Dale Sets Sail 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Somebody asked me at Con of the Rings 2023 for this decklist and I realized that, despite having not really altered this deck in two years since I used it at The Black Gate, I had never posted it.

This deck was born out of the Lord of the Rings Saga Campaign--my first experience playing Dale. I realized as the campaign wore on, I never had enough deck space in 50 cards to play all the Dale cards I wanted. Enter A Perilous Voyage. With this, 100 cards isn't so bad!

Dale's biggest threat is early defense (particularly with 33 starting threat), so enter Gandalf, whose base 3 defense is going to save you the first round or two.

The three cards to make the deck work are King of Dale (duh), Gandalf's Staff (Resource generation on needed hero), and Wizard Pipe. Bonus if you have some Traffic from Dale. Honestly, the one I hope for the most is Gandalf's Staff. Bilbo Baggins helps me look for the pipe, I'm often choosing "2" when using Long Lake Fisherman, so I can find King of Dale or the staff that way.

Otherwise, it's a Dale deck. Play allies using Traffic from Dale, Gandalf's Staff, or King of Dale to minimize resource cost, play attachments on those allies to draw cards. Move those attachments around using Long Lake Trader, play more attachments, draw more cards, quest for a boatload (pun intended). Use A Perilous Voyage if the top card of your deck isn't what you want, or you need more cards. There's lots that causes shuffling, so I've often found after shuffling that I find what I want. Late game, your heroes and several allies don't exhaust to quest, and you can play more Traffic from Dale to get 12+ resources on Bard son of Brand to buy even more allies, or perhaps put the resources on Brand son of Bain, to bring out Faramir to boost your questing higher, and overwhelm the quest with your awesomeness.

I'm often surprised how, even when this deck under performs and I can't find what I want because of the deck size until I flip the contract, Dale is such a strong archetype that I usually can hold my own, even on crazy enemy and questing.

Who knew these Dale guys could sail so well?