Smeagol's Ring-bound Hobbits with Gollum's Burdening Balrog

[DáinIronfoot]

Been trying to create both a Ring-bound Hobbit deck and a Balrog-centric deck, and eventually I ended up combining them into this odd deck that performed admirably in a game on SdA last night.

FREE PEOPLES (35 cards):

Frodo, Weary From the Journey w/ The One Ring, The Great Ring

Sam, Nice Sensible Hobbit (starting)
Bilbo, Aged Ring-bearer (starting)
Smeagol, Pitiable Guide (starting)

Frodo Gamgee, Son of Samwise

Sting, Weapon of Heritage
Hobbit Sword x2
Fishing Boat

A Promise x4
Herbs and Stewed Rabbit x4
Poor Wretch x4
There's Another Way x4
Nice Fish x4
Follow Smeagol

Naked Waste x3
Not Listening x2
Nasty

Smeagol is a 15-strength, 5-vitality, damage +4 monster with everything out, but until you get close to that, his wonderful skirmish ability lets you exert ANY of the four companions to make him strength +2--and can, of course, be used as many times as you want during his skirmish--meaning he should be nearly impossible to overwhelm from the get-go and should win nearly all of his skirmishes after a while. Once he does, you can heal with Nice Fish and remove burdens with Not Listening, then use his OTHER ability to shuffle those (or any other cards you want to use again in the future) back into your deck. He also controls the sitepath for you using Follow Smeagol or, in a pinch, There's Another Way, ensuring the nastier sites your opponent can throw at you don't change the course of the game.

The Hobbits chip in too. Frodo and Sam can each get up to 9 strength with all your A Promise and Swords out, and Frodo can get bigger if you need him to with The Great Ring and Sam is very difficult to overwhelm, so they can both absorb any minions that Smeagol doesn't. Frodo might have to add a good number of burdens to do so, however, which Weapon of Heritage and Not Listening can handle to a degree, but probably not at a good enough pace if the opponent starts swarming. That's where Bilbo comes in. Not only does he boost Frodo and Sam when NOT skirmishing, and give you more vitality to use for boosting Smeagol with the Pitiable Guide's skirmish ability, but if you put Bilbo into a survivable skirmish, he becomes the ultimate burden remover, knocking out 2 burdens just for being assigned! Not bad at all. If you're able to stay on top of burdens and don't really need him to remove them, he can become a very annoying companion when combined with Frodo Gamgee; the follower adds 2 burdens to transfer to Bilbo and make him strength +3, then Bilbo immediately removes those 2 burdens, essentially meaning that Bilbo can ALWAYS be 6 strength with no drawback if you need him to be. Put a Hobbit Sword on him as well, and you now have ANOTHER difficult-to-kill companion.

If all that is still not enough, there are some events to help out. Naked Waste is a handy +3 pump to any of these companions, and as a card, can be shuffled back into the deck whenever Smeagol wins a skirmish. Nasty only works on Smeagol himself, but it can really turn the tide of battle if played at the right time, with upwards of a 15+ strength boost. And with Smeagol's potentially high damage, that means the little gangrel creature could take down the likes of The Balrog or Sauron all by himself! Once again, you can always potentially get it back in your deck when Smeagol wins, too.

Healing COULD be a problem, though the sanctuaries and Nice Fish SHOULD be enough. If, in practice, you ended up needing more, there are tons of good (and cheap!) options like Light Shining Faintly and Sam's Pack. If you simply can't remove enough burdens, consider Brace of Coneys or Frodo's Cloak. If pumps are a problem, options include Hurry Hobbitses, Release Them, and Connected By Fate. Called to Mordor is another nice option that helps prevent the Shadow player from trying to outpump, wound, burden, or otherwise harrass while skirmishing Smeagol. But for my deck, I chose to instead make Smeagol as strong as possible with all those conditions, keep the twilight relatively low and choke a bit, and trust him and my Hobbits to win enough to peel their own burdens and wounds and at least survive when they lost. Against enduring Nazgul in an SdA game last night, they performed very, very well. Just wanted to point out other options, though, in case someone decides to try this out for themselves.

We're not done yet, though. Remember, I have a Shadow side already paired with this.

SHADOW (35 cards):

Gollum, Mad Thing
Gollum, Stinker
The Balrog, Demon of Might x3
The Balrog, Durin's Bane
Sauron, The Lord of the Rings

Evil-smelling Fens x4
Heavy Burden x2
Not Yet Vanquished x2
Final Strike
Incited
Fill With Fear

Captured By The Ring x4
So Polite
Wild Light of Madness x2
Led Astray x4
Look At Him x2
Must Do Without Hope x4

Odd, no?

The point of this deck is to get Gollum and his conditions out, use him to add a little twilight, and then play The Balrog. It's not quite as simple as that, though. Let's break this down....

Ideally, you'll draw a CbtR early on and play Mad Thing. The Free Peoples player will likely choose to add the burden. If all goes well, you might get to do this a couple times and get a couple burdens out. You may get more with Wild Light of Madness, though that's better saved until Region 2, as the FP player will likely choose to exert if given the choice before the first sanctuary. Heavy Burden can turn the threats added by CbtR into burdens as long as Gollum survives to regroup. Once you have a couple burdens out, switch from Mad Thing to Stinker to make his survival more viable.

Then the real fun begins. Led Astray and Look At Him set things up nicely to play The Balrog cheaply. You have a couple options about what to do with him too, and most of that depends on the site you play with Led Astray (or lay out ahead of time with Smeagol on your FP side). If you want pure beatdown, go with an underground site to make Demon of Might skip straight to skirmish (or to keep Durin's Bane from getting immediately discarded, of course ). But if you have the mean surprise of Must Do Without Hope in your hand, play a NON-underground site and add some burdens before you skirmish. You can add more once Ol' Balgy (presumably) wins his fierce skirmishes with Not Yet Vanquished. Very quickly, your opponent will be losing companions AND having to contend with lots of burdens being racked up, and if they're really strong against one or the other, you can simply abandon that side of the strategy and focus on the other. Either should be enough to eventually wear them down and win, and should at least keep them moving slowly enough to let your FP side race ahead to the finish line.

The Balrog's not the only big baddie invited to the party, either. The Lord of the Rings himself can play cheaply later in the game once you have enough burdens and threats racked up...and the twilight-adding cards Gollum brings to the table work just as well for him, too.

Worried about hand clog, since you're likely going to be holding a BIG minion and perhaps some Must Do Without Hope in your hand, waiting for the right time to strike? It's actually not as bad as you might think. Remember that the FP side uses very few events and mostly relies on conditions and possessions that are long gone out of your hand by the time your Shadow turn begins. And your Shadow side greatly aids itself, too. Evil-smelling Fens gives you a way to pretty easily pull The Balrog or Sauron back from your discard pile, so if you draw them too early to get much use of them, simply discard them when you reconcile and pull them back later when they're able to wreak their full havoc.

If you're REALLY desperate, you can discard some of your cards and pull them back with Pitiable Guide (whose ability is not limited to Free Peoples cards, after all! ) and Incited. If even that doesn't seem enough, consider tossing in cards like They Stole It or It's Mine, or substitute the condition Hidden Even From Her (which actually combos nicely with Not Yet Vanquished) for the events Captured By The Ring and/or So Polite.

But again, hand clog shouldn't really be a problem. It wasn't for me in a game where I didn't get to play The Balrog (and two copies of MDWH) until Site 8 (and then won by finally corrupting ). That's probably about the worst-case scenario, so if hand clog wasn't a problem even then, it likely won't be for YOU, either.

Just a couple other cards to touch on. Fill With Fear and Final Strike help keep The Balrog from falling to mass archery (though with 9 vitality between him and Gollum, that shouldn't be a real big issue), and Final Strike (along with Demon of Might's own text) help keep the maneuver phase from being a problem either (take THAT, Ithilien Blade!).

Just one thing left....

SITES:

The Bridge of Khazad-dum
Abandoned Mine Shaft
Courtyard Parapet
Cavern Entrance
Slag Mounds
Mere of Dead Faces
Dammed Gate-stream
Valley of the Silverlode
Mount Doom

The Bridge is rather obvious. The other two -cost sites add more burdens to push the opponent over the top with our Shadow side...and can be pulled back and replayed with Led Astray or There's Another Way in a pinch, too! Cavern Entrance hurts Pitiable Guide a bit by taking away his skirmish ability, but can be risked when we have enough of his conditions (or are far enough ahead that we can drop this BEHIND our fellowship) and provide excellent protection for our minions. Slag Mounds is an easy add here, turning each companion killed by Ol' Balgy and Sauron into MORE burdens, this time (hopefully) without adding burdens to OUR Ring-bearer in the process. Mere of Dead Faces works if we lose (or don't yet have) our Follow Smeagol on the FP side, but also allows us to save the exertion it requires by using our Gollum instead. Dammed Gate-stream helps us get Follow Smeagol (or any other FP card we might need), and again, could potentially be played multiple times with proper use of Led Astray or There's Another Way. Valley of the Silverlode provides precious healing for our Hobbits, and Mount Doom is just a nice, big site to use for our Balrog.

That's about it! As always, let me know what you think might improve this deck.