck
Free Peoples Total   34
1x   7R321   • Merry, Swordthain
1x   7R324   • Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver
1x   7C229   • Éowyn, Restless Maiden
4x   8C87   • Éomer, Keeper of Oaths
4x   5R82   • Gamling, Warrior of Rohan
2x   4U263   • Brego
2x   7R230   • Éowyn's Sword, Dernhelm's Blade
2x   4R274   • Firefoot
3x   5R89   Rohirrim Helm
3x   7C248   Rohirrim Javelin
3x   5C91   Rohirrim Shield
1x   7C253   Swift Steed
3x   4C278   Heavy Chain
1x   4C288   Rider's Spear
1x   4U268   • Éomer's Spear
2x   7C319   Hobbit Sword

Shadow Draw Deck
Shadow Total   34
4x   7C62   It's Mine
4x   8C74   Morgul Ambusher
3x   8C75   Morgul Creeper
2x   8C76   Morgul Lurker
4x   7C53   Captured by the Ring
1x   7R57   • Fat One Wants It
3x   8C30   Web
1x   10R23   • Shelob, Her Ladyship
2x   8R25   • Shelob, Eater of Light
1x   10R21   • Gollum, Mad Thing
1x   5R25   • Gollum, Stinker
4x   6R46   They Stole It
4x   8R24   • Promise Keeping

Freeps:

This freeps is scrappy. it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve and doesn't mind getting discarded. i've gone head to head with enduring nazzies, grima, all sorts of stuff. the freeps usually carries me to site 8, even site 9. basically, eowyn is superwoman, load her up with goodies (save her sword until skirmish obviously) make sure brego gets on her, then in the skirmish you can use her texts to make her really strong, use merry to bring back some possessions. by doing this, she basically can keep healing, she can dish out heaps of wounds, by replaying the sword, she can cancel skirmishes. the helms are key. if i minion exerts at the start, has to exert again for a helm, and then the helm is replayed by merry and discarded, a lot of minions just have to resign. save gamling's stuff for skirmish phase obviously, this is great for double moving. once he is set up, basically just leave him and let him take all the minions he can. eomer is just a tank and defender +1 with firefoot, so keep him alive until the end. pippin in there for early protection and then as cannon fodder. the shields give nice archery protection, and can provide healing, just replay with merry. it comes in at 11 comps 23 possessions. i laugh every time i see that.

of course having only possessions has its drawbacks... but so far this deck has done well.

shadow: pretty simple, if you have 8 cards in hand. play gollum, 7 cards, exert 3 times for its mine hopefully 2 of those are shadow cards and then with promise keeping and they stole it in play... you can hypothetically take down a vitality 5 companion like its a piece of cake. the orcs provide some great wounding, punishment for adding too many threats or burdens, and then, they can be staked up on web for shelob. shelob is quite a dangerous aspect here, if you don't keep your eye on her, she can get quite strong with all those orcs piling up.


so basically, the freeps is good for any shadow that wants to discard heaps of cards. its proven to be quite respectable, but the problem remains that it hasn't won a game. i'm thinking maybe i would do better if i went second instead of starting all the time. almost every game goes like this:

freeps cruses along taking setbacks in stride, double moving easily until site 6-7. then it gets a little dicey. sometimes i plug away one site at a time, sometimes i'll double and take some losses. and then at site 8 or 9 i get killed.

on the shadow, like i said, i've been playing tough match-ups, but basically it shows promise in region 1, they heal up, and i have no power during region 2, and then i might pull a trick or 2 and start getting some momentum just before me freeps gives out. again i might be better off going second instead of starting.

anyways, i think the idea has potential, but i seem to be lacking the killer blow on the shadow side of things. if i could find a way to deal a hefty hit at site 5 or something, i might be in business.

[jdizzy001]

not to completely destroy your deck idea, but it's mine would work real well in a solo smeagol rb deck with a ninja gollum shadow

[hrcho]

Merry's Sword could help out quite a bit. Especially if you add some cards to bring it back every turn (Weapon Store or Mustering for Battle). You need more hobbit protection (more Frodo protection). Should you run into Gorgoroth Assassin or 2 copies of Orc Assassin (and neither of them are rarely used) your hobbits would be in trouble. You could go with Isildur, BoH and add a copy of Sam, SoH. Isildur can even bear Heavy Chain so he's much harder to kill than Frodo.

[macheteman]

a solo-smeagol would be sweet with this deck. the only problem is that, i'm crap at smeagol freeps, and with discarding roughly 9 cards per turn, i'm not sure how well the freeps would function. if you have a good decklist for a smeagol freeps that could survive all that discarding, then post it, and i can give it a test sometime.

[Gil-Estel]

Maybe Aragorn with These are my People? One of our Brasilian guys had a splendid deck with that.