Smeagol's Frodo Signet Kill w/ Tentacle Swarm

[DáinIronfoot]

A combo that was too good to pass up: Smeagol, Always Helps and Frodo signet wounding card Mind Your Own Affairs. It's a combo just BEGGING to be used and abused.

As I developed my deck, I came across a few other wounding cards that can save on the burdens added by MYOA from time to time. Here's what I've got right now:

FREE PEOPLES (39 cards):

Frodo, Master of the Precious w/ The One Ring, The Great Ring

Sam, Nice Sensible Hobbit (starting)
Gimli, Sprinter (starting)
Smeagol, Always Helps (starting)

Robin Smallburrow

Sting, Elven Long Knife
Hobbit Sword
Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon
Gimli's Armor

A Promise x4
Herbs and Stewed Rabbit x4
Don't Look At Them x2
Never x3
Days Growing Dark
Nice Fish x2
Rare Good Ballast

Mind Your Own Affairs x4
No Help For It x3
You Must Help Us x2
Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom x2
Impatient and Angry x2
It Burns Us

Basic strategy should be plain: assign a minion (or two, if you can manage it) to Smeagol to exhaust that minion, then lay on the last wound with Mind Your Own Affairs, Don't Look At Them, or Gimli's built-in ability. Remove the threats with Elven Long Knife, NfFatRoD, or discarding Smeagol with Never and prepare to rinse and repeat the next turn.

If you DO end up discarding Smeagol, there are plenty of ways to get him back. Frodo's text can do it, but it's even better if we can pull him using You Must Help Us or Days Growing Dark.

Since burdens will be piling up from MYOA and replaying Smeagol over and over (and, if things are turning sour, The Great Ring), there are some ways to help remove them. The best of these is No Help For It, which discards Smeagol to remove 3 burdens in one pop. Impatient and Angry can remove it at the right time instead, or even NfFatRoD in a pinch.

Extensive healing is provided by use of You Must Help Us and Nice Fish, which gets tokens each time Smeagol "wins" by having the minion(S) in his skirmish killed.

Your other companions will likely have to fight sooner or later, but they should be alright. With all your A Promise out and swords equipped, Frodo and Sam are each strength 9, and Sam can't be overwhelmed unless his strength is tripled. Gimli with his axe is a respectable 11 strength damage +2 once you add the threats with Smeagol's text, and assuming he wins, he can lay that last wound on Smeagol's minion himself. They make for a nasty little combo. Even better, with Gimli's Armor, everyone's favorite Dwarf is difficult to kill as long as we have cards to discard from hand.

Speaking of which....

SHADOW (39 cards):

Gollum, Threatening Guide
Gollum, Plotting Deceiver
Watcher in the Water, Many-tentacled Creature x3
Watcher in the Water, Keeper of Westgate
Strong Tentacle x4
Huge Tentacle x4
Reaching Tentacle x4
Foul Tentacle x4

Evil-smelling Fens x4
Fat One Wants It

Captured By The Ring x4
Led Astray x4
It Draws Him x2
From Deep In Shadow
So Polite

Nothing fancy here. You know the drill: discard or play your tentacles early on--doesn't really matter which--and wait until you have lots in your discard pile and then slam the FP player with Many-tentacled Creature and more tentacles then they can handle.

Gollum helps out in lots of ways. With tentacle swarms, sooner or later, someone is probably going to die, so all the threats Gollum piles up with CbtR and FOWI will then trigger lots of threat wounds. Gollum also works to make our Creatures cheaper with his mixed bag of events, and can pull back the Watcher from discard by way of Evil-smelling Fens.

Now you see why we have little to fear by discarding cards from hand on the FP side with cards like Gimli's Armor, Days Growing Dark, and especially Don't Look At Them.

Last item of note:

SITES:

Dol Guldur
Anduin Banks
City Gates
Pelennor Flats
Barazinbar
Mere of Dead Faces
Osgiliath Reclaimed
Dammed Gate-stream
Valley of the Silverlode

Dol Guldur is a nice way for our Shadow side to use all those Gollum-generated threats to our advantage, but is best saved for an opportune moment, as the opponent will likely get to use it against OUR Freeps as well! Anduin Banks does nothing at all to our FP side but could devastate our opponent. City Gates ALSO does not harm our small fellowship but could rack up threats like crazy for our opponent. Pelennor Flat is best saved for when we have a glut of tentacles in our hand to discard. Barazinbar is a good way for Gimli to get whichever of his possessions he needs most. Mere of Dead Faces is pretty obvious. Osgiliath Reclaimed lets us peel a burden, which is always nice when we're adding them so frequently. Dammed Gate-stream is always a good option with Smeagol; in this specific deck, it's probably best used to grab whichever condition we can't seem to draw otherwise. And finally, Valley of the Silverlode is an awesome way to keep Frodo and Sam from getting exhausted and thus keep A Promise working smoothly.

I expect plenty of holes to be found in this deck, but I throw it upon you wise players to rip apart and make whole and strong again. Commence the thrashing.

[TheJord]

Horribly Strong as Gollum wont see past the shadow phase once the beast comes out. My immediate reaction. I shall sleep on it.

[DáinIronfoot]

I had toyed with that, Jord. It's a good idea. But it worried me that it cost , which I could potentially turn into another tentacle instead. *shrug* I'll keep considering it, though.

[SomeRandomDude]

Not even packing Daddy Twofoot? :O Anyways...TOO BIG. That is all I shall say. Great idea though.

[Elessar's Socks]

At this size, maybe you can find room for Not Listening, Don't Follow the Lights, and/or Where Shall We Go. Seems like Impatient and Angry and It Burns Us aren't be doing too much for you. Also No Help For It looks like a net loss of only 1 burden (3 removed, 2 added by MotP and Smeagol), so Not Listening could top it there.

One thing you could try is the Son of Drogo / Resolute Halfling tag team; exert Sam to heal Frodo, then discard cards to heal Sam. You'd lose the discarding strategy, but Never can be covered by extra usage from Elven Long Knife, No Help for It can be covered by the addition of A Light in His Mind, and You Must Help Us can be covered by the built-in healing.

Frodo and Sam will have Frodo signets. That means they can use Mind Your Own Affairs as well, and maybe even Power According to His Stature / Second Breakfast can find their way into the deck (with Golden Perch Ale as an afterthought). The built-in cycling seems perfect for the Shadow because you actually want to discard tentacles! Not to mention you should have no difficulty keeping the bonus from A Promise.

If you go with this I'd probably bring ELK up to 3 since it takes on greater importance, but at the same time you can open up room for many more cards. Just something that might be worth considering.

Oh, and just in case that's what you meant, unfortunately you can't assign multiple minions to Smeagol using his ability, since it doesn't override the one-to-one restriction.

Very interesting using Sprinter! Maybe Out of Darkness can help him win skirmishes and fuel Don't Look at Them.

[DáinIronfoot]

I like all those ideas, ES! Daddy Twofoot is a good idea as well. I'll revamp the deck and post a new and improved one with those ideas later today. Thanks, guys!

[DáinIronfoot]

Okay, here's a quick and dirty rewrite:

FREE PEOPLES (37 cards):

Frodo, Son of Drogo w/ The Great Ring

Sam, Resolute Halfling (starting)
Gimli, Sprinter (starting)
Smeagol, Always Helps (starting)

Daddy Twofoot, Next-door Neighbor x2

Sting, Elven Long Knife x3
Hobbit Sword
Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon
Armor of Khazad

A Promise x4
There's Another Way x4
Don't Look At Them x2
A Light In His Mind x2
Nice Fish x3
Rare Good Ballast

Mind Your Own Affairs x4
Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom x3
Not Listening x2
Out of Darkness

As Elessar's Socks mentioned, this drops the Smeagol discarding strategy, but probably works better overall.

The point is still the same: add 2 threats to get an exhausted minion on Smeagol, then kill it off with Mind Your Own Affairs, Don't Look At Them, or Sprinter. The method of threat removal is completely different now, though; it no longer comes from Smeagol, but from the Hobbits. Either can exert once to remove 2 threats with NfFatRoD, but Frodo can go one step further with Elven Long Knife, and then Sam can exert to heal Frodo back up in fellowship and then discard tentacles (or other cards you don't need) to heal himself back up as well. Unless something is going drastically wrong, you should ALWAYS be able to use Smeagol's ability and kill off a minion (even the likes of The Balrog or Sauron) one way or another pretty much every site.

The threat removal is SO good, in fact, that I've taken out Gimli's Armor and subbed in Armor of Khazad to keep Gimli alive and well.

Healing is pretty extensive with the Son of Drogo / Resolute Halfling cycle and Nice Fish. Gimli can hopefully limp along with Armor of Khazad keeping him alive if he starts taking too many wounds, but if you need to kill him off, his presense is not critical to the deck's survival, so he makes a decent speed bump if you end up facing more than you can handle.

Note that I dropped the -cost Herbs and Stewed Rabbit for the -cost There's Another Way as my just-in-case Smeagol strength booster. One reason is because of the cost, but the main reason is that it allows a little potential site control...and possibly LOTS of site control if you keep replaying Mere of Dead Faces over and over.

My main worry is companions getting overwhelmed. Gimli can get up to 10 strength with his axe, Frodo reaches a base of 8 at his peak, Sam gets to 9, and even Smeagol can reach 7, but if the Shadow player manages to drop a couple big minions, you might be in trouble. I was toying with insurance cards like There And Back Again or The Tale of The Great Ring, but I'm not sure they're necessary. What do you think?

I'm also a LITTLE worried about burden removal, as it now relies entirely on A Light In His Mind and Not Listening. Should be enough to at least keep up, but if the Shadow has any kind of corruption strategy.... :-\

Overall I'm much happier with this deck than the original I posted above. again to ES for the awesome ideas.

Oh, the Shadow side that I trimmed down:

SHADOW (37 cards):

Gollum, Threatening Guide
Watcher in the Water, Many-tentacled Creature x3
Watcher in the Water, Keeper of Westgate
Strong Tentacle x4
Huge Tentacle x4
Reaching Tentacle x4
Foul Tentacle x4

Evil-smelling Fens x4
Fat One Wants It

Captured By The Ring x4
Led Astray x4
It Draws Him
From Deep In Shadow
So Polite

I simply dropped a copy of It Draws Him and snipped Plotting Deceiver, leaving Threatening Guide as our only Gollum. That SHOULD work out alright, as our four CbtR and So Polite should still ensure Gollum is around more often than not to do his stuff.

[Elessar's Socks]

Playtested the FP against Easterling Beatdown (hey, I was curious ). I was fortunate to draw Elven Long Knife and A Light in His Mind early. Threats definitely weren't a problem, and with Not Listening and NfFatRoD burdens were kept in check (ALiHM nicely canceled out MYOA). If you're going for a Shadow kill I think the FP can survive a while, although I single-moved every turn.

Frodo, Sam, and Gimli did not win skirmishes at all. However as you pointed out the chief danger was overwhelming so A Promise did help there. Then it was Hobbit Hospital FTW! Twilight was also fairly restricted so that was an extra line of defense. Not sure what to do with Gimli, though; it'd be great if he had more pumps but deck space is rather tight.

Rare Good Ballast could probably be dropped. Didn't see enough use out of Nice Fish to warrant 3 copies, so I might drop 1-2 there. Maybe fit in a couple copies of Don't Follow the Lights? Doesn't get much better than minion discard.

Might fiddle with it some more... it's pretty fun.