Gandalf and Friends Smoke Their Way Down the Sitepath (Literally)

[DáinIronfoot]

Thoughtout The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf the Grey was a little more than just "barely involved" in the affairs of Middle-earth...and the journey of The One Ring. He broke into one of Sauron's strongest fortresses, helped lead a major assault on aforementioned fortress, tracked down the slippery Gollum and pumped him for information, and finally selected and aided the Ring-bearer from the Shire all the way to the Misty Mountains, fighting along the way countless goblins, wargs, orcs, evil men, and even the Nazgûl, sometimes all by his lonesome. Yet he seemed to rise above it all and remain his jovial self...at least until deep under the Misty Mountains in the mines of Moria. There, he finally seemed to tire and feel the strain of the journey, burdened down at last. Until, in a moment of revelation....

"I know what is the matter with me. I need smoke!"

And so he did. It seemed to rejuvinate him again...at least until a certain Balrog showed up. And who WOULDN'T be tired and distressed when facing one of those?

Anyway, the point is that I've been tinkering with a new method to make Gandalf, Bearer of Obligation viable in a deck. His drawback is obviously very severe, and requires a good chunk of any deck built around him focus on either preventing the drawback from triggering (which is difficult at best) or removing burdens at a pace that can keep up with how frequently they are added. One of the more popular methods is using the "bouncing Hobbits" (Swordthain and WoBaS) in combination with multiple copies of Home and Hearth to peel several burdens off each time you replay the Hobbits.

This deck features that method, but dumbs it down a bit by using only one of the bouncing pair. To make up for it, Gandalf turns, once again, to smoke.

FREE PEOPLES (37 cards):

Gandalf, Bearer of Obligation w/ The Ring of Rings

Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver (starting)
Merry, In the Bloom of Health (starting)
Quickbeam, Bregalad (starting)
Aragorn, Strider (starting)
Radagast, The Brown x3

Gandalf's Pipe x3
Aragorn's Pipe
Bilbo's Pipe
Glamdring, Foe-hammer
Merry's Dagger
Shadowfax, Greatest of the Mearas x2
Radagast's Herb Bag

Longbottom Leaf x4
Old Toby x4
Home and Hearth x4
Ent Moot
Ent Draught

Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom x3
Fireworks x2
One-Upsmanship

This deck has multiple ways to peel off burdens. It uses the Home and Hearth method with WoBaS, who can also exert to remove more burdens with NfFatRoD or, even better, combo with Greatest of the Mearas to remove TWO burdens in one pop. How, you ask? GotM adds 2 threats to remove 2 burdens, then WoBaS uses NfFatRoD to remove those 2 threats! Nice, eh?

The real key here, though, is pipeweed. Gandalf's Pipe can discard one to remove up to 3 burdens instantly...which is, of course, the number he has to add when the fellowship moves. I'd say THAT is keeping up with the penalty, wouldn't you? If you're finding you don't need all the pipeweed for burdens (and you really shouldn't unless you're facing an all-out corruption strategy), then with the other pipes, you can spread around some healing instead (Aragorn's Pipe) or shuffle some NfFatRoD back into your deck to potentially use later (Bilbo's Pipe). You can ALSO shuffle a pair of ANY or cards (pipeweed, anyone? ) back into your deck using Fireworks. Oh, and Merry ItBoH can grab pipeweeds back as well, which would get shuffled around from the bottom of the deck when you do all that other...well, shuffling!

So with pipeweeds and tales hopefully streaming in and out of your deck, hand, and discard pile with regularity (and Home and Hearth doing its thing), you can combat burdens to such a degree that even corruption strategies should have trouble piling on enough burdens to scare you too much, not to mention you should be able to peel off threats and wounds as the situation calls for it.

Wounds might actually be the biggest issue here. This deck doesn't have a ton in the wounding or skirmishing department, though you DO start off with Gandalf and two 8-strength companions--Aragorn and Quickbeam (and Radagast later on)--plus WoBaS's early wounding potential, so you should be able to shrug off early attacks easily enough. Glamdring/Shadowfax and Ent Moot add a little help in the strength department, giving you two 10-strength companions, but that won't cut it all the time. But once the baddies start getting a little tougher, you shouldn't be adding much twilight (except by moving), so with Radagast out, you can hopefully outrun the opponent in the end before they get fully set up. Hopefully.

If not, consider dropping Radagast and One-Upsmanship (yet another burden remover that works well here, though perhaps unnecessary...and certainly so without Radagast) and fill the open slots with Sword That Was Broken or Ranger's Sword (depends on how much twilight you want to add), a Ranger's Cloak (to give Aragorn more vitality and WoBaS a little more usefulness), another copy of Aragorn's Pipe (for healing), and Aragorn's Bow to mow down enemies. Either version of the bow can work, but Ranger's Longbow is probably best with the threat removal potential you have here.

Oh, the Shadow side. Since this deck is on the larger side AND will be shuffling cards BACK into your deck from time to tiime, we obviously want something that cycles pretty well. For me, that usually means two options: Moria swarm, or Nazgûl. I went with the latter here.

SHADOW (37 cards):

The Witch-king, Captain of the Nine Riders x3
Ulaire Attea, Keeper of Dol Guldur
Ulaire Cantea, Fourth of the Nine Riders
Ulaire Enquea, Duplicitous Lieutenant x2
Ulaire Enquea, Sixth of the Nine Riders
Ulaire Lemenya, Lieutenant of Morgul
Ulaire Lemenya, Fifth of the Nine Riders
Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders x4
Ulaire Nertea, Dark Horseman
Ulaire Nertea, Ninth of the Nine Riders
Ulaire Otsea, Duplicitous Specter x3
Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow x3
Ulaire Toldea, Eighth of the Nine Riders

Ithil Stone

Lost In The Woods x4
Moving This Way x2
In Twilight x2
Shapes Slowly Advancing

Dark Approach x4


This is pretty much my "normal" Forestguls with a few of their old-school buddies mixed in thanks to the FP side requiring Expanded format anyway: Keeper of Dol Guldur is one of the few Atteas I like (and a good use of any leftover twilight) and Ulaire Lemenya, Lieutenant of Morgul is awesome once you get Lost In The Woods on companions. Moving This Way, Ithil Stone, and Duplicitous Specter (and In Twilight) help you cycle like crazy, and the former is especially nice since your FP side will be shuffling so much and getting those Nazzies closer to the top of the deck again.

You should be able to lay on serious pain with these Nazzies and give the FP player even more to worry about if you're lucky enough to get Shapes Slowly Advancing early on, but the point is not so much to kill and maim as it is to slow your opponent down and keep them from racing to the finish line. In THAT, it should prove very effective, especially with the extra cycling potential during your Shadow phases. Playing 4+ Nazgul at a time by region 2 is NOT out of the question by any means, especially with all nine of the Nazgul in the deck.


I'm sure the FP side of this deck is full of holes...which is why I'm posting it here for you all to tear it apart help me make it better. But for a rough draft, in my opinion, it ain't too shabby. I hope. :hey:

[NappyKorn]

Me likes bro. I was looking for another way to peel burdens with a Gandy RB without relying on the opponent playing minions and without replying on GOtM and Sting, Elven Long Knife. It appears you have quite an effective way to rid those during the fellowship phase just incase an opponent gets wise to the fact when you see a Gandy RB just don't play a minion and let them slowly corrupt themselves .

[Gil-Estel]

Gaffer's pipe is nice as well, because of the twilight removal. Pipeweed rocks big time. Maybe you can cut 2x radagast and add Momentous Gathering, that way you can grab radagast and a condition....2 flies hit at once!

[SomeRandomDude]

I love pipeweed with Halfling Leaf. It is awesome. I would run some of them just for the heck of it.

I shall cease remininding you of the ineffectiveness of NFFatRoD, as it seems to be a pet card of yours, but it is a candidate for cutting in a deck this large. I would try filtering some, perhaps run Frodo, Pippin, ItBoH, Merry ItBoH, Leader of Men and Quicky for the starting fellowship. Then use your Sent Back/SftF combo to filter like mad, run the cycling pipeweed in a slim deck and leave it so Fireworks can be banning back all the Pipeweed with Halfling Leaf for the purpose of driving your opponent insane with skirmish cancelation.