The Grief Deck

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Derived from
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Inspiration for
Lore/Spirit Griefing 2 0 0 1.0
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gophers79 154

A take on the classic Grief Deck, which attempts to threat out your playing partners. A competitive deck for a cooperative game!

You can trigger Doomed 1 every turn with Gríma. Galadriel, Galadriel's Handmaiden and The Galadhrim's Greeting keep your own threat down. If your threat gets too high, you can always Aragorn to get back down to starting threat (30).

This deck also contains some other great competitive cards like Miner of the Iron Hills - use those to discard your opponent's Unexpected Courage or other Condition without them being able to retaliate against you. What an OP combo!

The deck obviously includes some staples - Song of Kings does work in this deck, providing access to both the Sneak Attack / Gandalf combo, but also Steward of Gondor (so that your opponents can't also play it) and Keen-eyed Took to help deck them faster.

Laugh in their face as their threat gets really high, tell them you're looking for your Desperate Alliances - joke's on them, you accidentally left them in the sideboard before shuffling up your deck! Attach Nenya to Galadriel but never use it. Promise to use Imladris Stargazer on your opponents next turn, but never do. Only ever Gléowine for yourself. Use your Warden of Healing to heal yourself, or to quest. Throw A Burning Brand on Aragorn but never Sentinel defend for anyone else.

Piloting Instructions: the goal is to get Song of Kings and Steward of Gondor turn 1 - with Gríma's ability, you can play both of those cards on Galadriel first turn. From there, you're well on your way to griefing your opponents. Then just draw with Galadriel / Gléowine every turn, play as many Doomed cards as you can (hopefully getting another resource on Galadriel from Keys of Orthanc). With Song of Kings and Nenya, Galadriel has access to , and , and gaining four resources a turn from Steward of Gondor and Keys of Orthanc should help her pay for whatever you want to play. You'll want A Burning Brand and as many Unexpected Courages you can find on Aragorn, so that he can defend (only for you, obviously) multiple attacks if needed. Heal up with Warden of Healing and keep plugging away!

Your mission is clear, your faith is strong and your will absolute. Beat your opponents, and conquer Middle Earth for yourself!

14 comments

Apr 26, 2016 spequlator 25

Maybe you could use Gandalf (OHaUH) instead of the core version so that you could keep him in play longer in order to prevent other players using him?

Apr 26, 2016 Kakita_Shiro 40

With all of the Doomed action, I don't know if the deck can handle more voluntary threat raises.

Apr 26, 2016 CotR_Brandon 300

Wonderful!! So happy to see grief decking is alive and well!! May I make a few suggestions?

  • A Light in the Dark to put enemies back in staging after they attack.
  • Infighting to move damage from a boss enemy to weaker ones.
  • Keen-eyed Took because he is frustrating. Don't worry you won't discard anything useful hahaha!
  • Mariner's Compass to switch out partially completed locations with fresh ones.
  • Message from Elrond to force them to give you a card.
  • Ravenhill Scout to siphon progress off of the active location onto others in the staging area.
  • Ride Them Down and select a wimpy enemy to divert questing progress. Idea if the enemy is engaged with you.
  • Thror's Map to swap less important locations into the active slot or to move partially explored locations back to staging.
  • West Road Traveller to swap locations unfavourably.
  • Defender of the West to steal their ally for a turn then take a massive undefended attack to kill their valuable ally.

This really fills my heart with joy to see! Well done sir!!

Apr 26, 2016 CotR_Brandon 300

Hahahaha, OK message from Elrond isn't forced! Too bad!!! Also see you already had KET in there, nice include!

Apr 26, 2016 gophers79 154

@CotR_Brandonplease suggest away! You are the noble visionary that seized upon the idea to create a competitive deck for this cooperative game. The rest of us merely stand upon the shoulders of giants like you.

Three of KET is an auto include. Also included 3x Song of Kings for the Sneak Attack / Gandalf combo, as I believe every truly great deck includes Song of Kings, especially when you have few to zero cards.

Your suggestions are well taken. So many valuable interactions! You are definitely the master of Grief

Apr 26, 2016 CotR_Brandon 300

@gophers79thanks for your kind words but I am merely a servant of the Enemy like all who run the mighty Grief Deck!!!!

Apr 26, 2016 Seastan 42105

  • Wandering Took to push them over the edge once they get into the high 40s threat, whie lowering your own.
  • Mumaks and other creature enemies are just misunderstood. Use Radagast to heal them right before they are going to get killed.
  • Gandalf's Search to stack your partner's deck against them and for maximum combo potential with Keen-eyed Took.
  • Your team is going to threat out if they don't quest to victory this turn? Drop a Doom Hangs Still and skip the questing phase.
  • Risk Some Light to send the easy encounter cards to the bottom of the deck.
  • Out of the Wild to get rid of any nasty Rangers of the North that other players put into the encounter deck.
  • Play Dark Knowledge on all your partner's questing heroes.
  • Distant Stars to find the absolute worst location in the encounter deck and make it active.
  • Shadow of the Past to put the enemies your partners finally managed to kill right back on the top of the encounter deck.

Apr 26, 2016 Rahill 28

@gophers79Might I suggest The Seeing-stone to fetch more Seeing-stones and then your other Doomed cards?

Also, if it weren't obvious, always give Greyflood Wanderer doomed 2 when you play it, and then decline to trigger the Response ability.

Apr 26, 2016 Lord Alcaron 171

What about Don't Be Hasty! to remove your partner's questing characters from the quest, or Parting Gifts to steal their resources? You can even play your Song of Kings on non-leadership heroes so you can use Parting Gifts on them as well.

Apr 27, 2016 gophers79 154

So many good card combos!

Apr 27, 2016 Seastan 42105

  • Don't sent anyone to the quest, then play Ever Onward on yourself.
  • Use Reinforcements to put 2 copies of Dúnedain Hunter into play under your partner's control, giving him 2 more enemies to deal with. Bonus points if you do this before the combat phase starts so that the hunters come back to your hand before they can help with combat.
  • Play Trained for War right before resolving the quest.
  • Play Follow Me! right after the first player declares the objective ally or baggins/fellowship hero as the defender. The defending character will then move under your control, leaving them with an undefended attack.

Apr 28, 2016 Warden of Arnor 5754

That last one doesn't work, once the defender has been declared they're still defending even if they change control, this was ruled about Wandering Tooks. Same way that if an enemy moves to another player or back to staging during an attack you still resolve the attack.

May 10, 2016 Zamomin 73

@Seastan Would you have to be the starting player in order to decide the outcome of Reinforcements?

May 10, 2016 Seastan 42105

@Zamomin The player you target with Reinforcements+Hunter would get to choose which of the enemies in the top 5 he wants to engage, but he couldn't refuse to engage an enemy if there are any.