Sneaky Little Hobbitses

Questlogs using this decklist
The River Running - Easy - 1 Player - 2019-10-13
The Caves of Nibin-Dûm - 1 Player - 2019-10-25
Danger in Dorwinion - Easy - 1 Player - 2019-11-09
The Temple of Doom - Easy - 1 Player - 2019-11-15
The Redhorn Gate - Easy - 1 Player - 2019-11-16
The Redhorn Gate - Easy - 3 Players - 2019-11-16
Into Fangorn - 1 Player - 2020-02-14
Fellowships using this decklist
None.
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet.
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Seastan 41852

A thematic One Ring deck using the new cards from the latest deluxe, A Shadow in the East.

I am still struggling to build a true "Dead Marshes" deck, with just Frodo, Sam, Smeagol, and no allies. In the meantime, I settled for including various characters that Frodo and Sam met throughout their journey (exception being Ioreth, as options for healing were quite limited).

The One Ring pairs well with Sméagol and The Master Ring both thematically and mechanically. By starting with The Master Ring in hand, you'll be ready to cancel the first copy of Stinker whenever it appears, and you should draw into another copy before you see the second Stinker. This ensures that you can keep Smeagol unflipped the whole game. (In 4 player this might be a different story, as you go through many more encounter cards. For that reason Smeagol gets progressively worse with player count.)

Since I was filling the deck with unique allies anyway, I also decided to make it a Fellowship deck. It achieves the contract conditions remarkably quickly, sometimes as early as turn 2, mostly thanks to Timely Aid, A Very Good Tale, and free allies like Ioreth and Bill the Pony. It is worth taking a mulligan for these cards (or equivalently, Drinking Song), as they really jumpstart the deck.

Basics

Questing is well taken care of here, as most of the heroes and allies are decent questers, especially once Fellowship activates or Faramir hits the table. With Frodo, I normally send him on the quest every round and ready Smeagol in the early game and Gildor Inglorion in the late game. His threat reduction is great as it buys me a couple extra turns to get out my Resourcefuls/Timely Aids.

For defense, you again have a lot of options. Once everything is set up, Frodo (2) with Fellowship (1), Hobbit Cloak (2) and Rosie (2 + Fellowship (1)) can get him up to a repeatable 8 , which is just crazy. Of course Sam+Rosie and Gildor are solid defenders as well.

Attacking comes from Anborn, Glorfindel, Gildor Inglorion, and Sméagol mostly, possibly with Sam+Rosie joining in. Again, Fellowship just adds so much here. Glorfindel can attack twice for 4 with a discard. Awesome.

The one tricky bit, which I ran into particularly with The Temple of Doom quest, is how hard that loss of a character can be mid-round in a fellowship deck. Especially if one of your characters gets discarded right at the beginning of the quest phase. Ouch. This is why you see 3x Sneak Attack in a Fellowship deck, which might seem like an odd choice. If you never lose a character, then sure, it's a waste, but you probably win in that case. The Sneaks are there for that surprise loss of a character, when you can just pop Gandalf in for the quest phase or the combat phase to get your Fellowship online. Then, next planning phase, you can hard-cast an ally and get yourself back on track (A Very Good Tale can also be used mid-round in a similar fashion).

Resource generation is good here too. A single Resourceful can fund Frodo's ability every turn. Sadly Resourceful can't go on Smeagol, so I actually found myself with a surplus of Leadership resources in some games, as once you've got your 9 characters out there isn't much else to pay for apart from a few attachments. But it's fine. I found that sacrificing some allies in the decklist to make room for more attachments would just slow down the activation of Fellowshp and wasn't really worth it.

Report

The deck is capable of beating all the quests in the deluxe box. I think the Temple of Doom is definitely the hardest, but not so much because the deck not being strong enough, but because it can take a few attempts to discover how to handle that quest, such as when to turtle and when to power through.

The sideboard

These are just a couple suggestions for allies to swap in if you don't care about theme. It's obviously way better to pull out a Firyal with Timely Aid than a Robin Smallburrow.

Best of luck, and don't let the power of the ring get to your head!

16 comments

Aug 11, 2019 Celia 1

Can't wait to try it !

Aug 13, 2019 Quetzal513 90

What, no Dori? (please note the sarcasm :P )

Aug 13, 2019 Seastan 41852

@Quetzal513:P

Aug 14, 2019 mburner 2

FYI, Sméagol can't have attachments, therefore he can't have The One Ring.

Aug 14, 2019 Seastan 41852

@mburnerI know. The One Ring goes on Frodo or Sam in this deck.

Aug 17, 2019 Sfrug 370

Am I correct that the only ways to put Glorfindel into play here are Timely Aid & A Very Good Tale (and I suppose Sneak Attack), or am I missing something?

Aug 17, 2019 Seastan 41852

@Sfrug correct.

Aug 20, 2019 Kristian 18

I haven't played the deck yet, but looking at the list wouldn't it be better to run more different allies? It seems that A Very Good Tale and Timely Aid would be better (and also just your draws) if there were fewer copies of each ally (e.g. exchange 1 Rosie for 1 Merry). I get that Rosie is better than Merry, but 1 Rosie and 1 Merry is still better than 2 Rosie. Or am I just completely mistaken?

Aug 20, 2019 Seastan 41852

@Kristian Rosie is very important for turning Frodo or Sam into a defender, so she's a 3x just like Gondorian Shield is in a Beregond deck. As for why there aren't more varied allies, well it's a Fellowship deck so you can only play 6 of them, so I want them to be the best.

Aug 23, 2019 Mythdracon 1

Any cards that might replace Rosie Cotton? I don’t proxy cards, and Mountain of Fire is impossible to acquire right now...I have everything else in the decklist though. Would maybe shadow removal via Staff of Lebethron also be worthwhile?

Aug 24, 2019 Seastan 41852

@Mythdracon Maybe 1x Halfast Gamgee and 2x Dúnedain Warning? Sadly, I'm not sure the deck is nearly as good without Rosie.

Aug 24, 2019 Mythdracon 1

@Seastan Hm, does Merry from Shadow in the East work? I know he only gets the boost upon entering, but he is the same cost, and maybe given that the Ring counts towards the 50 cards but starts outside of the player deck sneaking in a third Dunedain Warning can be helpful too? I guess that wouldn't leave much room for Staff of Lebethron or other shadow-cancellation cards though.

Apr 04, 2021 Clirian 49

I have question: How can you reduce your threat by Frodo, when your threat elimination level is reduced by 5? Or do I missunderstand the One ring?

Apr 04, 2021 GreenWizard 310

@Clirian I think it means that instead of getting eliminated when you're at 50 threat, you get eliminated at 45. And you can still reduce your threat.

Apr 04, 2021 Clirian 49

@GreenWizard It makes sense thanks.

Feb 12, 2022 suwapp 1

Deck looks very interesting. How shall I add Stinker in Dragncards?