Deck Tech: Four Hobbits of the Apocalypse 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 19 of Deck Tech! Last week was my GenCon wrap up deck post, an Oprah themed card and resource accelerator for the whole table.

This week I said I was going to build with new Flame of the West cards, but I had an idea for a silly deck and I had to run with it. With Sam Gamgee ally and Sword-thain, I can make a deck with all four hobbits from the fellowship without having to be playing one of the fellowship quests!

And I can use Hobbit Pipe, Elevenses, and Silvan nonsense to keep my threat low and draw more cards.

This deck also has a sideboard, for the first time in deck tech history, because I realized a little bit too late that the deck only has 8 potential attack, total. 9 if you can trigger Sam's ability. Which isn't very high.

None of the quests I played use the sideboard, and that only bites me once, but I don't recommend trying this for any quest where you actually have to kill enemies.

So, let's try some (comparatively easy) quests!

Quest 1: The Hills of Emyn Muil

This quest is going to be interesting, because this deck is pretty dependent on its events to power through the deck and draw more cards. So Amon Hen might stay out for a while.

I start off with Bilbo, drawing my first Hobbit Pipe, and a Fast Hitch for Merry. Sam joins us the following round, and we quest through Amon Lhaw.

My first Elevenses in round three drops my threat a little bit and draws me a second Pipe. Round four I play a second Elevenses for five (!) threat reduction, and draw my third Elevenses. Someone is looking out for my draws.

Island Amid Perils and Galadhrim Weaver prove to be a really useful combo with the Pipes, because I'm drawing enough to pretty reliably get back to more copies of Island Amid Perils.

I finish this quest off on round nine, dropping my threat down to 1 before the end of the quest phase clears out the last Emyn Muil location. And I only had 27 extra progress on the quest stage.

Final score: 60. 8 full rounds, 1 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 21 vp.

Quest 2: Encounter At Amon-Din

Once again I start off with a Bilbo Baggins in my hand to go fetch the first Hobbit Pipe, and this time I have two Elevenses already to start us off.

But I've got Ghulat sitting just next to the quest card to remind me of how much combat power I need to muster in order to be able to beat the quest. And with Lord Alcaron, I actually have enough combat power in the deck to kill him in one round, which I'm going to try to do.

On round five, I use two of my spirit resources to play Sam, a Song of Kings, and then Bill the Pony for free. In one go, I've nearly doubled my combat potential all the way up to five! Before this, I'd just been cycling Silvan allies and Elevenses to drop threat and draw cards.

After this, I quest very carefully for a while, because I want to avoid advancing to stage 2. When I have an Elevenses, I can quest all out with hobbits and just use it to match threat and draw cards. And without I take it easy, failing to quest by a point once or twice. I do kill a few orcs, mostly because engaging them allows me to draw a card, when I remember Pippin's ability.

Craven Eagles appears twice, eating an elf every time. Fortunately, when your threat is low, and you're playing an older school quest, you only have to deal with one enemy at a time. And Frodo Baggins's ability is perfect for that.

Round eighteen finally sees me draw far enough into my deck to get out the last Wandering Took, bringing me up to an easy 10 attack, assuming I can ready every hobbit after questing. So I play him the following round, kill Ghulat, and then go nuts questing with everyone in round twenty. What a slog.

Final score: 182. 19 full rounds, 3 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 11 vp.

Quest 3: Road to Rivendell

Setup pops out a Warg Lair, and a Mountain Wargs I plan on ignoring for the entire game. I just hate dealing with them popping back to the staging area all the time. Unfortunately, no pipe early this time, so I play a Galadriel's Handmaiden and Resourceful.

I draw the first pipe on round four, after a Galadhrim Minstrel finds us some Daeron's Runes. So I start to cycle my threat reduction cards, using an Island Amid Perils to bring the Galadhrim Minstrel back into my hand and dig for more events.

I also pass stage one this round, after drawing an angry bear. An angry bear who apparently can't see or smell four tasty hobbits. Round five I quest past stage 2, dropping my threat with another Island Amid Perils. And in round six, Children of the Sea ensures I quest through with exactly enough progress.

Final Score: 66. 5 full rounds, 16 threat, 0 damage on heroes, 0 vp.

Play Tips

1. Sideboard: I'd swap in Merry and the tactics cards for Bill the Pony and Song of Kings.
2. This deck is really good at questing, and really not very good at anything else. Keep your threat as low as possible and sneak past everything.
3. Sword-thain can go on Bilbo or Sam, but I like to put it on Sam for thematic reasons. I'd drop one as soon as you can on either, though.
4. The first Resourceful should probably go on Pippin. Being able to use Island Amid Perils to cycle Galadhrim Minstrel is really strong.
5. If your threat is low enough, it's totally fine to fail questing in most cases. This can save you if you actually need to kill an enemy with this deck.
6. If you're actually playing a fellowship quest, use Fatty Bolger instead of Frodo Baggins so you can have Five Hobbits of the Apocalypse. In that case, you probably do want to use the Tactics module, because five attack Merry is terrifying.
7. If you play this deck, it's important to laugh every time you sneak past an enemy that really probably should have seen your horde of hobbits and elves.

Next week: I'm still working on Tactics Eowyn and Spirit Beregond decks. One of those will definitely be featured next week.

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