Sam's Laserbeam: Gondor's Gift to Eriador 1.0

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• 1.0

“…once again it is shown that looks may belie the man — or the halfling. I accept your service. For you are not daunted by words; and you have courteous speech, strange though the sound of it may be to us in the South. And we shall have need of all folk of courtesy, be they great or small, in the days to come. Swear to me now!”

What if it Sam Gamgee stumbled into Minas Tirith alongside Pippin before returning northwest? I posit that Denethor would have overlooked the Took to give the gardener a bodygaurd, an honorary Stewardship, and highly advanced anti-siege-warfare technology.

A focused deck that sets up three things quickly:

• Beregond takes Gondorian Shield and Hauberk of Mail, then when possible, Armored Destrier and Captain of Gondor, to defend for 7/8 twice each turn. Behind Strong Walls can fill in and supplement Destrier.

• Pippin draws cards and raises enemy engagement cost by two. Enabling his draw and Sam's buffs is threat reduction from Woodmen's Clearing and Secret Vigil with engagement cost raising from Halbarad, Anborn, and Take No Notice.

• The Laserbeam: Mulligan for Steward of Gondor, let the various card draw, especially Master of the Forge, find Gondorian Fire. Fast Hitch lets Sam clear a few enemies per turn once set up.

Sam's readying and buffing, with Beregond's massive defense, should carry the early game. Minor scaling comes from Rosie Cotton questing or buffing whatever Sam needs, and the statline of the Ranger allies. Westfold Outrider allows much engagement timing shenanigans to buff/ready Sam at an opportune time and grab an enemy from the staging area/other player.

Weaknesses:

• Because of its tight focus on these main three points, once these things are in play, the deck stops increasing in power much, and if a quest runs long, you’ll end up with several useless cards in hand. But… you may not need more when Sam is lasering two+ enemies per turn, whom Beregond fullblocked. The nice thing is that an extra Gondorian Shield and Armored Destrier can just go on Sam.

• Early-game damage can be hard to come by, but Westfold Outrider, either of the Rangers, and Rosie Cotton can provide to help Sam kill low-health enemies.

• Willpower is somewhat low. Sam and Pippin contribute at least 5 every turn from the start, with Rosie Cotton and Halbaradd getting it up to 9 later. Wardens can chip in.

Using the Sidebar:

This current iteration is playing 2-player with a low-threat high-willpower deck running Haldir of Lórien, who helps to fill in early-game damage. This can feed superfluous cards to that deck’s Éowyn, too. It’s worked well in some of the fist few Lost Realm encounters so far.

For quest-heavy solo encounters, Faramir, Celebrían's Stone, and The Red Arrow can swap in if needed, and Halfling Determination and Dagger of Westernesse can swap in for early-game damage needs.

Enter the Ranger — Revision/Iteration:

For thematic Ranger-Hobbit concerns, I truly wish Mablung could be the primary Gondorian tactics man. The original conceit of this deck was to receive a resource, card draw, and ready/buff for each enemy engagement — it’s ridiculously fun and satisfying when it works! Mablung makes Take No Notice free, too.

The problem is, I’ve found that even with an early Gondorian Shield and a fleet of healers, Mablung isn’t able to keep up with the magnitude of attacks in the Lost Realm so far. A start would be to shift around cards in the sideboard: let Boromir take most attacks, paid for soon enough with Mablung’s resource generation, and mitigated by Honour Guard, Warden of Healing, and Ioreth. Swap Hauberk of Mail for Raiment of War.

Perhaps I’ll return to make a slightly less consistent, more thematic and more quest-able version with Mablung and the brothers Boromir and Faramir. Open to suggestions!