Mega Dwarfs - free peeps only

[ToPaxyGourouni]

Hi. This is a movie block list I am tinkering with for the past month. It offers some very enjoyable games for both me and my opponent. Most people I play against state that it is pretty sweet. So I thought about posting it here. Bonus points? The deck is 180ish cards big and has 78% win ratio in almost 30 games so far.

Here is the free peoples list. It is not exact, because at 90-94 cards really adding a couple of them makes no difference:

Frodo, Resolute Hobbit
The One Ring, Answer to all Riddles
Gimli, Feared Axeman
Linnar, Dwarven Lord

3 x Durin III, Dwarven Lord
3 x Gloin, Friend to Thorin
2 x Farin, Dwarven Emissary
2 x Fror, Gimli's Kinsman
1 x Uri, Dwarven Lord
2 x Sam, Son of Hamfast

2 x Thrarin, Dwarven Smith
2 x Grimir, Dwarven Elder

3 x Ring of Fury
2 x Ring of Guile
1 x Ring of Accretion
1 x Ring of Retribution

1 x Axe of Erebor
4 x Dwarven Axe
4 x Dwarven Bracers
1 x Gimli's Battle Axe, Trusted Weapon
4 x Hand Axe
3 x Brace of Coneys
2 x Sting, Baggins Heirloom

4 x Beneath the mountains
4 x Endurance of Dwarves
2 x Ever my Heart Rises
2 x From the armory
4 x Great Works Begun There
1 x Greatest Kingdom of my people
1 x Here is Good Rock
4 x Lord of Moria
2 x Make Light of Burdens
4 x Mines of Khazad-Dum
4 x Preparations
1 x Realm of Dwarrowdelf

3 x Blood Runs Chill
4 x Defending the Keep
4 x Dwarven Foresight
2 x Storm of Argument

So here is my monstrosity. 91 cards of fellowship. Please bear with me while I explain the strategy. The main tactic (the only tactic actually) is to mill yourself horribly, then replay everything you have discarded back from your bin. This means companions, allies, possesions, conditions, events, even hobbit stuff. Everything comes back!

Strategy:

1. You play first. You have no choice. This means bid 3, even 4 if you are afraid you won't get to play first. Quite simply, this deck loses if it does not play first. You begin with gimli and Linnar. You fetch Realm of Dwarrowdelf from your deck using the dwarven first site.

2. You want to be playing conditions at first. When in your first combat, start using your Realm of Dwarrowdelf frantically. I usually mill myself for 30-40 cards in site 2. I want to get at least one of most of my conditions in the bin, and also a Defending the Keep or two if i'm lucky. If you play against high strength minions, don;t overdo it, you will need your deck to win later skirmishes in the next sites also. If you play against wounding shadow or burdens (or discard), mill to your heart's desire. This deck is 182 cards big, I usually want to have around 120-130 cards left by site 3 or so. The consistent +3 strength bonus from the Realm of Dwarrowdelf will keep you floating until site 3-4 which is when this deck will really begin to shine.

3. Up until now, play all the cards that you are getting, with the exception of companions and/or allies. You want to play them later. Play a 4th companion, but keep the fifth slot open for now. Of course play more companions if you are in danger of being swarmed.

4. Eventually you will run on 1-2 copies of Great Works Begun There or Defending the Keep. If it's the latter, use them to play Great Works Begun There from your discard pile. You will need this condition the most at this point of the game.

5. Once you have 1-2 x Great Works Begun There on the table and 1-2 of Defending the keep in the bin, play a dwarf. Activate the responses to bring back events. You want to bring back Defending the keep. You play more conditions from your discard pile. You start gearing up. After you bring back 3 x Great Works Begun There back, it is time for Preparation and a copy of Beneath the Mountains to come back. Use Beneath the mountains to bring back all your axes and gear your dwarves. You now pack some beef!.

6. From this point on, you keep recycling the tactics above to gear up with anything that you need for the specific matchup. This deck really has almost every answer for any situation. The tactic is simple: Play a dwarf (even a 6th or more companion, ou don't really care about Enquea, whatever she kills you can get its axes back anyways). Bring back events (Defending the Keep) and bring back more conditions, regarding the situation. At your leisure bring back Lord of Moria and Here is good Rock to increase the power of your companions

7. Fetch the following for any given matchup:

> Against wounding shadow: Fetch Mines of Khazad Dum. After that, any tale you play will heal multiple dwarves. Also bring From the armory to protect yourself against Ninja Gollum. Finally get Endurance of Dwarves to enhance your dwarves' life.

> Against Burdens: Use Preparations to stack Sam, Son of Hamfast and Brace of Coneys on your condition. Play a dwarf, pick up the event Dwarven Foresight, take back your Sam and your Coneys, remove burdens. Stack them back and repeat.

> Against Orcs: Fetch Greatest kingdom of my people

> Against skirmishing shadow: Put Axe of Erebor on Gimli, fetch Ever my heart rises, kill everything that moves. Your dwarves are VERY strong, each of them has a full set of gear, they can all get +3 strength from Realm of Dwarrowdelf and Gimli + Axe of Erebor + Ever my Heart Rises + Preparations can kill practically everything (yes, even Sauron).

> Against discard orcs: First of all understand that playing 180 cards deck doesn't mean anything, you can get milled out very easily all by yourself, much more so if a friend is helping you to. Fetch a copy of Make Light of Burdens and the game becomes very difficult for them. Fetch Greatest Kingdom of my people and Blood runs chill for extra effect.

Use the Preparations + Dwarven Foresight to bring back things you cannot normally get, like rings, bracers, companions etc. Use Storm of Argument if you milled too many cards you want to play, like all of your companions, allies or rings to shuffle them back into your deck.

General points to have in mind:

Beware of the rule of 4. Using Beneath the mountains to fetch weapons and Defending the keep to bring back conditions does not count against your maximum allowed to draw. Using Dwarven foresight and Great works begun there does count, so be careful not to draw too much.

Usually you just play anything that comes to your hand. In some cases, holding a companion to fetch more cards or holding onto a tale to heal more wounds later can be very helpful.

Use Preparations stacking as much as you can (don't suicide, of course). You need many stacked cards, you never know when you will need that one Ring of fury or Brace of coneys.

Gimli protects your conditions from discarding. I am in love with this Gimli. He does not help you against self discarding though, so beware of that site 4. Whatever  you do, NEVER discard your Realm of Dwarrowdelf. Everything else is replacable.

Do not be afraid to go toe to toe with strong minions. These dwarves are really hard hitters, they will win most of their skirmishes easily.

Final point: Watch out not to mill yourself out! If you are at site 5-6 and you have 30 cards left, be careful! If you go for a free peoples win, keep some cards on your deck for that final push. Having 60 cards deck on sites 8-9 means +20 strength on your dwarves skirmishes. It can definitely make the difference!

So that's about it. You can pair it with any shadow you like, but to get more effect out of it, make sure it is a shadow that packs a LOT of minions (60-65, even more) so that you will always have enough minions to threaten your opponent's free side. Personally I play Nazgul + Morgul Orcs (all copies of 9 nazgul x4 plus 4 Black riders, Brutes, Destroyers, spearmen etc). This gives me a strong shadow that can stop my opponent. I also play 4 x Bent on Discovery and 2 x Ithil Stone to get more draw and help my deck even more.

That's all folks. Sorry for the wall of text. I hope you found this as enjoyable as I do.

[MADG0BLIN]

Would love to see this deck in action on Gemp. Looks interesting.

[Not a Zombie]

I would add a bunch of Rest by Blind Night, so you can reseed your deck if you have the need late game. Lots of tales, RBBN, Preparations, MoKD, and Realm of Dwarrowdelf... man that is killer.