Bilbo and Gandalf visit Dale 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Overview

A Dale-themed deck designed to consistently build up a board of very powerful allies. It's similar in many ways to Seastan's Dale Force Wins deck, but uses Gandalf instead of Círdan the Shipwright to help with card draw.

And wow, what a card draw monster this deck is. Once you get the hang of it, you'll end up drawing your entire deck in most games. In one game I drew my final card on turn 6! However, drawing all of your cards isn't necessarily ideal, since it more-or-less turns off access to Gandalf's resource pool. When it gets down to 5 or so cards, I sometimes find myself deliberately skipping the response abilities on Brand son of Bain and Expert Treasure-hunter (can't say I've played any other deck where I turned down the opportunity to draw cards!). You could experiment with adding 1 Will of the West to recycle the events, but usually when I hit this "problem" the game is pretty much won anyway.

With all that card draw and the resource acceleration of King of Dale and Hidden Cache, you can get your board set up pretty quickly and consistently. The ideal setup for the Dale allies is the same as Dale Force Wins:

• Guardian of Esgaroth + Wild Stallion + Hauberk of Mail + Valiant Determination for a 6 /5 /6 /5 ally who doesn't exhaust to quest.
• North Realm Lookout + Spare Hood and Cloak for a 3 ally who doesn't exhaust to quest. Use Spare Hood and Cloak to ready another ally, and then Long Lake Trader to move it back.
• Long Lake Fisherman + Map of Rhovanion for a 2 version of Lórien Guide.

The early configuration will need to be fluid depending on what you draw first. That's why It's important to get a Long Lake Trader in play sooner rather than later so that you can rearrange the attachments as needed.

This deck also features Beorn to use in combination with Sneak Attack and Flame of Anor. With Narya, he can tank a big hit and then attack for 9 , or else attack twice to potentially take out two big enemies. You can get even more mileage out of him with with Spare Hood and Cloak.

This deck has no healing or threat reduction, so the goal is to just brute force your way through the scenario before either of those things becomes a big concern. By the time you reach mid to late game, it's not uncommon to have 2 each of fully set up Guardian of Esgaroth and North Realm Lookout, meaning you're questing for 20 with just Bilbo Baggins exhausted, with a ton of available and to deal with enemies, so the game is all but won at that point for most normal-mode scenarios.

Opening

If you draw Bilbo Baggins, then automatically mulligan. Otherwise, you're looking for King of Dale and Expert Treasure-hunter in your opening hand. Play the first copy of the latter on Brand son of Bain, and the second (if necessary) on Bilbo Baggins.

Always play Wizard Pipe turn 1. If you have it, also play Expert Treasure-hunter. Otherwise, use Gandalf's resource plus one of the other two to play a 2-cost ally.

Tips

• Use Flame of Anor + Hidden Cache if you're just going to ready Gandalf for defence or Narya.
• Sneak Attack + Long Lake Fisherman is sometimes useful to really go after a key card you're missing. Even better if sneak attack is the top card of your deck.
• Resources from Hidden Cache usually go on Bilbo Baggins, since there is high demand for resources.
• Unless you need something specific with a different cost, naming "2" with Long Lake Fisherman will almost always draw a card (and many of the key cards cost 2).