Council of the Woods - Grimbeorn and Frodovor Commander Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is my fist Council of the Wise deck that can handle and beat a good variety of quests, and there are a lot of triggers with the contract and the heros that make it enjoyable to play. The variety of reactions means I was playing events I almost never used before in ways that were surprisingly effective. Beravor + Frodo (Frodovor) really helps make a 100 card deck manageable because Frodo keeps your threat constant/low and Beravor churns through your deck for events/cards that are helpful to the quest or encounter cards at hand.

When to Mulligan: Mulligan if you don't have a weapon attachment for Grimbeorn - it's really important that he get +1 or +2 attack right away to be able to deal with most enemies. Definitely keep your hand if you have the Magic Ring, as putting that on Grimbeorn has a lot of opportunities to use any/all of its abilities. You'll also want an ally that can add some questing right away, since the starting quest power is low.

Some Strategies: (1) Use Frodo's ability to ready Beravor and use her ability when it makes sense. For example if a quest has encounter cards that exhaust characters maybe do it right away, otherwise wait in case she needs to block. The variety of event cards really allows you to do a lot of fun tricks and Beravor helps you either build up your hand to allow for a wide variety of responses or actions. Some events will likely not be useful for certain quests, so you can tweak it if you'd like, but the card draw with "Frodovor" will help negate this problem.

(2) Why Gandalf's Search (and other events like it) - I've never played it since the core set, but the Contract gives it more utility, sure it could cycle itself, but you could put that resource anywhere - such as Grimbeorn.

(3) In general, focus on Grimbeorn's attack more than his defense.

(4) Pippin can be substituted in for Beravor if you need a lower starting threat, but in general the deck will go slower.

(5) Resources are pretty tight for most of the game, but there's almost always enough if you play events strategically with using the contract.

The One Ring: You can use this if you choose a slightly harder quest than this deck can handle. If you need questing put it on Frodo (Thematic!), if you need combat attack, then put it on Grimbeorn (not so much...). I personally only use it in this case when I play the game otherwise almost every deck would be a One Ring deck.

I hope you enjoy the deck as much as I have!