Smoke Screen Alliance 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

A Ranger Hobbit Last Alliance deck also featuring Pipes. General game plan is mulligan for Hobbit Pipe(s). Multiple if possible. Once some Hobbit Pipes are in play use the threat reduction events to draw cards. Last Alliance provides some resource acceleration throughout the game. Smoke and Think helps pay for the high cost Ranger allies.

The real trick is surviving the early game. The deck doesn't have a lot of willpower or attack power to start. Once some more allies are out to help quest then Aragorn and Frodo can start making some progress on enemies. Pippin should bounce enemies back up if Frodo isn't able to defend or Gaffer isn't available to cancel the attack.

Note to play The Shirefolk or use Pippin's ability you'll need to exhaust Last Alliance. I didn't find myself exhausting the contract all that often, but aside from where it has to exhaust there are a couple other uses. You can use it to let Odo find a Ranger or Hobbit ally. Attach a Ranger bow to Cautious Halfling. The best targets for the bow are really the Guardians of Ithilien or Ithilien Trackers since they're cheap and you won't missing using them to quest or attack. Once a couple bows are out, they can provide some pseudo questing by sniping enemies up in the staging area.

Pippin is likely the best target for Thorongil. His Lore version will draw quite a few cards with all the threat reduction in the deck.

Sideboard

Mainly more copies of the allies since I wasn't especially impress with Curious Brandybuck. More copies of Bilbo or the other unique Hobbits might be better. Elladan and Elrohir can be good additions if combat is a problem. The deck can take a little while to build up attack power as Aragorn, Norther Trackers, and Rangers of Cardolan are the biggest attackers.