Straight outta Hobbiton it's Hobbits With Attitude. They might be little guys, but they've brought all of their big bad friends with them (and a pony).

The deck has done well with the VoI quests and some other random quests I’ve tried. Not sure it’s a Rule Them All deck, but it’s quite fun to play with solo and probably a good companion to a Spirit skry deck.

Strategies of the deck:

1. Timely Aid is my aim for Sam’s resource token on Round 1. If I don’t find Timely Aid with the starting hand, I’ll take a mulligan. Without it on the second hand I hope to at least have Taking Initiative or Daeron’s Runes to increase the chance of bringing it out of my deck at no cost. With 19 allies with a cost of 4 or higher, Taking Initiative stands a good chance to trigger its effect.

2. If I am able to use Timely Aid to bring out a high cost ally and use Merry’s Round 1 resource token on Vassal of the Windlord, I can use A Very Good Tale to exhaust both allies and bring one or two more allies into play. The Eagles are Coming is an excellent card to get Vassal into my initial hand.

3. An alternate combo to trigger an early A Very Good Tale, assuming I have Vassal out, is to Sneak Attack a high cost ally in the planning phase and immediately exhaust it.

4. By round two or three I'm hoping to have four or five heavy hitters on the front line dealing with just about anything the encounter deck has to offer.

5. Gandalf’s threat reduction is useful if a Timely Aid is available after Round 1.

6. There is usually enough power on the table to optionally engage enemies and utilize Pippen’s card draw ability.

7. Merry gets the Steward of Gondor for the many Eagle allies.

8. Gwaihir will be an auto-include for this deck when available.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome!

Heroes:

Sam - 8

Merry - 6

Pippen (Lore) – 6

Starting threat – 20

Allies: (25)

1x - Gildor Inglorion

1x - Beorn

1x - Radagast

1x - Faramir

1x - Erestor

1x - Bill the Pony

1x - Anborn

1x - Haldir of Lorien

1x - Brok Ironfist

1x - Landroval

3x - Gandalf (Core)

3x - Winged Guardian

3x - Eagles of Misty Mountain

3x - Descendant of Thorondor

3x - Vassal of the Windlord

Events: (18)

3x – Timely Aid

3x – Taking Initiative

3x – A Very Good Tale

3x – Sneak Attack

3x – Daeron’s Runes

3x – The Eagles are Coming!

Attachments: (7)

3x – Elf-stone

3x – Fast Hitch

1x – Steward of Gondor

Is this a single core deck? What would you change without that restriction? Really like this deck.

Is this a single core deck? What would you change without that restriction? Really like this deck.

No, this is not intended to be a single core deck (but I guess it could be.)

I tried to include as many unique single copies of allies in order to avoid any conflict in getting them in play.

The single copy of Steward of Gondor is also due to the fact that it is a unique card and I tried to make the deck as efficient as possible. The deck doesn't have to use it to win. The deck is mainly designed to turn one resource into 4 cost allies via Timely Aid and Elf-Stone. But if SoG is hanging around in Round 4 and Merry is itching to get those excess Eagles in play, then the card works out great.

Thanks!

Why not Dagger of westernesse? Too mainstream or not needed?

Why not Gildor instead of Brok, Brok is quite bad in stats, and gildor can also help you with taking initiative if you draw them backwards.

Daggers (or other attachements) would only hinder the effect of timely aid, very good tale and taking initiative. Merry + other ally are enough to obliterate enemies. Fast Hitch is borderline, I would only put 2.

Why not Gildor instead of Brok, Brok is quite bad in stats, and gildor can also help you with taking initiative if you draw them backwards.

Daggers (or other attachements) would only hinder the effect of timely aid, very good tale and taking initiative. Merry + other ally are enough to obliterate enemies. Fast Hitch is borderline, I would only put 2.

Gildor is in the deck, I just forgot to list him! Good catch, I have added him back in. Yes, Brok is mainly there for his six cost.

I might need Fast Hitch when I try out the Black Rider quests next.

Daggers simply aren't needed with the rest of the attack strength that comes so quickly.

How strong a deck must be, when it has not place for DoW and starting threat 20, haha.

I should try it. It is classic hobbit trio and despite this it is very original!

I ran this deck -1 Anborn, -1 Steward of Gondor, -1 Sneak Attack, +3 Resourceful against Seventh Level twice this morning and scored 55 points both times (3 rounds, 25 threat once, and 4 rounds, 15 threat once). I never got to make much use of Resourceful because it was discarded by a shadow effect in the game I drew it, but I didn't really miss the acceleration with all the Timely Aid, Sneak Attacks, and Very Good Tales flying around.

Nice deck!

No resourceful?

I've played the deck a few times now (against NM quests) and the deck is almost great. Maybe I'm missing something about Taking Initiative, but it's pretty much a dead draw after turn two. The deck is capable of extremely fast starts, but can also blank and really stumble. Gonna work on it for a while.

I've played the deck a few times now (against NM quests) and the deck is almost great. Maybe I'm missing something about Taking Initiative, but it's pretty much a dead draw after turn two. The deck is capable of extremely fast starts, but can also blank and really stumble. Gonna work on it for a while.

Agreed, the initial configuration of this deck is unreliable if A Very Good Tale doesn't happen early, so I went back to the drawing board.

The key to having Taking Initiative is that zero cost two card draw in round one for the combo below. With the changes below the odds are better than 50/50 it triggers.

I swapped cards out to really emphasize a first turn Timely Aid/Bill the Pony/Vassal/A Very Good Tale combo.

To that end I took out Fast Hitch, The Eagles are Coming!, Steward of Gondor, and Elf-Stone. I replaced them with 3x Resourceful, 3x Hidden Cache, 1x Dunedain Wanderer and 3x Peace, and Thought.

Peace, and Thought turns out to be the real key here. I found myself able to use the first turn resource from Pippen and exhaust Merry and Pippen to get the combo cards needed. This combo didn't work every time, but often enough to justify the deck.

Hidden Cache turns out to work out nicely with Taking Initiative and A Very Good Tale to give Sam some needed resources to keep the combos turning.

All the Resourcefuls go on Merry.

So far so good with the NM quests. I was able to win PtM, JDtA and CatC. Still can't do EfDG solo.

My deck ran out early playing CatC, but I had a full compliment of allies with Eagles of the Misty Mountain seeing eight attachments by the end.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions!

I took out Taking Initiative and one Fast Hitch for three Resourceful and one Miner of the Iron Hills. (I was playing Carrock after all.) For a more generic build I certainly would not include him. Anyway, Resourceful was an immediate upgrade and I've been thinking about Peace and Thought. The Eagles are Coming has been pretty good for me. In the last game I had an Eagles of the Misty Mountains up to 8 counters and he was brutalizing the trolls. So I'm not sure I want to let that card go yet.

Dunadain Wanderer and even Northern Tracker have been on my mind. Erestor always turns into a 2 WP quester for me and I rarely use his ability in this deck. Also, A Very Good Tale requires you to discard the extra cards and more than once I've pitched away Steward of Gondor. Might have to double up there.

Daeron's Runes... As much as like that that card in decks with a lot of uniques, I've had to throw away some good cards with it too.

When we get Gwaihir this might get silly.

Hm...if i see it right, you dont need the lore sphere.

How about adding Glorfindel or the spirit-version of Pippin....or only play with Sam and Theodred for example?

Only 1 round secrecy is to much depending on luck. (if doomed in setup you are dead from the beginning)

You make an excellent point. My only rebuttal is the rather weak "Fast Hitch" and Lore Pippen's draw ability. I need more playing time with the deck to be sure. I won't play Glory here, but maybe I'll try Spippin. While I'll be the first to acknowledge the power of Spirit over Lore, Pippen (or Fatty or ...) isn't going to get many cards in the deck and Fast Hitch lays a legitimate claim to being the best of them.

A bit late to the party... just noticed this deck and I find it awesome but have not played it. How are your latest builds? Still using Lore? How could you play Elf-stone without it? Could you give the latest decklists please? Yeah I know I'm being lazy, I don't care.

Also I REALLY want to use silver lamp with small target.

I'll post my latest build tonight. I'm still using the three heroes in the OP. I've thought about trying to change them, but I keep ending back at the same spot. Lore Pippen's draw ability is pretty good in the early game, but if you really want Spirit you could grab Spippen or Fatty. It's not really a secrecy deck exactly. It uses early secrecy to get the ally ball rolling and then turns into an eagle swarm deck. I've had two Eagles of the Misty Mountains in play each with 4 eagle cards attached. When the deck gets Gwaihir I'll really start tuning it.

Or you could really just proxy Gwaihir in the meantime. I did it with Wingfoot in a mono-lore Aragorn themed deck and it really has showed amazing benefits, with Rumour from the earth he basically turns into leadership Aragorn, even more so with SoG. Anyway, it could work out great. Also what quests have you used it against? Thanks for the answer.

And also why not Frodo for spirit hero?

Frodo puts the starting threat at 21 which negates a turn 1 Timely Aid, which is one of the ways the deck really works. Having the Elf Stones is really helpful I've found. Yeah, I should just proxy Gwaihir. Lord knows I've proxied enough other cards.

Quests: Redhorn Gate & Nightmare Conflict at the Carrock.

The deck is capable of bricking out of the gate and suffering some pretty bad losses, but with the right draw it can really dominate.

Just checked my build and it is still as post #12: -3 Taking Initiative, +3 Resourceful, -1 Fast Hitch, +1 Miner of the Iron Hills.

Both Anborn and Erestor are on the hot seat and obviously Miner is a side board card for specific adventures. I might lose all of the Fast Hitches as by mid-game they aren't needed. It's only the stumbling starts where they help at all.

Ok, I substituted Anborn for a proxied Gwaihir. He's good, but he kind of distracts you because you are always trying to maximize his ability. And let's face it, if you have Sneak Attack in your deck your best target is probably a certain Istari. Still, I did live the dream and Snuck Gwaihir in with a Descendant in the yard and popped a troll for lethal.

So my Nightmare packs for Emen Muil etc. came in and I thought I would play HEM normal once to remind myself of the quest. And got wrecked. Since the deck has no healing or treachery cancellation it is particularly vulnerable to this quest with Rockslide (deal 2 damage to each questing character) and Necromancer's Reach (deal 1 to each exhausted character). Since you still need the Hobbits to quest early with the deck a couple of those early and it's time to re-shuffle.

This deck is a fantastic support deck by the way since it doesn't really really on the typical restricted cards.

This deck is a fantastic support deck by the way since it doesn't really really on the typical restricted cards.

As I continue to test the deck against other scenarios I am starting to realize just how many treacherous treacheries are out there. It makes me wonder how people play straight up solo without A Test of Will in hand. I thought that an all-star ally swarm could overcome these cards (and it certainly can), but it doesn't do so reliably enough to get to that rule-them-all level of decks.

As a support deck, however, I agree that this set would prove it's mettle. My favorite Lore/Spirit trio of Mirlonde/Denethor/Glorfindel(SP) would provide those healing/location management/cancellation type cards that are needed in most quests.

Any other thoughts on a companion deck?

I completely agree that the companion deck should have treachery cancellation and a bit of healing for the critical allies, which suggests Lore/Spirit. I haven't tried it though. I'm tempted to sleeve it up with my elves deck since there is almost no crosstalk. I think it could be pretty powerful - except in the early game. Both of those decks can stumble out of the gate.

I hate Eowyn but...

Tracker's Caldera deck... Hmmm...