Legends of Azanulbizar 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a thematic deck built for an ongoing series on my blog, Darkling Door.

Theme: The Battle of Azanulbizar

Played Against: Nightmare Flight from Moria

"When the Dwarves saw the gate of their ancient mansions upon the hill-side they sent up a great shout like thunder in the valley. But a great host of foes was arrayed on the slopes above them, and out of the gates poured a multitude of Orcs that had been held back by Azog for the last need. At first fortune was against the Dwarves; for it was a dark day of winter without sun, and the Orcs did not waver, and they outnumbered their enemies, and had the higher ground. So began the Battle of Azanulbizar (or Naduhirion in the Elvish tongue), at the memory of which the Orcs still shudder and the Dwarves weep." —Durin's Folk, Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings

Strategy

This deck is a slight twist on the standard Dwarf swarm strategy.

At its core, as with any Dwarf swarm deck, the goal is to get a ton of Dwarf Allies in play. With the global stat boosts provided by Dain Ironfoot, it won't be long before I'm generating a ridiculous amount of every round and capable of generating plenty of to deal with Enemies.

The trick is figuring out how to get all of those Allies into play quickly. Dwarf decks can suffer from a slow start since they rely on having a bunch of Allies in play before they can trigger effects. This deck has to worry about slow starts even more than most since several of its Allies are off-sphere, requiring Narvi's Belt or A Very Good Tale to get them into play permanently.

That's where the Events that put temporary Allies into play come in. In the early game, rather than paying for Allies outright, I use Sneak Attack, Reinforcements, and To me! O my kinsfolk! to put Allies of any color into play to help cover my bases anywhere I'm lacking (usually during the combat phase). Once I've established my position, these events become less useful, but in the early game they give me access to expensive and powerful Allies long before I could usually afford them.

Beyond that, this deck is chock full of combos:

• Cards that discard from the top of the deck [Ered Nimrais Prospector, Longbeard Sentry, King Under the Mountain, A Very Good Tale] + Cards that grant a bonus for discarding them from the deck [Hidden Cache, Ered Luin Miner]
• Exhausting every character to fuel We Are Not Idle and then readying them all again with Lure of Moria
• Using Sneak Attack, Reinforcements, or To me! O my kinsfolk! to trigger cards with "Enters play" abilities multiple times [Ered Nimrais Prospector, Longbeard Orc Slayer]
• Using Sneak Attack, Reinforcements, or To me! O my kinsfolk! to put an expensive Ally down, then exhausting that Ally for A Very Good Tale to get something permanent instead

Sideboard

You'll note that I have 2 copies of Miner of the Iron Hills in the sideboard. I would just throw them in (without substitution) any time I'm up against a quest that has Condition Attachments in it.

► For more analysis, check out my blog post on this deck.