Gimli's Bonds of Dwarfship 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I have been needing to post this deck for a few years now. It's one of my go-to decks and it made dwarves fun for me again. I never play solo, though I'm sure it is strong there, but I have rarely regretted bringing this to a multiplayer game. It's good at just about everything.

To start with, you need to find a way to get a fifth dwarf on the table on your first round. There are many ways to do this, such as:

~Buying the 1 cost ally Erebor Record Keeper.

~Paying 3 for the neutral Ered Luin Miner

~Buying the Song of Wisdom and then paying for a 2 cost lore ally.

~Playing A Good Harvest then buying any dwarf you like.

~Playing Man the Walls then any two cost ally.

~Exhaust one or two of your heroes to gain resources with We Are Not Idle.

If your first hand doesn't give you an option to get an ally dwarf on the table, mulligan. Once you have five then Ori gets your card draw moving and the deck starts running as intended.

There are two main end goals for your board state. The first is to get an army on the table and let Dáin Ironfoot's boosting power go nuts. This is what most of the deck is aimed at. There are tons of allies and cost reduction and/or sphere smoothing cards. Get the dwarves on the table and put them to work! One little-used gem of a card for a deck like this is Blue Mountain Trader, at least in multiplayer. Once he's on the table he makes it SO much easier to get resources to the heroes who can make best use of them.

The second is turn Gimli into a very angry dwarf. He gets a Raiment of War, the always powerful Vigilant Guard, and some Boots from Erebor. (The Ring Mail is actually for Dáin Ironfoot, who becomes your main defender whenever safe to do so. Both Gimli and Dain get the Song of Healing in whichever order is needed.

Of note, Song of Healing is here because it was the best healing option I could find that was even remotely thematic. There really isn't a good thematic healing option for dwarves. :( C'mon, AleP! Maybe Self Preservation fits best thematically, but that's crazy expensive here and lore is the most valuable resource here due to the Erebor Record Keeper's readying ability. I've got The Long Defeat in the sideboard for a more thematic option than Song of Healing but that has obvious drawbacks too. (If you want the sheer best version of this deck, throw two Warden of Healing into this slot. I was trying to keep it thematic.)

High threat is perhaps this deck's deadliest opponent, and if you face a quest that raises threat very quickly you may be in trouble, but Nori puts in WORK here. It's not uncommon for me to end games with threat lower than where I started. Having to face some heavy-hitting enemies early on often the bigger issue, as either Dain gets damaged right off the bat or you have to chump right away and can't start building up your army. If you can get a couple rounds in and build up your board state a bit, you'll likely be able to handle most things that get thrown your way.

All in all, I love this deck. After all these years, Gimli is STILL fun to play, and this deck blends him thematically within the dominant dwarf swarm archetype. That makes Gimli effective AND makes the dwarf swarm much more fun. Throw in the adrenaline of starting with such high threat and it's a blast to play. Highly recommend!