Pipes/Countryside and Threats/marsh

[macheteman]

The one ring, atar
Frodo, old bilbos heir

(32)

Smeagol, Slinker
Merry, Friend to Sam
Boromir, Son of Denethor

Faramir, Wizard's Pupil
4x Gandalf, Manager of Wizards

2x Bilbo, Retired Adventurer

2x A Light in his Mind
Brooding On Tomorrow
4x The Shire Countryside

Not Listening
2x NFFATROD

Aragorn's Pipe
Blade of Gondor
Frodo's Pipe
2x Gandalf's Pipe
Sting, Baggins Heirloom
The Gaffer's Pipe
Hobbit Sword
4x Old Toby


Shadow:

3x Bold Men and Grim
Fat One Wants It
3x Evil-smelling Fens

4x Captured by the Ring
Master Broke His Promise

2x Desert Lord
2x Gollum, Dark as Darkness
3x Shelob, Her Ladyship
3x Foul Tentacle
2x Huge Tentacle
2x Southron Bandit
4x Southron Bowman
Southron Marksmen
Troop of Haradrim

Freeps: the deck lets you get great strength bonuses with many exertions on your fellowship. for this reason, it needs MAJOR healing. with the pipes and countrysides all out, discarding one old toby can heal 16 wounds. that is fabulous!

but once you use a major strength boost, that can jeapordize the rest of your fellowship, because they could be quite exhausted. so, gandalf, MoW lets you lose initiative thusly removing a burden with a light in his mind, and healing a few comps. not listening / NFFATROD can give extra healing in the skirmish phase. to get your old toby back, or any cards that get discarded, just use bilbo. healing him with frodo. yay!

Shadow: ok, so this deck seems like it is going in every direction. and it kinda is. its definitely a hybrid wound-swarm, in a REALLY unconventional, and hopefully unexpected way. the deck hangs around the Gollum cards. they give life to the raiders and tenticles. gollum, dad lets you directly attack the ring-bearer, plus work the twilight pool if necessary. captured by the ring lets you play gollum a lot, and add threats while you are at it. Shelob, her ladyship removes dangerous comps from skirmishing, and eats archery. opening the door for a potential swarm. evil smelling fens obviously make everything a marsh / retrieve minions. this can make the cheap tenticles quite potent. the raider bit lets you exert comps and play bold men and grim thusly, if you kill a comp, you can firstly discard a companion. thereby making a swarm even more easy/dangerous. at the very least, bold men and grim adds a threat for 1 twilight.

that said, the tenticles probably should be romoved for a straight-up gollum/southron crossbreed. but the draw-deck grabbing ability of the tenticles would make it pretty easy to whip out a swarm. so i'd like to experiment, even though it probably wont stay forever.

cheers

-mm

[ket_the_jet]

I have never been a fan of Master Broke His Promise, especially with the Gollum you are using.

Where are the Longbottom Leaf? I like them better for cycling junk cards when you are clogged up. Also, Web will hold onto your Shelob, etc., if you grab her early, although I suppose Evil-Smelling Fens does the same for you.
-wtk

[Cw0rk]

I've never been a fan of combining pipes and the shire countryside. I feel like there are much better cards that could fill the spots used by the pipes. Nine-fingered Frodo and the ring of Doom is an excellent card as it allows you to heal your companion after the fellowship phase and gives you an opportunity to double-move.

Can you please explain your shadow strategy? I don't really understand the link between tentacles and your Southron. Where is Desert Lord?

[Kralik]

Perhaps drop Brace of Coneys and Not Listening for 2x NFFatRoD. These could let you heal Merry in the Skirmish phase for more strength boosts.

[ket_the_jet]

Perhaps drop Brace of Coneys and Not Listening for 2x Brace of Coneys. These could let you heal Merry in the Skirmish phase for more strength boosts.

You understand why that doesn't make sense to me, don't you, Kralik?
-wtk

[Kralik]

Ugg, like I said, getting up at 3AM does that to ya. Fixed to reflect what I really meant.

[Cw0rk]

I would use 4 NFFATROD.

[TheJord]

The shadow strategy looks like a tentacle-filter threat adding swarm...

[macheteman]

yay, thanks for the quick feedback.

i'm not sure how i missed NFFATROD. definitely a must have. at least 2 copies. not listening is a helpful surprize because it allows for a lot more skirmish phase healing than NFFATROD. if there are 4 copies of shire countryside in play a NFFATROD exerts a hobbit, then removes burden and heals 4. so, you get a net of 3 heals. not listening, while dependent on winning a skirmish, gives a net of 9 heals. which is necessary if you drop 2 wounds wounds on boromir, 2 on faramir, 2 on merry, and possibly more on frodo with sting, baggins heirloom. you see where i'm coming from?

master broke his promise probably won't be very effective, and i will most likely remove it. the reason i put it in was because it has the potential to be very effective with the exerting/threats going on.

but to try to clear up some stuff, i'll just post the strategies. in the main post.

[ket_the_jet]

This adds nothing to your thread, but if I hadn't said it before, good to see you back, macheteman.
-wtk

[Kralik]

If you *do* actually have a good swarm, then you may be able to get Gollum to win a skirmish with the extra minion. Surprise your opponent with Master Broke His Promise instead of trying to kill the RB that turn. Of course, you'd need enough twilight, which is... not guaranteed by any means.

[macheteman]

ok, there, updated it with some strategy to try to elucidate the madness

[hrcho]

what about echoes of valinor ? It may not be so great with exactly this deck but I love it in combination with Manager of Wizards and initiative losing based cards like A light in his mind and Brooding on tomorrow which you do have in your deck. And since you heal a lot, the exertion needed is not much of a trouble for you. Losing your initiative over and over again... I love the look on my opponents face when I do that (especially if Glimpse of Fate is around  )

[Gerontius]

I'm not sure how well the freeps would work... I would start Wizards Pupil (with coat of mail he can become pretty much invincible) and maybe think about adding Let Folly Be Our Cloak.
As far as the shadow side goes, you probably could use some Spider Poison.

[macheteman]

thanks for the reviews guys. echoes of valinor could be pretty handy. but like you said, hrcho, it might not be the greatest in this particular deck, where initiative isn't the main focus.

thats a very good point old took, i could swich my main gondor comp to faramir with coat of mail insted of boromir with blade of gondor. its definitely something to play around with.

let folly be our cloak isn't neccessary seeing as i have the gaffer's pipe.

spider poison definitely fits the theme, again, its something to play around with and see what works best.

thanks guys.

-mm