Typically a progression style deck associated with a particular quest includes all cards released to the point of that quest. For something like The Black Serpent, this doesn't mean a lot at this point in time, since only Mountain of Fire came out after it.

However, I thought to myself that a different spin might be interesting -- instead of drawing from the card pool to that point, how about including at least one of every card released in The Black Serpent? I'd need a two-deck fellowship to cover all four spheres, but could I come up with something that makes sense?

The first step was to pick the heroes. Fastred had to be chosen, so I picked Dunhere as the obvious combo with him. Since the pack has Southron Refugee, that meant Kahliel as a third.

The next piece of the puzzle was Fearless Scout, one of the most useless attachments in the entire card base. What earthly good is it, since Warden of Arnor is the only scout-related attachments and isn't so powerful that you'd want Fearless Scout just to play it? The answer has to be with Scouting Party -- I need Fearless Scout so that I can play Scouting Party and keep a strong questing hero in the mix. Khaliel's a possibility for it, since he can be buffed by headdress and his kinsmen, but what are the other non-spirit (already have two) scouting heroes?

Leadership: Elfhelm

Lore: Haldir, Argalad

Tactics: Hirgon.

Elfhelm and Hirgon were easy choices, decent questers with (in Hirgon's case) a questing related ability. Plus they combine to allow Oath of Eorl to be played, and Elfhelm encourages song/mount mixtures that would help with Burst Into Song. Hirgon also makes playing Defender of Cair Andros cheaper, and his threat-raising can make it more powerful.

Haldir and Argalad both can mix well with Dunhere/Fastred in different ways, but neither are questers (at least without Light of Valinor). But the real problem is the two remaining cards from the pack, Old Toby and Dunedain Pipe. Dunedain Pipe would be really useful with a Dunedain hero (Beravor, Aragorn, Thurindir are the choices in Lore, and Thurindir also could fetch the side quest), but for Old Toby I want lots of pipes, and I decided my final hero would be Lore Pippin. With the low threat of the Fastred deck, I can theoretically engage, dump to staging and kill while getting a card and lower threat out of it. I can put a hobbit pipe on him and a hobbit pony and do elevenses shenanigans, and use Bilbo ally to put another hobbit in play. And best of all I can justify Fearless Scout on him by buffing up his willpower to insane levels with Rosie Cotton and mixing Fireside Song with Song of Travel, Song of Hope, Song of Earendil....

I still need a Dunedain Pipe, so I need a Dunedain character, preferably a questing scout. Sulien immediately sprang to mind, but since it doesn't have to be on a unique character there's a lot of good choices -- dang it, I should've included more than one copy!

I also wanted to use Dwarf Pipe, to do Old Toby proper justice. That's only useful when discarding, and since I have no dwarf heroes for King Under the Mountain, that means Zigil Miner.

So with all these things going on, I didn't manage to stay at 50 cards or even close -- but I do at least have something that pretends to be a viable fellowship here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/3528/the-black-serpent-fellowship

I haven't actually tried it yet, and I expect The Black Serpent will crush it. However, it at least is a fellowship where all the cards from the pack have a purpose, even if it'd be stronger without some of them.

I love this idea! Nothing like a good deckbuilding restriction to get the creativity going.

There's a small problem with your Scout deck, though--your Scout Heroes are in the opposite deck from Scouting Party, which operates on "each character you have committed to the quest", so I don't think it will work as intended.

There are a lot of different archetypes at play in this pack--Scout, Harad, Rohan, Gondor, Dunedain, Pipes, Songs; it's a tough one to make even two cohesive decks out of. Idraen feels like she's missing from your fellowship since she fulfills Scout, Dunedain, and Pipes all on her own. If it were me, I'd probably go down the road of making a Lore/Spirit/Leadership Harad/Scout deck on one side, and a Spirit/Tactics Rohan/Gondor deck on the other.

Blast! You're right, it only affects the scouts on the spirit side (not all scouts on the table), so Hirgon/Elfhelm are unnecessary for their scout trait. Funny thing is that if a Hobbit Pony is on Pippin, he doesn't even *need* Fearless Scout to avoid interfering with Scouting Party.

Still, I actually kind of like the hero lineup, and most of the questing allies are scouts in the spirit deck. After constructing this I was pondering if I could re-work them to include *all* the cards from the adventure pack -- so not just a copy of each card, but 3x (where allowed). With a bevy of scout allies, I could use all three Fearless Scouts for the heroes as long as I have a way to ready them, and Steed of the Mark would work well there while working with Elfhelm. (Snowmane is unfortunately restricted). I could drop the scouting allies from the other deck since they aren't buffed by Scouting Party, trimming that deck down a bit.

Idraen would be a great fit with Dunedain Pipe, and with a fat deck like this Dunedain Pipe(s) would be good sooner than later. If only she were Lore. I do have five Dunedain allies in the deck, three of which are free.

After sleeping on it and running some test draws, I'm convinced you're right. A pipe deck is what Old Toby would go best in, and a songs deck is what Burst Into Song would go best in -- but I can't have one deck be both, it's too bloated for the combos to come up. Thurindir and spirit Dunedain questers can support 3x Dunedain Pipe (and Bilbo + Hobbit Pipe could make four) would be enough for Old Toby to justify its existence and I can play Dunedain Pipe right away. Thurindir's not a scout, has upside, and if he chooses the new side quest out of the gate he will be quickly questing for four.

In the other deck, Elfhelm has to go. He can be amazing, but not with these cards -- he wants situations where the heroes become *immediately* better with a mount, no song required. Dunhere and Fastred don't fit that description, Kahliel's tough to put a mount on, and Elfhelm is not going to be a primary defender. Hirgon's not so problematic and combos well with Red Arrow with expensive allies, but double tactics might be better than double leadership in this deck, both because of Defender of Cair Andros and because Kahliel's support (most of the deck) doesn't require much in the way of leadership resources. In order for double leadership to work well, we would want to put The Storm Comes in the Thurindir deck and have him get that first -- not a bad idea, really.

The one requirement we have for leadership/tactics is Rohan/Gondor (for Oath of Eorl). If we retain Hirgon that covers Gondor, and even without it we do have 3x Steward of Gondor. So what are the options in Rohan for leadership/tactics, discounting Elfhelm who we ditched already....

Leadership: Theodred, Erkenbrand, Eomer

Tactics: Hama, Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn

Erkenbrand and Tactics Eomer we can rule out right away. TaEowyn is awesome, though her low threat works directly against the Defender. Hama could recycle Oath of Eorl, not that compelling to me. But the other three would work exceptionally well:

Theoden would buff his own questing and Hirgon's giving us solid questing out of the gate.

Theodred's resources could help everyone but spirit, and as a lousy quester he would benefit from Song of Hope and Rally the West, and both he and Hirgon would be some use if readied by Burst Into Song.

Eomer is the most intriguing -- he could replace Dunhere entirely, freeing that sprit spot for a Dunedain Scout quester -- Idraen. Like Theodred, he's a poor quester with a questing-related ability, so Song of the Hope/Rally the West works well for him. So we have two choices:

LeEomer/Kahliel/Hirgon & Thurindir/Idraen/Fastred

or

Theodred/Eomer/Hirgon & Thurindir/Dunhere/Fastred

I think the first is likely the stronger of the two, and The Storm Comes should be the initial Thurindir quest.

Revised decks are found here:

http://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/3537/the-black-serpent-fellowship-2-0

Much more focused! I love it. Are you going to test it out against The Black Serpent?

I'd like to test it out against The Black Serpent, but that's a tough quest and my hopes aren't high. I need to finish playing my current Dori fellowship first, which is trying to get past the end of the Angmar cycle.

I'm still not at ease in my mind as to whether The Storm Comes or Rally The West should be Thurindir's initial side quest. Rally the West has the largest long-term benefit, but The Storm Comes would really help getting the big Harad allies out. It's too bad the initial hands aren't drawn before Thurindir kicks in, instead of after.