I've shared this in a couple of spots already, but I wanted to share with the whole community as far as I can. I'd like a little bit of feedback on this Mining deck. I know many believe that it isn't a fully fleshed out archetype yet, and I might have to agree with them. But this is as close as I am going to get to it:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/15987/miningdeck-1.0

It actually works rather well. I like how quickly you can burn through your 70 cards. Two drawbacks I see is a lack of willpower and a lack of healing.

Not bad at all! I like it! I've also been playing mining Dwarves recently, albeit with a different lineup. Indeed, Gandalf seems like the way to go with mining dwarves at least as they currently stand. I'm of the opinion that mining isn't wuite there yet and I'm hoping for at least 1 more card to help them. They need something else IMO to make the whole milling thing worth it, as in something that triggers when it is discarded from the top of your deck, or that triggers when something else is discarded from the top of the deck. Still, this is an excellent attempt, wish I had the packs to try these cards!

That is a pretty cool deck, I like the hero line-up. Bilbo counters Gandalfs high threat and fetches his pipe too. Im a little surprised to not see sp Dain here but I don't have him so if I want to build a mining deck I always use Stonehelm as well.

Looks like its got lots of nice little combos in here, Gandalf really helps with seeing the top card. I do wish that the dwarf pipe was more useful, and that we would get just another card or 2 to finish the archetype but alas, I doubt it.

Oddly no comment on the plus size card amount so far. ... Reducing card count would rise constancy. In my experience having really all the Gandalf shengenians plus a mining theme is to much for one deck.

How many rounds does it take to get through all the 70 cards?

Willpower might indeed be a problem (at least in later missions). Healing should not be problem - with a Will of the West! (From which I'd include two copies. Not to use them but for security reasons...

I was also expecting Dain, but Thorin is also an option. He cannot discard that effective, though. On the other hand, having red resources at hand fits better than having two spirit heroes!

Actually thats a good point about the 70 cards... I personally dislike running more than 50 and would cut it down to 50. Gandalf does take some deck space but you only need 1 pipe for him thanks to Bilbo... So 3 staffs and maybe Shadowfax for multiplayer. But I think you can still mix him in with the mining theme.

Between AVGT, Ring of Thror every round, King under the mountain (usually every round), Thorin, Expert treasurer hunter, and the erebor guard, I am discarding enough to not have to run dain -- but I did consider him. I wanted to make sure I had enough firepower to blast through whatever came my way. There's a little bit of pork that could be cut to get down to 60, but I think I would rather have extra, different cards then recycle the same ones again, hidden cache and the miner notwithstanding. I would be curious to run a 50 card version, however, as I think you would consistently run out of cards. The dwarf pipe would help recycle some of the non-duplicates that will of the west would shuffle in with the duplicates.

The other thought is that gandalf demands so many unique and specific cards, and once you have them, the duplicates are useless to you. Perfect for mining, when you see them again.

How does will of the west help with healing?

Let me run this deck a few more times to see how fast I tend to mine the deck. I need to pair with a good willpower deck. Maybe L Dain will help solve the issue.

Will of the West:

Let the allies die, recycle them with WotW and play them again. With Gandalfs Staff, Zigil and Hidden Cache that deck should generate enough resources to do so.

I don't know if having Dain across the table is really gonna help your deck too much. Your starting line-up is basically unaffected in regards to willpower. Eventually he will boost the toymakers and miners though.

I do have an (kind of old) deck which uses Ganfald hero and dwarfs. I think it is still on par with the current meta. It does not struggle with willpower. https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12492/gandalfandthedwarfdiscard-1.0 (itital threat is quite high, but usually you finish with a lower threat)

Anyhow, I think it might be worth a try to skip Gandalf completely. Not having him means you also reduce your card count by dropping all his toys! With MotK Bilbo Baggins you can als fetch your first dwarf pipe. Then you can basically discard without risk loosing your Will of the West (the only card which dos hurt not to have in the end - when your deck is empty). The freed hero spot could be filled with the leadership Dain. On the long term that will be a willpower boost. Dunno weather another (dwarf) hero would fit better, though.