Ring bearing Bilbo and Pippin Tales with Tentacle Swarm

[NappyKorn]

I was bored so thought I try to make a Bilbo Ring-bearer deck . Here is what I came Up with.


Bearer and Ring 
*The One Ring, Such a Weight to Carry (7R2) 
*Bilbo, Bearer of Things Burgled (RB)(9R+49) 

Fellowship (35) 
1x *Gandalf, Leader of Men (8R15)  (starting)
1x *Fredegar Bolger, Fatty (18R107) (starting) 
1x *Pippin, Steadfast Friend (19P30)  (starting)
1x *Merry, Loyal Companion (11C168) (pull with Green Dragon Inn)
1x *A Light in his Mind (10U108) 
1x *O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!(2R108) 
1x *There and Back Again (1C317) 
1x *The Tale of the Great Ring (10U116)
4x A Dragon's Tale (18C106) 
4x Consorting With Wizards (2R97) 
4x Everyone Knows (9R50) 
4x Scouring of the Shire (18R112) 
2x Stone Trolls (1R314) 
2x Three Monstrous Trolls (3C114) 
4x Saved From The Fire (8R20) 
1x *Red Book of Westmarch (2R113) 
1x *Sting, Weapon of Heritage (11R173) 
1x *Robin Smallburrow, Shirriff Cock-Robin (18U111)

Strategy:

Basically burn Merry to grab Red Book of the Westmarch, A Light in his Mind, and Scouring of the Shire or Everyone Knows. Play enough cards to get only 4 in hand. For regroups add a burden to Bilbo to play a tale from hand to draw a card (losing initiative and regaining it) which will trigger A Light in His Mind. Hopefully you draw into more tales if not chance are they will be Tentacles. The more tales you grab when drawing the better obviously, but when you are done toss all the tentacles into you discard pile (since they can be placed from there later. Scouring protects your possessions and conditions. Pippin becomes huge (can be strength 32 with all tales in play and unwounded). Bilbo strength is a little lower at 8, but you can toss There and Back again in a pinch and if he faces an Uruk-hai or troll he boosts a bit more. Basically the freeps is here to filter out your tales fast and get those tentacles in the discard pile because the quicker they get there the better the chance of a good swarm.

Shadow (35) 
4x Evil-smelling Fens (5U22) 
4x Captured by the Ring (7C53) 
3x *Gollum, Dark as Darkness (9R+28) 
4x *Watcher in the Water, Many-Tentacled Creature (19P21) 
4x Foul Tentacle (2C58) 
4x Goblin Runner (1U178) 
4x Huge Tentacle (2R66) 
4x Reaching Tentacle (19P19) 
4x Strong Tentacle (19P20) 

Strategy:

Basic Tentacle swarm deck. Get those tentacle in the discard pile. Play Watcher get them back out and swarm as soon as possible. Runner adds so twilight, Gollum can replay Watcher with Evil-smelling Fens after exerting the RB (and possibly peeling burdens for more twilight). Fens makes the site a marsh incase you have tentacles in hand with no Watcher.

Let me know what you think as always .

[SomeRandomDude]

Consorting with Wizards + Swept Away Wraiths = fun Bilbo RB deck.

Anyways. I'd run Fredegar Bolger, Fatty over Merry, great in Region 1, and you can run a decent Merry to be nabbed with SFTF.

Dude, I do think you may have just stumbled across the next great broken combo. Regroup phase has no rule of 4!

Run Brooding on Tomorrow. Dude. I need to try to break this thing wide open!

[NappyKorn]

Maybe I just start Fatty and use the site that exerts 2 companions to pull a better Merry at site 1. That way I have 2 possible suicide comps early If I need them .  What do you think?

[SomeRandomDude]

And THEN light him on fire for his 3 cards...bwahaha. For...Sam, Great Elf Warrior! (base strength 7, methinks, not to bad for tossing to some minions).

[NappyKorn]

Was thinking maybe The Great Ring over Such a Weight to Carry. Couldn't hurt being able to keep from the overwhelm since Bilbo Can't take wounds anyway . If I did that Cavern Entrance would cause a problem . With only giving 5 twilght for the move, maybe a site with shadow number 0 wouldn't cause that big of a deal since Pip could handle the biggest of the minions . I will test it with both rings I guess and see what I like better I suppose.

[NappyKorn]

I will take it as a good thing that I haven't had to many posts here .

[TheJord]

I will add my thoughts... I dont like Bilbo RB he annoys me greatly. But as always NK you have shown me that he is almost worth the card he is printed on.

AND TO THINK HE IS A R+!!!!

Sorry, lost myself for a moment. Good stuff though NK. Burning Fatty is the only option, and using Bilbo's ability in the regroup phase to lose/regain initiative is genius. I applaud you for making a card work that for so long I have been angered by.

[NappyKorn]

Just out of curiousity, what would be to big of a deck size for the deck? I could always switch the shawdow to Moria Swarm (maybe). Reason I ask is it does have pretty good drawing capabilty with Bilbo and Red Book of Westmarch, and I was wondering if Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom would be worth expanding the deck size. You add a burden with bilbo play NFFatRoD (hopefully losing initiative) peel 1 or 2 burdens, draw another card. I was also thinking of running Robin Smallburrow, SCR for more initiative losing in maneuver (helps with tossing all the tentacles in hand and possibly drawing even more tales for regroups). Anyway, does the idea of Robin Smallburrow, SCR sound good? Either him or Phial of Galadriel that gives bearer and others muster. I hate building a deck that is too large and 35/35 seems to be the biggest deck I can bring myself to build (other than the ruthless Horn deck).

Thanks for all the comments past and present everyone .

[SomeRandomDude]

Dude, that Bilbo combo is pretty flippin' sweet. Play a tale to draw a card, regroup phase. That's awesome.

[DáinIronfoot]

Not to mention Pippin can get up to a potential 26 strength. I love it.

[ned413]

I like it. I use a similar trick with tentacles. I use runners, scarbblers, and backstabbers, and scimitars with they are coming. I discard tentacles to play orcs from discard pile, then use watcher to play the tentacles I just discarded. It's a beautiful thing and it works about 80% of the time.