Small People & Big Birds 1.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

The Idea and First Steps

The Last Alliance is an amazing card. You get so many choices when building and playing the deck.

So I set out trying to find a new combination of traits I wanted to try. But where to start? In my case I just browsed through the AleP cards, letting my mind wander.

Lily Cotton caught my eye and I thought: "Cool, I can bounce an ally to fix the ratio between my traits and get a nice bonus on top."

After that I just had to figure out what other trait I would want to play. I settled on Eagles, since they offer a lot of enter and leave play effects, hoping I could gain even more benefits. That pretty much decided the spheres I was going to choose, too. I wanted Leadership for Lily Cotton, Tactics for the Eagles, and Lore for Fast Hitch, Drinking Song, and Gaffer Gamgee.

Hero selection was surprisingly easy, since I wanted enter play effects I picked Tom Cotton for Tactics hero and Alagos for Leadership. Using The Last Alliance would now allow me to capitalize on both effects regardless of what ally would play. Effectively giving me a further discount, a nice attack boost and some resource smoothing. The latter was badly needed, since it was obvious I would not be able to start in secrecy. I chose Pippin as Lore hero, since he offers additional card draw and allows me to have a bit more time to prepare before I have to engage an enemy. I wanted a second hobbit anyway, since I assumed I would use the discount mainly for Eagles.

A starting threat of 26 means there is no secrecy to start with. But with the discount from The Last Alliance and the extra resource from Alagos I felt confident in the resource department.

After that deckbuildung got a bit "messy" and I will just go through some of the fun combos.

Some Combos (with The Last Alliance)

Lily Cotton

She is amazing with just Hobbits already. Combine her with The Last Alliance it becomes even more fun. Below are two examples that come up surprisingly often.

Example bouncing a Hobbit

• Use The Last Alliance on Alagos
• Play Merry
• Use Alagos Response for an extra resource on Alagos
• Apply Willpower bonus to each unique ally (including Lily and Merry)
• Use Lily Cotton to boost Merrys Willpower by 2 to an overall of 5
• Quest with Merry for 5 and get it back for next round
• Overall cost is one resource, if you have more Eagles then Hobbits, it is pretty much free.

Example bouncing an Eagle

• Play Wilyador for free (most of the time you will have more Hobbits)
• Use Alagos Response for an extra resource on any hero
• Use The Last Alliance on Lily Cotton
• Use Lily Cotton on Wilyador
• Attack (4 ranged) with Wilyador and bounce him back
• Overall gain is one resource.

Eagles of the Misty Mountains

When it comes to Eagles, they are pretty hard to pass up. They are expensive, but with The Last Alliance and Alagos they can hit the table fairly quickly. Once they do, so much can happen. Below are two typical examples again.

Example attaching a Hobbit

• Drawing a 2nd Gaffer Gamgee
• Play your 1st Gaffer (assuming you used it the last round)
• Use The Last Alliance on the Eagles of the Misty Mountains
• Use Gaffer Gamgee to avoid an attack
• Attach it to the Eagles of the Misty Mountains
• Finally a use for all those multiples of unique allies.

Example attaching a Fast Hitch

• Use The Last Alliance on Fast Hitch
• Attach Fast Hitch to Eagles of the Misty Mountains
• Profit :)

Other fun combos using The Last Alliance are:

• Raise the Shire to fetch a Descendant of Thorondor (possibly even refunding the cost via Alagos)
• Hidden Roosts when bouncing Gaffer Gamgee to reduce your threat and draw a card
• The The Eagles Are Coming! to find Eagles and Hobbits
• Tom Cotton and a fresh Vassal of the Windlord or Wilyador

Final Thoughts

The is so much going on, I sometimes fear to fall into analysis paralysis due to the huge number of options I have when playing this deck. It is quite a multiplayer deck, since it offers nothing in regards to healing. Quite often the deck ends with lower threat then you started with. The sideboard contains a few cards that are possibly quite useful but I just haven't found the room for.

As always, I am looking forward to all comments and suggestions.

PS: I hope this doesn't sound as a rambling of a mad man. - Although considering what The Last Alliance does to my brain, I wouldn't be surprised.