The good, the bad and the oldie and the hard to kill persistent guls

[Pepin The Breve]

I always looked at Spied From Above trying to figure out some deck that can use it and then i came up with this original (i think) idea for freeps and shadow.

Here is the deck list:

Frodo And Ring
*The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles (4R1)
*Frodo, Son of Drogo (1C290)

Sites
(1R)Isengard Ruined (7U331)
(2R)Rohirrim Camp (7U336)
(3R)The Dimholt (8U117)
(4R)City of the Dead (8U118)
(5R)Pelennor Flat (7U345)
(6R)Minas Tirith First Circle (7U347)
(7R)Ruined Capitol (7U355)
(8R)Morgulduin (7U358)
(9R)Slag Mounds (7U363)

Fellowship (33)
Gandalf, Leader of Men (8R15) X1 (start)
Sam, Resolute Halfling (7R327) X1 (start)
Albert Dreary, Entertainer From Bree (1R69) X1
Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor (1U70) X2
Jarnsmid, Merchant from Dale (2R25) X1
Bounder (1C286) X1
Gandalf's Staff (2R22) X1
A Light in his Mind (10U108) X1
A Talent for Not Being Seen (1U316) X1
The Tale of the Great Ring (10U116) X1
A Promise (2R112) X4
A Wizard Is Never Late (1R87) X3
Deep In Thought (3C30) X2
Depart Silently (3C31) X4
Roll of Thunder (4U99) X3
Servant of the Secret Fire (1R83) X3
Glamdring (1R75) X1
Sting, Bane of the Eight Legs (8R113) X1
Hobbit Sword (7C319) X1

Shadow (33)
Ithil Stone (9R+47) X1
Black Breath (1U207) X3
All Blades Perish (1U203) X3
Relentless Charge (1U223) X2
Between Nazgul and Prey (8R67) X3
Fear (1R212) X1
Too Great And Terrible (3R85) X2
The Witch-King, Black Captain (8R84) X2
Ulaire Cantea, Thrall of the One (10R67) X3
Ulaire Enquea, Thrall of the One (10R68) X3
Ulaire Nelya, Thrall of the One (10U70) X2
Ulaire Toldea, Thrall of the One (10R71) X2
Morgul Skulker (1U258) X4
Fell Beast (6U83)  X2

The Freeps have a very unusual fellowship. The mechanics is about to keep Frodo and Sam alive. Sam get rid of extra cards while keeping him and his pal Frodo in a good shape. I usually bid 0 cause Narya and A light in his mind are my only burden removal stuff. A Promise makes hobbits hard to kill. Gandy is there to give all the support: he discard nearly everything in the opponent support area and pump hobbits with Depart Silently. Since this deck is heavly based on Gandy events i use 2 copies of Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor and Jarnsmid, Merchant from Dale makes my swords came cheaper. AWINL to grab the useful allies and filter a deck a little. Basically the idea of the deck is to do a little choke and moving sites one by one until you need to move faster.

The shadow is based on the famous enduring guls + BNAP adding a few twists. All Blades Perish, Dark Swooping Shadows and nazgul text makes them harder to kill so they can get in one piece to regroup where Spied From Above takes place. You have 2 main options here: exert the Nazgul twice to play another exhausted gul ready to rock (so that may prevent many freeps from doubling) or to play skulker and put 2 Nazgul cards back at the draw deck. The good thing is that as long as you have one nazgul and the condition you will never run out of shadow cards to stop (or kill) your oponent and that is one of the reasons why the deck is small and have some filtering/cycling is that you may go throught it fast, discarding your shadow card without thinking twice, cause you can fill the deck with mostly black cards later (and will be the ones that does better against the freeps you are facing).

I like the deck cause freeps and shadow are not OP but have some nice moves!

i'm thinking in find a room for Ferny (always a good splash) but i'm not sure what to remove, i want to keep the deck small.

So let me know if you have any suggestions or thoughs about it!

[Witchkingx5]

Put in some more copies of myself and this Deck is awesome!

[legolas3333]

you have only 14 minions

that seems a little... yeah considering it's a 33 card deck

[Gil-Estel]

The healing is brilliant! Exert Sam to heal Frodo, ditch a card to heal Sam. Love it. Skulker is indeed nice to get minions back. Overall I wasn't too impressed by the shadow, but like you said, the draws were not good.

Love your deck!

[Abbott465]

you have only 14 minions

that seems a little... yeah considering it's a 33 card deck

+1 Seems like this would be a huge problem

[Cw0rk]

For your fellowship, you could remove one of the Hobbit Sword for Sting, BotEL.

[Pepin The Breve]

I have to play test more but i don't need a big number of minions cause i can put them back at draw deck using Morgul Skulker. I played against Heije and the shadow didn't worked so nice cause he played dmg + zillion dwarves, so my nazgul hardly live until regroup to use Spied From Above, and i didn't draw any BNP until site 6, so i couldn't manage to kill Uri when he was vunerable. But the general idea is to play one gul + BNAP, kill or add burdens or something, then play another gul at regroup to make doubles harder.

I will change one Hobbit Sword for Sting, BotEL. Another thing that i realized was that i can't benefit of the pool added for Wizardry Indeed to play Deep In Thought if i don't spot more minions than companions. So i'm thinking in change that. Any sugestions?

It may sound weird but the most vunerable companion i have in this freeps is Gandy! Since A Promise and Depart Silently makes my hobbits hard to kill. So i'm thinking in change Narya for Gandalf's Staff, maybe some healing for Gandy Also.

I will make some modifications and update the list soon.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Cw0rk]

If Gandalf is too ulnerable, perhaps you could swap a Depart Silently for a Hobbit Intuition.

[Gil-Estel]

What does that do to make Gandalf less vulnerable?

[Witchkingx5]

Nothing, but you could eventually fight and survive even without him.

[Pepin The Breve]

Made some modifications at the deck.

Removed Wizardy Indeed  X2 (which i doesnt seem to use often and have to spot more minions than companion to play) to add another Depart Silently and Bounder. Changed Narya for Gandy staff to add protection for him. Also swapped one Hobbit swrod to add Sting, BotEL.

I was disapointed with my shadow idea when i realized that Spied From Above doesn't play the minion from discard pile, so i removed it and made a few other modifications. I'm considering add a copy or two of Grima, Wormtongue that may work nice with Black Breath.

The weird stuff with this deck is that all my wins were freep wins so the shadow is working only to slow down my oponent and, depending on matchup, i can double more than one time in a match. I didn't faced terrible matchups like Dunland or Isen Swarm yet, but against other shadows (Moria/Tentacle Swarm, Nazgul, Uruk Trackers, etc.) the freeps have done pretty well. The great advantage is that you don't flood the pool but still your oponnet have to kill both hobbits to win.

[Pepin The Breve]

I'm testing new versions of this decks, and Olorin rmind me od an awsome card to put on it: Fireworks!!! How could i miss it?!?!

I don't need much awinl and jarnsmind so i removed them to put some Fireworks, Rosie and more copies of key cards (like gandy staff).

Now i have the idea to pair with a Ninja Gollum/Nazgul deck.

First of all i will make de deck a little bigger since i will have sam and They Stole It to cycle. Fireworks and Morgul Skulker put key cards back on the deck and more cards means more abuse of Sam and They Stole It. The shadow idea is average Ninja Gollum focused on killing (TSI and PK) with nazgul support, basically Ulaire Enquea, LoM, Ulaire Cantea, FTW and Ulaire Toldea, WS.

The Nazgul help to punish crowding (which may be bad for Gollum to take care) and eventually put some more wounds or burdens. Enquea also prevent burden abuse on the RB (for example using ring to soak up wounds). Cantea works against possessions like Armor or Gimli's Helm (ro some other annoying possession). I will use some copies of Too Great and Terrible cause gandy is the biggest threat to my support area. And then i'm working on a way to add one or two copies of Bent on Discovery, cause that and Ithil Stone can make They Stole it a big threat...

So let me know if you have suggestions of cards that may worth consideration.