A Secrecy Fellowship 1.0

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• 2.0
• 1.0

The idea here is threefold. It began with the thought that Eleanor could cancel Stinker, and thus prevent Sméagol from flipping. To take advantage of this, you want secrecy, which means that you want leadership (for Timely Aid); thus Frodo Baggins is a good choice, particularly since, if you have a spare resource (as you will, save early on), you can quest Eleanor and then ready her with Frodo's ability to be ready to cancel.

Second idea is obvious: turtle a few rounds, and use the generous amount of draw & secrecy cards to try to rush out allies. The cheap-ally cards are Timely Aid, Elf-stone, A Very Good Tale, and Sneak Attack to get allies to Very Good Tale with. (Remember if that you can't sneak Gandalf, another good choice to sneak in is [Glorfindel](/card/12006, since you can both use him with a Very Good Tale and then ready him with a discard in order to quest, defend (he can be played from discard, so it doesn't matter if he dies) or attack. If you do get Gandalf to sneak, use him to draw unless you've got lots of good cards already; you need the draw more than the threat reduction.) You also have a few cheap or free allies— (Ioreth is free, Henamarth Riversong costs one, and with Frodo in play Sam Gamgee costs one, too) — to help get the fellowship up, or provide a second ally to make AVGT work.

The final idea is to chump block people to get allies you want. The three cheap allies are good to get Fellowship up & running fast. But even not counting Gandalf (who is an early-game card, to be used for early draw, AVGT-ing and helping out in the early rounds if necessary), you actually have six strong allies in the deck: Faramir, Firyal, Gildor Inglorion, Glorfindel, Jubayr and Treebeard. It'd be good to get them all out. So you chump block. Henamarth Riversong and Sam Gamgee are obvious possibilities for chumping. Ioreth can't chump block, but if you have archery or direct damage it can be used to discard her.

But there's another possibility to consider, too: assuming you have Firyal and Gildor in play, another possible chump is Sméagol: true, he has decent stats, but if you chump him you turn Stinker into a dead card & remove the threat of Gollum entirely. Eleanor, Frodo, the six strong allies, and your choice of Henemarth, Ioreth & Sam should be able to handle most quests.

Resources will pile up in later rounds. You can heal with Ioreth (if you don't chump Smeagol). You can ready Sam. And you can take archery damage on any ally you have a duplicate of in your hand, and play the replacement the next round. (If you have a leftover sneak, so they can fight after damage & before a permanent play, all the better.)

This is a deck created for solo play, since in multiplayer you risk having Eleanor cancel a treachery only to replace it with a Stinker, but you could do it in multiplayer if the others bring cancellation too. And it's not a deck for a quest you need to rush; it always takes at least two, sometimes three or four, and occasionally more rounds to set up. But it should work for quests that you can turtle.

Mulligan for Timely Aid or Resourceful — the former is better, since it can start to build up allies who can be used for AVGT, and since it has the greatest chance of working well before a bunch of allies are out.

This deck is still under construction. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.