Fat Stacks 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

If you love deck manipulation, this deck will be right up your alley. It is amazing in solo, and it is great in multi-player as well.

First off - the deck really is more than 50 cards (hence "Fat Stacks"). It is already a toolbox...designed to support, defend, quest, and attack (later in the game).

Free cards - The deck is designed to constantly play cards. Gandalf gets to look at and play the top card of your deck once per phase. Hopefully, that means you are going to be playing around a couple extra cards per turn. This is also why the deck has so many events. Use cards that shuffle the deck or mill the top cards to get to these freebies (or others that you want to play). For example, if Faramir is the top cards of your deck, but you can't afford to play him, mill him with a zigil minor (calling "4" for the resource). Now you will have a new card that you can likely get in. Dain is amazing here. You can mill up to 3 cards to get to one that you really want to play as long as you have an enemy to attack you. (Note that you can do this in each phase, so if you have an enemy attack you in the quest phase, you can mill up to 3 cards...get in a freebie and then do it again in the combat phase). Ring of Thror is also a great way to get more free stuff. Once you get it into play, use Wizard Pipe to put a high cost attachment like Ancestral Armor or Shadowfax on top of your deck (or just mill to one with Dain's ability). Then, you get to ready Dain and put the Ancestral Armor on him...for free...yeah, that feels pretty good. (And it happens pretty much every game).

Starting hand - Getting an early Wizard Pipe adds quite a bit of flexibility, so that is a nice card to keep (as is Bilbo). Other cards that are nice to see in the starting hand include Zigil Miner, Dwarf Pipe, A Test of Will, Light of Valinor, and Imladris Stargazer.

Mining mechanics - Feel free to skip this part if you are familiar with mining decks. Just remember that Gandalf showing you the top card makes mining quite a bit easier. Mining decks can start off a bit slow, but once they ramp up, they produce tons of resources to play the expensive cards. You really want to find and get into play a zigil miner (or a few) early in the game. Since you can see the top card of your deck, the miner will always get you at least one resource. If you can Stargazer to arrange a Hidden Cache or two (maybe using Wizard Pipe), then you can net 3-6 resources on whomever you like. You may also get Ered Luin Miners for free using this method. Use the Dwarf Pipes to send your key cards back to the bottom of your deck. Cards that I value would include A Test of Will, Will of the West (which you typically want in your hand to ensure you can shuffle your deck again), Elronds Counsel, and your important attachments/more mining mechanics. If you get a pipe early, you should be able to have all three Zigil Miners out when you get through your deck the first time. Once you get a few allies into play, A Very Good Tale ramps the deck up quite nicely. Exhausting allies like Ered Luin Miner and Erebor Guard can net you up to 7 resources worth of allies. It is an easy way to get the big allies like Faramir, Solider of Erebor, and Gimli into play early in the game. (Late in the game, you should be able to afford to play them from your hand anyhow).

Gameplay/set up - Long term, you want Expert Treasure Hunters on Gandalf and Gildor. This is one of the funniest mechanics in the game. You will know what your top card(s) is, so you will call properly it to add it to your hand...unless it is a Hidden Cache or an Ered Luin Minor. In those cases, call "attachment"...the card discards...and you get free resources. If you get enough action advantage on Dain, Feel free to use Unexpected Courage to quest with him as well to essentially draw 3 extra cards per turn. Dain should get first crack at the defensive attachments. Once he picks up Ancestral Armor and Hauberk of Mail, he defends of a natural 6 and can boost to 9 easily. He usually gets Cram early game, but once he has a Ring of Thror and an Unexpected Courage or two, they start going to Gandalf (or to other players). Once Dain is set up, put the attachments on Gimil or the Soldiers of Erebor. Steward of Gondor is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. Feel free to pass it to a multi-player partner. If not, it typically goes on Gandalf to ensure that he can keep playing the top card of your deck (even if it isn't free). It could also go on Dain early in the game to get out more early Zigil Miners of Stargazers from hand...which helps the ramp up). Gandalf and Gildor's attachments should be fairly straightfoward.

Toolbox - After a couple turns, you can easily expect to draw/play/mill up to 15 cards per turn...and 7-8 is very average. (1 normal draw, 2 from Expert Treasure Hunter, 1-3 from Gandalf, 3 from Dain, 1 from Thror's Ring, 2-6 from Zigil Miners, 5 from A Very Good Tale). For this reason, you can search your deck for what you need to beat the quest at hand...just Dwarf Pipe it if you accidentally mill it. You can also add pretty much any card to the deck with the expectation to get it against the quest you are toolboxing against.

Healing - Warden of Healing and Dunedain Remedy Questing - Faramir, Elladan and Elrohir Low threat - Elronds Counsel, The Galadhrim's Greeting Cancel - A Test of WIll Location control - Northern Tracker Combat - Soldiers of Erebor, Inspiring Presence Shadow - Silver Lamp, Hasty Stroke Mumaks - Revealed in Wrath Attachment control - Power of Orthanic

Multi-player - This deck goes well with decks with some ranged attack. It likes to have the enemies to defend, but it does not have a lot of attack early in the game. It also does not scale incredibly at questing, so pair decks with a decent amount of quest power with it. Feel free to add cards to the deck to support the multi-player partners.

I hope you enjoy "Fat Stacks."