Zombie Folco AKA A return to secrecy VD

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Durins_Father 3033

First deck of the new year has me rebuilding one of my favourite archetypes in the game at the moment, Victory Display shenanigans. With the new Folco Boffin you can assure that you start well below the Secrecy threshold at any given point. However, this does leave you with a Hero in your discard pile. Lets resolve that by using the under-used The Houses of Healing that has been out for over a year now.

Most spheres nowadays have a Hero recursion effect (except Leadership), but those effects are expensive (Landroval and Fortune or Fate. However, there are a couple of neat tricks that can be used to lower the cost of The Houses of Healing to bring Folco back from the dead after you have discarded him. First of all, you will be deep in Secrecy after he has gone away, making Leaf Brooch a good way to make the event Secrecy 2. Sure, you still have to pay 1 for the attachment, but we can use it for many other events besides The Houses of Healing. The VD cards are usually 1 costed, so making them Secrecy cards, will help. Even better, when Folco is back, you can attach the last Leaf Brooch on him to make the first event you play Secrecy 3. This can open up some more expensive Lore Events like Gildor's Counsel and Waters of Nimrodel.

But wait! There's more! Good Meal will also be able to lower the cost of the events by 2. For free! Sure, it isn't as repeatable as Leaf Brooch, but that is where the Erebor Hammersmiths come in. They will bring those attachments back from your discard pile to ensure your Hobbits have their belly filled with hot food.

Now, this is getting a bit heavy on the Attachments, so I included Master of the Forge to provide you with additional card draw with your attachments.

Combat in this deck will be handled by the host of Ents in this deck. Try and find Treebeard asap, as he will help paying for the shepards of the trees. You can add Legacy Blade to your deck if your party is running a lot of Side Quests or if you play a heavy sidequest quest.

Defence will be handled by Rossiel who can equip A Burning Ent err I mean Brand to disregard shadow effects. During the late game, with some enemies in your VD, she will be a reliable 4 hero with plenty of healing to back her up. Ent Draught will help her and the Hobbits survive a bit more Direct Damage or Archery before the Healing Squad can take it all away.

Speaking of healing, Ioreth and Warden of Healing can reduce the cost to play The Houses of Healing if needed. However, I usually keep them back to heal the 1 point of damage from Folco Boffin. Wellinghall Preserver is not a Healer, but will keep your Ents running.

The rest of the cards are pretty self-explanatory, as they revolve around getting stuff in the Victory Display. Note that Out of the Wild has been patched by sending it to the VD after you play it. As this makes your Keen as Lances cheaper, this is not a big problem. Although I did like to recur the event more often, especially if I can lower the cost of the event to 0 in secrecy.

The Sideboard is made for those who want their VD decks basic, and don't like the idea of a Zombie Folco. Just add in Mirlonde and more VD cards. The Good Meal and Fast Hitch can still be played on Pippin.

I feel like this deck will require a new version to be optimal for regular games, but as I do not own Folco yet, this is the best I could come up with. Feedback is welcome as always.

8 comments

Jan 04, 2018 McDog3 467

Looks fun! I'm going to try this one out later. How does it handle as a solo deck?

How about Peace and Thought instead of Mithrandir's Advice?

Jan 04, 2018 Durins_Father 3033

Peace and Though is an excellent inclusion if you want more card draw, with 2 Fast Hitches, you'll be sure to have 2 Heroes ready again after the Resource phase.

The deck is mostly meant as a control deck for multiplayer, as it won't be able to handle a lot of enemies at once. But for solo it works against slightly easier, less enemy heavy encounter decks. But I would advice running something like a Dunedain deck alongside it to handle combat

Jan 05, 2018 Odsidian22 258

Thanks for the post. I was also curious about how to make Rossiel work.

Jan 05, 2018 wehehe 1120

A very interesting approach to a Rossiel deck. Having resourceful and leaf brooch in your deck... do you really find good meal are needed? I think that resource generation may be fully covered with those cards, and a 2nd copy of houses of healing (and maybe a little more card drawing) would be more useful.

Anyway, I like your idea.

Jan 06, 2018 The BGamerJoe 4845

With all that resource acceleration/cost reduction and the secrecy cards, you might find yourself with too many resources! I played a couple games of Passage Through Mirkwood with it and found myself with extra resources and a little low on cards. Probably pretty easy to switch some card draw in and some resource cards out. Or maybe some more ents for combat power!

Plenty of VD stuff! Keen as Lances was free pretty fast. That was fun.

Jan 06, 2018 Durins_Father 3033

Thanks for testing the deck out @The BGamerJoe. I do also find myself a bit liw on cards with this deck from time to time, but in this is easily resolved. Next version will probably have some more card draw effects like Entmoot, Mithrandir's Advice or even Lórien's Wealth to pass cards to other players. In multiplayer, you can also use the spare resources to activate Warden of Healingmore often if the scenario is heavy on direct damage or archery. I'll try and post the new version after the weekend.

Jan 08, 2018 kjeld 615

Why not run Bilbo Baggins instead of Rossiel? Same starting threat, solves your card draw issue, he can be made into a decent defender, and then you get to take advantage of handy all-hobbit cards like Barliman Butterbur, Take No Notice, In the Shadows, or Hobbit-sense.

Jan 09, 2018 Durins_Father 3033

Thank you all who pitched their idea's. The new version is now online, try it out to see if you prefer it over this one: ringsdb.com