Smeagol takes on the Black Gate 1.0

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• 1.0

How can you play Doom Hangs Still if you control only enemy-Sméagol?

Its a long process so bear with me: During the refresh phase, exhaust 5 healer allies to reduce the cost of The Houses of Healing to 0. Then bring in Elrond from the discard pile. Elrond gains a resource in the resource phase and you can give him another using Gandalf's Staff attached to Gandalf. That gives you 2 resources to buy Vilya. Exhaust Vilya to buy Doom Hangs Still from the top of your deck. Then, you can get rid of Elrond from damaging effects and undefended attacks. Now you have no heroes so you no longer have to worry about defense. When attacking, use Nori who previously had Sword-thain and also has a Dwarrowdelf Axe, Unexpected Courage, Mighty Prowess, and Warrior Sword attached. He can attack twice via the Unexpected Courage and can be readied for a third attack with Narya on Gandalf. Those three attacks bring back The Houses of Healing, Vilya, and Doom Hangs Still. Then you can organize your deck with Imladris Stargazer and draw with Gléowine. Any other questions or problems you see?

If you have Gandalf and Thain-Nori in play... then don't you still have 2 heroes in play?

If you gave Sword-thain to Nori you still have an hero even with Elrond dead and Sméagol flipped

And you cannot ready Nori with Narya if he is an hero

Yes, you are correct, I had forgot to mention that you have to barter away the Sword-thain using Bartering. Any other ideas for efficiency? This deck does work but the setup is clunky. Also, I am thinking the discarded Elrond might break this. Does anyone know if Nori returns Elrond? If Nori does return Elrond to the deck, it will be much harder to get this setup to function, as it will require an extra Nori attack, meaning another unexpected courage, breaking the Council of the Wise contract. Does anyone know of a way around this?

Hero cards in your discard pile are ignored by effects that move cards out of the discard pile, unless that card specifically says so as in Fortune or Fate and The Houses of Healing. So no worry about that.

Ok, thank you, that is great news, I am currently working on a version of this to play the Valour Action of Doom Hangs still for the first few turns to give time to set this all up.

With Valour being set at 80 threat due to the Dire keyword that seems unlikely.

True, I forgot about that. Also, can Nori be readied from unexpected courage if he is no longer a hero?

No, he can't since Unexpected Courage says "ready attached hero", not "ready attached character"