Deck Tech: Dwarf Starter Deck 1.0

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• 1.0

Hey all, welcome to week 29 of Deck Tech! I skipped last week to recover from vacation (turns out sleep is pretty nice), but before that I posted a Hobbit Starter Deck built with a few Shadows of Mirkwood cycle staples and The Black Riders.

This week we're reducing the buy in again for another starter deck. One deluxe expansion, one core set, and one adventure pack. And the deck starts out in a surprisingly good spot for that, because Dain Ironfoot just makes dwarf allies very efficient.

The Rules:

One more time, all of the starter decks are going to be built and posted with the following constraints.

1. If I pick an adventure pack, I'll also include the preceding deluxe expansion so you can play all the quests you've got.
2. Just one core set in each deck.
3. The decks are meant for solo play, because that's a lot easier to get started doing and then introduce to a group afterwards.
4. And the writeup gets a different format, more focused on information that's useful to beginners.

How to Play:

Dwarves are a classic archetype in the game, and for good reason. The early dwarves have great stats and useful abilities, like Erebor Hammersmith and Miner of the Iron Hills. And Dain Ironfoot turns any group of dwarves into a formidable questing and attacking threat.

Dain Ironfoot in this deck is your centerpiece. He stands and waits during the quest phase to give out his global boost, and then may defend during combat to keep your army alive. The attack boost is usually less important than the willpower boost.

Gimli is an early defender or quester, because he has great stats for the first round with Dain on the table. In a lot of quests, he can pretty safely take an undefended attack in the first few rounds to boost up his attack, though it doesn't work in all cases.

And last, but definitely not least, Bifur is a huge source of resource fixing for the deck. A ton of great allies are in lore, and being able to pass resources to him helps get them out quickly. If you get Steward of Gondor in play, you can also trivially spread the resources around between two of your spheres. This can be especially handy when your pool is small because of the limited access to Songs and A Good Harvest.

The allies here are mostly self explanatory. Dwarves have very efficient stats, and Faramir can bump that up even further for questing. Brok Ironfist is in the deck just in case. And Self Preservation plus Daughter of the Nimrodel should help you keep Dain alive if he has to defend a lot of attacks.

So let's send the dwarves to Moria.

Quest 1: Into the Pit

My opening hand has a good number of low cost dwarf allies, so I keep it. I could mulligan for Steward of Gondor or some card draw, but early allies are really important here.

And then the encounter card throws me a bit of a curveball. I quest decently hard, because there's a big buffer on the active location. But a Goblin Follower appears and engages directly instead of staying in the staging area. So I clear out that first location and have to engage two goblins with only Dain standing.

But it works out okay, because Dain can defend the Goblin Swordsman, and an undefended attack from the Goblin Follower enrages and powers Gimli up. Plus the staging area is empty, so I can quest much lighter on the following round.

Which I do, adding a Veteran Axehand and an Erebor Hammersmith to my army.

In round four, I accidentally over-quest again. This clears the Bridge of Khazad-dum and sends me on to stage two with the Patrol Leader. His 4 attack is potentially threatening to Dain, but I've got Self Preservation attached to him to help out. And if need be, I can swap in another dwarf to take a hit.

I could kill the Patrol Leader pretty easily, but there isn't a ton of willpower on the board at any point in this quest, so I stall out to build up some resources before stage three. Just like last week against Conflict at the Carrock, stalling in an earlier stage is very helpful. And if I'd remembered the mechanics of this quest a bit better, I would have stalled in stage 1 instead.

By round ten of mostly questing through locations and just defending against the Patrol Leader, I've got enough resources to play Gandalf next round in stage three. And my threat is up at 45, so we need to move. I quest hard and advance, luckily not drawing another enemy to deal with this round.

And then in round eleven I quest as hard as I can. The deck only musters 15 willpower, but that's enough to push through an empty staging area to clear the final stage of this quest.

Just as a note: Into the Pit is pretty rough on threat totals. I wouldn't expect this deck to be quite so high threat in most quests. Gandalf should be enough to keep your threat below elimination.

Final score: 147. 10 full rounds, 48 threat, 3 damage on heroes, 4 vp.

Play Tips:

1. Sneak Attack and Valiant Sacrifice help you turn two leadership resources into two new cards. And if you include Gandalf, you get even more draw or another bit of utility.
2. Durin's Song is a great emergency button when Dain Ironfoot is defending. This deck has almost all the healing that's available in these three sets, but it's still not a ton. And no spirit means no shadow canceling for a while.
3. Lórien's Wealth is easier to pay for with Bifur than you think, because he can easily get 4 resources in two rounds.
4. Steward of Gondor on Gimli, passing a resource to Bifur every round is probably what you want for this deck. Unless you've drawn way too many of your leadership cards.
5. I wouldn't worry about maximizing the abilities of the dwarf allies as they come into play. If you can take advantage of them, it's great. But the stats are good enough to play them without it in most cases.

Packs Needed

1. 1 Core Set
2. Return to Mirkwood
3. Khazad-dum

Recommended Additions

1. Glóin
2. Legacy of Durin
3. King Under the Mountain
4. 3 Fili and 1 Kili

Next week: I think I'm heading back to full decks. Prince Imrahil is calling! And it's going to be great.

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