A Merry party of Hobbits 1.0

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• 1.0

My take on a BoF Hobbit deck. I have been meaning to build a really fun and reliable Hobbit deck for some time. I finally got around to it, and I must say that I'm impressed based on my limited testing. It is saga-friendly too.

Yes, it is lacking in allies which can be very risky - especially for having no Test of Will. However, I found I was just fine without adding more as there are other ways to compensate for this. It also has Pipe components happening. These are arguably complicating the deck too much, or so I thought. It turns out they add a much needed boost in areas of threat reduction, drawing/card searching, resource smoothing, healing, and even boosting. All out of the 8 Pipe themed cards.

Heroes

The heroes are the meat and 'po-ta-toes' so I'll explain them in a bit more detail than the rest of the deck.

Merry: I really wanted to use Merry. ...But he's not in the starting lineup you say? Nope. We will pull him out with Thorongil. The awesome thing about him is he will end up with a base of 5 . Merry's ability is huge for an early game threat reduction bonus. Early game is always focusing on lowering threat and Merry does this well. After you find Thorongil you will already have low threat and/or other means of lowering threat. It will then be time to help Sam with attacking. Merry should have at least one readying option and one Dagger of Westernesse. He could potentially reach up to 9 without Rosie Cotton. He can also ready Sam.

Pippin: A staple Hobbit doing staple things like keeping the cards coming and providing a nice 2 . He takes care of himself. I will sometimes give him Hobbit Pipe to make him feel special (and to boost his with Smoke Rings because he is always questing).

Sam: Normally Sam is a staple attacker in Hobbit decks I've played. But he is actually sidekick to Merry in this case, if you can imagine. He will still get a readying card meaning he will be able to defend an attack after engaging a higher-threat enemy, ready through a Unexpected Courage or Fast Hitch, attack with Merry, ready again, and attack again. He's the endurance fighter.

Tom: He is so great in multi-sphere decks. His most important role is to defend but he is also critical for resource smoothing. The idea is to load him up with Ring Mail, Hobbit Cloak, and Spare Pipe's (multiple when the enemies hit hard). Last time I played I had him at 7 and 7 which is absolutely ridiculous but also amazing. This means Rosie can be used to boost attacks for Sam versus adding defense for Tom. He also gets a readying card. A unique include here is Forest Snare which guarantees resource smoothing with Tom's ability. Because of this Gaffer Gamgee can be played every round guaranteed. Tom gets healed a little by Old Toby.

How it Works

An opening hand should see a way to boost stats in Rosie Cotton or Red Book of Westmarch, a readying card, and a way to boost defense in Ring Mail or Hobbit Cloak. A Drinking Song is also very welcome. There's no rush on Thorongil right away while you're working on your threat.

The goal is to stall and swarm all while keeping threat down. This is surprisingly manageable between early game Merry, Gandalf, The Shirefolk, Keen as Lances, and Smoke Rings. In the end Tom defends everything and the Sam/Merry combo smashes everything. Plus, once you have an enemy trapped in a Forest Snare the resource smoothing is so... smooth. The whole deck flows nicely. I am typically drawing down to my last 10 or so cards each playthrough.

If I plan on playing multiplayer I'd add Hobbit Archer and remove Steward of Gondor as well as Halfast Gamgee. I'd also consider removing Smoke Rings and Hobbit Pipe in favor of A Test of Will for quests with lots of treacheries