Resolute Halfling / Shards of Narsil Hospital

[Shelobplayer]

Been a while since I posted a new deck here, and since the game is living a huge reneissasance in my area with sealed/constructed events and everything, I'm inspired to once again do so. Here is my latest brew:

Format: Expanded
Author: B0r0m1r
Ring-bearer: Frodo, Son of Drogo
Ring: The One Ring, The Great Ring

Adventure deck:
Buckland Homestead
Steward's Tomb
Neekerbreekers' Bog
Cavern Entrance
Mithlond
Green Dragon Inn
Dammed Gate-stream
The Prancing Pony
Sirannon Ruins

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
1x Smeagol, Always Helps
3x Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar
1x Aragorn, Thorongil
1x Faramir, Son of Denethor
1x Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver
1x Sam, Resolute Halfling
2x Aragorn's Bow, Ranger's Longbow
1x Faramir's Bow
1x Faramir's Sword
1x Flaming Brand
2x Sting, Elven Long Knife
1x Anduril, Sword That Was Broken
4x The Shards of Narsil
2x Naked Waste
2x One Good Turn Deserves Another
4x Something Slimy
3x Community Living
3x Mind Your Own Affairs
4x Unheeded
1x Follow Smeagol
2x Gladden Homestead
1x There's Another Way
1x Hardy Garrison
1x Stewards' Legacy
2x A Light in His Mind
2x Scouring of the Shire
4x Shadowplay
4x Deagol, Fateful Finder
2x Elendil's Army
1x Daddy Twofoot, Next-door Neighbor
1x Robin Smallburrow, Shirriff Cock-Robin

Shadow Draw Deck:
1x Gollum, Her Sneak
1x Gollum, Old Villain
3x Shelob, Her Ladyship
1x Grima, Servant of Another Master
1x Grima, Wormtongue
2x The Balrog, Demon of Might
2x Gothmog, Morgul Leader
1x Southron Leader
1x Úlairë Enquëa, Lieutenant of Morgul
1x Úlairë Lemenya, Eternally Threatening
2x Úlairë Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders
2x Úlairë Nertëa, Dark Horseman
2x Web
1x Ships of Great Draught
1x A Dark Shape Sprang
4x Captured by the Ring
3x Led Astray
4x Sudden Strike
1x We Must Have It
4x Deceit
4x Evil-smelling Fens
1x Fat One Wants It
1x Final Strike
1x Incited
4x Not Easily Avoided
2x Not This Time!
2x Promise Keeping
2x They Stole It
1x Treacherous Little Toad
1x Unabated in Malice
3x Saruman, Servant of Sauron

The shadow is nothing special, just random Gollum ninja stuff. I'm not the biggest ninja player, so I'm sure it's not optimal or whatever, but the FP side needs the 4 copies of Not Easily Avoided to function consistently. A bit of consistency can be give up for a bit more raw power and originality with a Dark Enemy shadow, in time I'll post a list for that version as well.

So for the FP, it has a bunch of combos, the basic focus is on the healing provided by Resolute Halfling. Use Son of Drogo to heal himself with Sam, then Sam heals himself. Once you are down to 4 cards stack a card on The Shards of Narsil, triggering A Light in His Mind then take it back then repeat until the rule of 4 allows. Then discard down to 3. This allows 5 heals and 5 burden removal per turn (assuming nothing else is played).

I usually bid 2 to start at Green Dragon Inn (but if I get outbid, chances are that it's either The Prancing Pony or Dammed Gate-stream which are also cool). Since I utuilize all 3 search sites with shadow number of 3, I can't play Mount Doom. This is a flaw, which I may address.

The healing enables very liberal usage of Sting, ELK, which further enables Ranger's Longbow and Smeagol, Always Helps.
The deck also has Shadowplay + Unheeded combo, which I find very potent in the expanded meta.
There are also maneuver tricks with Daddy Twofoot, Robin Smallburrow and Hardy Garrison. Regain Initiative with Daddy Twofoot, then use Robin to lose/regain it in one go (removes the activation cost of Daddy and triggers a wound). Return Mind your Own Affairs or Unheeded with it, depending on the situation. This will result in an additional loss/gain of initiative.
Playing One Good Turn Deserves Another with the additional burden cost on exactly 4 cards also results in initiative loss/gain (so the burden cost is technically free here, and can wound stuff in the regroup).

Now, corsairs are a hard matchup, and there is not a whole lot the deck can do to combat them, but there are a few tricks. Shadowplay + Unheeded can completely counter Corsair Marauder (thanks to the discarded when played rule), but there is another neat trick. If Corsair War Galley is already set with 6 tokens, Shadowplay + Hardy Garrison can also trigger an instant kill (due to the loss of initiative when the first corsair is played), wich can prevent the corsair player from meeting spotting requirements.

If I see uruks, I a) kill Pippin ASAP and b) fetch Gladden Homestead for protection until I do, because Greed is very tough to deal with.

I play 2 different copies of Aragorn so I have the option to fetch Thorongil with The Prancing Pony and also to be able to get him against Ugly Fellow. In other cases I prefer Elessar Telcontar.

The deck is brand new, my record with it is 7-0 so far, so it will surely be optimized more heavily in the future.

Cards I'm considering right now are Birthday Present (probably should be there already to be fair) and Nimble Attack (Grond and corsairs are tough). Pallando as well, probably would cut a copy of Elendil's Army for it, but going up to 4 cultures can be rough. There is also potential with Seeing Stone of Orthanc + Derufin against the worst matchups of the deck, but getting both out would be hard.

For the shadow, well... a lot: lurker Gollum and more Incited, You are a Liar and a Thief, and some more.

Also a version with Captain of Ithilien, Ranger of the White Tree, and Madril, DoO will be tested with Ithilien Blades. Although I have a feeling that it's unnecessary here. Although I love the fact that when people see Madril, they usually (often wrongly) target him. Stewards" Legacy would be stronger, now it's just a random option to fetch with Something Slimy if I do draw Elendil's Army.

Notable exclusion is Don't Look at them. I just can't fuel it. Also considering dropping Follow Smeagol as One Good Turn Deserves Another is superior here in every way.

Here are some replays:
https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=B0r0m1r$etzfuoyrs7ex8iwu - very tough game, narrow site 9 kill
https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=B0r0m1r$kpt6oieva7aahj46 - vs HKOTN archery / sauron grind
https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=B0r0m1r$wctgi2gqq5sae617 - vs Straglers/Hobbits. Heavily favorable matchup

This is just an easy shell, the core combo can be built around in a million of ways, kudos to anyone comming up with a Wraith variant. It doesn't even really need , back in the day I played a full deck, with just 4 The Shards of Narsil splashed, just need to draw 2 of them that way. Movie block adoptation very possible with The Shire Countryside and such, but I won't spell out everything

Constructive criticsm, and bad mannered trolling are both welcome, cheers!

[Tunadan]

Kudos for finding a use for Son of Drogo. 

I really like the build, it's something I've never even considered. Most Narsil loops don't do much, but I've seen this one in action.

The shadow seems a bit shaky, Ninja Gollum usually tries to set up a bunch then hit hard. This is a little large for it to be consistent. Perhaps a more corruption-based approach could be fun. Stinker+a bunch of condition pumps, nazgul (toldea + keening wail seems a good start), and maybe even some other cultures's corruption tools.

Or you could play standard Corsairs or Nazgul. If you go that route Don't look at them is more viable.

[Shelobplayer]

I can't remember the last time I lost to corruption in expanded. I definitely don't want to play a Gollum corruption build. The shadow is just a random pile for now, but I actually know the direction I want to go with it, just haven't taken the time to update. Currently my record with the deck is 24-1 though, and it's effective as it is. It can work with any shadow side, but I really like having access to Not Easily Avoided. If one would go the nazgul way, Lemenya, Dark Enemy is a very strong choice (I have a list posted somewhere here), as you can toss tonns of possessions with Sam.

Don't Look at them is nearly useless in this deck, I've tested it. Don't Follow the Lights on the other hand might be broken with Mind Your Own Affairs. Not like the burden cost is an issue

On a quick note: the combo works with a build probably even better. Just use Leowyn instead of Sam (or both), and Swordthain over WOBAS. Aragorn, Defender of Rohan is easily fetchable, and you can play his trinkets to have stackables for TSON. Northwoman can deal with whatever. Play the 13rd edition Bill the Pony so Weland can heal Frodo directly (sam not involved). Also One Whom Men Would Follow is amazing for such a build. You can stack them on TSON, and get them back when needed for doubling and toss vilagers in front of problmeatic minions. Also play Tom Bombadil

There are a lot of options, and once I'm not swamped with work, I'll experiment more.