Simple Folk 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

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

Theme: Normal, everyday Hobbit-folk

Played Against: Nightmare Intruders in Chetwood

"Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to laughter, and to eating and drinking. And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of six meals a day (when they could get them)."

—Concerning Hobbits, The Fellowship of the Rings

Strategy

This is an aggressive Hobbit swarm deck optimized for taking down big Enemies quickly.

Mulligan for: Raise the Shire, which you'll need to fetch Farmer Maggot to get your attack power started.

Tips

• There are 3 options for defending a big Enemy on round 1: Hobbit Cloak on Tom Cotton (preferred), chumping with Curious Brandybuck, or using Sneak Attack to put some other chump down.
• On round 2, Gaffer Gamgee, Barliman Butterbur, and Rosie Cotton all become viable defensive options as well.
• Once Tom Cotton has access to a Staff of Lebethron and Hobbit Cloak, he becomes a very sturdy and safe defender. Add Rosie Cotton to help defend against especially big Enemies.
• Between Drinking Song and Pippin's extra card draw, you should be able to filter through a lot of the deck.
• Hold back 2 Allies like Farmer Maggot and Bywater Shirriff until you know you're going to want to kill something on the round they enter. They can only get Tom's bonus for one round, so make it count!
• Use The Shirefolk and Woodmen's Clearing to keep your threat as low as possible. Once it gets too high, the deck loses steam fast.
• Consider holding Merry until the late game when you have lots of Unique Allies in play. He can often make a huge one-round contribution to close out a difficult quest.

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