...with very little success so far. I have 2 Core + 6 Mirkwood cycle + Khazad-Dum + 6 Dwarrowdelf cycle so I thought I would have enough cards to focus on Dwarves but after 8 tries and 8 fails it just isn't working very well. I find that I must mix in some Eagles to give the deck some clout -- and frankly I just feel a little silly bringing Eagles underground with my Dwarves. I am trying to get thru the Dwarrowdelf cycle with one basic Dwarf deck and just change out a few cards for each new adventure. Gimli-Dain-Bifor and Gimli-Dain-Dwalin have been my choices for heroes to date (ther are six to select from).

I've seen several decks that include cards from Over Hill and Under Hill & On the Doorstep, but I am hoping to find a sturdy deck list that pre-dates those cards -- Basically, if anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be forever grateful....

Hi,

Without over-thinking here is what seem cool to me: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5461/built-a-dwarf-deck-for-randyman-1.0

Leadership/Lore is the core of the dwarf stuff to me. The first one get Dain and resource acceleration (steward, we are not iddle) and the second one have all the cool allies. The third hero is more complicated. Here I just choose to get you cool cancel, and you can alway give the resource to Bifur when it is not necessary. You can also play Gimli, feint and small and not to many tactics allies (and absolutely no over coasted eagles please), or Gloin to get tons of resources. It is up to you and don't change that much the deck after all.

Since dwarf is one of the best deck when you have all the cards it could probably be good enough to defeat those scenarios. have fun :).

Wow -- thanks Rouxxor, this is exactly what I was looking for -- I am playing the tri-sphere deck you designed right now and it is great fun. One question, if I switch out Dwalin and go tactics to use 'Gimli, feint and small' -- which card do you mean by 'small' ?

Beorn's Path has a KD/Mirkwood dwarf deck here with explanation:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/beorns-path-part-14-into-the-pit/

It uses Dain/Bifur/Thalin, and requires 2 cores but you already have that. He also has play-through descriptions for the three Khazad-Dum quests, and that might be very useful to you. Beorn hasn't extended it through the dwarrowdelf cycle, though, so it doesn't use any of those cards. There's some cards that would be particularly useful in the cycle.

We are not Idle and Daeron's Runes should be 3x in any dwarf deck that can play them. Since they cycle, if you don't want to make the hard choices about what to cut, stick them in. A 56-card dwarf deck with these cards is better than a 50-card deck without them.

Hardy Leadership and Durin's Song are very useful in a dwarf deck, especially the latter.

Erebor Battle Master can pack a lot more punch than eagles when the swarm is going, though not as much as pre-errata days. But if Dain is ready you can pack a good punch, and the very cheap Dwarrowdelf Axe and Khazad! Khazad!

Lure of Moria can be a quest-ender in a dwarf deck.

Warden of Healing is a straight-up replacement for Daughter of Nimrodel. Cheaper and Better.

In a deck with Thalin and Gondorian Spearman, Fresh Tracks can take out 3 hp enemies and Swift Strike can take out 4 hp enemies before they get to attack. A lot of KD enemies are 2 hp enemies and can be taken out without the extra direct damage, but all but three enemies are 4 hp or less.

9 hours ago, Randyman said:

Wow -- thanks Rouxxor, this is exactly what I was looking for -- I am playing the tri-sphere deck you designed right now and it is great fun. One question, if I switch out Dwalin and go tactics to use 'Gimli, feint and small' -- which card do you mean by 'small' ?

You can like post and/or deck if you want to express this ;). I'm happy if this deck seem cool.

If playing tactic my advice is to have 3 feint, 3 Veteran Axehand and 2 Erebor Battle Master and 2 axe.

Playing around Thalin is a whole new thing. It could work well on some scenario but it can be terrible on others. You will remove "dwarf" stuff to add "damage stuff". If you want to start with Beorn list don't play 56 cards, remove some less interesting cards like partying gift.

Playing with Thalin isn't hard, and if paired with Dain he's only "terrible" on the handful of quests with toughness or few enemies in the main encounter deck. Even without any other direct damage cards, free damage from a 2 wp quester is always helpful.

But the Khazad-Dum box especially is kind to Thalin, and all the support you need is 3x Gondorian Spearman. One spearman + Thalin will take out 57.1% of the "Into the Pit" revealed enemies, 78.9% of the "Seventh Level" revealed enemies, and 78.6% of the "flight for Moria" revealed enemies. It makes building a dwarven swarm a whole lot easier when half to three quarters of the enemies can be eliminated without shadow effects, from a tiny amount of deck space.

I'd agree that Parting Gifts is the most expendable card on Beorn's decklist, aside from Daughter of Nimrodel. But when adding later cards to a pre-existing deck, in cases where the new card isn't a straight replacement or it's not obvious what should be cut, I find it useful to just add the cards, play with them, and then decide what's expendable after getting some road time on the deck. YMMV.

Thalin effect is alway benefic, that's obvious. But the other damage effect can be strong in some case and terrible in others, depend on the scenario. So this version is. I just remind what Thalin version offer.

What the point of not telling him advises when he look for them? Of course he will make his own opinion, before and after playing. What you can do is giving yours. Of course you can also not want to, or not having time to dedicate to that. But don't say it would be better for him.

Starting from Beorn decklist I will, personally, remove partying gift, daughter of nimrodel, narvi's belt, protector of lorien, gleowine, quick strike and 2 dunedain warning (so 19 cards) and add 3 lure, 3 we are not iddle, 3 daeron's rune, 3 legacy of durin, 2 hardy leadership, 2 warden of healing and 3 fresh tracks. It is 40% of his deck and I may still not look enough to the allies so there is a lot of problematic cards to my opinion in the original decklist.

I can't give him what my opinion would be after playing without playing, and before playing the only obvious (to me) deletions are Parting Gift and Daughter of Nimrodel. I originally followed Beorn's Path through the end of Mirkwood cycle, then took those same two decks (Aragorn/Theodred/Denethor and Eowyn/Gimli/Thalin) through Dwarrowdelf, and Against the Shadow, and Ringmaker, and the Hobbit, and LOTR saga (through Land of Shadow) and Angmar, and half of Dreamchaser (it's stalled at that point because I've been fooling around with Dori fellowships for some months). Along the way I took the same process I've used here -- I'd look at new cards, identify ones I wanted to add to my deck, remove the ones I obviously didn't need any more, and go. From time to time I'd then whittle the decks down to 50, having identified in play what ones work best for my playstyle and which don't. I thought it was a productive process for me and helped teach me about deck construction -- and the small loss of efficiency from not being exactly at 50 cards really isn't that much of a handicap.

Now I haven't played the KD version of Beorn's Path, but I assume (like the original) that it's a reasonably solid deck, capable of defeating the KD quests even in inexperienced hands. And I assume that if/when the series continues, the new cards will come in and some old cards will go out. But I honestly don't know how Beorn would shape his deck going forward, so I recommend what worked for me.

If forced to go to 50, I'd probably do this

1) Replace the three Daughters of Nimrodel with two Wardens of Healing and a single Hardy Leadership. I don't think Dwarrowdelf is that bad with dinging damage and dwarves are reasonably hardy as is. (50)

2) Replace the 2x parting gifts with 2 Legacy of Durin. (50)

3) With 2 Legacy of Durin, I can cut the Gleowines down to 2 copies. That gives me 4x card draw with less chance of a useless duplicate. (49)

4) Reduce the Narvi's Belt to two copies. I think it's smoothing is useful in this deck, but it's unique and I think you can get by without it. (48)

5) Drop the 2x quick strike -- this works great with a buffed up attacker, but for a dwarven swarm the character limitation makes it less useful. (46)

6) Drop all three Protector of Lorien -- it's great with card draw, but with 3x warnings you should have good protection for Dain without it. (43)

7) Drop the two Dwarrowdelf Axes, add a third veteran axehand (42)

8) Add 2 copies of Lure of Moria -- it's a great game-ender, but by that time you are likely to draw into it and don't need 3. (44)

9) Add in Daeron's Runes and We Are Not Idle (50)

That might be a better deck than the chuck-them-all-in method produces -- but it's probably an inferior deck to one culled down to 50 after playing with the chuck-them-all-in method, at least for me. YMMV.

This is an awesome Dwarf deck:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/121989-one-deck-to-rule-them-all-almost/

@dalestephenson Thanks for all this explanation. I better understand your point. I'm not working like that. First because I think experience is not enough. Some things were easier to figure out with theories, so if you only practice you never get them. Then because this is a process that take too much time. I play a lot but I want to play a lot of decks so I need to figure as fast as possible efficiency of cards I want to play. I want my decks to be stronger possible immediately. So I prefer to give a shot to the change I think are the best instantly.

And I think you underestimate what happens when size of your deck grows. I play several card games with several size of decks and I see big differences. It it even more important when, like me, you get a lot of fast draw (daeron's rune, we are not iddle, deep knowledge) in majority of my decks. I will have what I want to draw in a majority of case, so I wouldn't with a 60-cards deck. So I can build deck who rely on combo (interaction between several cards) with 50 that I wouln't have be able to play with 60. Efficiency of cards are sometime impacted by the simple fact that you don't play 50 cards, so test them with 60 is not always relevant. But it is in a vast majority of case.

In fact I'm pretty surprised by your opinion. Not because you do like that, you are not the only one I know who do that, but because you go on strategy forum with this opinion. To my own I think strategy forum are designed to do such theorical discussion. It may or may be the good way to perform change on deck but if you don't like to do it isn't it too boring to read some other people who does?

After your change we get to a deck who look the same. I just like too much we are not iddle + lure of moria combo: you exhaust all your dwarf to take 10 ressources then play some other dwarfs folks (eventually play a second we are not iddle) and then do a lure of moria and just gain some resources! That why I want 3 lure, who is also good in mid-game like you say. I also want to play a legacy of durin right on turn one so 2 is not enough to me.

@Strategian Your deck does not fit with Randyman demands. He doesn't have all those cards. If you want to update your list see after sellsword and the two ered dwarf, who are very good. Here is my most recent version of solo dwarf: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5479/dwarven-deck-for-solo-1.0

Rouxurr, as cool as that We are not Idle + Lure of Moria combo is, I'm not sure how helpful it is against Khazad Dum. If you've got 10 dwarves out, you're going to win *without* the combo. Further, without Narvi's Belt, if you're using WANI to pay for Lure of Moria, you're dumping those 10 resources on Dain, who is limited in what he can do with them.

If you only have Legacy of Durin, then you definitely want 3x. But I think 2x Gleowine + 2x Legacy will produce better card draw than 3x Legacy, because they work together and you have 4 possibilities instead of 3. 4x in a 60-card deck will come up more often than 3x in a 50-card deck. With Bifur's ability, Gleowine can also be played on turn one, which will give you the same card draw as Legacy + Erebor Record Keeper (the only combo that makes use of Legacy of Durin on turn one).

I think play is critical not just for proving how things work in practice, but how *you* work in practice. I said I'd cut Protector of Lorien and rely on Dunedain Warnings, because I know me. Beorn likely used it to great effect, but in the original Aragorn/Theodred/Denethor deck it tended to stay in my hand -- I had a hard time playing an attachment that to be any use would discard my precious, precious cards :). Is that the case for Randyman? I don't know. *He* may not know yet. Now, time is limited, and it takes a lot less time to construct a deck than to test a deck. I've got multiple Dori fellowships already constructed, impatiently waiting for their turn at taking some quests down. There's nothing wrong with just netdecking.

But I also don't think there's anything wrong with saying "if you add X" it will be better. I think *every* 50-card deck with a Lore hero and no Daeron's Runes would be better as a 53-card deck with Daeron's Runes. It's the same deck, only a small bit faster. But once you say "and make room by taking these three cards out", it's now a *different* deck, and *might* be less powerful than the original, if you happen to cut the wrong things--and even if it's more powerful, it's still a different deck and won't give the same experience. Suppose I "make room" for DR by cutting some 3x unique cards down to 2x, despite the fact that DR helps solve the duplicate problem. If I had "bloated" to 53 cards by just adding DR, I would have *increased* the chances of seeing one of those cards, since each play of DR effectively shrinks the deck by 2 cards. But by cutting to two I've *dramatically* reduced the chances of seeing one of those cards.

We've discussed the amount of impact staying at 50 cards actually makes in a different thread already:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/249613-cards-too-powerful/?page=2

As I wrote there: "To put in perspective, if you have a 47-card deck and a 50-card deck, both wanting a single card of a 3x in your pre-mulligan hand, and you play all the non-saga quests from all six complete cycles once, you'd save yourself on average -- one mulligan."

(47 card deck would be the impact of removing three cards for We Are Not Idle, instead of just adding WANI).

Am I wrong to suggest bloat isn't that big a deal in the strategy forum, when we *all* know that maximum efficiency means minimum deck size? After all, I'd never go on the Dominion strategy forum and advocate that bloat is no big deal, or a dicemasters strategy forum and try to get people to try interesting teams that won't be competitive with serious players.

But that's because this game is different. It is essential that decks be *viable*, but it is not essential that they be optimal. To repeat what I wrote in the other thread: nothing in the game forces optimal builds, and whether maximizing efficiency or variety is preferable is simply a matter of taste.

This is honestly one of the reasons I like LOTR so much. It frustrates me somewhat that I've spent so much on Dicemasters, but so many interesting cards are essentially unplayable, because you have to hit fast and hit hard or you lose, and losing all the time isn't fun. But here I can construct Dori fellowships, featuring one of the most maligned heroes on the planet, and win most of the time. (Obviously, I don't play nightmare mode.)

Both of us singled out Parting Gifts as being expendable in the Beorn's Path deck, and certainly for anyone with Steward's Fear (Good Harvest) the card is completely obsolete. Still, I think it's kind of cool to see a limited-pool deck where somebody thought Parting Gifts was worth including! Though to be fair, it's worth pointing out that for the third quest, Beorn tweaked the deck to use only one core, and in that rework Parting Gifts didn't make the cut. That decklist can be found here:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/beorns-path-16-flight-from-moria/

Notable additions to the original are Faramir, Hennamarth Riversong, Dunedain Watcher, Lorien's Wealth, and Valiant Sacrifice. Parting Gifts was the only card entirely removed.

RX and DS -- You both have helped me tremendously with building an optimal pre-Hobbit Saga Solo Dwarf Deck -- I am really enjoying experimenting with the combinations you have both proposed. I started with the 'built-a dwarf-deck-randyman' (Dain-Bifur-Dwalin) and beat Redhorn Gate on the fourth try. Many of your points ring true -- when I finally did win, I had a nice swarm of 10 dwarves on the table and I ended up with 3 (!) unused Lure of Moria cards in my hand... Also, I did make use the cancelling cards quite a bit. I had to expand the deck to 54 cards as I added 2 copies each of Ancestral Knowledge and Shadow of the Past just specifically for Redhorn Gate. Is there an alternative to SotPast for this scenario? It seems like it is too easy to miss the needed victory points without it.

Now I'm moving on to the Thalin-Dain-Bifur deck(s) from Beorns path and have made most of the suggested modifications. I hate to see the cancelling cards go away and it is very hard not to include certain cards that I have grown very attached to (e.g. Henamarth, Durins Song, Healing Herbs) and there are some new (to me) Tactics cards I'm dying to try out (Khazad Khazad, Erebor Battle Master, Ring Mail) so I'm probably going to go with a 55-56 card deck and be working with a several combinations for the next week or so. I seem to be having a very difficult time keeping the deck down to 50 so it begs the question -- maybe I'd be better off going with two spheres instead of three? I guess I'll tackle that issue after a few more tri-sphere quests....RM

Road to Rivendell you'll want Dunedain Watcher if you have leadership but not spirit. It has the nastiest shadow effect in the game.

Parting Gifts isn't made obsolete by A Good Harvest as some heroes can have abilities that activate via resources, and some abilities are based on the size of a hero's resource pool.

Transferring resources to a specific hero has value in the right deck.

On 6/8/2017 at 4:00 PM, dalestephenson said:

Rouxurr, as cool as that We are not Idle + Lure of Moria combo is, I'm not sure how helpful it is against Khazad Dum. If you've got 10 dwarves out, you're going to win *without* the combo. Further, without Narvi's Belt, if you're using WANI to pay for Lure of Moria, you're dumping those 10 resources on Dain, who is limited in what he can do with them.

If you only have Legacy of Durin, then you definitely want 3x. But I think 2x Gleowine + 2x Legacy will produce better card draw than 3x Legacy, because they work together and you have 4 possibilities instead of 3. 4x in a 60-card deck will come up more often than 3x in a 50-card deck. With Bifur's ability, Gleowine can also be played on turn one, which will give you the same card draw as Legacy + Erebor Record Keeper (the only combo that makes use of Legacy of Durin on turn one).

I think play is critical not just for proving how things work in practice, but how *you* work in practice. I said I'd cut Protector of Lorien and rely on Dunedain Warnings, because I know me. Beorn likely used it to great effect, but in the original Aragorn/Theodred/Denethor deck it tended to stay in my hand -- I had a hard time playing an attachment that to be any use would discard my precious, precious cards :). Is that the case for Randyman? I don't know. *He* may not know yet. Now, time is limited, and it takes a lot less time to construct a deck than to test a deck. I've got multiple Dori fellowships already constructed, impatiently waiting for their turn at taking some quests down. There's nothing wrong with just netdecking.

But I also don't think there's anything wrong with saying "if you add X" it will be better. I think *every* 50-card deck with a Lore hero and no Daeron's Runes would be better as a 53-card deck with Daeron's Runes. It's the same deck, only a small bit faster. But once you say "and make room by taking these three cards out", it's now a *different* deck, and *might* be less powerful than the original, if you happen to cut the wrong things--and even if it's more powerful, it's still a different deck and won't give the same experience. Suppose I "make room" for DR by cutting some 3x unique cards down to 2x, despite the fact that DR helps solve the duplicate problem. If I had "bloated" to 53 cards by just adding DR, I would have *increased* the chances of seeing one of those cards, since each play of DR effectively shrinks the deck by 2 cards. But by cutting to two I've *dramatically* reduced the chances of seeing one of those cards.

We've discussed the amount of impact staying at 50 cards actually makes in a different thread already:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/249613-cards-too-powerful/?page=2

As I wrote there: "To put in perspective, if you have a 47-card deck and a 50-card deck, both wanting a single card of a 3x in your pre-mulligan hand, and you play all the non-saga quests from all six complete cycles once, you'd save yourself on average -- one mulligan."

(47 card deck would be the impact of removing three cards for We Are Not Idle, instead of just adding WANI).

Am I wrong to suggest bloat isn't that big a deal in the strategy forum, when we *all* know that maximum efficiency means minimum deck size? After all, I'd never go on the Dominion strategy forum and advocate that bloat is no big deal, or a dicemasters strategy forum and try to get people to try interesting teams that won't be competitive with serious players.

But that's because this game is different. It is essential that decks be *viable*, but it is not essential that they be optimal. To repeat what I wrote in the other thread: nothing in the game forces optimal builds, and whether maximizing efficiency or variety is preferable is simply a matter of taste.

This is honestly one of the reasons I like LOTR so much. It frustrates me somewhat that I've spent so much on Dicemasters, but so many interesting cards are essentially unplayable, because you have to hit fast and hit hard or you lose, and losing all the time isn't fun. But here I can construct Dori fellowships, featuring one of the most maligned heroes on the planet, and win most of the time. (Obviously, I don't play nightmare mode.)

Both of us singled out Parting Gifts as being expendable in the Beorn's Path deck, and certainly for anyone with Steward's Fear (Good Harvest) the card is completely obsolete. Still, I think it's kind of cool to see a limited-pool deck where somebody thought Parting Gifts was worth including! Though to be fair, it's worth pointing out that for the third quest, Beorn tweaked the deck to use only one core, and in that rework Parting Gifts didn't make the cut. That decklist can be found here:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/beorns-path-16-flight-from-moria/

Notable additions to the original are Faramir, Hennamarth Riversong, Dunedain Watcher, Lorien's Wealth, and Valiant Sacrifice. Parting Gifts was the only card entirely removed.

Legacy of Durin is way more stronger than Gleowine. Only cost one and make you draw more cards during the game. If you want 4 drawing cards it is better to have a 3/1 since even with 3 legacy of durin you can miss it during all the game, and it is not a bid deal if you have 2 since this mean you still have a powerful draw engine.

We discuss about this 50-cards things so may be it is useless to start over here. You right.

Of course what Randyman should be playing depend of they taste. So we give your advices and they will decide what to do, what to add or remove. I just tell my opinion and what I know, and I know about efficiency. When I say "Playing gleowine make your deck list not efficiency" you can just ignore because you don't care about that point ^^.

On 6/9/2017 at 3:25 AM, Randyman said:

RX and DS -- You both have helped me tremendously with building an optimal pre-Hobbit Saga Solo Dwarf Deck -- I am really enjoying experimenting with the combinations you have both proposed. I started with the 'built-a dwarf-deck-randyman' (Dain-Bifur-Dwalin) and beat Redhorn Gate on the fourth try. Many of your points ring true -- when I finally did win, I had a nice swarm of 10 dwarves on the table and I ended up with 3 (!) unused Lure of Moria cards in my hand... Also, I did make use the cancelling cards quite a bit. I had to expand the deck to 54 cards as I added 2 copies each of Ancestral Knowledge and Shadow of the Past just specifically for Redhorn Gate. Is there an alternative to SotPast for this scenario? It seems like it is too easy to miss the needed victory points without it.

Now I'm moving on to the Thalin-Dain-Bifur deck(s) from Beorns path and have made most of the suggested modifications. I hate to see the cancelling cards go away and it is very hard not to include certain cards that I have grown very attached to (e.g. Henamarth, Durins Song, Healing Herbs) and there are some new (to me) Tactics cards I'm dying to try out (Khazad Khazad, Erebor Battle Master, Ring Mail) so I'm probably going to go with a 55-56 card deck and be working with a several combinations for the next week or so. I seem to be having a very difficult time keeping the deck down to 50 so it begs the question -- maybe I'd be better off going with two spheres instead of three? I guess I'll tackle that issue after a few more tri-sphere quests....RM

You're welcome! About Redhorn Gate I never got trouble with the victory point condition. Always find necessary cards. I don't see what you expect from ancestral knowledge, who isn't helping you to get multiple dwarfs and is unnecessary when you get them.

My personal gameplay is to keep the same decks against each scenario so I need to change my way to play when there is a specific way to win. So I can't help out about what you need to add depend of the scenario.

On 6/9/2017 at 3:50 PM, dalestephenson said:

Road to Rivendell you'll want Dunedain Watcher if you have leadership but not spirit. It has the nastiest shadow effect in the game.

Not sure if he can afford this 3-cost cards. Sometime you just gamble you will not reveal it (or play around by knowing it). But it is true that a shadow card simply kill you. I can tell you witch one it is or let you discover that ^^.

4 hours ago, Edheliad said:

Parting Gifts isn't made obsolete by A Good Harvest as some heroes can have abilities that activate via resources, and some abilities are based on the size of a hero's resource pool.

Transferring resources to a specific hero has value in the right deck.

Even with a full gloin I prefer some other cards. I think there is no deck when this card is the best choice we have.

2 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

Not sure if he can afford this 3-cost cards. Sometime you just gamble you will not reveal it (or play around by knowing it). But it is true that a shadow card simply kill you. I can tell you witch one it is or let you discover that ^^.

It must be the Sleeping Sentry? It cost me dearly in on my first attempt but, I used Burning Brand to successfully cancel shadow effects the second time around -- I thought about just tossing some Hasty Strokes in the deck since I already had Narvi's Belt but decided that might be too complicated (two cards to get out instead of one). The Dwarf Deck is working great -- on to WitW...

1 hour ago, Randyman said:

It must be the Sleeping Sentry? It cost me dearly in on my first attempt but, I used Burning Brand to successfully cancel shadow effects the second time around -- I thought about just tossing some Hasty Strokes in the deck since I already had Narvi's Belt but decided that might be too complicated (two cards to get out instead of one). The Dwarf Deck is working great -- on to WitW...

If you're using Dain for hero defense, Narvi + Burning Brand is excellent for any shadow-heavy quests. Road to Rivendell's shadows aren't so bad except for Sleeping Sentry, but it's a doozy. Cancel or die.

Glad to hear you're doing well and enjoying it!

3 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

Legacy of Durin is way more stronger than Gleowine. Only cost one and make you draw more cards during the game. If you want 4 drawing cards it is better to have a 3/1 since even with 3 legacy of durin you can miss it during all the game, and it is not a bid deal if you have 2 since this mean you still have a powerful draw engine.

Legacy of Durin is a better value for a dwarf deck, since it only costs one and will make you draw more cards during the game IF you average more than one dwarf played per turn.

However I question whether it is "way more stronger". The difference in card draw between 1/turn and 1/dwarf isn't likely to be significant until you've played many dwarves, and if you've played many dwarves you've won already. Despite his extra cost, Gleowine is more likely to give you card draw *early* in the game, because he can work on turn one and Legacy of Durin doesn't unless it comes up with Erebor Record Keeper. And while Legacy is a better bargain, Bifur's ability to steal makes that matter less. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that (even with Bifur) that Gleowine is *better* than Legacy, if you're only choosing one I completely agree Legacy is better (and as a bonus, is also thematic). I just don't think the power level of the two cards is significantly different in this deck, especially early when the difference would matter most.

But the point of 2 + 2 isn't just to have more chances for drawing help, which as you note 3 Legacy + 1 Gleowine will accomplish just as well. It's also to give a better chance of having *both* Gleowine and Legacy in play. Since both are unique, only the first matters if they stay in play. If you split four cards 3-Legacy/1-Gleowine, you have a better chance of getting Legacy first, but of the three remaining draw-cards it could draw into, only one is useful. If you split four cards 2-legacy with 2-Gleowine, you're more likely to start with Gleowine as your initial drawer, but of the three remaining draw-cards your first one can draw into, two of them would be useful. So it maximizes the chance of the best-case outcome from the four-card investment, while having little impact (IMO) on the other cases.

However, that's a straight efficiency argument. Except maybe in the Ringmaker cycle, a single copy of Gleowine's absurdly good value in any Lore deck, and a single copy of Hennamarth Riversong is pure gold in any Lore solo deck. But neither is a good thematic fit for a dwarven swarm and neither is required to win, and the more cards you put in the "this should be in every X deck" category, the more samey and boring those decks become (plus the less room you have for the interesting part of deckbuilding, especially if you're insistent on a strict 50-card deck).

4 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

Not sure if he can afford this 3-cost cards. Sometime you just gamble you will not reveal it (or play around by knowing it). But it is true that a shadow card simply kill you. I can tell you witch one it is or let you discover that ^^.

(On Dunedain Watcher for Road to Rivendell). Steward of Gondor/Narvi's Belt/We Are Not Idle make a 3-leadership card affordable in this tri-sphere deck. Lure of Moria costs 3, after all, and all the leadership dwarves in his pool cost *at least* 3.

Now it's true that Lure of Moria is a game-ending event, while all Dunedain Watcher does is minimal quest/combat support until there's a crucial shadow to be discarded -- in most quests, I wouldn't bother recommending Dunedain Watcher; even in a quest with a lot of nasty shadows Narvi + BB is by far the better value. But Road to Rivendell is different. Sleeping Sentry shadow is a very likely game-ender, and 3 leadership resources is cheap insurance against that, IMO.

What an amazing deck! I used the 56-card Thalin-Dain-Bifur deck outlined earlier in this thread to absolutely cruise through the first five quests in the Dwarrowdelf series with only one loss: Redhorn Gate 1/1, Road to Rivendell 1/2, Watcher in the Water 2/2, The Long Dark 3/3, and Foundations of Stone 1/1. I think the highlight was defeating FoS even after being forced to discard my entire hand of cards and having all three heroes saddled with Watchful Eyes! The deck works wonderfully to amass a mass of Dwarfs that can basically deal with anything -- err... that is, until I had to face the Balrog in Shadow and Flame. Problem is that he keeps wiping out allies before we have a chance to create a swarm. I tried replacing a few event cards with more allies and I also switched over to Gimli instead of Thalin (my guess is that this may be one of those quests where Thalin is not the best choice) but I have still lost 4 straight times. Any advice on ways to tweak the deck to take on SaF?

For this one Nori hero would have been insane. There is a tactic version for general purpose: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/5615/built-a-dwarf-deck-for-randyman-2-1.0

It's tough. Dain's defense isn't enough to survive many hits from the Balrog even if he has Burning Branch, and even if you buff his defense with Ring Mail and Dunedain Warning an attachment can make the Balrog cut right through that. If you get tired of losing, consider dropping to semi-easy (extra resource) or full Easy mode.

However, with hero defense not an option and chump defense eating away at your swarm, you need to prevent as many attacks as possible. The lack of spirit hampers you here, as you could use Galadhrim's Greeting to get back to zero and the secrecy card Out of Sight to get another extra three feints. However, you do have potentially six threat reductions in the form of Gandalf/Sneak Attack -- if he can reduce your threat back to zero and avoid an attack, do it. You can supplement this with the secrecy card Needful to Know (raise 1 threat, lower by threat of top encounter card), though without other scrying it's a gamble whether it will reduce or not. Other secrecy cards that could be helpful are Timely Aid (cost 1 in secrecy), Resourceful (cost 1 in secrecy), and Risk Some Light (cost 0 in secrecy). This is one of the rare quests where any deck can expect to spend most of the time in secrecy, so take advantage of that.

If you're using Gimli as a hero, getting a citadel plate on him and taking full damage can work wonders. Also pack Heavy Stroke, and Khazad! Khazad!

In this scenario Khazad! Khazad! is useless until the final turn. It way better to play an ally who can be used each turn.

If you have a fully-banged up Gimli, Khazad + Heavy Stroke represents an extra six damage, which can help you win this scenario without having a sufficient swarm in play -- which can be very tough to do with the Balrog killing them every turn. I don't regret packing them when I beat it with Eowyn/Thalin/Gimli, but as always YMMV.