A Functional Fatty Deck 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

As many already know, this year's GenCon quest enables up to 12 players. Having twelve players bringing all sorts of decks to handle different things sounds great until you realize the potential for uniqueness clashes. One person using Gandalf hero could block 11 others from using the ally version. A Leadership Gondor deck that relies on Boromir could clash with most anyone wanting to use the Tactics version. And forget about trying to resolve who gets Aragorn- three versions means that nearly anyone could be running him.

Well, this deck is your solution. Unlike Seastan's No-Conflict Deck, this is actually a functional build that makes use of some of the new cards in Thing of the Depths such as Elevenses and ally Sam Gamgee. Fatty Bolger serves as a defender since he doesn't use his ability all that much (although it can be nice when you're trying to get a few extra progress), and Dori can help him get some decent defense while you dig for Ring Mail. After you've found Ring Mail, Dori will switch to attack, using Dwarrowdelf Axes to destroy enemies quickly.

Merry is likely the most key card in the deck. Once he has a Hobbit Pony, he can either reduce your threat when an enemy shows up or throw in his two willpower to the quest (and once he has Unexpected Courage he can do both). Speaking of Unexpected Courage, it typically gets distributed so that each hero has one, starting with Fatty and then one goes on Merry and the last on Dori. The reasoning is that Fatty might need to block multiple enemies even if he isn't using his ability, and if he is using it he needs to be ready to defend.

You will notice that card draw is fairly scarce. That is because the deck relies on Hobbit Pipe for draw. With 8 threat-reducing events, and two copies of Dwarven Tomb, the deck can not only keep threat down but also get a decent amount of cards for it. Therefore, you should mulligan for a pipe or Bilbo Baggins to fetch one for you, or else the draw engine will stall.

The sideboard is meant mainly so that you can adapt to uniques other players are bringing. In a 12-player game, someone will probably be running hero Arwen, so you use the Ethir Swordsman instead of her. The same logic applies for Sam, etc.

I took the deck against Conflict at the Carrock and Foundations of Stone, both solo. My first attempt at Carrock had a East Bight-Brown Lands combo pulled on me, and high threat locations kept filling the staging area faster then my questing power could keep up. I also had a Hill Troll engaged with me, but by the time it was dead, my threat was 47 and there was 21 worth of locations in the staging area. I threated out the next round. The second attempt was more successful, and having drawn a lot of threat reduction I played it during stage one to get down to 14 threat. I then advanced and picked off the trolls one by one with the help of an Arwen-boosted Grimbeorn. Foundations of Stone was also a success, as having drawn a lot of questers I decided to stall for a bit and build up. I stupidly attached all of my weapons and armor early on, but when the random stage 4 came I got the nice seventeen-quest-point one that I blasted through in one turn. I then spent two turns at stage 5 before escaping all the Nameless Things who never showed their faces until my deck was depleted. A fairly easy win.

When playtesting, I noticed that Fatty's ability actually came in handy early-game when I was trying to quest successfully and establish a willpower base. It also comboed well with Merry when I had both of them ready, acting like a repeatable Radagast's Cunning. Equally surprising to me was that Dori was also useful, providing defense when I needed it most. Fatty would have been killed by the Hill Troll long before I hit 50 if Dori hadn't been there. So while they may not be the two flashiest or best heroes, I encourage you to give them a try!

Enjoy the deck!