Dwarves Burgling on Their Own 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is my first crack at a The Burglar's Turn deck. This contract is unique from the others we have received so far because it generally does more to limit deck building than to expand it. That being said, it still encourages you to build in a new way and that makes it fun! This is a dwarfy dwarf deck but getting away from reliance on the standard attachments and leaving Lore behind (because you can't use Legacy of Durin) made this deck feel a little different than the standard dwarf swarm. And you have the added excitement of wondering what you're going to find every time you travel to a location!

This certainly isn't an overpowered contract or a contract that blows deckbuilding wide open with endless possibilities, but I found it fun to use in this deck.

Opening Hand

Look for a Tighten Our Belts, A Very Good Tale or a Gandalf in your opening hand. You can quest for 7 on your first turn without playing anything, then if you have the burst of resources from Tighten Our Belts, you can play several cards on turn 2 and the swarm is on its way. If you don't get some sort of resource acceleration right away, the first two turns can be pretty lame.

Mining

There are mining elements in this deck but that isn't the focus and your miners won't be very accurate. There are 15 three-cost cards in the deck and 12 zero-cost cards so those are your best bets if you want to trigger the Zigil Miner. The Hidden Cache and Ered Luin Miner can be hit by the miner, the Erebor Guard or more often than not, A Very Good Tale. But with no scrying and no Gandalf, mining is lackluster and I don't use the Zigil Miner by default unless I'm getting really greedy for more Spirit resources to get another ally out. By midgame, there are often enough resources and cards get a little scarce so I will go ahead and pay for the lame card draw on Hidden Cache if I draw it.

Loot Deck

The Burglar's Turn contract is sort of an enabler for Guarded cards so I threw those all in. Most of the other attachments I put in there focus on defense since Dain can't defend forever at 3 and most Leadership/Spirit dwarf allies are squishy without armor. I had Citadel Plate in there but found I was never excited to find it so I swapped it out for a lame Dwarf Pipe just to make mining more interesting. Dain gets the first defensive attachments, but most of the combat attachments (besides the Guarded weapons) can be attached to characters so you can power up a couple allies with the Raiment of War, Dwarrowdelf Axe, Armor of Erebor, Ring Mail, and even the Ancestral Armor if Dain is already maxed out on attachments. I really like seeing Magic Ring early and putting it on Dáin Ironfoot so he can either defend twice or defend, then ready up to inspire the remaining dwarves to take down an enemy. The threat raise you incur isn't a huge deal with Nori's regular threat reduction.

I have to mention that it is a cruel irony that Bilbo Baggins is useless in a The Burglar's Turn deck since he will never be able to fetch that pipe. I had him in the deck to start with just for theme and he's not bad since he's 2-for-2, but I ended up cutting him. Thus the title of the deck...

Heroes

This hero combination is certainly not unique but it's solid! The threat starts a little high for a deck that doesn't always have a lot to play on the first turn, but all three heroes bring great abilities to the table. You can find some modern decks with the same hero lineup the go in very different directions, including a deck using the Fellowship contract.

Allies

I've got most of the standards in here! It's a dwarf swarm. I do have to defend the honor of the Blue Mountain Trader though! He was recently cruelly slandered on Cardboard of the Rings as a bad card but I object! He's a 2 for 2 quester with 2 HP and that's always worthwhile. His ability is also very solid in multiplayer games but he doesn't even need an ability to be worth it. He and the Zigil Miner are the cheapest dwarf allies within these turn spheres (excepting the Dwarven Sellsword). I had a single copy of the Soldier of Erebor in the deck for a while but raised it to two copies because I was always glad to see him. He's sturdy, hits hard and can take a lot of the weapon and armor attachments. With Thorin's regular resources, he's not hard to play. Per usual, finding Fili or Kili early is very helpful. Combine those guys with A Very Good Tale and you have an instant swarm. I find they're nice allies to chump with if you need to since you can play both of them again later for 3 resources provided you don't draw both of them before then.

Testing

I played through the entire Dreamchaser cycle with this deck and managed to beat them all. That Narelenya really helps get those first allies out faster so playing this cycle was a bit of cheaty move. But the ocean quests generally have less locations which nerfed the Contract a little so it balanced out. That blasted Cunning Pirate hurts so bad when you have to work so hard for these awesome attachments. I hate that guy forever now...

This isn't anything "groundbreaking" (pardon the pun), but I had a good time playing dwarves a little differently and they were powerful enough to tolerate the limitation of the Contract.